Dear KITS community,

 

On Hanukkah, when we are celebrating the miracle of one day’s worth of oil lasting for eight days straight, I often find myself thinking about our less-miraculous, daily struggles to shine a light with limited resources. What does it cost to create community? To keep a lamp lit that welcomes all?

 

I asked Rabbi Miller if I could write this letter because I want KITS to have all the resources it needs to keep shining. Even a miracle oil needs to be refilled from time to time!

 

It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in a cafe in downtown New York City, visiting with my old friend Rabbi Miller, but according to my calendar it was back in the summer of 2019. Rabbi Miller was feeling heartbroken—grieving not only the recent loss of her stepdad, Lane, but also the state of Jewish institutional life and all who felt excluded from it. Especially knowing all that Jewish framing, traditions, ethical action, ritual, and community could offer. Grief brings out grief. And she was feeling it.

 

Part of her way through that pain was to dream of a Jewish community where all felt welcome. Especially those who had not felt welcome elsewhere—people in interfaith relationships and from interfaith families, Jews of color, queer Jews, trans Jews, people called from other paths to become Jews, disabled Jews, Jews who had found the light of their own dreams of community and care nearly extinguished.

 

It was a dream of sanctuary, solidarity, and social justice, of building bridges across difference. Of the shared love of study and prayer. A dream that together we might find ways to celebrate the sacred in each other, in ourselves, and in this troubled world around us.

 

I remember asking: what if you just built what you are dreaming of yourself? And so she did. And now here we are, with KITS celebrating its fifth year with 886 active members!

 

My heart felt so full as I watched everyone from around the world sharing their stories for KITS’ Anniversary.

 

Casey in Massachusetts spoke about how KITS makes possible “more access to learning and connection when my body has trouble accessing more traditional face-to-face spaces.”

 

Corinne in Mauritius talked about how meaningful it has been to share her experiences with an international community, and how it “widens my scope and understanding of how to tackle racial discrimination as a person of color who faces racial discrimination.”

 

Nassim in Switzerland said, “I had gone through a difficult phase trying to find my place in the Jewish world. It seemed that my wish to take part, to be a part of a community, and to immerse myself in words of Torah wasn't enough.” Then she found KITS, “where all that matters is your love for the text and even more so for the essence and the ethics of it all.”

 

All this brought me back to the question of long-term organizational sustainability. I know that budgets and salaries are often the last thing we want to think about. But that is why I wrote this letter. If we are going to sustain and care for what is precious to us, we must plan to resource it so that we can keep the lights on.

 

Our current income is a beautiful number considering we are giving freely, from our hearts, because KITS never charges for membership or for programs.

 

But after all our expenses are paid—from honoring the work of the cantorial soloists and musicians that help us celebrate, to the space and ritual objects needed to observe holidays, from the online outreach and mailings that help bring us together to the infrastructure costs of taxes, fees, and insurance—there is very little left to provide even the smallest salary for our Rabbi.

 

My hope is that together we can commit to raising enough money each year to better honor all the care work that running KITS requires. So I am writing today to ask those of us who can afford to give more to do so. Because while our contributions have made the first five years of KITS possible, we have not yet made it sustainable.

 

Please join me in making a monthly contribution at whatever level is meaningful to you at keepingitsacred.com/our-future today.

 

I know these are difficult times for so many of us. The power of community, though, is that when we all give what we can, we help keep our sacred light shining for each other together.

 

KITS is a dream that belongs to each of us. Let’s help make sure it has the resources it needs to endure.

 

Yours in Keeping It Sacred,

Karen

 

Karen Pittelman, CT, USA

Member, Keeping It Sacred, Since 2019