Dear J Family,

In the mountains of Utah stands an aspen grove called Pando, a Latin word meaning "I spread." It looks like thousands of separate trees. It is actually one organism, a single ancient root system sending up trunks for thousands of years. When one trunk falls, the grove loses nothing. It simply grows another shoot from the same roots, which is how Pando has outlasted ice ages and droughts. I think of Pando often when I consider our Jewish Community Center.

We are not simply a fitness floor, an early childhood program, a camp, or a calendar of classes and programs. Those are the visible trunks. What connects them, quietly and without asking for credit, is the root system beneath: a community bound to one another in ways that rarely appear on a program schedule but are the entire reason the schedule exists. Rosh Hashanah asks us to look honestly at the year behind us and the year ahead. This past year tested our community in ways many of us did not expect and would not have chosen.

Yet what carried us through was not any single program, staff member, or leader. It was the network itself, the countless quiet connections between members who may never have met one another, but who are, in every way that matters, part of the same grove. As we enter 5787, I do not ask you simply to attend a class or renew a membership, though I hope you will do both. I ask you to consider yourself part of something rooted, something that has already proven it can hold weight when weight is placed upon it. Bring a neighbor to a class or program. Introduce yourself to someone at the pool you have nodded to for years but never spoken with.

Show up for someone else's lifecycle event as readily as your own. The roots grow stronger only through use. No single trunk holds up this grove. Every one of us does, together, beneath the surface, where it counts most. On behalf of the entire staff and board of the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center, I wish you and your family a sweet, healthy, and meaningful new year.
‍
Shanah Tovah.