It's done! - by Michal

The service went really well today! Our transitions could have been better, but overall it was good - we had choreographed it nicely and the congregation followed along with everything. I got some nice compliments afterwards, including one from a classmate who told me that she could see me as a rabbi, not just a classmate, and that I exemplified "leadership on the bima." Someone else also said that the service was majestic in its solemnity. We received some good constructive criticism at the debriefing with faculty afterwards, so I feel more confident about my next service now.. whenever that may be.

Just FYI, here is my iyyun, or my short original piece:


Jewish tradition relies on stories. Stories lift us up and tear us down. They helps us realize who we are, and who we want to be. They are fundamental to our folklore, our oral tradition, and our sacred texts. And there is perhaps no greater story in our heritage than that of creation, when God seeds the world with love and bequeaths it to humanity for safekeeping. Today, as we start our storytelling tradition anew following Simchat Torah, I would like to share with you my favorite story of creation. It was written by a man named Nota Schiller, and is called “The Wall of the World.”

In the beginning there was a ball of glass.
And that was the world.
By day the blood-red ray of the sun poured down
warming the wall of the world
spilling a rippling rainbow over all.
By night, the blue-white beam of the moon
cooled the wall of the world
in dulcet floods of light.

And God said
lest this man who is singular
Err in his aloneness,
lest he, my new-born creature,
construe his stance to the utter Oneness.

Let it be then, that
he shall know instead,
the delicate edge of divisibility.

Thus came the newer moment
of femininity,
That she with the
clock of her being
could time the beat of his heart and measure
the distance of his soul.

And there was man and there was woman.
By day they basked in the gentle rainbow that
rippled with flute-toned notes.
By night they sang with the blue-white hum
of the beam of the moon.
And the notes were scented like flowers.
For light was music and music was light
and all was one.

And God said to man and woman, know then, that the
music and the scent, the rainbow and the light are yours,
but the wall of the world,
it is sacred.


I now ask, how do you visualize creation, how do you seek your own beginnings? What is the wall of your world, and how do you keep it sacred?

We now turn to the biblical story of Creation. Please turn to page 104 for the Torah service.