Earlier this week I was studying the writings of the Mei Hashiloach, also known as the Ishbitzer rebbe (d. 1854), on this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo. His musing on a seemingly unimportant half of a verse caught my eye and my heart.

The verse is הַשְׁקִ֩יפָה֩ מִמְּע֨וֹן קדְשְׁךָ֜ מִן־הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם / “Look down from Your holy abode, from the heavens[.]” (Deut. 26:15) The Ishbitzer riffs on this verse, noticing that God here is viewing us as a group. And then he writes: 

“It’s only when we are seen as a group that we can be at ease. For when God observes the community as a whole, one person clarifies the acts of the other, and each makes his neighbor look good, for each soul has some pristine facet.”

At first my study partners and I thought: is this a back-handed compliment? “Hey, next to you I look great!” But we decided instead to understand that “one person clarifies the acts of another” can mean that we make each other better. We bring out the best in each other. 

We are better together than we are apart. This is part of Judaism’s fundamental communitarianism. Judaism is not a solo activity. Think of how many mitzvot require a minyan, ten adults doing something together. Even Torah study traditionally happens in pairs.

Earlier this week I saw my Jewish Journeys students come together to do a mitzvah they wouldn’t have done alone. They were making “blessing bags” – each containing socks and gloves, hygiene supplies, protein bars – to give away to folks who are unhoused and in need.

Could any one of these kids have assembled the items and made the bags themselves? Arguably, sure; any of us could. But most of us don’t. Each kid provided one batch of items – the toothbrushes, the soaps, the jerky – and together they made short work of that mitzvah.

We are better together than we are apart. It’s a poignant and powerful message to receive from Torah now, with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur less than two weeks away. The moon of Elul is waning. Soon we’ll come together in community to start a new year together.

A lot of us learned, as kids, that the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the ideal time for teshuvah – repentance, return, turning our lives around, apologizing to those whom we’ve harmed so we’re not carrying karmic schmutz on our souls at Yom Kippur.

That’s not wrong, exactly, but it’s also not the whole story. I’d say that these weeks that we’re in now are actually the most ideal time. So that when we come together to celebrate a new year, our hearts can feel clear and light, not weighed down by the old year’s misdeeds and missteps.

As Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg reminds us (following Rambam), teshuvah has five steps. 1) Name and own the harm / acknowledge where we messed up. 2. Begin doing the inner work to become a better person. 3. Make restitution / amends. 4. Apologize. 5. Make better choices.

Teshuvah is a process: not just the apology, but all of the work that has to come before it – and after it. And we do the work because the work matters and it’s the right thing, not because we expect any particular outcome. Teshuvah matters, whether or not forgiveness comes.

The most important outcome, ideally, is that we ourselves are transformed. We become better people who, faced with the same opportunity to mess up, wouldn’t make the same mistake again because we’ve changed. In the eyes of Jewish tradition, that’s what really matters. 

We are better, together, than we are apart. I love the Ishbitzer’s the idea that we “clarify” each others’ actions. He’s using that word in the sense of the way an artist might mix a paint color to be clear and lovely, or how a silversmith removes anything extraneous so silver can shine. 

At our best, as human beings and as Jews, we help each other shine. What work do we each need to do over the next two weeks so that when we come together as a whole community for the holidays our hearts are clear and we can help each other really shine?

I invite each of us to find one instance where we need to make teshuvah. Maybe we hurt someone’s feelings, or didn’t take their needs into account, or shared gossip without thinking, or – you’ll know where you need to make repair. Find one thing to do to make amends.

Try to make someone in our community shaleim, try to make them more whole. This is our tradition’s language for repairing what we’ve broken. We’re not just gluing the pieces back together, “sorry I broke your coffee cup,” but trying to make the injured party more whole. 

And I invite each of us to seek out ways to help each other shine. To encourage each other, and notice good things about each other. To praise and uplift each other: maybe someone cooked a great dish, or ran a great meeting, or did something admirable. Tell them so. Make a habit of uplifting each other.

Imagine if we all did that. Imagine how we might feel different when we stand before God* (whatever that word means to us: God far above or God deep within, Truth, Meaning, Justice, Love) at Rosh Hashanah. Imagine the new year that could flow from that new beginning.

Shabbat shalom.

This is the d'varling I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

Shared with extra gratitude to the Bayit Board for our weekly study time.

It’s Elul, the month that leads us up to the Days of Awe. The busiest time of the year for pulpit clergy. Also the most spiritually intense time of year, when we’re supposed to be engaging in an accounting of our souls and making teshuvah. We are eating, sleeping, and breathing high holiday prep. Those of us with "halftime" pulpit positions are working fulltime-plus. (These things are true every year.)

All of us have just had the hardest Jewish year we can remember. Usually when we reach Simchat Torah, we get an emotional and spiritual break. In 5784, we went into crisis mode before the holidays ended. The calamities haven't stopped, so we never downshifted out of crisis mode. Even those of us with extensive pastoral care experience may have never provided it at these levels for this long.

I can't begin to describe the depth of grief and trauma across our communities this year. Some of us are ministering to Jews who are strongly Zionist-identified, to progressive Jews who are struggling with what's unfolding, and to non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews in deep solidarity with Palestinians. Many of us are trying to hold together communities, families, and friendships that are fracturing. 

Please be kind to your clergy. Many of us are worn thin, feeling (in Tolkien's words) "like butter scraped over too much bread." We have spent this year trying to bring presence while mourning, ourselves. Preparing for the High Holidays is an awesome responsibility, and we’re grateful to be able to do it! And this year, we may be running on empty before the marathon of the holidays even begins.

It is always humbling to read my words translated into another language -- especially into this language that I so deeply love. And I'm moved to know that this particular poem, a cry from my heart, reached one of my Israeli friends and colleagues deeply too. Thank you for this translation, R. Simcha Daniel Burstyn.

(You can read my poem in English plaintext here in an earlier blog post. And/or, the Hebrew and English are both posted as comments on this Facebook post where I also shared this translation.)

From Texts to the Holy, Ben Yehuda Press. 

Here's the poem in plaintext for those who need it that way.

Pray

Sometimes I manage
formal conversation,
a love letter evening
and morning and afternoon

but most of the time
I rely on the chat window
open between us all day.
I want to tell you everything.

This month you are near.
Walk with me in the fields.
I want to take your hand
and not let go.

 Rachel Barenblat

How can we approach a new year
when time stopped on Shemini Atzeret

-- "the pause of the 8th day," when
God beseeches, "linger with Me

a little longer," and we relish
the sukkah's peaceful fragility

for just one more day before
jubilant circle dances with Torah

in our arms like a toddler --
last year we woke on that awful day

to the news of Hamas attacks
and now it's Elul again, when

"The King is in the Field," but
this year God walks with us

in endless mourning, paying
shiva call after shiva call, and

there are still hostages, though
six fewer living ones than last week

not to mention whole neighborhoods
razed to rubble, resurgence of polio,

forty thousand Palestinian souls
dead, an endless abyss of grief?

I can't write an Elul poem this year
when my heart stopped beating properly

on Shemini Atzeret and may never
feel entirely unbroken again.

The pause of the 8th day. See Silence after the chant, 2014.

The King is in the Field. See Walking in the fields, 2017.

Previous years' Elul poems.

I read an article yesterday (it scarcely matters about what.) Afterwards I spent a long while working on a terrible poem. Righteous indignation is not a good motivator for poetry. But the news so often fills me with grief and fury. Everyone I know is living close to the emotional boiling point, these days.

We haven't wholly grieved global pandemic, and meanwhile climate disasters intensify (and climate deniers pretend), and democracy is under attack, and the state where I was born is making it illegal to drive on state roads if one's purpose is to escape to a safe state for reproductive health care --

-- and how many of us live with all of this simmering in our hearts and minds most of the time? It's no wonder that even when we're doing all right, it feels like we're barely keeping our heads above water. Still, that's no excuse for terrible poetry, so the poem in question will remain locked away.

I've drafted my sermons for the Days of Awe. I surf the usual waves of worry. Does this speak enough to the challenges of right now? Does it ask too much? Does it ask too little? Is this the right message for someone who maybe only comes to shul twice a year? How about someone who's there weekly?

"You've drafted your sermons already, so what are you doing with all that extra time?" a friend asked. Not enough, was my answer. I should be spending this extra time on my own inner preparation for this holy marathon, but I'm not. I feel guilty. "What if you made your guilt your spiritual practice, then?" 

The question was flip, but also real. If the core question of spiritual direction as I practice it is "where is God for you in this," then I need to find God even (or especially) in the relentless worry and self- critique to which I am prone. Every time I think, "am I doing enough?" I need to respond with grace.

And when the news leaves me grieving or revved-up, the same is true. That I care about the world is a good thing. I just need to use Judaism's tools, because tying myself in knots that can't be untangled helps no one. "Maybe we've had a little bit of a week..." Right on time, here comes Shabbat.

Here’s the thing: the year begins anew
even in the worst of times. The leaves
will turn and fall and then they’ll grow again.
And sometimes we’re afraid, and we can’t know
what choice to make to keep anyone safe.
Uncertainty’s a bear. All we can do
is seek out sweetness everywhere we may
and work to fix what brokenness we find.
The good news is we’re not in this alone.
We’ll help each other hope when light seems dim
and lift the sparks that darker days reveal.
We’ll love each other fiercely: in the end
there is no greater work that we can do.
We who survive will help each other heal.

This is the poem I sent to friends and family as an Elul message / new year's card this year. (It's also part of an ad hoc series, along with this sonnet.) You can find all of my new year's poems here.

Every year I write an extra high holiday sermon. Not on purpose! It just happens. Every year, it seems, I write my three sermons... and then realize that one of them is predictable, or trite, or doesn't say anything new, or doesn't speak to the unique needs of this moment. I could publish a book of the sermons I never gave. (I won't. But I'm amused that I could.)

In that sense, preparing for the Days of Awe this year has been just like every other year. I make an outline for every service, trying to balance Hebrew with English, song with spoken-word, familiar with new. I thrill to cherished ancient melodies. I practice singing, and I jot musical motifs on Post-it notes so I don't lose track of which melodic mode we're in. Just like always.

And who am I kidding: preparing for the holidays this year has been unlike any other, ever. I translated my machzor into a slide deck, adding images and artwork and embedded video, adding new readings and prayers for this pandemic moment. I made it much longer! and then I cut, ruthlessly, because services need to be a manageable length for Zoom, and they need to flow. 

I'm trying to help my kid get ready for school. He's growing like mint, like a sunflower. There is a stack of new notebooks and pencils on his desk. There's also a school-issued Chromebook. The year will begin with two weeks of remote learning before we enter a "hybrid model" phase. The juxtaposition of normal and unprecedented is itself becoming our new normal.

My kitchen counter is heaped with beautiful lush heirloom tomatoes from the CSA where I've been a member since 1995. I eat them sliced, on toast with cream cheese; cubed, with peaches, topped with burratini and a splash of balsamic vinegar; plain, like impossibly juicy apples. Any minute now their season will end, and I will miss this late-summer abundance fiercely.

There's a gentle melancholy to this season for me, every year. The changing light; the first branches turning red and gold; the knowledge that the season will turn and there's nothing I can do to stop it... I sit on my mirpesset, arms and legs bared to the warm breeze, listening to late-summer cricketsong. I know their song isn't forever. That, at least, really is just like always.

Most years in Elul we say
"the King is in the Field" --

God walks with us in the tall grass
to hear our yearnings.

This year, Shechinah
shelters-in-place with us.

With her, we don't need to mask
our fears or our despair.

When we stay up too late
reading the news again

or binge-watch The Good Place
desperate for redemption

she does too. As we practice
social distancing, we're not alone:

she summons angels to encourage
the scallions we re-grow

just as they cheer on the maples
releasing their helicopter seeds,

compressed packages of hope
for the eventual coming of spring.

“The King is in the Field” - R’ Shneur Zalman of Liadi wrote that during the month leading up to the Days of Awe, “The King is in the Field.” God, whom he imagined as a transcendent King distant from us, is close to us during this special month -- walking with us to hear our inmost prayers, like a beloved friend offering a listening ear.

“Shechinah / shelters-in-place” - Shechinah is the Jewish mystics’ name for the immanent, indwelling Presence of God. The name is related to the Hebrew word for neighborhood; this is God dwelling with and within us. In this pandemic year, sheltering-in-place requires no explanation...

“Angels to encourage” - Midrash holds that there is an angel assigned to every blade of grass, constantly and lovingly encouraging the grass to grow. Many of us started regrowing scallions during the pandemic. May we be blessed with encouragement for our own growth during this holiday season.

(This is the Elul / New Year's poem that I wrote to send to family and friends this year. You can read the last seventeen years' worth of such poems here.)

As days are waning

The new year starts as days are waning.
I'm never ready when the first leaves turn.
Every Jewish day begins with evening:
darkness before light, since the beginning.

I'm never ready when the first leaves turn.
Roll the scroll toward the end of our story:
darkness before light since the beginning.
Am I ready to turn and face what's coming?

Roll the scroll toward the end of our story --
can I open my hands and let go of the summer?
Am I ready to turn and face what's coming?
You know what they say about endings.

I open my hands and let go of the summer,
paint every cracked and broken place with gold.
You know what they say about endings:
turn the page, start a chapter, begin again.

Paint every cracked and broken place with gold!
Every Jewish day begins with evening:
turn the page, start a chapter, begin again.
The new year starts as days are waning.

poem by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, 2018

(You can see all of my new year's poems since 2003 online here -- most recent at the top.)

This is the sermon I offered this morning at Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church. You can read other sermons in their summer sermon series here. This year's theme is "And still we rise."

In Hasidic tradition -- in the Jewish mystical-devotional tradition that arose in Eastern Europe in the late 1700s -- there is the concept of yeridah tzorech aliyah. "Descent for the sake of ascent." We experience distance from God in order to draw close. We fall in order to rise.

The term "fall" may have connotations here, in this Christian context, that I don't intend. I'm not talking about the Fall of Man, with capital letters, as I understand it to be interpreted in some Christian theologies. Judaism doesn't have a doctrine of original sin. I'm talking about something more like... falling down. Falling short. Falling away.

The paradigmatic example of descent for the sake of ascent is the narrative at the end of the book of Genesis that we sometimes call "the Joseph novella." We just heard a piece of that story this morning, so here's a recap for those who need it. Jacob had twelve sons, and his favored son was Joseph, for whom he made a coat of many colors. Joseph had dreams of stars bowing down to him, sheaves of wheat bowing down to him, and his dreams made his brothers angry, and as a result they threw him into a pit. He literally went down. And then he was sold into slavery in Egypt, and the verb used there is again he went down: in Hebrew one "goes down" into Egypt and "ascends" into the promised land.

In Egypt, he fell from favor with Potiphar and went down into Pharaoh's dungeon. And there he met the two servants of Pharaoh for whom he interpreted dreams, and he ascended to become Pharaoh's right-hand man.

And because of those things, he was in a position to rescue his family from famine, thereby setting in motion the rescue of what would become the entire Jewish people. Descent for the sake of ascent.

His descendants would become slaves to a Pharaoh in Egypt for 400 years. Finally our hardship was too much to bear, and we cried out to God. Torah tells us that God heard our cries and remembered us and brought us forth from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Because we were low and we cried out, God heard us and lifted us out of there: descent for the sake of ascent.

Coming forth from slavery was the first step toward Jewish peoplehood; receiving Torah at Sinai, and entering into covenant with God, was the event that formed us as a people. Our enslavement led to our freedom which led to covenant and peoplehood: descent for the sake of ascent.

The summer season on the Jewish calendar mirrors this same trajectory. Just a few weeks ago we marked the day of communal mourning known as Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the lunar month of Av, the lowest point in our year.

On Tisha b'Av, we remember the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon in 586 BCE. We remember the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of Rome in 70 CE. We remember the start of the Crusades, the expulsion from the Warsaw Ghetto, an incomprehensibly awful litany of communal tragedies that have all, somehow, against all odds, befallen us on or around that same calendar date. On Tisha b'Av we fast, we hear the book of Lamentations, we read poems of grief, we dive deep into the world's sorrow and suffering and brokenness.

And, Jewish tradition says that on Tisha b'Av the messiah will be born. Out of our deepest grief comes the spark of redemption. And every year Tisha b'Av is the springboard that launches us toward the Days of Awe, the Jewish new year and the Day of Atonement, of at/one/ment. Authentic spiritual life demands that we sit both with life's brokenness and life's wholeness. A spirituality that's only "positive," only feel-good, isn't real and isn't whole. When we sit with what hurts, that's what enables us to rise. Descent for the sake of ascent.

The Hasidic master known as the Degel Machaneh Efraim teaches that ascent and descent are intimately connected. When a person falls away from God, the experience of distance from the Divine spurs that soul's yearning to return. Falling down is precisely the first step of rising up. Our mis-steps are precisely what spur us to course-correct and adjust our path. Descent for the sake of ascent.

Looking at the world around us, it's easy to feel that everything is falling apart. Migrant children torn from the arms of their parents and imprisoned in cages. Hate crimes on the rise. People of color killed by police who are supposed to be sworn to protect. Incidents of prejudice increasing: against religious minorities, and against transgender people, and against people of color. Our political system seems to be broken. International relations seem to be broken. There is brokenness everywhere we look.

Our work -- the spiritual work of this moment in time -- is twofold. One: we have to resist the temptation to paper over the brokenness with platitudes and pretty words, "God has a plan," or "everything's going to be okay." My theology does not include a God Who sits back and allows rights to be stripped away for the sake of some greater plan we don't have to try to understand. And two: we have to face the brokenness, even embrace the brokenness, and let it fuel us to bring repair. We have to make our descent be for the sake of ascent.

When we feel our distance from the divine Beloved, there's a yearning to draw near. Our hearts cry out, "I miss Your presence in my life, God, I want to come back to You." Or in the words of psalm 27, the psalm for this season on the Jewish calendar, "One thing I ask of You, God, this alone do I seek: that I might dwell in Your house all the days of my life!"

When we feel our distance from the world as it should be -- a world where no one goes hungry, where bigotry has vanished like morning fog, where every human being is uplifted and cherished as a reflection of the Infinite divine -- we yearn to bring repair. When we feel what's lacking, we ache to fill that void. Feeling how far we've fallen is precisely what spurs us to seek to rise. This is built into the very order of things. And that's where I find hope during these difficult days.

This is the work of spiritual life as I understand it. There are times that feel like a descent into the pit, a fall away from God, even imprisonment in Pharaoh's dungeon. This is true both on the small scale of every individual human life, and on the broader canvas of the nation or the world at large. But the thing about hitting bottom is, there's nowhere to go from there but up.

Our job is to inhabit every broken place, every spiritual exile, and let them fuel us to ascend closer to God and closer to the world as we know it should be. Then those who have sown in tears will reap in joy. Then those who went out weeping, carrying the seeds of the tomorrow in which they could barely find hope, will return in gladness bearing the abundant harvest of everything they need. Kein yehi ratzon: so may it be.

A field, near where I live.

If you've looked up at the night sky recently, perhaps you've noticed that the moon is waxing. We're moving deeper into the month of Elul: the month that leads us to the Days of Awe, the last month of the old year.

There are two teachings about Elul that I want to juxtapose:

One tradition teaches that this month, "the King is in the fields."

Imagine God as a King: a sovereign, transcendent, far away, perhaps sequestered in a palace behind walls and gates and courtiers and protocols. This month, the King is in the fields: away from all of those protocols and requirements, directly available to us.

Another tradition teaches that the name of this month, אלול / Elul, can be read as an acronym for אני לדודי ודודי לי / ani l'dodi v'dodi li, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," from Song of Songs. The Beloved, here, is God.

This month, we can especially experience God as Beloved, as partner, as intimate and trusted friend and companion, walking with us hand in hand.

If you are so inclined, take a journey with me.

Imagine yourself walking in the fields. Feel the swish of the grasses against your ankles, hear the contented buzzing of bees going from wildflower to wildflower and crickets singing their late-summer song, smell the scent of newly-mown hay. 

Imagine that you're not alone.

Maybe walking beside you is the King, sovereign of all worlds, bending an ear to hear what's on your mind and heart.

Maybe walking beside you is the Beloved, the friend to Whom you belong most intimately, listening. 

What do you most need to say as you walk in the fields this morning, as we approach Shabbat, as we move deeper into Elul, as the Days of Awe draw near?

This is the guided meditation I offered this morning at my synagogue, more or less. I share it in case it speaks to you.

For more on these themes:

• Seeking the Beloved (2005) 
• Riding With the King (2008)
• the poem titled Pray (2015) -- which will appear in my next collection of poems, Texts to the Holy, due in 2018 from Ben Yehuda Press. 

(Speaking of which, the press is fundraising now for six new titles of Jewish poetry, including mine: check out their kickstarter.)

Shabbat shalom to all!

God says: face facts. The old year
is ending. You’ve outgrown it.

The flowerpot that used to be home
isn’t big enough anymore. Once

it was spacious. Now your roots
push uncomfortably against the walls.

It's time to stop contorting yourself
to fit inside a story that's too small

for who you can become. God whacks
the bottom of your pot, sends you flying.

Once you're pried from the old year
your roots will ache, shocked

by open air. You'll wonder whether
you could have stopped growing.

But one morning you'll wake, realize
you've stretched in ways you never knew

you hadn't done before. The sun
will feel like a benediction, like

grace. You can't help turning
and re-turning toward the light,

toward becoming. And wait 'til you see
what dazzling flowers you'll discover

springing from your fingertips:
your life renewed, beginning again.

שנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו 

May you be written & sealed for a good year to come!

For those who are so inclined: here are my annual Elul / High Holiday card poems from 2003 until now.

I just wrote my first piece for Scribe at the Forward. It's about the work of midlife -- and the work of this time in the Jewish year. Here's a taste:

...Every life involves course corrections, and the midlife years are a ripe time for change.

For those of us who’ve had children, perhaps our children are old enough now that we can step back and think about something bigger than diapers and sleep deprivation. For those of us who’ve been partnered, this can be a time to look at whether our partnerships are sustaining us in body, heart, mind and soul. For those of us who care for aging parents, this can be a time to readjust the balance of responsibility to reflect current realities. For all of us, these years are a good time to say: are my choices working? Should the remaining decades of my life look like the previous ones? And if not, what do I need to shift?...

Read the whole thing: This Hebrew month, challenge yourself to look inward.

I turn again toward you.
My eyes are clear and open.
I keep you always before me.
Your presence makes me glad.

My eyes are clear, and open
to the future I can't yet see.
Your presence makes me glad
I leap into the unknown.

To the future I can't yet see:
thank you for waiting for me.
I leap into the unknown.
I trust that I won't fall.

Thank you for waiting for me.
With you, I'm never alone.
I trust that I won't fall.
I keep hope in you.

With you, I'm never alone.
Sing to me and I am strong.
I keep hope in you.
I open my heart wide.

Sing to me and I am strong.
I keep you always before me.
I open my heart wide.
I turn again toward you.

Yes, it's another pantoum. (Maybe I need a pantoum category on my blog, to go along with the sestina category.)

Writing these Elul poems has been a gift for me, and has helped me stay connected with my own spiritual life even at this season when my professional life ramps up. I hope that reading them has been sweet for you.

L'shanah tovah -- wishing you a sweet new year.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.

My poems are a dime
a dozen. I write so many

they must blur together
even in your memory.

I used to think
I should keep silent,

try to take up less room
-- but I'm pretty sure

you don't want me
to shut off the spigot,

keep my words from flowing.
You know what the poems

really are: distillations
of my love for you

offered with every beat
of my aching heart.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.

Your voice cascades
    chains of blessing

        washing over me
            like mikvah waters

                awakening each nerve
                    with sheer delight.

I press fingers
    to my wrist:

        there's your name
            pulsing in me

                with each beat
                    of my heart.

What it means
    to bless you.

        My dear one,
            open my lips:

                I want to
                    sing your praise.

Chains of blessing. See the trope marking shalshelet.

To my wrist. One mode of wrapping tefillin maps each of the seven wraps on the forearm to one of the seven "lower" sefirot. The wrap that goes right over the pulse point is the one that maps to malchut or Shekhinah.

Open my lips. From the verse which precedes the Amidah, "Eternal God, open my lips that I may proclaim Your glory." (Also the title of my latest poetry collection from Ben Yehuda Press.)

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.

In this new chapter
I seek out bright colors.

I make the bed every morning.
I don't scoff at slow cookers.

I like gentler, less tannic wines.
I wear contact lenses now.

From these thin threads
the fabric of a life will emerge.

Will the patterns be bold
and beautiful? Will the weave

hold up to hard use
or will it come apart in my hands?

I never learned how to manage
my own loom, not by myself.

Remind me even in my knots
and mistakes there is beauty.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.

To be aware in every moment
of your hand on my shoulderblade
and the earth beneath my feet.

To notice the gleam of grass
in late morning sun, highlighting
the single reddened maple leaf.

To be patient with myself
when grief wells up. To wrap myself
in kindness like a woolen tallit.

To close the book on the old year.
I never have to push my way through
those narrow straits again.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.

With every ending, something new begins.
The end of one chapter starts the next
until the tale itself comes to a close.
We write the book of life with our own hands.

The end of one chapter starts the next
unfolding. Every day that we're alive
we write the book of life with our own hands.
I want your name on every page of mine:

unfolding every day that I'm alive.
Your name reminds me who I want to be --
I want your name. On every page of mine
let me write kindness and compassion.

Your name reminds me who I want to be.
My name reminds me I am God's, I'm strong.
Let me write kindness and compassion
in the book that reads from itself.

My name reminds me I am God's, I'm strong.
The days grow shorter: that's okay.
In the book that reads from itself
I can write my way to happiness.

The days grow shorter: that's okay.
Until the tale itself comes to a close
I can write my way to happiness
with every ending. Something new begins.

We write the book of life with our own hands... in the book that reads from itself. See Everyday I write the book.  

My name reminds me I am God's, I am strong. My middle name in Hebrew is Gavriela, "God's Strength." 

I seem to be on something of a pantoum kick lately. The new year's poem I co-wrote for ALEPH with Rabbi David is a pantoum, and so is the poem I wrote for #blogElul day 8. There's something about how the form loops back in on itself that feels especially appropriate for this season of reflection and teshuvah.

I'm participating again this year in #blogElul, an internet-wide carnival of themed posts aimed at waking the heart and soul before the Days of Awe. (Organized by Ima Bima.) Read #blogElul posts via the Elul tag; you might also enjoy my collection of Elul poems which arose out of #blogElul a few years ago, now available in print and e-book form as See Me: Elul poems.