In our house we have a rule: we don’t talk about what we are eating tomorrow while we are eating today’s meals. It keeps us grounded in the moment and enables us to be grateful for the meal we are currently eating. In synagogue life, we are always looking to the next holiday, which creates multiple crescendos during the program year. As a result, there is always an opportunity to pivot and start something new (e.g., we’ll start this great idea after the holiday). This year, Hanukkah coincides with the turn of the calendar year, and as a result, it will give us the perfect setting to leave the fall behind and look ahead to spring and the end of the program year.
January is a hard month… it’s cold (for many of us), volunteers are starting to get burned out, and eventually, the matzah hits the supermarket shelves and we start thinking about Pesach faster than a snowstorm can hit. But the lesson of the Hannukah candles, which we light in an ascending way, starting with one candle on the first night and ending with 8 on the last night, teaches us that we should appreciate the moment that we are in. We enjoy each night on its own and don’t start to worry about the next night until we need to. At the same time, we have to make sure we have enough candles at the start of the holiday. We don’t want to be in a situation where we need to light 6 candles but only have 4. Thus the need for advance planning.
As Hannukah approaches, we will put into action our plans for the holiday, but also start to look ahead to the rest of the programs we have planned this year. For leaders, that means facing the end of your term and making sure your succession plans are fully underway. If you are a chapter president, are you planning to run again, or have you shepherded someone younger to take over? Do you have programs that lead nicely into one another to end the year on a high note and make everyone want to come back for more after the summer? Have you started to think about your opening events in August and September so that everyone can leave for the summer knowing when programs begin again?
This is where the lesson of Hannukah is helpful: we ground ourselves in the present without ignoring the future. We enjoy the time we have left in our term while also making sure that our work is continued by the next cadre of leaders. We enjoy the programs we have now, but we make sure we have great ideas ready for future implementation and a plan to make them happen.
If you want to talk more about this type of work and how to prepare programmatic and leadership transitions in your chapter, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]
Chag Hannukah Sameach!
