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BRUSHES WITH THE SACRED: I spent a few weeks wandering alone through the Inside Passage, a panhandle of islands and inlets in southeast Alaska that is accessible only by boat or plane. At the end of the month I hooked up with a small group of kayakers in Gustavus, a tiny village at the mouth of the frigid waters of Glacier Bay National Park. A floatplane dropped us off deep within the preserve, and we spent a week in our kayaks, camping on various shores and islands, as we made our way back out. We slept due to our exhaustion, but it wasn't easy. It was the time of Alaska's summer solstice, and so, without regard to our collective protestations, the sun never fully set. My afternoons were filled with the spray of humpbacks and the play of harbor seals, my evenings with the moan of wind and the howl of wolves. The glaciers were everywhere. First, I would see the icebergs, floating like blue candy and sometimes as tall as houses. Then, after I carefully circumnavigated them, I'd hear the thunder, the distant roar of ice blocks as they cracked off the faces of glaciers and crashed into the water below. Finally, chilled by the breezes that swept over their tops, I reached the tidewater glaciers themselves, rivers of white ice unraveling into the sea. I felt as if I were a worshipper in a crystal temple. The sights, sounds, and textures of Glacier Bay seemed to carry with them a kind of sanctity. Yet there was nothing "Jewish" about the experience. I was going to be a rabbi, and, like a graffiti artist is compelled to leave his or her mark on a monument, I felt compelled to leave a Jewish signature on this holy place. When we had down time, and before I went to sleep, I'd turn to some of my required summer reading: a primer on biblical Hebrew grammar. But that was just study. I needed to find some ritual, some Jewish ritual, that gave this experience a religious meaning. Something that proved, at least to myself, that I for one wouldn't take this moment for granted. For me, the bay wasn't merely a product of natural laws. It was an expression of divine grace. In Boston, I'd sealed candles, matches, and a small prayerbook into a ziplock bag and stuffed them into my backpack. I knew that close to eight Friday nights would transpire during my time in Alaska. I wanted to observe Shabbat, even though I had no idea where I'd be on those nights or how exactly I'd observe it. One Friday fell during my kayak trip in Glacier Bay. Here was my chance. I figured that, since I couldn't really wait for sunset, midnight was late enough to light Shabbat candles. Everyone else in the camp was asleep (though I was the only Jew around anyway). The swarms of mosquitoes and gnats that plagued us on dry land had quieted. I removed my headnet and put on a yarmulke. I stuck two candles into the sand and lit them. Then I began the blessing: Baruch atah Adonai. . . . I was a Jew alone on Shabbat in Alaska. I didn't have a congregation with me, but somehow I didn't feel lonely. I had a mitzvah, and that mitzvah linked me not only to my people and history, but to my God. The commandment to kindle light in order to usher in Shabbat is an ancient one. Yet the power I felt from those two small flames transcended time and even space. Because I was open both to its beauty and its spiritual force, that light, that mitzvah, became a kiss from earth to heaven, a whisper from heaven to earth. It was my offer of gratitude and God's promise of presence. And it was a brush with the sacred I will never forget.
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