Rabbi Weitzman: What are we building?

This article first appeared in our May/June '26 edition of The Bulletin

This is a season of both gratitude and transition at Beth Emeth.

As the program year begins to wind down and summer approaches, we find ourselves holding a great deal at once. We are saying goodbye. We are tending to change. We are making decisions about the future. And, in a very real way, we are building. Not only with bricks and beams – but with memory, with relationship, with intention.

In her final message, Cantor Short wrote that her “heart is full,” even as this moment is “profoundly bittersweet.” That is the nature of a sacred community. We do not simply move from one chapter to the next. We carry one another with us.

She reminds us that her journey here “began not on the bimah, but in your living rooms and over coffee.” It is a quiet but profound truth: what we build together is not only found in our services, but in the spaces in between – in conversation, in care, and in showing up for one another in moments of joy and in moments of challenge.

And we have built something real.

We have stood together in times of uncertainty and pain, drawing strength from the community. We have celebrated moments of connection and growth. We have explored “new ways to pray,” stretching ourselves while remaining rooted in who we are. We have invested in the next generation of leadership and begun the sacred work of imagining what comes next.

These are not just experiences. They are the foundation. In Pirkei Avot we are taught: Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, v’lo atah ben chorin l’hibatel mimena – you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.

Which is why this moment asks something of us.

Because at the very same time that we say goodbye, we are also quite literally building – repairing and strengthening the physical space that holds our community. It would be easy to see that work as practical, even mundane. But in truth, it is deeply spiritual.

To care for a building like ours is to say: this matters. To invest in it is to say: we believe in a future here. To endure the inconvenience and disruption is to say: we are not just inheriting this community – we are responsible for it.

When the Israelites built the Mishkan in the wilderness, the Torah teaches: “V’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham” – “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” Not in it, but among them. The holiness was never only in the structure – it was in the people who built it, sustained it, and filled it with meaning.

And so the question beneath all of this is not simply what are we repairing – but what are we building?

This question sits at the heart of our mission and vision work. It invites us to think not only about programs or priorities, but about the kind of community we are called to be. One that honors the relationships that have sustained us. One that makes room for new voices and new expressions of Jewish life. One that, in Cantor Short’s words, continues to “shine as a beacon of light” for generations to come.

Summer will soon bring a different rhythm. The pace may soften, but the work of building continues – often in quieter, less visible ways. In the relationships we nurture. In the ways we show up. In the intention we bring to being part of this community.

And before we turn fully toward that next season, we will gather as a community to mark this moment together.

I hope you will join us for Erev Shabbat services on Friday, June 5 at 5:30 PM, as we celebrate Cantor Emily Short and Frankie, and offer our gratitude, our blessings, and our love. Showing up for one another in moments like these is itself a sacred act – one more way we build community together.

Because in the end, Beth Emeth has never been defined by any one person, or even by the building itself. It is defined by what we build together.

And that work – sacred, ongoing, and shared – continues. Ashley, Eden, Jonny, and I wish you and your family a wonderful start to the warm months of May and June and we look forward to continuing to build together.