As is always our custom, our December service focuses on honoring the dark time of year - exploring the wisdom of the dark rather than praying for the return of the light. We reject the false binary of light/good and dark/bad, especially living in a culture established on anti-Black racism. Dark is where life begins, … Continue reading Fringes December 2024: We come at last to the dark and enter in
We met at the end of a week which has been devastating, and left many of us in despair about our own lives, the lives of so many vulnerable others, and our very planet. As has been our practice at too many other fragile moments, our community together to hold space for our collective and … Continue reading Fringes November 2024: Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies
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 … Continue reading Fringes October 2024 Shabbat Shuvah: Community is where we can open our hearts
Ashamnu for the Mindset of PrivilegeElliott batTzedek / Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah We have abandoned, we have appropriated, we have analyzed, we have arbitratedWe’ve belittled, we have broken faith, we have turned our backs, we have believed the unbelievable We have grown numb, we’ve given too little, we’ve given too late, we have given … Continue reading Ashamnu for a Mindset of Privilege
Psalm 104adapted by Elliott batTzedek from a translation by Robert Alter Letting loose the springs, down the mountains they gowatering all the beasts of the field even the untamable slaking their thirst.Dwelling above, the birds of the heavens sending forth their voice from among the greens.Rolling waters from mountains’ heights sating all-life from earth-fruits —hay … Continue reading The Cedars of Lebanon are How Our Ancestors Understood the Holiness of Creation
We met for our annual Elul service, one with time for reflection and introspection. Our liturgy invited us to be in this particular moment, in our bodies, and in the world, while also looking backward and forward. For Torah study we again turned to Jacob L. Wright's "Why the Bible Began," which Elliott has been … Continue reading Fringes September 2024: save me from the liars/let me live in your house
One lesson our ancestors taught over and over was that trying to have a king, or to be an armed nation state, nearly destroyed us, every time. The teachers who founded Rabbinical Judaism knew this. The scribes and leaders who first wove together our sacred texts knew this - while they recorded the stories of … Continue reading Ancestral Wisdom on the Danger of Empire
This year for the High Holidays Fringes will be doing a shabbat shuvah service on Saturday, October 5th at 10 am ET / 9 am CT / 7 am PT. Shabbat shuvah is the shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and for us it is a chance to use some of our most-loved elements … Continue reading High Holidays 5775
We met for our usual July service theme - the brilliant joy of berries coming ripe in the summer - during a time of worry and grief. Our liturgy moved back and forth between praises for the world as it is, grief for the world as it is, and worry about the world to come. … Continue reading Fringes July 2024: I felt very close then
We met on our usual second Saturday, today the 8 month anniversary of the assault on Gaza. We met on a day when 4 families in Israel know their beloveds are coming home, and that dozens of families in Gaza will be mourning their beloveds, killed in the air strikes, with no home now to … Continue reading Fringes June 2024: Count My Heart