Dear Temple Or Olam members,

Our Annual Meeting was wonderfully joyous.  We honored congregants, as planned, talked about our goals for the next year and the many accomplishments of the last.  We reveled in the back-and-forth joking and the laughter.  Our business was accomplished quickly — our time together was treated as the precious thing it was.  Then, we ate.  🙂

It has been a good year — filled with a sweet and growing sense of community, a culture of compassion and understanding and delight.

I discovered later that the raffle had been rigged.  Apparently, just about everyone had put their ticket in the cup standing before the hand-crocheted blanket Angela Hodges had made for some lucky congregant.  The cups before other raflle items stood mostly empty.  Why?  Those attending had worked it out with one another: Whoever won the blanket would donate it to Ruth Kingberg.

Everyone was complicit in an act of thoughtful generosity.

The blanket is now on Ruth’s bed and she and Arthur have let me know — repeatedly — how touched they were to receive it.  Ruth wraps herself up in that blanket for naps and rest times and marvels at the workmanship.

I marvel at the way this congregation keeps coming together in such lovingkindness.   For those of you who missed the get-together and the raffle and the fun and the food, I hope to see you at this Friday’s service where you will be treated to a new and bubbly musical rendition of Lecha Dodi…

Many blessings to all,

Rabbi Barbara