As I’ve said a number of times now in various contexts, this past Shabbat was, for me, a dream.
Friday night was the return of TGIShabbat, and the inauguration of TGISHabbat as a weekly institution at SHS, from September through May each year, where each week we gather, through music, through song, through spirit, through teaching, through reflection, as a means of settling in at the end of the week and experiencing that sense of peace and wholeness. This week it also served as an Open House so prospective synagogue members could experience our community in a targeted way.
To say that it was a success would be an understatement. We had over ninety people in attendance in our sanctuary plus over sixty in our gorgeous new courtyard for our Young Families Shabbat led by Micah and Joanna Hart, for a total of over one hundred fifty people for the Shabbat after Labor Day weekend. Many of them dined with one another in our Social Hall or courtyard and Shabbat was celebrated by all.
This was followed up Saturday morning by the first day of Hebrew School, finally, as has been planned for multiple years now, with the Hebrew School and sanctuary experiences at SHS on Shabbat integrated from day one of the school year. Over forty parents joined over seventy children in the sanctuary, alongside dozens of regular attendees, and then for classes, while also attending parents-only orientation sessions. Parents who attended were treated to, and participated in, a vibrant Torah discussion as part of our weekly sanctuary service, which, this week, focused on the verse in the weekly parashah of Ki Teitzei (“When you go out”) wherein Moses is speaking to the Israelites with his parting address before they leave him to go on to the promised land, and he says “When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow—in order that your God יהוה may bless you in all your undertakings” (Deuteronomy 24:19).
The ancient rabbis pick up on the word “overlook” (וְשָֽׁכַחְתָּ֧, which also means “forget”) and suggest that it is the one mitzvah (commandment/sacred calling) in all of Torah which you cannot intentionally do. There is no way to intentionally forget a sheaf of wheat behind, or its modern day equivalent, and then choose to leave it.
Picking up on this, the discussion focused in part on the notion that we can’t always force the circumstances we want. Sometimes the conditions for the sacredness we seek simply can’t be orchestrated. We’re invited, then, to make peace with the notion that some aspects of reality are simply out of our control.
So, too, did this teaching cause us to reflect on what to do when we make a mistake, either ones that we deeply regret, or ones that simply open up a new set of circumstances for us. In the case of the former, we have the opportunity to make teshuvah—we’re invited to turn the mistake into an opportunity for repentance to get closer to God and to make amends with those we’ve harmed. In the case of the latter, a mistake might lead us to recognize the new conditions—the proverbial forgotten sheaf—as an opportunity to make the world better than we initially imagined doing.
This gorgeous discussion, and the service itself, was capped off with a kiddush lunch, with parents schmoozing with one another and synagogue regulars and guests, kids running around, enjoying our new facilities, and hum and buzz, if I may say so, settling naturally in the air.
I can’t tell you—or maybe I already am telling you—how gratifying the experience was for me. One of my hopes and dreams for SHS is that the regular Shabbat experience is a vibrant one—that drop-in guests who are trying to find a synagogue that is right for them show up to SHS on a random Friday night or Saturday morning and say, “Wow! This is a place that is full of life!” and further that our current members experience it that way.
One of the beautiful things about this past Shabbat is that, aside from advertising it a little more than usual, and making a special ask that parents stick around for the first day of school, all of the beautiful things that happened—the music on the bimah, the meals after services, the Torah discussions, and prayers and songs—happen each and every week during the school year; no special guests, no once-a-year programs—what brought out over one hundred people Friday night, and then again Saturday morning was really that core ingredient that makes Shabbat special anywhere: one another.
