In the TE lobby before Selichot services, Lenny told me that my Shofar articles don’t all need to be serious. Some can be funny or at least light-hearted. I told him I’m not really a funny person. An hour later, something classically TE happened which I thought I would share for this Shofar article.
Partway through the beautiful service that filled all the seats in our sanctuary and brought together four congregations, my first “presidential” High Holy Day responsibility took place. Nine “chosen” members of our community were asked to come onto the Bimah to change the Torah mantles. I was really proud of myself and had taken time over the preceding weeks to think about who would receive this honor. I had nine wonderful members of our community representing some of our newest members and some who have been part of the community for decades. I had members of different ages, and with varying experience participating in services. We had a quick pre-service huddle where Rabbi shared advice on how best to make the change and the nine people had arranged themselves into three teams and were all ready for their moment. Everything was set, and I was ready to sit back and enjoy watching our members take part in this ritual.
As they stood and walked onto the Bimah, I counted eleven people going up! I started to worry that I had really messed up and maybe I asked someone and had forgotten. I also worried that there was something special to the number nine and I had just committed a big faux pas as we entered into the High Holy Days.
In my moment of panic, I was surprised that Rabbi didn’t make eye contact with me. We are starting to be able to communicate through looks- a sign of a maturing relationship. To my relief, I didn’t get raised eyebrows. Did he not know where I was sitting? Thankfully everything seems to have gone okay, even though they were a bit crowded on the Bimah and they seemed slightly confused. Later, I learned that nine was the requested number solely because it’s helpful to have one person sit holding the Torah, one person to remove the silver and another to lift off and replace the mantle. Nine was a logistical, not sacred, number.
So why did I have eleven? When the choir began singing, Rabbi announced that we are now at the part in the service when he would like members of our TE community to come up and help change the mantles from our colorful ones to the white High Holy Day mantles. Two extra people stood up when Rabbi mentioned TE members, and proudly walked onto the Bimah. These “Bimah crashers” as they will be called, were simply excited and caught up in the moment. In classic TE fashion, they assumed that Rabbi was inviting the congregation to join in. The fact that we had nine carefully selected members who had huddled with Rabbi before the service and had pre-selected their “roles” was not known. In the moment, our Bimah crashers were proud, energized and ready to participate. That is what we do at TE, we stand up and join in.
At the Oneg after the service, there were many laughs with our Bimah crashers. Their energy and humor in retelling their experience as they realized they hadn’t been invited onto the Bimah was infectious. It was a really entertaining and heartwarming end to a beautiful service.