I hope all of you had the opportunity to attend, if only virtually, at least some of the activities for Rav Natan’s long-delayed formal installation weekend. It was amazing from start to finish. The only complaint I heard the entire weekend was, “Too much food!”. On Saturday morning, Rabbi Adam Kligfeld of Congregation Beth Ami in Los Angeles served as installer and gave a thought-provoking address in which he compared the ways in which the relationship between a congregation and its rabbi is like a marriage. Kudos to all who worked on putting the weekend together – the planning committee and our office staff.

I am delighted to be able to tell you that Rav Natan was finally able to get his R-1 visa. He was approved for it months ago, but the US has a bizarre system where he could not simply go over to the State Department in DC and have the visa added to his passport. No, he had to leave the country and visit an American embassy or consulate to get the visa – without which he could not have re-entered the country.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I went up to Bucks County, PA to be with my parents and sister, and attended Shabbat services at my parents’ congregation up there. (They put me to work as sh’liach tzibbur up there as well.) Because Chanukah came so early this year, my family discovered that homemade cranberry sauce is even better than applesauce on latkes. I think we’ve started a new tradition.

Just before I started to write this, I heard that our preschool was awarded a major grant from the State of Virginia. Mazal tov to our preschool director, Maggie Heidema!