A Meteor on a Shabbat Afternoon
- Leann Shamash
- Jun 3
- 4 min read
With respect to Parshat Be'haalotecha, which I am not writing about this week, here is a post about a little bit of history that was made last Shabbat. I have a list of posts specifically written on PARSHAT BE'HAALOTECHA below this post. I hope you check them out and that they give you some context for this interesting parsha.
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom,
Leann
On Shabbat afternoon, in the small state of Massachusetts, in the continent of North America, a little after 2:00, following a stormy morning, and after strong winds had blown through branches of trees. Untethered objects had been strewn and the sun had shown her face shyly through the clouds, when out of nowhere there was a sudden bang or boom or sizzle or crash or some combination of these sounds. It was not a small bang, boom, sizzle, crash, as if something had slipped off of a shelf and onto the wooden floor and it was not like a peal of thunder. It wasn’t the sound of a jet gaining altitude after taking off from Logan airport or the MBTA or the 59 bus.
It was a cracking, electrically charged house shaking, air shattering, ear popping BOOM.
It brought back memories of the sonic booms we heard as children.
It was the kind of boom that send people spilling onto sidewalks, looking as they stand in their yards, looking up at the sky and immediately resorting to the W words they learned in grade school. What was that? Why was that ? Where was that? Who was that?
With anxious eyes they sought the source. Was it a tree that fell on a neighbor's home? Was there a plane crash? Had a neighbor's boiler exploded, or with fading memories of 9/11, was there something sinister in the sky? A bomb somewhere? An extra terrestrial attack? Were they living The War of the Worlds?
Suddenly, for a few strange hours on Shabbat afternoon, a piece of space rock exploding 40 miles above the earth at the speed of 75,000 miles per hour erased all divisions in this little corner of the planet. People were perplexed, overwhelmed and thirsty for any scrap of information. For those hours, whether a person was a Democrat in Somerville, a Republican in Dedham, a Christian in Waltham, a Muslim in Hanover or Jew in Brookline, all were equal in their confusion and uncertainty, as both young and old stared at the sky with equal measures of wonder and concern. For a few hours there was a measure of unity in our little corner of this planet we call earth.
By Sunday morning, when scientists had determined what had caused the BOOM, all of us humans, just tiny specks in a bustling and busy universe, had already settled back into our comfort zone and routines, into our different beliefs and opinions on everything under the sun, but last Shabbat will go into the record books as one to remember for that short period of unity.
For me last Shabbat was a Sinai afternoon because it prompted me to think about what it might have been like at Sinai and to hear the mountains thunder.
"On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled." Exodus 19
For me, last Shabbat was like walking with The People in the wilderness and illustrated what it must have been like to follow a giant cloud by day and a fire by night.
And finally, it addition to a few hours of anxious unity, this past Shabbat afternoon was a מה רבו מעשיך, Mah Rabu Ma'asechah afternoon.
"How many are your works, Hashem! You made them all with wisdom; the earth is full of your creations."
Psalm 104
Shabbat is a day of true rest. All are memorable, but here in this little corner of the universe, last Shabbat, Parshat Naso, will echo in our ears and our souls for quite a while.
כִּֽי־אֶרְאֶ֣ה שָׁ֭מֶיךָ מַעֲשֵׂ֣ה אֶצְבְּעֹתֶ֑יךָ יָרֵ֥חַ וְ֝כוֹכָבִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר כּוֹנָֽנְתָּה׃
When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,the moon and stars that You set in place,
מָה־אֱנ֥וֹשׁ כִּֽי־תִזְכְּרֶ֑נּוּ וּבֶן־אָ֝דָ֗ם כִּ֣י תִפְקְדֶֽנּוּ׃
what are human beings that You have been mindful of them, mortals that You have taken note of them,
Psalm 8:3-4
Other Posts From Words Have Wings on Parshat BeHa'alotecha.
Cocoa Krispies. This post, written in 2025, talks about the food cravings expressed in Parshat Be’haalotecha. It uses memories of Cocoa Krispies as a base!
Longings Written in 2024, this poem is about how we sometimes long to be someone else as The Israelites longed for their old lives. The first lines go like this:
A shaggy dandelion longs to be a rose.
that crimson flower so admired,
garbed in queenly petals and
extending her sharpened thorns
to those who dare to come
too close.
The Road Trip. This post, written in May, 2021, talks about the Hebrews as complainers and imagines what a road trip might look like with such a group.
Na This post, written in 2023, recalls Moshe’s prayer for his sister Miriam after she is afflicted with Tzaraat.
This post, written in 2022 goes on the premise that the rabbis go so far as to suggest the Parshat B’haalotecha can be divided into three sections; what takes place before the inverted nuns, what takes place following the inverted nuns and the two psukim which fall between the bookended nuns. So, the rabbis posit that in reality the Torah might be composed of 7 books and not five.
מָה־רַבּ֬וּ מַעֲשֶׂ֨יךָ
What a great view of natural things around you. Love it.