Our Vision
On November 20, 2011 Senior Rabbi Joshua Davidson presided over the dedication of our new Campus for Living Judaism. Conceived as an expansion of our 1972 Louis Kahn Sanctuary Building, the new construction was designed to double our space and create enough room to worship together, learn together and celebrate life's joys and sorrows together. We wanted to create community space in which we could share experiences which engage and create Jewish souls: learning, worshiping, celebrating, socializing and healing the world in ways that connect us to our Jewish heritage and perpetuate a robust and meaningful Jewish future.
Our new Campus for Living Judaism solves our overcrowding problem, giving us the space we need to meet the needs of our 570 member families and 100 nursery school family, or more than 2,400 people. In addition to religious worship, the synagogue is currently being used for religious education classes, a nursery school and countless other programs.
The new addition honors the architectural integrity and historic significance of the existing structure and fits appropriately within the natural setting of our property, while addressing our pressing needs and improving the overall functionality of the building.
We now have a beautiful and elegant new social hall where our members can celebrate b’nei mitzvah, weddings and other special events. The social hall has been flexibly designed to accommodate events of all sizes and features a pre-function area for cocktail parties, a bridal room and a state-of-the-art catering kitchen.
The sanctuary has been restored and beautified with new lighting and a modified bimah and, equally important, has been dedicated to be fully available for worship and lifecycle events by relocating classrooms which formerly surrounded the perimeter of the sanctuary. We have also added a Beit Midrash, a chapel that serves a variety of purposes, including as an alternative worship space and library.
The religious and nursery school facilities for our children have been enhanced with the addition of dedicated classrooms, assembly space and a new outdoor play area.
The religious and nursery school facilities for our children have been enhanced with the addition of dedicated classrooms, assembly space and a new outdoor play area.
The new entrance -- our Great Hall -- serves as a central and inviting entry point for the building while improving access and security, and also serves as a function space for onegs, parties and other events.
A Message from Rabbi Davidson -- June 2011
Dear Friends,
Each year during our February trip to Israel we walk beside even hashetiya, “the foundation stone” of Creation – according to legend, the very stone where Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching up to heaven at a place he called Beth El.
Sixty-two years ago, our synagogue founders dreamed their own dream of a congregation to serve the then small Jewish community of Northern Westchester. And they too called it Beth El. Today we are a congregation of more than seven hundred households – some with children in our nursery and religious schools, some with no children at all. Our members are young and older; married and single; divorced and widowed; gay, straight and transgendered; disabled and not disabled; Jewishly literate and Jewishly searching. Among us are fourth-generation Reform Jews and Jews raised in other denominations. And some of us are non-Jews of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but nonetheless integral to our congregational family.
Like most synagogues, we claim worship, study, justice and community as institutional cornerstones. Some in our congregation never miss a Friday night Shabbat service. Others are here every Saturday morning to study Torah. For many this is the place to find strength when life gets tough. And this is also where we celebrate life’s precious joys together. For some, the passion for social justice is embodied here. And for others it is the pull of history that draws them. But whatever we may be seeking here, our hopes rest on the same bedrock ideal – the fundamental ideal that this congregation must be a kehilah kedoshah, a “holy community,” where members feel a sacred responsibility for and toward one another.
And now we have come to a thrilling juncture in the life of our Beth El. Soon we will complete our new Center for Jewish Life and dedicate our Campus of Living Judaism. A remarkable two-thirds of our members have pledged their support for this project. This is an extraordinary, once-in-a-generation moment, which most Jews experience but once in a lifetime.
Many years from now, may another generation look back and say, “When the members of Temple Beth El built this beautiful Campus, they all participated, each and every one of them. And they built it for us. No dream is beyond our reach.”
Together right now may we link arms, grasp hands and walk forward, shaping the destiny of this great, holy congregation, this place of dreams we call Beth El.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson