TBS News and Information

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, learning to deal with large amounts of snow was just a part of winter. Snow days off from school were relatively rare. It took a truly serious storm to stop society from functioning. I’ve told the story before of one snowy evening when there was a Brotherhood event scheduled at my temple, a dad-and-kids dinner with a huge raffle.  It being Cleveland, there had been a blizzard the night before and the roads were still not totally clear for travel. It being Cleveland, a little snow wouldn’t stop the Brotherhood, so the dinner was still on. We lived about 3 blocks from Temple, so, along with another family from the neighborhood, we bundled up and walked to the event. In a congregation of 2000 households, there were maybe a dozen families who attended that night. With so few people there, we won a lot of door prizes!

After five years in northern Virginia, I know that’s not the way we react to snow around here. We’re just not set up to handle wintery weather in the same way. While the Midwesterner in me still scoffs sometimes, I recognize that we do what we do here in order to make sure that people are safe.

In truth, the storm forecast for Saturday night and Sunday is supposed to bring a respectable amount of snow. Mrs. Ben Simon has already declared that Sunday is a “Yom Sheleg” for Religious School, a Snow Day, so no one has to drive on slippery, sloppy roads in the bad weather. However, before the day off from Religious School, please note that all of our Shabbat services on Friday and Saturday are still happening as scheduled, including 7:30pm tonight at Abiding Presence, Minyan Makers at 9:30am on Saturday morning at TBS, and the 10:00am Shabbat morning service at Gesher when Ava Wolrich will become Bat Mitzvah,

So come celebrate Shabbat with your TBS community, and then hunker down, bundle up, and enjoy the snow. Knowing that we’ll stay warm and safe at home through the storm feels like everybody gets a door prize, after all.

Shabbat Shalom.