A Prayer For Humanity
Until All Are Free ๐๏ธ
โืฆืืื ืื ื ืคืฉื, ืืื ืื ืืฉืจื, ืืืจืฅ ืฆืื ืืขืืฃ ืืื ืืื. ืื ืืงืืืฉ ืืืืชืื ืืจืืืช ืขืืื ืืืืืื
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You, in a dry and weary land without water. So may I look for You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
Tehillim 63: 2-3
I am sitting in the synagogue I grew up in on Yom Kippur, feeling the crystalline purity of the tradition into which I was born. It is lavender and sky blue and the sound of water and the song of my heart restored to peace.
I am sitting in a church in Northern Colorado, weeping as the pastor reads Matthew 6:24-34. Weeping, as I am called to lay down my worry at Godโs feet.
Weeping,
as war rips through the Holy Land
leaving only devastation in its wake.
I am sitting on my deck on a sunny day in the mountains, opening a box that says Laurel Judaica. I turn open a book of prayers and am greeted by a prayer to recite in the aftermath of trauma.
I feel the heaviness of no longer keeping the Sabbath. I yearn for the glowing candles, family prayers, the devotion to rest. I awaken to the embodied realization that no matter where I find myself in my faith journey, my Judaism cannot be erased. A storied song singing through my DNA, that which implores me to pay more attention and deeply listen when I am caught off guard in a grocery store parking lot, inconsolably crying, intimately aware that these tears are not just my own.
I cry for my ancestors, I think of my great-grandfather, how recently it was that he escaped the Russian pogroms. Perhaps I am finally old enough to really feel what that means.
Perhaps some part of me always did. Perhaps it was speaking to me when I was 10 years old, beginning to question the consistency of our Jewish valuesโof our own diasporic ancestral realityโwith our unwavering support of the state of Israel. Somewhere, deep within my wise child heart, I knew.
When I call my father, we speak of how we might not exist, if Papa had not made it out of his home country alive.
That night,
I listen to Tzama Lecha Nafshi
over
and over
and over.
A loved one chooses not to wear her Star of David in public anymore. A friend feels like he is shouting into the void about the plight of his Palestinian relatives. I hesitate to write my last name down on the purchase page at the farm store. The images of war feel etched into my mind. I feel empty. I feel exposed.
I think of my beloved who left his body in July.
When he was incarcerated, he became the Imam of the prison. When I would listen to him share about faith, I could feel the Spirit moving in him. He would say a word in Arabic, and I would say the same word in Hebrew. We would marvel at the similarity of the words. Raptured in Love awoken through the Word, awestruck at the brilliance of these languages, at the Breath of Life that flowed through each and every letter. Amazed by the way we were woven together through ancient tongues far beyond our understanding, by language bending reality, mending the very fabric of Life Herself.
I remember the moment I realized that all rivers flow into One and that our grief and liberation are inseparable.
I want relief for my human family, for those torn from their homes, for those who have perished and will never grow old. I want to collapse. I call a friend instead. Our friendship reminds me of the healing that is possible in this world.
I visit the spring and am washed clean in her flowing waters. I cry for the countless sons and daughters who perish in the wake of our collective ignorance. I want to give the Holy Land a resuscitation breath. I want to create space for all who are mourning. I seek refuge in the place beyond vitriol where I am transforming generations of disrepair through simple acts of lovingkindness. This is I why I chose this family, this is what called me to this birth. This is the depth of my love for the Earth and for all of her children.
Creator, help me find the courage to live with fullness of heart, awaken me to the way of peace. To the resolution I wish to see in this world.
Help me love my neighbor, dissolve any sense of enemy, help me live the remedy and be a sheltering tree for any and everybody who is in need. Help me be the light when the world grows too dark to see. Help me show up consciously for all of my brothers and sisters. Diasporas scattered, families shattered, hearts broken, prayers unspoken. Voice for the voiceless. Make of me an instrument of Thy Will. Help me sing Your song of Freedom.
Help me stand hand in hand with all displaced peoples and with this Earth's Holy Land. With my Israeli brothers and sisters. With my Palestinian brothers and sisters. With my Muslim and Jewish kin. Help me begin to embody a living prayer for this worldโs repair, offering Tikkun Olam to all beings whose lives have been senselessly shattered by the war machine. May their memories be a revolution.
May my life be an embodied solution to a world lost in confusion, forgetting her nature, forgetting her true name.
Help me remember that All Life is sacred. Help me see Thee in All.
Please, Creator, hear my prayer.
