This month’s Oculus column features a photograph by Ellen Jaffe, a member of the shul’s Judaism and Art group. The timing is early, she said, just before the sun breaks the horizon, and the opportunity is fleeting.

In fact, is it truly possible to capture these October dawns within the strict box of a camera frame? They are too big, she said, “a surrounding dome of gradation and saturated color. Glorious.” She captured the image with her iPhone 10, but it might have been taken with the 12 or 13 because, according to Jaffe, the resolution on all later iPhone cameras is identical. “But it is never about the camera anyway,” she pointed out. “The quality of an image has much more to do with thoughtful ‘seeing’ of the subject. After all, anyone can spend a lot of money and press a button.”