Dear 2022 B'nai Mitzvah Families,

I hope this email finds you well. I am reaching out to all the families who will be celebrating b’nai mitzvah during the first half of 2022 to share updates about Temple Micah’s building reopening plans and how that may impact your upcoming simchas.

This is a long email, but please take a few minutes to read through it in its entirety.

But first, let me introduce myself. I am Temple Micah’s new executive director. I joined the staff right before the start of the High Holy Days and had the opportunity to overlap with Rachel Gross for a month. Since the High Holy Days ended, I have been working closely with the Micah board and staff to implement a building reopening plan, ensuring that we have policies and protocols to keep everyone safe. While Debra Winter, your tutors and the rabbis remain your primary contact about b’nai mitzvah preparations, you should feel free to reach out to me about building issues and other logistics. As an aside, I celebrated my daughter’s bat mitzvah last April, so I recently experienced the joys and challenges of pandemic b’nai mitzvah—I am happy to share my own lessons learned!

As you probably know, Temple Micah is taking a gradual approach to reopening, and has adopted COVID-19 policies, similar to the ones you’re familiar with from other school and work settings. Last week, we reopened the building for Machon Micah and held our first Shabbat morning service in the building. We hope that all currently scheduled b’nai mitzvah will take place in person in the sanctuary. We also are hopeful we are on a path of increasing our in-person activities; but given what we have learned over the past eighteen months, conditions can change quickly, and we will respond accordingly to ensure the health and safety of our community.

• Please review the FAQs on our website. Note that everyone over 12 must be vaccinated to enter the building, masks are required, and we are maintaining physical distance between families (which means limiting the number of people in the sanctuary and requiring advance registration for participating at services in person). In addition, we are not yet hosting onegs or Kiddush or having any other communal eating events. We will be reviewing these policies regularly and will make changes as conditions and expert guidance change.

• We are committed to multi-access participation in services. This means that members and guests will be able to participate in services remotely. We are currently learning how to best do this and will be enhancing our technology to ensure a meaningful experience both for those in the sanctuary and those at home.

• We expect to begin in-person/multi-access Friday evening services later this fall or winter.

• We will reserve a certain number of seats in the sanctuary for the b’nai mitzvah family and guests on Shabbat morning. We have one bar mitzvah this fall, and we have reserved 50 seats for the family. We are hopeful that this number will stay the same, and it is possible it could increase. However, it is also possible that changing circumstances could require us to lower the number.

• Assuming Friday evening services resume this fall or winter, we will be able to reserve some seats for the family and guests on Friday evening as well, though the number is likely to be smaller than for Saturday morning. The student will participate in the Friday evening service in person (if possible) or virtually.

• We do not know when we will resume onegs and Kiddush. While we feel hopeful we will be able to resume in the coming months—perhaps only outdoors at first—we cannot provide a date with any certainty.

One other point to note is that we recently put up two tents on the Temple Micah property to facilitate outdoor activities, including for Machon Micah. We intend to keep the tents through the end of the year and then make a decision about whether to continue with them into 2022. We are exploring how the tents might expand options for various programmatic, spiritual and celebratory events at Temple Micah. 

Although we cannot provide more certainty, we can commit to keeping the lines of communication open and providing regular updates to you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me over the coming weeks and months with any questions.

Shalom,

Beth Werlin

Executive Director