Runway to the Days of Awe 2: Creating Sacred Space at Home

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcNzg50fw7g]

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: