I am again deeply honored to stand before you as Chairman of this inspiring institution and thank you for your good wishes, support, and kind words throughout my term thus far. I thank each one of you for being part of the Park Avenue Synagogue community – from members whose families have been affiliated with our community for multiple generations to those of you are here for your first Kol Nidre service.

Thank you, Rabbi Cosgrove, for making your mark on this institution and the wider Jewish community. Your gifts of intellect, warmth, comfort, and your sense of humor are an incredible pleasure for our membership, anyone who visits our community, and for me. We have embarked on an ambitious path and I share your desire to make this community the place which truly leads Jewish life in North America.

Thank you, Cantor Schwartz, for deciding to make Park Avenue Synagogue your home. We formally welcomed you at our Selichot service, knowing that you will honor the extraordinary musical traditions of this community, and make this institution the center of Jewish music in North America, while always leading services that engage and provide meaning to our members.

Rabbi Rein, we are so proud of your accomplishments and of the connections you have made in this community in just two years after being ordained at JTS. You have become an important part of the fabric of this community and our membership looks forward to your words of Torah and leadership when you are on the bimah or at any life cycle event. As Americans, we appreciate your commitment to your chaplaincy in the United States Air Force, with the rank of Captain.

We welcome Cantor Kidron to our community this year. Your musical talents and ability to lead our prayer services and teach classes is evident to all immediately upon listening to you chant. Your kind demeanor is certainly consistent with our desire to make this community warm and welcoming.

To Beryl Chernov: Being Executive Director of Park Avenue Synagogue cannot be easy. You are surrounded by clergy who are the most talented in America but demanding, a large community whose needs you try to meet on a daily basis, a Chairman who wants to create a thriving Jewish community, and yet remain fiscally responsible, and a building which, to be kind, is old. But you come to work each day with a smile and sense of kindness, and along with our clergy you have made this community warm and welcoming.

Thank you, Cheri, for all of your love and support of my efforts to lead this community and thank you to all of the friends we have made and kept these years from the last row of the sanctuary to the front row.

On your seats is the newest volume in the series of selected sermons by Rabbi Cosgrove. I encourage everyone to read his intellectually engaging words on contemporary Jewish sensibilities, ways of understanding the weekly Torah portion, and the connection of traditional Jewish thought with our experiences as Jewish Americans in the 21st century. And as I have said before, it is an extraordinary pleasure and honor to listen to you on the bimah, Rabbi Cosgrove, each Shabbat and Festival.

On this Kol Nidre night I would like to focus on the title of Rabbi Cosgrove’s book: “Go Forth!” or Lekh l’kha, as that is what your clergy, educators, and Board plan to do to this year.

It is our mission at Park Avenue Synagogue to be the spiritual, intellectual, and cultural center for our membership, providing worship experiences that appeal to mind, heart, and soul; offering support at all life cycle events; providing meaningful education to members of all ages; offering programs which foster friendship, warmth, and kindness inside this building; and providing connections to the Jewish community in New York City and in Israel as well as to people of other faiths. At each service, Shabbat or Festival, our clergy lead us in inspiring prayer and teach us by examining our sacred texts and relating them to the weekly parashah and to the contemporary world. Our goal is for the sanctuary experience to engage members at all stages of life, regardless of familiarity with Hebrew or with the prayer service itself.

On Kol Nidre night last year I promised that under Rabbi Zuckerman’s leadership of all educational initiatives we would “once and for all” move boldly to a new model of congregational education for our youth, as they represent our future. Under his leadership and with the arrival of Rabbi Eve Rudin as Principal, our Congregational School has instituted substantial changes beginning this year. The curriculum and schedule have been revised and newly-hired lead educators have designed an educational program that appeals to students and is flexible enough to accommodate both those who want an enriched program and those who can manage only a more modest time commitment. Our objective for all of our students is that their experience at the school makes them feel good about being at Park Avenue Synagogue, proud to be Jewish, and engaged with Israel, as well as familiar with our holidays, tradition and prayers. I am confident that our new educational leadership will deliver on this mission. The changes have already brought a 20% increase in enrollment and a tenfold increase in enthusiasm. We expect great things and thank you, Rabbis Zuckerman and Rudin.

Our programming over the last several years has attracted record attendance as we have tried to meet the varied interests of our community with festive holiday programs, concerts, the annual Shabbaton, social events including the annual gala, stimulating classes, world-renowned speakers, and participation in social justice projects. Our Director of Synagogue Programming, Liz Offenbach, whom we also welcome this year, will work with Rabbi Cosgrove, Cantor Schwartz and Rabbi Zuckerman to continue on this path. Please visit our website and read our monthly Bulletin to stay up-to-date with our dynamic programs.

This year’s Shabbaton will take place from January 20 to 22. It will explore the Jewish Family in the 21st Century: Changes, Opportunities and Challenges and feature author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and The Blessing of a B Minus, Dr. Wendy Mogel. The Shabbaton will be going paperless this year—an online invitation with a registration link will reach email boxes in December.

So we “Go Forth” with an extraordinary clergy, dedicated educators, and administrators.

We also “Go Forth” with volunteerism to support community life and programs, whether volunteering to support programs, organize special events, plan trips, assist with our schools, publish Rabbi Cosgrove’s book of sermons, or help comfort the sick or bereaved. I thank all of the volunteers here tonight who make this community so vital on so many levels.

We have lived within our means for many years and we will continue to do so. Our expenses are monitored closely, and our endowment assets have been maintained through careful management. The budget designed by the Board last spring reflects the challenging economic times in which we live. As an example we are attempting to go paperless to the extent possible and use email for communications and web registration for events to minimize costs. Dues represent less than 40% of our budget, and thus we rely on your generosity for financial security and stability.

So I ask you to join us in Going Forth by making Park Avenue Synagogue, your most important Jewish charity, if not your most important charity. Last year, you answered our call with gifts ranging from $18 to $150,000 and with memorial window purchases ranging from $70,000 to $250, 000. I hope you will do even more this year and consider “moving up” to the next level of support. Some of you have already answered and I thank you for the early support.

Some of you in addition to the commitments to our annual appeal have made leadership gifts to support programming that our internal budget could not afford. On your seats is a brochure entitled “Israel in the American Jewish Imagination,” a lecture series of six extraordinary speakers who will visit us over the course of the year. The lecture series is underwritten by a family. Another family is supporting the PJ Library program, which sends a Jewish book every month to each child in our community from 6 months to eight years old. 117 families have already registered and will receive their first books shortly. Any PAS parent or grandparent can still sign up on our website. Another family has established a fund to send many of our teachers to Israel this summer for professional development to help them “teach Israel” to our youngest members. Thank you to those who have made these undertakings possible.

Finally, as you walk through the lobby at the end of services you will see a poster and postcards announcing that Park Avenue Synagogue is underwriting its own Birthright bus. We are doing this to ensure that up to 40 college-aged adults from this community can visit Israel on Birthright this year, a true community-building moment. As some of you know, Birthright cannot always accommodate everyone who applies, people miss application deadlines, and every year Rabbi Cosgrove and others receive many calls for help in the process. Rabbi Cosgrove and I ask that you help us through an increased contribution this year to pay for this extraordinary opportunity to help our young adults take hold of their birthright and have the experience of a lifetime in Israel this summer. It will be an experience that will connect them to the Land of Israel, connect them to one another, and connect them to the Park Avenue community. If you have children who are eligible for this trip, I encourage you take a postcard and email us their names at Birthright@pasyn.org.

A quick story:

Abe and Esther are on a plane, going on a vacation following the Jewish holidays.

Suddenly, over the public address system, the Captain announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, our engines have ceased functioning and we will attempt an emergency landing. Luckily, I see an uncharted island below us and we should be able to land on the beach. However, the odds are that we may never be rescued and will have to live on the island for the rest of our lives.”

Thanks to the skill of the flight crew, the plane lands safely on the island.

An hour later Abe turns to his wife and asks, “Esther, did we pay our dues to Park Avenue Synagogue yet?” “Yes, because the Chairman insists we pay before the holidays or they hold the tickets,” she responds. Abe, still shaken from the crash landing, then asks, “Esther, did we make our Kol Nidre contribution?” “Oy! No, I'm sorry. I forgot to send the check,” she says. “I meant to, because I really like the clergy, the sermons, the music and all of the programs they run.” Abe grabs her and gives her the biggest hug and kiss in 40 years. Esther pulls away and asks him, “So, why did you kiss me?” Abe answers, “Esther, don't you understand? We will be saved. Steve and Beryl will find us.”

I hope we find everyone this year to Go Forth as a community, to allow Rabbis Cosgrove and Rein to Go Forth, to allow Cantors Schwartz and Kidron to Go Forth, to allow our educators and administrators to Go Forth and accomplish all of their and our dreams.

I thank you tonight for being a member and friend of Park Avenue Synagogue. Thank you for helping us Go Forth with whatever gift you decide upon.

On behalf of the Officers and Board of Trustees of your Synagogue, I wish everyone shanah tovah u-metukah, a good and sweet year, and gmar chatima tova. I pray that all of our members and their families are written and sealed in the Book of Life for a year and a life of health, happiness, peace, prosperity, and friendship.