From the Cantor - May 1999

How fitting that, in the same month in which we celebrate the festival of Shavuot, the receiving of the Torah, we also honor Glenda Orchant; our magnificent Director of Education for the past eighteen years. Glenda enables teachers and students alike to receive Torah (which means "instruction") and pass it on to the generations that follow. Glenda’s love of Judaism and penchant for "seeing the world through Jewish eyes" are perpetually contagious. Because she has shared these gifts with me, I grow ever more at ease in a classroom. Because she shares them with our children, our future is secure. Please plan on spending the greater part of the weekend of May 7-9 at Congregation Albert as we lavish Glenda with thanks and love.

Shavuot brings the reading of the Scroll of Ruth; a woman so completely bound to Judaism that her words of commitment to our people are the most memorable ones in her story: Do not urge me to leave you; or to turn back and not follow you; for wherever you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people; and your God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die; and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Eternal do to me, if anything but death separates me from you (Ruth 1:16-17). Generations of composers have set this passage to music. Its message is so compelling that we never question the reasons behind it. The omission of these reasons teaches us that we each travel a separate journey in order to arrive at the same destination. What matters most is that, once we find each other, we continue on our way together.

Consider how your journey may benefit others on Sunday, May 2, when we will again go out into the community to share our talents on Mitzvah Day. During this season of Shavuot, the harvest of Torah, may we reap the greatest rewards from working together in study, prayer, and acts of loving kindness.

B’shalom u-v’shir,
Cantor Jacqueline Shuchat-Marx

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