The Raw Material of the Notes During the Month of Av

We know what we have done,
But we don’t know what to do.

We watch, helplessly,
As power blames power,
As polarization entrenches
And solution-seeking
Is trampled under foot.

We have been here before.
We dread; we are living memory.

Listen.

For two and a half thousand years,
Three times a day,
We have prayed
To be gathered
In order that
The wisdom of our judges
Rules over us
Through hesedLit. Kindness It is said in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) that the world stands on three things: Torah (learning), Avodah (worship), and Gemilut Hasidim (acts of kindness). verakhamin,
Loving-kindness and compassion;
Vanquishing the enemy within,
Affording the spaciousness
For redemption to grow.

We are the people
Who build sanctuaries
Through prayers
And words
And letters
And silence.

Listen.
We are the people
Who know utterances,
Set loose vibrations
That shake the Cosmos
Into The-Ever-Becoming,
Animated by the Moral Code
That informs it.

We are the people
Who must know
We are not the only ones
Who weep;
Sometimes we are
Complicit in
The tears of Others.
May our mourning be naked
For the sake of all of Creation.
And when our crescendo
Of grief departs,
May the cries of every neshama
Be rendered into
Notes of comfort,
In this time
Of the 10th,
And Final,
Song of Creation.
In order to fly,
Birds have been gifted
Two wings:
A right
And a left.
But it is the heart
In the creature’s center,
That enables it
To live.