Tag: Atlanta Convention

I am not a big-hotel person. Wandering through long hallways, going up and down in mirrored elevators and walking on endless carpeted floors does not somehow enhance my sense of well-being or joy. When I first got to the hotel, I had to find out where the convention was actually happening and the answer was: “Take the elevator to C level.”

Now in Israeli geography, when you live not too far from the lowest spot on earth, the term “sea level” has a life of its own: driving to the Jordan Valley in Israel, whether to the Sea of Galilee in the north or the Dead Sea in the south, the signs indicating “sea level” are your reference to how high or low you are going. So I guess “sea level” made perfect sense to me. I was lucky enough that there were other people going into the elevator so I had a quick chance to realize my mistake without embarrassing myself too much, although I was already getting disoriented to the point that I wasn’t sure whether we were going up or down, the elevator sign just indicated it was EZ.

On the right level I still found myself more than once following the cool CCAR footprints on the floor to find myself in the right place at the wrong time (or vice versa) which gave me a chance to re-evaluate Heschel’s idea about sacred time versus sacred space, since in this case I needed a combination of both to make things happen. With this little sense of disorientation, I finally made it to Monday morning prayers, to enter a huge ballroom marked by its heavy chandeliers shedding somewhat dim light, carpeted floor and windowless walls, a setting I found not at all like my preferred setting for prayer. Not having windows was the hardest. I was well aware of the demand to have windows in a place of prayer, since at one point in our community in Rosh Ha’ayin, the option of praying in a miklat – a bomb shelter, came up, and I used the demand that there be windows to reject that option.

But then, as often happens, the magic just happened. I was carried by the music, the spirit, the joy of being together and the words of Torah, and it made me completely oblivious of the setting. It was symbolic for me that Rabbi David Stern, the elected CCAR president, related in his D’var Torah to the feeling of disorientation, of not knowing where the four directions or the four winds are, or being ‘wind whipped’. In that case, he said, quoting from Brachot tractate, you need to direct your heart to heaven to re-orient and re-connect yourself. This idea made me think of the small ritual of covering yourself with Talit, the prayer shawl, at the beginning of the Morning Prayer: you first wrap yourself completely, losing all sense of orientation, and then re-open the tallit regaining a new orientation, which has to do with turning your heart to heaven. I also realized that the word orientation might have originally indicated finding the orient, the Mizrach, the direction where (for those who used that term!) Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem are.

In turbulent times, Rabbi Stern related, when we experience a sense of being ‘wind whipped’, we need to take our sages’ advice and find ways to re-orient ourselves, to create our own compass (מצפן) and our own consciousness (מצפון) so we are able to discern good from evil.

For me it meant going back to our base line or what I was referring to as sea level.

Rabbi Stern concluded by mentioning the Sulam, Jacob’s ladder. Each of us, he argued, need to place his ladder with its legs steadily standing on the ground but its head aspiring to reach the sky. It made me think of Jacob waking up the morning after the ladder dream and realizing: God dwells in this place and I didn’t know.

God definitely dwelled in that place and I didn’t know.

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Rabbi Ayala Miron serves Bavat Ayin Congregation in Rosh HaAyin, Israel and teaches at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem. 

Most years I want to go to the CCAR convention.  But this year, this year I had to go. I needed to see my friends and colleagues. I needed  to pray with them and  to learn with them.  I needed my soul to be nourished and to be in a place where I could sit still long enough to hear the still small voice give me words of hope. And I knew that for that to happen, I had to be with my chevrei in Atlanta.

The Tanach tells many stories of encounters with God, where individuals hear the Divine call and responded “Hineini!” – Here I am. Those were important encounters, but there is only one moment that transformed us as a people and gave us our purpose, and that is when we stood together at Sinai. Sinai happened because we were willing to come together for a purpose larger than ourselves. At Sinai we were called upon not only to be in a covenantal relationship with God, but a communal relationship with each other as well.  Sinai required us to stand united for a goal that was greater than any single one of us, greater than any one generation. Sinai required us to see ourselves as acting beyond the now, and understand that we are part of a legacy that requires that we forever remember before whom we stand.

I thought of Sinai this morning as I sat in a session with Atlanta’s Mayor Kasim Reed, and Reverend Raphael Warnock and Rev. Natosha Reid Rice of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  They spoke of justice, the need for moral leadership and moral clarity. They spoke about redemption, hope and courage.  And most of all, they spoke of the need for us to stand together and to speak up for each other and with each other.

Rev. Warnock said: “Interfaith work is uniquely important in this moment. …. When we stand together on principle we gain moral credibility and authority. And we’re strong when we stand together. We need to stand together more often, and get to know each other.  And even those who don’t believe, we need the witness of atheists too. …Because in a real sense what they bear witness against is the false God.”  Rev. Warnock reminded us what we learned at Sinai, we can accomplish more together than by ourselves.

Rev. Reid Rice urged us that now is the time to “Put words into action. Put faith into action. Private faith requires public action.”  Revelation happened outside for the heavens and the earth to witness for a reason. Faith is not supposed to be private, it needs to be lived out loud and in the world.

When Rev. Warnock reminded us of the powerful words written by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to his fellow clergy in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” I was struck by how relevant and true his words continue to be. Like the prophets of old, Rev. King’s words call out to us:  “We are tied together in a single garment of destiny.”

I came to Atlanta to be with my chevrei. But what was revealed to me was that I also needed to hear Mayor Reed, Rev. Warnock and Rev. Reid Rice, because the Torah they were teaching was the same torah of hope and courage that I remembered hearing when we stood together at Sinai.

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Rabbi Mona Alfi serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento, California