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Calgary’s Reform congregation
celebrates new spirtiual home

Maxine Fischbein

Erev Shabbat on Friday, February 27, 2004 was a defining moment in Calgary Jewish communal life as Temple B'nai Tikvah - the city's only Reform congregation - celebrated their Chanukat Beit Knesset, or dedication of their new spiritual home, at Living Spirit United Church in Britannia.
"We all sat in the sanctu­ary taking deep breaths and wondering if it was real," said Temple President Lynn Millard.
The evening was a moving one as members of the Congregation celebrated the realization of a dream - a space they will be sharing with Living Spirit for an esti­mated three years but which the Temple will, thereafter, call their own.
Temple will, each January, make a 1/4 payment toward the $2.6 million dollar trans-action while the Holy Spirit congregation, in turn, contin­ues to seek a new location in southwest Calgary.
On the Shabbat prior to B'nai Tikvah's inaugural service, 32 members of the congregation shared the honour of carrying the Sifrei Torah from the Calgary Jewish Centre - where they have held their services for the past 20 years - to their new home at Living Spirit.
The procession stopped in a few places that had been significant in the evolution of Temple, including the home where some of the congregation's earliest ser­vices were held.
The journey by foot acknowledged the enormity of the move to a permanent home. Temple B'nai Tikvah Spiritual leader Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman later pointed out that the number of participants just happened to match the number of fringes on a talit adding another layer of significance to the already highly emo­tional experience.
Highlights of the inaugur­al Kabbalat Shabbat service - that attracted nearly 500 people - included the affix­ing of a mezuzah on the door leading to the sanctuary.
The Mezuzah, donated by a dozen B'nai Tikvah fami­lies, "is a symbol of our Jewish presence, our home," Rabbi Voss-Altman said.
It defines the sanctuary as "sacred Jewish space," added Rabbi Voss-Altman.
In the time-honoured tradi­tion of dedicating a sanctuary, the evening featured a Torah procession to the Temple's Chupah, a dramatic "declara­tion of the marriage between God and Israel," Rabbi Voss-Altman said.
"By walking the Torah into the sanctuary and standing with the Torah under the chu­pah, we [were] re-enacting the covenant as expressed by the Sifrei Torah."
Moving sermons linking the dedication of the new Temple to that of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem were delivered by Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman and Rabbi Sharon Sobel, executive director of the Canadian Council for Reform Judaism.
They had plenty of Biblical details to go on. The date for the dedication had been cho­sen according to the secular calendar but coincided with Shabbat Terumah. In that par­sha, detailed specifications are given for the building of the Beit Hamikdash.
While many words of inspiration were shared throughout the service, some of the most powerful expres­sions were decidedly visual.
The architecture of the sanctuary, with its high vaulted ceilings, tempts the eyes heavenward. But the most compelling focal point - at least while members of Temple B'nai Tikvah wor­ship there - is an enormous silk-screen panel, more than 25 feet high and 10 feet wide, depicting the tree of life.
While the tree of life is one of Judaism's most ubiquitous symbols, B'nai Tikvah's towering logo is unique. Visually stunning, the tree's roots include biblical quotations as well as words describing the values at the roots of the congregation itself.
The silk-screen, which looks like a giant tapestry, also fixes the congregation's geographical location by including mountains in its background.
But, perhaps most impor­tantly, the B'nai Tikvah tree of life plays a practical role, camouflaging the enormous cross that is the focal point of
the sanctuary during Living Spirit's worship there.
Additional portable screens adorned with stylized leaves conceal other Christian ritual objects, including a baptismal font as well as stained glass windows with Christian imagery.
It has taken enormous drive and creativity for Temple members to come up with ways to very instantly transform the space in the sanctuary to properly accommodate the group using the space at any given time.
"The sanctuary [was] utter­ly transformed," said Rabbi Voss-Altman, adding that a source of enormous inspira­tion for him arose from the instant comfort Temple B'nai Tikvah members told him they felt as they welcomed the Sabbath bride into a new sacred Jewish space.
Greetings from former B'nai Tikvah Rabbis Jordan Goldson and Jamie Korngold were read during the service, eliciting nostalgia for Temple B'nai Tikvah's past.
Gracing the sanctuary was also a welcoming floral trib­ute from the Living Spirit congregation.
The dedication of Temple B'nai Tikvah's new place of worship is an exciting new beginning, said Rabbi Voss-Altman who has lead the congregation for the past year and a half.
He says his congregants are looking forward to the introduction - "on a gradual basis" - of additional prayer services and joint education and programs.
While members currently meet for Friday night services and again for Torah study on one Saturday morning each month, they will, by autumn, be meeting twice a month, Rabbi Voss-Altman said.
"The plan is, of course, to begin transitioning to both a Friday night and Shabbat morning service," added Rabbi Voss-Altman.
B'nai mitzvah classes begin again in April, and families will now have the option of holding their kid­dush luncheons in the syna­gogue's social hall, Rabbi Voss-Altman said.
"In Fall 2004 or 2005 we hope to make a transition from Sunday school to Shabbat school," said the Rabbi, adding, "It is quite important for families to experience Shabbat together."
Temple B'nai Tikvah will also be adding a Wednesday afternoon Hebrew program for students in grades three through six, beginning this coming Fall, Rabbi Voss-Altman said. The program will be open to kids in the Jewish commu­nity at large.
Temple President Lynn Millard says she is looking forward to "growing the con­gregation" as well as its spir­it of voluntarism.
Also on Millard's list of priorities is resurrecting Temple's youth group after a hiatus of a couple of years.
Millard says congregants are excited about the prospect of engaging in social action projects togeth­er with Living Spirit mem­bers. In the immediate future, Temple B'nai Tikvah will put together teams of volunteers to assist in Living Spirit's already well-established Inn from the Cold program that provides overnight shelter to homeless Calgarians.
"Both congregations have an inner drive to make a dif­ference . . . to make the com­munity a better place," says Living Spirit's Reverend Rita Cattell.
In addition to joint social action initiatives that underscore the shared values that are the bedrock of each con­gregation, the Temple B'nai Tikvah and Living Spirit communities are also looking forward to a joint ecumenical adventure that will include an opening gala and ongoing interfaith dialogue both formal and informal.
"Views about Israel are dividing Jews and Christians right now," says Rabbi Voss-Altman, who adds that con­troversy over Mel Gibson's recently released film "The Passion of the Christ" adds to the necessity for a whole new kind of dialogue.
"We believe, " he said, "that in this environment . . . the relationship between B'nai Tikvah and Living Spirit will be a model of reli­gious dialogue and coopera­tion not only for the city of Calgary but for the entire country."
That cooperation includes everything from a joint man­agement committee that will "get the physical plan worked out," to plans for a communal Passover Seder in 2005." It will be a traditional Maxwell House Jewish Seder," promises Rabbi Voss-Altman who looks forward to bringing together both com­munities in celebration of Passover as he did, once before, while a student Rabbi.
For her part, Holy Spirit's senior clergy, Reverend Rita Cattell, says the congrega­tions' joint tenancy "creates opportunity for discussion."
Often attempts at interfaith dialogue lead to "differences being glossed over," says Reverend Cattell, characteriz­ing the B'nai Tikvah/Living Spirit arrangement as "a very exciting opportunity to walk the talk"
According to Cattell, the United Church is active in promoting interfaith relationships and dialogue.
Cattell adds that her congregation's relationship with Temple "adds a new dimension.
"We are not only thinking or talking about it. We are actually doing it," she
said, adding that the relationship will show others "that two faiths can maintain and respect their own individual identities and still identify common ground we have.
"People are searching for meaning in their lives. Here's a place where they can find that meaning."
Cattell says she and her colleagues at Living Spirit are, "delighted to have Rabbi Howard in the building with us.
"Members of my congre­gation are looking forward to attending Friday night wor­ship," says Cattell, adding that B'nai Tikvah members are similarly welcome at Living Spirit's Sunday morning services.
Both Reverend Cattell and Rabbi Voss-Altman hope that even after Living Spirit finds its new home, the bonds forged between church and temple will con­tinue on a new level.
Meanwhile, Temple B'nai Tikvah is settling in to its new spiritual home where, says Cattell, members are about to experience "the blessings and burdens of having a building of their own."
It is safe to say that on the eve of Shabbat Terumah Temple members were counting only the blessings. After a twenty year journey, their arrival has created a cause for enormous celebra­tion both within and beyond their own community.

This article was first printed in The Jewish Free Press, March 18, 2004. With kind permission.