The expression, “a picture paints a thousand words” is often well displayed in our bulletin. As you leaf through the pages of the bulletins or look at the photo gallery of the website, you will be delighted to see photos of events and activities; photos which capture the essence of the program, better than words can describe.

Recently, though, we received some beautiful photos that we chose not to run in the bulletin. The photos I am speaking of show B’nai Moshe congregants engaged in the joyous mitzvah of Simchat Torah, together with the senior citizens who live in the residences of the Jewish Community Campus.

A kindhearted soul sent us the photos, unaware that photography, as beautiful as it might be, is a prohibited activity on Shabbat and Yom Tov. It certainly would have been tempting to print the photos. After all, taking the photo is the prohibited activity, not displaying the photo. One could argue that showing the photos might encourage more of you to attend in future years. And then there’s the fact that other congregations have had photographs of their Yom Tov activities appear in the Jewish News and elsewhere.

More important than our photos, is our integrity. Yes it’s fun to see our faces in a photo, but it’s more significant to know the inner peace that comes with serious observance of the Mitzvot. Besides, when you put away the camera, your memories are captured in your minds, and that’s a good and worthwhile exercise on occasion, if not everyday.

I carry with me so many memories of the Shabbat throughout my lifetime -- at Camp Ramah, in Israel, around tables of family and friends, in the synagogue. Because I know that a camera is not an option, I rely solely on my memory to capture these moments.

Don’t get me wrong -- I cherish our family photos and videos. I encourage all of us to capture our life stories on DVD or videotape, in order to leave a lasting legacy to the generations to come. But there is a time and a place for everything. Like many other parents, when I attend one of my children’s school events, I bring along the camera. While my child is in the midst of performing with his class, I sit looking through the viewfinder. I wish I could follow some good advice told to me: Put down the camera and truly enjoy the show! There’s a story told of an artist who leaves his wife and children to search the world for the most beautiful of all sights for the subject of his next painting. Along his journey, he meets a newly married couple who tell him that the most beautiful thing in the world is love. He meets a soldier, weary from battle, who tells him that the most beautiful thing in the world is peace. And he meets one attending a brit milah ceremony, watching a newborn infant delicately passed from his parents to his grandfather to the mohel, and the artist is told that there is nothing more beautiful than tradition.

But the artist, in frustration, is unable to accurately paint love, peace or tradition. He continues on his journey, ultimately passing through his own town, walking down his own street, and looking into the front window of his own house. There he sees: candles burning, the Shabbat table set, his family singing, blessing one another, and laughing. And the artist discovers at once, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, that all he seeks is in his own home, and that sometimes the most beautiful images will never appear on paper or canvas, but rather captured in our memories, embedded in our hearts and souls.