Tuesday, September 6, 2016

A Mission and a Vision for Temple Sinai

I know that you scour the Temple Sinai website looking for new content to devour each day, so it will come as no surprise to you that: we have new Mission and Vision statements! (No, really, please keep reading, I promise this blog posting will pick up . . . )

You might be thinking: “I did not even know we HAD Mission or Vision Statements, let alone new ones!”

Well, we did – and we do. You may have noticed them in the Board ad in the Jubilee Commemorative Booklet.

“Ok, but, just what are Mission and Vision Statements anyway?”

Our Mission Statement explains who we are, while our Vision Statement serves as a guide to where we would like to be in the future. Take a look:

Temple Sinai’s Mission: We are a diverse, egalitarian, and inclusive community of Jews and interfaith families.  We joyfully embrace Judaism as a way of life through prayer, music, social action, celebrating Jewish holidays, lifelong learning, and life cycle events. Through these activities we seek to promote spiritual growth, moral values, and the social welfare of our community.
Temple Sinai’s Vision: Temple Sinai strives to be a joyful, energetic, accepting, innovative, caring, and accessible faith community. We choose to practice and teach Jewish traditions in our community, so that Jews and Judaism will continue to flourish both in Vermont and in an ever-changing world. We believe that support for a safe and prosperous State of Israel is an important part of our Jewish identity.

And for future reference, you can always find them online, here:

Why are these important or relevant to us, you might ask? Truth be told, these look fairly pedestrian, with aspirations and affirmations that seem to fit well with what we expect from Temple Sinai. Who could argue with being “joyful” or “accepting” and “inclusive”?
The Temple Sinai Board, that’s who!

What seems to be so obvious (now) engaged the Board in some fascinating discussions about who we are (Mission), what we aspire to (Vision), as well as who we are not and what we could not agree upon. From initial drafts crafted by Ginny Greenblott and Jan Orlansky, we debated, argued (ok, we talked loudly), nibbled and chopped, rearranged and rewrote sentences and finally voted on our final preferences to get these two statements.
Why is this important? The Board acts to serve the Congregation – if we are not clear as to who we are (Mission) and what our values are, then how are we able to ensure that what we do at Temple Sinai focuses on what is most important? We must know what we aspire to be (Vision) if we are to ever be able to stretch and possibly reach as high as we wish. We must know who we are (Mission) and why we exist if we are to be able to act to build and sustain a cohesive community.

Ok, so now what? These are not the Ten Commandments and we are not going to “inscribe them on the doorposts of our houses and upon our gates”, but we do need to be mindful of them when we are thinking about how to develop meaningful programming, how to resolve conflicting needs in the Congregation or, more generally, how we can embody the ideas and values represented in these statements in the things that we do (and in the way that we do them) at Temple Sinai.

If we use these statements as guides to our actions, we will not need to emblazon them everywhere we look at Temple Sinai as we will see them embedded and reflected in our programming, and in how we interact with fellow Congregants and the broader community (but you will find them posted at various times and locations so we can be mindful of them). They should be a reminder of who and what we are and aspire to rather than directives at odds with our values. And these statements are dynamic and will change as we change, molded by our process of measuring our actions against the standards set in these two statements.

What do you think of our new Vision and Mission statements? Please let me know! I look forward to hearing what we got right and suggestions for how we can do better.

Shalom,

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