I was sitting in Shabbat services a few months ago and I had an incredible feeling of deja vu. I can't recall what song we were singing or to what element of the service we had come, but there it was. All of a sudden, I was back in BESTY, at a NEFTY Institute at Eisner Camp. I was 15 again, sitting on the floor of Manor House, and someone was playing a guitar. What felt like hundreds of voices joined in song that evening. With arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, we swayed and sang and....WOW! I recall thinking, "If this is what Shabbat feels like, I want this EVERY week!" (Thanks to my parents, I had it for four weeks over three summers at camp and for all four years of youth group, which felt like heaven).
Every now and then, while I'm sitting in our Temple Beth Shalom sanctuary, I find myself transported back to camp. I find myself in that WOW! place again, that moment when Shabbat is within me and surrounds me at the same instant. Each year, during our Sisterhood Spirituality Retreat, that WOW! moment extends and carries me from Kabbalat Shabbat through to our closing ritual on Sunday morning.
I am curious to hear your story. Can you think of a time when Shabbat was particularly meaningful to you? Where were you? What was it about that Shabbat that separated it from other Shabbat experiences? Have you been able to recreate that feeling (or something close to it) since that particular experience? Is there a song or a moment in our weekly Shabbat services that transports you, even just for an instant, to your WOW! Shabbat? If you haven't had such an experience, what do you think would enable you to bring yourself to WOW! on Shabbat?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Dreidel Contest Enteries
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Crazy with Menorahs
It lost its shine decades ago. It’s smudged, even discolored. It was never big, but now it seems hunched. The fires have taken their toll.
The Menorah from my youth still survives – in fact, it’s the same Menorah that my mother used when she was growing up during the Great Depression. That this modest brass candelabrum has not surrendered to hard knocks and hot wax is itself a small miracle, and it now stands as a quaint but powerful reminder of both the changes and continuity of Jewish life in America.
Hanukkah marks the rededication of the Second Temple following the victory of the Maccabees, and the Menorah recalls that the Temple’s eternal flame had enough oil for only one day, but miraculously, it burned for eight. With the Shamash serving as the “helper candle,” the classic Menorah is the symmetrical representation of that miracle, and it has become one of the central symbols of Judaism. If anything, it’s become even more prominent in recent years. Whether at the White House or in Town Squares across America, including Needham’s, the Menorah is a convenient symbolic counterweight to Christmas trees.
But even among Jews, Menorahs have assumed new meaning. They were often beautifully crafted, some with ornate flourishes, but they’ve increasingly become decorative pieces with artistic vision and style. Variety is all. Menorahs are now made out of anodized aluminum or stainless steel or platinum or cobalt or wood marble or pure silver with a drizzle of gold. They are electronic with pear-shaped bulbs or are fused glass cut with Jewish stars. They are post-modern expressions of liberation or pre-industrial evocations of oceanic waves. They are novelty items and conversation pieces and status symbols. They come with loops and curves and circles, and they render everything from huppas to hippies to the Holy City – a Menorah for every occasion, including Hanukkah.
This boom makes perfect sense at a time when Jewish households are in the equivalent of a Menorah-style arms race. I can’t remember the last Jewish home I entered that had only one Menorah, including my own. We have a beautifully painted ceramic Menorah over the fireplace; a decorative silver Menorah with an engraved base on a book shelf; a sleek modern Menorah in our basement; and a blue-and-orange stuffed toy Menorah that plays “Rock of Ages.”
Come Hanukkah time, we fire ‘em up in a true “Festival of Lights,” as the holiday is also known.
Have we all gone crazy with Menorahs? Yes, we have. But I have no complaints. We should be grateful that we live in a country, and at a time, that allows us to celebrate our faith however we want. As far as I’m concerned, let a million Menorahs bloom.
And yet . . . I will always have a special place for the simple Menorah that my mother used in her youth, and I in mine. When my mother lit its candles as a young girl, she would have never thought that she was deprived with only one Menorah. When you’re of modest means – or flat-out poor – you appreciate all material blessings. To my mother and her family, one Menorah was a blessing. Two would have been an extravagance; three, obscene. And when I was growing up in St. Louis, I thought we had a cool Menorah. The rainbow candles created a different aesthetic each night, and the Menorah itself was elegant, dependable, and always there.
My mom died in 2002, and when my father sold the house several years later, he asked me if there was anything from it that I wanted.
Yes, I told him, there was one thing that I wanted. It now stands proudly in my house, and with Hanukkah upon us, I will dust off its memories, insert the candles, and rekindle my faith.
The Menorah from my youth still survives – in fact, it’s the same Menorah that my mother used when she was growing up during the Great Depression. That this modest brass candelabrum has not surrendered to hard knocks and hot wax is itself a small miracle, and it now stands as a quaint but powerful reminder of both the changes and continuity of Jewish life in America.
Hanukkah marks the rededication of the Second Temple following the victory of the Maccabees, and the Menorah recalls that the Temple’s eternal flame had enough oil for only one day, but miraculously, it burned for eight. With the Shamash serving as the “helper candle,” the classic Menorah is the symmetrical representation of that miracle, and it has become one of the central symbols of Judaism. If anything, it’s become even more prominent in recent years. Whether at the White House or in Town Squares across America, including Needham’s, the Menorah is a convenient symbolic counterweight to Christmas trees.
But even among Jews, Menorahs have assumed new meaning. They were often beautifully crafted, some with ornate flourishes, but they’ve increasingly become decorative pieces with artistic vision and style. Variety is all. Menorahs are now made out of anodized aluminum or stainless steel or platinum or cobalt or wood marble or pure silver with a drizzle of gold. They are electronic with pear-shaped bulbs or are fused glass cut with Jewish stars. They are post-modern expressions of liberation or pre-industrial evocations of oceanic waves. They are novelty items and conversation pieces and status symbols. They come with loops and curves and circles, and they render everything from huppas to hippies to the Holy City – a Menorah for every occasion, including Hanukkah.
This boom makes perfect sense at a time when Jewish households are in the equivalent of a Menorah-style arms race. I can’t remember the last Jewish home I entered that had only one Menorah, including my own. We have a beautifully painted ceramic Menorah over the fireplace; a decorative silver Menorah with an engraved base on a book shelf; a sleek modern Menorah in our basement; and a blue-and-orange stuffed toy Menorah that plays “Rock of Ages.”
Come Hanukkah time, we fire ‘em up in a true “Festival of Lights,” as the holiday is also known.
Have we all gone crazy with Menorahs? Yes, we have. But I have no complaints. We should be grateful that we live in a country, and at a time, that allows us to celebrate our faith however we want. As far as I’m concerned, let a million Menorahs bloom.
And yet . . . I will always have a special place for the simple Menorah that my mother used in her youth, and I in mine. When my mother lit its candles as a young girl, she would have never thought that she was deprived with only one Menorah. When you’re of modest means – or flat-out poor – you appreciate all material blessings. To my mother and her family, one Menorah was a blessing. Two would have been an extravagance; three, obscene. And when I was growing up in St. Louis, I thought we had a cool Menorah. The rainbow candles created a different aesthetic each night, and the Menorah itself was elegant, dependable, and always there.
My mom died in 2002, and when my father sold the house several years later, he asked me if there was anything from it that I wanted.
Yes, I told him, there was one thing that I wanted. It now stands proudly in my house, and with Hanukkah upon us, I will dust off its memories, insert the candles, and rekindle my faith.
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