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
We met in May, as spring continues to unfold across North America, and as we know the IDf is beginning its assault on all the terrified Gazans who were pushed into Rafah and now have nowhere else to go. How does one - if one has a heart still capable of being broken - pray … Continue reading Fringes May 2024: roots that hold fervently to this dark earth
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