Yom Kippur
I’ve known Beth for thirty years. She’s a doctor, but also a singer and musician; a person who can pick up any instrument and play it. Years ago, the two of us and our friend Lesley got together once a month to sing. There was no other agenda. We weren’t rehearsing for anything or wanting to start a band. We just wanted to harmonize. We sang folk songs and madrigals, sad songs and silly songs, Christmas songs and Hanukkah songs – whatever we could find that we thought the other two would enjoy. For me, it was needed respite from the singing I did on stage which always had the hope of success buried within it.
Life interrupted our singing eventually. Someone got a new and more demanding job, or a parent needed more help, whatever it was. We drifted away from one another as we humans so often do.
This is where Facebook helps. We’re still virtual friends and every so often our messages pop up on one another’s timeline. This happened for Beth and me a few weeks ago and led to the two of us taking a long walk on Thursday afternoon. For two hours we walked the path, talking, talking, talking, no beats missed in our friendship, filling in as many gaps as we could from the intervening years.
What became clear to me (and I think to Beth too) was that now, in our sixties, we’re thinking about things in similar ways. We lie awake at night reviewing our lives, curious about choices we’ve made, grateful for the good we have done, and wondering if apologies are necessary because of poor choices, or if stirring things up does more harm. Both of us are needing (and taking) more time alone. Time to be quiet, to not worry about the people we love who are perfectly able and glad to take care of themselves. We’re thinking about this being the beginning of the last, or one of the last phases of our lives and wondering what it is we still want to do. Wondering, too, about what our roles are, where we fit, how we can offer the wisdom we’ve gained to those who could benefit from it Wondering if any of what we’ve learned is relevant.
This morning I got a text from Beth. Yom Kippur began last night, and she had a poem to share. On this day of atonement in the Jewish calendar, I asked Beth if I could share the poem and her description of the day’s purpose. My guess is that others are awake at night like Beth and me. I hope these words offer comfort and better sleep. Love, Bar
From Beth: The sound of the rain made me want to share this poem with you as I cast acorns into the water and watched them float and bob downstream yesterday, before Yom Kippur, a symbolic ritual of letting go of what we don’t need, recognizing where we fell short, made mistakes, hurt people or the earth, did wrong, etc. The rain washed away whatever needed to go along with the drifting acorns in that bubbling stream.
The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer
by Rabbi Jill Hammer
I cast this gift to the water.
It is my past: blessing and regret.
It is my present: reflection and listening.
It is my future: intention and mystery.
It is what I did
And did not;
It is yes and no and silence.
It is what was done
And what arose from what was done
And what arises in this body remembering.
I let it all go. I own
Neither the sting nor the sweetness.
I hold on to nothing.
The river has no past.
Each moment of rushing water
Is a new beginning.
Harm that has been:
Heal in the rush of love and truth and time.
We who are lost:
Let the current take us homeward.
May these waters churn what is broken
Into what is whole.
May each separate droplet
Reach the ocean that is becoming.
The journey awaits.
I have no power to refrain from it;
Only to steer it when I can
May the One who is
The great Crossroad
Guide my turning
Three times I declare:
It is finished.
It is born.
It is unending.
Three times I listen:
It is love.
It is the river.
It is before me.
May my offering go where it is meant to go
And may the one who offers it
Find the way.
Amen.
L’Chaim!