Shavuot: Close Encounters with Corona - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

I remember as a child standing in shul at the end of Yom Kippur and having the following daydream the person blowing the shofar takes a deep breath and starts to sound the takea gaedola the great takea to signal the end of Yom Kippur sound grows louder and louder ten seconds pass then 20 then 30 the chauffeur keeps getting louder and louder a minute passes the sound of a chauffeur is almost deafening louder and louder and louder the shul starts to vibrate the dust of Ages falls from the chandelier onto the Bema the chauffeur is now playing the shul the takea spreads outside and the cars outside start to vibrate the pavement starts to vibrate the houses the trees the earth the sky everything is vibrating everything is sounding this one long Takia gaedola everything in creation is proclaiming ashame Erhard God is one the Rambam Maimonides says that one should not speculate about the coming of messiah because no one knows exactly how it will be until it will be but if one is allowed a little daydream that's mine I had a similar moment of reverie this year at the Seder now even though the only person who was allowed out onto the streets this year during the lockdown was Elio our Navi Elijah the Prophet we all went out onto our balconies or stood by our open windows and sang together Marnie Tana why is this night different well this year's answer to that particular question was a bit of a no-brainer but for those few moments I felt and I'm sure you did to know we were united as the family of Israel in a way that no other Seder has ever done we didn't stop there even during the worst times in the Warsaw Ghetto the shoals the synagogue's were never closed here we were in the almost unthinkable situation of no communal prayer but in a way the streets and the courtyards of Jerusalem became the Vatican s it became the shools became the synagogues as I stood on my porch and prayed I could hear Kaddish coming from this direction bearcat Kohanim the blessing of the priests from the other direction kedusha the praise of a shem of God that angels arter coming from above the apartment building at the top of the hill the shores hadn't closed they just got bigger when describing the giving of the Torah at Sinai the Torah says and the voice of the shofar grew stronger and stronger I've heard people say that this corona pandemic means the coming of Messiah I think that's a mistake here one of the 13 principles of a believing Jew is that every day I will await him he can come any and every day but maybe if one is allowed to dream a little this Shiva wad we will hear the great shofar proclaiming from every rooftop in every street and every heart hashem echad God is one [Music] [Applause]