TaschlichCasting bread upon the water. On Rosh Hashana, Jews traditionally walk to a natural body of water into which they throw breadcrumbs, symbolic of their sins from the previous year..
This is the giving away
That does not let others partakeÂ
But make.
And that casts out our own suspicions
Exclusions
And holdings.
For our communities are more alive with each other.
It’s the bread crust that saysÂ
I will take my ambition
And my arrogance
And my own aggrandizementÂ
And I will remember my ancestors who only had this much
And the people in our world who now have even less.
What is my plenty to them?
Instead let me offer the crumbs.
Let me pray with them
Walk with them
In such a way that the sins I cast out
Are replaced by their mitzvotLit. Commandment. It is traditionally held that there are 613 mitzvot (plural) in Judaism, both postive commandments (mandating actions) and negative commandments (prohibiting actions). Mitzvah has also become colloquially assumed to mean the idea of a “good deed."
Their kind deeds.
So that all I have is very little in a suddenly empty space.
Emptied of my own ego.
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And emptied, now holy, because only the blessings of the others remain.
