It's Real . . .


. . .which seems like a bit of a strange thing to say. After all my friends and coworkers threw for me, in total, three going-away parties. I got my last paycheck (gut check on that one) and whittled what little material goods I had left to begin with down to two suitcases and one backpack for Israel and seven boxes to be shipped later to Germany. I even flew half-way around the world. It still didn’t seem real. Then I registered for school and signed student insurance forms, participated in ice-breakers with the other students and got my mailbox. Nope—still felt like I’d be flying out any day to deliver another two-day onsite training for a new client.

And then this morning all 52 students representing the (for the first time ever) cohort of 1st year cantorial, education, and rabbinical students from Hebrew Union College, Leo Baeck (in London) and Abraham Geiger Kolleg gathered together for Shacharit (morning prayers.) The cantor began singing a niggun (song without words) and then, finally, it was real.

I don’t know—maybe it is a little corny. Predictable even. But as I looked around it was obvious that I was not the only one going through this. My tears fell in harmony with what seemed the majority of student in the room. Afterwards one after another said the same thing—“Now I know that this is real.”

We spent a lot of time reflecting on the reality of what it meant to be rabbinical and cantorial students, but I think most of us stepped as well into a new realization of what it meant to be on the path to become clergy—even more to clergy that is a voice of Progressive spirituality—spiritual leaders that embrace inclusivity as a primary definition of spirituality.

As the prayer service went on I think something more happened. We collectively realized not only that this was real, but that the group of 52 might just have something else going on. The kavanah, or the intention behind the prayer, was not of rote recitation or the product of required attendance, but rather what one might argue to be the ideal of kavanah—to use song and prayer to join more closely with an indefinable universal reality so that we can then shine the light of that reality brighter and more intensely.

So it is indeed now real – but it’s also just beginning . . .

(Picture note: View of one of the courtyards at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem-- a bit of an oasis.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm so glad to see this up. Congrats on your big move, and I hope your new setting will prove a boon for your soul (and your blog). Sending many warm regards from Montana...
July 12, 2007 11:05 AM
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