Sitting with people of all faiths in Huntsville’s Temple B’nai Sholom Sunday night was a good way to begin Thanksgiving week.

Watching “One Table” volunteers feed a huge crowd Monday in Big Spring Park kept the good feeling alive.

We always need gratitude and hope, but both were especially welcome for me after Saturday’s huge funeral for longtime Madison County Sheriff Blake Dorning. Dorning, a friend, died far too young of cancer and “many” is the word for the people he helped and the people who came.

“United As One” was also the theme of Saturday night’s interfaith Thanksgiving service at the historic old temple. After welcomes by Rabbi P.J. Schwartz and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, we heard Imam Ragab Abdelmoneim of the Huntsville Islamic Center read from the Quran.

“We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another,” Abdelmoneim read.