Jewish Musings, Tuesday, September 10, 2024

[peachymom1]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[peachymom1]

Good morning! Today I want to share something that happened with my coworkers last week that made me feel really good.

It started off bad. One of my VPs called to say that lightning had struck the home of someone in our department and set it on fire. This coworker and his family got out in time and were not seriously injured, thank God, but the house suffered a good amount of damage, and they had to leave it temporarily. My VP said he and some others wanted to contribute money to help our coworker (I’ll just refer to him as DCW), and would I please send an email to our entire team (90+ people) and tell them what happened, in case anyone else wanted to help? We were thinking we’d get some restaurant gift cards for DCW and his family to use during their displacement.

So I did send out an email, though I knew a good number of people were taking vacation time last week, and I didn’t know if many people would respond. But in less than a minute, my phone started dinging with Venmo notices, and my credit union started sending me notices of Zelle deposits. In less than 24 hours, I collected over $1,200. I was deeply touched by everyone’s thoughtfulness and generosity.

I’m not the only one. I called DCW to tell him the amount, and I joked with him that he and his family would be able to eat a lot of sandwiches for a while. :+) He said he barely knew what to say, and then he emailed me a message and asked me to send it to everyone for him. In it, he gave more details about his house, he thanked everyone profusely, then said that if nobody minded, he would prefer to donate the money to a local charity that provides food to those in need, if Peachy wouldn’t mind handling the donation. Everyone thought it was a great idea.

So I did. DCW picked the charity, I made the contribution, then I checked our company’s intranet to see if they would match the donation to that charity. I’m proud to say that our company will match up to $1,000 for eligible charities, and they did contribute that amount. I got both receipts by email in less than ten minutes. So now a LOT of families will have food provided for them.

I just love how DCW answered an amazing act of kindness with a wonderful one of his own. I have never met this man, but I love him. I haven’t met everyone in our department either (though I’ve talked to all of them and supported them in some capacity or another over the years), but I think I love them too.

In this crazy world of chaos and incivility, I just wanted to share something heartwarming. Feel free to share some more!

[hollygail]

I'm in tears. My eyes started tearing up shortly before I got to the end of your post, Peachy. What a heart-warming story.

[gazelle18]

This is exactly what I needed to start my day. Thanks for sharing this lovely story. Kindness begets more kindness.

[louise]

Yes, wonderful start to my day - wondering how the end of my day will go - looking forwaard to that with trepidation.
Now to move on to another good start for my day - lower body workout. Trying to get back on track (story of my life).

[lee058]

Good afternoon everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Re today's topic: I have been busy, busy, busy --- and it was great to read the good story here.

I have my vax appointment set up, also one for a thyroid ultrasound; a time to pick up a political yard sign; a time for my next Scrabble match; a couple of doctor visits set up; and more! Whew! BTW, re the vax: DS and I are getting our Covid boosters and flu shots at the same time on the 19th. We generally get them with a week or so between them, but this time were told it was okay to get them at the same time. No problems making the appointments. We still have some congestion, but hopefully will be all better by the time we get the shots.

Have a peaceful rest of the day, Lee