Clean Dirt: A Prayer for Tashlich

Every Fall

The park manufactures twigs

And leaves and dirt and dead bugs and bird poop.

It's part of the yearly cycle

Like Rosh Hashanah.

Debris and leftovers,

Just normal stuff

It's all around us

Can't be avoided

It's in the wind

It's life.

Clean dirt,

Making mulch for the next year's growth

This year we screwed up

We've been insensitive and selfish and, well you know,

The usual things.

So each year we walk to the water

Ready to throw it out

Slough off the evil!

Shake off that sin!

Shake it off!

We will fling our mistakes into the water

With a grand gesture.
Isn’t this fun?

But first we go into the park

And pick up some twigs and leaves and dirt

And probably some bird poop, too.

We are looking for Green sin,

Better for the birds and the fish

Than bread.

We hold the dirt in the palms of our hands

And we see how small it is.

And each of us whispers to the dead twigs:

“Okay these are my sins

This is what I did.
These were my mistakes.

This is who I hurt

Not so big or entertaining

Not funny

Not great

Not dramatic,

But small and quiet.

Just normal stuff

The debris of me.”

So together,

Let us gather the leftovers

Of this last year's life

And cup it in the palm of our hands

And whisper to the dead twigs

Nothing funny

Nothing great

Nothing dramatic,

But small and quiet:

This is what we did

These were our mistakes.

This is who we hurt.

And let us drop this into the moving water.

Clean dirt.

Making mulch for our next year's growth.

“Cast off all your transgressions from yourselves and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit”

A SHABBAT AMIDAH

I speak praise, hope and thanks.

I open my mouth, I open my heart.

I feel the Ancient Prayer:

1.  AVOT VE'IMOT - PRAISE OUR ANCESTORS

Bless our inventive ancestors, 
Who have given us the

God of the Torah and the God of the Talmud,
the God of our immigrant grandparents and the God of our children,
the God of this community, the God who is each person's, alone,

and the God who knew our parents, the God who knows our deaths.
To this God, we pray.

Bless our inventive ancestors
Who have given us the
Unknowable God of the mystics, 
And the rational God of the philosophers,
The Daddy God of our childhood faith, 
And the nonexistent God of our young skepticism,
And now the complicated God-ness of our adult searching.
To this God, we pray.

With all our histories and memories, and with gratitude to all who came before us, 
Blessed Was•Is•Will Be,  we pray.

2.  GEVUROT - PRAISE GOD’S POWER

Hey you, God!

Huge, all-encompassing, incomprehensible, 

Incline your metaphorical ear!  Open your metaphorical eye!

Toward Us, please.

Rambam says, 

If you can’t imagine God then you don’t exist.
We're trying!

There is nothing that is not God.

God is no thing.

Wow.

Blessed be God, bringing us the Wow.

3.  KEDUSHAT HASHEM: SANCTIFY GOD’S NAME

HaMavdeel, the Divider of Time;

Adonai, the Uniter Of All Existence;

Ain Sof, That Which Cannot Be Known;

Ruach HaOlam, The Breath That Animates;

Shechina, the Presence of Eternity;

Elohim, God of our Past

Yah, God of our future;

HaMakom, The Place, God of our present.

Kadosh Baruch Hu, Blessed be the Holy It, with so many names.

Let us look from side to side, to see all these possibilities,

The names help us comprehend

That which cannot be comprehended.

All division is false, 
All superiority is delusion, 
All separation is temporary.
Blessed Adonai Echad, the Uniter Of All Existence

Holy, Holy, Holy!

The One-ness with so many names

An idea too big to be merely a construct?

An presence too vast to be merely a body?

A wholeness too complete to be merely absolute?

We are blessed with many minds with which to imagine God

And many mouths to describe what we see.

Blessed be Achat/Echad, the One-ness, presenting us with so many splendid opportunites for holiness.

4.  KEDUSHAT HAYOM - THE DAY IS HOLY

Oh Shabbat!

Big sigh of relief, we weren't sure we’d get here,

Though of course we did.

Awesome and sacred and necessary and regular,

The world is filled with the Divine, we are surrounded!

Shechinah:

Hear us, know us.

Love us, enjoy us.

Remember us, rouse us.

Forgive us, inspire us.

It is written:

The Seventh Day is holy

It is the day of the Great Rest.

Bless the Profundity of Shabbat, commanding us to take a nice afternoon nap.

5. AVODAH - HEAR OUR PRAYERS 

We’re listening. 

Are we heard?

God of our strengths and our weaknesses,
God of our current understanding and our lack thereof,

We are in this glorious and troubled place

And we take responsibility for how it turns out.

And we are watchful for our opportunities to serve and build.

And we will pray:

For the ears to hear the truth,
For the eyes to see the suffering,
For the healthy body to take action,
For a community that will sustain us,

For strategies that will work,

For kindness that comes when needed,

For words that explain,

For pleasures that make us happy,

For the outcomes that are good,

For strength when times are bad.

Bless Elohim, the Creator; the Created, Creating. 

6.  HODA'AH:  WE ARE SO THANKFUL. 

We bend our knees and bow,

Made humble by this opportunity to say

Thanks to what has brought us to this place

And to each other.

Thank you for whatever love and kindness we have received

And even more for the love and kindness we have given.

Thank you for those who have forgiven us

And to those who have asked us for our forgiveness.

Thank you for the deep rest of Shabbat

And the exciting hope for the coming week

There is so much to learn and feel and fear and change.
We give thanks for all our questions.
And we give thanks for our teachers and elders 
Who have given us answers

Which we then teach in our turn,
Which someone else will challenge.
Thanks for being so interesting.

Thank you for listening

Whether you are there or not

Because we need to say it out loud.

May we never take this for granted.

So we say,

Thank You so much!

Blessed  HaMakom,  this place is so beautiful.

7.  BIRKAT HASHALOM:  WE PRAY FOR PEACE AND WHOLENESS.

Let us make peace.
Specifically, if we may,
May there be mercy on Israel and Palestine’s people.

May they all be able to see themselves clearly
And may they find themselves able to act ethically. 
Please keep them safe from physical harm 

And please, if at all possible, keep them sane.
May those who live there aspire to live in harmony and justice with their neighbors.

Bless the God of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac, Rebecca, Esau, Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah, Moses, Zipporah, Jethro, Naomi, Boaz, Ruth, David, Jesus and Mohammed.

Bless all of us with transcendence from the Light That Illuminates.

Bless all of us with immersion in the Awesome Connection.

Adonai Echad, with compassion for all who are in pain or who cause pain, bless us with the peace of wholeness that we may have decent and happy lives and help others to have the same.

8. OPEN MY HEART

Existing.

Creating.

Uniting.

Giving.

Incomprehensible.

And really, so simple.

Whoever or Whatever is Listening

Even or maybe especially if it’s only myself,

I ask:

May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be joyful truth.

May the good things I pray for happen and, if not, 

May I never forget to hope. 

AMEN

An Interesting Experiment

In a previous drash on Chukkat, I noted the three rituals performed in the parsha:  1) the sacrifice of the Red Heifer, 2) purification of those who have touched the dead, and, after Miriam’s death, 3) the banging on the rock to produce water.  The first two rituals are prefaced by the phrase, “This is the ritual” (or “This is the Sacred Commandment”) but the third is not.  Moses does not perform the third task as a ritual, and pays the price.  In this drash/kavannah, I address the importance and meaning of ritual through three other rituals:

This is the Ritual:

Bowing during the morning blessings.

I used to refuse to bend my knee

and bow

during the Morning Blessings.

Baruch Atah Etcetera

Thank you for Etecetera….

Who was I bowing to?

A male king?

That’s not God.

Screw that.

But then I thought

What if I bowed anyway?

What would that feel like?

So I tried it for a month.

As an interesting experiment

I bowed deeply for a month.

And

It was  mechanical, pointless.

And then one day, kind of without warning

Each time I bowed, I found there was a reason.

I bowed to history and tradition,
I bowed because my ancestors bowed.   

I bowed to everyone who has ever been forced to bow,
I bowed because everyone else in the room was bowing.

I bowed to my fear of the future,
I bowed to my regrets of the past.
I bowed because I am not the center of the universe.
I bowed because I do feel God's presence, somehow.

This is the Ritual:

Wearing a tallit.

I never wore  a tallis

During the Shabbat morning service

When I was little

It’s cause I was a girl

Girls didn’t do that

I sat next to my Daddy in services and played with his tallis fringes

But they were his, not mine,

Never to be mine.

And anyway, why should I?

Do I really think God cares whether I wear fringes?

Do I even believe in the kind of God who would care if I wore a frigging shawl?

I don’t believe in religious rules!

I can wear whatever I want!

How dare you tell me how to be a Jew!!

And anyway, navy blue stripes,

So boring.

Everybody knows

I’m all about the fashion accessories,

So screw that

But then I thought,

What if I wore a tallis anyway?

What would it feel like?

So I wore it for a month,

As an interesting experiment.

And

It was dramatic and self-aggrandizing, look at me.

And then one day, kind of without warning,

Each time I put on my tallit I found there was a reason.

I put on the tallit because it was winter and it kept me warm.

I put in the tallit to wrap myself in the memory of my father, sometimes I even wore his.

I put on the tallit because I can and you can’t stop me.

I put on the tallit because it covered the vanity of whatever I was wearing that day.

I put on the tallit because I found one that matched my outfit.

I put on the tallit because it draped me in Torah.

I put on the tallit because God apparently has a thing for fringes and who am I to argue?

I put on the tallit because women who wear tallit at the Kollel, the Wailing Wall, get arrested by the state of Israel.

This is the Ritual:

Wearing a kippah.

I sometimes wore a yarmulke when I was young

The flimsy lacy kind.

Stuck on with a bobby pin,

A trivial thing,

A girly affectation,

Stupid.

A real kippah was for boys,

It fit their short hair.

But it flattened my lovely curls

So screw that.

But then I thought

What if I wore a kippah anyway?

What would it feel like?

So I wore a kippah on my head for a month,

As an interesting experiment.

Immediately, each time I put on my kippah,

I found there was a reason.

And it was amazing!

I put on my kippah to make a feminist statement.

I put on my kippah because it shows respect for the synagogue and the prayer leaders.

I put on my kippah to announce to myself that I have entered the shul and I must be mindful.
I put on kippah because I can have a lot of different ones to match my moods and my earrings.

I put on my kippah because everything underneath becomes a capsule of kadosh, of holiness.
I put on my kippah because it reminds me to connect to God, however I understand God that day.

These are the rituals:

So now on Shabbat morning,
When I thank a being I don’t believe in at least in the old way

Except when I do,
When I need something bigger than myself, 

I bow.

So now, on Shabbat morning

When I go to services

And I need to separate myself from the mundane
But not my community,

I wrap myself In my tallit.

So now, on Shabbat morning

When I begin another vertical conversation with the non-linear

And I need to place myself in kesher, connection,

I put on my hat of holy, my kippah.

These interesting experiments,

These rituals,

They are not empty.

Red Heifer or Water From a Rock,
Friday night chicken or lighting candles,

They mean something.

Not always the same thing

Not always with the same impact

Not aways to everyone in the room

But every time.

So pardon the presumption, but

I have a suggestion for you:

Try your own interesting experiment.

Pick a ritual:
One that is done in your community,
One that you don’t usually do,
One that you almost never do, 
Just one.
Then do it.
 Do it without a reason. Do it for a month or two. 
See if it takes on meaning for you, 
See if it creates sacred space. 
See if it creates sacred time.
 Learn about this ritual.
Do you know its traditional reason?
Do you know it's communal value?
Do you find a personal resonance?

Can you create your own meaning?

Keep doing the ritual for a month or two.
Then stop.

Do you miss it?
Did it matter? 

Do you want to do it again?

Brucha At Achat, Baruch Atah Echad, Bless the One-ness, giving us the ability to encircle time and space with meaning.  

Amen.

Prayer for The Levites

Numbers 8:13-15

You shall place the Levites in attendance upon Aaron and his sons, and designate them as an elevation offering to the Lord. 14 Thus you shall set the Levites apart from the Israelites, and the Levites shall be Mine.

Blessed be Yah, Breathing Us In and  Breathing Us Out

Help me with my obligations as a Levite for my congregation:

May I serve my community to the best of my ability with hard work and creative problem solving.

May I remember the larger goals when I am bogged down in the small details.

May I learn to set limits without being angry when those borders are crossed, as they will be.

May I never forget that that everyone means well.

May I represent my community to the wider Jewish kahal well and appropriately.

May I always remember to work with my community with diligence so together we may serve and repair our world.

Blessed be Yah, Breathing Us In and  Breathing Us Out

Help my congregation with their obligations to their Levites:

May my community serve me to the best of their ability with fair wages and benefits.

May my community understand that I am a professional and not a volunteer.

May my community remember that  I do not work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

May my community remember that I love what I do and who I do it for.

May my community always remember to employ me with respect so that together we may serve and repair our world.

Blessed be Yah, Breathing Us In and  Breathing Us Out

Help me with my obligations to myself:

May I remember to ask for the fair parnassa that I need to sustain myself and my family.

May I remember  to respect myself and my needs because  I am just as important as any member of my community.

Just as Bezalel built the Mishkan with his labor, and as he also took joy in the beauty of his creation, may I know that I’m entitled to joy even when my hard work makes me sad.

May I always know that I love what I do and who I do it for, even when they drive me crazy.

May I always understand the limits of what I can realistically do, so that I may better serve and repair our world.

Bless be Yah, Breathing Us In and Breathing Us Out.
And bless the community, the work and the workers, that we are one in the One-ness.  
Amen.