Shabbat Shuvah
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God
Shabbat Shuvah, 5766
It was strange to be away from the shul on the Sabbath of Return. Shabbes services both Friday Night and Saturday were in Adult classroom 1 at Jefferson Baptist Church. These were the last regular services we will have at the Church. Following Yom Kippur services, which will be in the JBC main auditorium, we will be davening in our own building again. I am not sure exactly where in the building we will pray, but it will be good to be home again.
Minna Bromberg led us in a chanting service for the first third of our davening this morning. This is something I plan to do from time to time. It is a good thing to allow ourselves to sink into selected parts of the liturgy. The chant and the repetition of the phrases allow the words to enter the heart in a different way than they do when pray the service in a conventional way.
In celebration of delicious cool air, I began services this morning with the following poem by Mary Oliver. You should have a copy of her collection “Why I Wake Early” for a morning like we had today:
Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End? (Mary Oliver)
There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier. The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily, out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing from the unreachable top of the tree.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open. And thinking: maybe something will come, some shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree ? they are all in this too. And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer. And, cordially. Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake. Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold fluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air.
Shabbat Shuvah, 5766
It was strange to be away from the shul on the Sabbath of Return. Shabbes services both Friday Night and Saturday were in Adult classroom 1 at Jefferson Baptist Church. These were the last regular services we will have at the Church. Following Yom Kippur services, which will be in the JBC main auditorium, we will be davening in our own building again. I am not sure exactly where in the building we will pray, but it will be good to be home again.
Minna Bromberg led us in a chanting service for the first third of our davening this morning. This is something I plan to do from time to time. It is a good thing to allow ourselves to sink into selected parts of the liturgy. The chant and the repetition of the phrases allow the words to enter the heart in a different way than they do when pray the service in a conventional way.
In celebration of delicious cool air, I began services this morning with the following poem by Mary Oliver. You should have a copy of her collection “Why I Wake Early” for a morning like we had today:
Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End? (Mary Oliver)
There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier. The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily, out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing from the unreachable top of the tree.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around as though with your arms open. And thinking: maybe something will come, some shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree ? they are all in this too. And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer. And, cordially. Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake. Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold fluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air.
posted by Rabbi Stanton M. Zamek at
11:34 AM
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