Holy Housework

Friday June 6, 2025/10 Sivan 5785/Parashat Naso

Hevre/Friends,

Our departure for Rabbi on the Road 2025: Basque Country is just days away! Andi and I are heading to Spain early to get some hiking in before meeting our group of 29 in Bilbao next Sunday for an active itinerary full of history, culture, food, and wine. Sara Krumminga, our trip coordinator, and Nina and Pablo of Bravo Luxury Travel, have been working hard to ensure that our days and nights are filled with interesting, fun, and delicious adventures and encounters. I have been diligently preparing to enrich our time with meaningful and thought-provoking teachings and reflections as we explore this part of the world through Jewish eyes.

One of the most exciting features of the trips I've been leading all over the world for over 15 years is the fellowship that forms between our travelers. It emerges not only from shared experiences on the ground, but equally from quiet exchanges on the bus, around the breakfast table, over a cocktail, or a Shabbat melody. Together we embody yet another iteration of Jewish community - with all our diversity in background and perspective - and we offer one another the powerful gift of belonging. And I, with my most beloved trip partner, Andi, create and manage the containers, the sacred spaces, that hold us all through the week as we discover, learn, discuss, taste, sing and share with one another. We set up tables, plan bus snacks, adjust the a/c, and, respectfully, herd.

This week’s Torah portion, Naso, reminds me of just how sacred the seemingly mundane work of creating space and organizing events truly is. In its opening section - one that prompts the fewest commentaries - the text describes the responsibilities of some of the Levite families to carry the components of the Mishkan as the people moved from camp to camp and the portable sanctuary was continuously disassembled and reassembled. The curtains, the posts, the pegs, the sockets, the cords, and other pieces of the tabernacle had to be packed and transported only to be unpacked and reconnected at the next desert rest stop to create another hallowed space in which the divine and humanity could meet.

It's not just texts and harmonies, prayers and rituals, that bring a community to life. It's also folding chairs, lighting, name tags, and cookies that make a "synagogue", literally, a place for Jewish gatherings, for shared shared Jewish experience, for deep Jewish connection. These, too, are the stuff of holy work.

May the strong bonds and deep pride we'll cultivate together in Basque Country help fortify the Jewish people's resilience during these dark and dangerous times.

With continued prayers for our ability to bring home all the hostages, protect the soldiers, heal the injured, comfort the bereaved, and build a lasting peace in Israel and around the world, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

A pic from our LJCC (rainy) Shavuot hike!