Each Precious Hevel

All beings deserve to lay down under a shelter of peace, a sukkot shlomekha, as we pray in hope each day in Hashkeveinu.
This is a holiday to remind us of shelter insecurity in the midst of a housing pandemic.
This is a holiday of the greatest joy, for even living in huts can be the greatest joy if all share in the bounty and the insecurity.

Chag Sameach! All is hevel, is folly, a puff of wind sighing as kohelet reminds us. And yet that very thing is what makes it so precious and precociously wild to insist the hevel has meaning, that your particular particulate in this world is important and divine and dirt and dust. And so is every unhoused neighbor. Shabbat Shalom 💜

Final Curve

For the final day of Elul, as the sun rises

“Final Curve”

When you turn the corner
And run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.

Langston Hughes

Teshuvah Tikkun

Its Elul. It’s nearly Rosh haShannah.

I’m not ready. I’m never ready.

Friends, family, loved ones – I have hurt you. Yes, even you. There is no way to exist without brushing up against the hurts and harms we cause each other. Even people desperately trying to avoid confrontation can’t avoid the heartache of being human. Trust me; I’ve tried.

I would ask your forgiveness for the hurt I’ve cause you. If you do not want to forgive me, I’m so sorry I hurt you that much. My messenger and email are open if you want to tell me how I hurt you, because what is teshuvah – returning – without actual work. I can just listen or have a conversation. I hope these things might help those I’ve harmed.

I hope in the coming year I hurt you less. I hope in the the coming year you are hurt less, that you also hurt fewer people, that all of our compassion grows and turns towards one another.

Love to you and to you all. May it be a beautiful, sweet, meaningful, joyful Rosh haShannah.