Rav Shira Shazeer – School Rabbi: MetroWest Jewish Day School
This week, the way we planned it last spring, would have included our beloved annual field trip to the apple orchard and school wide apples and honey tasting in anticipation of the happy and sweet new year we all wish one another. The disappointment at missing this opportunity for all-school fun, community building and celebration is felt by students and teachers alike. Our apple picking trip, over the last several years, has also been combined with the school’s taschlich ceremony, which was also cancelled this week. Tashlich is a ritual in which we symbolically cast off the mistakes of the past year, preparing for better things in the year to come, by casting breadcrumbs (or as has been our school practice of late, pebbles) into a body of running water.
Worries of mosquito borne EEE kept us, this year, from bringing the school down to the river for this ceremony, as they kept us out of the apple orchard, and off the playgrounds for recess.
At our Jewish studies team meetings over the past weeks, we have worked to trouble-shoot planning joyous fall holiday celebrations without use of the beautiful outdoor Autumn weather that we have come to expect. Perhaps more worrisome than being stuck inside around Rosh Hashanah is anticipating the upcoming holiday of Sukkot, whose celebrations center around building and dwelling in a temporary hut, and which is supposed to be the time of our rejoicing in the simple pleasure of this flimsy open structure. We have planned an indoor alternative tashlich activity for our return from Rosh Hashanah and plans for a gratifying sukkot experience are under way as well. (More details are coming soon.)
As we look out at the beautiful sunny days, the leaves starting to change color, it is easy to feel resentful and even incredulous that we are being held inside because of concern over mosquitos, not in the tropics, but here, in New England where soon enough we’ll be griping about the cold and the snow. Fighting off the gloom of planning indoor holiday activities, it started to dawn on me that this trouble that has been weighing on us, keeping us from fully experiencing the joy of this season, is what is known a first world problem. So we can’t cast our sins into the river. We’ll have to be more creative. So, we may not be able to enjoy the sukkah in our own front courtyard. These things are sad, but they just don’t compare with the blessings we have in our lives.
Truth be told, our community is very lucky. We have food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over our heads, a caring community of kind and welcoming students, creative and dedicated teachers and staff and committed, loving and generous families. Whatever other challenges we face, we have what we need to enter this new year in joy, if only we choose to understand the scope of our problems and the scope of our blessings. Heading into the Shabbat preceding Rosh Hashanah, we read parshat nitzavim with its memorable verse (Deut 30:19) “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life” This verse reminds us, in keeping with the theme of the season, that what kind of life we live is largely in our hands. The choice is ours.
One of the most striking moments in the liturgy of the High Holy Days is the poem ????? ????, unetaneh tokef, which recalls the idea that on these days it is decided who will live or die, succeed or struggle, over the course of the year. The fear and awe, the black and white choices that we associate with the theology of this time of year are powerful and stark. And yet as the poem comes to a close, the final line puts the choice back into our hands, “??????????? ?????????? ????????? ??????????? ??? ???? ?????????? repentance, prayer and charity avert the evil decree.”
Our traditional tashlich practice includes elements of teshuvah, repentance, and tefilah, prayer, but does not explicitly include tzedakah, charity. Being stuck indoors forced us to rethink what we are doing with this ritual at school. We considered other ways Jews have symbolically cast off our sins, including the biblical ritual of the scape goat and the more modern ritual of kaparot or kapores, and decided that this year, in addition to some new, creative symbolism, we want to include an element of tzedakah. So, starting Wednesday, at our creative indoor tashlich experience, we will be collecting food and gift cards for Lucy and Joe’s food pantry. Their list of needed items can be found here. The drive will last through the week of Sukkot, and I hope that by focusing on our blessings and the ways we can share them with others, we may find more of the joy and a greater share of the blessing and sweetness to be found in the coming year.
With some creative thinking, teamwork and dedication to finding the joy in a difficult time, we’ve come up with a great plan for sukkot as well, with symbolic value we could barely have planned. Sukkot commemorating a time of wandering and impermanence, we are planning a “sukkah hop” pilgrimage beyond the EEE danger zone. More details will follow, but I’ve found that in the initial stages of planning this trip, the connections and support of our community, both within our MetroWest Jewish Day School family and beyond in the wider Jewish community in greater Boston, are truly a blessing, and one that I often fail to appreciate when everything is fine and we have no need to reach out for help. It is too easy, when we are comfortable and self sufficient, to forget the interconnectedness between people, and the blessings that comes from helping others and accepting help, from offering and receiving hospitality, and from taking responsibility for those in our wider communities who are in need.
So as we head into the High Holy Day season, let us express gratitude for our first world problems, for the blessings we sometimes take for granted, for the awareness we may attain as the result of challenging situations, and for our capacity to respond to that awareness with kindness and generosity. It is largely in our hands whether the coming year will be one of blessing or curse, life or death, fear or awe. Let us choose life, joy, and blessing, and may we spread it widely through our communities and our world.
Wishing you all a shanah tovah umetukah, a happy, healthy and sweet new year.