Why I Volunteer: Rosalea Fisher and Jared Finkelstein

Filed under Rabbi's Corner

 Print This Page |

Rosalea Fisher and Jared Finkelstein were honored at our Simhat Torah services with the special aliyot marking the end and beginning of the Torah reading cycle.  Here are the remarks each of them made to the congregation in honor of the occasion:

Rosalea Fisher:

As a child, I watched my mother as she modeled for us the art of volunteering. She was the treasurer of our school’s PTA; she volunteered for ORT which provides skills-training and self-help projects word-wide. She was a life member of Hadassah, and in her later years, she volunteered at a nursing home to turn pages for a pianist. Volunteering was a part of her everyday life. My sister also worked tirelessly for Philadelphia’s renowned Children’s Hospital and still does to this day. 

When Dick and I moved to Stamford, he got involved in Jr. Achievement and the Stamford Symphony as well as our son’s Boy Scout troop. He has served on the Alzheimer’s Board and is now their Chairman for the state of CT. He continues to attend morning minyan here every week and serves on the Cemetery Association.

My first experience in the world of volunteering was working with mothers and their babies. I became a certified La Leche Leader. It was a perfect fit for me as we raised our two children.

When we joined Beth El, I joined Sisterhood and served on many committees throughout the years, culminating with my appointment as president of the Board of Trustees. It was an honor and a privilege to volunteer in this position. I continue to serve our synagogue; just recently I have been working with a committee to explore the possibility of establishing a preschool here. And just two weeks ago I helped to unload food bags at Person-to-Person.

For my mother, my husband, my sister, and for me, volunteering is woven into the fabric of our lives. I hope that we can also be a model for our children and for our grandchildren and for everyone one of you here today.

Chag sameach.

———————–

Jared Finkelstein:

In being honored today, I have also been given the great opportunity to talk about volunteering.  If you had told me when I joined TBE over 12 years ago that I would be standing here today being honored for my volunteer efforts at TBE I would have thought you were dreaming.  But I am here and I have volunteered.  How and why did I go from where I was when I joined TBE to today?

First, I think is the power of role models.  My parents were both very involved in their synagogue and Jewish organizations when I was growing up – my dad was the president of his synagogue, was very involved in Israel bonds and B’nai Brith and my mom was very active in the sisterhood and Hadassah.  My mom’s father was the secretary for his temple in upstate New York for years and years.  Even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time and they didn’t hit me over the head with it, they were being role models.  I believe the power of role models is a good reason to volunteer.  If you believe in what we are doing here at TBE or there are things you want TBE to be doing, by spending your time to achieve those goals you are sending a very powerful message to your children and others in the community.  You may not see the impact of that message immediately but I am proof that the impact can be felt decades later.   The concept of l’dor va dor, from generation to generation, is very powerful and passing on a belief in volunteerism and helping others from one generation to the next is vitally important.

Second, is the belief that you can make a difference.  There are many ways to volunteer at or through TBE.  In reality, this is a very small congregation and a small community.  If you have a passion or interest in something you will not be lost in a crowd – you will be able to make a difference in what TBE is doing both within these walls and outside in the larger community.  Even if you have an interest we aren’t currently involved in, odds are you can chair a committee, recruit your friends and tap into the TBE community to get something done.  There is also no project that is too small.  Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world, takes many shapes.  You need not solve world hunger or even the health insurance debate.  The world is repaired one person at a time, one block at a time, one community at a time.  In that regard there are things I would like to see TBE do in Stamford.  For example, there are men and women at the shelters in Stamford at times of the year other than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when TBE and another temple bring in and serve those wonderful meals to the residents.  I would love TBE to be there at least one other time during the year – even to simply make sandwiches and be there to talk to the residents.  There is also a soup kitchen in Stamford run by the Bridgeport diocese – I would love to have TBE become involved there on a regular basis.  TBE as a community within the larger community can make a difference in the lives of people around us and there are so many more people in need these days.

Finally, volunteering feels good and can be a learning experience.  Being involved in the TBE preschool initiative I learned so much about early childhood education from Rosalea and the other amazing people on the exploratory and search committees.  We truly have a wealth of talent to tap into here at TBE with great people on the Board of Trustees and Board of Education, the Mens Club and Sisterhood and other organizations.   I want to thank all of them for their time, dedication and passion.   In the current economy, if you are “in transition” as I am, it can be a way to do something productive that you wouldn’t otherwise do if fully employed and is a change of pace from the grind of the job search routine.  Further, in this environment, if you are not able to contribute as you have in the past with dollars, you can donate something even more valuable: your time and energy.  If any of you are in a similar position I urge you to volunteer, you won’t regret it.  Even if you are fully employed, there are opportunities to volunteer that won’t take up a lot of your time.  For example, making sandwiches and serving at the shelters would only be a couple of hours on a weekend and will make such a big difference in the lives of others.  Let me take this opportunity to put in a word for my wife Liz who is the chair of Beth El Cares – she has done a great  job the last couple of years working on the Passover Food Drive and the Christmas Eve dinners at the Stamford shelters.  She is making a difference.  So please contact Beth El Cares through Steve or via a new email that is being set up bethelcares@tbe.org.  We need your help to enable TBE to better serve our community.

I want to thank TBE for this honor and for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the community we are building together.  The best is yet to come.