Since the day I told Rabbi Zemel that I would be leaving my position as education director at Temple Micah, I have thought about how I would say goodbye to a community that has been the center of my life for seven years. Even thinking about it brought tears to my eyes. In fact, I joked to him that I would probably need an I.V. drip on the last day of religious school to keep me from collapsing from dehydration as I cried my way through those last three hours.

I love this community. There is simply no other way to put it. This is a community that strives to teach and to learn, to ask and to answer, to search and to find, to feel and to know. This is a place where we don't ask students to accept anything with blind faith, but instead to question, explore and think. This is a place where parents come to school, week after week, to study beside their children and show them that Jewish learning never ends. This is a community where members of the congregation volunteer their time to teach in our school, embodying the commandment to pass our Torah from dor l'dor, from generation to generation. And this is a community that was there to celebrate with me during my family's joys and to support me during our most trying times. How could I ever say goodbye?

And so I won't. Instead, I'll say l'hitraot, which means "I'll see you soon," because I cannot imagine not being a part of Temple Micah. I'm going to take a little break from synagogue life, to let Rabbi Susan Warshaw, the new education director, settle into her role and to give myself time to find my feet in my new position at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia. But I will be back, because how could I not be a part of this place?

So l'hitraot, and thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share in your children's lives, to learn and pray alongside you, to be a part of your community. Thank you.