Just to let y’all know, this will be my final “My (Holyday) Word!” It’s also my final “My (Daily) Word!” and this Shabbat’s “My (Shabbat) Word!” will be my last “My (Shabbat/Holyday/Daily) Word!” Of course I’ll continue the Wednesday “My Word!” column along with Michelle’s eBlast but at this point, one month before the new year, I’m working on fine-tuning the Zoom/Livestream services and sermons as well. (Oh, you should know how much I care for you…I was going to just stop everything today, but knowing how you’d miss the Shabbat jokes I decided to “gift” that to you one more time. Nice guy, eh?!)
As I mentioned, I and many, many colleagues realize that people are over-Zoomed what with the vast number of Zoom options offered to our congregants in their various roles. Rabbis have zoomed for professional conferences, classes and the like, particularly regarding options for the holydays. You have zoomed with family and friends in addition to work-related or school-related conferences. Our children have zoomed for virtual education which no doubt will continue as we move forward. With all that zooming, our (you should pardon the expression) tucheses are over-zoomed and our sitzfleisch (ability to sit for a long period of time…one of my parents’ favorite words!) is more and more limited. Thus, the usual 2-or so hour services will be shortened, keeping (I hope) the most essential elements of each service while streamlining the rest into a manageable hour or so. And as much as I realize how you will be in a major mourning mode, my incomparable hour-and-a-half sermons will also be shortened!
In fact, I’m working on a sermonic experiment. I’ll attempt to have at least one “rolling” sermon. It will be broken into a few segments, with the first segment beginning at the start of a worship service (soon after the opening song or prayer) and subsequent pieces after or before relevant readings/prayers. If I find it’s not working “on paper” I may ditch the experiment altogether but a “rolling” sermon limits each segment to about three minutes. The best part of this is that by the time the last segment has been delivered you won’t even realize that, had it been one uninterrupted sermon, it indeed would have taken an hour-and-a-half! (Hmmm, you’re not laughing)
Seriously – and I’m repeating myself on purpose – this will be a different holyday season... We have to pull with the punches in terms of the hands-off sanctuary, but:
We’ve got Zooming and livestreaming.
We sadly will miss the camaraderie of greeting and sitting with friends, but we’ll have Zoom opportunities for about fifteen minutes before the start of each service to virtually shoot-the-breeze.
We won’t be able to toss the sticks and stuff into the running stream for Tashlich as before, but we’ll have some kind of Tashlich moment the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah.
And there will be other noticeable differences we surely will encounter. Know however that what will remain the same is our congregation’s strength in the midst of all of this, and mutual best wishes for good health, peace and joy in the new year of 5781!
And THAT’S my last word! sort of.
(Speaking of jokes, other than Saturday’s, my joke-of-the-day can be found in the body of the article – bold and italics!)