Halloween, Shabbat, Election, Oh MY!
How are you? Really.... just check in with your body and still your mind for a moment and ask yourself -- how am I doing right now?
I'm ok but generally speaking am dealing with some overwhelm. Partly that's about "hitting a wall" which many people have described around Covid. I'm tired and fairly unmotivated. I am happy to show up to teach or lead a program for Secular Synagogue, but things like paperwork, marking, scheduling, accounting -- those things seem impossible and the ever-lengthening to-do list is bumming me out. This is no doubt connected to a certain amount of existential dread I'm feeling around the new Supreme Court "Justice", the looming election, climate change, and the pandemic. It's a lot for any and all of us to manage as we try and do the stuff that makes up our days.
What is there to do? I'm hoping you'll lean on community and ritual some.
For Secular Synagogue members, here is our calendar for the month of November. Hope to see you often!
For everyone on this list, whether a Secular Synagogue member or not, I want to let you know that next weekend is the Global Shabbat Project. From Friday - Saturday the goal is that everyone who identifies as Jewish/ with Judaism does something for Shabbat. There are many many programs and resources on their page: https://www.theshabbosproject.org/en/home. I am hosting a virtual Shabbat dinner for friends I miss. If you want to do the same, I am gifting a Shabbat dinner at-home guide. This is up on our members' resource section but I want everyone to have access for the Shabbat project so you can host a dinner (in person or online) and have stuff you can say that matches your values.
That's what it's all about, isn't it? Staying true to ourselves and our values, even and especially in these turbulent times.
If you want to gear up for the Global Shabbat Project day, I invite you to spend some time this Friday or Saturday giving yourself permission to rest. I'm super into the Feminist Survival Project podcast which talks a lot about how rest is the revolution in a world that values productivity above all else. It's also how I found out about the awesomeness of the Nap Ministry, a project that encourages Black people to resist through rest. Drawing on the idea of the Sabbath, it encourages people to take good care of themselves as a resistance to a world that doesn't care much about them. It's a beautiful project and movement.
Speaking of Sabbath, this week Secular Synagogue got to learn from Tiffany Shlain, whose book about taking Digital Sabbaths has been really influential to us. She has a beautiful and inspiring 2 minute film out called Dear Voter. Please watch it. If you don't tear up I will be shocked. This is the final Shabbat before the US election. People are scared, excited, freaking out, depressed, cautiously optimistic... all kinds of things. I hope you'll take time to mark Shabbat this and next week as a bookend to all the big feelings and whatever the result is. We need to take care of ourselves and each other, especially now.
Lastly, it's Halloween! It's a special day in my house. My kids love it, of course. And, fun fact, Charlie and I got engaged on Halloween! After the proposal we went home and, in a time before streaming platforms and, if you can believe it, trying to access television via bunny ears atop a very very old television, we ended up watching the only thing available: the film House of Wax starring Paris Hilton. Why am I telling you that? Because it's ridiculous. Because it's funny. Because we are all so human and bizarre in our relationships, the way we mark special moments, the way we mark time. Because even with the general dystopic sense of 2020, there are wonderful and beautiful and silly things about being in the world. If 2020 has felt a little like a Horror show, let's let Halloween remind us not to take it or ourselves too seriously.
Wishing you, a happy Halloween, a Shabbat Shalom, all the courage and strength on election day, and lots and lots and lots of rest.
Rabbi Denise