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Shabbat shalom to everyone from Stony Point Retreat Center! It's now the middle of the afternoon and I'm taking a brief rest after a spirited morning and afternoon of eating-learning-singing-praying-socializing. It's been a remarkable, exhilarating, tiring (but in a good way), and uplifting week with my comrades-in-linking-arms-and-hearts here. I don't know how everyone manages to pack in so much into less than one week. Yet it happens. The retreat center is a multi-faith intentional community that was founded nine years ago. A small group of Muslims, Jews, and Christians live full time at the site, which earns its income as a retreat and conference center. It's not a fancy place, but the food has been fresh and bountiful, and the rooms and bathrooms clean. Everyone treats each other with a caring and open attitude. I haven't gotten into a car all week or spent any money. Really a nice relief from the everyday behaviors of daily life. From Monday to Friday I was in class for five and a half hours a day - the morning spent studying the biblical Book of Job, where we focused on big existential matters such as the response to suffering, understandings of God, and how
as rabbis-in-training we might draw from this book for teaching, pastoral work and the like. In the afternoon the class time was only in Hebrew (speaking with peers and teacher), studying a range of Hebrew language sources from ancient to modern on how spirituality can be expressed through the body - in song, in dance, in eating and drinking (and more...). It was definitely demanding to be reading and conversing only in Hebrew, but it also was satisfying. Alongside of the study there is, as usual, plenty of prayer in the morning-afternoon-evening (I skipped out on the afternoon!), chanting (pretty cool), walking in nature, and conversing at meals. One or two special moments stand out: On Friday afternoon a group walked down to the river not far from here and did a pre-Shabbat mikveh dunk. There are young people who are at the center for a six week program on multi-faith education and so we had Christians and Muslims joining in the mikveh experience (see photo below). Yes, we all wore bathing suits...I've also had a chance to speak with a rabbinical student who hails all the way from a village in Uganda, about a six hour drive from Kampala.
He is a member and emerging leader of the Abuyadaya Jewish community (which means in Luganda "people of Judah") and there are about 250 Jewish households in his village, where there is still no running water or reliable electricity. Somehow he heard about Jewish Renewal and contacted the leaders and the program is now supporting his rabbinical studies. He and his wife and seven other couples are having a Jewish wedding ceremony in August, and the Renewal network is flying one of its rabbis to his village to marry them. Many more powerful personal stories get shared over meals. I feel like I could write several books from just sitting and listening to my peers. Oh yes - great fun having a campfire one night when the moon was very bright. It was my idea. I didn't know what I was doing (I was never a girl scout), but the folks at the retreat center set up the fire pit and I only had to put a few matches in and then stoke the flames (or whatever it's called). It was very special. I'm attaching a few photos here of the grounds of the center, the fire, the moon, the
river, the deer, and teachers and colleagues. Love,Sarah
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