Tayere Khaveyrim,

A gebentsht, gute rosh khoydesh nisn! Blessed & happy rosh chodesh nissan! I am emailing with some tkhines, stories, words of torah, and a little update from the tkhines songwriting cohort: please mark your calendars for the zoom benefit concert on Sunday, May 3, 4pm ET, where you will hear freshly-made tkhines songs. More info is on its way!

~

It’s been a whirlwind of a time since the last mailer. 

On a personal note, my mentor and elder Gloria Krasno became an ancestor, and I was blessed to be part of many aspects of her dying and death process. She was interviewed last November for the Yiddish Book Center’s oral history project, and she had some beautiful morsels of wisdom about prayer/tkhines that I am excited to share when it is made public. 

ICE continues to kidnap immigrants and place them in concentration camps. The US and Israel launched a war in Iran and Lebanon the weekend before purim— which has been hard to digest with the mixing of messianic ideas and purim’s call to wipe out amalek, which people are using to justify their horrific actions. Bombs are still being dropped on families in Gaza, and israeli settlers continue to terrorize Palestinian and Bedouin communities. 

The poet Daliah Lina says,

what is spring 

in a world 

that burns children

the blossoms feel 

like a betrayal

..

spring taught us

flowers rise

from the dead

we rise

through empire dust

and tyrant fire

Many of us have been grieving this weaponization of Judaism, this dangerous partnership with evangelical Christians, and ethno-nationalist imperialism. It’s been hard for many of us to connect to the holidays and to Jewish practice because of the policies and physical manifestations of Jewish teachings. 

I have been approaching these violent texts about purim and amalek the way some Chassidic and Kabbalistic sages approach(ed) them: Every battle can be viewed as an internal battle, and the supposedly evil people called “amalek” can be instead seen as manifestations of internal self-destruction within people. Perhaps I will write more about this another time..but on one foot, this practice would be asking yourself “what are the ways I am being self destructive? What are the ways I am amalek to myself and the people around me? Check out this tkhine from last year’s cohort, which touches on this theme. IF ONLY if only people with power could see how their actions fueled by the trauma of seeking selfish safety is destroying entire lives and lineages, the earth, our collective home. 

I have two recent experiences that have been buoying me that I wanted to share here.

Story 1: I was waiting to board a plane, and plugged my phone into an outlet nearby while having a passionately angry conversation on the phone about the new IHRA laws. These laws are redefining antisemitism, which includes any criticism of israel. They are being pushed in various states across the country, including my home state of wisconsin. Please feel free to click the link to learn more about how to get involved.

Anyways, I was having a conversation about these IHRA laws and the person sitting by the outlets smiled and said, “let’s swap seats— feel free to sit here” I thanked him and he dropped a big smile. 

We boarded the plane and lo and behold! His seat was assigned next to mine. An older person sat next to him and he held her drink white she sat down, and they had a sweet exchange. We all started talking, but he and I kept our conversation going the entire flight. 

He tells me first about his current long distance relationship— how they’ve been together 5 years while his partner is in medical school. He told me how they’ve made it work. He hides letters of encouragement in his partner’s apartment, so if she’s having a rough day, he’ll tell her to look for a hidden letter in a certain book or corner. He gorgeously described their love for each other. They have this grounded, solid foundation of devoted trust-building and deep listening/understanding, which flowers into generous, unconditional love that includes accountability and consistent inner growth. This love he described was so beyond anything I've heard from a new friend/stranger, I felt really touched that he felt comfortable sharing with me.

He shared how he used to scroll and scroll on his phone in the mornings, but now does an hour of embodied yoga stretching each day, and visits his inner wounds that need healing. I asked if he had heard of IFS/ parts work, which is a similar practice, and he said no! He just came to this practice on his own. This embodiment helps him become more connected to both being more joyful and deepening his inner knowing, and this practice fills his cup so he can more generously show up for others with care and service. He said, “our body is the only thing that is fully ours” He shared that if he didn’t have this morning practice, he wouldn’t be able to show up for others in the wider web of care, and that reciprocity works as a consistent flow, and always bounces back in the right time (even if not immediately) !

I asked, “Would you consider yourself a spiritual person?”

“I dunno- I was raised Baptist and technically I’m Christian. I guess I just am becoming more fully me”

I shared that my mentor/teacher Patrick Bellegarde- Smith, who is a Vodou priest, likes to say that “the most spiritual people are often atheists, but they wouldn’t admit they’re spiritual”

We then went on to discuss how our human nervous systems were not designed to incorporate newsflashes 24/7, or to be monitored/ have data extracted from us. It took our ancestors days before they heard news from the town next door! For these reasons, he divested himself from social media, and hears news a little later than most people (yes he does have a system! He doesn’t want to be unplugged from the pain and reality of the world). 

We imagined what phones might look like in the future. Will they be hologram screens over our eyes? Will our access to the internet be from within our minds? We certainly hoped to cling to our peace of mind as long as possible, while phones are still currently external solid screens!

As we landed, the older passenger next to him turned to him and said, “I can tell you are really a good person. Please keep it up”. 

It’s not every day that I meet someone who is moving through life this joyfully, like a chill and humble sage, spreading ease wherever he goes. I told him that I will now be more careful with my phone and social media use in the morning and I feel more empowered to move with intentional embodiment!

Story 2: Some nights I get to put my 2 year old nibling (my sibling’s child) to sleep with books and songs. Recently, she asked me to sing the happy birthday song to put her to sleep, but to myself. So, for about 10 minutes I sang happy birthday to myself on repeat while carrying this sweet sleepy kid on my shoulder. At one point, I wanted to see if she was asleep, so I slipped her name in instead of mine, but she would not let me do that!

I have never sung happy birthday to myself once, let alone for ten minutes, so after holding back my laughter I decided to turn this into a meditative tkhine experience. What if today, or every day, was my birthday?  (fyi diasporic Jews did not historically celebrate or honor individual people’s birthdays, but a lot of us do now) What if I actually were to treat every day like my birthday? A fresh new start to goals and dreams and unfinished projects and creating new neuropathways and rhythms? An opportunity to become more fully me while the chaos and pain of the world is finding its way to all of our corners.

In Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 3:2, the retelling of Torah attributed to Eliezer ben Hirkanus 80-118 C.E., it says:

עד שלא נברא העולם, היה הקדוש ברוך הוא ושמו הגדול בלבד, ועלה במחשבה לברוא את העולם, והיה מחריט את העולם העולם לפניו ולא היה עומד. משלו משל למה הדבר דומה, למלך שהוא רוצה לבנות פלטרים שלו, אם אינו מחריט בארץ יסודותיו ומובאיו ומוצאיו, אינו מתחיל לבנות, כך הקדוש ברוך הוא החריט לפניו את העולם ולא היה עומד עד שברא את התשובה.

Before the world was created, the Holy One, blessed be G-d, with G-d's name alone existed, and the thought arose in G-d to create the world. G-d began to trace the foundations of the world before G-dself, but it would not stand. A parable was told: To what is the matter like? To a king who wishes to build a palace for himself. If he had not traced in the earth its foundations– its exits and its entrances, he does not begin to build. Likewise the Holy One, blessed be G-d, was tracing the plans of the world before G-dself, but it did not remain standing until G-d created teshuva (reconciliation/ reparations/ return).

According to this text, the foundation of the world itself is teshuva. Within the blueprint itself, there are ways to enter and lean in, and ways to exit and move towards new pathways that lead to who knows where– but somewhere!

Building can only happen if the plans, and the foundation itself, are malleable and flexible, with space for mistakes and repair. Mistakes and repair. Mistakes and repair and transformation.

Throughout this time of heavy bombing, I have tried to imagine what teshuva in the future could look and feel like. Is it even possible?? Reparations can’t bring people back from the dead, and they can't take the pain from survivors away.

What would and could teshuva look like, coming from the powerful leaders whose decisions impact so many lives, to the people who benefit financially and materially from stealing resources and land?

Will there be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as in post- apartheid South Africa?

We must keep imagining, and breathing in a world where teshuva and reconciliation is possible. Where we are all dedicated wholly to justice and healing for the past, and ways to create new structures for the present and future.

A tkhine blessing: May the unbelievably corrupt decision makers of our time grapple with their inner amaleks, and may we each all do the same. May our hardened hearts soften, and may we become even more in touch with this sacred earth. And please, Hashem, may there be a teshuva shleyme, a complete and whole teshuva in our lifetime for the atrocities that are currently taking place, and that have been taking place for too long. 

May we all attract and nurture many types and flavors of relationships which include concentric circles of reciprocal, unconditional love and care. May we be rooted in the practice of perpetual becoming, both individually and collectively.

gut shabbes and a freylekhn peysakh when we get there,

der tkhines proyekt

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