This weekend we will take part in our annual Spring Celebration. This year we are celebrating the people who make our HaMotzi program happen. For the last ten years, HaMotzi has provided for the food insecure of our area. Guests receive not only a hot meal, but are treated to music, kindness and the embrace of a loving community. Let’s say it clearly: HaMotzi is the best of who we are. It represents our doing the sacred work of helping those in need in ways that are very real. I hope you will join us this weekend to have a hand in thanking the many who make HaMotzi happen month after month.

I would like to acknowledge too the chairs of this year’s Spring Celebration. Jody Brookman, Sharon Rhodes, Marijke Shenkman and Liz Kaufman Taylor. These four superstars have brought this year’s events to life. Maybe you were with us for Drag Queen Bingo, which had our KG Auditorium packed on a Wednesday night. No doubt our Shabbat dinner and service this Friday night and Block Party on Sunday afternoon will also be highly festive, incredibly fun and very special. 

At a time when so many would be ushered to the margins, HaMotzi has our congregation stand firm in our commitment to the other. At a time when so many are just scraping by, HaMotzi becomes our shared opportunity to be there for those who are hurting. Such notions of selflessness and generosity are who we are meant to be as Jews. The Torah portion of Kedoshim will teach: ‘You shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.’ This is one of the many instances in the Torah where we are commanded to share our good fortune with others. It’s what we’re meant to do. 

I love going to HaMotzi. I love talking with the many guests who join us each month. I love hearing their stories and chatting with them. I also love schmoozing with our incredible volunteers, who shop, sort, welcome, organize, cook, clean, serve, set up and much more. I also love that our JQuest kids have a hand in HaMotzi, contributing to this great mitzvah that our community has performed for ten years now. They see that they can help to change the world, that bringing joy and help to people is within reach.  

In closing, I choose to see HaMotzi these days as its own form of protest. If greed and narrow-mindedness are widespread – and they are – then the very existence of HaMotzi becomes an exercise in compassion and togetherness. While so many are all-too-consumed with their bank account, their appearance, their image, HaMotzi asks the question: How can I be present for YOU?

Cheers to ten years. And thank you to the many who make HaMotzi a reality.