Announcements

Or Olam in the Loop – Our Weekly Bulletin on All Things TOO

LoopRoom For Another Cook!

A space has come available for one more participant in “The Way We Cook” class from 2 till 6 on Sunday, September 14, $25 fee.  Email earl@greenwalds.com if you want to be the lucky person.

 

Gleaning this Saturday in Rowan County

Please join us as we gather more tomatoes in Rowan County on Saturday, Sept. 13th, at 9 a.m.  We will glean for about two hours.  Last week we were able to distribute 3,000 pounds to neighbors in 6 counties!  Contact Arlene at afilkoff@gmail.com if you can go and further info.

High Holidays are Filling Up

Our SignUpGenius for HHD assistance is looking well loved.  If you haven’t taken the time to secure your spot, there are a few left.  Here’s the link:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b054aabaf2fa20-high

September 2014 Shmoozeletter

gates are closingThe September 2014 Shmoozeletter is on line (please click here).  See the complete High Holy Days listings, read about the Love Song Service at UNC Charlotte, and catch up with news about ourselves and about each other.  Highlights:

  • Love Song Service at UNC Charlotte, Sep. 5
  • Complete High Holy Days schedule
  • Setup- and takedown arrangements, HHD child care
  • Rabbi Thiede on accepting ‘the other’
  • ‘The Gates are Closing’: Play performed on Yom Kippur afternoon (Oct. 4)
  • What I did this summer: The Jacobson and Kanofsky kids share their adventures
  • Kvelling Corner: Keri Huneycutt
  • Know your Aleph-Bet: The Samech (especially suitable for the High Holy Days)
  • Calendar, birthdays, yahrzeits, and contact information

Or Olam in the Loop – Our Weekly Bulletin on All Things TOO

LoopPot-luck Dinner, Kabbalat Shabbat Services and an Ice Cream Social This Friday!

Shabbat this Friday is a special event for Temple Or Olam.   It’s a perfect opportunity to show friends and family members in search of a spiritual home and a loving congregation the joy, peace and dignity of our  community.  Please, invite them to join us at our covered-dish dinner, services and ice cream social oneg, beginning at 6 PM at Piedmont UU.

Services begin at 7 p.m. and feature a guest appearance by Lex Rofes, our ISJL intern, as well as the children of our religious school.  Rabbi Barbara will be drashing on one of the most challenging texts of the Torah.  Join us, please!

Time: Covered-dish potluck dinner at 6 p.m. Services begin at 7 p.m.

Location: Piedmont UU Church, 9704 Mallard Creek Rd, Charlotte

Israeli Dancing this Saturday

Saturday, August 23, 2-4 pm at Piedmont UUC.   Email marilynaf@aol.com or call 704-663-1816.

$10 adults, $5 children.  You can pay at the website Paypal button.  Please note what you are paying for when prompted at the end of the process.

Temple Or Olam’s Facebook Page – Check it Out and Pass it On!

Have you noticed we added the Facebook icon to our website?  Our page hits have increased by 50% in the last few weeks!  (Thank you Alan Coffman for all the fine work on the site this past summer.

Both or-olam.org and [whatever the FB page name is] are ready portals to everything going on at TOO, plus you can enjoy the fun we have with our pictures and videos.​  Want to add your comments and help us spread our activities to everyone?

  • Most certainlylike” the page!
  • Feel free to send it to other folks who might be interested in our congregation, along with the website address.
  • You can start or join a blog post and get a discussion going.
  • You are welcome to send videos and pictures to our FB guru, Alan Coffman, who is always updating. Contact him through the page.

We want you to see us and our joyful Judaism, and we also want to see you!  High Holy Days schedule to be posted on Web and FB this weekend.  See you there!

Cooking with the Greenwalds

TOO has two opportunities to cook with Earl and Cheryl Greenwald.  The new cookbook, The Way We Cook, was a feature this weekend at Ferucci’s.  And the promise of donating August sales to TOO has another couple of weeks to run.  Contact Earl (earl@greenwalds.net) or Cheryl (cg@greenwalds.net) to request a copy.

The other is a hands-on class for adults in the Greenwalds kitchen.   You will cook, and then enjoy, a full menu.  Limited to 6 people.  Call fast!

Sunday, September 14, 2:00 pm.  $25/student.

cg@greenwalds.net, 704-528-1432

Or Olam in the Loop – Our Weekly Bulletin on All Things TOO

LoopKabbalat Shabbat Service on 8/22: Please Help Greet Our Guests!

Our next service will be a Torah service on Friday, August 22, featuring the RS students.  Our ISJL intern will also be here as well as LOTS of guests!   Our press blitz this summer has led to a veritable flood of inquiries about Temple Or Olam. We need everyone as greeters for the many interested people who have been calling and emailing in the last few weeks.

Please put this service date on your calendar now!

Friday, August 22, 7:00 pm, Piedmont UU Church, 9704 Mallard Creek Rd, Charlotte

ISJL Summer Weekend

Our new ISJL intern, Lex Robes, will be with us at the Friday night service and activities the next day.  There’s something for everyone here.

Friday, August 22

6:00 pm     Potluck supper with Lex
7:00 pm     Torah service featuring the religious school students
8:30 pm     Ice cream social to welcome both guests and members

Saturday, August 23

9-11 am      RS administrators and teachers meet with Lex; Location to be determined
11-noon      Lunch for anyone who wants to stay; Location to be determined
12-1:30 pm Meeting with Board of Directors; Location to be determined
2-4 pm         Israeli dancing instruction for all comers at Piedmont UU Church

 

August 2014 Shmoozeletter

The August 2014 Shmoozeletter is on line (here).  Highlights:

  • August services (Aug. 08, Aug. 22)
  • From the President: Making Growth Happen
  • MiLev HaPardes: Outreach and Universalism
  • Board Meeting minutes (July 27)
  • How our PR works
  • Setup and Takedown signup arrangements
  • Gleaning
  • High Holy Days Play: The Gates are Closing
  • Successful Lenora Stein Grant
  • Love Song service: UNC Charlotte Sep. 05
  • Chaverah: A new service (Ginger Jensen)
  • A Kvell for the Rabbi
  • Teenagers reporting in: Leta, Leanna, and John
  • Israeli Dancing August 23
  • Calendar, Birthdays, Yahrzeits, and contact information

Or Olam in the Loop – Our Weekly Bulletin on All Things TOO

LoopGleaning Continues!

We have the opportunity to glean at least an acre and a half of tomatoes on Saturday, July 26th, at 8 a.m. near China Grove in Rowan County.  If you are interested in helping fill some boxes, please let our Gleaning Contact Extraordinaire,  Arlene Filkoff, , at afilkoff@gmail.com

A  Prayer for Peace

A request came in for the prayer for peace Rabbi Barbara read at our Love Song Service.  Here is the prayer, written by Sheikha Ibtisam Mahameed and Rabba Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and translated into English from Arabic and Hebrew by Amichai Lau-Lavie.

THE MOTHERS’ PRAYER

God of Life:

You who heals the brokenhearted, binding up our wounds.

Please hear this prayer of mothers.

You did not create us to kill each other

Nor to live in fear or rage or hatred in your world. You created us so that we allow each other to sustain Your Name in this world:

Your name is Life, your name is Peace.

For these I weep, my eye sheds water:

For our children crying in the night,

For parents holding infants, despair and darkness in their hearts.

For a gate that is closing – who will rise to open it before the day is gone?

With my tears and with my constant prayers, with the tears of all women deeply pained at these harsh times

I raise my hands to you in supplication: Please God have mercy on us.

Hear our voice that we not despair: That we will witness life with each other, That we have mercy one for another, That we share sorrow one with the other, That we hope, together, one for another.

Inscribe our lives in the book of Life

For Your sake, our God of Life, Let us choose Life.

For You are Peace, Your world is Peace and all that is Yours is Peace,

May this be your will

And let us say Amen.

Rabbi Barbara’s Article in the Charlotte Observer

In case you didn’t see it,  Rabbi Barbara published a piece in the Faith and Values section of today’s Charlotte Observer.

Rabbi Barbara wrote about  Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of Jewish Renewal.  Her article also covers how Jewish Renewal practice has been adopted by mainstream denominations across the country.  She pointed out that Charlotte now has its own Jewish Renewal congregation — that’s us!

You can read her article here:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/07/17/5050428/charlotte-rabbi-the-late-schachter.html

Enjoy!

Love Song Service Tonight! Get out your Tie-Dye….

All we need is love

Birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let’s do it, let’s fall in love!

 

There will be guest singers and some additional instruments you simply couldn’t expect. And the rabbi is playing her electric guitar — all night long…

Tonight’s Love Song service will feature Seals and Cross, Leonard Cohen, and (of course), the Beatles.  We’ll find out how our secular selections reflect the sentiments of the Barchu  Mi Chamocha, and Adon Olam. So dig out all those headbands, fringes, love beads, and tie-died shirts. Remind yourselves what it’s like to fall – head over heels – in love.

And join us on  for our Third Annual Love Song Service at 7 pm at Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church,  9704 Mallard Creek Rd,  Charlotte.

Let’s do it.  Let’s fall in love.  🙂

Or Olam in the Loop – Our Weekly Bulletin on All Things TOO

LoopGoing Gleaning, Anyone?

Our last group helped in the pulling of over 6600 pounds of corn to feed local hungry!     We’ve just heard that there is a new gleaning opportunity this Tuesday.  Please feel email Arlene Filkoff if you are interested in helping out at afilkoff@gmail.com

Love Song Service on July 18 – This Friday!

We’ve had some wonderful press for this service, but we all know our congregants are the best way to let people know about Temple Or Olam.  So please help us get the word out about a service that can be a great introduction to the joy and fun we like to have at Temple Or Olam.

Our Love Song service is great for bringing friends — of any denomination.  Read more about this year’s Love Song Service in Rabbi Barbara’s MiLev Ha Pardes in the July Shmoozeletter.

Help us get the word out about Temple Or Olam’s creative way of looking at the Kabbalat Shabbat by bringing bring guests.  And don’t forget to find that tie dye T-shirt…

Location and time: Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church on July 18 at 7 p.m.

Temple Or Olam is EVERYWHERE!

Great news!

Marty Minchin, a wonderful free-lance journalist, wrote about our Temple’s move to Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church.  Her article (with picture!) was published in The Charlotte Observer’s South Charlotte News, Steel Creek and York News, Lake Norman News, and even the City News (that’s the section distributed in NoDa, East Charlotte, Plaza Midwood, Uptown, and West Charlotte).

There’s more.  Marty’s feature was also published in Cabarrus News and University News alongside my column, On Common Ground, which also featured our move.  In some of these publications as many as three pictures accompanied the stories.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/07/12/5033349/temple-finds-central-home-in-university.html#.U8KHJ_ZOVZQ

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/07/11/5032790/our-heart-history-remain-in-cabarrus.html#.U8KPb_ZOVZQ

Please consider writing and thanking Marty for her wonderful work at:

martyminchin@gmail.com

And please, help us spread the word about our move.  Our congregants are our best way to let people know who we are and what we do!

Shavua tov,

Rabbi Barbara