February 7, 2025

 Dear friends, 

After every meal, all of the coordinators share what they served, statistics, stories and successes in an email thread. Two days ago, I wrote:

“We are new; tell us what to do!”  Eight fresh volunteers were introduced to OOTC.  They were eager and before long, they were laughing and singing in four languages:  English, Hebrew, Spanish, French.  Hunger knows no borders and cooking brings people together.”   

This morning from Janice and Kathy in our office:

Dear Team OOTC,

Your message fills our hearts in the office, Cindy!! Thank you - for providing a welcoming space for people to experience the richness of HOOTC!!! For those of us lucky enough to experience the joy in a kitchen full of people creating food for perfect strangers, we completely understand. 

We had a call today from a guest (Jason B.) who called to say "thank you" and "You guys should be so proud of yourselves!" He would also like you to share some recipes because he said "seriously, your food is so good!" 

We want you to know that in your kitchen you create amazing meals and pour so much love into every single one!! Thank you for continuing the work out in our community. 

Kathy and Janice 

The staff of Erskine Presbyterian and The Colin MacDonald School absolutely love the aromas and sounds created by all of you. It brings them such inner strength and warmth to be present along with our program.

This all reminds me of a message presented by Rabbi Angela Bukhdahl this week. (I edit quite fiercely but please listen to the teaching in its entirety here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/central-synagogue-podcast/id1480041703?i=1000683950776)

“This new definition of tikkun olam is presented not as fixing the world as we usually think about it, but braiding the world together. We all know what it's like to imagine that the world is broken and needs fixing, and that we are the ones who can fix it. …There is much hubris in that kind of thinking…..What if the tikkun that the world and we ourselves need is not fixing, but braiding? A return to the awareness in the deepest part of our beings that we are all interconnected. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, “Each person is bound to every other in a reciprocal relationship. Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them. If an animal gives its life to feed me, I am in turn bound to support its life. If I receive a gift of pure water then I'm responsible for returning a gift in kind. An integral part of a human's education is to know those duties and how to perform them.” 

Rabbi Bukhdahl continues,  “What if we went through the world and understood that our responsibility for Tikun Olam was not to go through the world with a hammer and a nail, like a carpenter looking for broken things that we would come and fix. But if Tikun Olam was imagining ourselves as a thread looking to weave into a thicker fabric of society. Braiding is so very different than fixing.”

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to perform this mitzvah with all of you. Enjoy a little longer break before we see you again on Feb. 26, March 5 and March 19.

Shabbat Shalom,
Cindy