This prayer is an invitation to lean into your deepest values and truths, and a way of setting your intentions to take an active role in tikkun olam, repairing the world.

May we hear and recognize our own calling,

We are the ones with the capacity to heal,

To nurture, and to repair the harm we have caused,

And the harm of those who came before us.

May we strive to practice tikkun olam,

May we repair the world through collective action

So that we can not only survive this changing world,

But thrive here.

May we be courageous in the face of apathy,

In the presence of our own fear and indecision,

May we move together even through grief,

Remembering that there’s still time to act,

There’s still time to remember the world

Back into being.

WISDOM FOR THE JOURNEY

“I felt as if my legs were praying.”
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, coming back home from the voting-rights March in Selma, Alabama, 1965

“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.”
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,1970

THE PALMS OF POSSIBILITY

The people gather at a central point, perhaps a synagogue or church. Each takes a frond of the palm tree, and in pairs they bless each other, each tapping the other on the shoulder with a palm frond, saying:

May the Holy One Who interbreathes all life, breathe life between you and this palm branch, between the forests of the Earth and our communities.

The people move into the streets. Chanting and singing as they go, carrying a portable large-sized globe of Planet Earth, waving the Palm branches, they walk toward a Pyramid of Power of our own day: perhaps an office of Exxon orBP, or a coal-fired power station, or a bank that invests in a coal company that is destroying the mountains of West Virginia, or a religious or academic or governmental institution which they could call on to end its investments in Big Carbon and invest in renewable energy companies instead.

And as they walk they sing:

We’ve got the sun and the rain in our hands,
We’ve got the wind and the clouds in our hands,
We’ve got the whole world in our hands.
We’ve got the whole world in our hands!

We’ve got the rivers and the mountains in our hands,
We’ve got the lakes and the oceans in ourhands

We’ve got you and we’ve got me in our hands,
We’ve got the whole world in our hands.

We’ve got everybody here in our hands,
We’ve got everybody there in our hands,
We’ve got everybody everywhere in our hands,
We’ve got the whole world in ourhands.

We’ve got trees and tigers in ourhands

We’ve got our sisters and our brothers in ourhands

We’ve got our children andtheirchildren in ourhands/

WE’VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN OUR HANDS!

As they arrive at the point they have chosen, they share in this reading, each person reading a passage and then passing it on toanother:

“Rabbi Jesus and his companions called upon their followers to “Occupy Jerusalem, ” “Challenge themoney-changers,” “Lift high the Green faces of God, the Palms ofPossibility.”

“Gather,” they said, “on the eve of Passover to recall the fall of Pharaoh. For in every generation there is a Pharaoh who arises to enslave us and destroy us. In every generation we must all see ourselves: It is we who must go forth from slavery to freedom, not our forebears only.” [Quotation from the PassoverHaggadah]

Defenders of the status quo told Rabbi Jesus to tell his followers to shut up.

And the Gospel (Luke 19:40) says: “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out.”



In our own generation, the stones are cryingout.

The frozen stones we call glaciers are groaning as theymelt.



The rivers cry outby flooding one-fifth of Pakistan and the entire City of New Orleans, by washing out the sturdy bridges ofVermont and flooding the subways ofManhattan.

The rains cry out in silence as they fail to fall,bringing unheard-of droughts to central Africa, Australia, Russia, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa.

As the planet scorches
and the cornparches,
the price of foodclimbs.
Those who were hungry, starve.
The children whose bellies swelled from hunger,
whose voices wailed from famine,
grow silent.
Dying. Dead.
And all these silent, silenced voices call on us to speak.
Not only to speak but to act.
To act against themoney-changers,
the corrupt banks and other corporations
that are not human beings, persons:
are NOT created in the Image of God.
The Caesars of ourday,
The Pharaohs of our day.
The Pontius Pilates and Abu-Jahls of ourday—
The Empires of Oil, Tar, Coal, Unnatural Gas.
The Pharaohs of Fracking.

In the Time of our Sorrow
By Rachel Kann

My tongue wants to un-gate the flood, it is
an urgent compulsion to spill knotted guts,

in these weeks of banned melody,
my lips wants to rebel,
to howl,
to sing

of my suffering,
of all my shortcomings,
every rejection,
every threat to our collective existence,
the abandonment unabated,

of how my heart is a bitter almond,
spilling with cyanide,
splitting its endocarp,
longing only for the orchard,

of how my heart is a heavy stone,
flack-jacketed,
sallow and sinking in my chest,
how a glut of shrapnel is stuck in my throat,

of how I am blindfolded in love’s minefield,
frozen, unable to navigate the danger
lurking beneath the surface,
hurtful blossoms
lying in night-wait
only to explode,
detonate the light of day,

of the world’s unending
re-dedication to the re-destruction
of temples.

My heart wants to take flight,
transcend the gravity
of this misbegotten planet.

Before the unkindness of ravens and
murder of crows can escape the open moan,

I am circle-dancing,
hand in hand with so many wondrous
warrior women,
with Magda and Miriam,
who came through the dark tunnel of the Shoah,
who are here with me,
present and spilling light.

This is beyond awe,
beyond gratitude.

We weave a grapevine
up the trunk of the almond tree,

we are strengthened by our suffering.
We are indestructible.

This world crushes us,
we refuse to turn poisonous,
dancing and rooting and branching
despite this.

In glorious defiance,
we pour ourselves forward
in honeyed amaretto flooding,

we sweeten the darkness,
light the bitterness.

We kasher every unholy implement
used against us.
We ready them for service
in the holy temple of our most
miraculous dance:

our continued existence.

A GUIDED VISUALIZATION

© Rabbi Susan Freeman, 2003

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VISUALIZATION FOR THE LEADER

In this guided visualization, slavery is likened to what is unhealed in one’s life, and freedom is likened to healing. What do we mean by “healed” and “unhealed?” In being expansive in our understanding of these words, we may say that being “healed” does not necessarily mean the eradication of illness, grief or difficult circumstances. By drawing on the analogy of slavery to freedom, we broaden our perspective of what “unhealed” and “healed” might mean.

The slavery/freedom analogy may lead to various associations for participants. Perhaps they will associate the “slavery” of being unhealed with feeling heavy, foggy, muddy, stuck, held down, held back, weighed down, unclear, fearful, imprisoned, and so on. Conversely, perhaps they may associate the “freedom” of being healed with feelings of release, wholeness, clarity, peacefulness, confidence, burdens being lifted, and so on.

For instance, those who are suffering from a specific illness may draw on the guided visualization as a means to try to go beyond the daily struggles they experience. What states of being are possible besides those of feeling unendingly “enslaved” by illness?

In essence, slavery is to freedom what unhealed is to healed, with the understanding that healing is a lifelong journey toward wholeness. This guided visualization provides an opportunity for participants to explore the places where they feel enslaved and envision and experience a sense of freedom.

The leader should ask participants to close their eyes and sit with their feet flat on the floor with their hands resting comfortably in their laps. Allow a moment or two of silence and gentle breathing, then begin to read the visualization slowly, with plenty of pauses, allowing participants time to fully immerse themselves in the experience.

A GUIDED VISUALIZATION © Rabbi Susan Freeman, 2003

A GUIDED VISUALIZATION © Rabbi Susan Freeman, 2003