Expanding the Tent (With Intention)
The Kavana staff is busy preparing for the High Holidays, and this week, we took a field-trip together to the venue where this year's Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services will be. As many of you know, over the last several years, we've had to switch venues more than once to accommodate the large number of individuals who want to join us for our meaningful holiday services and programs (last year that total number was 880 people -- amazing!). Still, over the past few days, I've fielded multiple questions about venues we've used in the past: "Are you still doing services in that sweet church on Queen Anne?" (Answer: "Gosh, I love that space, but no, it's been a long time since our whole community could fit in a single sanctuary!") "Are you going to be back at that beautiful indoor/outdoor venue again this year?" (Answer: "It really was beautiful there, but no, we officially outgrew it when our attendance numbers surpassed 500 a couple years back.") In the greater scheme of things, the question of how to make space for everyone who wants to be in a community is a wonderful problem to have, but can pose a real-world challenge nonetheless.
The question of how to make space for everyone goes back to ancient times. It turns out that holiday gatherings could pose a challenge in Temple times too. When Jews ascended to Jerusalem for pilgrimage festivals, the Talmud records that they would stand crowded, their bodies packed tightly together in the Temple courtyard. And yet, according to Tractate Yoma 21a, when the time came for prostrating -- that is, for bowing all the way down to the ground at certain points in the ritual -- somehow there was ample room for everyone! The Talmud records: עוֹמְדִים צְפוּפִים, וּמִשְׁתַּחֲוִים רְווֹחִים, "they stood crowded but prostrated spaced," on a list of the ten miracles(!) that supposedly took place in the Beit Hamikdash (Temple).
In this week's haftarah (a selection from Nevi'im/Prophets that is chanted after the Torah reading on Shabbat), we find a couple of lines that tie directly to this theme of ensuring there is sufficient space for everyone. This haftarah is a special one: the fifth in a series of seven known as the "haftarot of consolation," which are selections (all, incidentally, drawn from the second half of Isaiah) read on the seven Shabbatot between Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah. In any case, Isaiah 54:2-3 reads:
הַרְחִ֣יבִי מְק֣וֹם אׇהֳלֵ֗ךְ וִֽירִיע֧וֹת מִשְׁכְּנוֹתַ֛יִךְ יַטּ֖וּ אַל־תַּחְשֹׂ֑כִי הַאֲרִ֙יכִי֙ מֵיתָרַ֔יִךְ וִיתֵדֹתַ֖יִךְ חַזֵּֽקִי׃ כִּֽי־יָמִ֥ין וּשְׂמֹ֖אול תִּפְרֹ֑צִי
Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling, do not withhold!
Lengthen the ropes, and drive the pegs firm.
For you shall spread out to the right and the left...
Here, Isaiah makes promises and assurances to the people: that someday the nation of Israel will return from exilic loss and be even more numerous than before. The central image -- in very concrete terms -- is that a tent must be physically enlarged (through ropes, pegs, etc.) in order to accommodate this expanded community. [As a side note, those of you who are interested in intertextual Hebrew references might recognize the phrase "yamin u'smol tifrotzi," "spreading out to the right and left," that is lifted from here into the Friday night hymn of L'cha Dodi, and also the language of "al tachsochi," "do not withhold," which echoes the wording of God's final assessment at the end of the Akeidah that Abraham will be blessed because he has "not withheld" his son.]
In our parlance today, though, when we talk about a "big-tent" approach, we are typically using the words metaphorically. This phrase refers to a group -- which could be an organization, a spiritual community, a political party, etc -- that is expansive enough to accommodate a diverse spectrum of views or practices.
At Kavana, we've always thought of ourselves as a big-tent community in a couple of ways. First, from day one, Kavana has always used the language of "non-denominational" and "pluralistic" to express that we are a Jewish community composed (purposefully) of individuals coming from a variety of backgrounds and bringing a wide array of beliefs and practices. Religious pluralism has always been a positive feature, not a bug, of Kavana; we have revelled in the breadth of ideas, differing levels of observance, and divergent interests of our community members.
To share a second example, when Kavana launched in 2006, the demographic composition of this community was mostly younger adults, both with and without young children. Eighteen years later, those original 20- and 30-somethings are now 40- and 50-somethings. In addition, our community has attracted both a new generation of younger adults and also a robust cohort of adults in their 60s and 70s, making Kavana an increasingly multigenerational community. Here, too, "widening the tent" in an intentional way has not only grown our community in numbers, but also enriched the tapestry of community for everyone.
This year, to be sure, Kavana's big-tent approach has posed some challenges that are as real as the problem of finding floor-space. It turns out that at this moment in time, it is not at all simple for a Jewish community to welcome and embrace individuals with a wide range of beliefs, ideologies, and political views -- particularly with regard to topics as complex and emotionally charged as Israel and antisemitism. And yet, this is precisely the work that we've been doing here at Kavana, very intentionally, over the past year. "Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling" could almost be read as a command that speaks directly to us today, instructing us to set the bounds of our community as wide and open as we possibly can, despite the fact that tension will inevitably result from the diversity of viewpoints inside the tent.
A midrash from Bereishit Rabbah 5:7 ties together the two texts I've cited above:
This was so in Jerusalem, too, as we learned: They stood crowded, but prostrated themselves spaciously. Rabbi Shmuel ben Rabbi Ḥana said in the name of Rabbi Aḥa: There were four cubits for each person to occupy, and a [further] cubit on each side so that none of them would hear the prayer of the other.
This will be so in the future, too, as it is stated: “At that time, they will call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered into it” (Jeremiah 3:17). Rabbi Yoḥanan ascended to inquire after the wellbeing of Rabbi Ḥanina and found him sitting and expounding this verse: “At that time, they will call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord, [and all the nations will be gathered into it].” He said to him: ‘Can Jerusalem contain the Throne of the Lord?’ He said to him: ‘The Holy One blessed is He will say to it: Expand and extend and receive your populations.’ That is what is written: “Expand the place of your tent” (Isaiah 54:3). Why? “For you will spread out right and left…” (Isaiah 54:3).
In between the two texts I've already discussed -- the idea of the miraculous expansion of the Temple floor, and Isaiah's urging of the widest possible tent (which here functions as both prooftext and punchline) -- this midrash does something remarkable. It says that this, the idea of miraculous expansiveness, "will be so in the future, too." Projecting far forward, to a messianic vision of what a redeemed world could look like, the midrash claims that Jerusalem will someday be a place where all nations can gather, a city so expansive that even God's own throne can rest there. What a beautiful vision to hold at this painful moment characterized by divisiveness and scarcity!
On this Shabbat -- the fifth one after Tisha B'Av -- we, the Jewish people, are still seeking comfort in the wake of the Temple's destruction, which resulted (in the rabbinic understanding) from sinat chinam, our senseless ability to hate one another and not make space for each other. The antidote to that -- the pathway we must travel as we head towards the beginning of a new year, in which we aspire to live in better alignment with God's sovereignty -- is the command to "Expand the place of your tent, extend the size of your dwelling, do not withhold!"
As we head towards the New Year, I invite you to join with me in engaging in this holy work of expanding our tent. Let us each strive to show up in community -- at Kavana and beyond -- with the intention of keeping our tent walls as open as we possibly imagine. Let us work carefully and intentionally to build relationships across difference. (Without a doubt, humility, curiosity, and grace will continue to be necessary tools in this work!) Let us encourage and support others who also seek to build "big-tent" coalitions that are forces for good in the world. Let's make space for everyone who wants to be part of this very special enterprise, particularly at this peak time of year when holidays bring out the crowds. Together, let us build the widest, most extraordinarily beautiful tent(s) imaginable, with room for every one of us inside, and for the Divine as well.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
