Creating Sacred Space

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameah!

It may be difficult for some of us to remember, but the piece of land on which our beautiful Freedman- Levit Sanctuary now sits was just a parking lot before construction began just a few years ago. No one can suggest that a parking lot possesses any sanctity, but what our congregation did with a portion of ours acknowledges the power we possess to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, the plain into the holy.

It's a transformation exemplified each year at Sukkot when we take a grassy yard or cluttered patio, clear everything away and build our booths. Suddenly that piece of earth becomes far more valuable than it was just moments before. When we sit in a sukkah, we are taken back 3,000 years to the time our ancestors made their epic four-decade journey across the Sinai, a journey fraught with fear of the unknown and a tenuous faith in God.

Tonight when we light our candles in our sukkah, recite the blessing "lei-shev ba'sukkah" and the "she-he-he-yanu," we know that it is not just on our patio that we are sitting, but rather in a sacred space created by our own hands in a place that is so ordinary the rest of the year.

It's the same transformation I see in my own home each Friday night when we dress up our dining room table with a cloth cover and beautiful flowers, and when we add wine to what is always the most delicious meal of the week. Suddenly that table, so ordinary the other six days of the week, becomes so wonderful. Everything smells different, looks different, is different. By our hands, we create each week a sacred space, a wonderful testimonial to the spiritual power with which God has endowed each and every one of us.

May this New Year bring us all many opportunities to use this gift in ways that can deepen our faith and nourish our souls.

Hag sameah!

Rabbi Rosen