Blogroll | Congregation Darchei Noam

My early memories of Darchei Noam are bound with the sense of intimacy within the new congregation. Most of the ‎members had young children, and a majority of those had their roots in other communities in Canada and the United ‎States. In Canada, Winnipeg, Montreal, and the east coast come to mind, and we were also blessed with members from ‎the USA. People formed social friendships that were more like the relationships within extended families. Women nursed ‎their babies in the back of the service and the kids stayed with us in the service and played on the floor. We were an ‎itinerant congregation, so that siddurs and the Torah all had to be packed up, along with juice and cookies for the children, ‎in someone’s car who could drive it to the next Shabbat service. We were fortunate when the High Holidays occurred on a ‎weekend so that we could rent a high school auditorium. But mostly I remember our earnest conversations during Kiddush ‎where we all expressed with passion our opinion on the parsha or on community issues. Later, when one of the kids ‎became bat/bar mitzvah, we all brought along food for a special Kiddush -- no catering in those days.‎

I love the shul now, but I miss the intimacy of our informal beginnings.  ‎