Laser Fusion (for Tu Bishvat)

 

It’s Tu Bishvat, the New Year of Trees. 

Do not give up!

The forests burn but

Electric vehicles;

The seas rise but

LED lightbulbs;

Species disappear but

Solar power;

Millions starve but

Wind turbines.

We’ll be long dead but

Laser fusion!

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

    Within which lives our ingenuity and hope 

    Alongside our stupidity and despair,

May the solutions scale up and arrive in time 

To save us all from our own greed and folly, Amen. 

Happy New Year, trees! And good luck. 

Blessing for Mourning the Death of a Much Loved Animal

Art by Mike Cockrill

From the collection of Bert Salter Estate 

Blessed Holy Wholeness

Breath of the Universe 

Breathing us in

Breathing us out. 

Remembering us

Remembering our companions

Who let us love them with a full and pure heart

And who loved us back the same way. 

Amen

We were blessed to have them 

As  long as we did

And though I am really sad that they are gone,

I am really glad that they were here. 

Amen

I give thanks to the Holy Connector,

The One-ness that is eternal,

Which I experienced 

Through my sweet beasts. 

Amen

Brucha HaShleimot

Ruach ha Olam,

Breathing us in

Breathing us out.

We remember them,

We mourn their loss

And their memories are a blessing. 

And let us say, Amen

Home(s)

Light Shabbat candles now,

In your home

For the homeless. 

For the displaced

With no place

They can afford;

For the first peoples

Whose lands and cultures 

Were stolen or degraded;

For the animals

Invading your backyards. 

Too many bears, how dare they;

For those on islands

Swamped by the rising water,

Ocean where there once was land;

For those who survived guns,

There is no more safety,

It is lost forever;

For the addicted whose illness 

Destroys their true selves 

While the greedy make money;

For the houses and habitats

Burnt up in climate change’s fires,

And everything gone;

For the immigrants,

Losing the old lands to violence and poverty

And so unwelcome in the new.

Where 

Will they

Light their candles now?

This is our covenant:

Take care of the earth

And it will take care of you. 

So it is upon us to

Build housing;

Make reparations;

Preserve wilderness;

End fossil fuels;

Restrict guns;

Treat addiction;

Live sustainably;

Welcome immigrants. 

Create new homes

And save the old ones. 

Light candles, 

Now. 

Amen

Pairs (for Hanukkah)

God is a gerund,

A verb and a noun,

Doing and being.

Light is from God,

Both waves and particles,

Radiation and photons. 

Darkness is so full,

Many visions and none at all,

Frightening and safe. 

An event from history 

And the stories of rabbis,

The eight days exist and also evolve. 

Hanukkah is dialectics, between 

Revolution and accommodation,

Identity and assimilation. 

Solstice or Hanukkah?

Let’s not worry about 

Somebody else’s paradigm.

Light and dark are a gerund,

Seeing and not seeing.

Amen v’Amen. 

The Talking Donkey

A man

Named Bilam,

A people-pleaser, and

A freelance speaker of 

Curses and blessings,

Had a donkey

That he rode 

To his professional engagements.  

 

One day Bilam was hired

By a fearful king,

Balak,

To professionally curse

A passing people

Whom the king felt threatened by

(To be fair, there were a lot of them).

On Bilam’s way to the gig,

Riding his donkey,

An angel appeared.

Wielding a big sword

And much opposition 

To the cursing job at hand,

And very prepared to kill Bilam 

To prevent this outcome. 

Bilam could not see the angel

But the donkey could

So she refused to go forward.  

Twice Bilam beat the donkey to force her forward

And twice she refused. 

Frustrated and hurt and bored by the abuse

The donkey finally spoke up. 

“I can’t go on,“ said the donkey.

 “I see an angel with a sword in the path ahead.“

Bilam beat the donkey some more.

“You can hit me all you want,” the donkey said,

“But I see what I see. 

When have I ever lied to you before?”

Bilam had to admit that this was so,

Whereupon he was able to see the angel 

And have a conversation.  

The story goes on, 

That even though Bilam tries to curse the passing horde

He finds himself only able to praise them,

Much to Balak’s chagrin,

And the story ends with Bilam’s beautiful blessing,

“How good are your tents, O Jacob…”

Nothing more is heard from the donkey.

Poor beast.

When you are a talking donkey, 

You see stuff.

and when you see stuff 

You say stuff. 

It’s not always welcome, 

and you get yelled at, 

A lot

Because often you don’t say truth in a way 

That people can or want to

Understand.

But if an angel with a sword is standing in the path, 

And if you are a talking donkey,

You stop 

And try to make your point. 

And if you’re with that beast

It might behoove you to listen

No matter how annoying she may be.   

 

Life as a talking donkey can be hard:

You are often not particularly beloved. 

No one chooses you for their team on the playground. 

People-pleasers may hit you

And sometimes angels slay you

But mostly everyone ignores you. 

But if you see stuff

You gotta say stuff.  

It is in your nature,

You talk. 

 

There are times, 

When grief and fear have taken over. 

When everyone is Balak

And all they can see are threatening hordes. 

It may be that we are in one of those times.

And it is upon all the donkeys to speak up

To remind us of what,

In our panic, 

We cannot see. 

 

The donkey sometimes sees the perpetrators

And the hate for what it often is:

Fear.   

And they are right to be afraid:

Change is hard, 

Just ask Balak.  

 

But the donkey sometimes also sees the activists 

And their despair for what it is:

Compassion.  

And they are right to feel others’ pain and joy.

Prophecy is hard,

Just ask Bilam. 

 

And sometimes the donkey also sees the survivors

And their persistence and stubbornness for what they are:

Hope.

And they are right to look towards the future but

Imagining happy endings is hard,

Just ask those passing hordes.

 

So,

In conclusion:

You can’t hide from talking donkeys:

They never shut up.  

And the next time you meet a talking donkey, 

She might say something true

That ends in a beautiful blessing

Or she might not.

Either way,

Please 

Do not hit her,

Poor beast.

 

Amen.

Prayer for Those Avoiding The News

 

Turn off the screens,

I don’t want to look. 

I’m scared

Disgusted 

Devastated 

Angry. 

And I know

I’m not doing enough to help

Or worse

Not doing anything at all. 

I’m made helpless by events

That feel too big to be shaped by me. 

I will eat a pint of ice cream 

And hope that this is temporary but

Today 

I can’t bear to look. 

Help me look. 

Amen

Shema

 

Cover yours eyes and listen.

Listen at home

To room tone;

To scratching behind the walls;

To the neighbors fighting;

To traffic. 

Listen outside 

To birds singing for sex and babies;

To wild animals hunting or being hunted;

To children yelling, My Turn, as they play;

To the wind. 

Listen inside 

To your heartbeat slowing down;

To your stomach rumbling;

To your mind paying attention;

To your breath. 

Listen in shul

To the siddur pages turning;

To the children squirming;

To feet stepping back three times;

To the silent prayers. 

Shema! 

Listen, everybody!

Adonai Eloheinu,

We hear the Holy Wholeness everywhere. 

Adonai Echad,

One-ness is us. 

Open your eyes. 

Amen

My Iron Sukkah

 

My sukkah:

My stoop,

Surrounded by an iron fence 

And iron gate

And the door to my building. 

The roof, the

Yellowing green leaves 

Of the trees overhead. 

I can feel the breeze,

I can see the stars,

As I sit on the steps

And teach

And chat

And eat my tuna salad. 

Chag Sukkot Sameakh!

ALEINU: WRITING SOCIAL JUSTICE LITURGY

 

TO REGISTER 

https://ritualwell.org/event/aleinu-writing-social-justice-liturgy/2022-10-12/?fbclid=IwAR0OfG_iaDQzXwm4CHAcuXvjY1y2H3B0X-BlKmck9YimfvzYSVq6GRsS3_0&fs=e&s=cl

And don’t forget folks can use code TRISHA22 for a $10 discount!!! 

We live in a time when social action is deeply necessary. Prayers, kavannot, and poetry can be a strengthening source of support for social justice work. Each session of this immersion will center around either a feeling (outrage, despair, hope) and/or events you can serve with your writing (e.g., rallies, Shabbat services, memorials, and any upcoming events you may have). We will look at examples of this type of writing from Ritualwell and other sources and share our own works in progress. We will also enjoy an inspiring visit from activist and poetry-loving rabbi Ellen Lippmann.

In Praise of Praise:A Rosh Hashana Invocation

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

Tonight begins the Yamim Noraim,

The Days of Awe.

And every year I like to decide on a meditation or prayer practice that I do for all ten days, and then at the end of Yom Kippur I take note of what effect it may have had on me.  This year I have decided to be aware of the word, praise.

Praising God is weird

If God is God, then why would God need or want praise?

And it comes up a lot in our prayers

So this year, for the next ten days,

I’m going to define praise

Not as flattery, but as awareness, mindfulness,and awe of the Wow  

So…first things first…

Here you are!

You made it, you are still alive! Hi! How’s it going?

My cat died, but I’m okay.  You?

Praise us, here we are, this congregation,

awesome in the days of awe,

That we are here together, after three years apart

On Rosh Hashana

In person and en masse:

Wow.

Y’all look so good,

All three dimensional and stuff,

And smelly and real,

With actual books,

To sing and pray and learn

And whisper in the back rows  

Say hello to each other.  Go ahead.

Wow  

Also, lest we forget,

Praise technology and technicians

That we may also join in via Zoom

For all of our High Holyday services

So that those of us who are ill or vulnerable to Covid,

Those of us with mobility issues,

And those of us who are far away

Can still join together

To sing and pray and learn

And comment in the chat room.

Zoomers, say hello to each other.  If the chat room isn’t working, wave to each other. 

Go ahead.

Wow.

And at last

We can pray and we will be heard 

We can mourn and we will be seen 

We can apologize and we will be forgiven.

We are not alone.

Wow.

And As good as we feel in this moment

We must praise our constant companion of late,

Despair

Born from our compassionate hearts

And our grief, disappointment and fear, 

May it motivate us to action.  And,

If the king walks in the field as they say he does during Elul

Perhaps he will take a moment or two to notice the fires and the floods

And the racism and the misogyny and the LGBTQ phobia and the fascism.

Needing some wow over here, please.

And as bad as we may feel in this moment

We must praise our other constant companion,

Hope.

And I know you guys

You can’t fool me

You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have quite a lot of hope

I mean, a lot of you are activists, it’s who you are. 

So maybe your hope is on vacation or having a good cry in the corner

But it is here, with you, in you, it is in your very soul. .

So 

Happy vernal equinox, y’all.

Spring is coming!

Eventually.

Hope! 

Light some candles and

Praise the future. 

Wow.

Praise our Clergy and speakers and the next ten days.

Praise tefillah,

When we engage in holy conversation

Praise tzedukah, when we actively seek to heal the world

Praise teshuvah, when we return to our true selves and our community.

Anyway, may you all you have a sweet New Year

And an interesting fast!

Amen

And

Wow