Prayer Writing Classes!

 Hi, people who have expressed interest in prayer writing classes!  Hope you are well and happy. 

I am hoping to offer a variety of prayer/kavannot (intentions) writing workshops on Zoom starting this month and continuing into the winter and I hope you will be able to join me for any (or all!!) of them.  After each session, you will have written your own prayers in an atmosphere of trust and safety, guided by prompts, meditations and discussons and shared those prayers (but only if you want to) with your fellow prayer writers.  The experience can be profound, emotional and fun.

 I can do any and all of these below, either for individuals or in classes (I hope for at least three in each class).  Please let me know which of these interest you, or if you have another topic you’d like to write prayers and kavannot about.

Dates and times TBA based on your availability.  References available upon request.

Prices:  

o   Classes, $50/ session per individual 

(If you are arranging a workshop for your organization, price will depend on number of sessions, number of participants and topic.)

o   The Amidah, 7 sessions: $300 pricing

o   Individual tutoring $75/session (for prayer writing and/or on the liturgy)

 All sessions can be done individually or in workshops. All sessions are half off if you’re one of my Patreon patrons  ($18/month or more).  If you see a series you like but are unable to attend all sessions, we can try to work that out. Below are workshops on offer, thus far:

1 session Workshop possibilities:

1.     Healing

2.     Hanukkah

3.     Tu Bishvat

4.     Tachanun 

5.     Any topics on which you’d like to write prayers and kavannot 

Workshop 2:  Prayers for the Pandemic and 2020      2 sessions.   

1.     Prayers about Anger, Claustrophibia, Fear, Despair, Hope, Mourning

2.     Prayers of Healing (Personal and Community), Change and Hope

Workshop 3: Social Change & Justice  2 sessions

1.   Prayers for What’s Wrong

2.  Prayers for Fixing the World

Workshop 4  - Morning and Bedtime Prayers 3 sessions, (maybe 4 sessions if you get into it, no extra charge if that happens)

1.     Waking up and Going to Bed (Modeh Ani, Ma Tovu, Bedtime Shema)

2.     Birchot HaShachar – Morning Blessings

3.     Morning Blessings, cont.

Workshop 5  The Shabbat Amidah – 6-8 sessions (approx.)*

1.     THE PETICHA  Open our mouths in Holy Conversation?  What is Praise?  Why do we pray?

2.     ANCESTORS – Are we praying alone or with our families, with other Jews, with history?Celebrate them, mourn them,

3.     POWER – What is the power of God, Prayer, Community, Life, Death, however we understand those?

4.     HOLINESS – What is divinity, what does it mean to name God?    What is holiness? Is it something we pray to or for or something altogether?  How does separation create holiness?  Which God do we pray to, God of Torah, Midrash, Rambam, Zohar, shtetl, parents, ours, our childrens?

5.     SHABBAT – what is holy about a day of rest?  What is deep rest?  

6.     WE ARE THANKFUL – do we bend our knees and bow as we pray gratitude?  How do we jkeep this profound?

7.     PEACE AND WHOLENESS – Shalom comes from the Hebrew word that means “Wholeness”  How do we pray for wholeness?

8.     OPEN MY HEART – We pray to be heard, we pray to hear.

*If any of you want to do the weekday Amidah and write your own versions of the 13 petitionary prayers, I’d love to do that, if there are enough of you we can do a separate class, that would probably need another 2-3 sessions.

Let me know if you are interested in any of these!  

Trisha.arlin@gmail.com

Trisha

 

No Hanukkah Party This Year, 2020

So anyway, God,

Here I am. 

Alone

On Hanukkah. 

No party at shul,

No table covered in aluminum foil,

Adorned with menorahs

The families bring from home. 

No cantor leading the blessing,

No tedious contest between latkes and hamentaschen

(Fried potatoes vs. dry prune pastry?  

Don’t waste my time.)

Speaking of, no latkes in the social hall basement,

Or at the party at my neighbors’, no parties at all. 

No presents, from anyone, why should there be?

I’m too old for getting presents 

And there are no children to buy for. 

So why bother lighting the menorah?  

Who for, me?

All alone on a jewishly insignificant minor holiday?

Feh. 

Fire hazard. 

But in a year of lonely death and negligence,

In a year of right wing thugs and fascists,

In a year of proud racists and anti-semites,

I buy an electric hanukiah for the window. 

It has small tasteful blue LED bulbs 

That are hard to see before the fifth night,

Faint light in the winter darkness

But there they are. 

And I imagine all the Jews

All over the world,

Waiting for the sickness and the evil to pass,

Doing the same. 

Amen. 

It Is Upon Us

 

It is upon us!

It is upon us to repair the broken places.

It is upon us to comfort the sick in body and heart.

It is upon us to bring sweetness to those around us.

It is upon us to face the truth.

It is upon us to know when we have choices.

It is upon us to see that justice is done.

It is upon us to be kind.

It is upon us to be mindful and compassionate.

It is upon us to forgive and be forgiven.

It is upon us to do teshuvah, returning to our true and decent selves.

It is upon us to do tefillah, understanding that our prayers are holy conversations.

It is upon us to do tzedukah, standing up for the survival of all our communities.

We bend our knees!

We bend our knees to acknowledge how small we are in the face of all this responsibility.

We bend our knees to warm up for all the hard work.

We bend our knees so that we may dance.

We are all one in the One-ness, there is no other.

And there is no one else to do the work.

It is upon us to save the world. Sorry.

Amen

It Is Okay

It is okay

To feel happy. 

The work

Before us

Isn’t 

Going 

Anywhere.  

So,

Yay!

Count the Stars: A Blessing For Voting

Breath of the Universe,

This year the voting booth,

Is the most important sukkah.

We look out from that open space

And count the stars.  

Blessed be democracy,

However imperfect. 

We will speak

And we will be heard

And we will not be interrupted. 

Amen

Blessing For our Current Obligations to the Community

 Breath of Life

We welcome our obligations to the community 

To do our best 

To protect them

By getting vaccinated. 

It is an honor to be able to be of such service

With so little effort. 

And, 

We welcome our obligations to ourselves 

To do our best

To stay healthy 

By getting vaccinated. 

It is a relief to be able to help ourselves

With so little effort. 

We give thanks for these holy obligations.  

We are blessed by them. 

Amen

Every Breath

Inhale. 

Holy Wholeness,

Breath of the universe, 

Ruach HaOlam,

Everywhere

In holy conversation.  

Exhale. 

If every breath is in relationship 

With everything, 

Then perhaps 

Every breath is a prayer.

Every breath is a new year. 

Amen

Invitation to the Builders of the Sukkah

You are invited, please do come in,

Honored Guests, builders of this sukkah:

You are invited,

Builders of our past sukkot

In the backyard, the park, the roof:

Every year

You put up the walls

You hung the decorations. 

Where are you this week?

 

You are invited,

Builders of our Torah and Midrash 

In the shul, in the ark,

In the books and the scrolls:

For thousands of years

You told the stories,

True even if not true.

We need good stories.

 

Builders of Halakha and Talmud

In the home, on the street, in the Beit Midrash:

All those many do’s and don’ts and questions.

This year we have too many challenges.

This year we are all questions.

All of us, trying to make sense 

Of the unexplained and incongruous and cruel.

Can you make meaning of this year?

 

You are invited,

Builders of Jewish culture,

All the creatives

Forced to sit on your hands.

Please, find a way to reach us.

We wish it was always safe to sing.

Builders of ideas and rational thought,

Science and philosophy, change and experimentation

In universities and conferences and back rooms across the world,

Ask the questions, do the math, challenge us. 

Don’t be nice, make us listen.

 

You are invited,

Builders of social change,

Of unions and parties and social movements,

Of agitation and resistance,

In the streets and online,

Join us in the voting booth,

A most important sukkah.

You are invited,

Builders of rituals and services,

Clergy and prayer leaders,

Inventing Judaism in an unprecedented era. 

Help us save ourselves,

And save yourselves, too, please.

Have a sip or two of wine, say a blessing. 

Rest for a second.  You okay?

 

And you are invited,

Builders of necessary services,

Food and sanitation and transportation,

Caregivers and teachers and medical workers,

On zoom and online and on our doorstep.

You are all essential workers

Essential to our souls and our bodies

And we pray for your health and well-being.

We pray you are paid a living fair wage,

We cannot survive without you.

How can we serve you?

 

You are each invited,

You are the builders of all our sukkahs,

Past and present. 

Please do come in, Honored Guests.

Sit. Eat.  

Have you shaken the lulav yet today?

Stay safe,

Amen

A Prayer for Anger and Gratitude

 Baruch Atah Adonai,

Brucha At Shechinah,
Ruach Ha Olam,
Holy Wholeness,

Every Shabbat
I attend services on Zoom
And almost every single time we are asked by the rabbi,
What are you grateful for?
(A reasonable question)
Write it down in the chat room, she says
And a long list from the congregation rolls out
Of family members
And pets
And clergy
And social justice leaders
And victories
And sour dough bread recipes.

I am also grateful
For the usual stuff
But
The thing is
I hate this question.
I really hate this question.
I am annoyed not grateful.
I am annoyed and not grateful on a daily basis,
I am annoyed and not grateful when I wake up in the morning
and annoyed and not grateful when I go to sleep at night.
I am angry!
Modeh Ani? Hell no.
Bedtime Shma? I forgive no one!
I am angry
and annoyed
and disputatious
and frustrated
but the people who deserve my anger and resistance
do not know or care that I exist.
So I take it out on people who I know mean well
like my rabbi.

Because damn it
This country was founded on genocide and slavery and murder
And it continues:
Rayshard Brooks was murdered
George Floyd was murdered
Breonna Taylor was murdered
Atatiana Jefferson was murdered
Philandro Castile was murdered
Freddie Gray was murdered
Eric Garner was murdered
Sandra Bland was murdered
Michael Brown was murdered
Tamir Rice was murdered
Trayvon Martin was murdered
Emmet Till was murdered

The disproportionate numbers of black COVID deaths;
The mortgages that were turned down;
The jobs that weren’t offered;
The food deserts that led to malnutrition;
The schools with no budgets;
Being afraid to drive or walk or leave the house or breathe.
Murders of opportunity and hope,
Murders of body and soul.
Yeah, I’m angry!

And I’m ashamed of all my white privilege that allows me to know about this
And do nothing
If I want
Except feel bad
And write the occasional check
And mostly not pay attention.
I’m so angry at myself.

So sorry, no gratitude in the chat room today from me.

And?
the things that I am grateful for that you are so curious about,
why do I have to announce them?
You want me to spread my gratitude all around like manure
In this garden of good vibes?
Why?
And please, don’t tell me yours,
I am neither interested nor moved by your gratitude!
Really.
Except of course I am,
I love you
I love you all,
I like it when people are happy.
I like it when people share their happiness,
But not on demand
Not in a chat
And not every week.
Not now
Not this week.
I am happy to share my happiness when it occurs.
When it occurs.

But my gratitude is not for tourists.

The planet is on fire,
Sickness of all kinds surrounds us and
People are being killed by racists and idiots.
Cruelty goes unpunished
The greedy and stupid are in charge
And we can’t get away from it.
No distractions work for long.
Which is probably a good thing.
It feels hopeless
I suspect that’s a white privilege, too.

Protests and Solidarity help
And I see change happening.
But it is a fight that never ends
So screw gratitude.

Sorry.

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.”
And the rabbis say,
“Likewise the whole world is spared, for the sake of Torah. “

And if I acknowledge the beauty in my life, what will be spared?
If I have hope, will institutional racism disappear?
How does my gratitude change the world??

I’m asking because I really want to know.

Baruch Atah Adonai
Brucha At Shechinah,
Ruach Ha Olam,
Holy Wholeness,
Thank you for listening.
Amen.

Sukkot: SITTING IN EMPTINESS

On Sukkot, we sit in the sukkah:

In an empty room

Porous walls

Holes in the ceiling

No door

And we feel the same:

No hope

Unprotected

Everything bad gets in

And literally, no exit.

And we feel the same:

Everything possible can get in

Vulnerable to love

Safe in the community’s hut

Open to Holy Wholeness

We sit in this emptiness that is not empty

And in a week it will be gone.