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Torah Trek Teaches Participants about Giving Dignity
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Friday, September 7, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Rabbi Robbi Sherwin stopped underneath a tall pine along the Harriman Trail and stood with her face turned upwards and her hands stretched out.

“For me, if God made a perfume, it would be the smell of the sun hitting the pine needles,” she exclaimed. “When I smell that, I feel so connected to God and to the mountains. I connect to God through nature—that’s one of the reasons I am a mountain rabbi.”

As a mountain rabbi, the Wood River Jewish Community’s new rabbi has taken her people down plenty of mountain paths.

Among the highlights were Torah Treks where she took her former congregants at Crested Butte a mile to Peanut Lake nestled in the Colorado mountains at 10,000 feet.

When she blew the shofar—a ram’s horn trumpet used in religious ceremonies, elk would bugle back and the cows would answer, as well.

This was the first Torah Trek for her new congregation in Sun Valley. And on this particular day a band of 13 chose to spend a half-hour following the rabbi down the Harriman Trail to a rustic amphitheater nestled among tall pines.

“This is a very special wonderful venue for prayer and spirituality,” said Rabbi Robbi as the group strolled into the campground amphitheater located in the midst of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine.

The rabbi unfolded a talit, or prayer shawl, that she had purchased for the Wood River Jewish Community. Sporting magenta, which she said was her favorite color, it included the Sun Valley logo in one corner and the logo of the Wood River Jewish Community--a menorah built into the peak of a mountain--in another.

A line of mountains stretched across the top of the prayer shawl, a reminder that “I lift my eyes to the mountains…”

Rabbi Robbi had tied each knot on the prayer shawl with intention, representing her desire to grow and learn with her community.

“We robe ourselves or immerse ourselves in the talit,” she said. “It represents taking on the mantle literally and figuratively of God’s commandments.”

The group broke out in song as they removed a mini Torah—the law of God as revealed to Moses—from from the ark or receptacle in which it was stored.

“From out of Zion, from out of the mountains comes the Torah…”

Rabbi Robbi took the Torah around to each of those present, waiting solemnly as each kissed their fingers then touched the Torah.

“What a blessing for us all to be together, for all of us who love Sun Valley,” Rabbi Robbi said.

As the moment of teaching began, the group read from Deuteronomy 16:18-20, which addresses how judges should govern people fairly and without partiality.

“‘Tzedek” means justice, and you can also think of that as charity, such as giving money to those less fortunate,” Rabbi Robbi said.

Charity comes from the idea of wholeness or wanting everyone to be whole, she added. That includes  putting food on someone’s table and a roof over their head and having parents and children together. But it goes beyond contributing boxes of macaroni and cheese to the food bank, she said.

It also means giving someone dignity, she added.

“Charity means giving food to a food bank. Giving dignity means giving treats and sweets,” she said.   “Justice is sugar.”

She paused: “To be a good person, that’s what Judaism is.”

Phyllis Bunker Frank, who was among those meeting under the pnes, said the Torah Trek reminded her of her childhood.

“Hiking was very important and the Torah was very important to my family,” she said. “So to merge the two is very inspirational.”

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