No “Nusach”

In separate sanctuary rooms, during Rosh Hashanah our synagogue hosts both Sefardi and Ashkanazi prayer gatherings. I prayed in Ashkanazi sanctuary. Between the pauses during the last set of shofar sounds, I heard shofar soundings emerging from the Sefardi sanctuary. Briefly, the sounds of both shofars beautifully blended and harmonized.

In that moment, I realized that the sound of the shofar does not have a “nusach” (a unique style of prayer). Our deepest prayer does not have a “nusach” at all.

(In fact, it doesn’t even have words.)

Levels

Us above,

  Shared soul,

    Same goal.

Us below,

  Different souls,

    Different goals.

——O——

A Prayer for Words

 As my pen is filled with ink,

  Please fill my heart with words;

Words to pray, to write, to speak,

  Words to make plans, to heal, to inspire.

At times, I feel like my heart,

  Is a pen so desperately dry.

The page is blank, yearning for words,

  Yet my heart fails to satisfy her.

Please fill my heart’s inkwell,

  Let his words open hearts and heavens

——————O——————

“Isru Chag”

 A brief thought:

The day after a Jewish Holiday is called “Isru Chag”, which literally means to “bind the Holiday”. 

Aside from the technical reason for the name, which has to do with the Temple service, it dawned on me that perhaps there can also be another, more personal meaning, for the name. During the Holidays we stretch ourselves to attain that unique Holiday consciousness. When the Holiday concludes, we need to go back to our normative lives. There can be, and ought to be, a gap between these two states of consciousness. But it’s not the way of Judaism to allow such a gap to remain.

So on this day, we “bind” the consciousness of the Holiday to our normative lives. We download the light of Holiday consciousness into the vessels of our normative lives, infusing our normative lives with that wonderful expansiveness which only a Holiday can provide. We literally “bind the Holiday”.

To what? To our normative lives!