For Temple members who remember the Joshua Mission, a refresher….  For Temple members who never heard of it before, an introduction….

The Joshua Mission is Temple Emanuel’s long range planning committee that met throughout 1998 and 1999.  The most dramatic results of the Joshua Mission’s work are the 13,000 square feet that were added to our edifice in 2001-02: the Beit HaT’fila, Library and Community Room wing, and the Torah Center classrooms, WRJ-Sisterhood Room and Youth Lounge wing.  But beyond the physical, the Joshua Mission assessed other needs and challenges – programmatic, fiscal, educational and organizational.  Many of these needs and challenges persist.

Therefore under the direction of Temple’s Board of Trustees, the Joshua Mission was reconstituted in the Spring of 2007, chaired again by Dr. Alan Ross and by Dr. Betty Jo Hirschfield, with Temple member Dr. Richard Wellins, Senior Vice-President of Pittsburgh’s world renown consulting firm, DDI, again offering his incomparable professional expertise.  

About a dozen Temple members, representing Temple’s diverse demographic cohorts, Temple’s “Twelve Tribes,” were invited to participate as the backbone of the new Joshua Mission, plus professional staff. 

[In addition to the co-chairs, the committee consists of the following members:  Rabbi Mahler,  Saralouise Reis,  Rabbi Locketz,  President Joan Rothaus, Nancy Berkowitz, Karen Bertnsen, Adam Brufsky, David  Cohen, Dan Garfinkel, Rob Goodman, Roz Goorin, Steve Hausman, Bill Klein, Laura Lilly, Alan London, Aviel Mahler, Lynn Richards, Dan Rothschild, Bob Shapiro and Stuart Zolot.]

We are still reconnoitering Temple’s Promised Land, assessing how to make Temple the place that it can and should be in your life.  But here is one fundamental aspect of every long range planning committee of every institution that the Joshua Mission has signed and sealed, and I can now deliver to you: our Mission and Vision Statements.  As you will see in the months and the years ahead, all else at Temple Emanuel will flow from them, but their importance is heightened by this High Holy Day season.

Our Mission…
Temple Emanuel is a community dedicated to living, strengthening and preserving the sacred principles and practices of Judaism.

Our Vision…
Temple Emanuel is a Reform Jewish community that will support and nurture our members by inspiring them to embrace life long Torah learning, ritual practices and Jewish values.

Holding Torah as our Tree of Life, we strive to fulfill the ancient exhortation, “Turn it and turn it, for all is in it, search it and grow gray and old in it, and turn not away from it, for there is no better rule for you than it.” -  Pirkei Avot/Ethics of the Fathers, V, 25.