Submitted by Rockdale Temple
K.K. Bene Israel/Rockdale Temple will begin its Bicentennial year on Saturday, September 30 at Tikkun Farm. The opening event will include tours of the farm, the opportunity to decorate and dedicate a pergola donated by the congregation to Tikkun Farm to become a sukkah, and a celebration of the Festival of Sukkot in the new sukkah, led by Rabbis Meredith Kahan and Erin Binder. Dinner and the kick off of Rockdale Temple’s 200th year will be followed by Havdalah. While planning the 200th Anniversary Sukkot celebration, the committee, chaired by Jane Garfield and Leslie Reiss, identified Tikkun Farm as the perfect location for the event. Reverend Mary Laymon, Executive Director and founder of Tikkun Farm, proposed that Rockdale members build and donate a pergola to be used during Sukkot as a sukkah, and then remain as a permanent structure at Tikkun Farm, benefitting all who work, visit, and volunteer there. Many Rockdale Temple and Tikkun Farm volunteers have helped build the pergola, under the direction of Rockdale member Bernie Reiss and Tikkun Farm’s Creation Care Director Jacob (Mel) Melvin.
Tikkun Farm is a nonprofit neighborhood farm in Mt. Healthy, engaged in the sacred work of restoring people, community, and creation by offering visitors, guests, and volunteers opportunities to engage in meaningful work and spiritual practices. Rockdale became connected with Tikkun Farm in 2017 through its connection with Heartfelt Tidbits, a local nonprofit that assists refugees and immigrants. Over the past six years, Rockdale Temple has sponsored a raised garden bed and provided volunteers. The former dairy farm was bought by Reverend Laymon in 2010 and received nonprofit status in 2015.
Reverend Laymon noted, “The name, Tikkun Farm was inspired by the Hebrew phrase, tikkun olam, to repair, restore, and heal the world.” At Tikkun Farm, she and her staff are healing and repairing the world and the land. The three-and-a-half acre urban farm provides fresh produce for the Mt. Healthy community and beyond, with neighbors helping neighbors in an area where there is food insecurity. Tikkun Farm also provides crockpot meal kits at a free market on the grounds. Some of the food grown there is used to feed the chickens, turkeys, geese, alpacas, piglets, and pot belly pigs on the farm. “We are so grateful to the Rockdale Temple community for the pergola which will be used by our community as a place to meditate and heal,” she said.
The Bicentennial Opening Event and Sukkot Celebration is generously sponsored by the Women of Rockdale In the Beginning Cookbook Endowment Fund. This is the first of a year-long series of events and programs to commemorate and celebrate the founding of Kehal Kodesh Bene Israel (Rockdale Temple) in January 1824.
