Stay Home - is the Universal Message of the Coronavirus
Stay home is the universal message of the coronavirus. As we face this new reality the Rabbis and shul goers all over the world have a lot to navigate.
For some, shul closings have been the thwack of reality about how serious the pandemic is. Closing our beloved synagogues is somehow more impactful than everything else that has been shut down. There has been a lot of discussions about how communal life will be and already has been impacted. Discussions about spirituality and the primacy of each individual life over shul-going life. Discussions about Passover and individuals who used to rely on communal seders, needing to make their own. About learning new Torah portions for Bnai Mitzvah, and how to generally make the most of these strange times. One comment that I read about shul closing, really struck me. The comment was about this being the first time for these communities that the Shabbat Angels would not grace their homes, because tradition tells that the Shabbat Angels follow a person home from the synagogue.
No synagogue means no angels.
Does it really?
We teach the Midrash about the angels to children from a young age, it is one of my first memories of learning anything interesting about Shabbat. I remember learning that two angles come to everyone’s home on Shabbat eve, a good angel and a bad angel. They arrive at our homes, enter, and with their prying eyes, they look around. If they see the house calm and ready for Shabbat, the table set and candles aglow---the ‘good angel’ blesses the home, ‘so shall it be every week’ and the bad angel acquiesces with an amen. If the house is in chaos, people filled with stress and resentment, the table unready for the meal, the bad angel says ‘so shall it be every week’ and the good angel must acquiesce and answer amen.
This Midrash, slightly traumatic, I remember taking it quite literally when I was a child of 5 or 6.
The thing is that my father never went to shul during those years.
Yet, I knew that angels graced our home and tried my hardest to get along with my siblings and listen to my parents because I didn’t want any bad angels to have their way with us. I had not thought about those Friday nights in our home at 1420 Columbia Drive, NE, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until I read the comment about “No Shul, No Angels”. Thinking back, I am sure all of this played out only in my mind, the imagination of a six-year-old, but I remember clearly that I knew we had angel visitors. Nothing to do with a synagogue.
My father did not go to shul, because like many Chabad shluchim across the globe he couldn’t get a minyan on Friday night. Procuring a minyan on Shabbat morning was a challenge in itself, so Friday night we stayed home. This was our reality as shluchim. Life without a minyan. But prayer? That we did, in spades. In fact, we all davened together as a family in our living room. We sang at the top of our lungs, Shlomo Carlebach tunes to Mizmor L’david and Chasidic tunes to the Lecha Dodi, all of us, my father, my mother, and my siblings. I am sure it was because we were not in shul that my father felt he had to make up for it, so he prayed with us as if he was leading a service on Park Avenue, it didn’t matter that his only congregants were his 3 small children. We swayed and we sang. And we sure greeted those angels. Even if we also fought some too.
I don’t know if technically the angels came to our door if we weren’t outside to bring them in. I don’t know if they came if they didn’t follow us home from the shul. What I do know is that not going to shul on Friday night, or even not having a minyan at all, is not something new to Chabad Shluchim.
There are Rabbis and Rebbetzins who for decades have been living with the self-sacrifice of sometimes being one of a few Jews in their town who know about Friday night and its prayers. These brave shluchim living alone in the boondocks, miss their relatives, they miss the availability of kosher food and Jewish schooling, and they miss praying with a minyan. Nevertheless, they put on on a brave face for their children, and pray with them just as they would with the most distinguished congregants at the fanciest synagogues known to man. Do you know why?
Because at the core they know that there is purpose in what they are doing in the boondocks and their children are the most important people to daven with. Right there in their living rooms.
Right now, with Pesach approaching Jews of all stripes and ages get to feel a little bit of that solitude and intimacy that I experienced as a young shlucha living in Albuquerque. And as my parents did, we can all make the most of it, it will be memories your children cherish. And about those angels--- you can be sure they are visiting every single one of our homes on Friday night, and on Passover; and the Good Angel is surely seeing the universal self-sacrifice of the Jewish community doing our part to keep the planet safe, and blessing us all---with the host of angels answering Amen! So may it be.
