How To Sing Avinu Malkeinu

 

Blessed Holy Wholeness, 

How can I sing Avinu Malkeinu?

How can I use this limited name for God?

I don’t do kings

Or queens,

No vertical hierarchies. 

Verticality creates the problems, it doesn’t fix them. 

I don’t do fathers

Or mothers,

No parental substitutes.

Parents love you but they really do mess you up. 

I don’t do tribal gods

Or protective angels

I like my myths to stay fictional. 

Supernatural intervention fantasies lead to passive magical thinking. 

I don’t do male eternal mysteries 

Or female avatars.

A gendered God is illogical. 

Besides, ineffable spirits may feel good but can they save the planet??

I respect random chance 

And don’t want to indulge in wishful thinking

But, rationality just isn’t much fun.  

(Nevertheless, I hold atheism in reserve so I don’t look stupid.)

It does feel good to consider God’s surrounding presence 

And everyone’s shared divinity. 

I pray to holy wholeness

With a knowingness that I cannot explain away. 

Hmmmm. 

HaShleimut,

When I sing with the congregation 

On the Holy Days

For redemption and second chances 

For me and the world,

I think I will sing,

Avinu Malkeinu,

Our Father Our King,

The way it’s written.

It’s a lovely tune and I’m used to it.  

Sue me. 

But,

Since every metaphor leads to One-ness, 

I think I will then pray 

To 

All Of The Above.  

Amen

                   

BEHOLD, WHERE ARE YOU, HERE I AM: A Rosh Hashanah Invocation

© 2015 Trisha Arlin

I.  HINEI, BEHOLD OUR DREAMS

In the Talmud, Rebbe Hannina says, 

Human versions of God’s vast intent are as unripened fruit,
Filled with potential,
Perceived completely only by God.
Hanina says that the unripened fruit of prophecy is a dream.
Which is kind of cool.
So I speculate,
The unripened fruit of truth is the story.

While we sleep our brains show us random pictures of what we had seen that day or what we can imagine, based on what our brains already knew even if we didn’t know we knew them.
And our brain imposes order on the random and constructs a story. 
Thus we gain access to the things we know but don’t know we know,
And we call that a dream.

Chalom is the Hebrew word for dream, which sounds like chalon, which is the word for window.
So a dream can be prophecy or neurology or a window to one’s soul.

And the story is how we make sense of it.

Hinei, Behold.

II.  AYEKA – WHERE ARE YOU?

The story began in the Garden of Eden

With Adam and Eve, newborn and without shame.

Until one day the snake appears and asks the first question in the entire Torah,

Casting doubt on assumed truth,

A reptile after my own heart.

Did God really say, the snake asked, to you and Adam that you were not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?

Huh, says Eve, and she eats that apple

And it is good.

Adam eats, too and suddenly, bam!  

Doubt and questions and fear and helplessness and despair and shame, and self-awareness. 

It is scary and they hide away.

Then God asks the first question God ever asks in the whole entire Torah,

Ayeka, God asks.  Where are you?  

They don’t answer. 

Where are you?

But poor Adam and Eve, it's before rituals, there’s no prayers, there’s no cantor singing and rabbi preaching.

Where are you?  God asks, and they haven’t a clue so they don’t say a thing.  They don’t have an  answer.

Do you? 

Ayeka. Where are you?

III.  HINENI – HERE I AM

So here today, we answer God’s question.  

Not Hinei, behold, but Hineni,  Here I am.

Hineni, said Abraham as he prepared to kill his son;

Hineni, said Moses at the burning bush as he prepared to free a people;

Hineni, sings the cantor, as she walks to the bima and prepares us for the Days of Awe.

It’s Rosh Hashanah and where are you? 

The place we stand is holy ground.

We listen for the presence of God in the cantor’s prayers and the rabbi's sermon

And the ancient rituals of the High Holydays,

Trying to hear truth amongst all the voices of our lives

Trying to interpret the noise properly so that redemption will come to us, if it should, 

And we can be part of the truth a much larger story.

Hineni.  Here I am

IV.  BEHOLD, WE DREAM TOGETHER

We dream together

And we make Teshuvah, when we return to our true selves and forgive and are forgiven;

We dream together

And we say Tefillah, when we pray and stop time in holy conversation;

We dream together 

And we do Tzedakah, when we transcend self by taking responsibility for our beautiful world. 

We dream together 

Because as Grace Paley once said, 

“Without action, hope is wasted.”

Behold Blessed One-ness, Infinite and eternal,

Here we are.

Where are you?

Amen.

Forgive You?

Art by Carolyn Hall

You say to me, 

"If I have hurt you in any way this past year, I apologize and hope that you can pardon me, forgive me, let me atone for my sins against you."

If?  If you have hurt me?

Of course you have hurt me!  
Remember that time in the car, in the living room, on the road, in the back yard, on the stoop?

In that email, on the phone, to my parents, with my friends, next to my spouse, in front of my kids, when we were alone?

Overtly, covertly, passive-aggressively, inadvertantly, officially, slowly, abruptly, shockingly, repeatedly, mistakenly, knowingly?

Oh my God yes, you have hurt me!

"I know," you say, "I know.

Pardon me, forgive me, let me atone for my sins against you."

Forgive you?  Should I forgive you? when should I forgive you?

Immediately, before you even know what you did?

Now, as soon as you ask for forgiveness?

Eventually, but only after making you feel bad for years?

What about never?

How should I forgive you?

Miraculously, without you having to ask?

Simply, by just saying, apology accepted?

Grudgingly, and only after you've groveled for a really long time?

Or what about, not at all?

Why should I forgive you?

Because you are really truly sorry and you will never do it again?

Becasue it cleanses us both and helps me move on?

Because it's Elul and the Rabbi says I have to?

Because nothing, screw this, you're evil and I hate you.

"Yes," you say,  "you're right.

All true.

Pardon me, forgive me, let me atone for my sins against you."

Forgive you?
I imagine saying, No.
Forgive you?

I imagine saying, Maybe.
Forgive you?

I imagine saying, Yes.

Amen.

I Am In Exile: A Prayer for Kol Nidre

I am in exile

From the source

Of my true self.

I look and I can't find me.

I want to go back

I don't know how to get there.

They tell me:

Teshuva is the answer!

Return to friends, community, One-ness!

But I am lost,

I don't know the path.

I am in exile

From my Partner

In holy conversation.

I talk but I am not heard.

I want to speak

But I don't know what to say.

They tell me:

Tefillah is the answer!

Pray with friends, community, One-ness!

But I am lost,

I don't know the ritual.

I am in exile

From the unfair pain 

Suffered by so many others.

I can only feel my own needs.

I want to help

But I don't know what to do.

They tell me:

Tzedukah is the answer!

Serve your friends, community, One-ness!

But I am lost,

I don't know the next step.

Every Yom Kippur I am told:

Teshuvah, Tefilah & Tzedukah 

Restore us to our place.

Teshuvah, when we return to our true selves;

Tefillah, when we stop time in holy conversation;

Tzedukah, when we transcend self.

I hope that that is true.

Blessed One-ness, I am looking for guidance.

Where do I walk?

What do I say?

What do I do?

I am not sure I believe the answers.

Should I trust the ones who counsel me?

Shema, they say,

Listen:
You are forgiven,
You are loved.

Blessed Holy Wholeness, 

suggesting a home.
I hope that I am forgiven,
I hope that I am loved.

Amen.