March 22, 2017

Shhhhh..... don't tell anyone. We may have exceeded the number of persons allowed in Christ's Church Cathedral's hall.

The number of guests just kept on climbing and seemed stuck for a while on a Gretzky (our way of saying #n-n,) but then Rob arrived, balloons fell from the ceiling (only kidding), followed by our Russian friend, Rasputin, (not really his name) who took us right to (Roman) CI.  Interestingly, in life, it’s natural to ask, “How many people did you feed?” “What’s the final number for the wedding?” “How many fans for the game?” However, in Jewish practice, there’s a prohibition on counting Jews. Many sources can be cited for this practice; I like these three.

When the Jews escaped from Egypt and began their journey through the desert to the Land of Israel, G‑d requested that a census be carried out, but not in the conventional way. G‑d commanded each person to give a half of the ancient shekel coin in a nationwide collection, following which Moses would count the coins and know how many Jews there were.

The number of children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which shall neither be measured nor counted. Hosea 2:1

This prohibition emphasizes the uniqueness of each human being. A person’s unique qualities can never be reduced to some numerical quantity.

As we get set to end our 2016/2017 season next Tuesday, you have mentioned that, ever since we survived the January St Mary’s flood and moved to CCC’s smaller hall, it was a shame that, overall, we fed fewer guests. It saddens us deeply to think that many of our regulars were hesitant to move with us to an overcrowded replacement site. However, we must understand that it would have been physically challenging and/or psychologically distressing to some. Each individual is sacred; each person’s hunger is inimitable. We did our best and we know that it made a difference. THAT is something we can all count on.

More about last night. We usually serve dinner at 5 pm but Peter, our security man, showed us who's the boss, and said that we'd better empty the ovens at 4:50 before 'things' got out of hand.

Food is love and the romance was on for the sweet potato & lentil soup, meatloaf, chickpea/veg/couscous salad, coleslaw, pasta and fruit proving once again that the cooks have more than time on their hands, passion in their hearts and the needs of others on their minds!

Finally, some friendly reminders with flyers attached:
This Saturday night, the fundraising concert for OOTC at Erskine Presbyterian.
The Annual Volunteer Dinner – Thurs. April 20 – RSVP by March 31 – please come; you'll be the best of the approximately 15 x Chai in attendance!

Cindy