"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.  I am not a teacher, only a fellow student."  (Soren Kierkegaard)

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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON

The Telling
Part 1 - Fortune Teller
At a certain age, both of my kids folded blank 8 and 1/2 by 11 piece of paper in a particular fashion, writing certain colors and numbers and - a fortune , kind of like the slip of paper you find in the fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants. We call this specially folded paper, part of my own childhood, a fortune teller. 

And we participated in a ritual, a well-rehearsed kind of responsive reading:
Pick a color.
Blue
B-L-U-E. Pick a number.
5
1-2-3-4-5. Pick another number.
7
1-2-3-4-5-6-7. [the fortune teller opens the flap behind 7, revealing the fortune] "You will never die." 

Part 2 - The Great Song of the Sea
This Shabbat we chant from Parashat Beshallach which includes the triumphant poetic retelling of God's hurling horse and rider into the sea; of Miriam playing her tambourine, singing with the women; of the Israelites marching through the miraculously divided waters. Beyond the stirring ancient poetry, there is the ritual. We stand for this reading. This marks the moment as something special, as most Torah readings are not occasioned by the congregation standing. The usual musical cantillation is altered. While the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities follow their own musical paths, what we share in common is that this poem calls for a special song. Certain phrases are sung by the congregation along with the Torah chanter. 

Unpacking both rituals
While the "fortune teller" can be seen as a "mere child's plaything," it holds a bit more than meets the eye. Both the "teller" and the "picker" enter into a magical space for a moment, a place where they both "believe" they are part of an experience of an oracle. Even when we're too old for that sort of thing, we might hold onto a bit of nostalgia for the innocence of that moment. Moving onto the centuries-old communal practices surrounding the Great Song, we also return to a sort of dream-time, we go back. We become the Israelites who were rescued from destruction. We have an annual window of recapturing an elusive sense of awe and wonder, so that when we exclaim: 
Who is like You among the gods, Adonai! -  מי כמוך באלים ה
we are not simply quoting ancient verse; we are rescued and we are filled with gratitude, and we know that God has made everything possible.

The rituals are not simply old dance routines. They are special vehicles, sacred moments that can transport us from the mundane merry-go-rounds of our secularized modern selves to another realm of human community. It doesn't happen automatically. You have to open your heart as you sing, you have to [temporarily] let go of the schedule and directory and multiple applications and games and diversions packed neatly into your ever-so-smartphone. You need to [temporarily] let go of all that. And you could give yourself permission to close your eyes and you can believe that the waters can be parted and you can leave the narrow confines of mitzrayim. At least for a short while.  

I've decided to keep this most recent fortune teller which my daughter made a few weeks ago because I can hear life whispering urgently to me: Hold onto the fleeting moment. It is a gift.

Rabbi Aaron

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