IT'S NOT THE PALE MOON...

--By Ethan Witkovsky

It's not the pale moon that excites me, that thrills and delights me, oh no.

It's just the nearness of you.

It isn't your sweet conversation, that brings this sensation.

It's just the nearness of you.

I am writing this from Jerusalem and it is my first time ever in the Holy City. I arrived on Friday morning just in time to pray shacharit as my first prayer service in Jerusalem, it wasn't as moving as I had hoped but I assumed that was due to the jetlag. Over Shabbat I had a wonderful dinner and lunch with friends and incoming students and then walked to the Western Wall for the Shabbat afternoon service. It wasn't as moving as I had hoped. The city of Jerusalem and its holy sites were not instilling in me the kind of prayer and spirit that I had expected would flow naturally from such holy ground. My lack of spiritual high bothered me and I searched for an explanation other than jetlag.

Abraham Joshua Heschel tells us in his book The Sabbath that Judaism is not a religion of space but of time. That is to say that since we are a people that grew largely in Diaspora we lock our spirit on to holy days and times not holy buildings. Perhaps that can explain my apparent apathy at the Wailing Wall. However, I recall my experience of last Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in which I had a prayer experience that was not what I had hoped for. There was so much pressure put on the davening of my first Rosh Hashanah in Rabbinical school that I assumed I was going transcend to the highest levels of Heaven or at least get some goose bumps. Rabbi Heschel is correct when he says that Judaism is a religion of time and not of space yet the important moments of Jewish time seemed to help inspire me no more than the important buildings of Jewish space.

The song tells us that it is not the pale moon that excites us. In some ways the Kotel and Rosh Hashanah can be like the moon. They are artifices that are themselves beautiful but can only reflect light that shines onto them. Perhaps these 'moons' are imbued with such significance because in their sheer impressiveness the Kotel and the Days of Awe are able to inspire within us, most of the time, the nearness of God that the singers of the song seek. It seems that these are only some of many ways to make us feel nearness.

I will say that the two instances in which I was moved since I have been in Israel have primarily not been connected with time or space but with people. Singing songs around the Friday night table with friends and telling a story to a group of newly made friends over Shabbat lunch were two instances in which I was not only moved spiritually but did receive the goose bumps which I had previously desired. I share this as a final piece for us to meditate on as we enter into the season of holiest time in the Jewish calendar. In my opinion, this time is about connection and nearness with both God and with our fellow human beings as we ask both parties to examine our lives and give us forgiveness. I will try to remember the lessons that I have learned in the last few days: given the right people, my friend's porch can feel more holy than the Western Wall, and with the right group of worshippers, the prayers of a Tuesday afternoon can bring me higher than those of Yom Kippur.

When you're in my arms and I feel you close to me,

All my wildest dreams came true.

I need no soft lights to enchant me, if you'll only grant me,
the right,

to hold you ever so tight, and to feel in the night

just the nearness of you.

--Ethan Witkovsky is a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Ethan took this year off from the program in order to study at the Pardes Yeshivah in Jerusalem.