We were sitting near the window of a coffee shop on the East side. Opposite was an empty building, with sober decoration on the facade and elegant spaces within. Snakes of rope traveled through the open windows delivering buckets of rubble from the upper floors to a bin far below. A young man jumped from ledge to ledge directing the buckets. He dashed in one window and out another.

We watched his movement with pleasure. It was Masonry Dancing. It was magnificent. He was clearly working hard. His masonry dancing was his celebration of life as he labored under his heavy load.

How fortunate I am every time I roll up my sleeves to struggle with a page of Talmud. I have to reach, grasp, jump from one point to another, work up a sweat, dance over the walls. My spiritual life is a constant Masonry Dance as I labor with love and joy, as I leap from deep inside the verses of the bible out into the world, and then back into the recesses of the Midrash and Talmud. I dance across the walls that divide and connect my spiritual and physical lives, and I wonder...

Would the Babylonians have been able to lay siege around Jerusalem's walls if the people were Masonry Dancers? Would Nebuchadnezar's army have been a match for a city filled with joyous dancers who celebrated their spiritual lives in Jerusalem? I think not. "Jerusalem, mountains enwrap it, and God enwraps His people, from this time and forever." (Psalms 125:2) Masonry Dancers are not bound by walls. They are not subject to siege. They dance enwrapped by God.

I will not fast tomorrow in sorrow, the Tenth of Tevet, the anniversary of the Babylonian siege; I will fast in a joyous dance. I will laugh at the army surrounding the walls of my city, and celebrate as I continue the Masonry Dance thousands of years after the Babylonians disappeared.

Come dance with me.


Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
President          
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