Return is teshuvah.

That's the name of the song.

I knew that.

And so we say, the psalmist reminds us, "I sing praises to the Holy One who lifts me up when I have fallen, and I cry to You to heal us, and You answer all our prayers."

As both Rabbi Goldstein and Rabbi Pleasant taught us, this time of Tisha B'Av, of the Ninth of Av, is indeed observed in many different ways.

Fasting, of remembering the destruction, and of reading from the Book of Lamentations.

Literally this book lamenting the suffering of our people.

But as we turn our mourning into dancing, our tradition teaches us that this book that we read from, this saddest book, we begin with a blessing.

When you bring a guest auditor in, how do you onboard them into your function, and how do you make sure that they're ready to be successful?

That's a great question.

It's tricky because what we do is different.

And you're right.

We do have a firm of auditors and folks that are, you know, delivering wonderful solutions to our clients, but our approach To controls testing, it's a little bit different.

A lot of times our controls aren't defined in a way that someone who's been doing Sarbanes-Oxley audits or, you know, a third-year audit where they understand, "Here's my risk and control matrix, here's my audit program guide, and here's my test steps, and let me go execute that." So it is a lot of training in the sense of, uh, making sure folks are aligned around the operations of the audit entity.

What do they do for our firm? What are the biggest risks to what they do for our firm? And then how do we make sure that we have the right controls in place? So it's a little bit more kind of critical thinking, I think, in, in that pre-planning phase because it is, in most cases, the first time an area has been audited.

I love the work that we do, and I wonder for you, when you think about, you know, what draws you to audit, what, what do you get excited about? What, what do you feel passionate about? Like, tell me a little bit about just for you personally, how do you drive satisfaction from coming to work every day?

What are some of the big lessons learned and successes that you had in steering a new way forward in our internal audit function?

One of the things we focused on was our team and how to build that team in a way that allowed us to understand the business that we were auditing.

We've adapted that construct.

I think we got it pretty close out of the gate.

But what we've done is adapt to our firm universe such that we have folks that are focused on particular parts of our firm.

And the expectation is that not only do they understand how that business works and the processes that go along with it, the risks they're facing into, but they They also understand the initiatives and the investments that we're making and the stakeholders and that they do become this trusted advisor as we've executed our audits.

And it's really helped, too, in giving our team different experiences, allowing them to learn from each other.

But What are some of your habits or lessons learned, tricks and tips, whatever you want to call them, about how to engage with board members, with executive stakeholders to make sure that you're delivering what they need, you are a valuable asset for them?

Each week, we will share moments from the bimah given by our clergy team or conversations with members of our staff or community.

Shabbat shalom, everyone.

Slim odds yet again that we would be on the beach, and we made it!

That's

right! I was thinking about the past two weeks, past two Fridays as I was leaving Shabbat.

I walked outside our synagogue doors and I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of the most beautiful rainbow.

Who saw this either last week or the week before? I'm not just talking about a sliver of fading light, but truly a full rainbow that extended from one side to the other directly over the synagogue.

And my first thought when I saw this was, God is doing the most this Pride Month.

Each week, we will share moments from the bima given by our clergy team or conversations with members of our staff or community.

[swish] The year that I spent living in Israel, my first year of cantorial school, my teachers told us that if there was any year, any week in the entire year that represented the soul of this country, that it was this one.

This past week is what we've been calling here at TI the Yoms, but what in Israel is often known as the Israeli High Holy Days, with Yom HaShoah last Monday, our Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaZikaron this past Monday, Israel's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror, and then on Tuesday, Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.

And after experiencing this Jewish time in Israel, I understood exactly what my teachers meant, that this week really is at the heart of this nation in all of its complexity and resilience.

And perhaps there is nowhere that this is felt more than in the Tekes Ma'avar, the Ceremony of Transition between Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, and Yom Ha'atzmaut, Independence Day, in which the somber sounds of memorial services all around the country literally segue into upbeat, joyous celebrations of independence as the sun sets on one holiday and gives way to another.

It's a transition that can feel quite jarring, but symbolizes what Israel knows to be deeply true, and what we know to be deeply true, that despair and resilience exist in the same breath, and that our existence and freedom in the land of Israel would not be possible without the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in defense of a land they so deeply believed in.

It is a chilling realization that in a country as small as Israel, nearly every single person is connected to someone who lost their life in war or was a victim of terror.