Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
SINCE 2007
When the night glides under the last dimming star
and the red sky lightens between the trees,
and the heron glides tipping heavy wings in the river,
when crows stir and cry out their harsh joy,
and swift creatures of the night run toward their burrows,
and the deer raises her head and sniffs the freshening air,
and the shadows grow more distinct and then shorten,
then we rise into the day still clean as new snow.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
ALL
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
ALL
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Blessing for Pursuing Justice
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ שְכִינָה בְּתוֹכֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר
קִדְשָתְנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֶיהָ וְצִוָתְנוּ לִרְדֹף צֶדֶק
B’rucha at Shekhinah, b’tocheynu, ruach ha’olam, asher kidshatnu b’mitzvoteha v’tzivatnu lirdof tzedek
Blessed are you, Shekhinah, who is within us, spirit of
the world, who infuses our lives with holiness
and commands us to pursue justice
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
שׁיר חָדָשׁ/ Blessing for New Songs
Dorshei Derekh Women's Haftorah Group
Bruchah At Yah, Simchat Ha-olam, בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ שִׂמְחַת הָעוֹלָם
asher m’oreret אֲשֶׁר מְאוֹרֶרֶת
rucheinu la-shir shir chadash רוּחֵינוּ לַשִׁיר שִׁיר חָדָשׁ.
Blessed are You, Yah, Joy of the Universe,
who awakens our spirits
that we may sing a new song.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
נְקָבִים חַלוּלִים / Openings and Vessels
נְבָרֵך אֶת עֵן הַחַיִים אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה וּבָרָא בוֹ נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חַלוּלִים חַלוּלִים. גָלוּי וְיָדוּעַ לִפנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֵך שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵחַ אֶחָד מֵהֶם אוֹ יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם אִי אֶפְשָׁר לְהִתְקַיֵם וְלַעַמוֹד לְפָנֶיךָ.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה רוֹפֵא כָל בָּשָׂר וּמַפְלִיא לַעַשׂוֹת.
N’varech et ein hachayim asher yatzar et ha’adam bechochmah uvara vo nekavim nekavim chalulim chalulim. Galuwi veyadu’a lifney chisey chevodeich she’im yipate’ach echad mehem o yisatem echad mehem i efshar lehitkayem vela’amod lefanecha.
Baruch ata Yah rofey chol basar umafli la’asot.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
ALL
Let us bless how from the earth these bodies of wisdom were created, alive as they are, all open openings and holy holes.
Unconcealed, revealed, we face the fate of our dignity:
if wrongly opened one would be, or wrongly closed another,
we know not how we could withstand.
Broken though this flesh can be,
broken though this world can be*,
still we love this life while we last.
Blessed and blessing, we bow to both the healing of sleep
and the daily miraculous of awakening.
Elliott batTzedek & *Miriam Geronimus
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
We are given the wind within us, the breath
to shape into words that steal time, that touch
like hands and pierce like bullets, that waken
truth and deceit, sorrow and pity and joy,
that waste precious air in complaints, in lies,
in floating traps for power on the dirty air
Yet holy breath still stretches our lungs to sing.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
from Nishmat
Marge Piercy
Morning Blessings
Opening Phrase by Andrew Shaw
New Blessings by Elliott batTzedek
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
We are given the body, that momentary kibbutz
of elements that have belonged to frog and polar
bear, corn and oak tree, volcano and glacier.
We are lent for a time these minerals in water
and a morning every day, a morning to wake up,
rejoice and praise life in our spines, our throats,
our knees, our genitals, our brains, our tongues.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
from Nishmat
Marge Piercy
ALL
That sprinkler is at it again,
hissing and spitting its arc
of silver, and the parched
lawn is tickled green. The air
hums with the busy traffic
of butterflies and bees,
who navigate without lane
markers, stop signs, directional
signals. One of my friends
says we’re now in the shady
side of the garden, having moved
past pollination, fruition,
and all that bee-buzzed jazz,
into our autumn days. But I say wait.
It’s still summer, and the breeze is full
of sweetness spilled from a million petals;
it wraps around your arms, lifts the hair
from the back of your neck.
This Summer Day
Barbara Crooker
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
The salvia, coreopsis, roses
have set the borders on fire,
and the peaches waiting to be picked
are heavy with juice. We are still ripening
into our bodies, still in the act of becoming.
Rejoice in the day’s long sugar.
Praise that big fat tomato of a sun.
Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
I sit on the ground
in the garden of Carmel,
picking ripe cherry tomatoes
and eating them.
They are so ripe that the skin is split,
so warm and sweet
from the attentions of the sun,
the juice bursts in my mouth,
an ecstatic taste,
and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,
sloshing in the saliva of August.
Hummingbirds halo me there,
in the great green silence,
and my own bursting heart
splits me with life.
Cherry Tomatoes
Anne Higgins
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
There’s a star on a vine
by the side of my house—
you can see it untwist
from a bud
tight as a pencil.
If you think the blue
of this unfolding glory
could make you stand
in one place forever,
wait until it opens—
wait until it twirls
inside out.
There’s a yellow in the well
of the blue
star’s center—
nothing will keep your face
out of that flower.
Morning Glory
Susan Windle
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
For nothing is fixed
James Baldwin
For nothing is fixed,
forever, forever, forever,
it is not fixed;
the earth is always shifting,
the light is always changing,
the sea does not cease to grind down rock.
Generations do not cease to be born,
and we are responsible to them
because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the moment we break faith with one another,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
ALL
ALL
ALL
My hands hurt; even my fingernails ache
from pulling weeds which were neglected too long,
allowed to grow until they assumed (and why not?)
that the garden belonged to them
or any wild seed which might blow by
or be dropped by birds.
Why is it my shoulders straining at burdocks
which have definitely settled in for the summer?
Why not some unsuspecting teenagers
who might have been conned into doing the job
for a few dollars an hour, and who, by nightfall,
wouldn’t feel a twinge; would sleep like a pup?
I will feel every muscle in my body
and stay awake until all hours.
Weeding
Peggy Billings
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
The only answer I can give
is that at least I was the one
who felt the wind freshening;
and where the grass was deepest by the stone border,
I was the one who stared the wild cat in the eye
and did not blink first.
Weeding
Peggy Billings
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
I do not believe in the failure of caring
for each other. How
can I when the cascading waves
gather us all in the rise?
How can I when ___________________
from Tankas for what Comes Together
Tamiko Beyer
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
So it remains to reassemble
whatever we can
on this holy or unholy day
on this day like any other
remembering
letting words fall into our mouths
like bits of a
shared meal
scanning the numerous texts,
rendering all the possible
readings,
scriptures various as
seeds, the many meanings
of this feast
the spilled wine of
our living.
So it remains
Susan Griffin
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
We are given fire to see against the dark,
to think, to read, to study how we are to live,
to bank in ourselves against defeat and despair
that cool and muddy our resolves, that make us forget
what we saw we must do. We are given passion
to rise like the sun in our minds with the new day
and burn the debris of habit and greed and fear.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
from Nishmat
Marge Piercy
ALL
Garden Imperialism
Diedre Greenleaf Allan
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
I have been grappling with weeds
all morning, digging deep to get at
their roots and wrench them from
the ground they’ve claimed
between the peonies and tulips.
If I left them alone,
the flowers would cordially make room,
adjusting to accommodate them all,
as fish in a tank grow, or not, to fit
their allotted volume of water.
But I know, in time, the weeds will take it all,
squeezing out the others as if it is
their manifest destiny to spread
themselves and their kind.
Now they lie in mutilated multitudes:
piles of onion, crabgrass, and vetch,
nettle, foxtail, and elder. The seepage
from their severed stems emitting a stench
that draws a swarm of curious flies.
I am not sad to see them go,
these incorrigible gluttons
for space and resources,
though as sure as the sun rises
they’ll return, asserting themselves
where they don’t belong.
I feel obliged to hold them back
for as long as I can—one aggressive
species to another—knowing how they are,
knowing what they’re capable of.
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I
In Those Years
Adrienne Rich
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
People tend to think that we have only two options: hope or despair. But neither one is acceptable. Blind hope leads to moral complacency: things will get better, so why should I put myself out? Despair leads to moral abdication: things will get worse no matter what I do, so why should I put myself out? But between hope and despair is the broad territory of moral integrity—a match between what you believe and what you do. You act lovingly toward your children because you love them. You live simply because you believe in taking only your fair share. You do what’s right because it’s right, not because you will gain from it. There is freedom in that. There is joy in that. And, ultimately, there is social change in that. That’s the way we respond to a lack of hope. A person could be at zero on the hope-o-meter and still do great, joyous work. Even—especially—in desperate times, we can make our lives into works of art that embody our deepest values.
from Moral Ground
Kathleen Dean Moore
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
from Paul Robeson
Gwendolyn
Brooks
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
ALL
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
בָּרְכוּ / Bar’khu/ Pool of Blessing
Kohenet liturgy
בָּרְכוּ אֶת הַבְּרֵכָה הַמְבֹרֶכֶת
Leader: Barchu et haBereichah haMevorechet
Give blessing to the Pool of Blessing
בָּרוּכָה הַבְּרֵכָה הַמְבֹרֶכֶת לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Group: Beruchah ha Bereichah haMevorechet le’olam va’ed
Blessing to the Pool of Blessing in all the worlds throughout eternity
בָּרוּכָה הַבְּרֵכָה הַמְבֹרֶכֶת לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Leader: Beruchah ha Bereichah haMevorechet le’olam va’ed
Blessing to the Pool of Blessing in all the worlds throughout eternity
call & Response
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
If Not
Rabbi Hillel, Adrienne Rich, Dane Kuttler
If I am not for myself
who is for me?
If I am only for myself
what am I?
If not now
then when?
If not with others
then how?
If not here
then where?
call & Response
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
untitled
Alicia
Ostriker
You have made everything wondrous after its kind
the x molecule hooks the y molecule
mountains rise with utmost gravity
snow upon their shoulders
a congress of crows circulates through the maize
that grows sheeny through a breezeless morning
the ribbed leaf a spot of scarlet floats
on the shivering creek
each single thing so excellent in form and action
whether by chance by excitement by intention
you draw along a dappled path the wren
to her nest, the fledglings cry, the lions flow
rhythmically toward the antelope, the butterfly
flicks yellow wings, the galaxies
Blessing of Creation / Birkat Y’tzirah בִּרְכַּת יְצִירָה
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
propagate light in boundless curves
past what exists as matter, as dust
You have done enough, engineer
how dare we ask you for justice
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Gatherings / Elliott batTzedek
Gather our strengths
and gather our failures
Gather our kin
and gather our strangers
Gather what we love
and what we fear
Gather what we have lost
and what we are afraid to lose
Find the courage to proclaim
“All we gather is sacred”
call & Response
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
שְׁמַע / Sh’ma
Ariadne Joy Lieber
שְׁמַע אמִי /יִשְּׂרָאֵל הַשְׁכִינָה בְּקִרְבֵּינוּ הַשְׁכִינָה אַחָת
Sh’ma Ami/Yisrael ha-Shekhinah b’Kirbainu ha-Shekhinah Ahat
Listen, My People/Israel, the Shekhinah is in our inmost being, the Shekhinah is one
בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Baruch shem kevod malchuto le’olam va’ed.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
/V’ahav’tוְאָהַבְתְּ
וְאָהַבְתְּ אֵת יְיָ אֱלֹהַיִךְ, בְּכָל-לְבָבֵךְ וּבְכָל-נַפְשֵׁךְ, וּבְכָל-מְאֹדֵךְ. וְהָיוּ הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵֽלֶּה,
אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוָּתֵךְ הַיּוֹם, עַל-לְבָבֵךְ. וְשִׁנַּנְתִּים לִבְנֹתַיִךְ וּלְבָנַיִךְ, וְדִבַּרְתְּ בָּם,
בְּשִׁבְתֵּךְ בְּבֵיתֵךְ, וּבְלֶכְתֵךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ, וּבְשָׁכְבֵּךְ וּבְקוּמֵךְ. וּקְשַׁרְתִּים לְאוֹת עַל יָדֵךְ,
וְהָיוּ לְטֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינַיךְ. וּכְתַבְתִּים עַל מְזֻזוֹת בֵּיתֵךְ וּבִשְׁעָרַיִךְ.
Ve’ahav’t et skekhinah elohayich, bechol levavech, uvekol nafshech u-ve’chol me’odech. Vehayu hadevarim ha’eleh, asher anochi metzavatech hayom, al levavech. Veshinantim l’vnotayich ul’vanayich, vedibaret bam beshivtech beveitech u’velechtech baderech, uveshachbech uvekumech. Ukshartim le’ot al yadeych, vehayu letotafot bein einayich. Uchetavtim al mezuzot beitech uvisharayich.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
And you must love The One, your God, with your whole heart, with every breath, with all you have. Take these words that I command you now to heart. Teach them intently to your children. Speak them when you sit inside your house or walk upon the road, when you lie down and when you rise. And bind them as a sign upon your hand, and keep them visible before your eyes. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
ALL
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
My country is this dirt
that gathers under my fingernails
when I am in the garden.
The quiet bacteria and fungi,
all the little insects and bugs
are my compatriots. They are
idealistic, always working together
for the common good.
I kneel on the earth
and pledge my allegiance
to all the dirt of the world,
to all of that soil which grows
flowers and food
for the just and unjust alike.
The soil does not care
what we think about or who we love.
Patriotism
Ellie Schoenfeld
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
It knows our true substance,
of what we are really made.
I stand my ground on this ground,
this ground which will
ultimately
recruit us all
to its side.
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
so why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
from The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac
Mary Oliver
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
ALL
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
דִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָה/ Blessing for Revelation of Wisdom
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
When peace comes,
it will not descend over us like a shelter.
It will not roll in like clouds
when we most want water,
will not fill us
or the sea
on its own.
When peace comes, it will be
because we have chosen to bear it,
to bend our backs under its stubborn weight,
to let it shape us as we move.
To make us slower.
More deliberate.
May we be the bringers of peace.
May we lay justice
down with our swords and shields.
Prayer for Peace in Impossible Times
Dane Kuttler
Blessing of Redemption מָקוֹר תּקּוּן עוֹלֶּם
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
ALL
Peace is a ploughshare practice:
a tilling,
a toil,
the willingness
to grieve the ones brought down
in the name of our redemption;
the willingness
to grieve the rending of our own souls
in its pursuit.
Peace will not spread over us
like branches; we will have to grow it.
Peace already lives in the land.
We have seen it emerge elsewhere
through blood and ash and remnants of bone,
through generations of bitterness,
and the stones we laid in our grief.
Prayer for Peace in Impossible Times
Dane Kuttler
Blessing of Redemption מָקוֹר תּקּוּן עוֹלֶּם
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
ALL
But to bring peace to bloom,
we must prepare ourselves as we prepare the land:
sifting out the stones, softening the soil,
asking what must be worked
and broken
before peace can take root:
our deepest yearnings for justice,
these ancient wounds we carry,
the times we forgot
we weren’t made to bury each other.
Nearly every branch of our ancestry
has charged off the path at some point
and found itself in
this
wilderness.
Prayer for Peace in Impossible Times
Dane Kuttler
Blessing of Redemption מָקוֹר תּקּוּן עוֹלֶּם
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
ALL
But so too, have we found our way back.
So too, have we remembered
our own mercy
our own compassion
our own patience
our own forgiveness,
our own love.
So too, have we begun the work of repair
in every generation,
knowing it is not ours to complete,
but ours to continue.
It has never been too late
to soften our hearts
and toughen our hands.
Peace was never God’s to grant.
It has always been ours to grow.
Prayer for Peace in Impossible Times
Dane Kuttler
Blessing of Redemption מָקוֹר תּקּוּן עוֹלֶּם
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
ALL
Breathing in, I take breath into myself.
Breathing out, I join the web of being.
Breathing in, I rest in the present.
Breathing out, I am part of past and future.
Breathing in, I honor the shrine of my body.
Breathing out, I honor the shrine of the cosmos.
Breathing in, Presence fills me.
Breathing out, Presence enfolds me.
Breathing in, I witness what is broken.
Breathing out, I bow to what is perfect.
Breathing in, I offer gratitude for what is.
Breathing out, I accept that all changes.
Breathing in, I pray for peace for myself.
Breathing out, I pray for peace for all beings.
Amidah / Seven Breath Meditation
Rabbi Jill Hammer/ Kohenet
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Blessing Before Reading Torah
Dorshei Derekh Women's Haftorah Group
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ עֵין הַחַיִים אַשֵׁר מוֹשָׁה דִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
מִמַיִם-חַיִים בְּרַחַמִים רָבִּים
Bruchah At Yah, ein ha-chayim, asher moshah divrei Torah
mi-mayim chayim b’rachamim rabim.
Blessed are you, Yah, Source of Life, who with abundant compassion draws words of Torah from living waters.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Liora
Ostroff
“We pray because the disproportion of human misery and human compassion is so enormous. We pray because the grasp of the depth of our suffering is comparable to the scope of perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon. We pray because of the dreadful incompatibility of how we live and what we sense.��“Dark is the world to me, for all its cities and stars. If not for my faith that
G-d in His silence still listens to a cry, who could stand such agony?”��Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “On Prayer.”
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
אָנָא אֵל נָא / Prayers for Healing
When the world is sick, can’t no one be well,
but I dreamt we was all beautiful and strong
אָנָא אֵל נָא רְפָא נָא לָה/לֹה
Ana el na r’fah na lah/loh
Please God please heal her/him.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Blessing After Reading Torah
Dorshei Derekh Women's Haftorah Group
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ אֱלֹהֵינוּ לֵב הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר שָׂמַה לֵב אֵלֵינוּ וְשׁוֹמָעַת קוֹל לִבֵּינוּ רַחֲמִי עָלֵינוּ וְיִשָׁמַע קוֹל דְמָמָה דָקָה
Bruchah At Yah, Eloheinu Lev Ha-olam, asher samah lev eileinu v’shoma’at
kol libeinu; rachami aleinu v’yishama kol d’mamah dakah
Blessed are You, Yah, Heart of the Universe, who attends to us and hears the voice of our hearts; have compassion on us and make audible the still, small voice.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
Aleynu / עָלֵינוּ
We stand in the midst of a burning world
primed to burn with compassionate love and justice,
to turn inward and find holy fire at the core,
to turn outward and see the world that is all
of one flesh with us, see under the trash, through
the smog, the furry bee in the apple blossom,
the trout leaping, the candles our ancestors lit for us.
from Nishmat by Marge Piercy
Fill us as the tide rustles into the reeds in the marsh.
Fill us as the rushing water overflows the pitcher.
Fill us as light fills a room with its dancing.
Let the little quarrels of the bones and the snarling
of the lesser appetites and the whining of the ego cease.
Let silence still us so you may show us your shining
and we can out of that stillness rise and praise.
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter,
the way it ricocheted—a boomerang flung
from your throat, stilling the breathless air.
How you were luminous in it. Your smile. Your hair
tossed back, flaming. Everyone around you aglow.
How I wanted to live in it those times it ignited us
into giggles, doubling us over aching and unmoored
for precious minutes from our twin scars—
the thorned secrets our tongues learned too well
to carry. It is impossible to imagine you gone,
dear one, your laugh lost to some silence I can’t breach,
from which you will not return.
How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter,
Lauren K. Alleyne
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
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 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.
Mourner’s Kaddish קַדִּישׁ יָתוֹם
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
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 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
22 Av 5785 / 16 August 2025
16 Tamuz 5785 / 12 July 2025