Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
My heart is in the East
and I am at the edge of the West.
Yehuda Halevi
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
We begin wherever we can.
We begin in our thoughts, in our one-on-one interactions, in our choices about how we will use what privilege we have.
We begin by talking about it.
We begin with awareness.
We begin over and over and over.
We begin by listening, by hearing our grief, our rage, our arrogance, our ignorance, our brainwashing.
And beginning is no small thing.
Beginning is no small thing
Carolyn Gage
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Our emotional reactions, personally and community, have been strong and wide-ranging, both silent and storming.
Breathe. Think back through the week. Find those emotions and name them. If you want to share, type them into the chat and we’ll read them aloud, a map of where we’ve been and where we are.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Whether we like it or not
we must sit here. What we feel
does not matter. We are the heirs:
our legacy is in the air we breathe
the ground we stand on.
Irena Klepfisz
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
ALL
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
What song/ poem/story/gesture/person
has brought you comfort this week?
What comfort have you brought to others?
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
hidden one, Shekhina,
open your wings, instruct us
say what we are,
we who thirst for your new
instructions, source of life
come into our thoughts
our mouth. Speak to us
voice of the beloved
help us
say what we are
say what we are to do
Alicia Ostriker
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
El Rahum v’Hanun/God, Merciful and Compassionate One:
War has overtaken the Holy Lands of Israel and Palestine;
Leaders have opted for extreme violence and rampant destruction, barbarity and ferocity,
and the populace suffers death, serious injury, terror, trauma, despair, and seething vengeance.
God, Oh God: A Prayer on the Outbreak of War Simchat Torah 5784
Simkha Y.
Weintraub
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Erekh Appayim v’Rav Hessed v’Emet/Patient One, Abounding in Loving Commitment and Faithfulness:
Expand the hearts of all Your children to reclaim the supreme call to Shalom/Peace and Wholeness.
Despite and against hatred, well-founded distrust, understandable resentment, and justifiable fear, plant and nurture unusual seeds of courageous outreach, illogical extension of olive branches, and creative solutions based in truth, love, and mutuality, healthy self-interest and sustainability.
God, Oh God: A Prayer on the Outbreak of War Simchat Torah 5784
Simkha Y.
Weintraub
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Notzer Hessed laAlafim/One Who Extends and Assures Love for Thousands of Generations:
Help us hold on to a vision of profound, enduring kinship, even as bombs explode and missiles demolish;
Empower us to excavate hope and rescue possibility,
to commit to a different tomorrow,
to take calculated risks for a future of societal serenity and shared prosperity.
God, Oh God: A Prayer on the Outbreak of War Simchat Torah 5784
Simkha Y.
Weintraub
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Noseh Avon vaFesha v’Hata-ah, v’Nakeh/The One Who Forgives Iniquity, Transgression, and Sin, and Grants Pardon:
We cannot jump to what would surely be a shallow and fragile forgiveness, but in Your Light we can imagine such a world: where the debris is recycled into reconciliation, the detritus forged into fuel for conjoint grieving and reciprocated understanding.
A-na A-donai, Hoshi-a Na/Please, please A-donai, please help and deliver us!
God, Oh God: A Prayer on the Outbreak of War Simchat Torah 5784
Simkha Y.
Weintraub
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
13 Attributes of Compassion and Forgiveness��English translation by Rabbi Burt Jacobson
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
There is death here,
And promises of more:
There is life here.
Anyone hearing this is breathing—
Maybe hurting,
But breathing for sure.
If there is any light to come,
It will shine from the eyes of those
Who will look for peace AND justice,
After the rubble and rhetoric are cleared,
And the phoenix has risen.
Affirm life.
Affirm life.
We got to carry each other now.
You’re either with life
Or against it.
Affirm life.
—Suhair Hammad, First Writing Since
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
What do you need to move forward?
What do you want to do? What can you do?
And with whom?
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
My heart is moved by all I can not save.
So much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
Adrienne Rich
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
let me be strong as history
let me join those who refuse
let there be time
let it be possible
let no faction keep me
from those who suffer
let no faction keep me from those who needed a home
and found one
[let no faction keep me from those who had homes
and lost them: stolen, walled off, razed, occupied]
let no faction keep me from those
who need a home now
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz [Elliott batTzedek]
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
ALL
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
I, may I rest in peace – I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive.
I don’t want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.
I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy-face.
Wars with the old weapons – sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons – machine gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate.
I don’t want to fulfill my parents’ prophecy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.
I, May I Rest in Peace
Yehuda Amichai
Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Yitgadal veyitkadash shemey raba be’alma divra hiruty veyamlih malhutey behayeyhon uvyomeyhon uvhayey dehol beyt yisra’el ba’agala uvizman kariv ve’imru amen.
Yehey shemey raba mevarah le’alam ulalmey almaya.
Yitbarah veyistabah veyitpa’ar veyitromam veyitnasey veyit-hadar veyitaleh veyit-halal shemey dekudsha berih hu le’ela le’ela min kol birhata veshirata tushbehata venehemata da’amiran be’alma ve’imru amen.
Yehey shelama raba min shemaya vehayim Aleynu ve’al kol yisra’el ve’imru amen.
Oseh shalom bimromav hu ya’aseh shalom Aleynu ve’al kol yisra’el ve’al kol yishma’el ve’al kol yoshvey tevel ve’imru amen.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Mourner’s Kaddish / Elliott batTzedek
So often am I lost,
yet through the pall, yet through the tarnish, show me the way back,
through my betrayals, my dismay, my heart’s leak, my mind’s sway,
eyes’ broken glow, groan of the soul—which convey all that isn’t real,
for every soul to These Hands careen. And let us say, amen.
Say you will show me the way back, my Rock, my Alarm. Lead the way, Oh my Yah
And yet in shock and yet in shame and yet in awe and yet to roam and yet to stay and yet right here and yet away and yet —“Halleluyah!” my heartbeat speaks, for You live, for You live, in all this murk and too in the clear and too in our wreckage.
You are the mirror of our souls, let us say: amen
Life may harm me, rob me, ream me raw, try me, even slay me
Over all You will prevail. And let us say: Amen
Say You shall loan me a tomorrow, Say You shall loan another day to all who are called Yisrael and all called Yishmael and all called We and They, and let us say, Amen
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Mincha 29 Tishrei 5784 / 14 October 2023