Click here to read more about TBT on the Oregon Jewish Life website.

 

On a late Sunday afternoon in May, members of TBT gathered in a sun-filled room to celebrate our temple's 10 ^th anniversary. It was a fun, festive and informative event. We learned how our temple was formed and realized how much we owe to our founding members... their vision is the foundation for the wonderful synagogue we share today. A decade has passed since their inspired work and here we are- thankful as always for the opportunity to connect with each other.

The crow is wearing a neck muffler and matching leg warmers. The little boy in a red and white striped t-shirt has a band aid on his arm, huge golden wings on his back, and a tiny halo over his curly hair. The rooster sports a golden tooth and sprinkles in his comb. The baker is wearily leaning over her tray of bagels.

"Funky," is how Shirley Hudson describes her art. "Goofy, stylized. Almost cartoonish."

But there's nothing goofy about how the newish TBT member has for 18 years perfected her preferred technique: reverse painting on glass and Plexiglas. "It's a challenge," she says. "A long process. You have to start with a really good sketch, and do a lot of planning, before you even get to the paint. Then you have to paint backwards."

Not simply left-to-right backwards. Applying oils or acrylics to the back of a clear panel, she first applies the glints, as in eyes and highlights, as in hair, and proceeds from there, adding layers on, in the opposite order of a "regular" painting.

The results are luminous, decorative, whimsical pieces that are hung on walls . "Not in a window," she says. On most, I paint a layer of black on the back. It doesn't work to look through and see the brushstrokes."   Quite a turn from her careers as a paralegal and as co-owner of a winery.

Shirley and her husband Gene Hudson are beginning their fifth summer in Bend. When asked how long they've been together, Gene replies "25"; Shirley shoots him a look and says, "It's 28."

In the not-summers, they live in Ft. Lauderdale, where they lived on a boat for 15 years. And they spend several weeks during the "shoulder seasons" in their former home in Santa Cruz, California.

Gene, who is retired from his law practice, next got involved in building, and he still runs a property business from home, with Shirley. Five days a week, he does Pilates and other physical training.

Why do they belong to TBT? "I like Jews!" says Gene. "They're smart, and funny."  Neither he nor Shirley identifies as "religious," and she says he is the Jewish one, yet they enjoy the social activities. Shirley just signed up for both the Finance and the Social action committees, and Gene works on the food kitchen efforts.

Gene is an art collector, a self-described connoisseur. His aesthetic: "If it isn't red, it's dead." And his philosophy: "A good piece of art has to have movement, mystery, and . . . What's the other thing, Shirley?'   "Color," she says. 

Her art having it all, Shirley Hudson is Gene's favorite artist.

You can view her crow, women with "inner goofiness," and even a pirate skeleton surfing, at  kelihudsonart.com.

 

Values in Action - Tikkun Middot

 

July - joy/play

August - choice points

 

Summer vacation is upon us...I hope everyone is taking advantage of school breaks, casual summer work schedules, longer sunnier days, and our proximity to so many accessible entry points to the beauty of the landscapes of the American west!

 

Jewish values don't go on holiday...though, in honor of summer vacation, our Jewish value for reflection and action during the month of July is JOY and FUN!  This is no joke. The Chasidim aren't the only Jewish intellectuals who contemplated joy and fun. The Lithuanian rabbinical establishment of the late 1700's and early 1800's, who created Mussar-the study and practice of integrating Jewish values into daily living, also had a great deal to say about the importance of cultivating joy in our lives here and now. Even the ancient rabbis demonstrated concern that we engage in activities that generate joy.

 

On Shabbat we are instructed to eat expensive meat and drink wine. We decorate our Sabbath table with candles and tablecloth, perhaps fresh-cut flowers. Chidur mitzvah is the rabbinic idiom for decorating the mitzvah, that is making it fun and pleasing to engage in the ritual with fancy candlesticks and finer dining than that with which we would indulge ourselves during the work week.

 

On Passover, even the poorest Jews are required to drink wine. It is the responsibility of the community to make sure even those who cannot afford to buy wine have just enough for four glasses per person on Passover's first evening. On the night we celebrate our redemption from Egypt, each and every one of us is called to feel the joy of a prince or princess who drinks wine like we might drink water.

 

During Purim, we are called upon to get drunk, so drunk we can no longer distinguish between Mordecai and Haman. Lately these commandments to drink to excess bother me when I think about those in our community whose sobriety I want to support on account of addictions that impair their quality of life. I should note that I don't believe the ritual is drunkenness for the sake of drunkenness, or even that actually engaging in libations are necessary. But rather, I think it is a call to let loose enough to laugh and have fun in the face of real life problems. On Purim we laugh at problems that should make us cry: antisemitism, corrupt governance, and patriarchal sexual objectification of women.

 

It is no joke to take having fun, cultivating and increasing joy, seriously as a Jewish value. It is my hope and prayer that everybody associated with our community has a summer filled with fleeting moments of pure joy for the miracle of life, for the strength and endurance so many exhibit in life.  It is my hope and prayer that we appreciate the beauty of our landscape and find fun exploring its rivers, lakes, mountains and deserts along trails in and out of Central Oregon. Most of all...it is my hope and prayer that we all take advantage of lighter summer schedules and spend quality time with family and friends, deepening relationships with shared experience and memories of laughter and play.

 

--Ann Rosenfield & Sheila Luber, Co-Presidents