February 26, 2025|כ"ח שבט ה' אלפים תשפ"ה A Personal Message and Request
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BRS is more than a Shul, it is a community. What is the difference? A Shul is a place you come to daven, to learn, to say Kaddish, celebrate milestones, and mark lifecycle events. It is purely functional, pragmatic, transactional. Membership provides privileges, rights and entitlements. “Members” are clients or customers.
A community, on the other hand, is a place of belonging, connection, shared mission, shared values, shared aspiration, shared history, and shared destiny. Members of a community don’t only have rights, they have duties. They don’t just have privileges, they have responsibilities. They aren’t customers or clients, they are stakeholders.
When you have a membership at Costco, for example, you simply want to take advantage of the benefits and utility of the store but have no connection with the other members, no sense of real community among the shoppers. There is no commonality other than a desire to buy things in bulk and at a discount.
Some belong to a shul like a Costco. It is a place to conveniently catch a minyan or Daf Yomi, to place one’s children in groups or to enjoy a kiddush, but there is nothing more that is binding the people there together. There is no community that transcends the individuals.
Sociologists define community as “a group of people who share a story that is so important to them that it defines an aspect of who they are.” No matter how much you may like the people you meet at Costco or check books out next to at the library, you likely don’t define an aspect of who you are as a person by your membership in either place.
Our goal has always been that people do not simply say or feel they are a member of BRS but rather, “I am a member of the BRS community who connects with the values and priorities of the community. I share the love of all Jews. I am committed to the centrality of Torah learning and Torah living. I feel profoundly connected to Israel and to my brothers and sisters who live there, serve there, and protect our home. I am devoted to outreach and to making our sacred, timeless, and timely Torah accessible to all Jews. I celebrate with my community, mourn with my community, and feel my identity intertwined with my community.”
To be part of a community is to ask not only what can I get, but what can I give. Not only what are my rights and entitlements, but what our my duties and obligations.
Nothing creates or bring a community closer than building together. Indeed, Rabbi Lord Sacks z”l explains that this is the reason for the lengthy description of the campaign for and building of the Mishkan:
During the whole time the Tabernacle was being constructed, there were no complaints, no rebellions, no dissension. What all the signs and wonders failed to do, the construction of the Tabernacle succeeded in doing. It transformed the people. It turned them into a cohesive group. It gave them a sense of responsibility and identity.
Seen in this context, the story of the Tabernacle was the essential element in the birth of a nation. No wonder it is told at length; no surprise that it belongs to the book of Exodus. And there is nothing ephemeral about it. The Tabernacle did not last forever, but the lesson it taught did.
It is not what God does for us that transforms us, but rather what we do for God. A free society is best symbolized by the Tabernacle. It is the home we build together. It is only by becoming builders that we turn from subjects to citizens. We have to earn our freedom by what we give. It cannot be given to us as an unearned gift. It is what we do, not what is done to us, that makes us free. That is a lesson as true today as it was then.
As you may know or have seen, we are currently building, we are expanding, and will be almost doubling the size of our campus. We are not building bricks and mortar or square footage. This is not about a physical footprint. We are expanding so that we can build the Jewish people, build Torah, build our connection to Israel, build our teens and youth and our future. Our expanded campus will be even more of a destination for people from all over South Florida to catch a minyan at any hour, pull up a seat to sit and learn, use the women’s mikvah, men’s mikvah, meet with the Beis Din, learn in our Dr. Yitzchak Belizon Beis Medrash or Dannie Grajower Women’s Midrasha, invite an unaffiliated Jew to come daven or learn or have coffee, attend a concert, hear a speaker, come to a shiur, participate in an event, enjoy a simcha, and much more.
While our primary community is our local, offline family, our BRS community is much broader and spans the globe. All who listen, watch, read, follow, and feel connected to our values, our vision, our mission and our movement are part of our community, our family.
If you love and believe in all Jews, if you value and draw from the wide spectrum of authentic Torah sources and personalities, if you have a growth mindset no matter what age and stage of life, if you see Israel as central to our people, Boca Raton Synagogue is YOUR community, whether you live in Florida or anywhere else in the world.
Your community needs your help, wherever you are. On Tuesday and Wednesday March 4 and 5 we will be launching our BuildeRS Charidy Campaign. Thanks to the incredible generosity of several significant donors, we have secured $3 million in matching donations—but we need to raise another $3 million to fully realize our dream for the campus and our community’s growth both locally, and the impact we can have well beyond.
THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN!
Here’s how you can help:
Financial Partnership: Your generous contribution will directly support the creation of new shiurim, additional minyanim spaces and options, and resources that will inspire greater learning and enrich our local and global community. To learn more about dedication opportunities or find out more details about our expanded campus and how you can help us, please contact Talia at tb@brsonline.org or donate directly here.
In addition to the dedications of spaces and larger gifts from local members, we are looking for 250 members from our Global community to give or raise $1,800. It can be paid one time or in installments. You can give directly here. If you can commit to this, we have a special gift for you:
Members of our BRS Global Community who give or help raise $1,800 are invited to join me and the BRS Rabbis in New York, Israel or Florida for an exclusive celebratory dinner with an exclusive BRS giveaway.
Become an Ambassador: If you are able to directly give to the campaign, we are incredibly grateful. If you can’t directly give as much financial support as you wish you could, you can still play a critical role in the success of this campaign. By sharing our campaign with your network and taking on a personal fundraising goal, you will help build your shul and ensure it will have the proper facilities for everyone to learn and daven together and celebrate each other’s simchas. We need your help so we can expand our reach and ensure this project impacts even more lives. Set up your page here.
If you can't be one of the 250 helping us with $1,800, please consider giving or raising $1,000 to be acknowledged as a global pillar in our newsletter or $360 to be entered into a raffle for two domestic flights to Florida to join our BRS community for a special Shabbos of Unity. Contribute here.
Even if you don’t live in Florida, make no mistake, you are part of OUR community, a community that loves and values every Jew, that is informed and inspired by Torah, that feels connected to Israel and that is devoted to growing throughout life.
Together, we’ll make this dream a reality and continue building a community of learning and growing in meaningful and lasting ways.