December 8, 2017 |
20 Kislev 5778
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A Sanctuary of People, Places, and Things
by Laura Miller
At first,
for me
, sanctuary was a
place
, not a synagogue. Raised by two antireligious atheists meant that it was a while before I set foot inside one. Rather, it was the natural surroundings of my home in the Catskills; it was in the woods, the creeks and lakes, the milkweeds and wild blueberries, the gentle folds of the mountains, the tang of the winds. At four, when I first heard prayers sung in Hebrew in the dusty card room of a hotel, I felt the words and melodies soar beyond those walls and reverberate in the mountains. Much later, having learned a little Hebrew, I thought of that place as
hamakom
– the place where God is.
With the advent of air travel and air conditioning, city folks no longer flocked to the Catskills every summer to escape the heat. The hotel my dad managed went bankrupt, as did most others. With the growth of agribusiness, the family farms which had dotted the area also went under. My childhood world vanished. We moved away.
After that, sanctuary was a
person
– my grandfather. Grandpa was a singer in the Metropolitan opera, a man with a ready smile and twinkly blue-gray eyes. One day my mother, still very much the atheist, was reaching for words to explain death to a seven-year-old. She told me that Grandpa had gone to heaven. I took this to mean that Grandpa’s soul was closer to God. Every evening, as I walked upstairs to my bedroom, I passed a portrait of Grandpa on the landing, his eyes staring straight into mine. I began to think of him as my spiritual guide, one I frequently turned to when trying to figure out what God would want me to do.
Later, sanctuary was a
thing
– a piece of raw topaz. My cousins gave it to me when I visited them in Brazil at age 14. It was a miniature world of tawny, gleaming, jagged crystals surrounded by unobtrusive stone. I imbued it with spiritual meaning, experiencing it as a representation of a fiery soul encased within a protective tomb. When I was 16, my boyfriend accidentally dropped it, and it shattered. Years later, I sent the fragments to my childhood friend for strength as she underwent cancer treatment.
There have been many more losses since those – of other homes, cherished objects, loved ones. As people I love leave this world, it feels as though they take some of its light with them, leaving behind a dullness and heaviness of spirit long after the acute anguish has faded. But what also remains is the collective imprint of everything and everyone. The image of birds soaring high above the Catskills, the sound of Grandpa’s voice, the glint of the topaz, the love and courage of so many. Memories through which I can reach to feel closer to God. Memories that, when I share them with others in community, become my sanctuary.
If you’d like to share your thoughts with the congregation on what sanctuary means to you - a time in which you felt like a sanctuary dwelled within you, or how we can extend sanctuary to those who need it, feel free to reach out to
Ellen Blum Barish
and
David Barish
.
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From the Borscht Belt to Beth Emet,
Laura Miller’s
life has included wise mentors, wonderful friends, difficult losses and moments of great joy. Laura is a women’s mental health psychiatrist, mother of two awesome young adults, and author of the novel “The Path of the Orphaned Star.” She lives in Evanston with two who light up her life, her soulmate/husband Barry and their intrepid dog Kira.
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In Exodus 25:8, God says to Moses, “Create for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” These words set the building of the Tabernacle into motion. But the verse’s ending has an interesting grammatical anomaly. Instead of telling the Israelites to create a sanctuary so God can dwell
within
it, the wording suggests that the dwelling may be
amon
g the people, or
within
them, suggesting that God can live
within
us rather
than exclusively in a physical sanctuary. This year at Beth Emet we’ll explore the multiples meanings of sanctuary—as physical space to gather as a community for prayer, as spiritual space where we feel safe and whole, and as an attitude that is welcoming and accepting of everyone.
This weekly e-mail project, curated by David and Ellen Barish, allows congregants to express themselves in any of a variety of media: speechmaking, poetry, essay, story, photography, film, paint, sculpture, printmaking, textile, sound or music. If you'd like to contribute, please email
Ellen
and/or
David
.
Logo designed by Marco Siegel-Acevedo
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Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
1224 Dempster Street
Evanston, IL 60202
847-869-4230
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