Broken Mishkan: A Selichot Performance and Service (online)

Approaching the High Holidays: Selichot Performance, Reflection and Service

Featuring a performance of The Broken Mishkan by Sara Nesson

August 28, 2021 at 8pm

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYuduGsrDwjGtzrwHtqXoIf1Gy7rhJlCbsJ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. 

Selichot, which Ashkenazi Jews observe on the Saturday evening before Rosh HaShanah, is an opportunity for us to reflect on the themes of the High Holidays and offer opportunity for self-reflection and prayers of forgiveness.

 This year, we are joining forces with three other Reconstructionist synagogues to host “The Broken Mishkan: a story about Wilderness, Blessing, and the Journey in Between” written and performed by Sara Nesson. Following the performance, we will hear briefly from its Creator and then share in a jointly led Selichot service.

 Mishkan is a Hebrew word for “sacred space.” The Broken Mishkan is a short performance piece about one woman’s journey through life’s humbling and blessed terrain. Part memoir, part midrash (biblical interpretation), Sara’s story invites each of us to celebrate the ways we encounter the sacred, no matter what our circumstances.

 Sara Nesson is an artist, writer, and actress living in Northern California. A lifelong creative, she has led high holiday rituals in nature, performed with A Traveling Jewish Theatre, mentored Jewish teenagers, and traversed the United States as a travel writer. She is a graduate of Harvard College, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the Graduate Theological Union. 

 Learn more about Sara and see a trailer at saranesson.com

 “Sara’s Broken Mishkan is a profoundly moving testament to the power of the imagination. By juxtaposing the biblical story of the Exodus in the desert with her own ‘wilderness’ experience of chronic illness, Sara offers us that rarest of gifts: an intensely personal story that becomes our own. This is midrash at its best.”

–Helen Stoltzfus, Black Swan Arts & Media