Lotte Meyerson Tikkun Olam Committee Updates

UPCOMING SCHEDULED LOTTE MEYERSON TIKKUN OLAM PROJECTS:

1^st Friday each month from 1-3 PM @ MANNA– CBHT volunteer team. Contact Sandra Layton to help.

3^rd Friday each month @ noon – CBHT Vets shelter meal serving. Contact Hilary Paradise to help.

Yom Kippur & Fighting Hunger

By Sam Hausfather

On Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, we fast to free ourselves from our daily needs. This allows us the time we need to concentrate on the tasks at hand on this holy day: t’shuvah (repentance), t’filah (prayer), and tzedakah (charity).  As we refrain from pleasure and deny our bodies nourishment, we hope to draw ourselves closer to God.

During the climax of our worship on Yom Kippur morning, we read the stirring words of the Prophet Isaiah, who challenges us to use this fast day as a reminder that if hunger and want still exist in our world, then our fast and our prayers are incomplete.  “Is this the fast I seek?  A day of self-affliction?  Is not THIS the fast I look for: to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house?”  (Isaiah 58:5-7).

Hunger continues to be a problem in Western North Carolina.  Please join us these High Holy Days in supporting our raising money for the MANNA Food Bank and in providing children’s books for Head Start.  Have a truly meaningful fast!

CBHT Rosh HaShanah Children’s Book Collection

By Marty Mann

Please bring your new or lightly used children’s books to CBHT.  Most of these books are given to 3-5-year olds at the Head Start classrooms at Pisgah View Apartments in West Asheville to help them start a home reading library.  The book collection runs through the High Holy Days.  You say you don’t have any books to donate?  Then make a cash donation to the Tikkun Olam Committee and designate the gift to be used to purchase children’s books.

If you really want to get involved, how about being one of our congregation’s weekly volunteers at Head Start?  If interested in volunteering or have questions regarding the book collection, contact Marty Mann.  Let’s continue putting good books in the hands of the children who need them the most.

Holiday Food Drive for MANNA Food Bank

By Elaine Stein

For our Holiday Food Drive this year, we are collecting cash or checks only!  This was the preferred method of donation requested by Manna.  Please see our flyer in this Menorah to see how many meals your dollars will buy and visit our donation table set up in the temple gallery!

Why Compost…NOW?

By Hope Warshaw and Don Kraus

Do you want to compost, but don’t want to attract bears or other critters?  We did too!  The solution we’ve been successfully using for over two years, (since we moved to Asheville), is the Raleigh-based home composting service, Compost Now (https://compostnow.org/).  At present, Compost Now is the only residential-based composting service in Asheville.

Here’s how it works:

Please consider using Compost Now.  Let’s each take one more step each day to repair the world (and save our planet).