The first question on the scavenger hunt read, “In the Torah, God promises that Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. What in our sanctuary reminds you of a starry night sky?” As if on cue, all of the children turned their heads to the ceiling. “You see, it’s like the small lights are the stars and the big light is the moon!” exclaimed a second grader.
Despite the need to brave the rainy day, all of our religious school students enthusiastically participated in our ‘Synagogue Scavenger Hunt’ during our session on Sunday morning. When asked, one young student eloquently explained that it is important to spend time in the newly transformed Corwin Family Sanctuary: “We pray in here, so it is really special.”
The scavenger hunt led students to discover many of the hidden secrets of this space, in which few of them had spent time throughout its previous incarnation. Among other things, they found the letters of the Alef-Bet in the stained glass windows, the Lions of Judah guarding the Aron Ha-Kodesh (ark), the yartzeit walls which help us remember our loved ones, and sculptures of the Ten Commandments and the menorah that graceour bima. For the older students, the challenges were even greater: not only did they need to identify the animals guarding the ark, but they also had to find the verse in the Torah(by looking through the Torah commentaries under the chairs) that alludes to the importance of this Jewish symbol.
While many of the students would agree that the sweetest part of the morning was finding the candy that had been left from the previous day’s bat mitzvah, for me there were many sweet moments. One was seeing a group of kindergarten students crowd around Rabbi Geller, asking her questions about the five Torahs in our ark. Another was seeing students bless each other with the priestly benediction, emulating the hands that hold our solar powered ner tamid (eternal light) over the ark.
We were also lucky that the Greer Social Hall was not set up for a party – but instead, was left empty on Sunday. As it turns out, our elegant and classy banquet space is also a terrific room for kids to run, play and get their ‘shpilkes’ out when our playground is too wet to enjoy!
But the best moment came at the end of the day, when our whole school gathered together for t’fillah (services) in the sanctuary. As the room resounded with the sound of grades Pre-K through twelve singing Oseh Shalom together, they didn’t look like guests, or like kids playing grown-up in someone else’s place. This room has become theirs, like it has become all of ours, thanks to the generosity of so many. No longer just the site of special occasions like High Holy Days or b’nai mitzvah, many more special occasions can now be elevated by the holiness of this space.
We could ask our students to open up the chumashim kept under the chairs in order to find us the chapter and verse, Exodus 25:8. There, they would discover the words that God spoke to the Israelites in the wilderness: “Let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.”
In these rooms, where children are blessed by their parents, where teenagers become b’nai mitzvah, where our whole community gathers for worship in innovative ways, where we experience life cycle events and other sacred times… in each of these moments, God dwells among us. And together, we have built a space that amplifies the holiness within it.
Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin
The children truly made the sanctuary a 'Makom Kadosh'
Posted by: Carrie Oderberg | November 23, 2011 at 08:58 PM