Sabbath Devotional: Engraving Godly Patterns
Several months ago, I was in New York City and visited the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side. It was the first building built to be a synagogue in the United States.
Trying to fit in as much as possible, it was a quick stop before our scheduled tickets at another museum. A local Jewish tour guide guided us through the museum on the lower level where we learned about Jews coming over from Eastern Europe after facing persecution.
With musicals ever present in my mind, I imagined Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof stepping off a ship from Eastern Europe, tired and exhausted. How badly he would have wanted a place to pray, worship, and rest for a while.
The grand synagogue was completed in 1887, a place to worship for hundreds in the local congregation.
Over the decades, as Jewish families moved away from the Lower East Side and Immigrant Quota Laws were enforced, the congregation dwindled. Eventually, the grand sanctuary on the second floor was closed off. For decades, the once-beautiful space fell into disrepair.
Throughout the museum portion of the tour, the older woman provided information and personal insights into the lives of the Jewish congregation in the area.
With just a few minutes left before we had to leave, we went up the rickety, partly original, stairs and entered the larger meeting area. I was getting nervous about our timing and frequently checked my watch to make sure we had time to walk the few blocks to the nearby museum before our scheduled tour.
Our tour guide pointed out various parts of the original synagogue, and what had been repaired or replaced after years of disrepair. She motioned to the original wood floor and pointed to a group of indentations. She encouraged me to stand in the grooves on the floorboards.
My boots fit perfectly. She explained that these were made over decades of Jews standing there, rocking on their feet as they sang and worshipped.
All worries of making it to our next museum faded as I realized where I was standing. Beneath my shoes where I had so casually stepped, there was tangible evidence of hundreds of worshippers’ faith. A physical symbol of decades of faith and devotion. People had stood here and prayed so often and so frequently that their feet had literally created marks in the wood.
I was reminded of these indentations a few weeks ago visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the military cemetery in Arlington, VA.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier holds the remains of unidentified soldiers from wars where the United States has participated. In a cemetery of thousands of neat rows which include famous names like John F. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents the remains of service members who have never been recovered or identified. It’s a solemn, sacred place.
For the past 100 years soldiers have famously watched over the tomb. They have a specific ritual with symbolic movements known as the changing of the guard where the soldiers switch places. Their steps and movements are so precise and frequent, that the stone around the tomb have been marked from millions of shoes stepping in the exact same spots. Here again, the steps were so frequent that physical marks are visible on the stone.
I remembered the synagogue and wondered what marks would be visible in a map of my own life.
As I tried to imagine the places I step so frequently in a map of my mind and actions, I was a little embarrassed. If this map were visible, I’m not sure I would always be proud of where there were markings because I had stood so often.
I’m sure there would be visible indentations in the area of unkind words or judgment. And I don’t think the marks around my meaningful scripture study would be as deep as I would like them.
But I also hope there would be grooves in the floorboards by empathy and fervent prayer.
In Alma 5: 29, the prophet Alma asks those he’s teaching, “can ye look up to God.. with a pure heart and clean hands?... can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances”?
Engraving is the artistic process of carving an image or design. It permanently changes the surface by physically cutting grooves in a flat surface like metal or stone.
Having the image of God engraven on our countenances requires time and frequency. It is not something that is quickly done or easily washed away.
Our Heavenly Parents’ love for us is immediate and eternal, but building Godly patterns to become like Them and learning about our own potential takes time. It takes us frequently stepping in the same places.
If our thoughts and actions were mapped out so that we could see where we most frequently step, where would the physical marks be?
Meg Sheffield is the Utah redistricting specialist at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
