Since our very first year, Fringes’ July liturgy has celebrated the berries that come ripe here in the summer. This came about in part because of our commitment to non-zionism – we believed that all land is holy, and that our lives as Jews in Philadelphia should be centered in our prayer life. And in part because co-founder Otter/Karen Escovitz grew up outside of Philly picking raspberries every summer with her sister, mom, and grandma. During the years we met in person the July oneg was a wild celebration of berries – fresh, in cakes, in pies, heaping piles of blueberries, raspberries, black berries.

Each year the service is a bit different – more celebratory some years, more reflective others. This year, for most of our community spread across the U.S., the air outside has for days been too full of dying forests to even breathe safely, and the news each day is even more sickening. And so we brought our grief and fury into our prayer, even as we rejoiced in the season of fresh corn, sun-warmed tomatoes, and every manner of berry ripe, sun-warmed, and waiting.

Download the liturgy on slides here.

For our torah study, we considered why the story that opens today’s parashat, Devarim, is the one that got sanctified as holy text. In it, rather than being faithful or heroic, the Israelites are described over and over as petulant, sulking, burdensome and bickering. God, too, is unpredictable – sometimes punishing beyond any reason, sometimes compassionate, sometimes present and concerned with the smallest details, sometimes vast and remote. In our discussion we talked about the different between complaining that helps drive standing up to injustice and complaining that pulls everyone into a pit, and the difference between a tent in which one sits alone, hopeless, and a tent that people enter to work it out and move forward. You’ll see the texts we referred to in the slide deck.

Our music today included a recording of Malvina Reynolds performing God Bless the Grass:

For our Fringes morning blessing – in which everyone responds to a question about what we bring into the service – this was our prompt. A good question to ask yourself any morning, especially if you are reclining in the soft grass about to feast on berries.