October, 2020 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
I’m writing these notes between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It’s a Holy Day season unlike any other I have experienced in my life. The physical separation, the spread of COVID, the impending election, the more-or-less exoneration of the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, the fires, the sorrowful and untimely news of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, oh my goodness, my heart can barely hold it all.
Today, my beloved friend and teacher Reverend Tansy Chapman led our community in contemplation. Many of you were there. Every word of it was astonishingly, captivatingly beautiful. One image she spoke of struck me particularly: the cathedral at Salisbury in England. She said that when you enter, there is a baptismal pool filled at all times with clear, still water. She spoke of how, when you look into this pool in its stillness, your face is reflected.
I’ve been thinking all day about that still water. It’s not a mirror or a piece of polished steel or silver. Water is the most tender and flexible thing. It picks up every shake and shiver. A pool of still water must be held in a strong vessel that resists any vibrations in the ground.
We all need that stillness somewhere in our lives for the times we’re in. We find it in different places. A walk in the woods, time in meditation, a nap, a song, a listening friend. I know that this High Holy Days I have been very much aware of the steadying, anchoring gift of these days—and beyond even that, the gift of Jewish religious practice. Thousands of years of Jewish experience and imagination have been distilled into words and song and gestures. These comprise a strong vessel to protect us from the shiverings of this moment we’re in.
This is the first year I have ever heard the shofar and read Psalm 27 every day (except Shabbat) during Elul When I first decided to do this every day on Zoom, I thought to myself, “Do I really mean every day???” But I knew I wanted to hear the shofar and the psalm. Nothing like inviting all my friends to join me to make me actually do it! Every morning at 9:30 I got on my Zoom, watched your faces pop up one after another, read the psalm and blew the shofar. The daily repetition of the psalm, with its words of protection and embrace, penetrated my soul very deeply. And I loved seeing all of you each morning.
I’ve been thinking all day about that still water. It’s not a mirror or a piece of polished steel or silver. Water is the most tender and flexible thing. It picks up every shake and shiver. A pool of still water must be held in a strong vessel that resists any vibrations in the ground.
We all need that stillness somewhere in our lives for the times we’re in. We find it in different places. A walk in the woods, time in meditation, a nap, a song, a listening friend. I know that this High Holy Days I have been very much aware of the steadying, anchoring gift of these days—and beyond even that, the gift of Jewish religious practice. Thousands of years of Jewish experience and imagination have been distilled into words and song and gestures. These comprise a strong vessel to protect us from the shiverings of this moment we’re in.I think it’s more important to keep my mask on than I do to quarantine my groceries. But even if masking and distancing are to some extent performative (and I don’t know to what extent that is true; there is certainly some risk, even here, of contracting and spreading COVID), I undertake these precautions out of solidarity. Whatever the practical value of masking, I want to communicate welcome and concern for the safety of people I encounter.
This is the first year I have ever heard the shofar and read Psalm 27 every day (except Shabbat) during Elul When I first decided to do this every day on Zoom, I thought to myself, “Do I really mean every day???” But I knew I wanted to hear the shofar and the psalm. Nothing like inviting all my friends to join me to make me actually do it! Every morning at 9:30 I got on my Zoom, watched your faces pop up one after another, read the psalm and blew the shofar. The daily repetition of the psalm, with its words of protection and embrace, penetrated my soul very deeply. And I loved seeing all of you each morning.
When Tansy described that baptismal font at Salisbury Cathedral, I had a very specific picture in my mind of what it must look like. I saw a rectangle, its size the exact ratio of my computer screen, with your faces reflected in the water. (Way too much screen for me, I admit.) I just now googled the font at Salisbury: it is very elaborate and magnificent, it turns out, and nothing at all like my vision with your faces in it.
But for me, the image of your faces is something strong and still, even if made up of pixels. That right now we are alive, that we are able to gather, even virtually, that we are together in this time, I find deeply anchoring. That we can partake of the wisdom of our ancestors to find comfort and inspiration feels like still water.
I know that October will be full of challenges. Many of us will be working with all our steam to try to ensure fair and accessible voting the first week in November. We may be watching a seismic shift in the Supreme Court. We may be dreading an “October Surprise.” It will still be fire season. We’ll be looking up to the sky hoping for rain. And who knows what else life may surprise us with?
I hope that every one of us is able to find a still place in these tumultuous times, and that we will be able to take refuge there when we need it. In the middle of these Holy Days I am so very grateful to all of you for being that steady and clear refuge that you are, for me and for each other. Despite all that is upon us now, and whatever is on the horizon, I know that we are together, even if only by pixel. With each new bit of difficult news, I have been saying a little mantra to myself: “We will cope. We will help each other. And together we will help others.” And so we will.
