From the Rabbi's Desk

During Yom Kippur, I spoke about our community and our need to seriously work on bettering ourselves. There’s much work to do, and if we all roll up our sleeves together, OVS is going to reach heights never seen before. I want to thank everyone who completed the cards to make pledges for your engagement. We’re still in the midst of processing them. The Reimagining Team will meet soon and we look forward to sharing updates with you.

I’m happy to share how great we’ve been doing so far this year. For Sukkot, we had a wonderful first day service that was larger than expected and included people of all demographics. Thank you. The BBQ and Petting Zoo in the Sukkah on Sunday had over 100 people. Thank you. The Sisterhood’s Sisters in the Sukkah program was full and they had a wonderful time. Thank you. We have 75 registrants for Thursday night for Simchat Torah and we hope to have even more for that. Thank you.

I skipped one event purposefully because I want to end with it. The Sukkot Shabbat dinner in the Sukkah featuring the Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern US was a huge success. We raised funds for injured Israeli soldiers through Brothers for Life and over 100 people attended. I’m thrilled to announce we raise over $150,000 dollars. We had initially sought to raise $7,500, the cost of supporting one injured solider for a year, and far surpassed that goal. Thank you so much for your love, your support, and for your engagement. We need to build off of this energy moving forward. We cannot allow ourselves to become complacent. Every one of us is a necessary part of the OVS community. Click here to watch a thank you video from Brothers for Life.