Reaching Out

The location is Elat Chayyim in Accord, NY.  It is Kabbalat Shabbat and 100-150 of us are gathered in the white tent in the meadow across the road from the main lodge.  Reb Marcia and Cantor Jack are leading services and the energy is just starting to rise.  Smiling, I observe to my husband that the whole set up looks like a Jewish style revival tent. 

Reb Marcia is chanting and leading a version of Maariv Aravim that I've never heard before.  She extends her left hand out and to the side.  It looks to me as though she wants someone to take her hand and start to form a circle.  I'm looking around.  No one else notices that her hand is extended.  No one steps forward to take her hand.  Am I mistaken?  No, her hand is still extended.  She is definitely reaching out and looking around.  No one else notices.  I don't like seeing her reaching out with no one responding.  So I hop up out of my seat and take hold of her hand and extend my left hand.  No one takes my hand either.  The music is filling the tent.  The sound is reverberating magnificently.   I close my eyes and let my hand relax. 
  
I'm transported. 

I feel like I'm in a cathedral.   I'm in a huge wood-beamed cathedral and some kind of Mass is being celebrated.  Reb Marcia is the abbess and she is holding my hand.  I'm a young nun taking vows, committing myself to a spiritual life.  The singing is the choir of the cathedral at the Mass for the novitiates and I am one among them, taking my turn in the front of the cathedral.  I'm ecstatic and weeping.  Slowly, the chant draws to a close.  I open my eyes to the white fabric of the Elat Chayyim 'revival' tent.  I stumble out of the tent, into a friend's arms who holds me until I slowly come back into present time awareness.