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From Door to Door: A Yom Kippur Prayer for the Chronically Ill

A silhouette of a person holding their arms against the sky, set against a body of water and sunset over mountains

לְדוֹר וָדוֹר נַגִּיד גָּדְלֶֽךָ – From generation to generation (l’dor vador) we will declare Your greatness/L’dor vador nagid gadlecha

 

there’s a message in my muscles but the pain is too loud for me to hear

my tissues are tired but i don’t know why

my brain is spiraling, spooling through a cycle of makework, the maker unknown

am i in control?

oh ancestors, oh higher power, oh beings and nothingnesses

please tell me what i need to know

i am here to listen

i’m sorry for taking the wrong medicine, the countless golden calves, the wrong turns taken and the right ones denied

in each step of intention, I lack knowing

in each not-knowing, I lack consciousness

in each unconscious error, the crime of suffering

i pay my penance in search of return

teshuvah for my ways

teshuvah for your stories

teshuvah for the planet

i seek, but without you i find nothing

please find me and keep me

so our connection can heal the generations

from door to door we recount the greatness

but do we feel it

do we see it

do we know it

we suffer and seek an end

but only in the merging of suffering with enlightenment

will we ever find the beginning

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