General Members Writings

Spoken at the members' meeting on Sunday, May 12, 2019.

Hello. My name is Melissa Colten, and I am thrilled and honored to be your inaugural executive director. I have been here for 2 weeks now, and I can honestly say that I have never experienced a community like this one - a community that is so deeply thoughtful, so committed to its mission. Thank you for so graciously and enthusiastically welcoming me and for your patience as I get to know Dorshei’s many different moving parts, how they function together, the rhythms, the flows, and the people that are Congregation Dorshei Tzedek. There is a lot to it. In the past 2 weeks, I have attended an inclusion committee meeting (thank you Susan and Abby), Shabbat morning Torah study with Rabbi Toba, a Shabbat service rehearsal with Kitah Hay (then the ensuing Shabbat Morning Service and Siyyum), film club at the Fleishman’s, enjoyed a delicious community erev shabbat potluck in the Saltzman’s home, been with our religious school at FUUSN and JCDS, attended 2 mindful mornings, a website committee meeting, had a number of coffees in L’Aroma, and gotten to know a couple of new web-based administrative systems. I should be tired - I’ve worked a lot of hours - but I’m not. I am energized and re-invigorated by the level of intellectual and spiritual engagement, bowled over by your hospitality and help, by your kindness and consideration, by you all. Every single person I have met. There is this kind of Dorshei glow. As I told my husband recently, I believe that I will become a better person, a more thoughtful person, as the days and (hopefully) years go by.

At a time when so much of the world’s injustices seem to stem from fear and greed, this group of people has committed itself to active participation, caring, inclusion - with learning, with community, a constant giving of oneself. And that is why I am so excited to be here. Because, at the heart of it all, and at the risk of oversimplifying all of human existence, I believe that one of the goals of acquiring knowledge is to connect: ideas, people, the past, the present - connect it all together in different combinations - in almost a synaptic way - and that this connecting of things begets more knowledge:  knowledge that is broader and deeper, knowledge that brings the past into our present, knowledge that brings people together, helps transform ideas into plans, and bring plans to fruition.

This process takes time and willingness and effort and strength. Shaking hands once is not enough. Just knowing is not enough. We must reach outwards as we reach inwards. Reach backwards in time as we reach towards the future.

But enough of all that. If I were in your position - a member of Congregation Dorshei Tzedek who was meeting her first executive director for the first time, I would want to know a lot of things. How did she come here and why? What’s her professional background? Her Jewish background? What vision does she have for our community? In fact, many of you who have already met and spoken with me have asked precisely those questions - so for those people in the room - I apologize for repeating myself, and feel free to nod off.

I come from a number of professional worlds. The professional Jewish world: I was lifecycle coordinator and worked with the cantor at Central Synagogue, an 1800 member reform congregation in NYC

I come from the professional diplomatic world: I served in the consular dept of the US Embassy and dealt with US citizen emergency evacuations, anti-fraud, and all things visa-related during NATO’s bombing of Milosevic’s disintegrating Yugoslavia; then switched to an intergovernmental organization - the International Organization for Migration - to run a national campaign for the prevention of trafficking in humans, and deal with Balkan refugees

I come from the professional ESL world: I’ve taught English in 3 countries to students aged 6 to 76 of over 20 nationalities, individually and in groups

I come from the professional non-profit world: I founded and built an educational nonprofit in the New Jersey suburbs that brought the community together in an out-of-school time program for children in Kindergarten to 5th grade. It used an interdisciplinary model that intertwined intergenerational and service learning. We developed curricula, served about 600 families, and grew to a part-time staff of 30 on 3 sites.

And I come from the theater world of Chicago, (my very first job out of college) where, as a dramaturg and builder of conceptual frameworks for pretend worlds, I learned that it is not so much about losing the forest through the trees, as about knowing how to keep each individual tree healthy in order to have a properly functioning ecosystem.

So, with all those different worlds, I’ve been around the block of a few different neighborhoods. I know the neighborhood of loss: the slow painful fading of personhood caused by addiction, caused by brain cancer (my best friend at 35), and by dementia (my aunt presently in memory care in Weston). The quick unexpected deaths of my father last year, and of my journalist friend from grad school. I have learned that even though time may not heal all wounds, it is important to keep them from festering, and to wash them clean every once in a while.

I know the neighborhood of destruction and terror: of war, of people, of minds. I have picked up the mental pieces of young trafficked women at the border and had to pick up pieces of glass from my own bombed-out windows: the building next to mine was a newspaper saying the ‘wrong’ things - my windows were just collateral damage. And I have had to explain to people who have traveled hundreds of miles in car trunks that they cannot claim asylum in an embassy, that they risked and spent everything they had to get to the wrong place.

I know what it feels like to be in a neighborhood that is potentially hostile. To have no choice but to get to know it. To shake hands and embrace it. I was an American upper middle class Jewish woman teaching English to teenage skinheads (and non-skinheads, too) in Poland during hyperinflation and redenomination of currency. My students learned English, and I learned that the neighborhood of fear is actually located next to the neighborhood of openness - to cultures, languages, thoughts, circumstances. The more we spoke and shared, the more hair grew out in those years, and I understood that people sometimes ask about money and how much you paid for something NOT because they want to know about how much money you have and take it from you, but about how much their own money is worth.

And I know the neighborhood of joy. The contagious joy of the a-ha moment when a lightbulb of understanding is so powerful it throws sparks, and others catch it. The joy of a satisfying meal. The joy of a long hug that somehow clears the lungs and makes it easier to breathe afterwards. The joy of being lost in a painting, of reading a novel slowly, of helping another human being.

But the neighborhood in which I have been wandering around for 17 years, and still get lost in, is the neighborhood of parenthood. I have 3 children, aged 16, 14, and 12. They amaze, amuse, frustrate, and baffle me in turns. My moral compass works just fine, but I haven’t found a GPS that can keep up with their ever-changing and expanding streets.

Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, you have given me the opportunity to bring all of those worlds together into one neighborhood, in fact, under one roof - or 3, (as of now). All of my worlds fit into your neighborhood, and all of my neighborhoods fit into your world. I have no words to express how deeply grateful I am to you all for that.

Now, I have to be honest with you. I wasn’t looking for a job. I had settled into teaching ESL again after leaving the NYC area and coming to Boston to take care of my older generation, after leaving that non-profit I had built, and returning to the classroom to be with students. It had been 2 and 1/2 years, and something had just started niggling - guilt maybe? Of using only about - oh - 20% of my skill set. Yes, teaching ESL was lovely and rewarding, but I should be doing more. And then my friend and former colleague from Central (now an executive director of a large synagogue in LA) forwarded me the job posting from the Jewish Jobs website (I had never even heard of Jewish Jobs). I read it, and thought, I can do that, yes, I’ve done that, and that. And then I read the description of the kind of person you were looking for and thought, “Do they know me? This looks like me.” And I sat on it for a while, and then I read through Dorshei’s website. And the mission. And the values - community, loving kindness, tikkun olam, and the clincher was debate for the sake of heaven. (I love to argue, to be proved wrong, to learn.) And that was it. I was hooked. To know is not enough. We must also say why we think the way we do. Must act. And so I applied. And well, here I am.

Where do I come from? What is my tradition? I am the great grand daughter of Jewish immigrants who settled in the Boston and New York areas. My grandparents have what I consider to be incredible stories (don’t they all?). But those stories are for another time. I’ve been talking for a long time and shared a lot of information about myself. I wanted to do this, so that when you come visit me in my new office, I can listen to and focus on you. Focus on how we can move forward together.

So please, come see me, because I actually prefer listening, and I’m kind of tired of talking so… Thank you. Again. I am so very thrilled and honored to be here.