It was a fantastic but emotionally challenging Annual Meeting last night. While we honored two incredible people with the Spector and the Rudolph Awards and thanked outgoing board members while welcoming new ones, we also heard from experts about the traumatic healing process for three different demographics. Our FEDTalks (our take on a TEDTalk) addressed personal healing, healing for the helpers and communal healing after a tragedy. Each speaker was on point and powerful, and provided us with both nourishment and what to ponder. (We will have all the speeches posted online shortly.)

My message in front of the crowd was to reiterate that we are Stronger Together. We always have been. We always will be. Our sense of unity, while not uniformity, allows us to accomplish so much. When I picture our Pittsburgh Jewish unity, I envision a long dining room table, like you would see in a European castle, but at this table, every unique individual is eating something different.Yet, they are all sitting together at that same table actively listening to each other, conversing respectfully with each other and interacting with one another with deep caring for one another. I could see that diversity in attendance at our Annual Meeting and I saw it in the way we responded collaboratively and compassionately to October 27th. I see it in the effectiveness of the projects we do communally through Federation including, but not limited to, our Community Security initiative and the Grinspoon Life and Legacy Program. Working Together, being Stronger Together, we get so much more done.

With always limited resources of time and money, we need to continue to find ways to achieve the best outcomes in the most efficient ways possible. That’s again, what being Stronger Together is all about.

Shabbat Shalom! I am so glad that football is back: Let’s go Steelers!