by Meryl Becker

Puerto Rico

My connection to Puerto Rico is that I lived there for a year many, many years ago as a VISTA volunteer, and I've been there many times since.
At the time I lived there, I went to services in San Juan on a Friday night and everyone was either American or from another Latin American country, so I assumed there were no Puerto Rican Jews. However, when I was there in 2019, I stayed walking distance from one of the synagogues. Since I wasn't going to be there on Shabbat, I walked over to talk to them. The president there told me that there have been Jews in Puerto Rico since Columbus.  Most of them lived in the more remote mountains in the center of the Island, where they could hide more easily from the Inquisition, so their descendants go to services on Saturday morning, when it is not so hard to drive the distance after work. On a side note, the indigenous people, the Tanios, also went to the mountains to hide from their Spanish conquerors. 

I went to Puerto Rico again this past January and made sure I would be there on a Shabbat morning.  There is a Conservative, a Reform and a Chabad synagogue in San Juan. (There are about 2,000 Jews in Puerto Rico) I went to the Feform one, Temple Beth Shalom. Most of their members are Puerto Rican, but there are some Americans, so the prayer book is in Hebrew, Spanish and English and the service on Friday night is in English and Hebrew and Saturday in Spanish and Hebrew. Luckily, I speak Spanish. 

The morning service was very nice, with lunch, and the people were very friendly, including a family who offered to drive me to my hotel. Even though I'd since read that nowadays most of the Puerto Ricans Jews live in the San Juan area, I really wanted to find Jews who had been there for generations.  I did not find anyone who'd been there for generations, but it was very interesting anyway because it turned out that most of the congregation are converts! I talked to 7 people about their backgrounds. One was American, one grew up in Cuba where he didn't know why his father lit candles on Friday nights, and the rest were converts. When I asked them why they converted they all said the same thing: “It felt like home."

Costa Rica

I've also been to Costa Rica many times. My ex-husband and ex- son-in-law are Costa Rican, but we are still friendly, and I visit their families when I go there. Jews in Costa Rica also came there from the time of the Inquisition, but mostly were absorbed into the population. Then there were later waves after World war I and World War II, and more recently Americans and Israelis retiring there. Today there are about 2500-3000 Jews, mostly in San Jose.  

The largest synagogue that also has a community center and museum is Orthodox, but I went to the Reform one a few years ago mostly because they didn't ask for me to email a copy of my passport, and later because I liked it, since the Reform one also started requiring a passport copy. My experience with services in other countries is that they have a lot more security than we do in the US, even in Costa Rica where they tell me there is a little antisemitism. 

When I was there this past July, the beginning of the service at Congregation Bnei Israel was typical for a Reform service, but then they had eight aliyot, the haftorah and mincha. No sermon. So, it was interesting. The prayer book was also in Spanish, English and Hebrew, although the service was in Hebrew and Spanish. People were very friendly and welcoming and had me stand up and introduce myself. Afterwards there was also a lunch - delicious parve tamales! As far as I know, there was also only one other American. People heard I needed a taxi to get back to my hotel. I could hear people talking and brainstorming and figuring out who could help me with that, until a family going my way offered to drive me, which turned out to be very interesting. In a parallel to my experience in Puerto Rico, they were converts. They had been Evangelical Christians who got interested in Judaism and converted, but because they said  the Orthodox shul wouldn't accept them (I forgot to ask them if they had an Orthodox conversion so I don't know if that was the problem), they were practicing Judaism by themselves at home for quite a while until they finally found this synagogue. When I told them they were now part of the tribe, so if they traveled, they could expect the same warm welcome I received, they actually cheered! As they dropped me off, they asked me to pray for their teenage daughter to find a Jewish husband, since the Jewish community is small and it's not easy.

So, different countries, different language, but same service, and same warm Jewish welcome and connection!

by Laura Tennenhouse 

by Crystal Huff

Sometimes the Havurat Shalom blog features interesting things members have done.  So I shall write about my recent trip to Antarctica!  I am not the only current or former member who has spent time in Antarctica; one current member was at McMurdo Station on Ross Island for 3 months, a former member was at the South Pole for 3 months.

First, a bit about Antarctica.  Antarctica is the southernmost continent with no permanent residents. Antarctica is BIG. No country controls Antarctica - there is a cooperation treaty signed in 1959 and went into effect in 1961 which establishes Antarctica as a zone for peaceful scientific research, prohibits military activity, and holds territorial claims in abeyance. It has been signed by 58 parties, promoting international cooperation and environmental protection in the region. See: Antarctic Treaty.

95% of tourism in Antartica are cruises that leave from Tierra del Fuego (southernmost point in South America), go through the Drake Passage to arrive at the Antarctic peninsula, spend several days on excursions on or near the peninsula, then back through Drake passage and return to Tierra del Fuego.  There are a small number of cruises that go to different parts of Antarctica.  Reputable cruise lines are part of IAATO and are expected to follow their guidelines.

To get to McMurdo Station or the South Pole, that requires getting a work contract to go there, either with a science expedition, or a job with whatever company has the contract to do polar support services. See: Antarctic Support Contract

There are also people who do private expeditions of various types; this is allowed by the Antarctic Treaty. At the end of the blog, I have a reference to someone who has done numerous polar expeditions.

I initially became interested in going to Antarctica back in 1991. A colleague's wife was spending a year wintering over at the South Pole, and I thought this was awesome.  I didn't know if I wanted McMurdo (bigger station, on coast, wildlife) or South Pole (extreme cold, small community, no wildlife), or if I wanted to summer over or do an entire year.  I applied for a job at Antarctic Support Associates.  It didn't happen.  I got to live vicariously through other people's experiences.

About five years ago, I found out that someone I knew in elementary school, Dyan deNapoli, is now a world renowned penguin expert!  I hadn't seen this person in over 40 years.  She periodically gets tapped to be the subject matter expert on these cruises, and when Dyan announced her next cruise, I signed up.  This cruise was with Smithsonian Journeys / Ponant  and was the typical format described above. Dyan warned me about rough seas in the Drake Passage, and since I get motion sickness on a hammock, I decided to get the scopolamine patch.  I saw lots of people with a little patch behind an ear.  I can say, it was very effective.  I didn't get sick at all.  But it is very tiring just walking and staying erect when the ship is being tossed about.

I also chose to do the 4-day pre-cruise extension, hiking in the Patagonia. That was well worth my time, as the trip was wonderful (when would I have another chance to hike in the Patagonia?), and it gave me time to bond with the 13 other people participating.

The trip was pure joy.  How can one not be amused when seeing penguins waddling about, particularly juvenile penguins trying to get the attention of their parents?  And when a seal jumped up on our zodiac, we tourists were in our ignorant bliss reacting to just how close the leopard seal came to us thinking it was so cute. The naturalists said, "Definately not cute," and made sure we were all kneeling on the floor of the zodiac with our hands inside.

We had three subject matter experts on our cruise: The Penguin Lady Dyan deNapoli, Polar Explorer Ben Saunders, and Professional Photographer Jim Preston.  Each gave 3 lectures in their area of expertise, hosted a table at dinner every night, and were generally available to the guests to answer questions.  These folks were all very approachable and a pleasure to spend time with.

Temperatures on the peninsula were pretty mild, generally a bit above freezing.  Unfortunately, this is the area of the world with the most rapid temperature rise. This is a significant problem for the penguins, as the babies hatch with fuzz, and don't go in the water until they have a full set of watertight feathers.  But now it sometimes rains on the peninsula, the babies get waterlogged, and if the temperatures drop, they freeze.

There are four types of penguins on Antarctica - emperor, adele, gentoo and chinstrap.  I saw a LOT of gentoo penguins, and one colony of chinstraps.  Emperor penguins are in a different part of Antartica, and it was late in the season for the adeles, so they had already departed from the peninsula.  I guess their chicks get their waterproof feathers sooner than the others.

My cruise was late in the season, so we saw larger juveniles rather than little chicks.  This time of year also gives us molting elephant seals and lots of whales traversing the water.

To see lots of my trip pictures, go to my travel blog at https://bev2antarctica.blogspot.com. It is better to view on a computer than a phone - some of the pictures will have the wrong aspect ratio on a phone. The blog is a little klunky to navigate.  On both a computer and a phone, you will see the most recent post first.  Although I set my preferences to put all of my posts on one page, it didn't do that.  So on the computer, when you scroll down, you will see a link for "Older Posts". It's not at the bottom of the page; it's before a summary of weirdly selected posts at the bottom.  Keeping clicking on "Older Posts" to work your way back.  On a phone, it's a little easier to see where the navigation buttons are. Click on the right ">" to the right of the "Home" button.  It's got a burnt orange background.

Jim Preston's pictures are spectacular and worth a look at https://www.prespix.com/antartica-the-white-continent.

Dyan's done a number of talks and has written books.  Check it out here: https://thepenguinlady.com.

Find out more about Ben's polar expeditions here: https://bensaunders.com/polar-expeditions.

Antarctica: A Year on Ice is a documentary that shows what it's like to be at McMurdo Station for a year.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2361700/

Since this is a Judaic blog, I should at least mention a couple of Judaic things.  When I was looking into wintering over at the South Pole, I posted a question about how one celebrated Shabbat in a place with one long sunrise in the spring and one long sunset in the fall.  There were six basic answers:

1. Use Jerusalem time.
2. Use the time of the closest Jewish community with regular sunrise/sunset.
3. Pick a time on the clock, use it consistently, end Shabbat 25 hours later.
4. Use candle lighting time of the city most closely associated to.
5. Use the time you would use at home.
6. Religious Jews should not go to the South Pole because of the difficult halachic issues.

And when I was in Bariloche, there weren't many English speakers, but we did run into Israelis. And the local laundromat even markets to Hebrew speakers.

by Aaron Brandes, Aliza Arzt, Larry Rosenwald, Miriam Schwartz and Cindy Blank-Edelman

Why was this Hav Purimspiel different from all other Hav Purimspiels?

It wasn’t the mixed in-person and Zoom attendance (we did that last year).

It wasn’t the script-writers (mostly the “usual suspects”).

It wasn’t the extensive rehearsals (there were none).

It was how to respond to the on-going violence by Jews initiated in response to violence against Jews.

This year Aliza Arzt began the spiel by quoting from the Book of Esther Chapter 9 about the violence we executed on the day the King had given his irrevocable permission for his people to kill the Jewish citizens of his empire. The second section set a new tone.

Speaker 1: And so it goes throughout history. Jewish communities have been threatened many times. And sometimes they are able to save themselves. And sometimes that saving is carried out effectively with dignity. And sometimes that saving reduces them to the level of their immoral enemies.
 
Speaker 2: We declare an end to the Purim of revenge and destruction! We dedicate this Purim to the hope of redemption, of creative negotiation and reconciliation.
 
Speaker 1: And if that’s not possible?
 
Speaker 2: Then we dedicate this Purim to one of appropriate defense, protection of innocent civilians and the ultimate triumph of hope and mercy.
 
Speaker 1: Ken y’hi ratzon! So may it be!
 
Every year Larry Rosenwald introduces the dramatis personae in dazzling rhyme beginning “Come in, come in you’re welcome here, may (character) please appear.” This year he had something to say about our moral circumstances.
 
MARSHELIK:
(comes in first, and alone)

            Let’s keep in mind what Aliza’s said,
and with no further ado, go ahead.
            Zayt zhe yidn sha un shtil,
mir fangen on dem purimshpil!! –
which is, in Yiddish words, to say
we’ll now begin the Purim play! - 
Bid us now enter, to relate
a tale of strife between courage and hate:
of how a monarch chose a bride,
of how a scheming villain tried
to kill our folk, for malice alone;
of how the bride approached the throne,
proclaimed her tribe, pleaded her case,
and moved the king to amazing grace;
how deadly plots turned cause of laughter,
and  - some – lived happily ever after.
(Among the people not alive,
when the tale is done, are seventy-five
thousand Persians, young and old,
of every gender, stiff and cold
in death. And we the Jews are those
who’ve murdered all we think our foes.
It makes you wonder, who’s the true
villain  in our story, and who
the victim . . . well – I’ll leave that to you.)
            Enough!  It’s time to meet our cast,
from regal first to rebel last. 
Come in, come in, you’re wanted here;
let Shushan’s mighty king appear!
 
Of course, the usual political satire continued, as in this excerpt from Miriam Kadima’s skit.

Queen Vashi:  As you all know, the Monarchy is causing great pain to 99% of the People. Kushites are losing their cushy positions and being forcibly relocated to Kush, one can no longer get a shoeshine in Shushan, peasants are being charged for water they gather from the river, and half the Palace staff has been sacked!  King Trumpēlonōsh is issuing Royal Decrees faster than a sparrow flies!

Archivist:  African, or European sparrow?

For the chapter where the King can't sleep, Aaron Brandes replaced the servants reading from the Royal Chronicles with an AI chatbot. The chatbot may be more truthful than the King, but it lacks a sense of context.

King: So my new Gold card give foreigners a path to citizenship for only 5 million. Another 5 million gives you premium access to me. What do you think?

Chatbot : Well as long as they aren’t representatives of another government, you won’t be violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution.

King:  That clause didn’t bother me before. I say
Emoluments Clause, Santa Clause, I’m a rebel with just
one cause – me.
 
Chatbot : Did you know that Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American coming-of-age movie starring James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. Directed by …

King:    Hey I’ve been thinking, my kingdom may go from the Redwood Forests of Hodu to the Gulf Stream Waters of Cush - but I’d like to add some place with a nice view of Russia. I’m thinking Alaska.

Chatbot :  Alaska, purchased from Russia in 1867, is the biggest state in Shushan. It is 663,267 square miles of rich broad land that has produced billions of dollars of gold and oil as well as fish, furs, and timber. 

And it wouldn’t be a Havurah Purimspiel without a musical finale, courtesy of Cindy Blank-Edelman

[Sung to the tune of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie]
 
The sun’ll come out tomorrow.
Bet your last tzedakah that tomorrow
There’ll be sun.
 
Just thinking about tomorrow
Helps us to go on despite the sorrow.
We’ve begun.
 
When we’re stuck with a year of fear and hatred
That’s the time when we need to read Torah. Ohhhh….
 
The sun’ll come out tomorrow
And we’ve gotta work for that tomorrow
With bracha…
 
Tomorrow, tomorrow, we’ll be here tomorrow
Right here at the Havurah.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, come join us tomorrow
Right here at the Ha—vu—rah!

by R Feynman

By Ralph Chadis

It was 1980-ish, and I, having grown up in a Reform Congregation, wanted to see what a more Jewish way of Jewish was like. I didn’t have a clue what that meant. I knew I didn’t want that wall thing between men and women; I did want more of the traditional stuff (whatever that means); I didn’t want a choir loft with an organ; and I was terrified there would be Hebrew.

Someone suggested Havurat Shalom – in a house? Oye! Some folks sat on the floor? Oye gevalt! But I was greeted with a big smiling hug from Reena Kling. I stayed for the service. A few weeks later I returned, then again. I figured out that after the Torah thingy there was a discussion (“Dee-Vah”?). Eventually I said something, and no one laughed. One day I heard someone say, “What does that Rabbi know about meat? He’s a vegetarian.” That was in present tense about some Rabbi a few centuries back.

I was hooked. I was greeted by the folks as one of them! I decided that when I wanted to do whatever it is they do there I would go there to do it. The High Holidays were crazy – such crowds, and all day. What were they doing? Oye vey!
I felt like I was marinating in this Jewish stuff. I was learning; learning that this stuff can be learned. It was interesting, and getting more  so; eventually I became curious. One day I went to Israel Book Shop and asked for Etz Hayim and they knew what I meant! I mean I knew what I meant.

So, I continued to marinate – trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.

These days I’ve learned to follow the traditions and think I know enough to say intelligent things; I listen to the congregation sing together; I still don’t sit on the floor. I give D’vrei Torah; I’m learning Hebrew and studying Talmud - it’s not so hard: confusing, annoying, edifying, interesting, and it makes me think one teaspoon at a time.

That’s all I have to say. I need to go and marinate – while standing on one foot.

Thank you all for the patient teaching.

by Aliza Arzt

And the Word of the Week is . . .
 
Knowing Hebrew is an essential skill at the Havurah for getting the most out of davenning and it can feel like an insurmountable challenge for some people.  “Knowing Hebrew” includes being able to read, having an essential vocabulary and having enough knowledge of the grammar to understand the prayers.  The first two, reading and having a prayer vocabulary, are the easiest to learn and can substantially increase the understanding of prayers.
 
Enter “Word of the Week.”  In 2020, we began this task with “Letter of the Week,” when we began our weekly Zoom “Not Just for Kids Service.”  Once we finished the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, we began to introduce a new word each week.  The “Word of the Week” goes out to Havurah members and associate members every Wednesday evening.  If you don’t get these emails, consider becoming an associate member, or, if you already are one, check your email on Thursday mornings! Words are chosen for their usefulness in connecting to davenning and, if possible, to correspond to upcoming holidays.  Each word is accompanied by a translation of the word, some information about how it relates to similar words and some “thought questions” about the word. The words are never transliterated; recipients are encouraged to figure out how to read it or to come to the Friday evening Zoom service (6:00 at this time of year) to talk about it.  Also included in the email is the word written in large, outlined letters.  Recipients are encouraged to color the words.  I do it every week.  I find that it’s quick, and very restful.  We have been through about 5 “Word of the Week” cycles, so there are 4-6 words for each letter of the alphabet.  At the 30-minute service, we discuss the word and the questions that I’ve raised in the email, and also sing or learn a familiar prayer containing a form of the word.
 
Here’s an example of a “Word of the Week” email:
 
The word for this week begins with the letter “Alef” (א). Here it is: אוֹר, which means "light".  In the Torah, God creates light on the first day (chapter 1 verse 3) but doesn't create the sun, moon and stars until the fourth day.  How do we have light without the sun, moon and stars?  Light is also one of the "big three" themes of the morning service.  The other two are "love" (which also starts with an א) and "redemption" (this was our word of the week for ג).   The "light" of the morning service is more than daylight.  Think about some other ways that "light" is used and you'll be able to figure out how light is described in the service.
 
I understand how learning a new language, especially one with a different alphabet, can be very difficult.  Currently I’m working on learning (some) Arabic and Cantonese.  Although I’m already literate in Arabic, I’m not nearly literate in Cantonese, but every day I spend about 15 minutes with my phone app (“Drops”) doing a lesson.  Repeated brief exposure to a new language and/or new alphabet helps to reinforce learning.  It doesn’t take much time, just willingness to spend these brief periods.
 
During the past few months, we’ve been doing a “review of Words of the Week” and we’re halfway through the alphabet.  I’ve chosen 1-2 words that we’ve already done for each letter, focusing on the most relevant and important words from the davenning.  I’ve also been creating flashcards (Hebrew only) for each letter.  They can be found here:
 
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGJ8nqliq0/D7My9JTciWG1KhPpKaD_0g/edit
 
If you have any interest in improving your Hebrew skills, even moderately, consider the following: desiring to do this is a good start, but if that’s where it ends, there will be no progress.  Spending as little as 5 minutes a day looking at and reading essential words results in progress.  If you’d like to have a community to do this with, consider joining us at the weekly Friday night “Not Just for Kids Service”.

by Ruth Abrams

by Larry Rosenwald, Laura Tennenhouse
and Aliza Arzt

It was impossible, this year, to write something for the newsletter about the High Holidays that took no account of the attacks of October 7th and the war in Gaza.  But it was equally impossible to have just one person write something; we are a diverse community, and no one voice can represent it.  So we invited members to contribute a reflection, and below are the reflections we received.  The writers wrote independently, without any attempt at coordination, and any points of connection between one reflection and another are accidental.

By Larry Rosenwald

It is impossible, for me at least , to enter the Days of Awe without being urgently aware of the Hamas attacks of last October 7th, of the Israeli hostages still in captivity, and of the Israeli war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, many of them children.
           
We might, of course, regard the Days as a refuge, however temporary, from those horrors, and turn to thinking about teshuvah as if we could do that thinking without remembering those horrors.  No doubt some will, and I think I can see where they’re coming from;  we all need refuges, even those who are denied them, as the hostages are denied them, Palestinians living in Gaza are denied them. 
           
I myself, though, cannot make such a separation;  any mode of teshuvah severed from the war in Gaza would feel empty to me, and weightless.
           
What mode of teshuvah, then, would I connect with that war?
           
I am drawn to passages in the machzor about speech.  Speech, in relation to that war, is pretty much all I have, mine to use or misuse.  “All I have is a voice to unpack the folded lie,” as W. H. Auden wrote.  What will the machzor teach me about that?
           
I am tempted every year to chant the al cheyt quickly, carried along by the nusach and the feeling of being in community with others chanting.  But the al cheyt is an ordered list, a form I love, and like other lists it has its priorities.  Among them are speech, what we do with our mouths, our words:  bevitui sefatayim, b’dibur peh, b’tume’at sefatayim, b’tipshut peh, bilshon hara, the sin we have sinned before you in idle chatter and the way we talk, in foul speech and foolish discourse, in speaking badly of others.
One might regard these sentences as describing modes of speech that we simply need to refrain from, preferring silence to the misuse of speech. We have sinned by way of loshn hore, “slander” more or less, so all we need to do is not commit that sin, be silent when tempted to say that kind of thing. 
           
Not a bad idea, often:  to hold back, to refrain from speech with all its dangers.  And that certainly is what we are taught in the meditation at the end of the Saturday morning Amidah:  “guard my tongue from evil and my lips from lying;  may my soul be silent – nafshi tidom -  towards those who insult me, may my soul be as dust to them.”
           
But not a sufficient idea, nor the only idea the text allows.  Sometimes our sins of speech are to be remedied not by humbler speech, by softer speech, but by more louder speech, bolder speech.  And I say this not only because I hold that view in my own life – “silence is death,” after all - but because our texts, some of them at any rate, tell us that too.  “Do it that my soul may sing to you and not be silent, v’lo yidom,” says Psalm 30, for example.  And then there is Jonah.  Jonah’s failure, in relation to God’s first command, is that he remains silent and does not rebuke.  Silence can be a sin.  After Jonah repents, he breaks his silence and speaks.  What he says to the Ninevites is simple and direct:  “forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown,” nothing more than that, nothing less than that.  He does not speak harshly, he does not make ad hominem attacks.  Nor, however, does he speak in humility.  He does not seek no dialogue.  He does not say, I see your point of view, I see where you’re coming from, I confess that I may be wrong, I imagine that the truth lies somewhere between us. His judgment is absolute.  Hence, I imagine, his fear of being disbelieved, rejected, stoned, slaughtered.  But he spoke what he was given to speak.
           
When Yom Kippur is over, I shall for the most part go back to being the civil and courteous person I was (or think I was) before it, as Jonah goes back to being Jonah after his action of rebuke.  But only for the most part, I hope. 
           
I keep thinking in this connection of some of the last sentences of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which seem to me a guide to distinguishing between moments for listening and moments for rebuking.   “If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience,” he writes, “I beg you to forgive me.”   But then he writes, “If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.” Not quite my language, but it teaches us this, that if sometimes we need forgiveness for overstatement and impatience,  at other times we need forgiveness for understatement and patience.  If sometimes our speech is not temperate enough, at other times it is not intemperate enough, not prophetic enough.
           
I hope in this new year to have the wisdom to discern when I need to be temperate and when I need not to, and the courage to act in accord with the instructions that wisdom provides.

By Laura Tennenhouse

One of the things I like about Yom Kippur services is how connected I feel with the community. It’s “we have sinned” and “forgive us,” and the threat of being “cut off from your people” is meant to be scary. I’m often not clear in my own mind how much that “we” means “the people in the room,” or “all the Jewish people” or “all the people in the world.” All are so very important. 
 
I don’t remember who it was that came to me last fall and said I shouldn’t just cry about the war in Gaza; I should do something, I should speak up, I should go to a protest and demand a ceasefire. It seemed like a good idea. I was still reeling from the horrors of October 7th, and yet I couldn’t imagine any number of Palestinian deaths that could make it right. The devastation was escalating and a frightening number of people seemed to want genocide. I went looking for a Jewish group to protest with, because I was uncertain and afraid of standing next to antisemites while I yelled at my government about the state of Israel being wrong. I was shocked by how many people said, “You are not Jewish.” Not merely, “You’re wrong,” or “how dare you say such a dangerous thing,” but trying to cut me off from my people.
 
In a time of war like this, the Yom Kippur hope of reconciliation, tshuva, and connection is hard to even reach for. (There might be a ceasefire agreement in a few weeks but even if both sides sign it would take a long time to rebuild peace and even longer to restore trust.) So am I part of the community of the whole world? I cannot speak for Gaza, any more than I could speak for Afghanistan. I can only make the roughest effort to beg for their lives. Am I part of the community of the people of Israel? A lot of American Jews don’t think I am, but the people of Israel is bigger than they are. And I am part of the community of Havurat Shalom. Which I know doesn’t always agree with me, but never tries to cut me off from my people.

From Lament to Promise
By Aliza Arzt

Although you’re reading this around High Holiday time, it was actually written on Tisha b’av and Eicha (the Book of Lamentations) is very much on my mind. The feelings expressed at the end of the Book of Lamentations resonate greatly with the “triple dread” that surrounds me daily: the
situation in the Middle East, the upcoming presidential election and the plight of unsheltered immigrants in Massachusetts (not to mention everywhere else). Two verses at the end of Chapter 5 of Lamentations highlight the pain, worry and powerlessness that have skewered many of us this past year. Here is verse 17:

ה ִלֵּבנוּ ַעל־ֵאֶּלה ָחְשׁכוּ ֵעיֵנינוּ
ֶו
ַ:
על־ֶזה ָהָיה ָד
Because of this our hearts are sick, because of these our eyes are dimmed

Verse 21:
ָנשׁוָּבה ַחֵּדשׁ ָיֵמינוּ ְּכֶקֶדם
ְי ֹהָוה | ֵאֶליָך ְו
ֲ:
הִשׁיֵבנוּ
Take us back God, to Yourself and let us come back; renew our days as of old!
These two verses, juxtaposed, express an unsurprising message: things are terrible; make it better, God. The second verse would make a good and hopeful end to the Book of Lamentations. But it’s not the end of the book. There’s one more verse:

ִּ:
כי ִאם־ָמ ֹאס ְמַאְסָּתנוּ ָקַצְפָּת ָעֵלינוּ ַעד־ְמ ֹאד
For truly, You have rejected us, bitterly raged against us

Feel free to substitute “life”, “politics”, “inhumane behavior” or anything else that we tend to focus on for “God” if it’s more comfortable. Many of us feel powerless to do anything except rage and cry. We have no answers. We have no solutions. We have only tears and anger.

Even though the book of Lamentations ends with despair, when we chant the book on Tisha b’Av, we don’t stop there. We repeat verse 21 as we beg God to help us to return, to do “tshuva”. I like this idea of ending on a note of hope, but I don’t like the last word “דםֶקֶכְּ“,” as of old”. Why should things go back to the way they used to be? Why go back to (or continue with) insisting on one correct view, one victim, one villain, one solution? Where has it gotten us? Even our own Tanach (Bible) has moments when it rises above the usual scenarios of conquest and destruction that characterize biblical “international relations”. Consider Isaiah (19:23-25):

In that day, there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians shall join with the Egyptians and the Egyptians with the Assyrians, and then the Egyptians together with the Assyrians shall serve [God]. In that day, Israel shall be a third partner with Egypt and Assyria as a blessing on earth; for God of Hosts will bless them, saying “Blessed be My people Egypt, My handiwork Assyria, and My very own Israel”

ָנשׁוָּבה ַחֵּדשׁ ָיֵמינוּ
ְי ֹהָוה | ֵאֶליָך ְו
ֲ:
הִשׁיֵבנוּ
Take us back God, to Yourself and let us come back; renew our days!