Selikhot

I offered this teaching during  Kehilla Community Synagogue's service of Selikhot, or forgiveness, which begins the High Holy Day cycle. During the month that precedes the High Holy Days, the month of Elul, our liturgical tradition enwraps us in the comforting words of Isaiah II and III, reassurances that we've paid our dues, that the time of suffering, of exile from our true selves, our land, our G~d, is ended. We are "con-souled," empowered by love to do the hard work of confession, repair, and return asked of us during the upcoming Days of Awe.

The words below aim to help the spiritual practitioner find a way to enter the traditional liturgy and to own and soften around old patterns that cause suffering, often for others, certainly for ourselves. 


L'shanah tovah tikatevu, may each and every one be inscribed for blessing in the flow of life.

[Tisha B'Av, artwork by Carola de Vries Robles]

We are about to recite for the first time this High Holy Day season the short viddui, the ashamnu, a symbolic litany of sins from A to Z, which we’ll be repeating many times over the course of these Days of Awe.

This alphabetical list is clearly symbolic of the many ways we human beings can fall away from the truth of our beings, our essences. But what can be the purpose of such a numbing repetition of sins—errors, missteps, malicious acts—most of which, we’ve never committed--have we?

The double Torah portion, Nitzavim/Va-yelekh, that was read this morning, on this Shabbat preceding Rosh HaShanah, in synagogues all over the world, begins with these words: “Atem nitzavim ha-yom kulkhem lifnei Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay Elohekhem….  You (plural) are standing right now, this very moment, all of you, before Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay, your Power….”

What a kavannah—what a clear, strong intention—to take us into these Holy Days! My dear teacher, Reb Mimi Feigelson, in her Torah drash for this past week, asks this question: “How are you planning on showing up before G~d this year?” Because in just a few days, we’re about to stand before a holy altar, before a Torah of truth, before our community of friends and loved ones, before the vastness of the universe and the soft murmur of our own hearts on this Rosh HaShanah, at the very head of this new year….kulkhem, the Torah verse says: “all of you.”

Reb Mimi asks us to read this two ways: stand “all of you together,” as an agudat akhat, as a community united in mind and heart, and stand with “all parts of yourself, with everything that’s within each of you.”

The Ashamnu is a confession, an acknowledgment of our all-ness as human beings, individually and together. We don’t say “ashamti, I have sinned, I have fallen away from connection, from wholeness, from self-love and love for my fellow beings,” but “ashamnu, we have sinned, we human beings have caused harm.”

For just a moment, breathe into your belly. Bring your whole body and mind as present ha-yom, in this moment, as you can. Ask yourself, “Have I never felt murderous rage? Have I never thought, ‘if I run into this person right now, or ever again, I could rip their heart out?’ ” If you’ve ever glimpsed even a whiff of this potential in yourself, breathe into it. 

Have you never hesitated to respond to another’s need or request with kindness, harboring the barely conscious thought, "This person doesn’t interest me, I’m better, smarter, richer, more together, than they are?” If you’ve ever had a scornful or arrogant thought, breathe into it. 

Have you never abandoned yourself, rushing to give yourself away when what is really called for is to nurture and conserve your energy? Have you never taken something that wasn’t yours to take? Breathe into your all-ness, feeling at the same time, if you can, the ever-expanding love that is your root and flowering.

The powerful poem we’re about to read by the Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh is about opening the mind and the heart to all of who we are. It suggests that when we look deeply, we can’t help but notice that each one of us is implicated in every flavor of human experience—the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the horrifying. And this awareness—that everything human beings are capable of exists in potential in each one of us—can deepen the compassion that spurs our teshuvah, our at-one-ment, our return.

                       Call Me By My True Names

                       
                       Do not say that I‘ll depart tomorrow

                       because even today I still arrive.

                      
                        Look deeply: I arrive in every second

                        to be a bud on a spring branch,

                        to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

                        learning to sing in my new nest,

                        to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower

                        to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

                        
                        I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

                        in order to fear and to hope.

                        The rhythm of my heart is the birth and

                        death of all that are alive.
  

                        I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

                        and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time

                        to eat the mayfly.


                        I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,

                        and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,

                        feeds itself on the frog.


                       I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

                        my legs as thin as bamboo sticks

                        and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to

                        Uganda.


                       I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

                        who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea

                        pirate,

                        and  I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and

                        loving.


                       I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my

                        hands,

                        and I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my

                        people,

                        dying slowly in a forced labor camp.


                        My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all

                        walks of life,

                        My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.


                        Please call me by my true names,

                        so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,

                        so I can see that my joy and pain are one.


                        Please call me by my true names,

                        so I can wake up,

                        and so the door of my heart can be left open,

                        the door of compassion

                                                —Thich Nhat Hanh


As we rise now to declare “Ashamnu,” to claim responsibility, even for deeds we have not done, let’s do so in the spirit of opening and inviting all that each one of us is and can be, and to all that we are and can be together. Rather than beating our chests in anguish and self-punishment, try with each declaration gently massaging your heart and solar plexus open. Throughout these Days of Awe, let us dedicate ourselves, in some mysterious way and on behalf of the whole community, to healing the splits in consciousness that create all separations, all that which we deem “evil.” Ashamnu, we have sinned. Acknowledging our culpability, our humanness, we open the door to forgiveness. Ashamnu, we have missed the mark. Loving ourselves into wholeness, we each do our small part to be the peace and goodness we want to create.


(said standing before the open Ark)

Ah-yai-yai-yai-yai, Ah-yai-yai-yai-yai, Ah-yai-yai-yai-yai-yai

Who are we? We're dust and spirit,
Children of Heaven, made in Your image,
Ashamnu - yet we 've been wrong, Bagadnu - we've betrayed, 
Gazalnu - we have stolen, Dibarnu dofi - yes, we' ve misspoken.

Who are we? We're sparks of Fire
Our souls filled with light and infinite wisdom,
Heh'evinu  - yet we have injured, V'hir'shanu - we've been malicious,
Zad'nu - we've transgressed, Chamasnu - yes we've been violent.

Who are we? We're one with You
But we have forgotten, we have forgotten!
Tafal'nu sheh'ker - we have slandered, Ya'atz'nu rah - we have misled, 
Ki-zavnu - we have lied, Latznu - yes, we have jeered.

Search your heart, see it through
turn it over, make us new. Ah-yai-yai...

Who are we? We're dust and spirit,
Children of Heaven, made in Your image,
Maradnu - we've been rejecting, Ni'atznu - we've insulted, 
Sararnu - we've turned away, Avinu - we have offended.

Who are we? We're sparks of Fire
Our souls filled with light and infinite wisdorn,
Pashanu - yet we have violated, Tzararnu - we have confused,
Ki'shinu oref - we've been stubbom, Rashanu - yes, we've served evil.

Who are we? We're one with You, 
but we have forgotten, we have forgotten! 
Shichat'nu - we've been wastefirl, Ti'avnu - we have hated, 
Ta'inu - we've been in error, Titanu - yes, we have cheated.

Clear them out, let them go,
Sweep them out, and let your life flow.   Ah-yai-yai...

(from Kehilla Community Synagogue's High Holy Day liturgy, traditional Hebrew, English by R. Burt Jacobson & R. David Cooper)

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