We Are So Tired

 

We are so tired in our hearts. 

There is too much to mourn,

Too much to regret, all

That anger that poisons everything

And then it kills. 

And then it kills the killers. 

Sometimes 

It takes too much energy to remember 

That we know how to flourish. 

There is Holy Wholeness

There is True Connection 

But we are so tired in our hearts. 

Help us rest, all of us. 

Then, 

Please

Help us wake up. 

Amen.

I Am Learning

  

I am learning 

That I have control 

Over not much more

Than what to have for breakfast 

And even that depends 

On whether I remembered to get yogurt 

Or if that week

I can afford blueberries. 

I am learning that world events

Do not recognize my opinions 

And that cruelty doesn’t care

If I am appalled. 

I am learning 

That I no longer want to march or rally:

My knees want me to stay home

And sometimes I think I may be aging into apathy. 

But enough of that, I’m bored with despair 

And prefer to think of the hopeful young

In cahoots

With the stubborn old

Which makes the act of teaching,

Like blueberries,

Downright optimistic. 

And I am learning.

Counting (the Omer)

It’s time for the Omer count 

That we may begin to wonder, 

What is the point

Of counting?

Why are we doing this?

We make note of the number

In relation to the numbers preceding, 

Aware of the numbers to come

And to what end?

There is no end!

Counting, once begun

Goes on forever, infinity,

Like God,

So why stop at 49?

Some ancient harvest festival,

But what’s that to us?

Maybe it’s more of a mindfulness thing 

Like Shabbat,

When we stop time

And declare it holy.

But this Omer business

Lasts for seven weeks and

Perhaps,

When we're in the middle of it,

We’re feeling very Samuel Beckett:

“I can’t go on, 

I’ll go on.”

And then there’s the counting of the days 

And days and days,

The numbers themselves have no meaning: 

It’s the counting.

And like chanting,

Counting doesn’t work as meditation 

Until after you’ve achieved boredom.

Anyway,

It’s not what you’re counting that matters, 

It’s the counting itself.

It is its own justification,

And every number becomes a prayer,

A chat with God.

First, second, third, fourth, fifth day,

We give thanks that we can fulfill this obligation,

Fourteenth, fifteenth day,

A holy sequence,

Eighteenth, Nineteenth day,

Yeah, yeah, whatever,

Twenty-third, twenty-fourth day...

Have we achieved boredom yet?

And on the twenty-eighth day of the Omer 

With three more weeks to go,

We sigh,

We can’t go on!

We go on. 

Amen.

Prayer For The Hybrid Service

 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

We give thanks that these days,

On Shabbat,

We can meet together safely,

In person and en masse:

All three dimensional 

And smelly and real,

With actual books,

To sing and pray and learn

And kvell in the back rows.

And we give thanks that still,

On Shabbat,

We may also join in via Zoom 

For the Shabbat service: 

So that those of us who are vulnerable to Covid ,

Those of us with mobility issues,

And those of us who are far away

Can also sing and pray and learn

And kvell in the chat room. 

We give thanks for our innovative leaders

And the masks and vaccines,

And the technical consultants

That make our hybrid Shabbat possible. 

We are here, together,

And it is good. 

Yasher koach!

And let us say,

Amen

Waiting For Those First Lime Green Leaves On The Vernal Equinox

In a time of

The unfair distribution of resources 

And the violent whims of autocrats,

Of the glorification of resentment 

And a disdain for learning,

It is good to recognize 

Balance and renewal

Especially when they happen 

With no reference to us whatsoever. 

Today is the vernal equinox,

When daytime and nighttime are equal. 

Life happens 

And Spring begins. 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

May we enjoy the growing daytime 

While waiting 

For those first lime green leaves

Of hope. 

Amen 

A Prayer For What We Do

Photo and artwork by Flash Rosenberg 

 Blessed One-ness, 

We give thanks for this Purim festival

 Of costumes and traditional noise, 

Distracting us from the bad guys 

For at least one night. 

We give thanks for the laughs 

As we give thanks for our survival. 

We could do the latter without the former 

But why would we want to? Happy Purim! 

Amen

Prayer for the Cruel Ones

What must it be like

To have had all the empathy 

Squeezed out of you,

To be so sure

Of the rightness of your cause

That you don’t care who you hurt?

What must it be like

To have had all the doubt

Pushed out of you,

To be so convinced

Of the importance of your desire

That war makes sense?

What must it be like

To have had all the love

Burnt out of you,

To be so full of hate

For the objects of your fury

That you can starve children and old people?

Blessed One-ness

It must be very sad and empty

To be so terrible. 

We pray for help to remember that

So we do not 

Lose our own empathy, doubt and love

As we work for their demise.

Easier said than done. 

Amen

We Pray For Goodness

 Blessed Holy Wholeness,

No matter how much we know,

We don’t understand

Too much. 

Again and again 

Cruelty celebrates while

War assaults the One-ness.

Narcissists hate apologies,

Autocrats hate cooperation,

Fascists hate creativity. 

The violent ones get high 

Off destruction,

Let us not be bystanders to the crimes

Witnessing the degradation

But doing nothing to help. 

All these lives under attack, 

May they survive the camps

May they find freedom. 

As we  study and teach on how to help, 

May we spread knowledge and 

May we all learn strategies of resistance  

May kindness win over cruelty

May knowledge flourish over ignorance. 

May goodness prevail over evil. 

Amen

My Drink Of Choice

Over the last two years

I have discovered bourbon,

The good stuff. 

With, when I can afford them, 

Luxardo cherries.  

In  ginger ale.  

It’s my drink of choice

When cringing  in fear and horror

At the fanatics 

And their irrational hatred of 

Ineffective little me 

Because I am a Jew. 

It’s my drink of choice

When contemplating in surprise 

What I mean to them:

Either disdainful rich elite

Or feral rat-like destroyers. 

I am neither. 

It’s my drink of choice

When shouting in shul

At the name of Haman,

For all the good that does. 

Schadenfreude comforts 

But is not a long term solution. 

It is not my drink of choice

When I have no choice 

But to see truth

And then speak truth 

And for that I find

I must be sober.  Alas. 

For When You Cannot Sleep

Brucha At Yah,

Ruach Ha Olam

Blessed Steady Breath,

It is the middle of the night and I am awake. 

My brain will not stop:

I fret, I plan, I pine.

So I read, I pee, I pet the cat

But nothing works. 

Tell me a story,

Something familiar and soothing,

Nothing real:

Comfort and stupefy me. 

Then make this night like Shabbat 

With no before or after

And nothing to worry about

Besides my blankets. 

I close my eyes for this holy conversation 

And ask that every breath becomes a soothing prayer

And ask for a quiet heart,

And imagine that I sleep. 

Amen.