By analyzing layers of ice inside core samples taken from deep under the Arctic surface, scientists have been able to determine temperature conditions and other climate-related factors that prevailed eons ago. The layers of ice act as a time capsule, preserving conditions of previous eras for scientists to interpret.
That is how I look at Beth Jacob Atlanta’s parking lot. But when I look at our time capsule, I see not only what used to be, but what is still to come. What is significant is not the record of the past embedded in the asphalt. It is the unlimited and ever-sacred future encapsulated there.
Layers, frozen in memory.
The Empty Parking Lot Layer. I am nine years old, in shul on Shabbos morning, well past the starting time of davening. I am standing at a window, peering through it to the empty rear parking lot, eagerly anticipating the arrival of a car or two, which would mean we would have a minyan to proceed with Shacharis. I recall one such morning a man drove up, parked his car, entered the shul and, because he was blessed with a good voice and knowledgeable enough, was to lead davening. He ran through the lobby, proceeded down the aisle to the chazzan’s spot, car keys jangling in his pocket, and began chanting “shochen ad.” The nine-year-old Atlanta-born-and-raised rabbi’s son was too young and innocent to make any judgments. This was just the way things were.
The Packed Parking Lot Layer. It is Kol Nidrei night, twenty years later, and I—the assistant rabbi at the time—am walking home after a stirring davening and an inspiring sermon about Shabbos observance delivered by the senior rabbi.
I notice a police officer, hired by the shul, directing the traffic emptying our crowded parking lot. Old enough now to see the irony (and taking a page from Rav Levi of Bardichov), I turn to G-d and say, “Master of the Universe! Look at your holy children. They could be anywhere now, and instead, they choose to be with You on Yom Kippur!”
The Overnight Parking Lot Layer. As Shabbos observance becomes the normative Jewish practice, the front parking lot stays closed and the rear one open. Thus develops a rare phenomenon among typical parking lots: overnight parking, as people retrieve their cars after Shabbos. (A non-Jewish neighbor once asked, noting the full parking lot overnight, what kind of all-night program we had every Friday. My answer: The program is called The Fourth Commandment.)
The parking lot layers issue a challenge to us: “You say you are Shabbos observant? Know, like we did, that there is more to Shabbos than how you observe it.”
The Shabbos Project Kiddush Layer. Preparations progress all week for the outdoor community kiddush to celebrate Shabbos. International foods, representing traditional Shabbos foods from every corner of the globe, are prepared in the shul kitchen. The outside parking lot is decorated with signs welcoming people from all over the community. Hundreds of tables are set up, and the rear parking lot is transformed into an outdoor Shabbos sanctuary.
The Present Layer. Now I stand at the same window as I did sixty-one years ago and gaze once again onto a parking lot, still empty of the cars it is designed to hold but overflowing with hundreds of men, women and children—but a fraction of Shabbos observers in Atlanta—loving Shabbos. I think of the Hebrew for parking lot—chanayah—”resting place,” and recall the prayer: “veyanuchu va Yisrael, mekadshei shemecha—May the people Israel, sanctifiers of Your name, find rest on Shabbos.” Same parking lot, empty of cars but filled with Shabbos.
The point of all this is not to compare today to yesterday, nor to point out how wonderful it is that Shabbos observance is widespread, nor to mock the Shabbos ignorance of previous generations. The point is to note what today’s parking lot layer tells us about ourselves: we are not that much different than them.
What were those people who created a Yom Kippur traffic jam doing at Beth Jacob in the first place? There were no surprises about what the shul stood for, what the rabbi was going to speak about and what religious standards were being encouraged. Few of those involved actually lived the life of an Orthodox Jew, so why did they build a stunning physical edifice to house, embody and project the message of a true and Divinely authored Torah?
The answer is that the Jewish soul knows what is real and what is not, what is holy and what is not, always yearns for something more, and—here’s the clincher—there always is more. For one generation, merely being associated with an Orthodox shul, during an era when the prevailing wisdom was that the Torah is only relatively true but certainly not absolutely true, was an act of devotion. Affiliation with a Torah synagogue was an affirmation that, though I don’t live up to the demands of the Torah, I will not succumb to the temptation to change them to accommodate my behavior, and I will pass the Torah on to the next generation.
The parking lot layers issue a challenge to us: “You say you are Shabbos observant? Know, like we did, that there is more to Shabbos than how you observe it. There will be generations of Jews after you who, building on your devotion, will have even greater clarity than you have about Hashem, His Shabbos and how to live lives permeated with holiness. The Shabbos you so proudly celebrate is not only the Shabbos you know, it is the Shabbos yet to be achieved. The shul you congregate in is not merely a gathering place for people of common commitment. It is an island of Emes in an ocean of obfuscation. Hold on to it and treasure it; it will lead you and future generations to an even closer encounter with Hashem.”
Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman is senior rabbi of Beth Jacob Atlanta.