8 Blessings for Animals (and 1 puzzle)

*With thanks to Aharon Varady, Rabbi Jill Hammer and Kohenet Sarah Chandler, and OpenSiddur.org for inspiration and background info:  

http://opensiddur.org/special-days/new-years-days/la-beheimot/explanation-and-ritual-for-rosh-hashanah-labeheimot-new-years-day-for-animals/

ROSH HASHANA LA BEHEIMOT:  

1. Blessing for Animals
2. Blessings For the Bugs
3. My Friend, My Captive:  A Ritual For Our Pets
4. Meat And Feathers:  We Confess
5. A Blessing For Buster
6. Prayer for a Good Dog
7. Praise For The Night Creatures
8. Nature, A Puzzle 
9. Mourning Prayer For Pets

 

BLESSINGS FOR ANIMALS

Baruch atah Adonai Elohainu Melech HaOlam,

Brucha at Shechinah, Ruach HaOlam,

Blessed are the beasts of the earth.

The ones we have domesticated,

The ones who serve us in their wild state,

The ones that hurt us or gross us out,

And the animals who live only for themselves, without any reference to us, whatsoever.

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

We acknowledge, celebrate, and give thanks for all the ways the animals have made our lives possible.

We confess to cruelty and hypocrisy

In how we use their muscles and their skin

In how we use their beauty and their vulnerability.

And yet,

We are so blessed by the soft and attentive animals that we are able to love

With all our hearts and all our souls,

And that we hope and know have loved us back,

Reflecting the perfect acceptance and connection with God and each other

That we pray for every Shabbat.

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

We are blessed by the lives of the animals.

May we learn to always be a blessing to them.

And we wish them a Happy New Year and a Hodesh Tov.

And let us say,

Amen

BLESSINGS FOR THE BUGS

Blessed One-ness!

On this beautiful summer day

Under this large and welcoming tree,

Our green tallit,

We gather together to give thanks

To the animals who make all life possible:

The bugs.

Big and small

Beautiful and hideous

Helpful and hurtful

They build

They pollinate

They are the food of our food.

Most of the time we can't even see them

And for that I am deeply and profoundly grateful.

Frightened by a giant spider movie in my childhood,

When I was little I wanted nothing more than to see all bugs dead.

But I was wrong.

I have come to see

That we are not the only creatures who are B'tzelem Elohim,

We are all in God's image.

So today, on Rosh Chodesh Elul,

On the New Year of the Domesticated Beasts,

Let's give thanks to the bugs

Like the four questioning children

Wise and snarky and simple and oblivious,

Like the four worlds of the kabbala

The Earth, the sky, the heart and the spirit

We give thanks and acknowledge:

The bugs we have domesticated 

The bugs who serve us in their wild state

The bugs that hurt us or gross us out

And the bugs who live only for themselves, without any reference to us, whatsoever.

First, in the world of Assiyah,

(Touch the earth)

Let us touch this earth.

the world of Doing, of the dirt, 

the world of the body, of physical pleasure and need

And know that in every square inch of this dirt there are bugs.

Segmented, slithering, multiple legs,

Whether we walk or sit or lie down on this earth,

there are the bugs.

We give thanks for the domesticated bugs, such as the earthworms,

Who make our compost

And who make agriculture possible;

And lets us give thanks for the bugs of the earth that we have not domesticated

Who feed the birds and each other;

And let us acknowledge the creepy crawlies of the earth living under rocks and the spiders that make children scream;

And pray with the bugs of the earth who exist only for themselves,
Without any reference to us, whatsoever.

Second, in the world of Briah,

(reach into the air)

Let us reach into the air

The world of Thinking,

the world of the mind, the intellect

And give thanks for the domesticated bugs of the air, the bees

Who pollinate our flowers

And make the sweet sweet honey;

And let us give thanks for the undomesticated bugs of the air who give us pleasure with their beauty, the butterflies and the dragonflies and the ladybugs;

And let us acknowledge the bugs of the air who annoy us, the mosquitoes and the moths;

And pray with the bugs of the air who fly all around without any reference to us whatsover.

Third, in the world ofYetzirah,

(Touch the heart and the gut)

The world of Feeling, heart, the emotions.

Touch your own body, touch your heart and your gut

And give thanks for the domesticated bugs that we eat, the bacteria that give us yogurt and yeast,

That we may live and feel and react;

And give thanks for the bugs and the bacteria that live in or on our bodies

In symbiosis, helping our digestion and our immunity,

That we may love and be loved;

Let us acknowledge the bugs, the ticks and the bedbugs and the bacteria, 

That make us sick and sometimes kill us, so that we are sometimes angry or sad;

And the bugs in and on our bodies that, thank God, most of us don’t even know about because, yuck, right?
Let us not make any reference to them, whatsoever.

And last, in the world Atzilut, of Being/Soul SPIRIT,

I invite you to turn you face to the sun and close your eyes.

This is the world of the spirit, of spirituality, of God, however you approach God and even if you don't.  

And let’s imagine another kind of bug--

What are the creepy crawly things, the ear worms and the brain bugs

The spiritual insights and the annoying doubts and fears that we cannot let go, both good and bad?

And let us give thanks for the ideas that make us so creative in our holy conversations;

And thanks for the doubts and fears and sensitivities that come to us whether we want them or not, that make us empathetic and compassionate;

And let us acknowledge the obsessions with no basis in reality and the nagging regrets about things long past that keep us up at night and away from our true selves;

And pray for ourselves, amidst all the buzzing distractions of technology and entertainment that go on without any reference to ourselves whatsoever.

Blessed One-ness

Bless all these bugs and all the creatures:

The ones we have domesticated, 

The ones who serve us in their wild state,

The ones that hurt us or gross us out,

And the animals who live only for themselves, without any reference to us, whatsoever.
We are in this world together.

Amen

-----------------------

MY FRIEND, MY CAPTIVE: A RITUAL FOR OUR PETS

On Rosh Ḥodesh Elul, the first day of the new moon of Elul, we begin an accounting for all the souls with whom we are in a relationship.

Listen for the voice of the animals in the sound of the shofar.

(The shofar is blown once, a single tekiyah/blast.)

Cat Baby, Dog Baby, Fur Baby, My Baby, 

Baby Boo, Love Machine, Poosy, Schmushy

Pupster, Puppino, Doglet, Kittenhead, 

Fuzzy Wuzzy, Wiggly Tush, Mr. Nose, Miss Whiskers

Pearly Pink Paws, Mr. Claws, The Cuddly One, The Silly One

Belly boy, Muffin man, Old fella, Pretty boy

Fluff Meister, Wiener dog, King of Soft, Mr. Ruff

Barkmeister, Mighty Hunter, Miss Poo, Mr Vomit

Cat from Hell, Dog o' my dreams, Bark-a-roni, Flat cat

My Boy, My Girl, My Cat, My Dog

Mine

Mine

Mine

For all the love you allow me to give you,

For all the love I allow myself to believe you give me,

For all the times you have protected me from physical or emotional harm,

For all the times you warned me,

For all the furntiture you have destroyed,

And all the rugs you have peed and puked on,

For all the exercise I got walking you,

For all the sleep you got on my head,

For all the pleasure I get watching you eat,

For all the litter boxes and plastic bags I used to clean up your shit,

For all the nights I dreamt about you,

For all the work days you missed me,

For all the blood pressure lowered
For  all the depressions mitigated,

For all the tails wagged,
For all the purrs purred,

I thank you, loved pets and companions.

Specifically, I ask give thanks for the lives of (my pet's names)

Do you want to thank your loved ones?  Call their names out!  

 (they call out their pet’s names)

For all the services you render us as our pets and companions,

Anachnu Modim

we give thanks.

(The shofar is blown a second time.)

Dear Friend and Companion, I am your

Master

Owner

Trainer

Keeper

(together) My friend, my captive.

You eat when I decide to feed you, You don’t eat if I forget.

(together) My friend, my captive.

You pee where and when I tell you And I punish you if you do it in wrong place.

(together) My friend, my captive.

You only go outside if I let you.

(together) My friend, my captive.

If I want to  hit you I can hit you, If I want to caress you I caress you.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I have decided that I want you to keep me company for many years, so I force you to go for check ups and treatments at the vet, which you hate

(together) My friend, my captive.

I have cut out your reproductive organs to make you more pliable and easy to live with.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I keep you shackled in a collar and it’s up to me whether that collar is comfortable or has rhinestones that humiliate you or spikes that dig into your flesh.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I named you without asking what you call yourself.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I went to a shelter to pick you out and I told myself I was rescuing you, that when you happened to look in my direction that you chose me, but all the choosing was on my side, you had no say in the matter.

(together) My friend, my captive.

I might be a good master, or I might be a bad master, it doesn’t matter.   You can’t leave.

(together) My friend, my captive.

For your lack of freedom,

For my demands for attention and comfort,

For your lack of the company of your freely chosen fellow creatures,

For my theft of your sexuality,

For my many terms of endearment that mask your captivity,

For all the privilege I exercise over you without thought,

I ask your forgiveness.

Specifically, I ask for the forgiveness of (my pet's names)

Do you want to do the same for your beloved captives? Call them out!  Thank you…?

 (they call out their pet’s names)

For all the times we have transgressed against your dignity and agency, as our pets,

Selach Lanu

We ask forgiveness.

(The shofar is blown a third time.)

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Yah

Praising One-ness

We are so blessed by the soft and attentive animals that we are able to love with all our hearts and all our souls,

Together, let us give thanks to the One-ness

Out of which we have found our pets.

We give thanks for the simple love between us and them that teaches and mirrors the simple love for God and from God

That we return for every year

When we make Teshuvah.

Perhaps during this month of Elul,

We will pray to to show our beloved companions and captives how much we appreciate them

And wish for them a healthy and happy New Year.

Baruch atah Adonai Elohainu Melech HaOlam,

Blessed is the Fierce Mystery

Blessed are the domesticated beasts of the earth.

Amen.

Rosh Hodesh Tov.  

   ---------------------------------

MEAT AND FEATHERS:  WE CONFESS 

(leader)

I feel the Presence

Of what today I call God

Tomorrow I may call nature--

The Fierce Mystery

All around us,

This connection that must know everything because it is everything.

During Elul we must confess to people before we confess to God

And perhaps on Rosh HaShana LaBehama we must confess to animals before we confess to people.

So let us begin.

We acknowledge our debts to and our transgressions against

The domesticated beasts, 

Our food, our clothes, our decoration.

They are

Our property, our friends, our victims.

And we ask that they hear our confessions and our blessings: 

(together)

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Goats

Chickens

Ducks

Geese

Peacocks

Horses

We celebrate the many gifts you give us, willingly and unwillingly.

(leader)

We eat you,

We eat your bodies and reminisce over the best parts,

We share recipes.

We eat your children,

We drink the milk and the honey you make to feed those children,

We eat your eggs before they can even  be children.

We keep ourselves warm with your skin

And steal your beauty to enhance our own.

We cultivate you for your fur and feathers and kill you whenever we need them.

We like the way you look.

We make art and poetry to celebrate you in the fields and farms

Just before we slaughter you.

For thousands of years

We have used your bodies to plow our fields and mill our grain,

We have used your bodies to ride from place to place

And now that we don't need you quite as as much

We use you for sport or dog food.

We bless your memory.

(together)

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Goats

Chickens

Ducks

Geese

Peacocks

Horses

We acknowledge how we have abused you.

(leader)

We imprison you.

We torture you.

We test our make up and drugs on you.

We ride you.

We train you.

And we discard you when you're old.

We enclose herd animals alone in stalls instead of with their own kind,

We cram  you into metal enclosures that won't allow any movement,

We raise thousands in spaces fit only for hundreds.

We murder you.

We wring your necks.

We behead you.

We bang you on the head.

We shoot you.

We pluck you.

We skin you.

We chop and grind you up.

We acknowledge our cruelty and ask for your forgiveness. 

(together)

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Goats

Chickens

Ducks

Geese

Ostriches

Peacocks

Horses

We confess how we have lied to ourselves about what we do to you.

(leader)

We call you

  Porterhouse Steak

  Buffalo Wings

  Venison

  Mutton

  Camembert

  Yogurt

  Leather

  Feathers

  Down

  Sunny Side up.
  Shofar

Anything but what you really are.

We buy slabs of meat in transparent packages that don't look like you

So we don't have to think about how you were raised and slaughtered.

You are a breast or a leg or a steak,

You are a hamburger, a wing or a bucket.

We tool and dye your skin and call it leather

So we don't have to acknowledge we're wearing your skin.

We arrange your feathers artfully

And admire the beautiful colors,

Ignoring why you have them in the first place.

We put your feathers in our pillows

And we sleep well.

We give thanks for denial, without which we could not get through the day.

(together)

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Goats

Chickens

Ducks

Geese

Peacocks

Horses

Forgive those of us who cannot give you up.

(leader)

You domestic beasts are all vegetarians, why is that?

Why don't we eat predators? 

Is it because you are docile and easy to domesticate?

Or is it because predators remind us of ourselves?

Maybe some of us here don't eat you

Maybe some of us here don't wear you.

Maybe none of us should.

But many of us do.

(optional)

I do.

I eat meat.  I love meat.

I love eggs, honey, yogurt, chicken, steak.

I wear leather.  I'm wearing it on my feet right now.

My pillow is filled with down.  I slept okay.

I know all about how you suffer and still I partake of it all.

I don't eat veal.  That's it.  Not much.

I think about helping you.
I guess I wrote this.

But really, I don't.

So I can't ask for forgiveness

because I'm not going to change.

This month, anyway.

(optional:  are there any other confessions, besides mine?  anyone?)

(together)

Cattle

Sheep

Pigs

Goats

Chickens

Ducks

Geese

Peacocks

Horses

            We could try to make at least small changes.

(leader)

We can eat less meat.

We can wear less leather.

We can refuse to wear real fur.

We can refuse to eat veal.

We can only buy grass fed and pasture raised poultry and meat, if we can afford it.

We can stop wearing feathers.

We can use alternative down feather pillows, though that's plastic and not so good for the environment.
(optional) What else can we do? (wait for suggestions)

Maybe we become vegetarians or vegans,

Maybe we don't.

But we can do a little.

We can start.

(together)

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

Blessed Yah, 

Breath of Life,

Remembering us in Death,

The Fierce Mystery:

We acknowledge, celebrate, and give thanks for all the ways the animals have made our lives possible.

We confess to cruelty and hypocrisy.

We ask your forgiveness for all the wrongs we have done our domestic beasts,

We are blessed by their lives.

May we learn to be a blessing to them.

And we wish them a Happy New Year and a Hodesh Tov

And let us say, 

Amen

======================

A BLESSING FOR BUSTER

This is a blessing for my old orange cat, Buster,

On the occasion of Rosh Hodesh Elul, 

Rosh Hashanah La Beheimot,

The New Year of the Domesticated Beasts.

  

Buster was an athlete in his youth. 

He’s named for Buster Keaton because

He was always leaping and levitating

And doing triple axels on the ceiling

And he never smiled.

 

Buster was also kind of a jerk. 

Standoffish and emotionally withholding,

He ruined two sets of venetian blinds and

Every screen in every window.

He broke all my small breakables

And

Sometimes I would catch him

Staring at his brother,

Sweet fuzzy cuddly Sammy,

With this look in his eyes

That said,

“I have no choice, I have to bite Sammy on his ass.”

And then he would.

Intervention only delayed the inevitable.

 

Have you heard of family systems theory?

When Sammy died, Buster took his place:

He got cuddly and loving and slept on my face.

 

And now Buster is very old, 

He’s 22!

He misses the litter box more often than not

(I spend a fortune on pee pads).

He howls very loudly when he’s hungry

And howls very loudly after he has eaten.

He falls over when he sneezes!

Sometimes Buster walks down the hallway and then stops halfway

And you can see him thinking,

What was I doing?

Sometimes he remembers and continues on,

Sometimes he doesn’t and goes back to bed.

Man, I can so so so relate to this.

 

Buster is an inside apartment cat, 

My captive all his life.

He never got to serenade the neighborhood,

He never got to have sex,

He never got to fight for territory,

He never got to crouch in the tall grass stalking his prey.

Buster only murdered three mice, that I know of,

When the neighbors moved,

And it’s a shame because he was born to kill.

How do I dare to offer him a blessing 

When I have been at best a benevolent tyrant

Thwarting his every natural desire?

 

For fifteen months during COVID

Buster was the only living being

I could touch.  

Bless you, Buster. 

I love you. 

I’m sorry. 

Thank you, 

My old domesticated beast.

Please don’t die and

Happy New Year.

Amen. 

================

PRAYER FOR THE GOOD DOG 

I approach the Holy Wholeness,
The Unimaginabled Infinity,
Thinking of a small funny piece of it,
A good dog I knew.
He died last week
And we miss him.

He was an odd shape,
Barrel-chested, long body and short legs
And when he trotted on one of his walks,
He kind of swayed from side to side
And bounced up and down.
It was actually kind of jolly
In a dog sort of way.
He was a stubborn boy,
And he didn't want to do what he didn't want to do.
I admired that, even when I had to pull him down the sidewalk
Because he wasn't ready to go home just yet.

I met this dog when he was a puppy.
He wasn't my dog, but I imprinted on him a little bit
And when he saw me coming down the street he'd go nuts with joy.
No one else has ever gone nuts with joy upon seeing me
And I never took this for granted.
When his people walked him past my building
He would stop and hunker down (I told you he was stubborn)
And sometimes I pretended this was so he could visit with me
But I think this was mostly because he aspired
To the eating of my cats.
When he did sometimes gain entry
They sat on the sofa, looking down at him, snickering.
He had very short legs.

This fine boy
Had a very good life.
He loved and was much loved.
There is no tragedy in his death at age 14
But nevertheless,
We miss him.

Blessed Holy Wholeness
We give thanks for our time with that good dog.

Amen

============

IN PRAISE OF THE NIGHT CREATURES

 

Over many millions of years

Organisms evolved to thrive in the dark,

Eyes big and reflective,

Mysterious only to those who slept 

While they flourished. 

For many thousands of years,

Humans slept during the dark

And rose in the light.

And if we didn’t feel safe at night from beasts and bugs,

We sat together in circles under the stars

And told stories of triumph over the unknown. 

And that mastodon we had for dinner. 

 

But for the last hundred or so years,

If we were lucky,

We’ve lived in bright rooms,

Safe behind doors at night, 

Burning fossil fuels,

Unable to see past the streetlights to the stars.

Our stories come from the outside,

And animals no longer frighten us

Because we’re in charge now. 

Anyway, we have cats playing the piano

To like and share

Each in our own well-lit isolation. 

 

Tonight, perhaps, for Rosh Hodesh Elul,

Don’t be in such a rush

To set up lights against the dark.  

Turn off that backyard lamp,

So you can see the constellations and

Let the night creatures breathe.

Listen to the frightening ambient sounds

Of animals and bugs

That don’t explain themselves to you. 

And remember our covenant with God:

Take care of the earth 

And it will take care of you. 

Amen. 

==============

NATURE, A PUZZLE 

  

Art by Mike Cockrill

Blessed Holy Wholeness,
Flies have invaded my apartment
And I do not sanctify their lives. 
 
The flies wax and wane.
We kill off most of them but then
They always return. 
I don’t understand,
We keep the place clean and
We never see any maggots,
Where are these flies coming from? 
I hate them. 
There’s a particular loud buzz the flies generate when they’re captured on a sticky fly paper roll,
Trying to flee and freaking out. 
We revel in the sound,
We laugh!
It is disgusting. 
 
And yet,
I believe flies to be created in God’s image 
Just as I am. 
I know they are part of the divine continuum. 
I know they are necessary to the processing of waste
And that they are food for other animals in the chain of life.
I know that flies are as entitled to existence as anything else. 
Most of all,

I know that human intolerance 

Of the unpleasant, the inconvenient and/or the mysterious
In nature
Is destroying the planet.

Still, I hate them.
 
Blessed Holy Wholeness,
I cannot resolve the contradiction. 
Amen.

MOURNING PRAYER FOR YOUR PETS

Our domesticated beasts, our animals,  when they trust you, you are blessed.  

And when that gift of joy and love and attention and nowness dies, we miss them so much. We suffer.  We mourn. Why do they have to live such short lives?

In June of 2022  I lost Buster, my cat.  He was 23. Here he is:

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

 

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