When you turn the corner to drive down Clark Drive and you see Temple Emanuel's sanctuary at a distance, what do you say? You are supposed to say words familiar from this past week's Torah portion: Ma Tovu Ohelecha Ya'acov.... “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel.” But maybe you would want to say: "It's good to be home." For many of us, the sanctuary is our spiritual home, redolent with the memory of people we loved, and overflowing with hopes and prayers for the future.
What does it mean to come home? The more you think about it, the more complicated the notion of home actually is. Aphorisms abound like: "Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to." Or "Home is where the heart is."
What represents home to you? What is the difference between a physical home and a spiritual home? When your kids go off to college, how do you remind them of home? Is ritual important in creating a sense of home? Can a virtual community give you sense of home or is home only a face to face experience? Do you feel at home in America? Do you feel at home in Israel? Do you feel at home in your Jewishness?
In celebration of moving into our transformed sanctuary at these High Holy Days, your rabbis are thinking about focusing on these questions for our teachings and sermons. What other questions do you have that will help us think about our message to you? What are some of the questions you'd like to think about during the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashana, that might help you really prepare to do the work of the High Holy Days: coming home to Judaism, to a sense of divinity, to your best vision of yourself?
I am struck by the insight of Rachel Naomi Remen: "Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person." The new sanctuary is almost ready; through listening to each other, it will really be the kind of sanctuary that helps each of us come home.
E-mail your questions to me at rabbigeller@tebh.org or post them on twitter @rabbigeller or Facebook.
Rabbi Laura Geller
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