The Well of Deir Yassin (created by Elliott batTzedek with inspiration from the “Ten Plagues & Elijah’s Cup” ritual by Rabbi Miriam Geronimus and “Nakba Dayunu” credited to Jews Against the Occupation-NYC in a 2015 Jewish Voice for Peace Haggadah) This ritual begins after the ten plagues and before “Dayenu.” It uses the same cup … Continue reading The Well of Deir Yassin – a Pesach Ritual
We came together today in a time of beauty and destruction - spring is burgeoning in all her bright colors, it's also Pesach, our holiday of liberation, and the genocide in Gaza grows ever worse and hopes the Israeli hostages are still alive grow ever more unlikely. Our liturgy today moved between these three elements, … Continue reading Fringes April 2024: breaking a loud and wounding silence
We met to pray during the challenge, grief, and fear of these times. We acknowledged the new, strange land we have entered, in which our grief for violence done to Jews is being overwhelmed by our grief for violence being done by Jews. How do we grieve this? In Heschel's words, we need someone to … Continue reading Fringes March 2024: because we are the only witnesses they have
Psalm 137 Elliott batTzedek My god how beautiful it is, it could break open your heart, it broke open my heart, the ways Jews grieved and mourned for Zion and Jerusalem for two thousand years. We lay down and wept and wept and wept for thee Zion. And in those words everything everyone has lost … Continue reading Psalm 137
We met for the shabbat morning that begins our 18th year. As I spent the week trying to wrestle too many ideas into a service, I kept letting that number swirl around in my mind. I find it hard to believe that 2007 was, in fact, that many years ago. That we’re still here, both … Continue reading Fringes February 2024: I do not believe in the failure of caring for each other
We met today for a service built around exploring images/metaphors/theologies of the Divine, launching from the opening of today's parsha. Our liturgy put forward many different ideas and images, then in our torah discussion we learned just a bit about alternative images of divinity that have existed across Jewish history and live on in our … Continue reading Fringes January 2024: if God is energy, I sit in God’s hand
We met for our annual hanukkah/solstice service about embracing the dark as part of the great cycle of the natural world. As a spiritual community, we reject the idea that light and dark are a binary that represent good and evil, or joy and pain - especially the ways in which Western thought have applied … Continue reading Fringes December 2023: While darkness does its work
We met today still in the grief and loss and anger and despair and fury and, and, and of the last month. In community, we prayed words of loss, of hope, of sorrow, and of connection. Our guest was Rabbi Linda Holtzman, sharing her experience with the large JVP protests in D.C. and in Philadelphia. … Continue reading Fringes November 2023: Thou shalt not take revenge
A prayer from Fringes' founder Elliott batTzedek for the liberation of all of the captives: the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, the Palestinians in Gaza trapped and under attack day and night, and the Palestinian prisoners tried under military law and held, often without charges, in Israeli military prisons. Download the prayer as a PDF here. … Continue reading Prayer for the Liberation of the Captives
We joined together at the end of a week of so much grieving, loss, and shock for a two part service. Morning Service: Praise the rain, it brings more rain Our morning service was built around the theme of being in a time of building for the future as represented by the traditional liturgical switch … Continue reading Fringes October 2023: Morning Service & Mincha
Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah 