March 8, 2024
28 Adar I 5784
Among the many moments of heartbreak when I was in Israel, there were also uplifting moments. There were moments of joy and tremendous beauty, and there are two very small memories that have continued to come to mind. Both, in some ways, combine the sense of pain and heartbreak with a sense of hope and joy.
The first was on the very first night that we were in Israel, eating dinner at a beautiful restaurant called Eucalyptus. The goal of the restaurant and its chef Moshe Basson (you can check out his new cookbook) is to bring foods and spices from the Bible to life. Sitting just outside of the Old City of Jerusalem, Basson masterfully weaves the culinary experience into a religious, cultural, and historical one. He made a maqluba, a dish that combines meat, rice, and spices, all cooked together, and it gets turned upside down onto a platter in a fabulous reveal. Basson emerged from the kitchen to perform this ritual for us, and invited Jill Shanker to do some hand-waving gesture over the ginormous pot prior to the flip. As she did so, Basson got emotional, and said to us, “I haven’t done this in 143 days.” See, Eucalyptus had been closed for months during the war, and having just reopened, he was performing it again. He was pained by the loss; he was joyous at reopening, at the ritual, at the hope.
On our last day of the trip, we met with a group of senior citizens who live in subsidized housing. Their group home has a choir - named the Groveman/Belz Choir - and they performed for us with abundant joy. They sang in Yiddish, Russian, Hebrew, and English, and we listened with smiles, often through tears, and sang along. And at the end, we danced. We danced in circles, we lifted someone up on a chair, we hora-ed like it was the best of Jewish weddings. And afterwards, one of the group members, after thanking us, said that they hadn’t danced since the war started. It was a gift to them, he said, for reminding them that they know how to dance.
This Shabbat, we announce the coming of Adar II, the repeat month of Adar that we get in a leap year on the Jewish calendar. Our tradition tells us that when Adar enters, it brings with it joy. And so we said the same message a month ago, when welcoming in the first Adar, that we can bring in joy as well. But perhaps, in a world riddled by war, it’s easy to forget that we can find the smallest moments of joy - dancing to a song we know, making a beautiful dish. To be sure, even these are privileges in a time when some experiencing war cannot do even these smallest measures of joy. Perhaps that means we need to relish them even more, ever aware of the experience of others and their pain, and grateful for the moments when we can find joy.
In this next month of Adar II we’ll be telling the story of Esther, the story of another challenging time in our people’s history. It’s a story of those who sought out our destruction, our ability to overcome it, and ultimately, a mandate to feel joy. So for me, this Shabbat is a reminder to do even just the smallest things that bring us joy. Find the song to sing, even if it’s been a while. Make the dish, even if you’re not sure who will eat it. Dance, even if you’re alone. May this upcoming month be one where the small joys turn into big ones, for each of us, for our people, and for all people.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Sarit
