Message from Marsha Moller
Membership Secretary, WRJ Northeast District
Here is the plan…
Neighbors and family tote chairs, carefully placing them six feet apart. We wear practical shoes to steady ourselves on the uneven lawn surface. We greet with elbow bumps or make the heart sign with our hands. We feel the need to gather in community, to hear voices in unison while reading prayers and singing hymns that bring us back to our childhood and years past. This is the start of the Rosh Hashanah morning service in my backyard.
To get to this day, we must first enter the month of Elul, a time of reckoning and introspection. The pandemic has offered some the time to reflect and assess their lives and how they want to live in community with others. For others, the pandemic has rocked them to the core, with health and economic survival filling their thoughts. How can we find the time and energy to enter Elul with intention?
Let our connections be the starting point for our journey during Elul. Being with others, virtually or face to face, can rejuvenate our spirits to reckon with the past year. Consider engaging a sisterhood member in meaningful conversation filled with purpose and intention. (It may be easier and feel safer to start with a “sister.”) Then widen your outreach to those whose relationship with you is more complicated.
Now, let me take you forward again to Rosh Hashanah 5780…
My backyard is filled with close family and friends, ones whom I have reached out to during Elul. We have dusted off the mini Torahs that our children received during their consecration ceremonies, and hold them close to our hearts as we circle around the yard during the hakafah We listen as family and friends share their voices, reading or chanting Torah passages. Those so inclined share heartfelt thoughts for the new year. We are more connected to Judaism than ever before.
We finish before the rabbi starts his sermon, and we listen to it on a laptop. As Jews so often do, we linger together in the backyard to critique, debate, and ponder what was said. We are glad 5779 has ended, and look forward to vaccines, peace, equality, and fresh beginnings. We commit to bring sweetness into each other’s lives.
Well, that is the plan. Maybe it will rain that day and we will have online services. Maybe some will feel safer staying inside their own home. But the journey into 5780 will be filled with intention and purposefulness.
Marsha Moller
Temple Beth Shalom, Needham, Massachusetts
