Congregation Beth Israel North Adams

Help CBI thrive

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Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

It scarcely seems possible, but the Days of Awe are right around the corner. On August 28 we’ll officially enter into the high holiday season with Selichot, our annual service of forgiveness prayers to stir the soul, high holiday melodies to open the heart, and an opportunity to write down some of the places where we’ve missed the mark in the last year — a first step toward letting them go and committing to change. That service will be offered both onsite and online; if you’re joining us onsite, please wear a mask (we’ll be in the building, socially distanced, with doors and windows open.)

Preparing for this year’s Days of Awe has been unlike any other year — even last year. Last year, it was clear that the correct course of action was to shelter-in-place and make our homes holy. This year has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, from the cresting of hope when vaccinations became available to the emotional plummet when the Delta variant reached our community. The CBI Board and I spent all summer planning for three possibilities simultaneously; consulting with the URJ and with other congregations both locally and regionally; discussing risks with medical professionals; and always circling back to to our sacred path of mitzvot and to the Jewish values that guide us. I believe that our current plan will allow us both to protect the vulnerable and to give those who wish to be onsite an opportunity to do so… and I’m mindful that if the situation worsens in the coming weeks, we may need to pivot again. 

Last year when the Days of Awe were over, you told us that our Zoom services helped you feel connected; that our time together on Zoom felt real; that you appreciated the interweaving of ancient words and modern technology; that you were moved by the opportunity to see each other on Zoom; that you felt like you were part of a community even though we weren’t all in the same room. I hope and pray that this year will be equally uplifting. I’m excited to share some new things with you — including new music to carry us through the season, hopefully some piano accompaniment on Yom Kippur morning thanks to one of our new members, and a brand-new Jonah play for Yom Kippur afternoon. And I’m also looking forward to continuing our longstanding traditions, the words and melodies and modes of prayer that have sustained us for generations.

Hopefully if you wish to attend a service onsite during the holidays, you’ve already filled out our online registration form and indicated which service you would most want to attend onsite. That registration form will close at the end of the day on August 25 so that we can turn to figuring out how to (hopefully) enable each member who wishes to be onsite to attend one of their top-ranked services onsite. Of course, all of our offerings will be open to you online throughout the season. 

We’re also preparing now for the coming Hebrew school year, which is slated to be onsite and masked just like local schools. We’re planning a series of monthly Family Programs, from an apple orchard outing in September to midwinter Saturday afternoon pajama parties with storytime and havdalah. If there is interest, we can reconvene our monthly Shabbat Zoom dinners to stay connected over the winter. And of course we will continue to offer Shabbat services and festival observances all year long, as always.

Your donations make all of this possible. We can’t operate on revenue from dues alone; that revenue does not fully support the work of our synagogue. Your contributions make up the difference and allow us to do all of the things we do, including offering memberships to those who cannot afford to pay full dues. In Torah we read that each Israelite gave a half-shekel to support the spiritual life of the community. We also read that many Israelites gave a t’rumah offering, a freewill offering from the heart over and above the half-shekel that everyone was obligated to provide. Regardless of amount, supporting spiritual community is a Jewish obligation. Giving is a religious act, and our sages teach that when we give tzedakah, we prime the pump of blessing to flow into the world.

Please support CBI.

Thank you.

Thank you for being a part of our synagogue community. Thank you for gathering with us, learning with us, and praying with us. (Please encourage farflung friends and family to join our email list so that they can join us for Zoom Days of Awe!) And thank you for your support of the synagogue of northern Berkshire county. Please give as you are able. We need your support especially in these difficult pandemic times. The only donation that’s too small is none at all.

Looking forward to being with you soon during the Days of Awe. May the rest of this month of Elul open our hearts and souls to transformation, and may the spiritual updraft of the holidays lift us ever higher.

Blessings to all —

Rabbi Rachel 

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Update from the CBI Board about the Days of Awe

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Dear Congregation Beth Israel Members and Friends,

The CBI Board and Rabbi just met to discuss current COVID rates in our constituent towns and across the county, and to re-evaluate our high holiday plan in light of current realities. As of now, our plan for the Days of Awe is as follows: 

  1. We will be holding hybrid / multi-access services, limiting capacity to ~45 so that pods can be 6 feet apart. Masks are required, with no exceptions. As a reminder, our erev Rosh Hashanah offering will be a Rosh Hashanah seder, held online only; here’s a list of items to have on hand for that digital community experience.
  2. All onsite participants over the age of 12 must be vaccinated. Parents who want to bring unvaccinated children (under the age of 12) with them into the service may do so, as long as the children remain masked and socially distanced, and as long as they are pre-registered for a seat or can sit on a parent’s lap. We will not require proof of vaccination; we trust our members to be truthful.  We will check people off the registration list at the door so that we can facilitate contract tracing in the event of a COVID diagnosis. 
  3. Childrens’ services will be held outdoors at 10am on Rosh Hashanah morning 1 and on Yom Kippur morning, with masks and social distancing. Please register with the CBI Office if you are bringing child/ren to the childrens’ service so we know how many kids to expect. (If there is mist or light rain, bring an umbrella or rain jacket to childrens’ services! If the weather is truly inclement, we will not be able to hold childrens’ services — in that case we will post on the CBI Facebook that morning to let everyone know.) 
  4. All are welcome to join us online in the synagogue Zoom room. We will offer a robust Zoom option so that those participating online can fully take part in our high holiday experience. This allows us to welcome those who are immunocompromised, those who are at greater medical risk, and those who are homebound to participate in our Days of Awe — as well as those who aren’t on the onsite list for any given service. 

Our guiding Jewish values in this decision are pikuach nefesh (saving life) and kol Yisrael arevim zah bazeh (all of us are responsible for each other; we are responsible for our community together.) Our job, as Rabbi and Board, is to serve this community and to keep this community safe. This is our best sense of how to live up to those values.

Now that we have evaluated recent local COVID levels and reached this plan, we will work on figuring out who can come to each service onsite, based on your responses to our registration form (sent in July and in every weekly announcements email since.) If you have not yet responded, please do so by August 25. Registering and ranking your preferred services is the only way to get on the registration list for onsite services. We may not be able to give everyone their first choice. We will do our best. We are compiling registration lists now for each service, and we will be in touch to share those lists so you know which service(s), if any, you will be attending onsite.

Some have asked why we’re not renting a tent. When we explored that option early in the summer, we learned that in order to proceed with a tent, we would need to reserve and pay for one immediately. The expense would be large, and we would still be limited in space / configuration because of the layout of our available land. At that time, the Delta variant had not reached us. Based on these factors, and based on the results from our survey of the membership about what people wanted, we made the decision then to forego the tent. 

This is our current plan, crafted with our deepest hopes for a sweet and meaningful holiday season. And, as we’ve learned in the past year, we need to be prepared to pivot if the situation shifts. Please continue to keep an eye out for communications from CBI. If the COVID situation worsens, we will move to offering all-digital services as we did last year.  

Wishing you blessings as we approach the Days of Awe,

The CBI Board of Directors 

(Chris Kelly, President; Natalie Matus, Vice-President; Michael Smith, Treasurer;  Paulette Wein, Clerk; Joe Apkin, David Lane, Darlene Radin, and Ben Rudin) 

and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

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Pollinator Garden – Help Us Build!

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There is nothing superfluous in the universe. Even flies, gnats, and mosquitoes are part of creation and, as such, serve a divinely-appointed purpose.

— Bereshit Rabbah
A pollinator garden. Ours won’t look exactly like this, at least not at first, but this is the idea.

We’re Starting a Pollinator Garden!

CBI is starting a pollinator garden! (More on that below.) The first step is building a few raised beds, and we could use your help.

If you have extra lumber (2x4s of any length, untreated) sitting in your garage, we’d love to make good use of it. You can drop off donations at CBI. If you’d like to help with building or planting (or tending the garden once it’s built), please contact Caleb at caleb.wolfsonseeley at gmail dot com.  Thanks!

What’s a Pollinator Garden?

A pollinator garden is a garden designed to support and maintain pollinators (butterflies, bees, etc) by supplying food in the form of pollen and nectar that will ensure that these important animals stay in the area to keep pollinating things. A pollinator garden benefits our ecosystem while also beautifying our grounds. Ours will begin with one bed of herbs, and one bed of flowers — some with Torah connections! — and some of the aromatics will become part of havdalah at CBI in years to come.

Why a Pollinator Garden?

This garden will enable us to care for the environment at CBI, as an expression of the Jewish value of bal tashchit, “do not destroy [the natural world]”; to provide sustenance for pollinators, such as butterflies and bees, with awareness that these are an essential part of our ecosystem; to create more natural habitat on our land, remembering God’s commandment l’avda u’l’shamrah, “to till and tend” the Garden of Eden; and to bring our community together on our beautiful grounds.

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Going the extra mile: a d’varling for Naso

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When a person commits any wrong toward a fellow human being, thus breaking faith with YHVH, and that person realizes their guilt, that person must confess the wrong that he has done. They shall make restitution in the principal amount and add one-fifth to it, giving it to the one whom they have wronged. (Numbers 5:6-7)

Early in this week’s Torah portion, Naso, comes this injunction. The first thing that jumped out at me this year is that when a person wrongs another person, they are “breaking faith with God.” What commitment did we make to God that we break when we wrong each other? 

Last weekend we stood at Sinai and received Torah anew, and Torah is full of ethical instructions about how to act justly and with compassion. That’s the promise we made to God: we’ll keep the mitzvot. When we harm each other, we fail to live up to that promise.

So this week Torah teaches: when we realize we’ve wronged someone, there are two steps we need to take. First, we admit the wrong. Then we make restitution — and then some. If I wronged you fiscally, I need to repay the money and add an additional one-fifth. If I harmed you in some other way, I need to go the extra mile to repair the damage I’ve done.

This week I learned that all of the people of color on Williamstown’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity committee are stepping down because they are so disheartened. This week I learned that all of the people of color on Williamstown’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity committee are stepping down because they are so disheartened. [Edited to add: I misspoke. Jeff Johnson will remain, though as an ex officio member. But five people of color are stepping down.]

Some of them received threats to their lives. Others received public attacks on their character. The questions they bring to the table — How inclusive are we? How welcoming? How safe and supportive? — are for all of us to answer together, but a lot of us — me included — didn’t participate or offer active support. 

And I thought: I know what it’s like to be Jewish in a time of rising antisemitism. As Jews, we get exhausted naming and fighting antisemitism, especially if it feels like no one else notices or cares. When others pick up some of that load, their allyship helps us in all kinds of ways. As this recent volume attests, allyship is holy work. I saw the news about resignations from the DIRE committee, and I realized: I’ve fallen down on the job of being an ally to people of color in my community.

I didn’t mean to cause harm. I just… wasn’t paying attention. I hadn’t really thought much about how serving on that committee could be traumatic for people of color, because they’re always teaching the town’s white community what we don’t know about racial injustice. And we don’t always want to hear it. Sometimes we might be actively resistant to hearing about experiences of racism in our town. And sometimes we’re passively resistant, and we just don’t pay attention. 

That kind of tuning out is a luxury I have as a person with white skin. It’s like the way a lot of Christians don’t notice antisemitism because it’s not directed at them. But when we treat racial justice as something we can choose either to notice or to ignore, that itself inscribes some harm. My inaction and inattention are part of the problem. I need to make this right, and this week’s Torah portion reminds me that really repairing damage requires me to go the extra mile.

I’m still figuring out what that means for me in practical terms. Paying more attention to town government. Using my voice as a clergyperson to speak up for those who are marginalized or have experienced injustice, especially people of color. Writing more letters to the selectboard, maybe. Educating myself (an essential component of the work of allyship.) Uplifting the voices and the needs of people of color in my town. (If you have suggestions, I welcome them.)

Though the DIRE resignations are heavy on my mind and heart this week, this isn’t just a Williamstown problem. This is work we all need to do, in all of the communities where we live. 

Later in this week’s Torah portion, God instructs Moses to tell Aaron to offer certain words to the people. This is the origin of the words I say to my child every Friday night as Shabbat begins, the words I say to every b-mitzvah kid who stands on our bimah:

May God bless you and keep you!
May God’s presence shine before you and be gracious to you!
May God’s presence always be before you, and bring you peace.

The path our tradition offers us toward blessing and radiance and grace and peace is following the mitzvot. And that includes acting ethically, and protecting the vulnerable, and repairing what’s broken. It includes recognizing and confessing our missteps, and making restitution and then some.

So here’s my blessing for us this morning:

May we be strengthened in the holy work of allyship.
When we fall short, may we do what we can to bring repair.
When we can do that, we’ll feel God’s presence before us and within us and around us and between us. And then every place will be a holy place.

And let us say: amen.

This is Rabbi Rachel’s d’varling from Shabbat morning services this week (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)

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A message from Rabbi Rachel – As we approach hybrid…

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1QBkfo-M8I&w=560&h=315]

If you can’t see the embedded video, above, it’s here on YouTube. You can also read the text of the video below.

Dear CBI Community,

As we look toward hopefully offering hybrid services this summer, I’m here to share some of the challenges and opportunities involved in shifting from all-digital offerings to hybrid ones. Of course there’s the challenge of staying on top of changing CDC guidance! But aside from the medical, there are also practical, spiritual, and communal impacts to how we make that shift.

I’m part of two clergy groups that arose at the start of the pandemic. One consists of about 3000 Jewish clergy from across the denominations. The other is for clergy of all faith traditions, and has 7500 members. In both of these groups, we share questions, resources, and emerging best practices. What we’ve been doing at CBI draws on the cumulative wisdom of all of these folks. 

When I lead prayer over Zoom, I screenshare slides that feature images and artwork and sometimes even video clips alongside the words of our prayers… and at strategic moments in the service, there’s a slide that reminds me to stop the screenshare so that we can all see each other’s faces, wave to each other, and remember that we’re connected in community together.

The slide that reminds me to stop the screenshare so we can see each other.

Some of us use the chat function in Zoom to connect with each other during services, chatting with each other via text, or sending a chat message to the whole room (for instance, if I ask people to share a blessing that they’re thankful for this week, or when I ask for names for healing.) Sometimes I call on people to lead a prayer from the place where they are.

One of the ways we’ve sought to sustain our community during the pandemic is through making our Zoom offerings as interactive as possible. Because of that interactivity, members and friends of CBI who live elsewhere or have moved away can join us not only in prayer but in seeing each others’ faces, texting each other messages, and being connected across distance. 

As we approach the next phase of the pandemic and the return to some in-person prayer, one of the biggest questions is: how can we make services most meaningful and participatory both for the “Roomies” (physically present) and the “Zoomies” (participating remotely)? Is there a way to do so that truly serves both of these constituencies, and that “works” for both groups at once?

Once we’re back at the shul, it’s easy to share a service via Zoom / Facebook Live — but that’s a broadcast paradigm, not an interactive one. Those who are remote can’t participate as fully, and can’t share their faces or voices with each other or with those in the room. That’s how we used to stream high holidays. But it’s not interactive, unlike what we’ve done over this pandemic year.

Across the denominations, we’re all grappling with how the pandemic has changed how we do Jewish and how we constitute community. We’ve spent more than a year “making a minyan” from afar, spanning from North Adams to Florida to California. The tenth member of our minyan might be in another time zone! That changes our felt sense of what it means to be together. 

It’s a paradigm shift for Jewish life everywhere. And we may not wholly understand its impacts until we can look back on this moment, five or ten or fifteen years from now. One thing that is clear is that this new way of constituting and connecting community opens doors for those who are disabled or homebound, and we need to figure out how to keep those doors open.

Some communities are now installing large screens in their sanctuaries, one to show the digital prayer materials (also shared over Zoom) and another to show the grid of all the faces participating on Zoom, so that those on Zoom can see who’s in the sanctuary and vice versa. Some schools operate that way now, and businesses too. Of course, that’s a major investment.

We don’t yet have answers on how best to do this. (As a recent essay from the Union for Reform Judaism points out, no one does — and they have wise thoughts on why we should be thinking in terms of “multi-access” offerings, not just “hybrid” ones.)  But these are some of the questions that clergy across the denominations and across faith traditions are grappling with.

I know you’re probably eager to know what we’re going to do for the Days of Awe. I am too! The Board is exploring everything from tent rental, to screen(s) in the sanctuary, to whether it’s safe for people who are vaccinated and masked to sing together, to what’s best for our unvaccinated children and their families. Thanks to all who filled out our survey: your answers help us plan.

If you have thoughts about going forward, I welcome them. Please know that I always want to hear from you about what you want and need, or about whatever’s on your mind and heart.

For now, I wish you every blessing during this final week of the Omer, and I hope to see you at Shabbat services (at 10:30 ET this week!) and at Shavuot, starting 7:30pm on Sunday May 16. 

Tradition says that the soul of every Jew who ever was and ever will be were all mystically together at Sinai to receive Torah. That’s what we’ll celebrate on Sunday night: the continuing revelation of Torah, and our togetherness across time and space. We’ll begin with evening services and Yizkor, and then enjoy diverse learning offerings until midnight.

See you at Sinai… and on Zoom at CBI!

Join us for Shavuot!
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Perseverance and the portable ark

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“וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃ / Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them.” (Ex. 25:8 – in this week’s Torah portion, T’rumah.)  

The word mishkan (the portable dwelling-place for God) shares a root with the word Shechinah, the divine Presence. We build sacred space so God will dwell in us. I talk about this verse every year, because I love it. But this year, what jumps out at me is its juxtaposition with what follows.

Immediately after this verse, Torah tells us to make an ark to hold the tablets of the covenant. Cover it with gold. Put rings on the sides, and poles through the rings. And keep it that way. The ark over which the divine Presence would rest needed to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Wherever the people go, holy words and presence go with them — which is to say, with us. As beautiful as the mishkan was (as beautiful as our beloved shul building is) God’s presence doesn’t live there. God’s presence goes with us. Our texts and traditions go with us. Holiness goes with us.

Our ancient ancestors needed perseverance to make their way through the wilderness. I imagine that their perseverance was fueled, in part, by this verse and its assurance that God goes with us wherever we go.

After the Temple fell, our sages called the Shabbat table a mikdash me-at, a small sanctuary. I keep returning to that image during this COVID time. God’s presence is with us at our Shabbes tables tonight. God’s presence is with us when we bless and light candles together-apart, when we bless and break bread together-apart, when we daven together-apart.

The poles were kept in the rings of the ark to teach us that the life of the spirit goes with us wherever we go. God goes with us wherever we go. Holiness goes with us wherever we go. And like our ancient ancestors, we need perseverance to get us through.

Yesterday NASA landed a new robotic rover on Mars, named — as you probably know — Perseverance. Some of you may have watched on the news or online as NASA engineers got word that the rover had safely landed, and celebrated from afar.

I read in the Washington Post earlier this week that “Hitting the 4.8-mile-wide landing site targeted by NASA after a journey of 300 million miles is akin to throwing a dart from the White House and scoring a bull’s eye in Dallas.” It’s honestly incredible.

As is being able to see images from our neighbor planet in realtime. As is the dream that the science this little robot will do — sampling regolith and soil, testing for microbes — will bring us one step closer to someday landing human beings on Mars.

I hope I’m around to celebrate that day — and to see how Judaism will evolve once it becomes interplanetary! Will Jews on Mars turn toward Earth to pray, the way we now orient toward Jerusalem? How will we navigate the fact that a Martian “day” is different from an earth day in calculating Shabbat?

(Although I haven’t researched this, my instinct is to say that Shabbat should be every seventh day, local time, even if that means it’s not coterminous with Shabbat on earth. But that’s another conversation.)

I’m confident that when there are Jews on Mars, we’ll figure out how to build Jewish there…. and that we’ll find this week’s Torah portion resonant when we do.

Because God’s presence is with us when we shelter in place at home now. And God’s presence will go with human beings to Mars someday. And the same spirit that enlivens our Shabbes tables here will enliven us there.

Holiness and hope aren’t geographically limited. They go where we go. And the perseverance that got us through the wilderness is the same perseverance that will take us to the stars.

The poles stayed in the rings on the handles of the ark because God goes with us wherever we go.

As we approach one year since our awareness of the pandemic began, there’s something poignant about the name of this little rover. Perseverance is the quality we need to reach that dream of human beings on Mars.

It’s the quality we need to mitigate climate change and ensure safety and care for our fellow human beings — especially in times of crisis like Texas is experiencing now. And it’s the quality we need to make it to the other side of this global pandemic.

The Hebrew word for Perseverance is הַתמָדָה, which contains within it the root t/m/d, always. As in the ner tamid, the eternal light kept burning in the mishkan, the eternal light that burns now in synagogues around the world.

The ner tamid is a perennial reminder of divine Presence, and holiness, and hope burning bright. The ner tamid perseveres, as our hope perseveres, as our life of the spirit perseveres.

May we take hope and strength from the Mars rover Perseverance. May we find our own perseverance strengthened as we approach the second year of this pandemic. And may we feel the flame of hope burning bright within our hearts — the holy sanctuaries where God’s presence dwells.

This is the d’varling that R. Rachel offered at Shabbat services this evening (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)

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A message from Rabbi Rachel

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Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

It is rare to know that we are living through a moment of genuine historical significance. To recognize that something unfolding around us will be chronicled in books as a turning point of some kind, though we can’t yet know where this turn will lead. But here we are. We will not soon forget the sight of an angry mob, incited by falsehoods, storming the nation’s Capitol.

When Congress re-convened last night, Senator Chuck Schumer spoke about the desecration of our temple of democracy. His use of that metaphor evoked our Chanukah story about our holy temple, first desecrated and then rededicated for sacred use. And I remembered again Chanukah’s message of light in the darkness, and the steadfast hope that can carry us through. 

I know that many of us are feeling stunned, horrified, and even frightened by what just happened in Washington DC. If that’s you, know that you are not alone. Know, also, that I am holding each member of our extended community in my prayers and in my heart, and that I am here to listen if you need an ear and to pray with you if that would bring you comfort.

When the dust clears, our task will be the same as it ever was. As Representative John Lewis z”l (of blessed memory) taught, democracy is not a state, it’s an act — an action, a choice, something we do. That teaching feels very Jewish to me. After all, Torah exhorts us to care for the vulnerable, to love the stranger, and to pursue justice: all actions, all things that we do. 

Democracy is an action. Love is an action. Justice is an action. Standing up for truth is an action. Building community is an action. These are our work, now as ever. This moment invites all of us to recommit ourselves to those holy tasks. And it invites us to create and strengthen our community by reaching out to each other in these uncertain and overwhelming times. 

One thing we don’t have to do is stay glued to 24/7 news coverage. Please take care of yourself. I recommend sticking with trusted media sources and giving yourself permission to turn away if the news is causing harmful anxiety. What happened yesterday is horrifying… and we are safe here, and I hope and pray that our democracy will emerge from this stronger than ever.

May the coming Shabbat bring nourishment to our souls and balm to our weary hearts. May we take comfort in our connections with each other. And may we be inspired to work toward healing for our precious democracy, so that our nation may continue to grow toward the promises inherent in its founding, promises of human dignity and justice for all.

With blessings,

Rabbi Rachel

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Update: on Pandemic and Gathering

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Guidelines

Dear All,

We hope this note finds you as well as any of us can be in these pandemic times. Several of you have asked why CBI’s doors are not yet “open,” given that the viral load in MA is currently relatively low. The short answer is: because pikuach nefesh, preserving life, is a paramount Jewish value. We are keeping our offerings digital in order to keep each other safe.

In this moment, CBI is still offering all of our services (Shabbat and holidays) and classes via Zoom. The same is true of most synagogues around the nation. Current science shows that singing, even outdoors and masked, spreads viral particles and is not safe. We’ve also learned in recent months that being indoors with others where air is recirculated is especially dangerous.

We have watched as houses of worship around the nation have “reopened” for in-person gatherings… and then been obligated to close again because of covid-19. We do not want the virus to spread in our synagogue community. We’re also aware that the virus is especially dangerous to elders, to the immunocompromised, and to people with preexisting conditions.

For these reasons, as much as we miss being together in person, as of now our discernment continues to be that it’s better to gather digitally for prayer, holidays, and learning. That’s how we can do our part to limit the spread of the virus, and it is how we can keep each other safe in accordance with the core Jewish value of preserving and protecting life.

We are in regular contact with the URJ, with other synagogues in the county, and with clergy around the nation, and we will continue to learn everything we can about how to safely steward CBI through this. These are extraordinarily difficult times, and they ask us to rise to the occasion of taking care of each other by — for now — continuing to stay physically apart.

And: we hear that there is a desire to be together in person outdoors while we can safely do so. We are planning an outdoor, masked, socially distant, no-singing Shabbat morning service at CBI at 9:30am on September 5, led by Rabbi Rachel.

Please RSVP to let us know if you will attend that service so we know how many chairs to set up on our patio / outside the synagogue building. During that service, our bathrooms will be open for you to use at your own risk. (If it rains that day, we’ll offer services over Zoom instead.)

Our building remains closed for pandemic reasons. Our administrator Ollie Jones is reachable via e-mail and phone, as are both of us.

We hope you will join us on Sept. 5 outdoors, and on Zoom for Shabbat each week and for the Days of Awe. And keep an eye out for Rabbi Rachel’s weekly emails between now and Rosh Hashanah, which offer suggestions for how to make the most of Zoom community and prayer experiences. (Here’s the most recent one, which also contains links to the previous two.)

Being present to each other and to community is even more important in these pandemic times. We’re grateful to you for being a part of CBI.

Blessings to all,

Chris Kelly (for the Board of Directors) and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

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God, and community, in the space between

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The Israelites shall camp each with his standard, under the banners of their ancestral house; they shall camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance. (Numbers 2:2)

Tn this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, we read how the twelve tribes would encamp around the mishkan (the dwelling place for God) and the ohel moed (the tent of meeting). Each tent was at an appropriate distance from every other. In normal years, I’ve resonated with the idea that the tents were arranged at a distance to give each household appropriate privacy.

(That comes from Talmud, which explicates “Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov,” “how good are your tents, O [house of] Jacob,” to say that our tents were positioned so that no household was peeking in on any other. What was “good” about our community was healthy boundaries.)

This year, of course, the idea of camping at a distance from each other evokes the physical distancing and sheltering-in-place that we’ve all been doing for the past few months of the covid-19 pandemic.

Sometimes distance is necessary for protection and safety. Like our tents in the wilderness positioned just so. Like the physical distance between us now, each of us in our own home, coming together in these little boxes on this video screen.

But notice this too: our spiritual ancestors set up their physically-distanced tents around the mishkan and the ohel moed, the dwelling-place for God and the tent of meeting. The place of encounter with holiness, and the place of encounter with community.

Here we are, each in her own tent. This week’s Torah portion reminds us that our tents need to be oriented so that we all have access to the Divine Presence — and so that we all remember we’re part of a community.

When the Temple was distroyed by Rome almost two thousand years ago, our sages taught that we needed to replace the Beit HaMikdash — the House of Holiness, the place where God’s presence was understood to dwell — with a mikdash me’aht, the tiny sanctuary of the Shabbes table.

When we bless bread and wine at our Shabbat table, we make that table into an altar, a place of connection with God. That feels even more true to me now, as I join this Zoom call from my Shabbes table! In this pandemic moment, our home tables become altars: places where we encounter God and constitute community even more than before.

“Let them make Me a sanctuary that I might dwell among them,” God says. Or — in my favorite translation — “that I might dwell within them.” We make a mishkan so that God can dwell within us.

That feels even more true to me now too… as our beautiful synagogue building waits patiently for the time when it will be safe for us to gather together in person again. Until then, we need to learn to find — or make — holiness in where we are. We need to learn to find — or make — community even though we’re apart.

Our distance from each other protects us. And maybe more importantly, it protects those who are most vulnerable in our community: the elderly, the immunocompromised, those with preexisting conditions who are especially at-risk in this pandemic time. Pikuach nefesh, saving a life, is the paramount Jewish value. For the sake of saving a life we are instructed to do anything necessary, even to break Shabbat.

Being apart is painful and hard and it is one hundred percent the right thing to do — and the Jewish thing to do.

So we’re at a distance. So were our ancestors, as this week’s Torah portion reminds us. Our task is to make sure that our tents are positioned so that there’s space for God, and space for our community connections. So that God and community are the holy place in the middle. The place toward which all of our tents are oriented, toward which all of our hearts are oriented. Even, or especially, when we need to be apart.

Shabbat shalom.

 

This is the d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services over Zoom this week. (Cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)

 

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A Video Message from Rabbi Rachel

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ZFNaIsiSY]

This short video begins with a check-in for the CBI community, and then moves to a teaching from the rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto for this week’s parsha that feels especially meaningful to me this year. There’s a transcript below the video if you’d rather read it than watch it. Thinking of you all. – Rabbi Rachel

 

Shavua tov, friends: a good week to you. I hope that your Shabbat was restorative. As we enter into week six of sheltering-in-place and social distancing, I wanted to check in. How are you holding up?

I miss you. All of you. It’s been a joy to see some of you via Zoom at my drop-in office hours on Mondays, at the Psalm-writing class I’ve been teaching on Fridays, at Friday morning meditation and at Shabbat services. I look forward to continuing to see you on Zoom, or hearing your voices by phone, or receiving your emails and texts, since right now those are the modalities available to us.

Here’s a funny thing that I’m starting to think maybe isn’t a coincidence. At the start of the new Jewish year, back in October, both of my hevruta partners / learning buddies — Rabbi Megan Doherty, who’s the Jewish chaplain at Oberlin, and my colleagues on the board of Bayit: Building Jewish — felt called to study a rabbi known as the Piazeczyner, also known as R’ Kalman Kalonymus Shapiro, also known as the Aish Kodesh, also known as the rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Piazeczyner was writing from the Warsaw Ghetto. In a time of profound fear and anxiety, deprivation and illness. And yet he found ways to cultivate hope, even in those terrible times.

This week’s Torah portion is Tazria-Metzora, which offers teachings about how to handle a particular kind of sickness that was observable both in people, and in their dwellings. Both human beings, and their homes, could become “contagious” and needed to be quarantined for a time.

Whoa, that resonates in a whole new way this year.

The scholar Rashi, who lived around the year 1000, says this teaching is really about treasure hidden in the walls of the houses of the Emorites, whom our ancient ancestors conquered when we moved into the promised land. The houses would be marked as having tzara’at, and then they would be demolished, and we would find treasure in them.

The Piazeczyner asks: if the point is that there’s treasure in the walls, why wait seven days? Why not just knock them down? His answer is this: because the waiting helps us cultivate faith that good things will come.

Even in a difficult time, he writes — “when there is no school for our children, no synagogue in which to pray in community with a minyan, no mikvah (ritual bath)” — even in a time like that (a time like this!), we need to trust that God can help us turn even the most difficult of circumstances into blessings. We never know, when something difficult is happening, what blessing we might be able to find in it later when we look back on it.

So as we stay quarantined, sheltering in place, socially distancing to protect the vulnerable from the spread of this awful disease: may we follow the advice of the Piazeczyner, and try to cultivate trust that there may be treasure in these difficult days.

Maybe it’s the treasure of knowing that we are protecting each other from illness. Maybe it’s the treasure of coming to recognize what really matters to us — even if what really matters to us is something that right now we can’t have.

May we live to emerge from this narrow place, and may we connect in person again: speedily and soon, with God’s help.

Thinking of you and sending blessings to all.

 

Cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi. With special thanks to R’ David Markus for learning this with me on Shabbes. For those who want the original teaching, it’s the Aish Kodesh on M’tzora 1940 / 5700.

 

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