In the past few months since the beginning of the pandemic, I have several times snuck into our empty, darkened synagogue where I serve as a rabbi. It isn’t exactly sneaking: staff are permitted to enter the building to retrieve work necessities from our offices, as long as we sign in, tell our executive director we’re there, wear masks, sanitize and distance ourselves from each other upon any chance encounters.
Nonetheless, a sense of sneakiness weighs on me, as I put my master key into the main doors to our lobby or punch in the code to our offices. The insufferable quiet that now greets me in our once-bustling house of worship feels eerily like the smothering silence of a burial ground. I almost think I hear it admonishing me not to transgress the sacred line between the world of memory interrupted within and that of reality marching on “out there” in the roiling mess of America.
Read Full Article »