Download Rosh Hashanah, Day 1 morning service

Rosh Hashanah Day 1 5777
Readings
Reading #1
MORNING POEM
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries with it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray
-Mary Oliver
Reading #2
Praise the wet snow
falling early.
Praise the shadow
my neighbor’s chimney casts on the tile roof
even this gray October day that should, they say,
have been golden.
Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney’s shadow.
Praise
god or the gods, the unknown,
that which imagined us, which stays
our hand,
our murderous hand,
and gives us
still,
in the shadow of death,
our daily life,
and the dream still
of goodwill, of peace on earth.
Praise
flow and change, night and
the pulse of day.
- Denise Levertov
Reading #3
The term “​Bri’ah bifnei atzmah” is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an
acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary systems… There are parts of
each of us that are uncontainable. Every one of us must be appreciated as a “created being of its own.”
Jewish gender diversity provides anyone who can’t or won’t conform to modern binary gender, a solid
connection to another time, space and community – a spiritual home. The concept of “a created being of
its own” indicates an opening towards infinite locations for belonging.
The injunction to see one another as “created beings of our own” is the basis of a liberation theology for
men, women, transgender people and everyone else. According to this theology, God wants and needs
difference. Holiness comes from diversity, as opposed to sameness. This theology can liberate all of us
from the boundaries that circumscribe our lives. It asks us to throw away the expectations that our
bodies or our souls are containable within two categories. It allows us to see each and every other person
as a uniquely created being. And it commands us to move through the world embodying infinitely diverse
manifestations of God’s own image.
- Rabbi Elliot Kukla, 2006
Reading #4:
Destiny
It’s an old-fashioned, an outrageous thing
To believe one has a “destiny”
a thought often peculiar to those
who possess privilege –
but there is something else: the faith
of those despised and endangered
that they are not merely the sum
of damages done to them:
have kept beyond violence the knowledge
arranged in patterns like kente-cloth
unexpected as in batik
recurrent as bitter herbs and unleavened bread
of being a connective link
in a long, continuous way
of ordering hunger, weather, death, desire
and the nearness of chaos.
-Adrienne Rich
Reading #5
In our everyday lives, we live with an illusion of control. We guard our health by eating well, exercising,
and getting regular checkups. We get ahead professionally by working hard and building effective
relationships. At the liturgical moment of ​Untaneh Tokef, we are forced to admit how profoundly our
lives can be altered by random occurrences over which we have no control. In my heart of hearts I know
that I have as little control as any other sheep in the flock. At the moment of ​Untaneh Tokef I know for a
certainty that my life hangs in the balance. When these High Holy Days end, I may be lulled back into my
false sense of security, the cocoon of my routine. But today I feel my exposure, sense the danger inherent
in life, re-encounter my mortality. My end is dust.
I cannot control the unexpected blows that will affect my family, my job, my health. But I can control how
I live with them. ​T’shuvah (cultivating a spiritual life and returning to Torah), ​t’filah (cultivating gratitude
and connecting with transcendent values), and t​zedakah (cultivating generosity and pursuing justice) will
mitigate the bad in the decree. ​T’shuvah, t’filah, and ​tzedakah will not stop stock-market crashes, lung
cancer, or the other blows that come our way, but they can radically transform how we are affected by
those blows.
Rabbi David A. Teutsch, adapted
Reading # 6
Hineni, for me, is the most powerful word in Genesis. Abraham says it to God. It means, “Here I am,” but
it is not a geographical answer. It is not the answer to “Where are you?” It is the response to the
challenge to acknowledge the truth of the present moment, to recognize what needs to be done, and to be
prepared to do it. Abraham says, “​Hineni” three times in the midst of the most terrible of circumstances.
Mindfulness is also “Here I am, I’m not hiding,” and it is also an expression of freedom. Even when
experience is painful, especially when it is dire, mindfulness is a freedom from extra anguish, from the
extra pain of futile struggle. “This is what is true. These are the possibilities. I understand the necessary
response.” And sometimes, there are no possibilities other than surrender.
I try to pray as if my prayers make a difference, but I don’t believe that prayer saves us from terrible
things happening. Terrible things do happen. I do believe that mindful prayer, undistracted presence,
establishes the capacity of the mind to see clearly, and, when necessary, to surrender gracefully. Hineni.
Hineni is also the imperative to be fully present in moments of special joy, as well as in everyday
moments of the amazing blessing of being alive. Well, here we are again, God. That’s it. Here we are.
Here I am. ​Hineni.
-Sylvia Boorstein
Reading #7
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. [This] surface is not smooth, any more than the planet
is smooth; not even a single hydrogen atom is smooth, let alone a [tree]. Nor does it fit together; not even
the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are a perfect match… Nature seems to exult in abounding
radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we
wouldn’t believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole
creation is one lunatic fringe. No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single
giraffe. If creation had been left to me, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the imagination or courage to do
more than shape a single, reasonably sized atom, smooth as a snowball, and let it go at that.
The wonder is – given the errant nature of freedom and the burgeoning of texture in time – the wonder is
that all the forms are not monsters, that there is beauty at all, grace gratuitous, pennies found, like a
mockingbird’s free fall. Beauty itself is the fruit of the creator’s exuberance that grew such a tangle, and
the grotesques and horrors bloom from that same free growth, that intricate scramble and twine up and
down the conditions of time.
This, then is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz, given in good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, and running over.
-Annie Dillard
p. 629 ​Kol Haneshamah Mahzor Leyamim Nora’im
Reading #8
Hineni. Here I stand with my people Israel — a multiracial community — reaching for racial justice. A
matter of survival for my loved ones and myself, I feel no choice but to respond to the need for greater
racial equity in our nation and world. Here I stand, among dear sisters, brothers, family, and tribe. Here I
stand — black, woman, Jew, and humble servant. Here I stand, testifying that I have heard thunder rolling
across our nation in these times. Thunder in the form of unarmed black and brown people being shot
dead in their homes and in the streets by armed policemen and vigilantes. Thunder in the form of people
of color making up only 30 percent of the American population, yet accounting for 60 percent of those
who are imprisoned. Thunder in the form of recent legislative attacks on the rights and freedoms of the
most vulnerable among us in education, voting rights, and immigration, and the rights of transgender
people and communities. Thunder in the form of deadly violence being wrought upon our communities
by the disconnected and the disenfranchised. Thunder as the sound of myriad human hearts crying out
for healing, repair, and resolution.​+
Here I stand in awe of the hope, courage, and strength granted to Jews of color to both survive racism and
feel whole and centered enough to service our people and nation in working to end it. Here I stand,
trembling in the presence of the One who hears the prayers of Israel. Here I stand, praying before the One
who has taught our people to love truth, justice, and compassion. Here I stand, knowing that in our caring
and in our indifference, our souls are at stake. Here I stand, listening to rolling thunder and offering a
supplication for the dedication and rededication of our hearts, minds, and hands to the work of
eliminating racism in our lifetime. ​Hineni.
-Yavilah McCoy, African American Jewish writer, speaker, activist
Reading #9
Be​at! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
-Walt Whitman
p. 661 ​Kol Haneshamah Mahzor Leyamim Nora’im