Hybrid Shacharit in the Park

One of the silver linings of COVID times was the sudden abundance of events going online. For someone like myself, finding myself living in a city where the type of Judaism and Jewish practices/gatherings that I align to don't really exist, it was a joy to suddenly feel not only invited, but able to be fully present, and equal amongst all the others in the Zoom room.

I attended ceremonies, prayer services, study groups from across the world (well, admittedly, mainly Israel and USA) and the one that I found to really be a place of community, which still exists today, and to which those of us who found that space loyally show up every Friday, is an online shacharit minyan (morning prayer gathering) hosted by the Reform movement.

There is a sense of joy when everyone starts popping up on the screen just before 8am, and when we hit 10 (the traditional number associated with the quorate required to say certain prayers), there is a huge sense of achievement and joy that we can start.

This morning, I realised that I was not going to have a chance to walk the dog (Bamba, a goldendoodle incase you were wondering!) unless it was during that precious holy dedicated time of the online shacharit minyan. I was really frustrated that I wouldn't be able to be fully present for the minyan, and for my friend (in Germany) who was leading it. I was also concerned - and annoyed - that i knew there were certain spots on my route where the reception cuts out. How was this going to be a spiritually uplifting start to my day? But I decided to show up anyway, because that's what we do for the minyan - we make up the minyan - and I typed into the WhatsApp group my apologies that, although I would be there, I'd keep my camera off this week to avoid distraction as I walked the muddy paths of Roundhay Park accompanied by our prayers together.

So off I went, into the grey, foreboding street, AirPods in, wondering how dark it would still be in the woodland before it opened out onto the Upper Lake, and which route I should go.

But it seemed Bamba had decided on the woodland path, so in I went, as we sang Mah Tovu - how great are your tents, your dwelling places, God. How great are your canopies and trees who stand tall and witness decades, often centuries, of life in their rooted grounded part of the world. Mah Tovu- truly how great are the homes that exist here in this woodland, for so many different species. V'Ani barov chasdecha, a'vo veitecha - through the greatness of Your love, I enter Your house.

Gratitude overflowed, the sun was continuing to rise, the sky was clearing, the chanting of the mornng blessings in my ears exactly matching my mood.

The path opened out, and I arrived at the Upper Lake:

Bar'chu et Adonai Ham'vorach! Bless God! whom we are called to Bless!

I stopped and took it all in. I took this photo and sent it to the WhatsApp group. Blessed is God who forms light and darkness... who gives light to the world and those who live in it renews in goodness the work of creation day by day. God how great are your works!

I felt as if God was speaking to me - providing the moments to accompany our prayers as if to say, "Here I am! I am with you!"

I walked on, down the smaller path that takes me to the folly.

I knew we had reached the Sh'ma in the service but I couldn't hear anything. I strained to hear, frustrated that I was losing reception. I took up my pace, to rejoin the prayer after the first line had been spoken. I was angry that I had missed it. Then I realised maybe God was teaching me something here too; I was listening, but for the wrong thing. I could have listened to the birdsong around me, to the rustling of leaves as Bamba ran past. OK, I get it. I need to find the harmony in nature and the prayers; its not one or the other, but both, at the same time. Hold both.

I arrived at the folly, a small mini castle looking structure. It was the Amidah. I had arrived at the Palace. I took three steps back, and bowed, before entering and walking through.

I was getting the hang of this now. This was becoming an extraordinary immersive prayer experience. I know the park so well yet had never seen it in this way before. Equally, I know the morning prayers so well, yet some of the words, and imagery had never popped out at my like this before.

I carried on, along the path on the upper side of the ravine, back into woodland,, seeing little things in full technicolour, a spring in my step despite the sticky wet mud underfoot in places.

We're reaching the end of the shacharit, and the end of the walk. I just need to cross the golf course, then rejoin the road and walk the short distance home.

The Amidah ends, the Aleinu, and then the invitation for others to unmute to say the names of loved ones who have passed from this world to the next. I walk out of the woodland into the expansiveness of the golf course, fully aware of the Divine invitation to see the crossing of the soul from one path to another at the moment of death, in the scene in front of me.

Yitgadal, vyitkaddash sh'meih raba..... I took this photo and shared it in the WhatsApp group.

The prayer ended, the service ended, we said our goodbyes and I felt truly uplifted and grateful for this brand new experience of a hybrid Shacharit in the park.