Amen!

by Rabbi Sonya Starr

One of the advantages of the pandemic is that it has heightened my awareness of what I love about prayer and communal prayer. I love hearing people in the room! Before the pandemic I would have thought it enhanced the service to listen to a beautiful voice or a wise sage. But now I do not think it matters. Rather the spiritual magic comes in knowing that one is not alone. That there are a group of people on this journey of life together with you. On zoom we can at least see each other. But I for one have missed the back and forth, give and take of a service which is muted on zoom. So you can imagine how excited I was when I read about this campaign from another congregation. It is visual way of saying Amen!

Literally Amen means to believe. It is a congregation’s way of saying what s/he said applies to me too. I am in this with you. Mishkan Venice has developed this campaign of either using a paper to visually see the words Amen or to learn the sign for Amen. The religious practices committee thought this might be meaningful to try here. So if you are game, go this this website:
https://www.mishkon.org/join-our-amen-campaign.html and actively participate in our Shabbat services.