As our previous schedules and routines have been disrupted and we remain in the same place most of the time, the days sometimes lose their differentiation, and we ask whether today is a work day or day off, Monday or Wednesday, whether it is morning or afternoon, and as we look out the window at snow capped daffodils, whether it is spring or winter. In these moments I am especially grateful for Judaism's rituals and reminders that separate time.
Lighting Shabbat candles helps to internalize that it is Friday evening, and extinguishing the havdalah candle marks Saturday night. The worship service includes a different psalm for each day, and is different for morning, afternoon, or evening. A blessing for an approaching new month is part of the Shabbat liturgy, and there are rituals for the first day itself. Holiday celebrations have symbols and rituals to place us not just in the Jewish liturgical year but in the seasons. And we are now in a period of counting the Omer, marking each and every day until Shavuot.
As our secular liminal time continues, I invite you to try more of these rituals, and do more of them in community. We are lighting Shabbat candles as part of our Friday evening worship, will continue our Saturday morning and holiday worship, and will join for online Havdalah on April 25 at 9pm. And we will soon be counting the Omer online as we build toward an online Tikkun Leil Shavuot. I look forward to joining you as we mark time in ways that are both ancient and quite new. Rituals and traditions that have sustained people for generations can be part of sustaining us now.