Yom Kippur

And G!d says: "You cannot do the work every single second of every single day, which is why we've set aside this night-and-day in the middle of the Big Week just for you. To sleep unhurried, to eat well and bask in familiarity, because this is where the community happens. This is where we are born, each and every week, where we hold each other. There is no work without holding each other."

And G!d says: "That in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, everything will seem a little sweeter, and a little crisper, and even the weather might cooperate, and the world will brush herself up and show you just how wondrous she can be, so you'd better rise to her level and do the work"

And G!d says: "And for those of you who are scrambling because the work is not finished enough, for those with lingering, unsaid apologies on their lips, for those who could not bring themselves from Mitzrayim's pain through the wilderness to forgiveness: you don't get to give up now. I stopped making perfect things after I made water and light. There was never hope for you. There is only what you do together. You don't get to stop."

 

From Dane Kuttler's The G!d Wrestlers,  The Social Justice Warrior's Guide to the High Holy Days, Sept. 2015

Looking back on the 20 years since 9/11, what is the most important human rights lesson you draw from the American response to those attacks?

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster

“God has told you, O person, what is good, and what the ETERNAL requires of you: Only to do justice and to love chesed, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

About ten years ago, when T’ruah started fighting to end solitary confinement, I asked a friend who was an attorney at the ACLU Prison Project why it mattered that rabbis were speaking out to end this form of torture; it seemed like the ACLU’s strategy of lawsuits and legislation would be much more effective. She replied, “We have a mercy deficit as a country, and rabbis can talk about mercy in a way that other activists cannot.” She was right: Those who speak from a moral voice can amplify the cries of those affected by abuses until they become a rallying cry for change, a demand that as a society we be motivated by chesed on an systemic level.

The rallying cry of the Jewish social movement, which emerged with such strength after 9/11—Tzedek, tdedek tirdof—occurs in Deuteronomy to elevate the significance of an impartial judiciary. But it is also a commitment to law over revenge, order over chaos. Since 9/11, the United States seems like it has mistaken one for the other. Or rather, we exact vengeance under the guise of law and justice, but in so doing achieve neither. We tortured. We substituted drone strikes for trials. We went to war to stop terror, and in so doing, decimated the countries that we believed were at fault. We killed Osama bin Laden rather than adjucating his crimes in a court of law. Each of these and so many other steps were exercises in might, acts that made us feel safe but did not in fact make us safer, in the process destroying the safety and rights of so many. It takes real humility to understand that what might feel like the right solution is actually unjust and ineffective.

That’s why I love this verse. How do we ensure that we are governed by a commitment to justice grounded in chesed? Micah orbits those commitments around a sacred path of humility. Hubris says we move forward without reckoning with the consequences of our actions. Humility requires truth and reconciliation.

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster is the Executive Vice President of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. From 2007-2021, she worked at T’ruah, most recently as Deputy Director, and directed “Honor the Image of God: A Jewish Campaign to Stop US-Sponsored Torture.”

On Solo Prayer

By Kohenet Shamirah aka Sarah Chandler

The following essay was written in summer 2020 as an introduction to the Azazel Chapbook. It is meant to help the reader reflect on and be inspired to spend some or all of Yom Kippur in solo prayer. 

Concentric circles, familiar tunes, simple liturgy, candles, sitting on the floor. This is a snapshot of havdallah, the brief Saturday night ceremony to mark the end of shabbat. In my teens, it was always my favorite ritual. I felt close to those around me, knew what to expect, and could count on a feeling of closeness and connection. 

Raised in an active Reform congregation with a large youth group, all of my entryways to prayer were in groups. I thrived at Eisner, my Jewish overnight camp where we had daily prayers each night ‘by unit.’ I remember getting to college directly after camp and counting the days until shabbat, because then I could finally pray again. And yet, there were dozens of classmates in my dorm who prayed on weekdays. Sometimes they joined a minyan, sometimes they prayed on their own. Once one of them brought me along to the Orthodox minyan on campus - even though the words were familiar, the aesthetic of gender-segregated seating and rushed Hebrew turned me off. 

It wasn’t until after college that I tried out the practice of solo prayer. Active in my Reform Havurah in college and various independent minyanim in my 20s, we spent most of the week planning and organizing to produce a particular style and flavor of shabbat gatherings. It didn’t really occur to me that I would engage with prayer outside of a minyan - a quorum of 10 “adults” over the age of 13. 

My grandma once asked me if I wanted anything from a stack of books with Hebrew titles she had on her shelf. Most of them I already owned, except for one - it was titled “ tekhines ” and had “Mrs. Averbuch” in penciled script on the inside cover. Mrs. Averbuch was my namesake - my great grandmother after whom I was named; she passed away ten years before I was born. I knew her as “Bubbe Sarah.” I knew this book was special, not just because it was a women’s prayerbook in Yiddish, but because Bubbe Sarah had actually used it for her prayers. See this page for more about Yiddish tekhines & a series of sample prompts. 

Praying solo at home was the norm for women like Bubbe Sarah, because for centuries, public prayer has prioritized those who “count” in the minyan. Women were not encouraged to participate in communal life, as the rabbis of the Talmud say, to exempt them from the obligation. In other words, to enable them to focus on the obligations of the home and the family. I used to feel sorry for those women stuck at home and alienated from communal life. More recently, especially during quarantine times, I have been yearning to learn from them. 

My first deep encounter with solo prayer came on a night hike in the woods of Isabella Freedman, while teaching as an outdoor educator with Teva Learning Center. Our leader Nili Simhai wove together chant, midrash (storytelling of sacred text), and meditation instructions. I felt energized in my body and was able to relax in a way that enabled me to connect with spirit - with an ‘inner’ world. 

Since those Teva days, I have experimented with solo prayer in the basement of Yeshivat Hadar, my living room couch, a hotel room in the Irish countryside, the balcony of my Jerusalem apartment, and even a narrow alley behind a falafel restaurant in Ramallah. And yet, the settings that best enabled me to really connect with the divine, as opposed to just get through a certain number of pages or prayers, were almost always in nature. 

These past six months, March - August 2020, living alone in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn during a pandemic, I have spent a great deal of time in solo prayer. It has not been easy. Even when leading or following along with a group on zoom, there are often extra layers that make it challenging to fully drop into the experience. The semblance of community, sometimes called “communality,” is simultaneously comforting and alienating. 

I think of my Bubble Sarah talking to her idea of G!d from her kitchen table. What was she grateful for? What did she request in her prayers? Who was on her list of people in need of healing? Were there kids trying to interrupt and distract her, or did she save her conversations with G!d for when they were asleep? Yes, she was alone, but she was praying on behalf of her family, her community, the whole world. 

When I go to the roof, to the park, to the river, to the woods, to the ocean - while I don’t have that same connected feeling of concentric circles of my youth - I feel whole. The air is coming through me and we are one. My skin absorbs the sun rays. My being is grounded with these rocks. Dew glistens around me as sweat beads appear and evaporate. The trees and the wind are my prayer partners. Even as I am yearning to sing with other humans, I am so grateful to sing surrounded by creation. The words and feelings and sounds - everything I put into the prayers, emanate out through these beings. The prayers go farther and I go deeper. 

Launching in September 2020, the Azazel Chapbook is a new resource for Yom Kippur Musaf (midday prayers).  It will include adaptations of the mahzor for individual prayer in nature, as well as how to gather a small “not-a-minyan” group for safe outdoor Yom Kippur rituals. Visit this page for a free download. 

Looking back on the 20 years since 9/11, what is the most important human rights lesson you draw from the American response to those attacks?

Becky Jaye, Rabbinical Student

“(11) Because God has disarmed and humbled me, they have thrown off restraint in my presence. (12) Mere striplings assail me at my right hand; they put me to flight; they build their roads for my ruin. (13) They tear up my path; they promote my fall, although it does them no good. (14) They come as through a wide breach; they roll in like raging billows. (15) Terror tumbles upon me; it sweeps away my honor like the wind; my dignity vanishes like a cloud.”  -- Job 30:11-15

   

On September 11, 2001, I was with my seventh-grade gym class in a Coney Island public school. 

It is an understatement to say that the world-entire changed that day. Witnessing my friends suddenly become orphans was a stark reminder of the ephemeral nature of life, making me feel small in the vast universe. 

This feeling of smallness reverberates strikingly in the Book of Job. As readers watching Job’s mounting tragedy, we also face our own powerlessness. 

Not two months after 9/11, the Patriot Act was passed, limiting individual Americans’ right to privacy in an endeavor to fight the “War on Terror.” Among its goals, the Patriot Act allowed law enforcement to widen its surveillance to monitor suspected terrorism. 

As a twelve-year old, I remember the distinct feeling of safety, knowing that there was at least some way -- any way -- that would prevent another attack. 

Looking at the last twenty years, I cannot help but feel how Job’s cry has an eerie resonance today. As a summer intern for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, I have learned of the precise intensity with which government law enforcement agencies such as ICE disproportionately surveill communities of color. Our history is littered with examples of how systems to surveill communities of color--like the FBI and Dr. King--have been “roads that have led to their ruin,” humbling whole communities by stripping them of their constitutional protections. 9/11 just allowed these age-old systems to assume new forms, and our growing reliance on technology has only accelerated the trend.

As Job continues his lament with “terror,”  I realize that perhaps the most important human rights lesson is how the terror we feel impacts us. In my most formative years, I didn’t speak up against xenophobic policies because I was prioritizing my own safety. In the comfort of my complacency and my submission to fear, I not only aided in the diminishing of others’ human dignity, but I damaged my own dignity as well. 

Hosea 14:9 states, “One who is wise will consider these words, One who is prudent will take note of them. For the paths of the ETERNAL are smooth; the righteous can walk on them, while sinners stumble on them.” Too long have we traveled roads that ensure only the racially and economically privileged reach the most desired destinations. Most times, we have been unaware that we even do so. On this anniversary, I wish to return to the day before, to begin again, to smooth those roads that may honor the righteousness of each human able to travel them. 

Becky Jaye will be ordained a rabbi by HUC-JIR in New York in 2022. Her internship at S.T.O.P. is part of her participation in T’ruah’s Rabbinical/Cantorial Student Summer Fellowship in Human Rights Leadership.

Remember, God, the soul of my father, my teacher ( the name of the father, son of the name of his father or mother), who went to his world, because I will - without making a vow - give charity for him. In recompense for this, let his soul be bound with the Binding of life (God), with the soul of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, and with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden. And let us say, Amen.

El Maleh Rachamim

O Power, full of mercy, who dwells on high, establish proper rest upon the wings of the Divine Presence, on the levels of the holy and pure ones [who] shine like the splendor of the firmament, [for] the soul of ( the name of the departed, son of the name of his father or mother ) who went to his world, because I will - without making a vow - give charity for the memory of his soul; let his rest be in the Garden of Eden. Hence, Master of mercy, cover him in the cover of His wings forever and bind his soul with the Binding of life (God). God is his inheritance and let him rest upon his place of repose in peace. And let us say Amen.