This is not how I thought I would conduct my last High Holy Day services before I retire. Cantor Finn and I expected to be able to greet you in the Kaufman Foyer; shake your hands as we walk in or out of the sanctuary; have in person, face to face conversations with you. Since Albuquerque is our home, Michele and I hope to greet you in person over the coming years.
I know most of you share this sense of disconnect as well. We are together while separated by miles. It is disconcerting this new, different, and odd way of being together. Can we find ways to deepen the spiritual feeling, the holiness of these Days of Awe? I believe we can.
How can I be so sure? Our inability to worship together in our sanctuary is temporary. We do not know when, but we do know we will be back. Our ancestors were not so blessed. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Roman’s permanently exiled us from our holy of holies. In response, our ancestors created something greater, the synagogue. Unlike the Temple the synagogue was, and is, much more than a place of worship. In addition to prayers, we fill our synagogue with learning and community.
For us, the pandemic keeps us physically apart but it also breaks down other barriers. Through FaceTime, Skype, Zoom and other technologies we can spend our holy times together with family around the world. Each Shabbat it is gratifying to see many of your out of town family joining you for our services.
Our synagogue, our sanctuary, our chapel are sacred space because of the memories we created there. But spaces are vulnerable. The Temple was destroyed. Our synagogue is currently unavailable to us, so, following the example of our ancestors, we find new ways to come together, create new memories, create new holiness.
Why do we miss our sanctuary so much? Why do we feel that these holy days will be less without being present in it? Does absence from a place make the heart grow fonder?
In a 1977 article entitled “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction,” a group of architects wrote: “What is a church or temple? It is a place of worship, spirit, contemplation, of course.” They then go on to describe why it feels holy: “…we do believe that one fundamental characteristic is invariant from culture to culture. In all cultures it seems that whatever it is that is holy will only be felt as holy, if it is hard to reach, if it requires layers of access, waiting, levels of approach, a gradual unpeeling, gradual revelation, passage through a series of gates.” The Pandemic separated us from our holy space creating more layers of access and waiting. Making it harder than ever to access. Making it feel even more holy.
In his seminal work “The Sabbath”, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes about the holiness of time verses the holiness of space. To paraphrase: “Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year… According to the ancient rabbis, it is not the observance of the Day of Atonement, but the Day itself, the ‘essence of the Day,’ which, with a person’s repentance, atones for the sins of the person.”
Seen in this light, if we are feeling lost by being outside the synagogue, it is because we see the holiness of Judaism in our spaces. We feel something is wrong. We feel something is missing. But, if, especially this year, we follow Heschel and see Judaism as creating holiness in time, it still feels different, but we can experience an ever-deeper level of holiness than if we were focused on the space of our sanctuary.
Again, to paraphrase Heschel: “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. Unlike space-minded people to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogenous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.”
This year, let us focus on this blessing we have been given to move from a focus on sacred space, to a focus on sacred time and transform these High Holy Days into the holiest, most sacred Holy Days we have ever known.
Shanah Tovah
No comments:
Post a Comment