TheAaronion 616 S. Mississippi River Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55116-1099 • (651) 698-8874 • www.TempleofAaron.org Vol. 96 • No. 1 September 1, 2020 12 Elul 5780 Sacred Spaces At a recent Board of Directors meeting an individual suggested the idea of creating educational sessions about how to convert our home, office, front stoop, or wherever we may be watching services into a Sacred Space. I thought about the question for several days. How does one transform a space to add more meaning? I have lived in many different spaces while moving around numerous times in cities, states and homes in my adult life. The living spaces have been transformed as my life situation evolved. In college, there were movie posters and my fraternity paddles placed on the wall. In rabbinical Rabbi Jeremy Fine school, my books became my decor. Once I got married, 651-252-6412 Email: Jessie became the family interior decorator (a wise [email protected] decision on our part). I do have an area of the house Twitter: with my sports memorabilia, and from time-to-time I sit @RabbiJeremyFine there to relax and get balanced. While this is not spiritually uplifting, there is a sense of calm and ease when I am there. This year all of us will try to find a corner or couch cushion to call our own but can we make it sacred? It is important to note that I have not found much personal meaning in our Zoom services. Often, my screen is closed while listening to Rabbi Miller, Cantor Fineblum or Ritual Coordinator Larry Eisenstadt. The synagogue space is far more special for me (I am guessing the same is true for many of you reading this article) when connecting with people and the routine of pause. That routine is not possible this year for us as a whole congregation. Let’s promise each other that we will do our very best to ensure whichever space we designate for the holiday becomes a sacred space. Thank you to A few suggestions: Michelle & • Try to have something from the synagogue, with our logo or a reminder of a moment, near your screen. Every once-in-a-while, look at it to remind you of the synagogue experience. Steve Shaller • Keep pictures of loved ones near you. This could be very emotional for for supporting some, but this year we need those extra reminders of our loved ones. another incredible • Create a virtual background for yourself. Allow those backgrounds to be the synagogue, Israel or somewhere else that brings you tranquility. Temple of Aaron • Get dressed up for the holidays. Continue the routine of marking the Fundraiser. days as special. • Finally, pick one spot and hold all of the holidays in that area. Make it known that for the holidays, in this space, you are going to try your best to find meaning. The next several weeks will be very difficult for many of us for a variety of reasons. You might lose the ability to read a prayer for the congregation, or gather with friends, or sit back and listen to a specific prayer that Cantor Fineblum sings. We all share in this disappointment of communal loss together, yet we can work hard to create and experience sanctity. Go to Youtube website, Shana Tova U’Metukah, search Temple of Aaron Rabbi Jeremy Fine and click on Temple of Aaron’s Page. 2 Ma Nishtana Ha . HaShannah Hazeh? Perhaps the title above made you take a double take. Perhaps you even thought that we might have mailed you the wrong Aaronion or maybe that you needed your eyes checked. Let me reassure you your eyes are fine (probably). And, no we did not send you the Aaronion for April and Passover, but indeed this is the Aaronion for the month of September and the High Holidays. So, then the question you would ask me if you were standing in front of me at this moment would be, “So, Rabbi, why did you decide to start with a Rabbi Micah Miller famous song from our Passover seder?” To which I Assistant Rabbi answer, this part of our Passover seder clearly 651-252-6411 Email: expresses the reality that we are all facing: [email protected] Something is different about this year than all Judaism 101 w/Rabbi Miller other years. I can comfortably say that this is Begins after High Holidays probably a first for us all in terms of how we will celebrate the high holidays. Whether you grew up going to Hebrew Distanced from our community, distanced from our loved ones — and dare I say — it School or came to Judaism later in life, might not feel like the holidays. I, like all of you, am aching and hurting from this this class will be a great, comprehensive reality. look at some of the essential aspects of However, different does not necessarily mean bad. When something is different, our our tradition. If you ever wondered why first inclination is to sometimes look skeptically at this difference to feel as if we do we break a glass at a wedding, where not like it. For example, Aria loves her almond yogurt (Kite Hill to be exact, and no the idea of shiva comes from, or how to they didn’t pay me for that endorsement.), and she is used to it in the traditional navigate the ins and outs of a kosher kitchen, this is the class for you. Bring package she eats it from. April and I also like the yogurt, but we spruce it up a bit with your questions and we’ll open up the oats and some protein powder and a few berries. We ask Aria, “Would you like to try a bite?” After giving us the are-you-kidding-me baba face, she replies, “No. Gross!” books to find some answers. To sign up, email: [email protected] There is nothing really different from it other than we took it out of the package that she is used to and added other things. (All things that she eats, by the way.) But she shuns it as if I am asking her to eat some foreign food item from Mars! Bar Mitzvah We are all used to what we like, but there is something to be said for trying something new, and for appreciating new things in a new package. Yonah Saul Bates, son of Rachel & Yuri Bates, will celebrate his bar This is the case for all of us this year. Services will be different. Meals with loved ones mitzvah on Sept. 12, 2020. will be happening over Zoom. We will not be able to sit in our traditional seats that we Yonah is in the have sat in for years. This is new. But this also allows us to try and appreciate new 8th grade at Dakota things. Hills Middle School, I also started with the familiarity of the Passover seder because this year I will be where he partici- recording a Erev Rosh HaShannah seder, a longstanding tradition from our heritage. pates in hockey and It will be an opportunity for us to connect and to feel that sense of community that I soccer, and plays trumpet in the believe each of us experience when we perform our Passover seder. When we have a middle school band. seder on Passover, we know we are connecting with Jews from our congregation, our He also enjoys playing copious amounts city, and truly all around the world. I hope that this Rosh HaShannah seder will be the of video games with his friends, eating same for you. While we might be physically apart, I hope this seder and the fact that sushi, and driving his sister crazy with we are all in this together will allow our souls to connect spiritually and link with one his new-found talent of Beat Boxing. another as we welcome in 5781. Yonah is a member of Kadima and has May it be a year that we look for appreciation in the new and move forward with designated Volunteers of America, a rethinking about how we can connect with one another. social services organization, for his tzedakah contribution. His proud Kol tuv and Shanah Tovah, grandparents are Barbara & Steven Rabbi Micah Miller Rutzick and James Bates. 3 Get excited It has been wonderful to see and speak with many of you over the summer, including over 80 people for School! who joined us at our Putt-Putt for Youth event in August. At this point, all of our school families have received information about school, and we look Sign up forward to classes beginning at ToA in the fall. Over the past months, a task force of education and today with health professionals has been meeting with staff and clergy as we finalized our plan for this coming year. The decisions made are based upon the goal enrollment of keeping our community and its members safe. While some school districts may open their forms we educational doors, we would be opening ourselves Joshua Fineblum, CJE to all of those districts in our one location. More emailed home! Cantor/Educator exposure puts more people at risk, and we wish to 651-252-5403 maintain caution and safety for all of our students, Email: faculty, staff, and families at this time. If you did not [email protected] Here is the 2020-2021 Education and Youth Department plan, as recently approved by the receive emailed Executive Committee of the synagogue: google forms, • ToA Schools will begin the year virtually this September.