Dear Aaron Family JCC Community,

As we prepare to gather around our seder tables to retell our ancient story, to ask the questions, to taste the bitterness and the sweetness, I want to take a moment before the holiday rush to say something simple and true:

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I am grateful for you. For the way you show up. For each other.

That is what Passover has always been about. Not just the miracle of the parted sea, but what happened before it. A people who refused to leave anyone behind. When the Israelites walked out of Egypt, they did not walk out alone. They walked out together. Every family, every elder, every child. The freedom was not freedom unless it was shared.
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That same spirit lives in this community.

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It lives in the member who notices when a familiar face stops showing up and reaches out. In the family that brings a meal to another family going through a hard time. In the volunteer who stays late, not because anyone asked, but because they could see something needed doing. In the donor who gives so that a family who couldn’t otherwise afford it gets to be part of something that matters. In every person who holds the door open, literally and figuratively, so that someone else can walk through.
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Showing up for each other is not a small thing. It is everything.

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Leadership, at its truest, is not about standing at the front of the room. It is about turning to the person beside you and saying, "I see you. I’ve got you. We’re in this together.” That is the leadership our community practices every single day, and it is why JCC is not just a place people come to; it is a place people belong to.

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As we look toward tomorrow, and toward the future we are building for our children and grandchildren, I believe with my whole heart that what will carry us forward is exactly this: our willingness to show up. To be present. To choose community, again and again, even when it’s inconvenient, even when we’re tired, even when the world outside feels uncertain.
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This Passover, I ask you to carry that commitment with you to the seder table. Tell the story not just of the Exodus, but of this community. Of the people who showed up for you. And of the person you have been, or could be, for someone else.
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From wandering to belonging.
From isolation to community.
From me to we.

May your Passover be filled with warmth, with meaning, and with the people who matter most to you. And may the remainder of the year ahead bring all of us more chances to find one another and to show up.

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With deep gratitude and great hope,

Chag Sameach — Happy Passover to you and all those you love.