This morning we drove from Ventura County back to Pasadena for Shabbat services at Mayfield Senior School, a Catholic girls school who lent its auditorium to Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, which burned to the ground on Wednesday. You might have read about it in the New York Times. Howard was behind us in the Subaru with the dog, and I was riding with my son Gabe in his truck. He pulled up a Spotify playlist of songs with great harmony, and Hard Times by Eastmountainsouth came up in the queue. A number of years ago when I was in a girl group called Floozy with my friends Alison and Patti, that was one of our songs, and of course now the lyrics took on a whole new meaning as I sang them through my tears. After Hard Times came Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz. Man, did it feel good to sing that at the top of our lungs speeding east along Highway 101.
Services were cathartic. Much to my surprise I was able to sing as I do every Shabbat morning. Cantor Ruth pointed out the four stained glass windows of angels in the back of the auditorium, one of which was Gabriel (above). Obviously he’s my favorite.
We currently have no synagogue rabbi. This weekend we were supposed to welcome a candidate in our current rabbi search, but instead we were led in services by Cantor Ruth and Rabbi Jill, our Religious School Director. We are so lucky that Rabbi Jill used to be a college English professor, so when she preaches she is literary and poetic and metaphorical. I can’t quote anything she said but I can tell you that it deeply fed my soul.
Then Cantor Ruth read a prayer for us fire survivors composed by Rabbi Naomi Levy, another local Los Angeles rabbi who most certainly has some survivors in her congregation too. In speaking to the community of supporters, she advised to be ready for the time when the survivors’ numbness wears off, and the reality of the long, long work of rebuilding really sinks in. I perceived my own numbness as a survivor, and made a mental note to be ready for when it wears off. It’s like physical shock: the blessed numbness that shock gives your body when you are not quite ready to handle the pain that is coming.
During the Torah service we read the last parshah in the book of Deuteronomy, Parshat Vayechi, which ends with the death of Jacob and his burial back in the land of Canaan. At the end of every book of the Torah, we stand and recite “Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek! Be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened!”
Next week we start the book of Exodus.
[Note: If this is the first fire-related post you have read, you might go back to read Fire Journal for some context. Fire-related posts will be in reverse chronological order starting with that one.]