It might have been a scene from ancient times, except for the paparazzi.
Children of all ages and their parents gathered outside Congregation Ner Shalom in downtown Cotati on Sunday, Dec. 11, dressed in togas and wearing tallits, posing for friends’ cameras and readying themselves for the congregation’s first “Second Temple Re-enactment.”
“Does everyone have a costume?” asked Rabbi Elisheva Salamo, her shoulders wrapped in a saffron-colored tallit. “At the Second Temple, everyone would be wearing fringe.”
While K-1 teacher and guitarist Karen Mitchell gathered the group of 75 with a few rounds of “Hinei Mah Tov” and “Mah Tovu,” each participant picked up a bag of gelt along with a card explaining the bearer’s “motivation” for visiting the temple. Examples: “You’ve just had a healthy son and you’re going to sacrifice your best lamb,” or, “Your business is failing and you’re going to ask God for help.”
The re-enactment, correlating with Chanukah and its theme of temple rededication is part of the congregation’s new Sunday school curriculum, developed and written by the rabbi herself. First begun as a chavurah group 23 years ago in Sonoma County, Ner Shalom affiliates itself with the Reconstructionist movement and focuses on a “progressive, contemporary” approach to Jewish life.
The congregation recently celebrated its “bar mitzvah year” in its building, a large, homey structure built in 1908 that served as a cabaret club until Ner Shalom moved in. “I used to come here and dance as kid,” laughed congregant Beth Field. “[The building] has a long history of celebration and joy.”
The synagogue’s colorful past fits right in with the congregation’s sense of originality and creativity, evident in its choice to veer off from traditional religious activities and replace them with more exciting ways of learning.
Salamo wanted to give students something “they wouldn’t forget,” and has worked to infuse religious school with joy, music and meaning.
“I saw the need for a more experiential Judaism,” says the rabbi, who also creates her own tallitot. “I wanted to help the children understand what we as Jews actually believe. There’s a hunger for basic Jewish knowledge beyond what we do on Chanukah and other holidays.”
The kids and their families seem to love what she’s dishing out. While many religious schools lose many students the second after the bar or bat mitzvah, Ner Shalom’s confirmation class boasts 13 young men and women.
“Rabbi Elisheva really has a wonderful way with the teens,” said Field. Her recently bar mitzvahed son, Dylan, might blow off a lot of things, she added, but never the rabbi’s class.
The older kids served as the high priests at the ersatz Second Temple, helping the little ones bathe their hands and feet in the mikvah and collecting the half-shekel “temple tax.” The visit to the ritual bath was preceded by a bustling market staffed by enthusiastic parents dressed as vendors, selling “cows and lambs” (paper cutouts on a stick) to sacrifice, and various fruits (“something for the long camel-ride home”).
After a symbolic walk around the synagogue, where pilgrims greeted mourners circling in the opposite direction, the event culminated in the sanctuary. There, the “altar” awaited with its roaring fire (a fan and streamers) flanked by two gold cherubim as described in the Mishnah (two high-stamina parents wearing wings). The children offered up their paper animals to the pyre, experiencing the difference between what it meant to be Jewish “in the olden days,” versus modern prayer.
“It seemed like it must have been a lot harder back then because of the sacrifice,” said Jacob Marder, 9, of Petaluma. “I thought this was really cool.”
Montag Genser, 8, of Garberville, whose card told him he was at the Second Temple “to attend a wedding,” said he was “glad we didn’t have to use real animals.”
The religious school director, Leslie Gattman of Sebastopol, felt the event fulfilled its purpose of creating a living history for the students. “Here were are, living, feeling, tasting, smelling. This will definitely be a yearly event.”