Dear Friends,
This Shabbat Sukkot, preparing for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah and the weather getting cooler, I’d like to share three short poems:
Under the Broken Sky: A Prayer for Sukkot
by SuzieB, written as a responsive reading
As the stars twinkle high in the heavens,
Our view is fractured by the schach over our heads.
We see the universe in bits and fragments,
And realize that we too have parts gone missing.
Adonai, why is this so?
Adonai, we know there must be a reason.
In this season of harvest,
We find more than just fields and crops.
In this season of harvest,
We gather into ourselves, parts which seemed just beyond reach.
Adonai, we know this is so.
Adonai, we know you have Your reasons.
After seeking Your forgiveness,
After asking for Your mercy,
After needing the protection of Your sheltering wings,
We find that true redemption comes from return.
Adonai, we have successfully found our way home.
Adonai, we are trying to reintegrate what has been torn asunder.
On Yom Kippur we found our way back to You.
On Sukkot we bring our disparate parts back to ourselves.
Under the broken sky, we admit that we too are broken.
Under the broken sky, we search for our lost pieces.
Adonai, You know our stumbles and misdeeds,
Adonai, You have given us this place of awakening.
Adonai, You show us the road to becoming whole.
Adonai, You never fail to find ways to reveal the holiness in us all.
Amen.
Cracking Joy: A Meditation on the Shift between Zman Simhateinu [The Time of our Rejoicing, a name for Sukkot] and Shemini Azeret
by Devon Spier
My joy is not
Sunset.
Serendipity.
The tallest height
Or the ripest tree.
But rather, a presence that bursts forth from the emptiness.
Unconcerned about the fill of my cup
And committed to being a blessing that grows and pushes up through the cracks, every single day.
Shemini Atzeret: A Poem for Life In-Between
Also by Devon Spier
There is a place where the vines wither and
the earth’s lushness suddenly begins to fade.
In this place the ground cries out to us.
Not with blood, no.
But with ageless liminality.
What went before cannot remain.
And what will be is still unwritten.Let our bodies linger.
As our pasts fall behind.
And our souls seek comfort.
As we descend greater into the fields of our unknowing.Though there are no fruits in the fallowness here
There is still space to move and time to seed.
In the uncertain future of the world’s in-between.
Shabbat shalom and chag sameach,
Rabbi Hannah