Heading into the snow

A short note before Shabbat

(A High School Favorite. Apologies in advance if this isn’t your sound.)

My house is filled with the smells of vegetarian chulent (Shabbat stew.) Stacked before our front door are snowshoes, sleds, bagels, snacks, and hand warmers. We are preparing for “Ski-bat,” where we will gather for Shabbat dinner and musical prayers at a local inn, pray on skis and snowshoes on a beautiful trail in Western Maine, and then study Torah together over warm food in the afternoon. Then, on Sunday, our annual ice harvest for the Beth Israel mikvah.

Amid all of this activity and excitement, I only have a few minutes for a small potato, but I hope it provides some comfort and nourishment. In this weeks portion, Yitro, there is a beautiful promise that God makes to the Jewish people:

וְאַתֶּ֧ם תִּהְיוּ־לִ֛י מַמְלֶ֥כֶת כֹּהֲנִ֖ים וְג֣וֹי קָד֑וֹשׁ אֵ֚לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תְּדַבֵּ֖ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.” (Exodus 19:6)

The Italian commentator, Sforno interprets the phrase goy kadosh, a holy nation:

וגוי קדוש, never to disappear from the stage of history. You will continue forever to exist as one man, as it will be in the distant future of which the prophet Isaiah 4,3 said “those who survive in Zion and those who will be left over in Jerusalem, all those who are inscribed for life in Jerusalem- shall be called ‘holy’.” [the author is making the point that somebody called קדוש is by definition immortal. Ed.] Our sages in Sanhedrin 92 describe this concept in the following words: “just as He, the Holy One, is forever, so the Jewish people are forever.”

What does it mean to be a holy people? It means that we are a people who will endure forever. Even though on an individual level our lives may pass like a shadow, collectively, we are part of an eternal story that began at Creation and will extend to ultimate redemption.

What does that mean on a personal, practical level? When I was driving out to Sugarloaf last week with a friend, she expressed to me that she only probably had 17 or 18 more summers in her life, and she needs to make the most of summers left. I took what she said in, and let it sit with me for a minute. I don’t look at my life that way. Maybe I’ll think in that way more when I’m older. Maybe I should start thinking that way. We are, after all, instructed to “number our days so that we may acquire a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)

However, for now, I don’t see things that way. I don’t know how many summers or winters of afternoons of skiing I have left in my life. No one knows but God. But what does carry me as a matter of faith is that my individual life is just one fractional part of the Jewish people — a people that is small, but that has been promised eternal, collective life. We have been around for a long time, and have defied the odds time and time again in order to survive. Sometimes I wonder how we would live our lives differently — both as individuals and as a Jewish people — if we believed that eternal life was a given upon which we could rely.

This Shabbat, let us think about what it means to live our lives with the faith that God’s promise is true. We have experienced much pain as individuals and community over the millennia, but we are still here, a nation that has been set apart through its mission. Maybe through a combination of gratitude and faith, we can rely upon that promise, living with the confidence and comfort needed to enjoy the time we have on this earth and leading with the joy and strength that this moment requires.

Shabbat Shalom.