This weekend the congregation I serve, Congregation Kneseth Israel, celebrates its 120th anniversary. It was founded in 1892. It is hard to even type a date that old, and when we recently applied for credit for a building project, the website wouldn’t even accept that date. We had to use when the building was incorporated (1948!).

Clearly this is a milestone. From my perspective, it is not just that we survived for 120 years, a rarity in congregational life, but that we are thriving. I love history. I was an American Studies major at Tufts. One of my favorite courses was New England Religious Experience team taught by an English professor and a history professor. I loved holding Governor William Bradford’s Geneva (Britches) Bible in my very own hands. He wrote his marginalia in Hebrew. Looking at what he wrote gives us clues into his philosophy and the founding of Plimouth Plantation and our great nation.

I have enjoyed listening to our seniors tell stories of what the congregation was like when they were younger. I have enjoyed watching our students’ faces light up in recognition and respect as they taped these pillars of the community.

My job is different. My job is to take those stories and make them come alive so that those who come after them, and after me can find meaning and beauty in Judaism. My job is to plant seeds of growth and renewal so that the next generation can thrive. So that we can proudly say that we survived another 120 years. Can you even imagine what the Jewish community will look like in another 120 years. I got a glimpse recently when I attended the Chicago Board of Rabbis meeting and listened to Rabbi Kerry Olitzky. But that is another blog post at another time.

This past week I also celebrated a birthday. It was not a milestone year. But it was significant. It had been a year since I had first heard about this congregation in Elgin and filled out my application. I had it completed on my birthday. In that year I picked up my family and moved across the country, to a land that I sort of knew from my youth but not really. There are days it feels like my world has been turned upside down. Then there are the days where it feels so comfortable like I was always meant to be here doing exactly what I am doing.

I will be honest. I struggle with my birthday. Historically, some of them have been hard. Like the year my mother was in the hospital, the year the shuttle exploded with the Israeli astronaut onboard and the year my mother called to tell me that Yuval had been killed. Those were bad years. They overshadow the other ones.

This year I paused to reflect. I realized that Rev. David Ferner was right. He loves Psalm 139 which talks about G-d knowing us in the womb. We are loved before we are born. Just because. Not because we have done anything. We are just loved and it is enough.

This week as part of our service we were graced with the Second Baptist Choir. They came to sing. They came to kick off Black History Month. They came to enrich our worship experience and yes…we rocked the house. But somewhere in the middle of the service, in the very middle of the Amidah, the standing prayer, the central portion of our service, I had a religious experience, a spiritual moment. I looked down from what I was chanting and I saw the English. “Your love sustains the living.” That was exactly what I needed to hear. That was my birthday gift.

So my message to those of you who are celebrating milestone anniversaries and big birthdays. Yes, we survived. Yes, we can thrive. But more than that. We are loved. And that is enough. That is what we must teach the next generation.