Dear PJTC Family,
We are devastated to report that PJTC's buildings caught fire last night. Despite the best efforts of the fire department, multiple news organizations have reported that all campus buildings are lost. We are unable to access the neighborhood to confirm, so can only watch the news along with you, and hold each other tightly. We want to assure you that last night, we were able to rescue all our Torah scrolls from the sanctuary, chapel, and classrooms. They are safely in the home of one of our congregants.
However, our primary focus is on the safety of our community members. We have already received reports that many in our community have lost their homes. We are grateful to congregants who opened their homes to other congregants. Our first priority is to follow up with everyone today to ensure their whereabouts and safety.
We appreciate your emails, phone calls, texts, and social media messages - but we recognize the need for all information to go to one place. Please click HERE with all non-emergency messages and information: share your location (whether you evacuated and where you are now), needs (ie: temporary housing), updates, etc. You may also write messages of support and connection here.
Please continue checking this page for further updates as we have them.
Clergy, Senior Staff and key Board members are meeting to set up processes for checking in with our community and getting those in need connected with those who can help. We are in touch with our tech company to get staff access to their files remotely. We are also, of course, beginning to plan for our future, including immediate questions of upcoming services, B'nai Mitzvah, Rabbi Candidate visits, and all of the programming PJTC offers. We will reach back out with more soon.
This news is beyond devastating and heartbreaking for us all. Going through the desert is not foreign to us; we learn from our Torah how and why to construct our Mishkan, our temporary sanctuary which traveled with us through the wilderness. Torah is a living conversation: what it teaches is as relevant today as it was in ancient days.
וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם
Build me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them
Sh'mot 25:8
God provides us with the instructions of how to build sacred space - so that God might dwell b’tocham - among and within them. Both then and now, each and every member of the community brought and will now bring their own gifts in order to create a renewed communal place, a home where we may pray and be in community. In the desert of ancient days - and in Pasadena today - we know that sanctuaries have always been built and rebuilt.
We are devastated, but we will rebuild. We are here, together, and we will be okay.
The sanctuary is temporary. Our community is for all time.
With love,
Executive Director Melissa Levy, Cantor Ruth Berman Harris, Rabbi Jill Gold Wright, President Jack Singer and Treasurer Clark Linstone
