Mandelmans Honoree Film

2014 my wife went on the first trip to israel and that really began a you know a process like many other families as soon as michelle came back from that first trip of course i was being you know pressured to go on a trip myself i said you know this is all this learning and spirituality that's great for you i'm very busy with my practice this is if this is something that you're interested in that's fine for you it wasn't really for me and then i got invited to go to a project inspire lunch and learn and heard rabbi hyam samson speak and it was really just a mind-blowing experience you know we started infusing more religious practice and spirituality in in our everyday lives kiddish every friday night lighting candles every friday night making cola mission michelle got very involved with great big holla bake and then i took back that whole experience and brought it to our temple and taught about 30 women uh once a year for the last three years not only about making bread but about the spirituality of each ingredient and showing these women that there's more to judaism than they've ever experienced you know very involved with project inspire we started going to body and soul shabbat tones and then i went on the first men's trip in october of 2017 and that was you know everything that i thought it would be it was an incredible experience we made our house kosher in 2018. just so happens i went on a momentum trip in 2013 and i came home the night before the hanukkah party i remember myself sitting in the living room saying michelle you have to go on this trip it was made for you mark and i have had the opportunity to go to israel our wine whiskey and wisdoms that we have mark is always my javarusa i purposely match him up with me because i enjoy so much learning together with him and drinking a little whiskey with him michelle and mark you are not only our cousins you're our friends you are our role models um your role models to both the from community to the secular community to people in between to everybody you just look at you when i look at you i just smile and say both of you you're our role models and we're honored to share this evening with you and we're happy to be on the journey with you we're going at baby steps so we can achieve the um the long marathon of life and judaism thank you for all you do thank you for the learning that you do thank you for making torah relevant uh it's a beautiful message and we want to make sure that everyone hears it thank you