Congregation
Shaare Tikvah
United Synagogue Youth
To write this article, I looked at the letters U-S-Y. When I looked at the letter Y, it looked almost like a tree. And then I remembered the song Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life. I remembered being at my first ever USY convention, in November 2001. I remembered how they didn’t use the same melody for Etz Chaim as Shaare Tikvah uses. Then I thought about how out of the seven conventions I’ve been to in my three years of USY, I may have heard the same melody to Etz Chaim twice, maybe three, times. I remembered all these melodies and all these different people I was standing with when I heard these melodies. People from as close as Northwest, Washington, D.C., to as far away as Washington, Northwest United States. I remembered how when the leader started singing, and I didn’t recognize the melody, how half the people around me didn’t recognize the melody either. But in the end, we were all saying the same words.
USY is like a tree. Although Shaare Tikvah USY might be a leaf from the east, and Beth Shalom of Sacramento USY might be a leaf in the west, we all come from the same tree. Leaves on the edge might never know each other without USY, much less know that we’re the same. USY is more than just United Synagogue Youth; it’s Uniting Synagogue Youth.
Shalom,
David Sheldon
Shaare Tikvah USY President
USY making Superbowl hoagies: Jayme & Adam Proctorstein, David Sheldon, Rachel & Ariel Strauss (also participating were Zachary Strauss and Ariel Fisher)
