Dr. Amy’s Tisch in Israel

For this particular tisch, we actually gathered on a Thursday evening rather than a Friday, in a wholly mundane cafeteria setting, around tables set in a large rectangle. While there was a rabbi there who welcomed us and “kicked us off,” it was a tremendously “democractic” gathering: each of us were invited to bring forward the Torah or the prayer or the blessing that was rising up in us at that moment – and in between these moments of speaking, someone would jump in and start a song. The rabbi told a story about a group of Jews who wanted to see what would happen if they gathered and sang and prayed all the Shabbat prayers … on a Tuesday.  Would Shabbat come? Someone else told us about a friend who was quite ill, and whose illness weighed heavily on her heart this Shabbat; someone responded with a story of a friend who had been desperately, impossibly ill a year ago, who today was healthy. Someone remembered their mother, whose yahrzeit we marked together, who loved ice cream and honesty above all things. People brought forward expressions of gratitude and of struggle. As each person came to the end of whatever they were sharing, they offered a blessing to the group: I bless us this Shabbat with patience; with hope. In between, we sang Kol HaOlam Kulo, and Min HaMetzar, and Oseh Shalom and Lo Yisa Goy – we sang with urgency and beat on the tables, and for a moment let go of the trappings of polite company. 

I said that we were invited to bring these things forward – and this is true. But it’s also true that if nobody stepped into that invitation, there would have been no tisch. A rabbi cannot “drive” a tisch in the way they might drive a service, and the gathering will by definition be quite different depending who is at the table. It’s a little risky. It’s real. It’s alive, if you will. 
I’ve been thinking a lot about the rabbi’s opening story since then. Does the Sabbath bride simply come and wait for us at the door each week? Or do we pull it down onto earth from another plane?

 
If you are here in town this Friday, I want to personally invite you to create this table, this tisch. Weather permitting, we will be in the courtyard. I want to invite your words of Torah, and your blessing, and your story of struggle or of gratitude, or of both. I want you to tell us about who you are remembering this week. I want all of us to feel the table vibrate beneath our fists as we insist on one more week of blessing, from G-d and from each other.

Dr. Amy