Shabbat Gathering: Listening for the Siren.

Brian D. Johnson

Oct 4, 2024 • 5 min read

Dear Chevrei, we are not meeting tonight. You get a newsletter anyway.

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Here we go.

I was that kid who enjoyed the beginning of the school year. I got new, bright yellow pencils, a Big Chief tablet of paper, maybe a ruler, protractor, a compass with that dangerous point on it, and maybe one of my grandfather’s fragrant cigar boxes to hold it all. The beginning of school caused a big upheaval in the family because not only was my little brother and I were going back to school, so was my mother who taught 2nd grade in the same building where my brother and I attended. My brother and I would go with our mother to her classroom starting about a week before school started and helped her put it together. This also gave my brother and me the opportunity to get to know our new teachers in the building and start beginning to become their pets.

I get the same feeling when Rosh Hashanah comes around. New lunar calendars and planners start arriving in my mailbox and I start wondering what I’ll wear to services. I wonder if it’s too late to start weaning myself off caffeine. I take my tallis to the dry cleaner. I try to figure out which invitation to accept for the break fast I’ll attend (Hi, Deb) and what I’ll bring to it. And looking for forgiveness to give me that feeling of a fresh start for the year. It’s a busy time and not just socially.

Taking the D train to Flatbush.

It was my first Friday afternoon in Brooklyn. I had taken the D train from the “city” to Flatbush, Brooklyn where my bride and I lived on East 13th Street and Kings Highway. I went down the stairs from the platform to the street and began walking home. Suddenly, sirens started to go off. Not the type on firetrucks or police cars, but the type I had grown up hearing in Arkansas when a tornado was headed our way. I looked up at the sky, and it was clear. Then I thought it might be the signal of the coming nuclear apocalypse, and I thought there was nothing I could do about that and I might as well keep heading home. When I arrived, I asked my bride what those sirens were all about. She explained that the sirens go off every Friday afternoon an hour before Shabbat to let everyone know they should stop what they're doing and go home. And, once again during my years in NYC, I felt as if I had fallen through a rabbit hole into an alternative universe. I was a stranger in a strange land.

For me, Rosh Hashana has that double meaning. There’s the world of possibilities a new year brings with it. (Those unsharpened yellow pencils) But it’s also a warning that Yom Kippur is just about here and Hashem will close the book of life one more time and our fate for the coming year will be sealed.

I’ll have a clean tallis for the High Holy Days. I’ll have weaned off caffeine for the fast. In some cases, I’ll have accomplished the Teshuva described by R. Ruttenberg, and in other cases, it’s already too late. I’d like to start 5785 with a clean slate, but I’ll end up carrying some guilt and sin with me into the new year. And for that, I’m sorry.

Making Teshuva to you, gentle reader.

I’ll use this opportunity to try and make Teshuva to you, gentle reader. It was made clear to me this year that something I wrote in one of these silly little newsletters offended you, not all of you, but some of you. And that’s too many. For that I’m sorry. It’s been a rough year since 10.7.2023 and it was inappropriate to express a political position from either end of a very polarized world. That doesn’t mean my opinions have changed, but it does mean, as explained to me by the synagogue, that I needed to rein it in. My mother, the second grade teacher, taught me: “Don’t piss people off. It rarely accomplishes anything positive.” Those weren’t her exact words, of course, but that’s what I hear when I remember it.

I’ve avoided writing anything political since then and I hope that indicates my contrition and sincerity in reforming.

Here's something the folks at the Reconstruction movement sent out this week. It's by someone who has worked with CSS and I think it's very apt:

A Prayer in this Time of Crisis
by Rabbi Maurice Harris, Associate Director for Thriving Communities and Israel Affairs Specialist

As Rosh Hashanah approaches and news alerts flash,
We pray, we worry, we watch, and we hope.

We pray that these flames will not erupt into a bonfire.
We pray for the return of hostages.
We pray for all in the region to be spared the terror of bombs and bullets and for just and lasting peace.

We worry about leaders who may bend the arc of history toward chaos.
We worry for loved ones – of all religions and all nationalities –
That they could lose their lives,
That they could lose their humanity.

We watch with concern for our tribe in The Land and our tribe in this land,
For the safety of our own kin and the safety of all God's children:
The sages teach that no one's blood is redder.

We hope for calm during the Days of Awe.
We hope for quiet phones and a loud shofar's call.
We hope because the hour calls for it.
We hope because we must.

May we write ourselves and all of creation into the Book of Life.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.