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Photo by Angela Hodges

We often hear about what a congregation is doing or how they are celebrating, but it is, after all, the people who make the congregation what it is.  To this end, we spend our column inches this month profiling the beloved matriarch of our temple, Ruth Kingberg.

Ruth is 86 years old.  She narrowly escaped the Holocaust by leaving Germany on one of the last Kindertransport, a program which helped approximately 10,000 children to leave Germany for the United Kingdom in the months just prior to the outbreak of WWII.  Ruth lived in England during the war and eventually made it to America.  She has lived in North Carolina for the past 28 years.

Ruth is one of the founders of Temple Or Olam.  She is the eldest member of our congregation, our matriarch, and for many years she has lovingly taken on the joyful task of welcoming new members into our congregation.  This tiny little woman not only welcomes new members, but takes their hands afterward and leads them in a dance of celebration.

On Friday nights, Ruth takes the congregation’s children to light the Shabbat candles and not only leads them in prayer but offers each child a blessing and a hug.  She is, in fact, so beloved that college students have been known to rush up to the candles in order to get their own hug and their own blessing.  At Temple Or Olam, we know that the children who are now nine, ten, and eleven years old will grow up with the memory of being blessed at every Shabbat service by Ruth Kingberg.  We can only hope that for these children, the tradition of being blessed on Shabbat will carry on and manifest itself in beautiful ways in their own Jewish lives.

It is Ruth Kingberg who covered our leyning table with blue velvet and gold trim, the leyning table that her 86 year old husband–also a Holocaust survivor–built for the congregation.  It’s Ruth who makes sure that every oneg is a healthy oneg, that there are always wholesome desserts on the table and gluten-free latkes at Hanukkah.  It’s Ruth who reminds us to lift weights like she does every morning, and who brings fruits and vegetables from the Kingberg’s own garden to share with congregants.  It is Ruth who calls to thank members who organize the oneg, and help out before and after services with set-up and clean-up.

We feel so very blessed to have Ruth in our lives, but we don’t want to be selfish with her or the many gifts that she gives to our congregation, so we include here one of her healthy recipes.  As Ruth always says, “Shake it easy!”

For Healthy Eating — a Recipe by Ruth — Zucchini Squash

You will need a 10″ Pyrex pie plate or equal (not metal)

[This appeared in the May 2011 issue of Charlotte Jewish News]

photo by Seth Holtzman

We tell scary stories at Passover.  The accounts of the ten plagues of Egypt, from frogs to locusts to the death of the first-born – are not easy to hear.  Still, we love Pesach.  Children claim it as their favorite holiday.  Pesach is connected with family and fun, with joy and laughter and warmth.

Perhaps the reason for the seeming contradiction is that we plug into the feeling of liberation rather than the terror of the plagues.  We connect the newness and freedom of this time of year to a familiar biblical tale of freedom from bondage.

It’s not hard to feel the sense of our own liberation.  We’ve just come out of winter to find the world renewing.  Our first daffodils are to be seen; the witch hazel is blooming.  The world is coming alive again after the dark and narrow winter days.

By the time we gather for Passover, spring is fully and completely here.  We are ready to celebrate.  We welcome with joy not only the bright colors of spring after a long, grey winter, but also our retelling of an ancient story that describes our birth as a nation and a people.

Our community Seder is fun from start to finish.  We have occasionally used multitudes of frogs to decorate our tables, and they add to the brightness and joy of the festivities.  We hear from Moses and Miriam, and we dance around the tables singing at Pharaoh to “let my people go.”  We revel in the openness of Pesach, and we have fun for a reason:  telling these stories underlines the fact that we have (again) escaped the narrow, grey spaces.  We are free to enjoy the colorful miracles of another year.

[A version of this piece appeared in the April 2011 Charlotte Jewish News]