Cantor Goldberg Shabbat Message

Shalom WJC Family,

As Rabbi Dalton mentioned last week, the rabbis and I have begun to rotate writing this weekly message. I look forward to sharing what’s on my mind and adding some reflection to the announcements you see. Always feel free to be in touch about anything I write here or for any other reason.

This coming week I’m looking forward to some family time away at my parents’ house near Philadelphia. For the past several years, we’ve made it a point to be there on January 1 to attend the Mummers’ Parade. With origins in the 18th century, the parade was formalized in 1901; it is the longest-running continuous folk parade in the United States. It is an amalgamation of many different ancient European New Year traditions that coalesced in Philadelphia. It is a noisy, colorful, and wild spectacle.

As we’ve attended the parade recently, I noticed that I get the mystical and transcendent feeling that I am participating in something quite ancient– something that human beings have been doing for a very long time. It can somehow feel like instinct has taken over, as I find myself dancing and cheering in ways I wouldn’t at other times. It taps into something deep in human nature that feels both very familiar and deeply significant.

I must say that the Mummer’s Parade is the only non-Jewish thing that gives me this feeling, but lots of Jewish things give me that sense that I am participating in something very ancient that has a deep meaning and a reality that I can’t completely understand rationally: kohanim offering their benediction on festivals, brit milah, Hallel with lulav and etrog, beating willow branches on the last day of sukkot, parading with the Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah, and lighting candles around the winter solstice as we did last week during Chanukah.

At its best, this is what ritual can accomplish for us: lifting us to a different plane of consciousness while connecting us to the most primeval of human yearnings that are as relevant now as they were for our earliest ancestors. Experiencing that feeling in a non-Jewish setting only sharpened my awareness of how often our own rituals draw us into something ancient and communal, and remind us that Judaism has always known how to speak to the deepest human instincts through sacred practice

While many of us are away these weeks, our daily minyan continues like clockwork and could use your help in ensuring a reliable minyan even while many regulars are out of town.

It is naturally a quiet Shabbat around here: we’ll gather for Friday evening services at 4:15pm, Shabbat morning at 9:15am with kiddush lunch following. I’ll also be teaching between mincha and ma’ariv, all beginning at 4:15pm.

If this email finds you away from home, I hope you enjoy your trip and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Shabbat Shalom,
Cantor Goldberg