Shabbat Blast

From Rabbi Dahlia Bernstein

Dear CBO Families,

I first learned to say “goodbye” at summer camp. After 9 days at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, where a full summer of fun was crammed into a week and a half at USY Encampment, I was hoarse, full-hearted, and teary eyed. It would be a whole year until I would experience that joy again. The counselors had to pry me away from my new best friends. Whether they were going back to Staten Island, or West Hempstead, our homes felt like worlds apart.

The art of “goodbye” has to be learned and unfortunately, it is only learned through experience. “Goodbyes” shift throughout life from graduations, moving days, empty nests, funerals, and divorces, among other relationships that come to a close. It is painful and contains grief, a sign that what is changing has great value to us. Cognitively, we understand that “goodbyes” are a natural part of life.

Ecclesiastes said it best (3:1-8):
“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die..
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance...
A time to receive, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…”

To our dismay, the heart doesn’t always intuit what the mind knows. Only through time do we learn that we will feel happiness again. Something eventually reminds us of the possibility that unknown joys may be coming your way. When one thing ends, this leaves a void, creates tsimtsum, a mystical withdrawal,  and we know that eventually, if we let go a little, creation happens. New relationships bloom with new “hellos”, and we grow wiser until the next “goodbye.”

This Shabbat we will end the book of Exodus. And as we do with the closure of any Biblical book, we chant, “Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,” translated as, “"Be strong, be strong, and we will be encouraged!" This is a wish for personal resilience, communal resilience and a sense that if we join together and share our humanity and these moments of grief, we indeed will be strengthened.

Shabbot Shalom
Rabbi Bernstein

SERVICES
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