Today was the final day of the 2009 URJ biennial. There was a short plenary session to wrap up the biennial. It had a much lower attendance than the previous sessions, since many people were already leaving for home. The session started with a performance by Soul Aviv. Following this the delegates unanimously passed the 5 resolutions which came from the presidents Shabbat sermon. All the resolutions can be found here http://urj.org/about/union/governance/reso/.
After the resolution work was completed we heard a message from King Abdullah II of Jordan via video tape. The message was short and stressed the need for a 2 state solution with a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Next was a short address by Rabbi David Ellenson the president of HUC-JIR which was followed by a video of different clips from the past week at biennial. We culminated with a final song and then started our trip back home to the Hudson Valley.
I hope everyone reading has enjoyed getting a flavor of the biennial. I'm sure that I haven't done justice to what it's like being at a biennial. It's an amazing, exhausting experience. I'm already looking forward to biennial 2011 in Washington DC. Please consider joining me there. I'd appreciate any feedback you may have concerning my posts over the last week. You can either post them as comments.
One of the messages we received from Rabbi Yoffie was the need to increase our use of technology and specifically with blogging. Bob Abrams and I have already been talking about how to do this for Vassar Temple. Stay tuned soon for more information concerning the Vassar Temple blog.
Finally, I'll be talking more about my experience at biennial during services this coming Friday, November 13. I look forward to seeing you there.
It's nice to be home.
B'Shalom,
Seth
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