Yitro: Between Before and After

What is revelation? What does it mean to get ready for revelation, what leads to revelation, how does it changes everything afterwards, what of the Before and After, of the stories of Genesis and Exodus that lead to this moment, and the repercussions afterwards,

From the Liktuim Yekarim (sp?):

It is actually very surprising that a mortal human being should be able to attach himself to God. Besides his physical body, many Husks separate him from God. Even though, “the whole earth is filled with His glory”< God is still hidden behind many barriers. But all the barriers that separate and restrain can be torn down by the word that you utter. Your words should therefore be attached to God. This means that you must intimately feel that you are actually speaking to God. If we could speak just one line, or even two or three words, to God in each service, in the above mentioned manner, it would be sufficient.

What are the husks the Hebrews went through to get to that moment on Sinai, and what is it we go through to get to it? And let me just say here that for me anyway, it really doesn’t matter if it actually happened, or what any of us believe about that, because what we know happened are that stories got told about what got us here, and then there was the story of the moment, and then all the stories that stem from it. We’ve got Torah right here. This we know exists.

The Before is these two parallel stories, both a bout young men who are gifted but foolish, who get themselves in trouble and are pulled away from everything they knew or thought they knew, who have to re-invent themselves and in the re-inventing, find their true selves. And the first boy pulls his family into this re-invention and makes a family into a tribe. And the second boy pulls his tribe into the re-invention and turns the tribe into a people. And the people re-invent themselves and turn themselves from slaves into free people, from a people into a nation, from brutes into people of covenant with laws and ethics and spirituality. And all of this re-invention, it’s all to get them all there, at Sinai, at one place and one time, so that something huge can happen, so that everything and everyone can change, all at once, during this one incredibly special moment.

And this experience, it is so huge that it happens outside of time and maybe even out of space, I think when you hear some rabbi say that we were all at Sinai it’s because we were, because we’re there now, right now, at this moment.
And it was the biggest most important moment ever, and I know this because we tell this story every year, thousands of years later, even when it seems ridiculous or barbaric, yet we are compelled to work our way to the stories leading up to this moment, and then the stories that follow from it, from the words that were uttered on that day.

The Before stopped, the After hadn’t started yet, we were just there. Which is as complete a description of what Shabbat should be as I can come up with. So every Shabbat, we are in that moment of revelation of one-ness, of community, of connection, of right and wrong.

If we could speak just one line, or even two or three words, to God in each service, in the above mentioned manner, it would be sufficient.

Imagine if you could find that moment, those two or three words, at every service? And what is a service, what is a prayer, but the stories we tell ourselves, the Before of revelation, to get us to those two or three words of God, that will lead to completeness, no before and after, to shalom, wholeness, even if only for a moment.

And what would be revealed? Same thing at Sinai, on Shabbat, during a service, in a prayer….the Ten Commandments. Which for me boil down to this. Know this transcendence, recognize the moment. Respect your experience, don’t trivialize it, don’t try to make it small or material. Don’t forget this experience, give it to yourself once a week, call it Shabbat. Internalize the experience, live consistently within it, which means you treat your community and yourself with the same respect that you give to this moment.

If we could speak just one line, or even two or three words, to God in each service, it would be sufficient.

So what if, from now one, we start looking into each Shabbat, each service, each prayer, and look for the two or three words that might lead us to that moment. Maybe it’s this word. Maybe it’s this moment.

Maybe it’s this moment.

Baruch atah Adonai, Brucha At Yah, Blessed Ruach Ha Olam, God of my ancestors, God of my current understanding or lack thereof, God of my belief and disbelief,

I pray for those two or three words.
I pray for that moment.

It would be sufficient.

Amen.

Shabbat Shalom.

A Fierce Mystery

“Between the God of the universe and the God of a tribe, between inclusion and exclusion, between the imperative of liberty and the imperative of law, explodes Moses. What we know about him is exactly nothing, exactly everything, he is a fierce mystery.” -- Alicia Ostriker, THE NAKEDNESS OF THE FATHERS

My congregation's mission statement describes Kolot Chayeinu as a community "where doubt can be an act of faith." When that first came out, I thought that meant either, oh goody, I can not believe in God and still join a Jewish community, or, oh fantastic, Kolot is all about truth to power and challenging Pharaoh, or, oh wow, I can join in this place without checking my brains at the door. This is all true, and this is also very limiting.

The God I didn’t believe was a child’s God, learned in a Conservative suburban “temple” of the fifties and sixties that wouldn’t let me, as a girl, have an aliyah, wear a tallit or chant Torah, and which discouraged complexity, at least in its young people. I was right to not believe in that God, but it also never occurred to me that there was an alternative. My Jewish education at my tedious and soul-destroying Hebrew School was so poor that I had no knowledge of or access to the thousands of years of rigorous study of Jewish texts and customs. So I thought being religious, which for me meant being Jewish, was by definition tedious and soul-destroying.

I was disappointed in that God and that Judaism but I was (and am) a contrary sort so, if only to piss off the powers-that-were, I demanded alternatives. No answers were forthcoming and I didn’t actually expect them. It never actually occurred to me that there actually might be a Judaism that rewarded someone like me whose main talent was an ability to ask the next logical question.

Think about the “god” you don’t believe in. Is it that you don’t believe in God or is it that you are stuck on one particular name, one particular metaphor that doesn’t name your experience of God? Might there be a different metaphor, another name that opens up the possibility of encounter with a power grander than yourself, with a web that can connect every person to every other person? –Rabbi Laura Geller

Then I grew up and asked, what could God mean if I made the same kind of demands of God-ness that I made of anything else? What if truth to power doesn’t just mean truth to the powerful but means truth is power? What does that demand of me? And what the heck is in all those books written in Hebrew and Aramaic? I began to study. Now, with my teensy bit of Jewish knowledge, I try to reconcile the ancient with the modern, I attempt to interpret laws, ethics and stories that come from a culture that shares almost no references or paradigms with the culture I live in and I look for a linear rationality in a people’s creation myth that was never meant to be linear or rational. I accept that I am a religious person, whatever that means, with a desire for faith as strong as my need for doubt.

So, what is to be done? How do I reconcile my doubt with my religiosity? Thus far I have found five possible strategies:

1. Scoff at the contradictions and walk away from the whole thing.
I was fourteen when I invented atheism.

2. Live with inconsistency.
I used to think that the only way to have intellectual integrity was through consistency. I thought that if God as I was taught God as a child was nonsensical, then I had to reject everything else that came along with that God. So at the very beginning of my God-search I decided I could resolve this by giving up consistency. I said, okay, I want rational empirical thinking and transcendent religion and Torah knowledge in my life, I will just wall them all off into their separate worlds, I won’t try to make them gibe and will enjoy them all just as they are but separately.

Question: Am I not capable of holding more than two opposing ideas in my mind at the same time without my head exploding?
Answer: No.

3. Intellectualize the contradictions away.
But then I started to do study, really started to see a glimmer of the coolness of Talmud and Midrash. Those guys, they wanted consistency, too! Who knew? And they were gonna make it work, no matter how tortured the logic got, reasoning their way through all the permutations until they came up with rationales for why the Torah is sometimes inconsistent, nutty and/or creepy. Much of their work is brilliant, some of it is kind of sad and ridiculous but dazzling nonetheless. I love this stuff. I’ve barely dipped my toe into how the rabbis and scholars have worked to understand the anomalies, or as Larry Kushner calls it, the “not fitting of ideas”, but it’s fascinating and deep. I’d happily spend the rest of my life learning this cumulative and associative way of thinking. But it easily becomes nothing more than a mind game, thrilling but devoid of emotion.

4. Use transcendence and feelings to understand intuitively.
Midrashic and folk stories can be the Jewish equivalents of the Zen koan, the sound of one scroll clapping, more or less, and they make intuitive sense that isn’t dependent on logic. Music and poems describe basic human needs and feelings and perceptions within the framework of Jewish thought. They sound right and feel good, capturing the essence of what we know to be true, bypassing the logical next questions by going straight for the heart. Jewish meditation unlocks a spirituality that is Jewish but also universal. All of this is a very acceptable strategy for assimilating basic Jewish values, culture and God-ness and works for many of us lot of the time. But too much intuition without enough rational judgment leads to sloppy thinking and precisely the kind of faith I don’t want.

5. There are no contradictions or inconsistencies.
Clearly what I need to do is to tolerate, intellectualize and intuit the contradictions all at the same time, if possible, and even run away from them when it’s necessary. When this approach is even remotely successful, I then begin to glimpse the possibility that there are actually no contradictions to reconcile. I begin to see that it’s all a part of a larger understanding of connection and learning and yearning, that it’s okay if I can’t always see those connections. I can just let them be there and if at some point I manage to put it together (unlikely, but you never know) that will be great and if not, that’s fine, too.
In other words, I begin to have faith that it all makes a kind of sense, even if I cannot and will never perceive it. Gosh.

“...the sign of wonder can only impress the one who is psychologically prepared to be convinced.” - Neshama Leibowitz

Each approach is just one aspect of a mindful Jewish life. God’s presence, for me, is in the questions not the answers, and in the arguments not the resolutions. This is truly doubt as an act of faith. What a fine life that could be, to scoff, ignore, intellectualize, poeticize and accept it all and live within the connections and contradictions, whether I call that God (however I understand that at any given moment) or not, to give oneself permission to live within the fierce mystery.

Blessed HaMavdeel, that which Divides Time
And separates the whole into increments that we may comprehend it,
Blessed Adonai Echad, that which Unites All Existence
And connects us that we may be one,
Blessed Ruach HaOlam, that which Cannot Be Known
And provides us with so many questions:

Thanks for being so interesting.

Amen.

BEHOLD

I. Behold
In Torah, God shows the future in our dreams to whomever God thinks appropriate.
Then God sends wise interpreters to the dreamers to explain the messages that God has sent us.
Only when interpreted can the dreams come true.
Hinei, meaning Behold, is the word used in Torah to introduce such a dream.

II. Behold, Joseph dreams
Joseph dreamt of wheat sheaves that bowed to him and the aging Wrestler Jacob understood and interpreted
Thus, he gave his annoying son a striped coat.
So the story could begin and the prophecy come true.
 Once upon a time, a gifted but foolish child was sold into slavery…
But when Joseph saw his brothers again, they were hungry and he was a lord.
And they bowed down to him and he understood, and forgave because it was basherte, meant to be.
Thus they hugged and they ate and they cried.
So thank you, Jacob.
Because without interpretation, a prophecy is wasted.


III. Then behold, science dreams.
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 our therapists interpret our dreams so we’ll understand our inner motivations.
Once analyzed, a dream gives insight.
So Danke Schoen, Freud.
Because without explanation, an image is wasted

IV. Hinei! Rebbe Hannina dreams
He 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.
We tell tales with beginnings middles and ends around our seder table, for instance.
Then we bite into sweet charoses and pretend it is mortar for bitter bricks,
Because it fits the narrative.
So thanks, all you Jews.
Because without a congregation, a maggid is wasted.

V. Behold, Jacob dreams
Jacob dreamt of a ladder and souls that went up and down,
But his soul stayed put as he mourned his dead son, Joseph, who turned up actually not so dead.
And when Jacob got the good news and moved to Egypt, he had to face the facts.
At the end of his life, the end of Bereishit, he predicts the future.
Behold! says Jacob, and some get a farmland and some get sheep.
Behold! says Jacob, and those rotten kids, Reuben, Simeon (not so nice, not so honest, not so deserving) get futures of disgrace and division.
Behold! says Jacob, and Judah, who made teshuvah,  who pleased God because he could learn from his mistakes and change,
Judah gets history,
Jew-dah gets us, the Jews.
Then Jacob dies, a hard, full life.
 Chazak, chazak, Jacob – Be strong, be strong
So thanks, Genesis,
Because without dynastic mythologies, a dysfunctional family is wasted.

VI. Behold, Moses dreams
One tale ends, so another can begin.
In Shmot, starting next week, another great story, more unripened fruit, this one of murdered babies, supernatural revenge, bad guys, and heroes.
And, after a mad dash across the Sea of Reeds,
There’s much rejoicing,
Quickly interrupted by hunger and miracles and rules and revelation.
And even though the rest of us often find ourselves in the desert,
Or tied up on the metaphorical railroad tracks:
“Pay the rent!” “I can’t pay the rent!”
Not even dreaming of rescue,
Making bricks without straw,
No aspirations, no hope, no prophecies, no future!
Then here comes our hero, Moshe, “I’ll pay the rent!
Have some commandments! Become a people!”
So, nice to see you coming up in the third act, Moishe.
Because without a happy ending, complications are wasted.

VII. Behold, our dream
So we pray and listen for the presence of God in ambient sound
Trying to hear truth amongst all the voices of our lives
Trying to interpret the noise properly so that it will come true, if it should,
And we can be part of a much larger story.
Not Hinei,
Behold
But Hineini,
Here I am.
So we can all take responsibility and not be ashamed,
Se we can all learn from our mistakes and make teshuvah,
So we can all forgive and not be bitter.
And hug and eat and cry and change the world.
For good and for ill,
As did our illustrious uncle, Joseph of Egypt.
And our great great grandpa, Judah the Lion.
So thanks, Grace Paley, who more or less said,
“Without action, hope is wasted.”


Brucha At Yah,
Infinite and eternal so that we may have endings and beginnings.
I am so grateful that we are able to study Torah together.
Because without connection, dreams are wasted.

Amen.




Written originally for the Drisha Institute Artists Fellowship program, based on our study of dreams in Talmud

Bereishit: Understanding Light and Dark, Five Strategies

Torah begins, appropriately enough, with Beginning:

“When God began to create heaven and earth, the earth was a chaos, unformed, and on the chaotic waters face there was darkenss. Then God’s breath glided over the face of the waters and God said, “let there be light and there was light. And when God saw the light, that it was good, God divided the light from the darkness."

Okay. So there was darkness but there was no light, thesis with no antithesis, but how can darkness exist if light does not exist as its opposite? Then God speaks, God uses words and describes the existence of light, so there is light? But light still wasn’t separate from darkness, light and dark were one! So God divides the light and the darkness, there is now morning and night and bang, we have a day, the first day. But how can dark and light exist and not be divided? So was there light before God created light? When God began to create the world, but there was already the earth, though it was in chaos? So …so when did the chaos get created? What was before the chaos? And what was the source of the light? The sun wasn’t created until the fourth day!

Questions. Many questions. I guess at this point, we need citations…
As it is written by Shalom Noach Berezovsky, in the Netivot Shalom,(and thank you to Rabbi Jonathan Slater and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality for passing this on):

The Zohar (II 148b) teaches that the light of the first day was hidden away, but not completely. If it were completely hidden, the world itself could not exist for a moment. Rather, it was hidden as a seed which, obscured in the earth, produces seeds and fruits, and through it the world is sustained. This means that God’s light is always present, even if it is hidden. But, the whole of creation is made up of earthy, material things which would, of themselves, lead us astray. The response is to bask in the divine light that is always present in that very creation.

Okay, good. Another one!

Rabbi Larry Kushner, on G-dcast.com, says “Let there be light wasn’t optical light, the light of day one was consciousness, or awareness.”

More! The Women’s Torah Commentary says that, “as the first of Gods creative acts, light becomes not only a physical phenomenon but also a symbol of clarity and illumination that extend beyond the physical.”

Fantastic~ And…well, I could go on. And on.

I could cite Talmud, midrash, commentaries and the internet along these lines all day. I was doing the research for it, I had an outline, but what was I doing? What was I trying to accomplish? I’m trying to make something that is ancient into something contemporary, trying to interpret something that comes from a culture that shares almost no references or paradigms with the culture I live in, trying to find linear rationality in a creation myth that was never meant to be linear or rational. Why?

Don’t get me wrong. I love this stuff. I’ve barely dipped my toe into Talmud and midrash, in how the rabbis and scholars have worked to understand the anomalies, or as Larry Kushner calls it, the “not fitting of ideas”, but it’s fascinating and deep. I’d happily spend the rest of my life learning this cumulative and associative way of thinking, but, at the start of a new year of Torah study, is a list of citations in the search for logical consistency of a few lines really where I want to start? Where we want to start? How else can I reconcile the contraditictions and gaps of Torah?

What is to be done? Thus far I have found five possible strategies for reconciling the ancient and the contemporary:

One. Scoff at the contradictions and walk away from the whole thing. I hit upon this brilliant idea at the age of fourteen. And it worked for me for over twenty years. But I couldn’t stay away so then I tried-

Two. Live with the contradictions and don’t try to make then work. I used to think that the only way to have intellectual integrity was to have consistency. I thought that God as I was taught God as a child was nonsensical, then I had to reject everything else that came along with that God. I decided I could resolve this by giving up consistency, by saying, okay, I want rational empirical thinking and transcendent religion and Torah knowledge in my life, I will just wall them all off into their separate worlds, won’t try to make them gibe, enjoy them all just as they are but separately. After all, am I not capable of holding more than two opposing ideas in my mind at the same time without my head exploding?
But then I started to do study, really started to see a glimmer of the coolness of midrash. Those guys, they wanted consistency, too, and they were gonna make it work, which led me to -

Three. Intellectualize the contradictions away. At least on some level, that’s what a lot of midrash and Talmud is about. Reason your way through all the permutations until you can come up with a rational reason why the Torah is sometimes inconsistent, nutty or creepy. Much of their work is brilliant and forms the basis of how we think. Some of it is kind of sad and ridiculous but dazzling nonetheless. I adore the intellectual gymnastics but it’s not always enough. So,

Four. Meld the contradictions with feelings and stories so that they make a kind of sense: stories that are the Hasidic equivalents of the Zen koan, the sound of one scroll clapping, more or less; poems that capture the basic human needs and feelings and perceptions within the framework of Jewish thought. They sound right, they feel good, they capture the essence of what we know to be true. But it’s often a feeling thing, for me anyway, not a thinking thing. And I need both. Lately I’ve begun to glimpse an alternative.

Five. I begin to think that they’re not contradictions at all, that they’re part of a larger understanding of connection and learning and yearning, that it’s okay if I can’t always see those connections, I can just let them be there, and if at some point I manage to put it together, great and if not, that’s fine.
I think all five approaches are a necessary part of understanding the light and dark of Torah. Each approach is just one aspect of a Torah life. God’s light is in the questions, not the answers, the argument not the resolution. This is truly doubt as an act of faith. As we begin the year of Torah study, I can't help but feel lucky for the opportunities to scoff, ignore, intellectualize, poeticize and accept it all, as God (however I understand that at any given moment) speaks and creates.

One last citation, again from Netivot Shalom,

"The light made available to those who study Torah is a “thread of light”, which in its source in the Talmud is a “thread of love (chesed)”. The light in the Tabernacle was the cloud of God, the Shekhinah. The Shekhinah and God’s love are always present to sustain the world, and those in it. Those who study Torah bring this light into the world."

Sukkot: A Prayer for Spreading Joy

Blessed One-ness
Sharing Sukkot, the Harvest,

 Z'man simkhateinu - the season of our joy


We harvest our teshuvah,

And gather in the joy of redemption.
Citron, Palm, Willow, Myrtle
Etrog, Lulav, Aravah, Hadass
Heart, Spine, Mouth, Eye

We spread our joy
In all six directions
Left, right, forward and back

Shma, yisrael, Adonai, Elohainu
Up and Down,

Adonai Echad.

The stars are above us,
The earth below.
The past behind us,
The future ahead of us.
Family to our left,

Friends to our right.

We are everywhere

And we are here.

We enjoy the harvest

Of our fields and our prayers.
We are home.
No matter how long it lasts
We have it now.

We are one in the One
And we give thanks.

Amen.

YOM KIPPUR HAVDALLAH

I.
Praise the Before
Praise the After
Praise the Time In Between

Praise Kadosh, the holy
Praise Khol, the mundane
Praise Ha Mavdil Bein Kodesh L’khol, the one who differentiates between them

Praise Kabbalah, welcome the Bride
Praise Shabbat, the deepest rest.
Praise Havdallah, farewell to the departing soul

II.
I construct four walls and a roof and no windows
I put in only one door, open it once a year, and never go in.
Inside the walls, Holy of Holies
Outside the walls, everything else.
All I did was build a temple.

I buy some fabric.
I put fringes on the corners and cover myself with the cloth.
Inside the cloth, I am “kadosh” and I can pray.
Outside the cloth, I am “khol” and I gossip.
But all I did was cover myself with a piece of fabric.

I have a rimless cap.
I put it on my head and call it a kippah.
Inside my kippa, I’m alone but in conversation with God and my kehilla.
Outside my kippa, I’m by myself
All I did was put on a cap.

I have a candle, wine, and sweet smelling spices
I light the candle and dip it in the wine, I smell the spices and call it havdallah.
Before sunset, guilt and sin and begging for forgiveness
After sundown, onto a year of new mistakes, and hope.
All I did was wait for it to get dark.

I make a flimsy hut with see-through branches for a roof and fruit within.
I call it a sukkah and sit down for a meal.
From inside the sukkah, I see three stars appear.
Outside the sukkah, I see the same three stars.
Inside outside, same thing?
All I did was build a hut.


III.

Wine, Spice, Fire

Wine
Growth, harvest, creation, sexuality, body, love.
Purged of guilt, at least until tomorrow

Spice
Sweetness, Fragrance, art, luxury, flavor, comedy.
It is good to live well if you can.

Fire
Sacrifice, spirit, usefulness, justice, inspiration
Clear thinking at last and the work begins.


IV.

Blessed Was•Is•Will Be, that which Brings the harvest,
And wine to drink, fire to light our way and spices to make us happy

Blessed HaMavdeel, that which Divides time,
And separates the whole into increments that we may comprehend it.

Blessed Adonai Echad, that which Unites all life,
And connects us all that we may be one.

Praise Elul, the plowing
Praise Selichot, the planting
Praise Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Praise Yom Kippur, the weeding
Praise Sukkot, the Harvest
Amen.

The Watering

Praise Elul, the plowing
Praise Selichot, the planting
Praise Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Praise Yom Kippur, the weeding
Praise Sukkot, the Harvest.

Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Feeding, nurturing
The sweetness of life
In the Moments In Between.
Between the admitting we screwed up
And the asking for forgiveness.
We stop time and savor the moment.
Life can be so good, can’t it?
And today it’s fine.

Feed it with water and honey
Irrigate and watch it grow
Then throw those sins in river.
Who cares which book we’re inscribed in?
Today is great.
Happy New Year.

God of my current understanding or lack thereof,
I am so thankful for the beautiful weather,
the glorious music,
the fine words
and the sweet meals
that I share with my friends, loved ones and community
On this wonderful day
during this New Year celebration.

Amen.

A List, Of My Sins, For Yom Kippur

Praise Elul, the plowing
Praise Selichot, the planting
Praise Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Praise Yom Kippur, the weeding
Praise Sukkot, the Harvest.


Aveinu Yah
Emotainu Yah
God of our ancestors
God of my childhood
God of the mystics
God of the philosophers
God of this community

Tonight I ask to be released from all my vows of perfection.
They were impossible.
I have made bad choices.
I caused pain
I was selfish
I talked behind people’s backs
I lost perspective
I wasted time
I whined and moped
I said mean things and thought I was funny
I went into debt.
I boasted
I was insincere
I did not take care of myself
I was too angry
I wasn’t angry enough
I projected my neuroses onto others
I used my abilities to intimidate
I didn’t use my abilities enough.
I did not sow or reap or harvest
I did not create.
I didn’t give money when it would have helped.
I didn’t give my time when it would have made a difference.
I lied.
I didn’t see others pain because I was too busy with my own
I was unsupportive to my friends.
I took my grief out on others.
I showed off.
I was foolish.
I was lazy
I was sloppy
I wallowed in self-pity.
I grumbled.
I was sarcastic.
I started every sentence with the word, “I”.
I did things that hurt other people.
Sometimes I couldn’t help myself, or so I like to think.
Sometimes I could help myself, and I knew it, and I didn’t.
I feared death and pretended I didn’t.
I thought I could control life and despaired when I could not.

Aveinu Yah, Emotainu Yah, God of my fathers and mothers, God of my current understanding or lack thereof, awesome and incomprehensible, for all these sins and many more, I promise to try for better from myself and others, and I pray for compassion and kindness for all who are in pain or who cause pain. Amen.

Selichot Prayer

Praise Elul, the plowing
Praise Selichot, the planting
Praise Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Praise Yom Kippur, the weeding
Praise Sukkot, the Harvest.

And now, we begin.
Plant the Seeds
Begin the search.
For Selichot, Forgiveness

Dear God
Incline your metaphorical ear
Open your metaphorical eye
To our Abundant Folly
Iniquity and sin against wholeness.
Notice our pain!
We’re on our knees,
Asking for blessings, bracha,
Bending, pleading for kindness.

The truly evil are already condemned
The truly good are already blessed
And the rest of us, most of us,
Can only hope for mercy
And a little leeway.

We are ready to start the search for teshuvah
Returning every year
To plant the seeds of forgiveness
Of self and others.

Be with us in our struggle
As we pray for compassion and kindness
for all who are in pain
or who have caused pain.

Praise Elul, the plowing
Praise Selichot, the planting
Praise Rosh Hashannah, the watering,
Praise Yom Kippur, the weeding
Praise Sukkot, the Harvest.

Another prayer for July 4th

© 2010 Trisha Arlin



Brucha Ya, Ruach HaOlam
Bless Yah, Breath of the universe
Thank you for all the contradictions of Home:

Connection and Independence,
Satisfaction and Frustration
Dull Sameness and Scary Change.

Faith and Skepticism
Patriotism and Rebellion
Cosmic Glue and Holy Separation.

Trust and Disbelief
Joy and Agony
True Perception And Cruel Obtuseness

Kindness and Squabbles
Imprisonment and Picnics
Serene Nature and Fabulous Fireworks.

Home.

Modim Anachnu HaMakom.
Thank you for this place, our country, our home,
the United States of America of many voices,
land of both opportunity and disappointment.

Imperfect but sometimes incredibly glorious, home.
Where doubt can be an act of faith
And all hands are needed.

Amen