Dear Haverim,
I am so deeply grateful that you will be honoring my work at University Synagogue by dedicating the bima in my name this Friday evening. I can think of no more appropriate time than on one of the most important holidays of the Jewish year – Shavuot.
Shavuot is one of the “Shalosh Regalim”/Three Pilgrimage Festivals when, in ancient times, everyone, who was able, gathered in Jerusalem from around Biblical Israel to celebrate the abundance of the summer harvest. Gratitude is the theme of this holiday – gratitude for what has been planted, gratitude for the gift of Torah, gratitude for learning, and gratitude for the growth of our people by inviting in “Jews By Choice.”
We will read “The Ten Commandments” and a selection from “The Book of Ruth,” eat dairy foods and express joy that we are a people of both particularism and universalism, of both the past and the future. (We’ll also celebrate birthdays and anniversaries this Shabbat, our choir will sing and we’ll recite Yizkor before Kaddish.)
Seven is a sacred number in Judaism – Shabbat, Shiva, Shavuot and more. The “Seven Weeks” from Pesach to Shavuot (the name of the holiday means seven times seven weeks) are a journey from the joyous gift of the freedom of Pesach to the maturity of accepting responsibility for oneself, our people, and the world at Shavuot.
It’s the human story in just seven weeks! We are given a life full of choices and the opportunity to make the right ones. Certainly, we can all celebrate that message!
As we all know, Shakespeare wrote in “As You Like It”:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
Seven ages. Another sacred number seven! I have strived to live a full life of serving the Jewish people and all of humanity and I am overjoyed that I have had the honor of sharing two-thirds of my fifty-year rabbinate with you.
Your profound kindness in dedicating the bima/pulpit in my honor is truly a highlight of my life. We have shared, for over three decades, this “stage of worship and celebration,” and so many other “stages of our lives” together. So much substance and meaning have been experienced by all of us on our bima – namings, B’nai Mitzvah, weddings and, sadly, funerals.
We have all shared so much learning, teaching, and humor on the bima, and so many from our congregation and beyond have read, chanted, opened the Ark, blessed candles, sung in the choir, carried the Torah and so much more from our bima. Truly, the bima is the heart of our multi-faceted congregation.
Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, described “Jewish religion” as the heart of the evolving religious/cultural civilization of our people. So, too, is our bima, our congregation’s Neshama/soul. On our bima, the abstract meanings of life become tangible, and our transcendent hopes immanent. Our bima reminds us that we have all been, in Shakespeare’s imagery, players in our sacred community, and active and eternal links in the chain of Jewish history and life.
So, let’s all join this Friday evening to celebrate Shavuot, and to dedicate our shared sacred stage/bima. This will be my last Shabbat service until July, so I look forward to seeing you this Shabbat and wishing you Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom! (RSVP here.)
Shavua Tov/Have A Joyous Week,
Rabbi Arnie Rachlis
