This Day: a prayer for parashat nitzavim

You feel like ghosts,
all of you standing here
under the mountain,
trembling,
shivering like the aspen

in sunlight,
beautiful and fragile.

I could not block out the noise -
God's thunder
God's demand,
but I heard the tender beat
of each heart that passed

and stood 

and trembled there,
and I was calmed.

Even with so many -
the all of us from before
and now
and yet to be,
God stood with us in that

triumvirate of time.

We lift out eyes in praise.
God likes praise,
loves prayer and devotion,

and smoke mixed 

with a little blood.

There was none of that 

on this day,

just ghosts 

and awe,

mixed with a
bit of fear.

We are all here,

together on this day,

we ghosts of now

and then 

and yet to be,

with God's voice

crashing down from the mountain.

resonating up from the ground

this holy ground,

a Voice filled with blessings

and curses,

surrounding us with 

the promise of love.

Approach - a poem for parashat Vayigash

This is God's doing:
I knew it all along:
Divine intervention on a biblical scale -
someone should contact DeMille,
te absolvo to the rest of you;

You clearly had no part
in the glory-bound trainwreck
that was the beginning
of this merry-go-round life,
all murderous contempt aside.
You have no power here,
nor your little dog
or your sparkly red shoes.

Clearly it was God all along

So you may approach, knees bent,
tail between your legs,
and make as your offering gift
the  blood - spattered remnants of cloth of gold
and red and orange and purple and black -
You get the picture -
I get the glory.

Blessed is God,
and deserving of blessing.
Amen

B'reishit: a poem for Creation and Tzimtzum

The Beginning didn't just break;
it shattered,
splintered and spilled
in a hundred -
a thousand
an infinity of directions.

God was not content,
apparently,
with the tzimtzum of Her creation,
the inhaled withdrawal,
an absence of essence.
Into that empty space
that once was filled
with the endlessness
of God, was filled now
with the chaos of dark
and light.
A single day,
and then six more,
and it was,
they were, mostly,
good.

And in that exact same instant,
in the inhaled breath
of the endless god,
light!

There was evening,
there was morning,
again and again and
again and again
millennia of agains,
and then a few more.
Tzimtzum

Year upon year,
age upon age,
mountains rose and
empires fell.
One day followed by another
and another
and another,
so often that sometimes
they ceased to have
meaning
or weight.
They were merely
time and again,
day upon day,
life after life,
mostly good.

A pretty good trick
to play, a sleight of hand
with space and light -
a divine game of cups.
Pick a hand held behind God's back.
He seems to favor that position.

What would it be like
I wonder, to be endless -
without end and infinite,
the superlative of all
superlatives?
would it be lonely
do you think
to be that
indivisibly singular?
To be filled to empty to full
in the blink of an eye
all at the same time?

I think if that were me,
I would want to scream.
I would want to gather in all my
everythingness, only to realize
there was nowhere to gather,
no thing to hold,
because I was everything
in every direction.
Only me,
with no spaces
or cracks
to let the light in.
Would I even know
what light is
or space?

Would I know sun
and sky and water and rain?
Would I see the Glory
and know that it was all
incompletely good?
Would I know God
and would I sing
praises to Her name?

Chazak

I held earth and air 

and fire and water
in my arms,
and I danced.
It was good.
I turned, and turned again,
with all that glory,
with all that binding,
dizzy with every letter
that burned with white fire.

Speak, and the world comes to be.
Sing, and God is exalted.
And so we ascend,
an image of holy,
ever holy
and good.

I held light.
I held joy,
and I hold fast to it,
touching heaven
surrounded by love.


For simchat torah 5780
In honor of Congregation Hakafa

The Texture of Shadows - for parashat Toldot

We danced,
my brother and I,
a twisted tango of love and hate.
He cast such shadows--
long and textured,
big enough to hide in.

Thief! You liar and thief!
You stole my parents
and I loved you,
would have given it all to you,
if you had only said the words
I longed to hear.
Instead, I hid in your shadow
that blazed and shimmered
and grew mighty--
long, and longer still.
It covered all the land:
my birthright, my heart.

Thief-- you stole everything from me!
You stole the light of heaven,
and my father's eyes,
that were so dim and faulty
he could see only your shadow:
Dark and luminous and richly royal,
A cloak that swallowed light.

An absence of color,
your shadow was,
a cloak of lies for him,
and a comfort for our mother,
who needed its comfort.
She loved you best. And I,
I loved you all.

You played on ladders
and tangled with angels;
you demanded the curse of
blessings and names.
You took my mother's love,
stole my father's touch
until there was nothing left for me
but the raw desperation of silence.

My brother--
all liquid cunning.
You took it all, you thief,
You liar and thief!
I begged, hungering for the
easy grace of their notice,
living a poor and pale echo
of your sheltering,
sweltering,
smothering life.

You turned hard rock into the kingdom of Heaven
and betrayal into a nation of sand and stars.
You knew God,
so you were blessed
and cursed
and loved.

Now we are here, at the river's edge
on the border of night and shadows.
You knew God,
but I learned forgiveness,
so I bless you,
and curse you,
and love you
more.

The Gift of Rising - a poem for Shavuot

It was an ancient quickening -
older than mountains,
whose bones dug into the earth,
deep and long.

The gift of mountains is stone,
a sacred canvas
of unbending inscription,
holy even when broken.

It was an ancient burgeoning -
older than heat or light
an exaltation of urgency,
of joy and revelation.

The gift of light is sparks,
dancing in black fire
a cascade of stars, like
God's laughter tumbling upwards.

It was an ancient and tidal moment -
older than oceans
whose chaotic rhythm rushes,
like breath, like life.

The gift of oceans is water,
cool and sweet; it holds
the secret of mercy
and the bitterness of despair.

It was an ancient rising =
a burst of green
and laden boughs.
It was bending
that did not break.
It was fire
that did not consume.
It was sweetness
pouring forth like a mighty river.
Here beneath the mountain,
watching fire and darkness
and the rush of rain -

It is a gift of binding,
a tree of life,
beckoning me to hold fast.

I Will Carry the Rain: a poem for the Counting of the Omer

I will carry the rain
in all its gentle letting down.
I will let it run through me,
so that it waters all my secret places,
and watch each drop
fall from my fingertips,
to wash over the earth,
Mother of us all,
and holy.

I will carry the rain,
and gather her waters,
and walk shoeless
among my mother's bounty,
towards the mountain of fire and ash,
whose voice is thunder,
and heart is mercy
and binding is love,
and holy.

A Long Line of Dreamers

For Joseph, who dreamed of himself

I come from a long line of dreamers.

They dreamed of the desert,

that golden swath of dust

stretching unto forever

They dreamed of mountains casting

long shadows over growing grain

and battered hearts.

They dreamed of angels

and men, and, sometimes,

could even tell the two apart.

My father was a master of visions.

He dreamed of God and angels,

of men who rose on ladders

and waged fierce battles

in the dark.

The dreamers who came before me

claimed the power of names

and prophecy,

though they could not defeat

the sunrise.

Across the vault of heaven,

my father planted feet and flags

and built a nation scattered

by time and light.

I, too, have dreamed of stars

and wheat that bowed

in graceful supplication.

Even the sun, in its radiance,

and the moon—that silver disk

against a fold of night—

bowed to me in my dreams.

What need have I of nations and time,

of angels or men,

with all that the spheres of heaven

and the bounty of God's earth

have given me?

I, after all, am a dreamer of greatness. 

For Dinah, who did not speak: a poem for parashat Vayishlach

He says he loves me,
and his gaze
quickens my blood.

Hush, he said.
His hands moved, rough and calloused
against my perfume-dusted body

and my flesh rises to his touch,
and he loves me,
he says.

Wait, I want to say;
but he says hush
as he enters me,
takes my breath away;
and I have no words left.

My father waits to bind me
to that man who whispered love
seven blessings and I'm clean.

As if I'm broken, as if...
He says loves me.
My brothers too.
I think they hunger to avenge

the day my flesh rose to meet his touch,
when he said he loved me,
when I wanted to say wait.

When he took my breath
and my words
away.

Wait, I want to say;
he says he loves me.
Thhereis nothing left
for me to say.

They have taken my breath -
my words -
my love -
away.

Through Dust, and Time

It was there –

Under the mountain,

bits of parchment

and a river of

ink, and feathers and

crowns – a liquid fire

that burned.

We put stones in our pockets,

bones of mountain and earth,

tasting of thunder;

we walked through dust

and time

to here:

to now.

You captured the blue

of sky and

cornflowers,

and wove them with the sun.

Ten thousand threads

and ten thousand more,

together with bits of cloth;

It unfolded in

supple billows,

lifted by an updraft,

catching in the branches of a tree,

Leaf-laden,

Limned in light.

We left it where it lay,

A cloth of wondrous beauty,

A tree of life.

Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh

We sang,

A song of praise

and binding

and joy.

Ark

I made a house of wood,
Of cubits and inches
and fashioned with tongues
and grooves, and
all the pieces fitted together,
just so.

It was beautiful to behold.

Inside, I placed soft feathers
and stones of quarry gray.
They rested in shadow
and were cold to the touch.

Just so, they burned
my hands



based on Deut. 10:3-5

Forever of Us

Maimonides and Rashi;

Spinoza, too,
and Buber.

I saw them,

just over there,

talking the deep talk

of this and that,
while the Partisans
sang drinking songs
and laughed at
the rumbling,
booming gravitas
of God's own mountain song.

Miriam tapped her timbrels,
in time to the thunder,
calling us all to dance -
Sarah led it,
and Deborah
and Ruth
and Yetta, my grandmother,
who could not go to school
because she had no shoes,
but she danced
that wild and weary
dance, holding hands
with Esther
and Golda.
We all danced,
and trembled.
I could barely hear
that tinny counterpoint
that threaded itself
just beneath the
deep and blaring bass
that shivered the air under
the deep bones of the Mountain.

Let Aaron and the
others play with
their tinker toy gold!
The rest of us -
the long chain of us
that stretched into
the forever of us -
we could feel it:
the fierce and jubilant
joy of it,
the not-yet-but-
almost of it.

And then the words came.
Oh! they came
like rain, like riddles,
Like ropes of silk,
And caught some inner light -
Some spark left over from creation -
And flowed like water over rocks;
All those words of binding and gift and grace,
They carried us,
And caught us,
And led us,
The long forever line of us,
The words that created
the All of us,
led us
Home.

Speak

Speak of ritual and rules,
of purity and piety
Speak of celebration and time
that drifts and flows
in a spiral of
light and dark
and bounty and decay.
Speak, in each season
of coming and going and rising
like smoke, like breath,
effortless as thought
and rising, ever rising
kadosh, kadosh, kadosh.
Speak of light and dark
and oil that is holy
and bread that sustains
a bounty, a banquet, laid
before you in My presence.
Speak of betrayal and death,
of oaths and lies.

Speak of life and all that is -
Life, filled and whole
and pushed to the
edges of everything.
A life that is filled with weakness
and strength
and holy and profane.
With sacrifice and binding.
This shall be for all time
in every season under every sky
empty and filled,
broken, whole.
Speak of the whole
of life.

Reflected Infinity, with cracks

(An alternative reading for Acharei Mot/Kedoshim)


What do you sacrifice
to stand in this
holy place?
Do you wear your sins
like fine linen
and gilded shame?
Does your skin
glisten with water and oil
and the scent of blood?

What do you offer
to stand here
in this holy place,
whose walls are
fitted with mirrors
of silvered glass, and
edged in guilt and
hope?
They reflect
and refract to
infinity,
a bountiful gift of
infinite Glory.
Their smoothed surfaces
of infinite hardness
show every crack
and broken sliver
when the light
shines upon them, that
disappear in the shadows
and dark.

Every crack is holy
here in this holy place
where you stand:
a sacrifice,
an offering,
found in the corners
and littering the
earth with their bounty.
Do you stumble?
Do you love?

Place your doubt
here on the altar,
and light the fire
to burn with incense
and your fear,
and stand
here in this holy place
of cracks and
reflected Infinity,
a prayer of grace
upon your lips.

Precarious Grace

We stand,
with precarious grace,
in a place
crowded with
ghosts and
the twisted fringes
of obligation
and joy.
It is a
tightrope walk
through dusty echoes
that keeps us
on our
toes.
And so we walk,
boundless,
hesitant -
yes, both at once -
through a world
blazing
with the fire of
wonder and a bit
ink on parchment,
carrying our ghosts,
carrying our fringes.
And just so, we
reach a distant
shore
and dance.

If I But Go

There are places of wonder
and glory
and kindness
and sin,
an infinity of not-here
places.
I wonder if I will
ever see them
all.

But you know, there are
bills to pay
and Things
I must see to.
And then there's the
cleaning
and the fixing
and the doing
and the talking
and the bills
that crop up
on every list I make -
a never-ending List,
an infinite iteration of
letters
and numbers
of owing and being
owed.
It is All a
never-ending
kaleidoscope of
doing,
this life thing
that I do.

But
there are places of wonder,
even so.

I should go;
just
Go,
because I wonder,
and I can sip at
glory
and sin
both.
And I could wander
forever.

But there is still
owing, And this
life thing
that keeps me tied to
Here.

Even so,
I feel this urge to go,
and hear this voice
that urges me, Tells me to
Go;
to pack up and cut
the ties that bind
and comfort
and are so
familiar
they feel like
love. But
there have been
certain Promises
of wonder and
glory
and kindness
and sin,
if i but cut
if i just
Go
and go and go
farther
further
deeper in
higher up
to find
my
self
my
God
my
greatness.
if I but
Go
and go
until I am Finally,
blessedly

There.

#BlogElul 29 (#Tishrei 9-10) - Return

I like the symmetry of return.

I like the idea that, no matter how linear we think we are, or time is, or God is, we tend to find a way back. As I've written before, even God recognizes this: why else create t'shuvah before ever creating the Heavens and the Earth?

Those rabbis, diving into text that is written in and between all the magnificent letters of the Torah! At least, that's how I see midrash. Today. Tomorrow? Perhaps they are just stories, made up to fill in the holes, or the blanks that God left. Or maybe Moshe left blank spots - too weary having to carve a second set after that little incident with the Golden Calf, carving in one night what God had taken 40 days to do the first time around. Or just maybe, it's all Torah.

Torah. Even that isn't linear - we begin at the beginning, but there is no end. Again and again, just when we think it's over - the story is played out, the cast has all gone home - we begin again. I love when we unroll the whole thing - we see the whole of the story, from end to end to end: parchment and ink. All the words. All the mitzvot. All the awe and fear and trembling and demands that we be holy, that we care for one another, that we love, in between the anger and pettiness and war.

Unrolled, we wrap it, this sacred, holy, ancient, living thing - we wrap it around our children, we hold it up, to study, to read, to chant, to learn and teach.

We return, again and again to this, the beginning, the middle, the end. It encircles us all, draws us in, holds us dearly.

I stand here today, returned to this place, and offer this poem, that I wrote last year, to begin the journey to return. As I said, I like symmetry. I offer this, as my prayer, that we make this journey together, and that we return, again and again, to find wonder and love and God and each other.

The Edge of Everything

We gathered,

all of us,

having walked this long road

Before.

There is so much I don't

remember of it:

Cold

and dust

and heat-cracked pavement.

And noise!

God, the noise--

It could tear you apart

and get inside your head

and all you want

is just a little piece of

Quiet,

A chance to

Breathe

without feeling like

Everything--

your hope

your fear

your love

and

doubt--

All of it,

All of you

was caught

somewhere in your chest,

or maybe your throat,

And all you want is just one small

Breath

to be easy

and quiet.

So we gathered

there,

Here

at the edge,

the very edge of

Everything;

Stopped in our noise

and our doubt

and fear.

Stopped

at the edge

of love

and hunger:

At the edge of want,

to catch the light

of a thousand suns

and ten thousand moons

and absolute

Stillness.

Glinting of silver

and an infinity of

Blue,

Subtle variations

of color

and depth,

Caught

in the  reflection of

Sky.

Caught,

all along the edges,

with light.

We gathered here,

Together,

at the edge,

bathed in

silence

and bending light,

weary and

ready, 

to leap. 

To dive into that pool

filled to overflowing

with love

and doubt

and hunger 

and hope,

that waiting pool of 

Self.

There, 

And filled now with sudden, shivery

Stillness,

and stars that reel

in mirrored waters.

And so I leap

With the light of

Heaven,

Of earth and sky,

Reflecting

all my doubt

my love

and longing.

And I remember

A road of dust and

Heat-cracked pavement

And I gather in the noise

And light

And breath-stopping fear,

Gather them in, to

Release them

In a single

Graceful sweep:

There is beauty in my pain.

There is more in

Letting go.

And so I breathe:

I am returned

To the edge of my

Beginning.

May your new year be sweet, and may you be sealed in the Book of Life for a year of joy.

Ladders

I am terrified of ladders.
It is not the going up--
the ascent,
the rickety step up
on tiny see-through slats,
slats you can see through from here
to next Tuesday,
to Heaven and back.
I am not interested in
the view from Heaven.

I am not interested in the view from Tuesday.
Today is struggle enough.

It is not the up-ended feeling
of ungainly-
ungraceful-
uncertain ascent,
nor the straight-edged precision
of the death-gripped
held-breath
tentative step
Down,
with its trickster promise of
return
and solid ground to come.

Down is done backwards
(done sometimes in heels),
and that last step is more question than answer.

I am terrified of ladders
and their rickety
rattling
restless
motion,
traveling Up,
with no rest before
Down,
A constant struggle
to balance
against the ceaseless flow
of feathers and
Perfection.

Easier--
infinitely easier--
to wrestle with the ground
and Myself.

Who Opens the Eyes of the Blind...

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, pokei'ach ivri'im

Blessed are you, Adonai, Sovereign of the universe, who opens the eyes of the blind.

From Nisim b'chol yom, for daily miracles 

The morning liturgy

I chant this prayer every time I say the morning blessings.  It is not as often as I'd like, but at least every Saturday morning, for Shabbat, I chant it. It's a sacred moment.

At least, it would be if I thought about it. I think moments are not inherently sacred or holy. They become so, with our thought, our mindfulness and intentionality.

Today, as I stood under the rickety, shivering roof of the Sukkah, where  pale morning sky peeked through a roof of haphazardly-laid dried corn stalks, and the light wind presaged the certainty of autumn-to-come (though the valiant sun, not-quite blazing, but shining brightly nonetheless, did a tango with the still-chill air before it started to warm) -- today, wrapped in my tallit and a soft sweater and the holiness of that moment, my voice rose with those other voices of this lovely community, praising God for the miracles of the day.

Praising God for opening the eyes of the blind.

That's when it hit me. Again, after all those other agains, when I've struggled to see my computer screen, and the road just beyond the hood of my car, and the last bit of dried-up milk at the bottom of the glass that my son has left on the counter again (for a whole different tirade of "agains"). More, for the struggle to see the breathtaking beauty of the words of Torah as I lean down to chant their ancient melody. They've worsened, those struggles, steadily, now somewhat exponentially, until today, this moment as I sing out my praise of God for the miracle of sight -- and my vision is a cubist nightmare, a blurred and darkened view of the world around me. Tough to see a miracle right about now.

So this morning, I chanted those words, where I so often sing them rather than pray them, and today they became holy and that moment shifted into rare and exquisite sacredness. And I wept.

I'm terrified that I am going blind.

Before I continue, let me say: my condition is, so my doctors assure me, treatable. Not cureable, but treatable. They may be able to arrest its progression. Or at least slow the pace of it. I may not, in fact, be going blind. Tell that to my fear.

I know, I know-- fear is a liar, and this is Sukkot, the season of joy. So I stood under the shelter of this very tenuous, very temporary shelter that was draped in God's bounty, that was filled to its very edges with prayer and hope and gratitude, and I sang and prayed and tried so desperately to lose myself in my prayer-- or maybe to find myself there, and God and benediction and something holy and pure, something transcendent and free of the fear that lay coiled around me, that bound me and tethered me to its dank lies and dirty promises. I tried so hard to rise with my prayers. 

And when I came to chant from Torah-- and really, not an incredibly inspiring passage, from a particularly troubling parasha, but it is Torah, and the blessing of it is that we are given the whole of the Torah, not just the pretty passages and happy stories, because it is ours to struggle with and dance with and learn from, to teach and carry and study and live-- so I stood at the makeshift bima and I bent to read those silly words, about bullocks and rams and offerings for drink and meals and sin-- and I stumbled and faltered, because although my eyes were open, I could not see.

The service leader was kind-- chanting Torah is difficult under the best of circumstances (considering there are no vowels or punctuation), he explained, but I was laboring under some heavy duty eye problems for which I would be operated on later this week. I walked back to my seat where I proceeded to break down. 

A woman, a friend, came to sit next to me. She put her arm around me, to offer strength and comfort. "What do you need?" she said, and would not accept stiffening shoulders or my mumbled answer of "Nothing. I'm fine." She was merely the first in a parade of others. Some I had known for years, those casual, intimate acquaintances who fill our lives with pleasantries and conversation and shared experience. There were a few I'd never seen before, though their concern was no less sincere. Included in that jumbled mix were a few real friends, people who were part of the regular ebb and flow of my life, whose presence was a steady and shimmering light.

What do you need? What can we do? And then: Never mind; I'll come over. I'll drive you. We'll bring you...

My skin fairly crawled. I am the Fixer of Broken things, I wanted to cry out. I do not get Fixed. I do not get taken care of. I am not fixable, I wanted to whisper. I cannot afford to need.

And in the midst of my fear and pain, draped in my pride-- a miracle. 

My prayer, my blindness: it had nothing to do with sight. It had nothing to do with vision, with rods and cones and color and light. There is holiness in giving, in caring for, in being present for another. There is also a sacredness in accepting that care. Community is about connection, a give and take of love and experience, a binding of joy and sorrow. 

I have no idea what will happen with my eyes. I am still terrified that I will go blind, that something will go wrong with this (fairly routine) operation. That I will not be able to drive, or read or stare in wonder at the color of the sky just as the sun kisses the horizon. Soon, and forever. I am an awfulizer of the first order. My fear is a liar that tells me I will no longer see.

But I will not be blind. How could I be, when I stand with my community, that holy and sacred bunch, under the shelter of heaven, to find strength and compassion and love. 

Blessed are you, God, who opens the eyes of the blind...

09 Tishrei 5774: Justice

Sometimes, Justice is a sword, slicing cleanly through anything that stands before it. I have walked into its cutting blade, and I have not been unscathed.

Sometimes, Justice is a mighty river, rushing through in a grand sweep, cold and pure washing us clean and bringing about change. I have swum in its quickening current, slaked my thirst in its icy depths, been carried and cleansed and renewed.

We pursue it, always: Justice, justice shall you pursue. So central to our beliefs, it was named twice. We are called to it, commanded to practice it. It is the foundation of who we are as a people. A few months ago, during our tikun leyl Shavuot (our study session to usher in Shavuot), I had one of those Aha! moments that change us, even just a little. One of my greatest joys in Judaism is my continued struggle with it. I wrestle with God and Torah and my doubt. I have severe issues with our ancestors (the original Family Dysfunction, writ large). Don't get me started on God, so often (as I see it) capricious and cruel and uncaring.

And yet, I have this thing with God. I have met the God of Infinite Compassion. I have danced in the palm of God's hand, and found shelter there. I have wept and cursed and prayed to God, and have found healing there. 

But this is not the God of the Torah. Sorry. I just don't see it. So what keeps me coming back to this well, this gate, again and again? How do I navigate this disconnect?

On Shavuot, we had a discussion on our relationship with God and Torah. And it came to me, in a rush, and filled me-- the beauty of Torah (and yes, I believe it, we, all of life is Torah) is that we have been given all of it-- all the holes, all the inconsistencies, all the brokenness. But we also get those moments of shining transcendence, those take-your-breath-away pieces that show you not what is, but what could be, what should be. We are commanded to create a world that should be. This is a holy thing. 

This is the God of Justice, and we are b'tzelem elohim-- we are made in the image of God. This is what we could be. This is the God I seek. This is the God to whom I return, again and again. This is the God who redeems and renews. 

God may be the One who changes me. I am the one who is given the holy task of changing the world. My Aha! moment. The reason I have sought to reflect and prepare, make the long and bumpy journey from my narrow places to the center, to this gate, to this day. Why I seek God and forgiveness. To return, to be redeemed, so I can step through the hates of Justice and change the world.

One more story, because I love it. A short midrash for Yom Kippur:

An old man, stooped with age, made his way to his synagogue on erev Yom Jippur. One of his greatest joys was to hear the simple yearning, the exquisite longing in Kol Nidre, the prayer that begins it all. He couldn't remember a time that he did not weep when he heard it, not once, but three times, every year. He walked slowly, enjoying the just-beginning-to-cool, almost-fall air. One hand held his cane that tapped and scraped against the sidewalk. The other hand cradled two heavy notebooks.

He entered the synagogue, that smelled of lemon oil and anticipation. He paused to offer a prayer as he put on his white tallit. He stopped at the memorial wall and remembered friends and family who had died. Each year, there were more, and he let his grief and sorrow flow through him, letting it go with love and sorrow. 

It was early still; he was alone in the sanctuary. There was still time.

He continued his slow and stately walk down the aisle, making his way to the bima, draped in heavy white cloth in honor of the day. He paused in front of the Ark, nodding his respect, and carefully placed his notebooks on the dais side by side. One book was tattered and dog-eared, obviously well-used. It was thick, at least and inch or so of thin paper, no longer blank. The other was also tattered and worn, and perhaps double the size of the first-- two inches at least of thin paper, small, cramped handwriting filling both sides.

The man placed one hand on the first book, lifted his face, and said clearly: "Ok, God. Here are my sins for this year. I confess them, and am sorry for them, and have asked forgiveness for them. I'm here, to make tshuvah, and ask Your forgiveness for the sins I have committed against You." He was silent for a moment, obviously having a private conversation with God.

When he was done, he placed his hand on the second, thicker book. In a clear voice, he spoke again: "And here, God, are your sins. Let's talk..."

Justice, justice shall we all pursue. <3 p="">

Shana tova

Gmar chatima tova.