Elul 14

Berakhot 32
It’s all your fault.
You made me.

If you hadn’t given me
The good cheese and the chocolate
The fruit, the knowledge
I wouldn’t have eaten too much
Or thrown up all over

Also you should have stopped me
Talked me out of it
Replaced my heart of stone.

If you had only accepted my sacrifice, my gifts!
And done so right away
And not made me wait
I wouldn’t sin
It’s not my fault really

Sometimes
We are less holy than beasts, even
Berakhot 32

Elul 13

Berakhot 7
I get so mad at you sometimes!
You do the most
Ridiculous things!
I ask for so little.
Be safe.
Be useful.
Succeed at what you want to do.
Call me sometimes.
How hard is that?

And you…you just…
I don’t even know how you do that!
Is being nice to your siblings so hard?
Really?
You can’t even tidy your space
Once in a while?
You’re taking terrible care of yourself, you know.
Sleep, eat, exercise.
Healthily and in moderation.
Why do you make it so complicated?
And when was the last time
You took time out of your day
To really talk with me?

Oh, it drives me crazy!
I totally lose my cool.
I hope, I pray
That I can remember
Who you are
And who I am
And not go insane with the punishments.
Which is totally what I want to do right now.

It’s a good thing
You’re cute and I love you.
I can’t stay mad at you for long.
That’s me!
I get mad, you say sorry – and I let it go
(Most of the time)

Still, let’s work on this stuff, OK?
You don’t have to try my patience
Every day.
Love, God.
Berakhot 7

Elul 12

Eruvin 26
I have heard
That there are three
Types of fault

Three levels of sin
We can commit.

The first and the nastiest
Are sins done with full knowledge
And malice beforehand

Like, say, taking down the fence
That someone else put up
(And hiding the fence posts
So they can’t put it back in place)
Because you disagree with them
About the bylaws of fences
In this courtyard
Ouch.

There’s a case for teshuva
Right there
Remember that scholars are vulnerable
To demons like jealousy and pride
And must be extra vigilant

Or hurting someone without thinking
In anger or by listening to another
Say to help your teacher
Carry the nice fence posts away
Not paying any attention
To the harm you might cause
Because of the outside forces
Controlling you
(I tell you, demons everywhere!)

Or totally without meaning to
Utterly inadvertently
As in “I can’t imagine
You were hurt by my missing the eruv potluck.
I just forgot, ok?
It’s not like I don’t still own the house and the courtyard!”
But it is.
And now you can’t carry things over.
Still an error.
Still needs teshuva.
You still have to learn to be more careful
In avoiding demons.
Even if only the demon of forgetting!
Eruvin 26

Elul 11

Eruvin 24
There are those
Who can change themselves
In one spectacular moment

Maybe it was a warning
From a doctor
That one’s life was at risk
If one didn’t do something

Or a sudden realization
That life is passing
Or the disappointed look
In the face of a loved one

And all of a sudden
They say that they will no longer be this person
And they will be that person
They will stop smoking, won’t eat sugar
Won’t gossip and will exercise regularly
Drink moderately if at all
Get their work done before the due date
And greet others with a smile
And they do.

In whatever area
They wish to become different
They become different
The work is hard
Harder than taking down ten cubits of wall
And then building it up
Taking down ten years of bad habits
And building good ones up instead is harder.

But they do it
And it’s done
And they’re a new vessel
No longer subject to the same impurity

I envy those people
And am not one of them.

For me, each change
Is slow and tiny
If it is to stick
Smaller than an olive-bulk
And the repair
Is likely to fall out
If I’m not careful
Changing one tiny trait
Each day, each week, each month
Reducing it down
To fewer desserts, distractions or disparaging remarks
Not none – just one less than before

Like water dripping on a weathered stone

And yet, little by little
Still (I hope)
The end result is a new vessel
No longer subject to the same impurity
A place where I can carry out
My role in life
Eruvin 24

Elul 10

Eruvin 22
God, god is multi-faceted
With grace and compassion
For all our many faults

God waits with awe-full patience for us
Not answering at once but holding out
The possibility of something more

God’s more than ready
To give kindness, love
For thousands of years
Patiently waiting
For us to respond

We break the rules
And God forbears to answer
With loud and crashing consequence

God waits.
For God likes to forgive

And yet that niggling voice
That itchy feeling at the far back of our hearts
Reminding us that really, it was wrong
That thing we did
And our excuses hold no water
(Much like an empty cistern)

That voice is there from the first instant
Of our every choice
Immediately giving clear reward
And punishment
To all our deeds.
Eruvin 22

Elul 9

Eruvin 21
The thing about Torah
About goodness
About learning
Is how easy it is to touch
How easy it is to start

The full journey may be difficult
Nearly impossible
But the start…it’s easy!

The Torah is vast
Able to perform amazing feats of strength
Like changing a human soul
Through the power of God

Flying through the air
Is it a bird? A plane? Superman?
No, it is our Torah!
It it thousands of times more vast
That the trip to the furthest star
(Or the supermarket.)

Written on both sides of the scroll
The outside
And the inside
Inside our hearts

We can taste it
In sweet juicy pomegranates
And flowing honey
And crisp tart apples

Hear it in our songs
And our music
And our stories
And our warmth in greeting
The divine in the other.
Shana Tova
Bless you for an amazing year

It’s right here!
We just have to turn our heads
Turn our hearts
A tiny bit
And we find Torah
Right there
Waiting for us
Eruvin 21

Elul 8

Taanit 25
Avinu Malkeynu
Our father our king
Our parent our leader
Our mother our guide

It’s a cry, a wail
Not a prayer to be said
In calm deliberation
Working for a goal

Instead a scream of need
The kind a baby makes
When first he falls
And it hurts
And it seems the world is ending
Mama! Mama!
Pick me up! Make it better!

The cry of someone
Who has dug their grave…
Who knows death is imminent
And seems unavoidable
“Help me! Answer me! Make it ok!”

We cry it knowing
That the world is ending
That drought and famine
Or disease or violence or despair
Hold sway

Right now
There is such a drought
A drought of love and hope
As illness stalks the land
With violence holding hands
A marriage made in hell
That breeds destruction, hatred and despair
As angry words and bullets
Fly through our empty spaces
And we cower behind doors and masks
Hoping to survive
Until it’s over

Answer us, we call,
Be kind to us.
Not because we deserve it.
We have no deeds.
This is not a negotiation,
Not a quid pro quo

We know
We could have done a little better
Loved harder
Helped more
Answered more calls ourselves
Been much more careful with our words
So we don’t ask because of deeds

No, help us, save us, heal us
Just because
Ahad Sha’alty
One thing I ask
Please hold me in your arms

This is a child’s call for a parent
You should answer us
Because that’s who You are!
Because you love us.
The way our parents love us
(Or at least they should)
Because someone should pick up the baby
Who calls for his Mama!
Taanit 25

Elul 7

Eruvin 19
You carry Sheol in your heart, dear
It’s a heavy and weary load
Full of shame and self loathing and worry
You’ve made Gehinnom your abode

You’ve like Korakh been swallowed by dirt, dear
Like Jonah you wallow down deep
And the hatred you wield against you
Is the only fire you still keep

You need no heavenly court, dear
To write your name in black
You’ve already walked through those empty gates
And you’re not seeing any way back

It’s Elul, and I’d like to retort, dear
To the you that you’ve hidden away
Underneath the layers of darkness
There is still the glimmer of day.

Though your outside is mottled and rough, dear
Though you think your hands are stained red
Like a pomegranate, there with you
Is sweetness and life instead

A million times more than enough, dear
Are your halting and broken deeds
You have all the potential for goodness
Of a pomegranate’s many seeds

Imagine the pomegranate, dear
Growing somewhere the grass is green
Turn around and the garden is lovely!
Lush like you’ve never seen

Break free of your fear and this rut, dear
God’s creation preserve, not destroy
Turn away from the pit within you
Turn back to love, light and joy
Eruvin 19

Elul 6

Eruvin 17
So the Talmud, I noticed
It doesn’t focus
On people’s rights
The way I thought it did

I’m realizing
It focuses way more
On our responsibilities
To God and each other

Which is different.
Because laws, I thought,
Are about our rights
What we’re entitled to
What we can get away with

But the Talmud says
You are responsible
For the Shabbat
And keeping God’s law
For a dead person that you find
For soldiers
For the poor
For all sorts of strange and wonderful stuff
That may or may not apply today

So what would it look like
If laws were written on that basis?
Would people complain less
About having to wear masks?
Or having to only
Use guns in restricted ways
(And not on Shabbat?)

Would people volunteer more?
Help more? Love more?
Or would it end up repressive
With people being told who to help
Where to work and who to love?

It’s a balancing act
Played by religion and government
Tipping ever one way or another

Not for an individual though
There it’s obvious
Elul is a good time
To let go of rights
To focus on responsibilities

My responsibility
To take care of myself
As a gift from God
To take care of you
To take care of the poor
To take care of those who work for all of us
To take care of those who have no voice
To follow the guiding rule
Of the Talmud
Eruvin 17

Elul 5

Eruvin 16
It’s not done
Can you imagine?

There I am, teaching a class
And a student says
“Ms., you added wrong”
And I say
“Whoa! You’re right! Silly error.”

(Actually that’s normal
And happens with sad regularity
In all my classes.)

Then I sit down.
I say “you know what?
I made a mistake.
It should be the way you said
So for the rest of this class
You teach!”
Can you even picture it?

This Rabbi Nakhman,
He’s a true mensch.
Knows how to apologize
Even in something minor.

It’s not easy, apologizing
Especially to those
Under your authority.
The words kind of stick in your throat.
You brush it off
With a polished excuse
Saved from earlier days
When you were one of them.
“I would have marked your assignments
But the baby…the bus…
The dog ate your homework!”

Not this man. Wow.

This month, when people do blanket apologies
Via social media
Just to cover their bases
May we remember
That errors need admission
Correction and consequence.
And may we have the grace and strength
To appoint a speaker
Over us
If we cannot do it ourselves.
Eruvin 16