Parashat Eikev 5783
Ten years ago I left my life in Brooklyn, where I was living the mid-20s life of being a nanny, barista, and Hebrew School teacher, for Rabbinical School in Boston. Leaving Brooklyn was very painful. Although it took me a few years and it wasn’t easy, I had made a home here. When I left, in a van stuffed to the brim with things I had collected from stoops over the years (a hot pink pleather chair, a blue nightstand, various knicknacks), I vowed internally to come back.
I was at a comedy show recently where a comedian was talking about Boston saying, “did you guys know that there is a huge competition between Boston and New York IN BOSTON?” I am not here to say which place is better, but because my heart was here, I spent 5 years in Rabbinical school being obnoxious about how much better Brooklyn was than Boston. I even talked about the annoying parts as positives, “in Brooklyn, you really have to work to get your groceries! It’s better that way!” or, “in Brooklyn I used to have to walk up 5 flights of stairs to my apartment, I got sooooo much exercise!” I would also say, on a more real/spiritual level, “even the sidewalks just feel Jewish in Brooklyn.” This is really why, as a Jew from the Midwest, I feel and felt so alive in Brooklyn.
In this week’s parsha, Eikev, Moshe continues his speech to Bnai Yisrael as they are about to enter the land, saying
Keep, therefore, all the mitzvot that I enjoin upon you today, so that you may have the strength to enter and take possession of the land that you are about to cross into and possess,
and that you may long endure upon the soil that hashem swore to your fathers to assign to them and to their heirs, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Brooklyn is a אֶ֛רֶץ זָבַ֥ת חָלָ֖ב וּדְבָֽשׁ, a land flowing with milk and honey. Or, perhaps, a land flowing with seltzer and gefilte fish. A land flowing with culture, magic, and wisdom. An embodiment of this is walking past a Brooklyn apartment building at night, and seeing each apartment illuminated, you can feel that there are unique worlds within each space. One filled to the brim with plants. Another illuminated by a pink light. Another with a cat in the window. When you cross a threshold in Brooklyn you actually truly don’t know what will be on the other side.
This community is a beautiful display of this Brooklyn magic. In addition to the history of this community, Jewish knowledge and engagement evident in its members, there are artists, quilters, theater performers and directors, writers, teachers, lawyers, psychologists, small business owners, and so much more. I can’t wait to get to know each of you and hear more about your unique lives and interest, like a Brooklyn apartment at night, to see the unique people that create PSJC as a whole.
When I left my meeting with Rabbi Carie this past Spring when she offered me the position of Associate Rabbi, I walked home full of joy through the quiet park on a Sunday afternoon. A song came to me and I just started humming, not remembering at first what it was. I started singing….
Hashivenu hashem elecha v’nashuva
Chadesh yameinu k’kedem
Return us, Hashem, to you and let us come back
Renew our days like before
We just heard these same words in a different tune, at the end of Eicha just over a week ago when we mourned the destruction of the Temple. Tisha b’Av is a day we think a lot about home. What does it mean to be home, to be pushed out of our home, to have to make home somewhere new? This word hashiveinu, return us, shares a root with another word that we are about to be saying a lot of in the coming months–teshuva. Return. Repentance. Ultimately: coming home.
As we Jews are well versed in the art of wandering, I ended up making a home and a life in Boston, and again in Ithaca. While there is beauty in this ability, it is a blessing to return home to this place and this community, which flows with milk and honey. This place is famously heimish, it is known for the way it makes you feel at home when you walk through the door. I feel so honored to get to join the sense of home that you’ve all built here. I am excited to be able to continue to make a home with you and welcome others in.
May the Holy One bless us to be able to sense when we are home, and to feel nourished and supported by the milk and honey that flows here.
Shabbat Shalom
