By Ramona Brand
Meeting Elijah
Several weeks ago, I was having ‘one of those days.’ The kind when nothing goes right or feels right and I was truly out sorts with the world. I had come to the school office in a fine mood for work, but as the day progressed each email, phone call or text that came in, and task that I tried to accomplish seemed to become a growing obstacle in my path.
My frustration deepened, my day felt increasingly darker, and I was overwhelmed, broody, and stressed. Suddenly one of the Canterbury Pre-school teachers popped into my office and I braced myself for another issue. But she told me there was someone at the front door who had a coin for us, that she wanted to give for something – she didn’t know the word. “Tzedakah?” I offered. “Yes, that’s the word.” she replied, “I told her I wouldn’t be able to help her, but I knew someone who probably could.”
At the school door stood a woman, about my age, long curling silver hair, noise-canceling headphones over her ears, wearing a gray track suit. She was smiling broadly. She was in town from Israel and in her hand was a shiny quarter. Her name was Leslie, Liora in Israel, and she was back in Richmond and “would I accept her coin for the school. “It’s a good thing to do when I travel.”
“You’re a Shaliach Mitzvah.” I replied.
“You know what that means!”, she grinned.
“Well, you found the Temple Educator so I hope I could know a thing or two. Being a messenger for a good deed brings protection to you and your recipients.” And we laughed together. I invited her in so that she could put the quarter in our Tzedakah box. She teared up as the quarter clinked into the tin, and she thanked me for allowing her to perform that Mitzvah. She told me that she had lived in Richmond, made Aliyah a decade before and that she had attended Beth-El as a child, through the 4th or 5th grade – but not at this location. While she was in town, she was making the rounds of the Jewish institutions that were important to her.
We chatted for a bit, almost like old friends, comfortable and simpatico. I asked her where in Israel she lived, and Be’er Sheva was the answer. I told her Be’er Sheva was one of the places I visited on my trip this past summer and we had seen the apartment complex that had been hit by an Iranian missile in June. Her noise-canceling headphones were holdovers from the war, she explained, and she still wore them to avoid being startled by unexpected noises. Trauma, we agreed, was difficult to shake. She asked if I had Shabbat candles to use for rest of her visit, through the end of the year. We had plenty in the school and I was happy to give her as many she needed. Also, I invited her to visit our synagogue or come to our Hanukah celebrations while she was back in Richmond. “Thank you,” she laughed, “but I’ll be on my way out in a few days, I’m visiting people I know while I’m here. She named several states far flung across the country where she’d be heading.
How was she getting to all of these places, I wondered. “Oh, I have a twenty-one-year-old Prius, I just couldn't part with when I made Aliyah, so I loan it out to friends while I’m gone, with the caveat that I borrow it back when I’m in town. I’ll be driving.” I gave her a hug, and she hugged me back, not the perfunctory kind, but the real comfortable kind of hug you have with a friend. I told her that I had been having a bad day, but her visit, her good deed, and that simple .25 tzedakah had turned it all around. She was like a personal Elijah who had come just at the right time to restore my faith. Tears came to her eyes, and she said that she had been having a bad day too, and that was just what she needed to hear.
Before she left, she wrote down her contact information in Israel and told me that we should meet up the next time I visited. Then she wrote down all the names of her relatives buried in Richmond and those who had been members of Beth-El. After she left, I realized that my mood was completely changed, restored, and revitalized. That this unexpected stranger reminded me that looking for gratitude, Hakarat Hatov, is an important Jewish value especially when we are feeling that the world is too much. Even small things can have great value. Of course she wasn’t really Elijah, I just needed to remember to look for and recognize the good in my life. On a whim I looked up all the names of her relatives in our data base and found…..none of them. She wasn’t really Elijah? Or was she?
Religious School that tastes Delicious!
In the photo above and photos below, learning is tasty when Israeli food is on the menu.
Our Kitah Dalet class found that learning Hebrew was delicious on a recent Wednesday afternoon. Under the direction of Morah Nancy Nelson, these students are spending part of their afternoon in an immersive Hebrew class, gaining conversational skills using contemporary Israeli vocabulary.
The kitchen became the classroom as students made Israeli salad and the ubiquitous Chocolate balls. The challenge was to use as much Hebrew vocabulary for food ingredients, food assembly instructions, and measurements.
The test was to taste how the menu items came out. We all agreed, they aced the test!
In the main photo at the top of the article and photos below are our Simcha Limud celebrants! Consecration Students were formally welcomed to Jewish Education, and students in grades 3 - 11 received and dedicated personal Siddurim and Humashim. We thank the Temple Beth-El Sisterhood for their generous support in providing sacred books for our students.
Young Family Shabbat takes place on Saturday, December 6, 9:30 a.m. - Grove Ave.
Shabbat is our Favorite “Challah Day”! Join Ramona Brand and Rabbi Rachel Salston for a musical family Shabbat designed for the wiggles. It is open to the entire community.
Shabbat services alternate on Friday evenings and Saturday morning from month to month. A Tot friendly dinner or brunch is served after each service. Young family services are open to the public.
· Friday Services at 5:30 – 6 p.m. followed by Tot friendly dinner.
February 6, April 17,· Saturday Services at 9:30 – 10 a.m. followed by a yummy breakfast.
December 6, January 3, March 7 - Services and meals take place in the Kiddush Room at Temple Beth-El.
Email Ramona at r.brand@bethelrichmond.org to RSVP.
The Circus is Coming to Town! Wednesday, December 17 - See the separate Beth-El article this month with a flyer
December Religious School Calendar
Sunday classes: Dec. 7 & 14/ meet 9 a.m. – noon.
Wednesday classes: Dec. 3, 10 & 17 / meet 4:15 – 6:15 p.m.