By Ron Fink
The first evening of Hanukkah this year at Congregation Or Atid marked a celebration with a number of “first time” milestones.
In its first year of existence for the Gan Chesed Kindness Garden, it’s the first-ever lighting of an outdoor Living Menorah at Or Atid. A crowd of 100+ was treated to a beautiful professionally designed and executed lighting of the Gan Chesed Living Menorah.
Inspired by its beauty, this will hopefully become an annual tradition for the Synagogue and it’s Gan Chesed Kindness Garden.
Event attendees were entertained by local songwriter/performer Susan Greenbaum who sang Holiday and original song selections along with Chris Parker on percussion.
In addition, to the traditional Dreidel spin games, the celebration featured arts and crafts activities for kids to construct Menorahs, Dreidels and even edible Dreidels that the children loved making.
When you put everything together with refreshments and giveaways, it’s not surprising that everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. With numerous requests to repeat this event next year, it’s apparent that this milestone event was a huge success.
A big thank you goes out to the event organizers, Rabbi Sherry Grinsteiner, all the volunteers who assisted and to the Richmond Jewish Community Federation whose continued support of Gan Chesed helped make this memorable Hanukkah celebration possible.
