While our usual November theme is “time,” this year the theme morphed a bit in honor of today’s parsha, “Vayera.” It opens with Abraham throwing open his tent to welcome guests, a model of hospitality which makes time for guests and community. Our morning’s liturgy revolved around the challenge of making time for one another, and time for the natural world.

In the words of poet Naomi Shihab Nye:

No, I was not busy when you came!

I was not preparing to be busy.

That’s the armor everyone put on

to pretend they had a purpose

in the world.

Download a PDF of our liturgy here.

For our Torah study we learned about what just happened in the Israeli elections, and about how U.S. Jewish groups are responding to it (hint: panic!) and how other countries who have been allies to Israel are responding (hint: boycott). The texts we read are in the liturgy above.

As always, thanks to Wendy Elishiva Somerson for her amazing woodcuts, and thanks to the stunning copper beech in my backyard for the sequence of fall colors photos in the morning blessings.