Would you just skip it?
What if you knew for sure that you would see or hear something unusual? What if you knew for certain that you would experience something extraordinary? Would you miss it?
Oh, I know that Saturday mornings are just right for getting errands done, picking up the dry cleaning or purchasing a new shower curtain. Saturdays are perfect for boot camp workouts, kids’ soccer tournaments, or – on crisp sunny days – hiking in Harriman State Park. On Saturday mornings, you can meet your cousin for coffee or visit your niece after surgery. I know… on Saturdays you can even just sleep in after an over-scheduled week.
But what if being in Shabbat on a Saturday morning promised something that transcends all of that? Would you just skip it?
If you come to synagogue on Saturday morning instead of everything else you do…
Perhaps the davenner* will chant El Adon in a different tune, not the expected tune, but in the one that was sung in your childhood when you sat next to your grandfather in shul.*
Perhaps you’ll watch as five-year-old twins run purposefully down the aisle and onto the bima* at the start of the Torah service to be handed silver Torah crowns which they hold up proudly as if they are the whole point of the service. You definitely find yourself grinning as you watch them walk solemnly behind the adult holding the Torah.
Perhaps you’ll see a proud nonagenarian ascend the bima, slow but sure-footed, to accept an aliyah* and receive a blessing for the 80th anniversary of his bar mitzvah.
Perhaps you’ll see a seven-month-old baby girl receive her Hebrew name on the bima and lean forward to send a big, sloppy toothless grin in the direction of her great- grandmother for whose husband she has just been named.
Perhaps you will rise when the Prayer for Healing is chanted and you will have a clear picture in your mind of your friend who is recuperating from surgery. You will sense that your prayer can reach him in his Boston hospital.
Perhaps you’ll be invited to open the ark when the Torah is placed back there after the recessional and when you look at the colorfully decorated Torahs, the congregation sings Hashivenu, “Return us to the days of old.” And you aren’t sure why, but you feel something in your heart unlock.
Perhaps you’ll see a man chant the haftara* to honor his brother’s yahrzeit* and as you follow in the English, you realize that this story of Jonathan and David from the Book of Samuel was your haftara when you became bat mitzvah. As you pay closer attention, you remember all the words.
Perhaps you’ll sit down next to a woman you don’t know well, but has always reminded you from a distance of your mother. And as you silently tear up, missing your mother so much even after 24 years, this fellow congregant hands you a tissue. And you feel your mother’s soul closer than you have in years.
Perhaps the words of the Dvar Torah* will strike a chord deep within you, answering a question that has been lurking in your mind, an important question not yet articulated.
If any one of these transcendent moments were likely to happen on a Saturday morning, would you just miss it?
Holiness does not arrive with trumpets and drums but with quietly perceived moments.
All of these moments do happen. Will you be there with me to experience them? Life holds the promise of being so much more than our own routine.
A community of holiness awaits you every Saturday at nine. I’ll see you there.
Rabbi Paula Mack Drill
*Translations so we’re all on the same page:
Davenner – one who is praying, in this case, the one who is leading the prayers.
Shul – a cozy Yiddish word meaning synagogue.
Bima – platform at the front of a synagogue where the Torah service takes place.
Aliyah – the honor of reciting blessings before and after a portion of the Torah (also called an aliyah) is chanted.
Haftara – a section from the Book of Prophets chanted on Shabbat and holiday mornings.
Yahrzeit – the anniversary of the death of a person according to the Jewish calendar.
Dvar Torah – literally, words of Torah, designates a sermon or a teaching given by a rabbi or a knowledgeable person at Shabbat services.
Bringing rituals to life and lives to ritual
From experience, she anticipated the tears. She knew that the moment the cloth was torn, the crying would commence. So she looked at Nancy, and before taking the scissors to the material she paused and asked, “Are you ready?”
Nancy took a deep breath and nodded in assent. Only then did Amy begin cutting the lace away from the satin. What was once Nancy’s bridal gown more than three decades earlier now looked like a tablecloth. And Nancy cried.
Amy the counselor comforted her. She assured Nancy that her reaction was normal, and that only a happy marriage could yield these tears. As she spoke her words of consolation, Amy the designer seamlessly moved the lace to a long narrow table and held it in place with a six-foot ruler. She noted how remarkably pristine and strong the lace was, and how much of it was salvageable. Just a few seconds and several snips later, what lay before us had been transformed from a mere remnant to a magnificent wrap.
Amy the teacher’s questions now came fast, teasing out Nancy’s reactions, drawing out her emotional connections to the significance of tallit, to the ritual of prayer, to family, to life cycle and to legacy.Amy the artist held Nancy’s responses and guided her through the creative process. After considering several connections to the number four, Nancy decided that the four corners of the garment would bear the names of our four sons. When Nancy shared that she had designed graphics for each of our son’s bnei mitzvah depicting the season of their celebrations, Amy suggested that we incorporate the graphic into each satin corner along with their names. The occasion on which they each first wore tallitot as adults would thus become a part of Nancy’s ritual every Shabbat and holiday.
The garment is not actually a tallit until its fringes are affixed. Within a matter of a couple of days of our meeting with Amy in Needham, Massachusetts, we received word that the project was on its way to our home, with two fringes yet to be tied. Perhaps the two sons “tying the knot” in the months ahead, along with their fiancées, will each have a hand in tying the remaining knots of the tzitzit to render the tallit “kosher.”
Some people grab a prayer shawl off a rack and toss it around their neck as a matter of custom. Some people choose a tallit for the way it hangs on their shoulders. Amy Lassman is a guide, teacher and artist who connects a potentially perfunctory ritual with time, emotion, memory and dreams. Amy, you are Bezalel, a visionary who thinks deep thoughts, who gives birth to holy moments and holy creations, who constructs sacred spaces under the wings of the Divine Presence. You have given my family a new pathway into our tradition. You have reshaped my family’s story, possibly for generations to come. And though you may not have earned a formal degree towards that end, you are my rabbi.
Thank you. I hope you don’t mind if I share your Torah with the world.
Check out Amy Rosenstein Lassman’s work at adardesigns.com.
Two Rabbis, One Voice, Three Opinions 
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