This week, I passed a milestone. Five years since cancer.
Five years is a significant number in the cancer world. It's a marker that carries enormous weight, even if it doesn't come with guarantees. It is a moment to look back, to take stock, to feel gratitude, and perhaps to exhale a little.
Milestones are funny things. We mark them as though we've arrived somewhere. Five years. Ten years. Thirteen years. A birthday, an anniversary, a graduation. We draw a line on the calendar and say, Here we are.
But are we ever really there?
For years, I've been referring back to a blog post I read long ago by Rabbi Rosenberg about the distinction between two Hebrew expressions: b'shalom and l'shalom.
Both contain the word shalom—peace, wholeness, well-being—but they carry different meanings.
B'shalom means "in peace."
L'shalom means "toward peace."
Rabbi Rosenberg describes a teaching he received from Rabbi John Moscowitz, rooted in the Talmudic tradition, that we wish the living to go l'shalom, toward peace, rather than b'shalom, in peace.
Why?
Because peace is not a destination we reach once and for all. It is something we move toward throughout our lives. Wholeness is not a permanent state. We are always becoming, always growing, always working toward something that remains just beyond our grasp.
I have carried that teaching with me for years.
And this week, it feels especially meaningful.
Five years after cancer, I am profoundly grateful to be here. But I am not the same person I was five years ago. Nor would I expect to be. Life doesn't return us to where we were. It carries us forward, changed by what we've experienced, by the people who have accompanied us, and by the ways we have learned to live with uncertainty.
There is something both humbling and liberating in the idea that we don't have to arrive.
We just have to keep moving.
This year also marks another milestone: thirteen years of Jewish Communities of Vermont. Our B Mitzvah year!
In Jewish tradition, thirteen is an age of becoming. A young person reaches a milestone of responsibility and belonging, but certainly not the end of growing up. Quite the opposite. It marks the beginning of a new relationship with community and responsibility.
And so it is for JCVT.
Thirteen years of bringing people together, connecting Jewish Vermonters across distances, supporting families, building partnerships, creating opportunities for Jewish learning, culture, celebration, and belonging.
Thirteen years of discovering what it means to be a Jewish community in a place where we are often separated by mountains, miles, and the particular rhythms of Vermont life.
And we're still becoming.
There is so much more to do. More people to reach, more connections to make, more ways to help Jewish life flourish in all its beautiful diversity.
I think about Rabbi Tarfon's familiar teaching from Pirkei Avot: "It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."
What a wonderful way to think about milestones.
We celebrate not because the work is finished, but because we've come this far. Because the journey matters. Because we have companions along the way.
Perhaps that's what anniversaries are really for. Not simply to count the years, but to notice what has grown within them, what has changed, what we have carried, and what possibilities still lie ahead.
This week, I'm celebrating five years. This year, we're celebrating thirteen.
And in both cases, I find myself looking not only backward, but forward.
Not b'shalom, as though we've arrived at some final state of wholeness.
But l'shalom.
Toward peace. Toward wholeness. Toward whatever comes next.
And, most importantly, together.
L'shalom,
Beth
P.S. As JCVT celebrates thirteen years, we'd love to hear your story. Has JCVT helped you find community, discover something new, or feel more connected to Jewish life in Vermont? Please share your memories and experiences with us. Your stories are part of ours.