Temple Chai

09/05/2026

Shabbat Shalom! Thank you for joining us. Please comment below your names and from where you are joining us.

DONATE HERE https://tcaz.shulcloud.com/form/Giving2025

More info at www.templechai.com

09/03/2026

Marcia Unell

Here I am, in a new temple that is still becoming itself. I feel the weight of memory and the pull of familiarity, as I try to understand how holiness travels with us when a sacred space changes.

When I first entered our old temple as a young adult, I could not have imagined how deeply it would become woven into the fabric of my life. Within those walls I celebrated joyous milestones, mourned painful losses, and marked countless moments in between. It was there that I felt connected not only to my community, but also to those who came before me. After my parents passed away, I often felt their presence most strongly in that sacred space. The building held memories of them and of the many experiences we shared as a family. Over time, the temple became more than a building; it became a spiritual home.

As we move into a new temple, I have found myself reflecting on what makes a place holy. Beautiful architecture can inspire us, but holiness is created by something deeper. A holy place is formed when people gather to pray, learn, celebrate, grieve, and support one another. It is created through relationships, traditions, and shared experiences. Holiness grows when a community brings its values, its hopes, and its hearts into a space.

The first time I visited the new building, I felt both excitement and uncertainty. It was unfamiliar, and I missed the comfort of the old surroundings. But on my second visit, something shifted. I found myself able to exhale. I realized that what I was reconnecting with was not simply a building, but my community. Looking around, I saw others adjusting as well, carrying their own memories while creating new ones together.

That experience reminded me that sacredness does not remain behind in an old building. We bring it with us. The new temple will become holy not because of its walls, but because of the lives that will unfold within them. In time, it too will hold our celebrations, our sorrows, our prayers, and our memories. And in that way, it will become home.

08/31/2026

08/30/2026

Becca Hornstein

It’s a common theme to write about “going home.” Can you describe that home that calls to you? For many people, the word “home” seems to bring forth warm, fuzzy feelings in the shape of a Norman Rockwell painting wafting across your mind’s eye. Memories of a battered but beloved teddy bear nestled on a childhood bed come first, followed by images of licking the batter off a mixing spoon as my mother bakes my favorite chocolate chip cookies. A soft-focus image of giggling with my sister, and then the dizzying spinning over and over and over as my brother and I collide with a tree and tumble off our sled on a snowy slope.

But that was my childhood home, a place I lived for the first 17 years of my life. It doesn’t even exist anymore, torn up and replaced by a freeway decades ago. Is the first apartment in which my husband and I started married life any less my special home? Or is the little house we bought with a low down-payment and a massive sense of pride any less my special home? At the time, we couldn’t imagine every needing or wanting any more home than that.

We moved and moved and moved again in our early years. I’ve lived in five states, seven cities and more than a dozen residences over the past 78 years. Which one of those is the mythical, magical, magnificent “home” that should be my source of yearning to “go home?”

Perhaps “home” is not a building. Perhaps it is something less tangible and more ephemeral, an amalgam of sensations that come to represent growing and belonging, encouragement and exploration, comfort and so much more. Home is the reassurance of always feeling embraced in the loving arms of people in the past and people who surround me today.

My home has no walls, no windows or doors. Lighter than air, my true home traveled with me from city to city. Rooms are added where new memories are stored. I can summon it with closed eyes and a calming breath. I do not think about “going home,” because my home never leaves me.

08/28/2026

Have you ever thought about becoming an Adult B Mitzvah?
Our clergy will be with you every step of the way as you learn, grow, and experience this meaningful journey alongside other members of our Temple Chai community.
Classes begin September 30 at 6:30 PM and are available in person and via Zoom.
Register Here https://tcaz.shulcloud.com/form/20262027AdultBMitzvah

08/27/2026

Teri Berman

Wherever it takes place, a sanctuary, a hotel, a living room, or a hospital room, the texts we repeat year after year, somehow take us someplace new, while bringing us home at the same time. And each year the preceding weeks before the high holidays become provocative. I find myself taking stock of where I am in life, where I am in my body, where I am in my heart, and where my foolish head has taken me in the past year.

This year I am captivated by the phrase ‘return to yourself.’ Because we, individually, are our home of all homes, and wherever we are, we make Home.

For me that’s powerful and draws attention to the process of the high holidays that will take me back to my center. Home base, if you will. It’s easy to get off the path I want to be on, and do things I didn’t want to do or say things I shouldn’t have said. So I find myself considering both spiritual and life goals for that re-orienting process.

For this year, my harvest is in, I’ve reaped all I can from the past year. Now is the time to look to the future and decide, as much as it is in my power, how it will go.

08/26/2026

Learn more and Register Here
https://tcaz.shulcloud.com/form/2026%20Postcard%20Parties

08/25/2026

Marcy Burgis

Home – A Continuation

When we were asked, as part of the Writing Circle, to write about the transition to our new home, my first thought was that I had not even been there yet. So I went to see it.

As I approached and realized that I did not even know where the front door was, I reminded myself that this IS where Temple Chai exists now. A building does not make a congregation. Once inside, the overall feeling was very different from the previous campus. I had a lot of mixed feelings. It felt more modern. It felt more sterile. It felt smaller. It felt more like now. It felt more cohesive under one roof. It was definitely well thought out, well planned. It is a beautiful campus. Was all of this better? Worse? I’m not sure yet; this is how it is now.

As I walked around inside, I was thinking about the membership. Long-time members like me (28 years) with a lot of history would feel one way, maybe with still a tug to the past. Newer members might feel very differently, more excited. The youngest congregants – the Religious school students and ECC children – would probably have no problem at all with the change, this might even feel like a normal occurrence. They will form new memories and experiences as they grow here.

All of this was, of course, without the actual community present. Then someone I knew walked in the door. I said hi, asked if he had received something I had sent. The exact same thing that would have happened no matter what building the temple was housed in. That felt very comfortable and familiar. I still have my place in the community; that has not changed. Over time, I will find my place in the actual building. Every one of us has new memories to create. As I said to someone on the last night at our old facility, to me the most important thing to take to the new campus is me.