Welcome to HI: Our Mission - Our Goals

Our Mission
...To be the inspiring center of White Plains communal Jewish life for those who seek a warm, supportive, refreshingly open, people-loving, G-d-serving, menshlech, Modern Orthodox community –and one which helps its members be that way too.

Let’s expand that a bit.  As a kehillah (“community,” more than “institution”) the Hebrew Institute strives to create an environment and shape an experience for those who enter our doors. We are continuously working to be a synagogue community that: 

õ      Embraces in friendshipõ      Enlivens avodat Hashem (worship) with spirited and spiritual tefillah (prayer)õ      Provokes introspection and action through Torah study and conversationõ      Prefers heimishe to “having”, values to volume, saneness to stridencyõ      Understands who you are õ      Builds relationships between its members (chevrah)õ      Appreciates the gift of its multi-generational membershipõ      Supports women’s religious questõ      Works passionately for Israel and world Jewryõ      Links itself to the entire Jewish community, and the general communityõ      Trains its youth (and the rest of us too) to provide compassionate care for those in needõ      Invites and supports the uninitiated and noviceõ      Programs creativelyõ      Explores the relevance and richness of Torah observanceõ      Engages contemporary issuesõ      Encourages everyone to go deeper in religious livingõ      Enjoys a great kiddush together each week!

We at the Hebrew Institute have a vision of what a synagogue and Jewish life can be.
Our synagogue has been serving the White Plains Jewish community since 1915. From the very first gathering at the back of Isaac Leven’s furniture store, the Hebrew Institute has been, to borrow the contemporary jargon, an “intentional community.” That means nothing more (and nothing less) than people coming together to be part of something with a shared sense of what’s important to them. Today, under the guiding hand of our rabbi, Chaim Marder, our shul community is more “intentional” than ever. With increasing frequency, the people that walk through our doors and join our ranks do so because they want to be part of a synagogue that stands for a certain view of community, of modern Orthodoxy, of people, of life.
The Hebrew Institute of today is built on purpose and warmth.

  •  Purpose. For us, it's not just about getting the davening done so people can get home (although we are opposed to a tefillah that drags…). Rather, our synagogue is the place for a Jew to have a meaningful encounter with a world of prayer, and G-d, Torah and mitzvot through the prism of an open and modern Orthodox perspective. That perspective can and must be rich in ideas and deep in experiences that are personal and relevant to everyone – of all ages, men and women, novice and well-versed. Those ideas and experiences must provoke the mind, stir the heart, lift the soul and fuel the body, and do so in a way which just seems real. Along with that personal and collective experience, the shul is a place in which we are reminded through our words and through our deeds that it’s not just about ourselves, but our connection and service to the larger world of Jews and non-Jews.
  • Warmth. We believe a Beit Knesset is about chevrah (circles of friends) and mishpachah (family), the place where people come to find others and nurture close relationships to one another. It’s both a home (bayit) and a place of gathering (knesset) and we actively seek to nurture that sense of closeness. This isn’t just about social events; it’s an environmental philosophy that impacts on the experience of Shabbat services, the contexts of study - everything.

This is what we’re about. All that we do is shaped around these essential ideas.

Our goal is to continue to develop a synagogue community where people can experience the best of what traditional yet engaged and open Orthodox Jewish living has to offer. To accomplish this, we focus on:

  • Bringing Shabbat mornings alive with the sounds of a multigenerational kehillah actively participating in songful, heartfelt prayer, of children in youth groups and together with their parents.
  • Engaging the mind and soul through an inspiring, provocative, and people-focused educational and experiential program for all, from the Jewish novice to the well-versed.
  • Providing real opportunities for Jewish women to have rich, meaningful religious experiences in prayer, study and communal leadership.
  • Building a space and community where Jews gather to share, whether in joy or sorrow, moving through the cycle of the calendar, and of life together as a family.
  • Creating a setting where everyone, young and old, come together, developing and cultivating their friendships with one another.
  • Fostering a “community of caring,” with active chessed projects helping all people, in which we "do for others as we would have them do for us."
  • Directing and channeling the energies of our congregants to the needs of the Jewish People (klal Yisrael), here and abroad, and especially in Israel.
  • Strengthening our bonds with our fellow Jews here in White Plains and with all of its citizenry.
  • Ensuring that the Hebrew Institute will be a place where any Jew will feel at home, as we provide a warm, open environment, welcoming and embracing all those who come our way.