This is the second post in a series; the first was Seven weeks until Rosh Hashanah. This one is available as a YouTube video (embedded above — or here at YouTube) and also as text that appears below.
Dear CBI Members and Friends,
Today I’m writing with an invitation to think about how to make our home prayer space feel like sacred space.
When the Temple was destroyed so long ago, we had to learn how to connect with God and holiness and tradition from smaller sacred spaces in all the places to which we were scattered. (That’s how the synagogue became the center of Jewish life and practice.) In today’s pandemic reality, we’re in a new kind of diaspora — scattered into our homes for safety’s sake. We need to learn how to sanctify our homes, how to make our home-spaces feel holy.
Many of us use the same table for meals, for homework or paying bills, and for joining Zoom services. (And we likely use the same laptop or tablet or phone for secular purposes and for sacred ones, too.) How can we transform a home-space into a prayer-space, and how can we use our devices to help us focus instead of distracting us? Here are some ideas:
a festive tablecloth on which to place your laptop or tablet or streaming device;
a scarf or piece of pretty fabric to use as a table runner to make it extra-special;
a vase in which to put flowers on your festive table;
candlesticks in which to light festival candles on the eve of each holiday;
a framed photograph of loved ones on your table next to your Zoom device, to connect you with family and friends in this pandemic time (this may be especially meaningful on Yom Kippur when we say Yizkor memorial prayers);
go for a walk in the beautiful Berkshire outdoors and find beautiful objects in nature (stones, shells, pebbles) to place on your table.
I’ve found that putting down a tablecloth makes a big difference — it transforms the table where I pay bills and my kid plays Minecraft into a table that evokes Shabbat and seder and other special times. For the Days of Awe, I’m thinking about making a centerpiece out of a bowl of apples and pomegranates to remind me of the season.
On a more prosaic note, when it comes to Zoom services, I recommend closing other apps or windows or browser tabs once services begin (and silencing all notifications on our cellphones and tablets until services are over). This way we can make ourselves fully present to the liturgy and to each other, rather than allowing our devices to distract us from the holy work we’re coming together to do.
May our journey toward the Days of Awe be meaningful and sweet!
Rabbi Rachel
Edited to add: Here’s a sketchnote by my friend and colleague Steve Silbert, created to accompany this post!
https://cbiberkshires.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/screencap.jpg6861237Rachel Barenblathttps://cbiberkshires.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CBI-Logo-70h-2.pngRachel Barenblat2020-08-05 07:00:282020-08-05 07:00:28Runway to the Days of Awe 2: Creating Sacred Space at Home
We’ve just come through the door of Tisha b’Av, the most grief-soaked day on the Jewish calendar. After Tisha b’Av, the Seven Weeks of Consolation lead us to Rosh Hashanah. Believe it or not, Rosh Hashanah begins seven weeks from tonight.
In the spring, Jewish tradition gives us the counting of the Omer — the seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation. Now we encounter the year’s other seven-week countdown — the countdown from mourning to renewal, from Tisha b’Av to the Days of Awe.
In seven weeks we’ll convene in the CBI Zoom Room for a Rosh Hashanah evening experience in our own homes. Our erev Rosh Hashanah service will interweave the evening liturgy with some of the Sefardic customs of a Rosh Hashanah seder.
I chose to begin the Days of Awe this year with a seder for a few reasons. One is that seder (unlike Rosh Hashanah services) is a ritual we’re accustomed to doing at home. Thanks to the pandemic, celebrating together on Zoom from home is the best way to keep each other (and ourselves) safe. The seder gives us some tangible, taste-able elements that I hope will help make the evening feel more real.
And, this will be a Rosh Hashanah unlike any other that we’ve ever experienced. I didn’t want to just replicate our usual erev Rosh Hashanah service over Zoom. Instead, we’re embracing the fact that this year is different. It’s an opportunity to try new (or new-to-us) spiritual technologies in service of uplifting our hearts and souls.
Here’s another new (or new-to-us) spiritual technology we’ll be making use of this year: the CBI Board and I are planning to offer a High Holiday Box to members of the CBI community.
This will be a box of holiday supplies — e.g. candles to light on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; symbolic seder foods such as apples and honey, dried dates, and a pomegranate; a Yizkor memorial candle for Yom Kippur; and more — to help each of us have the physical tools we need to help our spirits soar.
If you would like a High Holiday Box, please sign up by filling out this form. The intention is to distribute these in the CBI parking lot shortly before Rosh Hashanah, though stay tuned for updates on that. (If you need us to drop one off for you, you can indicate that on the form, and we’ll do our best to deliver one.) Regardless, we need to know how many people will take us up on this offer, so please sign up if you want a High Holiday box for your household!
I’ll circle back next week with more suggestions for how to make the most of this unprecedented high holiday season.
For now, wishing you all blessings of uplift —
Rabbi Rachel
(Edited to add: here are subsequent posts in the seroes)
https://cbiberkshires.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/hhdprep.jpg600687Rachel Barenblathttps://cbiberkshires.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CBI-Logo-70h-2.pngRachel Barenblat2020-07-31 07:00:062020-07-31 07:00:06Runway to the Days of Awe 1: Seven weeks until Rosh Hashanah
“…If a man makes a vow to God or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips…” (Numbers 30:3)
It’s like clockwork: every year we reach these verses at the start of Matot-Masei precisely as my high holiday preparations kick into high gear. It’s July. It’s summer. I want to be in the moment, not nine weeks from now. Because you know what’s exactly nine weeks from now? Rosh Hashanah.
And every year I spend all winter craving summer’s long light and vibrant blooms and exquisite produce and gentle warmth. I don’t want to rush ahead to the holidays or to fall or to school. And wow, that feels especially true during this pandemic year.
And yet.
And yet here comes Torah reminding me about vows and oaths and forgiveness. Whether or not I want to hit pause on time, the holidays are on their way. Whether or not I feel ready, the season of inner work is coming.
A vow: Rashi writes, “This is when one says, Behold, I take upon myself an obligation which is as sacred to me as an offering.” A vow is a commitment.
What vows do I make to the people in my life; to my family; to my loved ones; to my communities? What promises have I made to the community where I live and pray and celebrate and mourn? What commitments have I made to my nation, to the ideals of America, to liberty and justice for all?
What vows have I made, and am I living up to them?
Our Torah verses today distinguish between the vows made by a man, which automatically stand, and the vows made by a woman, which could be undone if her father or husband said so. Obviously that doesn’t sit well with us today. Here’s how I’ve come to understand those verses: when Torah says “woman” here, what it means is “someone who for one reason or another isn’t master of their own fate.”
It’s as if my ten year old promised a friend something that wasn’t his to promise — “I’ll have a Zoom playdate with you at 11pm!” I would need to gently tell him, kiddo, you can’t have playdates at 11pm, you have to be in bed then. And if he said, “But I promised!” I would have to tell him, “That wasn’t your decision to make.”
I don’t love the fact that in antiquity, women had as little control over their circumstance as does my child now. And, that’s what it was. Today, if one partner exercised that kind of control over another, we would call that coercive and unhealthy.
Setting the gender piece aside: if a person makes a vow to God, or takes on an obligation, then we’re supposed to live up to it. Sounds simple, right?
In just over ten weeks we’ll stand together at Yom Kippur and take a good long look at ourselves and our souls and our choices. Are we living up to our promises? Because if not, now is the time to try to do better. Not just so we can stand before God on Yom Kippur with an easy heart… but because living up to our commitments and our values is what Judaism asks of us.
What promises have we made to each other, to our communities, to God? And are we living up to them? And if not, can we start now?
Because nine weeks from tomorrow I’ll be singing the words from Mary Oliver that we always hear on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, from her poem about the goldfinches: “Believe us, it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.”
It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world. May the promises we make — and the promises we keep! — help to bring about repair, speedily and soon. Shabbat shalom.
This is the d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at CBI’s Zoom Shabbat morning services (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)
Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,
I’ll never forget my mother’s first video call. My son was an infant, and she lived two thousand miles away. We arranged her first Skype call so she could visit the baby. I remember her amazement: that we could not only speak long-distance, but see each other, too! In later years, as her illness progressed and travel became impossible, we took comfort in lighting Shabbat candles together each week over video. It wasn’t “the same” as being together in person, but it was still real connection. It still mattered. It still touched our hearts.
Being together on Zoom isn’t “the same” as being together in person, but it’s still real connection. In these pandemic times, we need real human connection more than ever. This year’s Days of Awe will be unlike any other. Because of the pandemic, our building remains closed. It’s not safe for us to gather. Our High Holidays this year will be over Zoom videoconferencing, like our Shabbat services since the pandemic began. I know that this is not what we would wish… but it is the way to keep each other safe.
Being together over Zoom is real connection. If we bring our open hearts, we can experience our togetherness as real togetherness. We can experience prayer from our own homes as real prayer. Over these first months of pandemic I’ve been learning how to lead prayer over Zoom skillfully, how to work with the medium to take advantage of its unique opportunities, how to use images and music to enliven the experience. I’ve also been meeting with colleagues regularly to brainstorm, to harvest best practices, and to dream together about how we can make this year’s High Holidays meaningful and sweet.
Here are a few things I know already:
When we meet for the Days of Awe, we’ll use a special version of our regular machzor (high holiday prayerbook) designed to be shared over the screen. You won’t need a book: the words and images will appear on your screen alongside our faces. We’ll have ample opportunities to connect with each other. Our services will balance things that are familiar (this year more than ever, our hearts and souls will need some familiar melodies) and things that are new to this new medium. There will be music, there will be stirring words, there will be togetherness. (And services will be shorter than you expect, because I know that “Zoom fatigue” is real!) I’ll reach out regularly in the weeks leading up to the Days of Awe, offering tips and suggestions on how to prepare ourselves and our homes for this unprecedented holiday season.
Change is not new to Jewish life. When the Temple fell, we made the radical shift to offering the words of our hearts instead of animal sacrifices… and we made the radical shift from gathering for festivals in one centralized location (Jerusalem) to gathering in synagogues wherever in the world we might be. Today’s pandemic realities ask us to shift from gathering in synagogue buildings, to creating holy space from the many places where we are. Long ago our sages said that the Shabbat table is a “tiny altar,” a place of connection with God and with holiness. Now we make that even more true, by gathering via Zoom from our dining tables — our homes becoming portals to sacred space and community connection even when we are sequestered apart.
Although our building is closed, our community is open, and we still need your support. We continue to incur ongoing personnel, utilities, and maintenance expenses, and our staff has been working remotely to ensure that service to our members is uninterrupted. Book discussion groups, our refugee support committee, weekly Shabbat services and meditation services, Yizkor memorial services throughout the year, adult education offerings, and when fall comes around, Hebrew school: all of these continue, remotely, from the places where we are.
Your donations to our high holiday appeal this year will support all of these. They will also support digital infrastructure for these unique Days of Awe, which will help us to better serve our homebound members even after this pandemic is past. They will enable us to preserve our beautiful building so that when we can safely gather in person again, our physical home is ready for us to return. And they will support the continued flourishing of Jewish life in northern Berkshire.
Jewish tradition teaches that even one who receives tzedakah (e.g. someone who is fiscally struggling and needs to ask for support) must also give tzedakah. When we give, we prime the pump of blessing. When we give, we become part of the chain of giving that brings hope and abundance to the world. Please give as you are able to support CBI in these difficult times. The only donation that is too small is none at all.
We look forward to being with you at the Days of Awe this year — via video, and more importantly, via the heart-connections between us. Thank you for being a part of CBI.
These two sermons were written for a Shabbat retreat, held over Zoom in June, focused on the question: how do we connect with each other and with Judaism online during these pandemic times, and what does that mean for the future of Jewish life?
Being Real, Digital Edition — about connection, “virtual” and “real,” and the spiritual importance of bringing our whole selves to connection with each other and our traditions during these pandemic times and always — by R’ Rachel Barenblat
The Mishkan’s Next Digital (R)Evolution — about Jewish life and change, and the spiritual implications of making a “mishkan” (a sacred space / a connection place with God) at our home dining tables during these pandemic times — by R’ David Markus
