| A Message From Rabbi Goldstein |
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Dear Temple Family,
Imagine being able to read your family tree, one whose roots extend three or four centuries back. Imagine knowing what your great-great grandparents did for a living in their day. |
Imagine seeing their pictures and reading their stories, knowing their professions and their relations. Imagine placing your picture alongside theirs, adding your names and your children's names to that lineage.
Now imagine your great-great grandchildren and the generations after them being able to easily find their family tree, to know you centuries later, long after you are gone. This is the way we live forever, in the memories of our future generations. We must remember our past, work in the present and preserve for the future. |
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Our tradition and texts are replete with examples of family lineage. Everyone was counted and referred to as a link in the chain from the past to the future. No one was without a generational line, meaning, no one ever stood alone. We are all products of the generations that came before us, and they are remembered through us and our actions. The same goes for the generations that will come after us. We recall from the time of the Torah how our ancestors were related, where they lived, and even what profession some of them had. Typically, each clan undertook this endeavor. Each family group was responsible for its own census, its own recording. Likewise, the imperative to continue this falls on us today. No one will keep our family histories alive if we do not take time to do it ourselves.
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We have a unique and wonderful opportunity to preserve the history of our congregational family and our individual ones. By participating in the L'dor V'dor project, each of us will be able to research, discover, and memorialize our own histories. Families native to Nashville have a deep and rich history in the city and with the Temple that should be preserved and shared, and families newer to Nashville must take their own place as part of the history of our congregation, as part of this generation and generations to come. Each family must trace its roots, where they came from, how they got here and with whom, in order that the future generations will truly know their history. Now is the time to engage in this project, for if we delay, members of our families, and moments of our past may go unremembered. |
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It is up to us to archive our past for our future. I hope that each congregational family will participate in our L'dor V'dor project, preserving our histories from generation to generation.
-Shana Goldstein
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