Changing the calendar for the new year

This is one of a series of articles I wrote for the monthly Bulletin of Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame, Calif.

In our home, January 1 brings an important ritual – the changing of the calendars. We have pretty pictorial calendars in nearly every room of our home. Some rooms have multiple calendars. We have calendars of hummingbirds, the haunting Scottish Highlands, exotic sports cars, United States Marines, the rugged Maine coastline, adorable guinea pigs, historic computers, Renoir paintings, and lots more. Calendars are everywhere.

This month, all the 2012 calendars must come down and be discarded. All the 2013 calendars must be removed from their protective plastic wrappings and hung with care.

We need not change our Jewish calendars, of course, because we are still early in 5773. Thus, all we have to do is flip a page on the calendar from Home of Peace Memorial Park in Colma. Easy!

Another calendar we don’t have to change for January 2013 is the PTS Master Calendar. You can see two versions of it yourself. one is on our website, www.sholom.org. The other is in this printed Bulletin, on the opposing page – neatly formatted, suitable for hanging on your fridge.

The Master Calendar, maintained by Bev Rochelle in the Temple office, contains much more than what you see online or in the Bulletin. It is a key document that informs staff, teachers, and clergy about what’s going on every day at PTS — and outside our facility, too.

Before you schedule a meeting or event at the Temple, please talk to Bev about the date, time, and space requirements, so she can check the Master Calendar for availability and conflicts.

As the Temple’s long-time Webmaster, I rely upon the Master Calendar to help maintain the sholom.org calendar. our facility is busy nearly every day – jam-packed.

As you would expect, the Master Calendar contains a wealth of data about worship services, including Erev Shabbat services, pre-service onegs and Saturday morning Shabbat services.

The calendar includes the Lay-Led Minyan, each Saturday at 10:30 a.m. in the Multipurpose Room, and the Sephardic Minyan, at the same time in the Chapel. Each month there are dozens of worship services listed.

The Master Calendar includes all of the details of Bar/Bat Mitzvah services scheduled several years in advance, as well as related luncheons, dinners, and parties held in our Social Hall. B’nai Mitzvah rehearsals are also listed, many of which are Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

There are also all the Preschool Shabbats, held each Friday at 11:35 a.m. in the Chapel – and then Preschool Havdalah on Monday at 11:40 a.m. Most months, we also have a monthly Shabbat Tot ‘n’ Torah service.

All the festivities for Chanukah, Purim, the High Holidays, and more are in the Master Calendar. That includes the Tu BiSh’vat dinner and mini-seder, the Second Day Community Seder, the Sukkot dinner, and Yizkor services throughout the year. It’s all there.

Want to shop in the Starr*Stevens Judaica Shop? The dates and hours are listed in the Master Calendar, so that the Temple office can inform congregants and community shoppers.

Meetings, meetings, meetings! The Master Calendar is chock full of them, including the Brotherhood Board on Sunday, January 6, Sholom Women on Sunday, January 13, the Board of Trustees on Wednesday, January 16, and many others. The calendar includes staff-only meetings, including a weekly Senior Staff/Clergy Meeting and other meetings for our teachers and administrative employees.

Groups within our PTS community have their dates on the Master Calendar. Blankets of Kindness? Check. Brotherhood Bingo? Check. Rosh Hodesh for Girls? Check. Black & White Ball? Check. Sholom Women Chai Tea? Check. Mitzvah Chefs? Check. Women’s Drama Group? Check. There are even dates for the Hava Nashira band’s rehearsals on Thursday evenings.

Education? You bet. The Master Calendar includes all the sessions of Preschool and Religious School on Sunday mornings, Monday nights, and Wednesday nights, and calls out dates when Religious School won’t be held. The calendar also includes special learning sessions, such as parent education. Youth events, too, for our young children and high school PARTY kids.

Adult education is covered as well, including Lifelong Learning lectures on Mondays, talks during Religious School Sundays, Scholars in Residence, and additional programming. Plus, of course, it lists ongoing classes on Conversational Hebrew on Monday nights, Wednesday morning Back to the Source sessions and Jewish understandings of the Afterlife on Thursday mornings. Let’s not forget the monthly Hot Topic brown-bag lunchtime study group.

The full Master Calendar goes beyond PTS meetings and events. The calendar lists when each employee will be taking vacation or doing business travel, so the staff can be well- informed. It lists school holidays for local public and private schools, so that we can be aware of those dates when planning events. (Yes, it is very frustrating that schools aren’t consistent on dates for Spring Break!)

PTS hosts congregational and community support groups, and those dates and times are on the Master Calendar. This includes Home and Hope, one of our most important Social Action programs, during which PTS provides temporary housing to homeless families.

Last, but not least, are facility rentals. Some of these are one-offs, others are recurring. Not only do these rentals provide a source of income to the Temple, but by sharing our space with our broader community, we build bridges and deepen bonds with our friends and neighbors.

The Master Calendar is big. It’s huge. It’s packed. It’s busy. It is a blessing to see how much goes on each week here at Peninsula Temple Sholom.