In the history of Temple Micah, there have been several key defining moments. These include the gathering of a clutch of Jewish Capitol Hill residents who came together in a bowling alley to develop the idea of the Southwest Hebrew Congregation; the decision to form as Temple Micah, a Reform congregation, and the hiring of a full-time rabbi. Following 5 years of sharing space at St. Augustine's in Southwest, we hit another milestone when we built our own home on Wisconsin Avenue. And then, as our growing congregation tested the capacity of our location, we began the process of planning an expansion of the building. Each of these steps, from imagining a community of Jews in Southwest, to the expansion of our building, required courage, imagination, and a tremendous amount of hard work and effort. With each of these milestones, we confirmed a vision of Temple Micah as a growing and vibrant community, and helped to build the future of Judaism.

It felt like another momentous event when, at a special meeting in March, the board of directors authorized me to sign a contract with HR Construction to build the north and south additions to our building. With the roughly $3. million that this congregation raised, we will add eight new classrooms, an enlarged and more usable social hall, additional offices for our professional staff and the finishing touches on the existing elements of our home.

This has been an incredibly long haul. We endured disappointment when the first bids exceeded our estimate, the nine-month wait for approval of the permits (which would have put the kibosh on the original bid in any event), the second go-round in the bidding, and two capital campaigns. But, and I hope this doesn't sound like Washington spin, we are much better off now than we would have been if we had been able to proceed a year ago.

HR plans to begin work in early June and the current schedule projects a finished building before the new year. Our groundbreaking celebration will take place on June 1, following our annual community meeting. It will be a time of great celebration for all of us. Stay tuned for more on this special community event.

There is a wonderfully long list of people who deserve our gratitude. The fundraising committee heads and solicitors, the architects, the numbers crunchers, the building committee, the staff, the board of directors and all of you whose generous gifts made this possible. There will be future opportunities to give everyone their appropriate recognition, but suffice it to say many people gave significantly of their time, energy and resources to make this possible.

I am immensely proud to belong to this community, and feel deep gratitude to the many people who helped us grow from our earliest vision of our community some 45 years ago to our present, mature state. We concluded our special board meeting with a Shechecheyanu. We are truly blessed to have reached this season.