The Voices of Our Lives

Written for

The Days of Awe 5787/2026

How did we come to be called, Kolot Chayeinu?

“I remember we were…brainstorming, and coming up with all kinds of ideas. I think I talked about singing and using our voices so we came up with Kol and then Kolot.”

—Cantor Lisa B. Segal 

“…we were focused on eating together as a way to build community, so had lots of imagery like “feasting” and “joy.”  …So we took what Lisa brought re: voice and needed it to be plural - we were clearly already many voices.  And then it was Kol or Kolot Simkha or other joyful or feasting words, and I think Michael Forman z”l said ‘but life is not all joy and feasting.  Sometimes we are angry or sad or in grief.’ So we got to Chayeinu- our lives, not just one part.”

—Founding Rabbi Ellen Lippmann (emerita)

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

We cherish all our voices

Especially the demanding ones,

The voices of complaint and truth,

Of grief and care,

The ones who won’t shut up

When stupidity, greed and hatred 

Parade as virtues,

And millions suffer. 

Pitchu Lanu! Open up to us! 

Ruach HaOlam, 

Breathing us in and breathing us out,

Notice our prayers of fear and sacred angst

And all our glorious questions.

We sing together for beauty and answers,

Then we watch for who is listening. 

Unlock our portals, gates, minds and hearts

And tell us again and again

Until we can hear and understand 

What our holy obligations must be. 

Hineinu! In the pews and on the streets,

Draped in our tallitot,

Marching and shuckling, 

Studying and singing. 

Together we hope,

Always up for saving the world.

Our liturgy offers words of return

Guiding us again to seek our pure souls

As we pound our chests and try

To teach God how to forgive the unforgivable.

We are Brooklyn, we are family,

We are the ger, the stranger,

We are the happily strange and the so-called normal, 

We are chaverim: friends, comrades. 

Here we eat first, unless we’re fasting, then

We pray and seek one-ness,

We learn and take righteous action,

We forgive and are forgiven. 

Open yourself to Kolot Chayeinu, our home,

Where doubt can be an act of faith and all hands are needed.

Shana Tova. 

And let us say, 

Amen

The Fish Stinks

 

Gold

 

Where Do I Belong?

 

Prayer For The Possibilities

Art by Mike Cockrill

Blessed One-ness,

We have raged

We have despaired 

We have witnessed 

We have fought

And now we know

The Bad Guys can lose

The Good Guys can win

And we can survive

And we can flourish. 

We pray for

Life and Liberty 

And The Pursuit of Happiness

We pray for a country

Where all people are created equal

We pray 

For the strength to defy evil

For the spirit to live within God’s complex image

For the mind to imagine the possibilities. 

Happy Fourth of July!

Amen

Just Saying

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

No lead is too big

No guard is too small. 

Fascists bound to lose. 

Amen

Prayer for Orphans

Blessed Fierce Mystery,

Those of us who know

Know this:

Until you are an orphan 

You are a child. 

Whatever your age

Whatever their age when they died. 

Those of us who remember 

Remember this:

Nobody will ever love you

Like they loved you. 

Even if they didn’t 

They did. 

Those of us who grieve 

Grieve this:

We are alive because they lived

Mommies

Daddies

We weep and we give thanks. 

Amen 

Prayer On Learning I Have AD(H)D

 

I’m old and a girl and no one told me

My brain is weird

But, apparently, it is 

And always was. 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

I know what I have to do,

I know how to do it. 

I want to do it,

But then I don’t.  

I really want a clean home,

I have many closets and cupboards.

I have time to clean,

But I don’t. 

I have phone calls to make and

Important papers to hand in. 

It’s not rocket science, 

But I don’t.   

My feelings feel so huge 

And they must be expressed. 

I’m told to calm down

But I don’t 

I know I’m rude,

When I see patterns and truth. 

I try to shut up

But I don’t. 

My friends talk too slowly,

So boring. 

I try not to interrupt 

But then I do. 

I’m so tired of being annoying 

But I like being quirky.

Tell me what to do, I might even do it

But probably not.  

I give thanks for this diagnosis,

It’s interesting. 

Amen

A Prayer for Contradictions

Art by Mike Cockrill 

I am always in opposition  

To whatever I’m supposed to feel or think.

I am bitter so I insist on sweet,

I am sweet and it pisses me off.

I find it impossible not to always see the answer 

And its opposite:

It is my talent and my curse.

It is being Jewish,

It’s being a woman,

It’s being old.

Despair

And Rejoice!

Amen

Prayer For The Little Girls

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

This prayer is for the little girls who go to school,

The ones who learn

The ones who teach

The ones who have fun

And the ones who share. 

This prayer is for the little girls who died in school 

From the bombs of war

From the lack of funding 

From the men who rape

And from being sent away. 

This prayer is for the little girls who love school,

The ones who ask questions 

The one who defy authority 

The ones who organize 

And the ones who won’t shut up.  

May they be safe. 

May they survive. 

May they flourish.

 Amen

For those celebrating

For those celebrating Christmas, lots of love to you all, have a wonderful happy merry jolly time!

For those of us doing Chinese food and movies, enjoy!  (I miss double features.)

For those only doing the winter solstice, may you have light in the dark and dark in the light!

For those celebrating this time of year by kidnapping people with no due process, cutting off SNAP, Medicaid and subsidies for health insurance , trying to destroy free speech, trying to send this country back to Jim Crow and no votes for women, bombing children, I wish I believed in Hell so I could imagine you roasting in it.  May you be thwarted in all your endeavors.  

Vashti says No (2026 version)

Ladies, get me some water.

What happened? I’ll tell you.

He summoned me,

That old demented bully, 

He wants to show me off naked to his cronies!

Absurd.

I didn’t think

I just answered. 

I said to the messenger,

Tell him, Vashti says No. 

Back comes the messenger, just a kid,

Poor thing, I feel for him because 

When the disgusting idiot, my husband

Heard of my refusal,

He exploded. 

So, it’s official: Queen Vashti is

Divorced and banished:

Make room for the next one!

Hmph! Do I care?

Tell him, Vashti says No.

Now what? What do I do?

So boring.

If not magnificent, what will I be?

Merely a princess of Babylon,

Kidnapped as a girl by Darius of Persia,

Trafficked to his idiot son to marry?

So from now on I will

Only be merely fabulous me?

So interesting. 

Tell him, Vashti says No. 

The kid comes back with a black eye, 

And a message from my brand new ex:

Beloved Wife! I’m in such a good mood!

Put on your crown and parade your beautiful body!

Beg for forgiveness and we will party

In my giant new gold ballroom

With all my billionaire friends!

I give the poor boy an aspirin. 

Remember to duck, I say,

When you tell the king, Vashti says No. 

Maybe I’ll cut off my long black hair, 

Maybe I’ll burn all my beautiful clothes.

Maybe I’ll stop wearing make up. 

Maybe I’ll get fat. Hah!

Show this off, Buster. 

You know, I’ve got a lovely palace in the country,

I think I”ll plant tomatoes.

Maybe I’ll take a lover

And then make a documentary

Titled, “Vashti Says No”. 

The boy is back, I think his arm is broken.

He shakes and cries as he tells me,

The old man wants my crown,

For the succeeding wife-to-be. 

My crown?! The boy trembles. I laugh. 

This ugly vulgar thing?

The creep does love his shiny garish crap. 

Take it! Better her than me! 

Curse Vashti when you hand it to him, 

That might save your life

As Vashti says No.  

Here’s some sisterly good advice for the next one:

Let him pretend to be a genius!

Give him gold prizes, doesn’t matter what for,

He loves his fake awards.  

Do what you got to do 

But get him drunk first, it goes faster.

Oh and watch out for that creepy bald toad, Haman, 

He really hates immigrants. 

Say yes if you must but please, honey,

Tell him, Vashti says No.