Shalom. I am Daniel Yohalem, a member of the Board of the Temple Beth Shalom Foundation. Today I have the honor of letting you in on one of the Temple’s best kept secrets: we have a Temple Beth Shalom Foundation.

The Foundation was created by TBS several years ago to handle its long-term financial planning and investments. The Foundation’s mission is to assist TBS in honoring our past, maintaining our present and securing our future. The Foundation provides significant financial support to TBS annually and provided TBS important assistance for the recent renovation of this building.

The Board of the Foundation has now decided to click into high gear, and has set as its goal to raise $3 million dollars primarily through Planned Giving over the next 5 years. Though this is a lofty goal, the Foundation believes that with a lot of hard work and support from the Temple and the Santa Fe Jewish community this goal can be achieved. We are not starting from scratch, however. The Foundation has already received over $775,000, and is putting into place the mechanism to raise the remainder. Not today, but soon, you will hear more about how you can leave a legacy to TBS and Judaism through Planned Giving through bequests, trusts and other gifts to the Foundation.

How Will the Temple Foundation Funds Be Used?
As I mentioned, the Foundation has as its purpose to honor our past, maintain our present and secure our future. We have several ideas for how these goals might be implemented.

As we gather to individually and collectively celebrate this 5,766th year of our Jewish life, the miracle of our continued existence as a people and as a religion is certainly one of the blessings we must marvel at today and throughout the High Holidays. It is our job to honor and sustain this extraordinary past.
Today, as we look into the faces of our children with hope and high expectations for their future, as we sit next to our families and our good friends, one way we could honor our past and help guarantee the continuation of Judaism would be by using a portion of our Foundation’s proceeds to lay the groundwork for a new Center for Jewish Studies of the Southwest. Such a Center could be headquartered right here in Santa Fe. Right here, in fact, at Temple Beth Shalom.
No, it need not be in a new building. But, it should have an exciting curriculum spanning the length and breadth of Jewish history. Such a curriculum should be taught by our finest teachers, based on a curriculum devised by the finest Jewish minds. Such a program will encompass teachers-in-residence programs as we invite the best and the brightest to come here to share their knowledge.

Fortunately, starting such a curriculum does not require us to start from scratch. Such a program was begun in Chicago approximately 25 years ago. What began as small classes taught in congregational classrooms in the northern Chicago suburbs, grew to an Institute that today teaches close to 100 courses. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Dawn Schuman Institute of the Community Foundation for Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago.

We have been in touch with the founders and leaders of that organization and they are willing to share their experiences and help us by providing a role model for what is possible for us here at Temple Beth Shalom. With a portion of the proceeds from contributions we believe the Foundation will be given in the years ahead, TBS could begin a course of study that would enrich the lives of all of us and help our Jewish traditions and beliefs move forward in the hearts and minds of generations to come.

To help maintain our present, the Foundation hopes to support programs within Temple Beth Shalom that foster a greater sense of community and service, both within our congregation and with the Santa Fe community in which we live. In addition, the Foundation will continue to support our own spiritual leadership. Programs such as funding for a full-time cantor are one of the many ideas the Foundation is reviewing.

To ensure the future of Temple Beth Shalom, the Foundation believes that it should expand its support for the Temple Beth Shalom religious school. The Foundation also strongly believes that Temple Beth Shalom’s children should have a chance to visit Israel before they graduate from college and the Foundation will assist in providing funding for these trips.

I am not here to ask for money today. In the very near future we will have information to provide to you about various approaches of Planned Giving. This term refers to tax-wise long-term planned gifts such as annuities, charitable remainder trusts, real estate, life insurance, and bequests. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you are lucky enough to receive phone calls soon from John Silver, Richard Lampert or other Foundation Board Members so that they can discuss the Foundation and its goals with you in person. We hope at that time you will act favorably and enthusiastically to help the Temple Beth Shalom Foundation achieve its goal of honoring our Temple’s past, maintaining our Temple’s present, and securing our Temple’s future.

Thank you for your attention. I wish all of you a very happy and healthy new year, full of peace, sweetness and joy.