In the June 22 edition of the Massapequa Observer, the story “From ‘House Of God’ To ‘House Of Light’” told the history of the 60-year-old Congregation Beth-El in Massapequa that is closing its doors.
Last weekend, a special ceremony was held that marked the joining of the Massapequa temple with the Bellmore Jewish Center, as Rabbi Dahlia Bernstein
spoke to a full crowd of new and old faces.
“Sometimes history and community brings us to a place where we need to write the next chapter and that is what we are doing,” said Bernstein. “I want to acknowledge not only the new covenant that we are writing together, but the beautiful history that each community, Beth-El
and Bellmore, is bringing from the past.”
“This place is not just walls, Bellmore Jewish Center, that building is not just walls, it’s a home, its a covenant, its a family, it’s your family, it’s your history,” said Bernstein. “The first set of tablets that we had was carried in the ark with the new covenant that was written. We do not forget the past, we do not let go of it, we carry it with us even when we are building a new covenant and there is comfort and love and there is history and tradition, and we are carrying it all together within the same ark.”
Bernstein continued to explain the passing of the Torah scrolls from past presidents on through the generation of new presidents, and that it was to serve as a melding of community and a melding of the covenant.
“Today we have a lot of wedding imagery, and it’s appropriate.
We’re wedding two communities and the last year or so, we’ve been dating and courting and getting to know each other and we’ve been having a good time,” she said. “I feel incredibly lucky to be joining these two communities.”
The ceremony continued with the sharing of seven blessings and a sharing of wine between Beth-El’s president Marc Miller and Bellmore Jewish Center’s president Tina Baron. The Torahs were then handed down from president to president before the congregants moved to Bellmore to continue the ceremony.
Assemblyman Joseph Saladino and Senator Michael Venditto presented a Citation to Miller, Baron and Bernstein on behalf of New York state and offered words of Mazel Tov to the congregation.
“It is a pleasure to be here, thank you all for having us here,” said Saladino. “For 15 years I have been coming to this wonderful temple in this community and bec ame friends with so many of you.”
Many blessings to what will now be known as Congregation Beth-Ohr and what is sure to continue as a demonstration of what it means to be a community.
