We met on this shabbat of teshuvah to create a community in which we can bring our whole selves as Jews who have been fighting hard to stop the genocide in Gaza and to change the hearts of our community.

Our liturgy was our usual combination of traditional and new, fulfilling our founding principle of if you don’t mean the words you say when you are praying, then what are you doing? We were very lucky to have been given permission from liturgist Dane Kuttler to use a new piece she created just this week as our blessing for the revelation of wisdom.

You read or download our liturgy here. There are videos in it that won’t play; you can view Chava Mirel’s stunning Achat Sha’alti here.

For Torah study, we watched this video pairing a new song by Aly Halpert, Ayeka, with “Under the Rubble,’ excerpts of a poetry collection by Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha. In our discussion, we tried to answer the questions Aly poses: what can grow here? and what have we done? And we spoke some of the complicated truths our hearts have moved through this year.