THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL MEETING ADDRESS
BY Andrew M. Colvin

NOVEMBER 2008

It is well understood as sage advice that you should be careful what you wish for - it might come true. I do not know if that is the wisdom of our sages - if it is found in Pirke Avot - although I am sure any of our clergy could make a convincing argument that if not there expressly, the germ of the idea is certainly found among those teachings.

And if that first caution is true, then all the more so - chal v'chomer as they say in talmudic discourse - all the more so that you should be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

I would have done well to have kept that second teaching in mind recently. I was thinking about preparing these remarks and thought it would be appropriate to elicit from the clergy and some of the senior staff some the Temple's programmatic highlights from the past year that I might mention in this address. What better way to communicate the state of the Temple to the congregation? I innocently thought. And so I sent a brief e-mail to the clergy and several senior staff members asking for some suggested items worth mentioning. I asked for it; I got it.

Were I to do no more than to catalogue those listings, and every so often to add a word or two of explanation about a few of them, I would probably use up well more than my allotted time. That is the nature of Congregation Emanu-El in 2008 or 5769. We are operating at full capacity, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. And it is not just the quantity of programming that is notable to me. The clergy and staff are quick to respond not only because they have a lot to say but also because they have a deep and understandable pride in their work at the Temple.

All of this activity is dictated primarily by two factors. The first is a membership that as of the September 2008 report included 2,695 households. The second is more anecdotal. Not only has our membership grown in numbers, but I think it seems clear to everyone that those households, those congregants, bring a wide range of interests and desires. More than ever in my memory the Temple is viewed as a place for far more than occasional life cycle events and some High Holy Day observance. Our congregation is large and interested. The clergy and staff have responded.

The board, clergy and staff tend to organize our activities at the Temple as generally coming under one of three headings: worship, study, and the performance of good deeds. As you might know, the categories are specifically recited in the Temple's mission statement. What might surprise you is that the Temple's financial reports use the same categories for organizational purposes. It is how we think of things around here. So I would like to look at the same categorization as I mention some of these programmatic highlights. I trust I do not need to apologize to either the clergy and staff or to you for the numerous omissions that will follow.

Starting with worship opportunities and activities, we have to do no more than to think back a few short weeks when we celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur together. What holds in my mind is not just the majesty, the feeling, the beauty or the inspiration that could be found at any of the services, although to mix a metaphor - dayenu. What I found to be so impressive is how many people came through our doors - the Main Sanctuary, the Martin Meyer Sanctuary, Guild Hall for our new learner's service or study sessions, and even the 5th floor for child care - all in what seemed to be smooth and simple transitions. That smoothness and simplicity belies tremendous hard work by the Temple's staff.

Of course focusing on the High Holy Days tells a very small part of a congregant's worship experience. On any Shabbat there are worship opportunities with a multitude of styles and focuses. And what it is important about this is not that the choices that are offered, but that our congregants are responding to those choices.

The clergy and staff continue to offer educational opportunities to all segments of the Congregation. Maintaining the approach that educating children must entail involving the entire family, there are five or more major family education programs here at the Temple each week. Adult education ranges from downtown Talmud to Shabbat morning study sessions with the Tauber program, and its current enrollment of approximately 100 students engaged in intensive text-based study, being one of the centerpieces of adult education. Our pre-school serves approximately 125 students, providing a wonderful foundation for elementary school, giving an important introduction to Judaism, and making them dynamite tricycle riders. What is now known simply as The Course has grown to become a year long examination of basic Judaism. Many of its students use The Course as the starting point of the conversion process, and we are seeing record numbers of individuals studying with our clergy to become Jews by choice.

Our social action and consciousness is expressed by programs and activities aimed at the social ills of hunger, poverty, illiteracy and environmental degradation. We continue to cry out against the genocide in Darfur, and, as mentioned during the High Holy Days, our Dafur tent that was designed and constructed by our students is about to begin a journey, first to Washington D.C., and then to become a classroom in Darfur. Accompanying the tent on the final leg of the journey will be children's clothing and books so generously donated by so many of you. And, finally, a group of congregants came together to train and participate in the AIDS Lifecycle Ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Rabbi Mintz advises me that among the 2,500 or so riders there was one church group and our group of 18 or so congregants. I know from personal experience how meaningful the ride was for them.

There are two points that must be mentioned to put this listing of programs, incomplete as it is, in context. First, the clergy and staff have accomplished all that they have in the past year without an executive director to help guide, direct and manage the process. This has taken an extraordinary effort from everyone. And while everyone has risen to the occasion to our mutual benefit, it has not been without stress or toll. I am very pleased to report that the Board of Directors has completed its search process, and has offered the position of executive director to Joseph Elbaum, and as of this morning, Joe has accepted the Temple's offer.

Joe is the current executive director of Congregation Rodeph Sholom, a 1,500 member Reform congregation located in New York City. Joe has held this position for the last 8 years, coming to the field after a very successful managerial career with IBM.

It was this unique combination of private industry and temple administration experience that first impressed the Board's search committee, so ably chaired by our immediate past president Mark Schlesinger, and then the Board. In our shorthand rubric, we were looking for a manager of managers, and we believe we have found just such a person in Joe. Joe and his wife Ann expect to move to San Francisco in the next 30 to 45 days, and Joe anticipates beginning his work at the Temple on January 1. I know that you all will join together in welcoming Joe and Ann to our Temple family.

The second contextual point about our past year's accomplishments is perhaps more sobering. Even though we have the ability to do so much for our congregants, and to do it so well, we have to ask if we should continue on this path and at this pace. This is a matter of both mission and finances. The Board believes that it must seriously examine our programmatic offerings to be sure that the individual programs we offer advance worship, or study or social action, and that the totality of our programming does not dilute our core mission. More importantly, we must also ask if we can continue to afford all that we offer. This second question is based on making a realistic assessment of the economic conditions all of us will be facing for some future period and the fact that much of our most innovative programming has been funded at the inception by specific grants and donations. As that initial funding has run its course, we have to either engage in additional fund raising to continue the activity, incorporate the program into the Temple's general operational budget or, regrettably in some cases, eliminate the programming from the Temple's offerings. There will be a special Board-led task force that will examine these questions over the next several months, with the expectation that the 2009-10 budget will begin to reflect some of their recommendations.

On a related financial item, we want to be sure that we have a dues system in place that is fair, consistent and adequate. We believe that we raise significantly less from dues on a percentage basis than do many similarly situated temples. There are many good reasons for this, but a second Board task force is being formed to examine the phenomenon. We began to address dues on a more systematic and disciplined basis this past year and we intend to continue this examination going forward based on the new task force's recommendations.

Even with those challenges in front of us, I must close by confirming to you that serving on the Board of Directors for all of us is a matter of not only pride, but of joy. We get to work on a first hand basis with an extremely talented, motivated and caring clergy and staff. We help to support their efforts in making Emanu-El one of the leading Reform congregations in the Untied States, and if there were a way to measure it, I would expect it would also rank as one of the leading religious institutions in the country. But I think those measurements and rankings are not the important ones to the Board. In the final analysis it is the satisfaction that you, as congregants, derive from your membership that is the most meaningful, and we intend to maintain if not expand that satisfaction. It is a personal pleasure for me to be able to contribute to this effort and I thank you for the opportunity.