Simchat Torah 5776
Oct. 5th, 2015 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pondhopBetween work and nerves, I considered heading home instead of going to synagogue tonight, but I'm glad I made the effort. The gathering was not large -- maybe three dozen people? -- but it was more diverse than the last time I was there (back around 2007), including some South Asians and an African American, and at least two languages in play besides English and Hebrew, and an elegant older woman who reminded me of my honorary mama cheerfully and graciously pointed out to me the woman who is this year's president, the new junior rabbi, a future Hadassah board member, and other notables.
I danced with the Torah as well as around it, sometimes hand in hand with others and sometimes hands-on-shoulders, and yes, I thought about the message I'd received from Women of the Wall last week as a prayer shawl was draped over my shoulders. The senior rabbi whirled around with a little girl in his arms during some verses, and playfully bopped some heads with a stuffed Torah at another point. Someone brought Glenlivet to share; there was conversation about bourbon casks during the walk from the sanctuary to the social hall. A Torah was unrolled in its entirety, the rabbis gesturing to the grown-ups to make the circle larger and larger so that all of the text could be seen. A father handed his own shiny teal-emerald kippah to his son, who'd lost his somewhere in the hall during all the running around. A mother collected her girl from a minor scrum; other little girls hopped and shrieked and shushed and eventually gathered under a canopy-shawl, giggling when the rabbi later dramatically swooped the shawl over his head. The man to my left was holding up the section containing the Ten Commandments. More than one person caught themselves drooping to the point of almost dropping their part of the scroll -- I'd forgotten how services can seem so rushed and at the same time so long within the same evening. And yet I got home early enough to call a friend on the East Coast, to reconnect briefly with another part of my life that is likewise no longer central but still beloved.
And it is good to wind down the evening thinking about the silent prayer that spoke loudest to me tonight, Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully ... As for all who plan evil against me, swiftly thwart their counsel and frustrate their plans. Thousands-year-old rebuke and comfort, ever ancient, ever new...
This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/394991.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.
I danced with the Torah as well as around it, sometimes hand in hand with others and sometimes hands-on-shoulders, and yes, I thought about the message I'd received from Women of the Wall last week as a prayer shawl was draped over my shoulders. The senior rabbi whirled around with a little girl in his arms during some verses, and playfully bopped some heads with a stuffed Torah at another point. Someone brought Glenlivet to share; there was conversation about bourbon casks during the walk from the sanctuary to the social hall. A Torah was unrolled in its entirety, the rabbis gesturing to the grown-ups to make the circle larger and larger so that all of the text could be seen. A father handed his own shiny teal-emerald kippah to his son, who'd lost his somewhere in the hall during all the running around. A mother collected her girl from a minor scrum; other little girls hopped and shrieked and shushed and eventually gathered under a canopy-shawl, giggling when the rabbi later dramatically swooped the shawl over his head. The man to my left was holding up the section containing the Ten Commandments. More than one person caught themselves drooping to the point of almost dropping their part of the scroll -- I'd forgotten how services can seem so rushed and at the same time so long within the same evening. And yet I got home early enough to call a friend on the East Coast, to reconnect briefly with another part of my life that is likewise no longer central but still beloved.
And it is good to wind down the evening thinking about the silent prayer that spoke loudest to me tonight, Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully ... As for all who plan evil against me, swiftly thwart their counsel and frustrate their plans. Thousands-year-old rebuke and comfort, ever ancient, ever new...
This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/394991.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.