Shabbat Messages

I don’t know about you, but for the first time in a very arduous year, things are starting to feel promising and new again. With the reopening of some schools and restaurants and the increase in vaccine availability across the country, I can feel the fog of Zoom and quarantine beginning to lift. Just like our ancestors in the Passover story, I see the outlines of the promised land across the horizon -- a world that someday will be Covid-free.

The Passover seders of my childhood were magical and unforgettable. Each year, four generations of thirty or more people would cram into my great-grandmother’s tiny apartment on the North Side of Chicago where the dining room table had been extended all the way into the living room and all the men’s chairs had been plumped up with colorful pillows so that they could recline like true free men. (The women had no pillows on their chairs, but most of them barely sat down, since they were always in and out of the kitchen, serving course after course)

Dear Friends, 

Do you know what time it is? How about what day it is? If you need to look at your phone... well, you are not alone. Do you know where you were yesterday? Do you remember what you did? I know because I was where I’ve been most days for the past year. In our dining room, my “office,” sitting in front of my computer. My lower back knows the hours. And, I remember what I did as well. It’s what I’ve been doing most days... yes, for the past year. Sound familiar? 

On October 19, 1991, my mother’s house, along with 2,800 others, burned down in the Oakland fire. Six months later I was chanting this week’s Torah portion at my bar mitzvah. We lost everything the day of the fire and half a year later I chanted the verses from this week’s Torah portion that spoke to me as never before when it reminded me, “A cloud of God rested on the Tabernacle by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys.”  Clouds and fire surrounded the transitional home of the Jewish people as they prepared for the next leg of their journey. As one commentary states, “the Book of Exodus, which opened with a narrative of misery and oppression, closes on a note of confidence and hope.  Israel is assured that day and night, the divine spirit hovers over it, guiding and controlling its destiny.”