How the Giving Tree of Temple Beth El Came to Be
by Sandi Altner
Part of the work I am doing with Rabbi Singer involves searching through old newspaper archives to learn more about his early days at Temple Beth El and how the congregation grew.
I was delighted to find a 1995 column in the Boca Raton News written by Rabbi Singer in which he talks about prayer and the very first Christmas Eve delivery of gifts by The Giving Tree. The full transcript is included below.
The Giving Tree of Temple Beth El is a well-recognized charity in Boca Raton that involves hundred of volunteers and distributes support along with thousands of gifts to people in our community all year round. Rabbi Singer’s wife, Myra Singer z”l, was the driving force behind this program which had very small beginnings. You can learn more about the work of the Giving Tree by tapping here to get to their website.
It all started with Myra wanting to help make Christmas joyous for families she had learned of that were having a tough time making ends meet.
I first interviewed Myra about this work in 2005. She explained that it was a very direct response to a clear need.
“We wanted to make sure these families had traditional foods to celebrate Christmas, and that each of the children would get something special that they truly wanted and the only way to do that was to ask them to tell us,” she told me. “Then we reached out to our friends and our Temple Beth El families and asked them to take a leaf from the Giving Tree which has all of the information, and then go shopping.”
One family goes shopping for another. Simple in concept. Powerful in results.
I joined the ranks of the volunteers in 2005, when Rabbi Singer called me to tell me about the work Myra was doing.
What a welcoming crew of dedicated “elves” I found working alongside Myra to make Christmas sweeter for so many children. With a long career in television news behind me, my contribution was to tell the story. This is the video I made in 2005. Rabbi Singer’s recollection of the first Giving Tree Christmas Delivery in 1994 follows below.
In this article published in Boca Raton News on February 8, 1995, Rabbi Merle E. Singer shares his thoughts on prayer.
He also tells of an extraordinary experience on Christmas Eve, 1994 where the Giving Tree celebrated the joy of giving on their first Christmas Eve delivery.
The full article is transcribed below.
To learn more about The Giving Tree, please see their website here. Your donations to this very worthy organization would be greatly apreciated. https://thegivingtreeboca.org/
Boca Raton News, Feb. 8, 1995
Prayer, Ritual and You
by Merle Singer
Prayer is difficult for different people in different ways. There are those who say, "I don't know how to pray. "As we approach the year 2000, there is increasing awareness of the failures of the age of science and reason which marked the 20th century. Not that we want to abandon reason and scientific advances… Quite the contrary, the mood of today is that science alone cannot solve moral and ethical dilemmas, science needs a partner to be found in the spiritual quest of men and women.
Today, we hear much discussion about the need for prayer. Unfortunately, too much of the time the discussion focuses upon bringing prayer into our public schools. Let's leave aside those who try to politicize prayer and ask ourselves what prayer and spiritual connection can do for us. What is prayer? What does it do? Who is out there listening to our words of prayer?
"Words of prayer are all around us… Like the air we breathe. "But, prayer is often difficult to articulate. Words sometimes get in our way. "Our past has taught us words but we cannot always pray the words… They often may not speak for us, nor might we understand them.”
In our churches and synagogues our prayer books are filled with meditation and ritual, but what are the words supposed to mean, why are they chosen and what is expected to happen after reading or reciting them? Each week as I prepare to lead Shabbat services, I sit quietly in my study reading the words and looking for their meeting. I find that the words must have meaning and the meaning must direct me, calmly, move me or challenge me in someway. Otherwise, they are just words.
When we look at a prayer book, we wonder how we could possibly write words such as these. We fail to realize that those words were written and rewritten over centuries by countless editors and critics. And, the prayers are not universally inspiring…
To be honest with you, sometimes the words do nothing for me and I am satisfied if the rhythms and alliteration evoke a sense of calm or connectedness within me the bottom line is that prayer books were written to address some important basic needs: the need for conformity and consistency, and the need to help persons who do not feel they have the words necessary to express themselves in prayer.
Prayer is one path to a sense of personal and community meaning. When we feel a sense of isolation and loneliness, prayer is an avenue toward personal wholeness and community connectedness. For one who has a very personal sense of relationship with God, prayer is a communication of gratitude, pain…and of longing and loving.
For one who is not sure of such a relationship, prayer is a reaching out and a reaching deeply inward to the most responsible self. Prayer is saying, “AH, HELP ME, THANK YOU, AND I NEED.” Prayer, it has been said, is as natural as “breathing in and breathing out!”
I would like to conclude with a confession: I chose to write about prayer because of what happened to some of us on Christmas Eve. A call was put for Christmas gifts and holiday dinners for the neediest families in Boca Raton. Thanks to some very special people, hundreds of gifts were wrapped and about 40 dinners were prepared for Christmas Eve delivery. There we were. A few Christian and some Jewish families, playing Santa Claus late at night. It was close to midnight when we knocked on the door of our last home. An elderly lady ill with cancer and guardian to two grandchildren, opened the door for us.
I carefully put her Christmas dinner in her kitchen, as one of our group handed her a specially wrapped present and asked her to open it. Her weak and fragile hands pulled at the paper until she uncovered a book. It was a Bible with her name embossed on it. She didn't even look at her name… She wept. "Thank you, thank you, I only have pieces of a Bible, now I can read and pray God's word… Thank you.” She cried as she folded herself in the arms of the gift giver. Her tears and my tears are a precious prayer I share with you.
Prayer is the song of the soul… Let us sing hours with all our heart and soul. Let us sing with sincerity and joy. Let us sing with our friends and our families. Sing with our congregation and with all good people who will be our spiritual partners in our reaching for God in ourselves and in the world.
—Rabbi Merle E. Singer is the spiritual leader at Temple Beth El.
Sandi Altner is an author and personal historian who works with Rabbi Singer to collect and share his stories, ideas, and videos for this website.