We Will Dance Again
02/14/2025 02:22:41 PM
Rabbi Spike Anderson
I am really looking forward to this week’s Friday night Shabbat service at Temple Emanu-El, where we will integrate the Full Radius Dance, made up of both able-bodied dancers & dancers in wheelchairs, into our worship service.
Each year, as part of February Jewish disabilities awareness month, TE’s Koleinu “our voices” Committee brings our congregation a guest darshan to raise awareness, inspire, and bring us together.
Having dancers in wheelchairs alongside able-bodied dancers is a beautiful amalgamation of two Torah narratives; each of which carries existential wisdom from generation to generation.
The first story revolves around the prophetess Miriam, and the Israelite women who, despite their rush to leave Egypt after the 10th plague (before Pharaoh once again changes his mind), pack their timbrels. Think about this for a moment. The Jews have to pack and go so quickly that we don’t even have time to wait for our bread to rise (matzah), and we can only bring what we can carry on our backs… yet our women have the foresight to bring musical instruments to celebrate our hoped for eventual joys.
We know the drama of Pharoah’s army charging down at us, Moses splitting the sea, our people crossing on dry land, and the Egyptian army drowning in our wake.
Finally, after 400 years of Egyptian slavery, we are free! Our women, led by Miriam, break out their timbrels to elevate our collective joy…but they don’t just play…they dance!
They dance with exuberance as a celebration of gratitude and life… even among the loss, the fear, and the unknowns they might soon face.
To our Sages, their music and dancing was a profound act of faith. To express creative joy is, in its essence, an act of defiance against angst, anxiety, and despair. How very, very Jewish!
The second story relates to the two sets of tablets Moses brings down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments written on them. These will become the backbone of our emerging Jewish civilization. For various reasons, the first set gets broken; and so when Moses ascends and descends a second time, he returns with a second, identical set of tablets containing the 10 commandments.
Our tradition has it that both sets are placed in the Ark of the Covenant, the central loci of God’s presence among us, for they are considered to be equally sacred.
Abled-bodied and wheel-chair dancers, congregants of all abilities, gathering at Temple Emanu-El to learn together, worship together, and express our Shabbat joy.
How can you not want to be there?
Hope to see you…
-Spike