A spiritual and delicious Shabbq
On Friday evening, July 7th, Congregation Or Atid held its first Shabbq of the summer, which was attended by over 100 congregants and guests.
This particular Shabbat was in honor of Rabbi Sherry Grinsteiner’s one-year anniversary as Congregation Or Atid’s spiritual leader.
Rabbi Grinsteiner conducted an inspirational Shabbat service, where the sound of so many voices praying together was simply joyful. From the youngest newborn, to seniors, the sanctuary was overflowing with joy.
After completing the service, Rabbi Sherry expressed her enthusiasm for being at Congregation Or Atid, reflected on many of this past year’s accomplishments, and thanked the members of the congregation for all of their efforts and support.
The Rabbi took a moment to specifically thank Wanda Schweiger, the congregation’s administrator, for providing extraordinary support to her and the congregation at large. No doubt Wanda is the key to everything running smoothly and efficiently at COA.
Rabbi Grinsteiner also gave a brief talk on her month-long trip to Israel and shared her warm thoughts and encouragement for the congregation to feel love for Israel and enrichment for their own daily lives and well-being.
When services were completed, Sue Geller, who with her husband Norm coordinated the delicious dinner, thanked those members who helped prepare the Shabbat dinner, including thanking the Rabbi, who prepared the chicken with her special recipe with spices from Israel.
Norm Geller warmly welcomed everyone, and Greg Samuels thanked the Rabbi for all she has done in the past year to help the congregation flourish.
After congregants moved out of the sanctuary, so that it could be transformed into dinner, we recited the blessings over the wine and challah (prepared by Ellen Bernstein), and then dinner was served, which included the aforementioned chicken, salad, quinoa, zucchini and tomato vegetable casseroles and a variety of delicious desserts.
There was a lot of table hopping, as people wanted to visit with each other. Children laughed and played.
It was a beautiful evening.
