Elul Asanas #2: Story Meditations on Repair in a Time of Genocide

My grandparents were visibly Jewish all year round; my parents, much more assimilated, observed Jewish traditions only a few, very heightened times of year. In the months my father was dying, I watched him return to Jewish traditions in a much more intimate and physical way. I remember his crying as he explained to me what these traditions meant to him, and we read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning together.?

As we get close to what Jewish people call the Days of Awe – the long week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when, it is said, the Book of Life is open and our destiny is sealed for the coming year – I feel the weight of the traditions I have taken on over the years and share them here with the intention of giving everyone, including myself, a bit of grace for all the places we’ve failed in the past year.?

This second set of Story Meditations are closely linked to things many Jewish people do, individually and collectively, at this time of year. I invite you to try doing any one of these actions, as if your body is a prayer in motion, for a day. And let me know how it goes either here or [email protected] .?

Since writing the first set, I have also taken on the traditions and possibility of repair with a number of people I haven’t spoken to for nearly a year, in some cases much longer. If you would like to study this process more, I recommend Rabbi Jericho Vincent – @thealef on instagram – and Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.?

I would like to thank Kamal Almashharawi, Jesi Kelley, Jed Kwartler, Rita Sadhvani, and Rev angel Kyodo williams’s Embodied Social Justice community for discussing these ideas and holding me accountable.?

May you be inscribed for a good year. G’mar chatimah tovah.?

1. True repentance requires that we take responsibility for our own actions first.?

The arc of repentance Jewish people take on in the month of Elul requires that we ask others for forgiveness before we can ask the Universe to grant us peace in the coming year.?

Traditionally, one says, “If there is anything I’ve done in the past year to hurt or offend you, be it intentional or unintentional, please forgive me.” I find it very humbling to approach one person at a time in this spirit, as if to say, “It’s likely that sometimes I’ve hurt you, and some of those times I intended to hurt you.” I experience this as much more honest than the candy-coated way we often approach conflicts, acting as if they are not even there.?

We are required to ask each person – three separate times – to forgive us. If they refuse all three attempts, then we may stop asking. I imagine my ancestors going around to the friends they interacted with every day and humbling themselves, again and again, in this way. Even if the person you have harmed does not release you, you are responsible for doing the work to understand how you have caused harm and to release yourself, over time, through prayer, repentance and good works.?

What is something you do habitually that causes harm to yourself or others? Follow the first word that comes to mind and wrap as much detail as possible around that act you repeat often, almost on auto-pilot. Where are the moments you could break into that habit to make a change?

2. What if the harm you caused flows from systemic injustice – or something else you can’t control – or an instance where you didn’t intend to cause harm??

You might ask, “Do I need to repent for mistakes I made inadvertently, not meaning to cause the other person harm?”?

The Jewish answer is “yes.” In these person-to-person apologies, the traditional words are “whether I have hurt you intentionally or unintentionally.”?

Our ancestral tradition knows that sometimes we mean to hurt other people, and sometimes we don’t mean to cause harm and yet we do.?

This idea that how we understand what we are doing (intent) and how the other person feels it (impact) are often not the same is at the heart of restorative justice. Justice, in this context, is the process of restoring integrity – order and peace – to the victim, the perpetrator, and the community. This process is intended to balance individual and collective needs; it takes time; it is a shift in our way of being, not a one-and-done quick fix.?

The phrase “intended or unintended” also helps us step into the space of systemic inequities we have inherited and perpetuated – intentionally or not – and take responsibility for how these inequities cause harm to others.?

Being responsible not just for our intent but also for our impact enables us to enter the other person’s point of view and see the situation that harmed them from their point of view. Eric Butler, who brought restorative justice to public schools in Oakland, often began this work by talking about his own inner conflicts and failures. I highly recommend Circles , the documentary about Eric, in this season when we seek justice for all people.?

And I invite you – the next time someone has the courage to say you have harmed them, and you know that wasn’t your intention – to open up a space where you see not only your good intention but also the inadvertent harm it caused someone else, and to trace the arc of your story from defending yourself to defending the rights and integrity of the other person.?

Describe a time there was a gap between your intent (what you meant) and your impact (how someone else experienced what you did). What did you learn from this experience? What would you do differently next time??

3. It is traditional to read Psalm 27 two times a day each day of Elul.?

Psalms are songs. King David’s songs. King David was also a poet and musician, and he seems to have loved both men and women. Jesus, it is said, descended from him.?

Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

3 Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.

4 One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in their temple.

5 For in the time of trouble they shall hide me in their pavilion: in the secret of their tabernacle shall they hide me; they shall set me up upon a rock.

6 And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in their tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.

7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

8 When thou said, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

9 Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.

10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.

11 Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.

12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.

13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

14 Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and they shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

King James Version (public domain, modernized)

I think of my ancestors who could not read and who owned very few books memorizing these words and passing them down from generation to generation. This year I did read a psalm each day, with Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah” on repeat.?

Meditate on Psalm 27 for a day and write about how it works its way through your body, mind, and emotions.

4. Another Elul tradition is to listen to the sound of the shofar each day of Elul.??

The shofar is made from a ram’s horn, a reminder of how Jewish ancestral traditions were tied to a world of animals, including animal sacrifice. In the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22, Abraham is about to kill his own son in the name of his newfound religion when he hears the Universe call to him and he replaces his son with a ram.?

When I first heard that story about Abraham nearly killing Issac, my body wanted to run away so much I could barely stay in the room. This idea that our parents might kill us in the name of some ideal reverberates through generations of Jewish people.?

Listen to the shofar . What does the sound remind you of? What does it call you to do today? Do that thing first and write about it.?

5. Jewish people think of repentance as collective work, enacted by the entire Jewish community, assembled together, once a year.?

The Jewish drama of repentance and repair enacted on Yom Kippur suggests, again and again, that this work is communal in nature.?

When we gather together as a community at the Kol Nidre service, on the eve of Yom Kippur, we assemble as if we are in a court, standing before the Universe open and available to change as individuals and as a community.?

Seven times during Yom Kippur day, we hold ourselves responsible – “I have sinned” we say silently to ourselves – and then we repeat those same prayers aloud as a community, as if each of us is responsible for each of the sins anyone has committed – “We have sinned.”

We tap our heart to acknowledge the hurt caused to others by each of these sins, whether we or someone else has committed them. These include sins we commit in the marketplace, sins we commit in our homes, and sins we commit by not caring for strangers, the most important covenant we have as a people. None of us is free from all of these things in any given year.?

This idea of collective responsibility seems rooted not in some judgemental god on high, but a more compassionate spirit – a loving parent to their prodigal child perhaps – where we lend the best version of ourselves to help the best version of the other person into the world. We are both that guiding parent and that continuously evolving child, again and again.?

Perhaps the thing we need for our own hearts right now is more like a gentle rub, a reminder that whenever we harm others we harm ourselves as well. And when we do not care for ourselves, we cannot care for anyone else either.?

As you do your story meditation today, rub your heart while you write. How does that small act of self care change the way you think about yourself and other people??

6. We ask for forgiveness in advance, for the Universe knows we are human and we will fall short of our boldest possibilities, soon and often.?

Before we place this year’s mistakes in front of the court, we ask in advance to be forgiven for the year to come. The phrase “Kol Nidre” that opens Yom Kippur prayer means “all vows.” Most people think we are asking some figure of judgment to forgive us for what we have done wrong in the past year. But in the Hebrew we are actually asking – in advance – to be forgiven for the vows we know we will break, the mistakes we know we will make in the year to come.?

What’s something you are likely to mess up before even the first day of the new year is through? How might you shift that tendency even the tiniest bit, again and again, giving yourself and others grace for change??

7.? REPENT, RETURN, REPAIR?

Yom Kippur is the Sabbath of Sabbaths and this year the Day of Atonement falls on Shabbat.?

• We dress in white, as if facing death
• We don’t wear leather or even bathe beyond our fingertips
• We don’t brush our teeth
• We abstain from food, water and all physical pleasure

In all of these ways, we are symbolically separating ourselves from the corporeal world as we stand together as a community, individually and collectively taking responsibility for all we have done and all we have failed to do for peace, people, and the planet we all share.?

This year, we have much to face individually and as a Jewish community. May you be granted an easy fast and a year of peace.??

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