Grace Before the Thanksgiving Meal

Blessed Oneness!

Bless all  who sit around this table,

Family and Strangers!

Friends and Enemies!

On this confusing Thanksgiving,

We who are about to have such a fine meal

Take this moment to acknowledge

How blessed we are

Amidst all the contradictions of history

And all the pain and despair of life,

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 wine and the vineyards. 

Blessed be the vegetables and the farmers,

Blessed be the talkers and the talked about. 

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 controllers and the controlled. 

Blessed be the prayers and the prayed for,

Blessed be the servers and the served.

Blessed be them alll.

Bless us,  One-ness,

All those who sit around this table,

All those with no home to share. 
All who will enjoy this wonderful meal,

All those who have no food to eat. 

Those who remember and who are remembered,

And those who are forgotten. 

Family and Strangers!

Friends and Enemies!

On this Thanksgiving,

We give thanks.

Amen

I Give Thanks

 I give thanks 

For this moment:

This one, as I am

Writing these words.  

I’m not dead,

At least not yet,

And neither are you.  

I ate today. 

I listened to music. 

I talked to a friend.  

I slept in a bed under a roof. 

Okay, this next moment, just now?

Nothing happened except for

Breathing in then out then in,

Each breath was a prayer.  

And you reading this,

I give thanks for that, too.  

Amen

Find The Lily

 

First we will listen to our Fear.

Today I am told  to look to God for company

In my fear but

I am afraid of our new leaders. 

I fear the danger pointed at anyone who is not them.

I am afraid for myself, I am afraid for you, I am afraid for everybody.

I am afraid for the future. 

And I am afraid for the people who oppose our leaders.

And now we must be strong

And I am not strong. 

Then we will only feel our Despair.

The enemy is so strong

And we are divided.

We keep losing

And this is no game.

Lives are ruined,

Animals are going extinct,

The planet is on fire,

Cruelty enjoys itself

And we can’t get away from it. 

No distractions work for long.

The grief won’t go away
I think I must say the Kaddish 

And properly mourn. 

Then…what?

There is a parable in the Sefer Ha-Aggadah,*

The Book of Legends, 

About a king who had a beautiful orchard 

Which, when he had to leave for a year,

He left in the hands of a keeper.  

And when the king returned, 

The orchard had been terribly neglected,

Overgrown with thorns and thistles.

He was going to tear the orchard down

But looking down at the thorns

He noticed among them

A rose-colored lily.

And the king said

“Because of this lily, let the entire orchard be spared.”

Listen to the fear and despair and then

Look for all the lilies among the thorns. 

Amen

Today We Choose

 

Today is the day. 

Today we must choose.   

Today we choose to survive. 

Today we choose to resist. 

Today we choose the rule of law.

Today we choose history and science.

Today we choose holy conversations.

Today we choose to heal the world.

Today we choose acts of loving kindness.

Today we choose to share the burdens. 

And today we choose faith in the future. 

Today is the day. 

Amen

A Plea to The God of Catastrophe

 A plea

To our God of Catastrophe!

And all that comes upon us…

To the God of Noah and Babel, 

Of Sodom and Gomorrah,

Of slavery and plagues,

Of Nadab and Abihu,

Of Saul and Jonathan,

Of the first and second Temples,

Of Assyria and Rome,

Of the Crusades and the Inquisition,

Of the Pale of Settlement and the Warsaw Ghetto,

Of the Six Million ,

Of Hitler and Stalin,

Of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, 

Of Pinochet and the Cultural Revolution,

Of October 7th and Gaza,

Of Jabotinsky and Netanyahu,

Of floods and hurricanes and droughts,

Of coal and oil and gas,

Of industrial farming and fisheries,

Of deforestation and polluted oceans,

Of sex trafficking and child exploitation,

Of conspiracy theories and cults,

Of racism and white supremacy,

Of Darfur and the Uighurs,

Of misogyny and homo/trans phobia,

Of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, 

Of book and speech bans,

Of the end of the safety net,

Of the oligarchy and ICE,

Of  fascism, old and new…

Enough already!!!

We need to  cherish all the small saves

And fight for the big ones. 

Rack up the victories for

Health and freedom,

Compassion and empathy, 

Justice and connection. 

They will come, too. 

Be a god of the loving future!

Never enough of that. 

Amen

Victory Prayer

Blessed Hopeful Mystery,

Help us help ourselves to safety 

By defeating this avatar of 

Stupidity, cruelty and fascism 

And all the other bad men 

Of war and hate

Just like him. 

This is an emergency. 

 Amen

Notes of the Shofar

'There are three notes on the shofar-  

Tekiah, “Awake!”,  Teruah ,”Open your heart!”, Shevarim, “Sob with all who suffer!”

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

 

1.    Tekiah/Awake 

“There is a crack, a crack in everything.  That’s how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

 

The light gets in and

Our values are a prism 

Separating light into different colors of truth.

 

Using the tools of ritual and prayer,

We see what there is to be seen.

What wrongs have we done or not done?

 

Broken by suffering,

How do we see it without despair?

We don’t. 

 

There is so much starvation and death,

Rape and repression.

Hate and cruelty.

 

We pray:

Look at this.

Who can forgive this?

 

Shut the blinds but the light insists on itself.

So open your eyes! Listen to the shofar!

Tekiah! Wake up!!

 

2.    Open Your Heart/ Teruah

“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection. “

Rebecca Solnit

 

No one understands our fury and our hurt,

We’re naked with alienation.

How can we explain it without screaming?

We can’t.

If we’re screaming, can we hear ourselves think?

If we’re screaming, can we do anything else?

 

So stop.  Sit in silence.  Listen.

 

The liturgy tells us that where there is justice 

There must also be mercy.

In this holy time that is Yom Kippur,

We look for redemption and forgiveness,

Freedom and love and 

Joy.

It is fun to change the world!

For this we will need a very big minyan

And all the voices of our lives.

(Don’t forget the bagels and lox).

T’ruah.  Open your heart.

 

3.    Sob With All Who Suffer/Shevarim

“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.”

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

 

Hearts are broken, then

Everything that was hidden comes oozing out.

First comes horror, and then anger, and then vengeance

And then the grief. 

And just when we think it’s over, it’s not.

Let us breathe for all those who no longer can.

 

Even as we count the injured and dying,

Even as we face the fascists and the haters,

We are also counting the helpers and the resistors.

Pouring out all our need for connection,

We beat our chests to atone

And promise to fix it all.

 

Blessed Mystery, Breath of the Universe, giving us 

Tefillah for our holy conversations,

Teshuvah, to return to our true selves and

Tzedukah so we may save the world.
May our hearts be broken open and ready for

When it is time to act.

 

We will sob with all who suffer and

Then feed them and heal them,

Shelter them and love them,

Save them and ourselves.

Shevarim.   

   

 

4.    Tekiyah Gadola 

”Yeah I’ve tried shutting up. Doesn’t work for me. “

Anonymous Facebook meme

Today we don’t pray for God’s help,

Because we know it’s our turn,
And we know what to do:

Agitate, organize, shout,
Write, call, send money,
Rally, march, vote.

We will make lots of noise. 

Happy New Year!

TEKIAH!

 

Amen

Blessing for Workers

Bless these workers:

The ones who feed us,

The ones who keep us safe,

The ones who make our things,

The ones who heal us,

The ones who entertain us,

The ones who listen to us,

The ones who do our dirty work

And the ones who put themselves in danger, 

whether out of choice or out of necessity.

 

Bless these workers:

May they be paid fairly for their labor,

May they find pleasure in their work,

May they be appreciated for their sacrifices,

May they have room to recover themselves,

May they not be sickened or injured in their jobs,

May they organize themselves successfully in unions,

May they have time for spiritual exploration 

And may they all get enough of what they need, 

whatever that looks like for each one of them.  

Amen.

TESHUVAH TO ANIMALS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

 

 

Today, as we celebrate Rosh Hodesh Elul, the New Year of the Animals, we can consider what we have done or what we should have done for our planet. 

Consider your environment and go sit outside. 

Close your eyes and listen to the ambient sounds. 

Note what you hear: Birds? Insects ?  Dogs?

Touch the earth. Feel the vibrations within:

Note what you feel: Worms?  Ants? Moles?

Consider our love of animals.

Consider the devastation we have brought upon our planet.

Consider all the beasts who will die,

Consider all the beasts who will manage to adapt,

Consider the few beasts who will flourish. 

For all the beasts who will die off,

We acknowledge that we blew it. 

We failed to act in time to save your beautiful species. 

We mourn the loss of biodiversity and

We mourn the loss of the individual lives you did not get to lead. 

We apologize and hope that you can pardon us, forgive us, let us atone for our sins against you.

For all the beasts and species who will manage to adapt to the damage,

I guess we could say this is just the natural process of evolution 

But that would be a lie.  Humans did this very bad thing. 

We have forced you to forage for food in our suburbs  

And punished you with death or imprisonment just for trying to live. 

We apologize and hope that you can pardon us, forgive us, let us atone for our sins against you.

For the few beasts and species who will flourish through the crises

Our beloved dogs and cats and other pets

And also domestic beasts like cattle and chickens,

You will survive because we need you for love and food. 

Happy New Year!

We apologize and hope that you can pardon us, forgive us, let us atone for our sins against you.

Consider the animals. 

We must return and do teshuvah, 

But it’s not enough to apologize. 

We must promise to try to save our home, our planet,

And the future for everybody.

For the selfish devastation we have brought upon our planet

For all the beasts who will die

For all the beasts who will manage to adapt

For the few beasts who will flourish

We apologize and hope that you can pardon us, forgive us, let us atone for our sins against you.

And let us say, 

Amen 

Mourning Our Losses

 

Art by Mike Cockrill

Blessed One-ness,

Nuance is abandoned 

In this era of existential threats. 

Perhaps it was always a middle class luxury. 

Now everybody seems to think

The survival of who they are

Is on the line. 

But we miss it

And mourn our loss

And pray for its return

Empathy is superfluous 

In this time of extreme right and wrong

Perhaps it was just a pretense. 

Isn’t it fun to be cruel?

Anyone else’s feelings 

Are a bore. 

But we miss it

And mourn our loss

And pray for its return

Kindness is for suckers

In this new time of trolls and happy attackers. 

Perhaps we just awaited the internet

To show our creepiest sides. 

When no one knows your name, 

Why care?

But we miss it

And mourn our loss 

And pray for its return

Grief is the outcome 

So let us sit on the ground

In this time of communal sorrow 

And pound the passive floor. 

Let us be angry 

At the unnecessary pain. 

We do miss who we thought we were. 

We shall mourn all the murdered. 

We must pray we improve.  

Amen