May the Schwartz Be With You
Kol Nidre: Alone, Together
Tonight we gather feather, candle, and spoon
to begin our bedikat, our search, not for chametz
but for chet – all the places we missed the mark
but might fail to find if we turn inward
only briefly or take a broad sweep to our soul
as if it is a ballroom and not a labyrinth.
to begin our bedikat, our search, not for chametz
but for chet – all the places we missed the mark
but might fail to find if we turn inward
only briefly or take a broad sweep to our soul
as if it is a ballroom and not a labyrinth.
Tonight asks us to begin the task of claiming
not only the glaring errors, the terrible math
where we treated relationships like transactions
rather than the precious stones that line the walkway
to our battered hearts, not only the miscalculations
that make us wince in shame
or the losses for which we carry undeniable blame.
not only the glaring errors, the terrible math
where we treated relationships like transactions
rather than the precious stones that line the walkway
to our battered hearts, not only the miscalculations
that make us wince in shame
or the losses for which we carry undeniable blame.
Tonight whispers: The quieter work is harder.
The hidden corners where you harbor
rigid resentments, erect walls of judgment,
squirrel away the slights and slanders
that felt warranted, even holy, at the time.
This candlelight is dim and soft, requiring
you to move slowly through this vertigo
of self-examination.
The hidden corners where you harbor
rigid resentments, erect walls of judgment,
squirrel away the slights and slanders
that felt warranted, even holy, at the time.
This candlelight is dim and soft, requiring
you to move slowly through this vertigo
of self-examination.
The feathers you collected all year round –
red-tailed hawk, wild turkey, mourning dove –
now do the slow, gentle work of clearing
space in your being for more divine breath,
breath that warms the hardest words.
red-tailed hawk, wild turkey, mourning dove –
now do the slow, gentle work of clearing
space in your being for more divine breath,
breath that warms the hardest words.
No spoon is small enough to measure the moments
that slowly crowded out the room you now ready
for God, that humble house guest who comes
every year on this day, asking us to turn
around and look within to really see:
the hurt we inflicted, the havoc we wreaked,
the dogma we wore like armor, the hubris
we hugged instead of our loved ones,
the grasping that left our hands bleeding,
the hopelessness that left us quaking
and doubting the goodness Hashem created.
that slowly crowded out the room you now ready
for God, that humble house guest who comes
every year on this day, asking us to turn
around and look within to really see:
the hurt we inflicted, the havoc we wreaked,
the dogma we wore like armor, the hubris
we hugged instead of our loved ones,
the grasping that left our hands bleeding,
the hopelessness that left us quaking
and doubting the goodness Hashem created.
Tonight, we begin anew.
Tentative, reluctant,
maybe a little frightened.We do this work alone.
We do alone, together.
Tentative, reluctant,
maybe a little frightened.We do this work alone.
We do alone, together.
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