Rabbi’s Monthly Message

March 2026

Dear Coalition members:

This semester, I am taking an accounting class at a local community college. As many of you know, in the rest of my life I serve as the CEO of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, a non-profit organization in Springfield. Because of some staffing transitions and the departure of the former CFO, I am spending more time with my finance team and supporting them has become a primary responsibility. I really enjoy it, but although I am good at reviewing and understanding financial statements, I am less familiar with the ins and outs of bookkeeping and the development of those statements. It has been, to say the least, a profound learning experience.

This is the month when many of us will be completing our taxes. It is also the month when we will begin to prepare for Passover – our holiday of freedom. We will purchase the supplies, clean the kitchen, and prepare our hearts for the recitation of the story of our Exodus from Egypt. Figuring out how to prepare for, denote, and appreciate the freedom that Passover reminds us of is a true blessing. We read in the Haggadah that “each person should see that they themselves have personally left Egypt. It is one of the most challenging parts of the seder – akin perhaps to writing the correct journal entry in the finance system and making sure that the right things are applied in the right places.

This year, I invite you to prepare some “freedom financial statements” to help you get ready for the holiday. This month let’s take a look at the world around us and mark the major events we see. And as we look at that list, we can do some quick math – do we feel less free or more free than the last time we sat around our Seder table? Does it add or subtract to our feeling of freedom?

Whether they are world events, or personal experiences that left a mark on our souls, we should account for them. And as we tally them up, we come to learn that this kind of accounting is really just simple math. As we look back at the arc of history, from the moment of our ancestors’ enslavement through their Exodus and from our journey to this country until today, we can ask a simple question. Are we headed in the right direction? If so, how can we keep marching and keep adding to our totals. And if not, how can we make the next month count so that when we gather around our seder table on April 1^st, we can say that we truly have left a little bit of that enslavement behind and found just a bit more freedom hiding in our books this year.

Until then, I hope that spring comes to find you soon. And I look forward to celebrating our freedom and doing some of this accounting homework with you as we gather for our communal second seder.