PLACE YOURSELF, NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDERS

PLACE YOURSELF:  WORDS OF PRAYER AND INTENTION

BY TRISHA ARLIN

ART BY MIKE COCKRILL

FOREWORD BY RABBI JILL HAMMER

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDERS
Published by Dimus Parrhesia Press

Hardbound, Color inside  $36.00 plus $4.00 s/h

Paperback, B/W inside, $18.00 plus $4.00 s/h

“Place yourself in front of the fear. 

You will be judged, you will die.

Place yourself in the center of the universe

You earned that spot simply by existing.

Place yourself under obligation to God

However you understand or don’t understand God.

Place yourself on the path of holiness and truth.

Bless and be blessed by HaMakom, the Place where we find ourselves.”

---from Place Yourself, an Unataneh Tokef by Trisha Arlin

PLACE YOURSELF, by Trisha Arlin, with a Foreword by Rabbi Jill Hammer and original artwork by Mike Cockrill,  is a book of original prayer, kavannot and liturgical poems.  Written in clear language that is meant to be experienced in real time as part of a service or ritual event, or to be used for personal spiritual explorations, Arlin’s work is fresh,challenging, useful and very modern.

“How does a contemporary person engage Jewish prayer and make any sense of the words? How do we reconcile what we know about the messy, uncertain, often painful and unjust world with the God the prayerbook describes? Conversely, how do we express the awe we feel at the beauty of the universe when we are immersed in a culture of cynicism, materialism, and doubt? In her by turns whimsical, incisive, and vulnerable prayer-poetry, Trisha Arlin offers a bold answer to these questions…

[Trisha Arlin’s) prayers make space for the things we thought we couldn’t say. If you want prayers for the Sabbath, holidays, and other occasions that speak to the heart and don’t discount your head, Arlin’s work is for you. If you’re ready to be honest and vulnerable, reverent and heretical, mystical and down-to-earth, you’ve come to the right place. You can use these words as a resource for enhancing your Jewish prayer practice, or you can use them to re-enter Jewish prayers you left behind forever. However you place yourself, may you find this book to be a blessing.”---Rabbi Jill Hammer, Foreword

Trisha Arlin's Place Yourself invites us to experience prayer with powerful metaphor, a modern sensitivity and a deep love that at once refreshes the act of prayer and simultaneously invites us back into the Siddur to explore the texts of generations past. -- Alden Solovy, Liturgist and Author, This Grateful Heart and This Joyous Soul

Trisha Arlin's liturgical poetry breathes with authenticity, honesty, and a spiritual sensibility informed by the dissonance of real life. Her contemporary theology offers a necessary respite from the lofty and flowery, and we have much to learn from her wisdom. -- Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible

“"Thanks to Trisha Arlin we observe Rosh Hodesh Elul with prayers and blessings for animals. Her extended blessing focusing on the smallest of animals - the bugs and even smaller - was astonishing: funny, deep, thought-provoking. It connected us all to the Divine in a completely new way." ---Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives

"Trisha Arlin’s prayers create worlds of spiritual space that invoke a worshipful tone. Then they puncture complacency and boldly ask, badger, and provoke. They awaken us. And then they restore the spiritual space, but we’re a bit more comfortable in it because like us, the prayers are faithful and faithless, hopeful and hopeless, serious and playful. The overall affect is a prayer spot wherein moderns who yearn may find comfort, solace, and a smile." --Rabbi Jeff Hoffman, D.H.L., Rabbi-In-Residence and Director of Institutional Assessment, The Academy for Jewish Religion

"In my congregation are published authors and readers of professional quality as well as students and just plain folk. They relish the opportunity to read one of Trisha's kavvanot aloud during services. The rhythms of her poetry awaken our hearts on the High Holy Days and her words, real, alive and down to earth enhance our Shabbat worship experience throughout the rest of the Jewish calendar year." --Rabbi Peg Kershenbaum, Congregation B'nai Harim, Pocono Pines, PA.

 About The Author

Trisha Arlin is a liturgist and very part-time rabbinic student at the Academy of Jewish religion; 2014 Liturgist-In-Residence at the National Havurah Summer Institute; the editor of RAISING MY VOICE, The Selected Writings of Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and VOICES, the Kolot Chayeinu Journal; and creator of the Writing Personal Prayer workshops. 

Individual prayers and kavannot have been or will soon be published in the JOURNAL OF FEMINIST STUDIES IN RELGION (2019); RENEW OUR HEARTS: A SIDDUR FOR SHABBAT  DAY,  Bayit and Ben Yehuda Press, (2019);  BESIDE STILL WATERS, A JOURNAL OF COMFORT AND RENEWAL, 2018, Bayit and Ben Yehuda Press;  A POET'S SIDDUR, Ain't Got No Press, 2017; and STUDIES IN JUDAISM AND PLURALISM, Ben Yehuda Press 2016 and her work can be found online on Ritualwell.org, the OpenSiddur.org and on her blog, Trisha Arlin: Words of Prayer and Intention www.triganza.blogspot.com.  

Trisha's liturgy has been used at services and ritual occasions at venues of many denominations around the country, including Kolot Chayeinu and Union Temple (Brooklyn, NY) , Makor (Long Island, NY), Bnai Keshet (Montclair, NJ), Lev Matanot (Toronto, CA), Beth Israel-West Temple (Cleveland, OH), NHI Summer Institute, Adath Shalom (Morris Plains, NJ), Temple Chai (Phoenix, AZ), Moishe House website, Sinai Free Synagogue (Mt. Vernon, NY), Congregation Ner Shalom (Woodbridge, VA), Temple Emanuel (Franklin Lakes, NJ), Temple Isaiah (Palm Springs, CA), Addison County Jewish Congregation (Middlebury, VT), Columbus OH JCC, First Unitarian Church (Wilmington, DL), Kol Hai (New Paltz, NY), Congregation Kol HaNeshema (Sarasota, FL)

About The Artist

Mike Cockrill is an artist whose diverse body of work has been widely exhibited in both the US and abroad. After decades of participation in Jewish life, Mike, who was raised Catholic, completed his conversion to Judaism in 2017. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Whose Torah?

This piece was first published at the Jewish Futures blog.

Blessed Yah,

A long time ago

I lost Torah.

I even know what day it happened.

After ten years of Westbury Hebrew Congregation Hebrew School

And in my final year, Thank God!
I was 15
And the Rabbi,
Who shall remain nameless,
Taught the senior class.
He was dull and pedestrian
But he was the rabbi
So I treated him with respect
Which at that point I mostly withheld
From everybody else.

I was 15.

And the rabbi,
Said,
“Everything in the Torah is true.”
He said,
“If it’s in the Torah then that’s exactly how we should live.”

And so I raised my hand, and asked,
“Rabbi, does that mean that when we win a war that we should kill all the enemy men and rape all the enemy women and enslave all the enemy children?”

He stared at me, I stared back at him.

And finally he said,“yes”

“Really?”

And then he said, “No more questions from you, young lady.”

Why did I lose Torah?
Well yes, because I was a girl
Back in the day

Oh sure I had a Bat Mitzvah
But It was on a Friday night
(And entre nous, I got a lot fewer presents
And had a much smaller party
Than the boys)
And I led the service

And chanted the complete haftarah

But I wasn’t called to the Torah
I wasn’t allowed to have an aliyah

I wasn’t even allowed to touch it.

Sure that’s one reason I lost the Torah,
Basically I never had it.

But really it was that rabbi
Who wouldn’t answer my question,
Who wouldn’t even let me ask any questions.

When I really wanted to know.

That rabbi was an idiot.

So how did I get Torah back?

Long story short:

I met a rabbi who told me that,
Doubt could be an act of faith.
I had a teacher who said,
The study of Torah was about the questions and not the answers.

I had a spiritual advisor who asked me about God’s presence.

And check it out
Some forty years after that shitty Hebrew School class,
I’m in rabbinical school!
Go figure.

And someday, when I teach Torah?
And some wiseguy kid
Asks of me a question,
Genuine and/or smartass,
A question that I don’t want to answer
Or I cannot answer,

Or a really complicated answer,

Or has multiple answers
What will I say?

I hope I will say,
This is your Torah:
What do you think?

Blessed Yah, giving us so many opportunities for questions
And for this we are so grateful.

Amen.

Blessing After Eating the Seder Meal

All who sit around this table:

Friends and Strangers,

Those who remember and those who are remembered

On this Pesakh,

Who have shared such a fine meal

And such a fine story,

We take this moment to acknowledge

How blessed we are

And in our turn, we bless:

Blessed be the eaters and the eaten,

Blessed be the feeders and the fed.

Blessed be the cooks and the meal,

Blessed be the drinkers and the winemakers..

Blessed be the vegetables and the farmers,

Blessed be the matzah and the baker.

Blessed be them all.

Blessed be the questioners and the questioned,
Blessed be the musicians and the songs.

Blessed the comics and the jokes,

Blessed be the artists and the illustrations.

Blessed be the maggid and the stories,
Blessed be the rabbis and the learning.

Blessed be them all.

Blessed be the doers and the done upon,

Blessed be the freers and the freed.

Blessed be the leaders and the led,

Blessed be the tellers and the told,

Blessed be the prayers and the prayed for,

Blessed be the servers and the served.

Blessed be them alll.

Blessing us,  One-ness

With the biggest and the smallest of blessings

And

Blessing the One-ness

With the biggest and smallest of our gratitudes,

All who sit around this table,
All who ate this wonderful meal,

Friends and Strangers,

Those who remember and those who are remembered,

On this Pesakh

We give thanks.

Amen 

Shemot

Names

This parsha is Shemot, which in Hebrew means names.  It's also the name of this second book of the Torah.  In English it is called Exodus, which means the mass departure of many people.   Life sucks in Egypt for the Hebrew slaves and so they leave.  Stuff happens.  Exodus.  

The plot of this one little parsha is hard to sum up quickly:  The torah names all the tribes of Israel who have moved to Egypt, they become enslaved, AND THEN  after 400 years they become so numerous and the Pharoah is afraid of them so he orders the midwives to kill all the male Hebrew babies.  AND THEN Two midwives manage to save a lot of the male babies, one in particular is hidden from the bad guys until he gets too big and loud to hide, AND THEN his mother puts him in a basket and floats him towards Pharoah's daughter, who adopts him and names him Moshe AND THEN he is given to his mother to nurse and then back to Pharoah's Daughter to be raised as an Eqgyptian prince.  AND THEN One day Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave AND THEN he kills the Eqgyptian so he has to skedaddle AND THEN he faces the fact that he is a Hebrew  AND THEN He runs away to Midian, marries Zipporah, has children, becomes a shepherd and generally drops out, AND THEN one day, just when he thinks his life is settled, God appears in a burning bush that is not consumed, insists that Moses go back to Egypt and liberate his people with the help of his brother Aaron AND THEN God teaches the reluctant Moses some magic  tricks AND THEN  Moses goes back to Egypt, confronts the Pharoah of all Egypt and says, no, demands that he let his people go, AND THEN Pharoah says hell no and gets even meaner to the slaves than he was before, AND THEN God tells Moses that he is going to kick Pharoah's ass.

Great story.  Can't wait to see what happens next.

But for me, this is not about the journey, epic though it may be, but about something as simple as a name.  With a name you are given a place, in your family and your community, and sometimes within your soul. The Israelites and then Moses, and then God, are named and found in this parsha, and the nexus is the Burning Bush, when God invites Moses back into who he is, Mose the Hebrew, the friend of God and the savior of the slaves.

The slaves are the children of Israel, known as the, Ivrit.  The word Ivrit, meaning, Hebrew, comes from the shoresh Ayin, Bet, Raish.  As a verb, it means to cross over, and it's first used to describe that wanderer, Abraham.  But by the time the people are in Egypt they are definitively known to the Egyptions as the Hebrews, re the people who crossed over, from Canaan to Egypt.  And Shemot is the story of when those Hebrews go across the desert to go back home.  The name is descriptive of how these people, our people, act and how we are seen.  We know how to move on, when necessary.  History acts upon us, we change as we must.

The second name is that of Moses, which is taken from the meaning, to be drawn out, Pharoah's daughter names him that becuase he was drawn out of the water..  It is apparently also now meant that it is also Mose who draws the people out of Egypt.   Moses is given his name as a child, acted upon by others, until he kills the Egyptian and runs away, spending his time in Midian becoming a new person until his encounter with God, at which point he can reclaim himself and that name and become the agent of his own life.  He draws himself out and discovers his true self, who is is, his I am that I am and embraces his connection with the one-ness and his people and goes back into the story.  Moses, the protagonist, changes dramatically.  Pharoah, his mother, his sister, Pharoah's daughter, Jethro, Zipporah, and God, they all act upon him, but finally, when Moses sees the Burning Bush, when he chooses to see the Burning Bush, he draws himself out and becomes his people's leader.  He names God and becomes Ivrit at last.

And what about God's name?  Many observant jews never call God by any name other than HaShem, The Name.  I'm not totally sure why, but to me it seems that it's as if, by naming God you quantify God, you surround and separate and personalize, you make the Is-ness into a human or a supernatural that which cannot be surrounded or separated or personalized or be human or a being. 

And yet we insist on giving this non-corporeal non-being a Shem, a name.  In fact, Shemot.  Names:

El

Elohim

El Shaddai

Elyon

Shechinah

Yah

Adonai

Yahweh

Jehovah

Ruach HaOlam, The Breath of Life

The Eternal

The Righteous One

Ha Makom, The Place

Adon Olam, Lord of the World

Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King

Elohei Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak ve Elohei Ya`aqov

Elohei Sara, Elohei Rivka, Elohei Leah ve Elohei Rakhel

E'in Sof—"endless, infinite",

HaKadosh, The Holy One

 Barukh Hu , Blessed One

HaRachaman-"The Merciful One"

Melech HaMelachim—"The King of kings" or

Ribeinu Shel Olam, Master of the World

Rofeh Cholim, Healer of the Sick

Tzur Yisrael, Rock of Israel

Oseh Shalom, Maker of Peace

And my personal favorite, Zokef efufim, Straightener of the Bent.  What ever does that mean, I wonder?

God is not nearly as pretentious as we are.  When Moses asks God what he should call God, God simply (!) says, Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh.  I Am That I Am.

Rabbi Art Green interprets this to be not the description of something that has ever been, is now, and ever will be, outside of time and space, Was/Is/ Will Be.  It is the essence of, well, IS, and this Is-ness knows it.  For the first time, The Was/Is/Will Be, the I AM THAT I AM, doesn't identify itself as God or Lord or Father or any of that.  This Is-ness sends Moses off on his quest to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt and into covenant with I am that I am.  So HaIvrit, The Hebrews, and  Moses and I AM THAT I AM have come together and the story that will climax at Sinai in Torah and Jews and you and me.

So  What are the names you were given at birth? 

What are the names you were given by your history? 

What are the names you have chosen for yourself at your burning bush? 

My parents gave me the name, Patricia Ilene Arlin.

AND THEN They gave me a name for my religion, my people, my history, Aleeza Bat Rut v'Shlomo.  Aleeze means Joyful.  That's me, Full of Joy.

I always hated that name, Aleeza.   I didn't have much joy growing up and I don't present as joyful lke some people do, even when that's how I'm feeling.  So the name Aleeza never sat well with me.  So when I started studying Jewish stuff, I thought I wanted a more appropriate Hebrew name.  My hero became Rabbi Akiva, who was illiterate until he was in his forties and who then started to learn from scratch and who became one of the greatest rabbis of his time.  I decided I wanted the female equivalent of the male name, Akiva, but when I looked it up one one of those sites for finding Hebrew names, it said there was no female equivalent.  AND THEN, I complained about this to a friend who had some knowledge of hebrew names, AND THEN she suggested what she thought was the closest female equivalent to Akiva:  Aleeza.

I've been thinking about it, and I think I am almost ready to drop the name I was given, and reclaim my name and draw myself out and choose to be joyful. 

Aleeza. 

Baruch atah HaShem, Blessed be the Name, blessed be that which cannot be named and blessed be our names, those we receive because of love, and those we receive because of our history and culture, and those names we choose for ourselves, because we are B'tzelem Elohim, made in the image of the I AM that chooses to be I AM.  

Amen.