For Your Consideration - Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro

            What would happen if the City of Springfield went bankrupt?  For the majority of Sinai members who do not live in Springfield proper, how would a financial meltdown matter to us?

            I’m thinking of our Temple physicians who tell me how difficult it is to recruit doctors to our area.  There may be many reasons for this situation, but one of them surely has to do with what outsiders see when they look at Springfield

objectively.  The city just doesn’t present very well, and that doesn’t make it easy to bring newcomers with their interests and talents to our area.

            Consider too where our Temple building stands along with millions of dollars in Jewish real estate from Temple Beth El to the JCC and JGS.  We are all only minutes up the road from the X where some people are making valiant efforts to restore Springfield while other citizens are sliding down hill.  The potential for crime and violence is on our doorstep, which is why an unhealthy Springfield has to threaten our welfare.  We live next door to a beautiful area that, like much of Springfield, is also an area in transition.  How it goes can affect the safety of our Temple, our homes, and our lives.

            All this is why I am so convinced that involvement in the Pioneer Valley Project is crucial for each of us.  The PVP is a grassroots organization that involves houses of worship across our area, trade unions, and other “regular” people.  The PVP works by empowering people to organize around areas of concern such as unemployment, underemployment, and general poverty.  This coming year the PVP plans to focus on the quality of education in Springfield, parent involvement in schools, and ways in which the Massachusetts state budget might restore some of the savage cuts on social services.

            PVP’s annual meeting will take place on Thursday, June 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Holy Family Church, 235 Eastern Avenue.  Every one of us is invited.

            You don’t have to be Christian to go to the church that evening.  You don’t have to live in Springfield.  You only need to have a sense that all of us from city to suburbs have a stake in Springfield’s health. 

            I believe what Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  As long as there is poverty in this world, no one can be totally rich.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.  You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny.”