A Word from Rabbi Schulman - 11/6/2020

Yesterday morning, my daughter Naomi texted our family, “How’s everyone holding up?

Any recommendations for healthy coping mechanisms? I had to hide the chips and cookies from myself.”

Within seconds, her brother Carmi responded, “Hanging in there but feeling pretty anxious. I went for a run this morning that helped. I have also watched a lot of great British baking.”

Carmi’s fiancé, Chaney, added, “Carmi is actually staring at the map all day.”

Moments later, Rebecca wrote, “Funny enough I’ve been checking the map too and just hoping for the best but I’m not trying to get my hopes up ‘cuz I did that last time and we all saw how well that turned out.”

Eve texted “Doing art and long walks. Baking helps too.”

We each have our own ways of coping during these stressful times. Tonight, I hope that our Shabbat service offers us an oasis of calm. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.”

Tonight we will seek connection to our Source of Life. There will be meditative readings that offer spiritual uplift.  And there is an additional component I am really looking forward to: our choir singing!  Not live, but prerecorded. But they certainly will be in harmony.

We all could use greater harmony, don’t you think? Shabbat Shalom!