The Assignment - Sauntering: To the Land That I Will Show You
Over Rosh Hashanah,
Rabbi Zach and Rabbi Darby gave us our annual Days of Awe homework
assignment. We encourage all members, whether attending High Holy Days
with us or not, to participate. The theme for the year is journey. We
started our own journey during the Torah service on Rosh Hashanah
morning. Now is your chance to continue on your own.
Set aside two hours, and go on a walk, a journey, with no destination in mind. After walking for some time, your arrival will be at the place which God will show you. When you arrive, mark the spot in some way, with a photograph, a poem, an intention, or a creative act of your own design. Come and tell us the story.
As you saunter, these words from Henry David Thoreau may offer some intention:
"In a rambling essay entitled 'Walking' Henry David Thoreau writes:
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, - who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked for charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, 'there goes a Sainte-Terrer,' a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering ..." (Taylor, Erring, 149)
Set aside two hours, and go on a walk, a journey, with no destination in mind. After walking for some time, your arrival will be at the place which God will show you. When you arrive, mark the spot in some way, with a photograph, a poem, an intention, or a creative act of your own design. Come and tell us the story.
As you saunter, these words from Henry David Thoreau may offer some intention:
"In a rambling essay entitled 'Walking' Henry David Thoreau writes:
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, - who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked for charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, 'there goes a Sainte-Terrer,' a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering ..." (Taylor, Erring, 149)
We
look forward to hearing about your journey on Yom Kippur morning,
Wednesday, September 26. Services start at 10am at VCS (272 W 10th St,
between Greenwich and Washington Streets).
To hear more Rosh Hashanah music and to listen to Rabbi Zach's Rosh Hashanah morning sermon, click here.
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