Volume 28, Issue No. 3 Tevet 5781 / January 2021 EyEs CovErEd, WE ArE onE by Rabbi Adam Zeff Why do we cover our eyes when I have long been influenced by Rabbi Arthur Green’s teaching we say the first line of the Sh’ma? that “to assert that all is one in God is our supreme act of faith.” Even though we refer to this This is true, he writes, because “life as we experience it seems practice, traditionally done twice infinitely fragmented. Human beings seem isolated from one daily, as “reading the Sh’ma” another, divided by all the fears and hatreds that make up (k’riyat Sh’ma), for the first line human history. Even within a single life, one moment feels cut we do not read it; we memorize off from the next, memories of joy and fullness offering us little it early in our lives, and then we recite it with our eyes not only consolation when we are depressed or lonely.”1 closed but also covered. Why would this first line, the line that says that God is One, be said without using one of our primary Especially when we are actually experiencing every day the senses, the sense of sight? Why do we cover our eyes all the way ultimate in isolation and division, for us to recite the Sh’ma and through the word “One”? to proclaim the oneness of all things through God requires an enormous exertion of the imagination, pushing back against the In the Talmud (B’rachot 13b), the ancient rabbis agree that all evidence of our senses to reach the truth of a greater oneness three paragraphs of the Sh’ma should be recited, but they beyond all that divides. This is what I now think is going on when disagree about how much concentration is necessary for each we cover our eyes for the Sh’ma. We need to shut out the vision part of it. It is notable that they believe that concentration is of our separation in order to be able to sense, deep within a hard thing to require, even for a few paragraphs of prayer! ourselves, the reality of our connection with other people and Some argue that concentration is required for the whole thing, with the divine, despite all the barriers that seem to lie between some just for the first paragraph, and so on. Rabbi Yehudah, the us. Maybe this is even what Rabbi Yehudah was doing when he compiler of the Mishnah and one of the leading authorities of put his hands over his eyes, amid all the stresses and trials of his the Talmud, seems to take an extreme position. He was days: blocking out the world for just a few seconds to recapture observed saying only the first line of the Sh’ma, and holding his his sense that somehow, in some way, all is One. hand over his face while doing so, and there was debate over whether he even said the rest of the Sh’ma at all. The unstated May we each take a moment every day, even for a few seconds, assumption is that Rabbi Yehudah thinks that only the first line to sense the connections that hold us through our physical of the Sh’ma requires concentrated intent. Although his position separation, the love that surrounds us and the people who care seems to be an outlier in the disagreement, it is the one that for us, even though they may be far away. For just a moment, carries the day. The early law code called the Tur codifies this as we, too, can hide our eyes from our material reality and believe a requirement that all who say the Sh’ma cover their eyes for that we are one. the first line, and that is the practice we follow to this day. In the times that we are living through, this year of pandemic and isolation, our lives cut off from each other, I have been rethinking the assumption that covering our eyes for that first 1See his commentary to the Sh’ma in Kol Haneshamah Prayerbook for line of the Sh’ma is about enhancing our level of concentration. the Days of Awe (Elkins Park, PA, 1999), page 303. 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In MEMorIAM In CELEBrATIon oF... (June 8, 2020 – August 2, 2020) rebecca Ladenheim, sister of Judith Rossman, and lifelong member of Germantown Jewish Centre Anna Herman, on her special birthday Arthur nevins, father of Neysa Nevins and grandfather of Tani Art Ellis, on his special birthday Helen & Michael Feinberg, on the October marriage of their son, dennis spivack, longtime member of Germantown Jewish Ari, to Kate Sheridan Centre Ari Feinberg & Kate sheridan, on their marriage on October Gloria Weiss, mother of Barbara Weiss and grandmother of 2, 2020 Dalya and Zachary dan Piser & deb White, on the birth of their grandson, Noah, son Lila Booth, mother of Beth Rosenbaum, grandmother of Ben and of Rebecca Piser & Yakein Abdelmagid Aaron, and longtime member of Germantown Jewish Centre Marty Kaplan, on his 91st birthday Barbara Bloom, wife of Robert Rossman, and longtime member WELCoME rETUrnInG MEMBErs! of Germantown Jewish Centre Shai Ben-Yaacov & Kate Dugan Joan Groner, mother of Judy Groner www.germantownjewishcentre.org 3 THE PrEsIdEnT’s CoLUMn by Dan Livney “Every community is established felt like an ongoing trauma that we have all experienced. Much for the sake of some good.” of it, as I’ve observed it, has to do with seemingly irreconcilable ~ Aristotle, Politics views on what constitutes “good." That ideal that Aristotle postulated was the start of all meaning-making about individual Dear Community — Except for the and social life but steadfastly refused to define. sounds of ECP, the synagogue is quiet now. Yet there is still One of the startling things I have observed over this time is synagogue business going on. You just how much of the functioning of the amygdala—our probably already know about— anxieties—are