This morning, I was busy dragging two full shopping carts overflowing with goods through the busy aisles of Costco and trying to move quickly so that I could get back to Sudbury as soon as possible on this busy Friday. There was a long line at the checkout that stretched back to the back of the store, but thankfully it moved at a good pace and soon after that I was finally at the checkout.
The cashier was busy checking me out and we had just about rung up the contents of one shopping cart, when suddenly the fire alarm went off. In seconds, the workers were ushering everyone out of the store, and crowds of shoppers were streaming out the front door. As much as I wanted to simply just checkout I realized that I would have to abandon… Read More »
Today I am celebrating my Hebrew birthday, although my legal birthday is later this month, which means it also marks thirty years since my Bar Mitzvah. A lot has changed since then in my life, including the fact that I am older, and thank G-d, married, have a beautiful family and I am a part of a lovely community, but one other thing that changed is my fear of public speaking.
In recent weeks as the conflict in Israel escalated there has been a huge surge in antisemitism in the US and many other places. In any year according to FBI statistics, Jews are more likely to experience a race crime than anyone else, yet the uptick in the last few days and the lines that have been crossed are cause for deep concern among the Jewish community.
One of the fun activities that I love doing with my children is planting a vegetable garden. Currently our kitchen looks like a giant greenhouse as trays and trays of seedlings of all kinds of vegetables are taking root and beginning to sprout. Corn, squash, tomatoes, peppers and much more are sprouting all over the kitchen counters.
A few days ago, I went to do afternoon car pool to pick up my children from school (as I usually do the only the morning run). I peaked in to my four year old daughter’s class and she somehow saw me even though there was a closet blocking her vision of where I was standing. The teacher was in the middle of reading the children a story in the last few minutes of the day, but upon seeing me, my daughter jumped up and made a mad dash to my arms and gave me a huge smile from behind her mask. My daughter was so excited to see me that she could hardly talk from excitement and joy and her eyes welled up with tears of happiness.
A fellow once realized that he had been spending too much time gossiping in the market about his friends and community members, and decided to go and have a chat with the Rabbi. He then proceeded to tell the Rabbi that he felt really bad and wanted to make amends for all of the juicy tidbits of gossip which he had been sharing with others and asked the Rabbi for some advice.
Before Passover we held a fun Hebrew School Pre Passover event which was followed by an outdoor Model Matzah Bakery which was held in the beautiful weather in the field behind Chabad.
A huge thank you to all of our volunteers who helped pack and deliver Passover packages to hundreds of people and to all the sponsors and volunteers who helped deliver the Passover Dinners from the Passover Seder Project to sixty people in the greater Sudbury area. Thank you Dushez caterers for the great… 
I had many meaningful and uplifting encounters this week with lots of different people as I drove around paying pre Passover house visits to people across the area. One of the most memorable encounters took place in the middle of the week, when I visited Izzy, who spoke for us a number of years ago about his Holocaust experiences.
In loving memory of our family's Bubby & Alte Bubby, Margaret Plotke (Esther Malka Bat Shmuel Aharon Z"L)