Category: Poetry

Categories
Healing Poetry

“We Shall Prevail”: A Poem for Unprecedented Times

When I was an undergraduate, I took a summer class in Shakespeare. My professor started every class by reciting a sonnet. When teaching a play, he admonished us to pay attention to the songs. Our tradition embraces the same wisdom – witness the Song at the Sea, the Song of Deborah, or all 150 Psalms. Here is my poem, my song, for these challenging times.

We Shall Prevail: A Poem for Unprecedented Times


We are living in a strange moment.
Nothing we have ever experienced before..
Some of us have seen war.
And pressed hard on the muddy floors of foxholes..
Some of us have faced illness.
And watched the drip of IVs restore life in our veins..
Some of us have lost our life savings.
And wondered if just enough will still be enough.
To live our lives..
All of us have lost loved loves.
And felt the finality of death sting our souls.

But now we are in an unprecedented moment.
Not some of us but all of us.
Not a recitation, a Passover plague,
Or a lesson about a 14th century catastrophe.
With the Angel of Death leading rats.
Through the streets of dying medieval cities.
We are not in the Philadelphia of the Yellow Fever.
Or the pandemic of 1918 during the First World War.
Which viciously cut down young lives like a silent machine gun.
With bullets forged from bacteria.

We are living in a strange, unprecedented moment.
Unfortified by the Olympian fortresses of modern science.
Which has yet to create a synthetic shield to a microscopic virus
That penetrates all human armor.

We are living a moment of growing, personal isolation
Increasingly instructed to self-isolate,
To withdraw from society and sports and entertainment
And even simple, familiar acts of faith.
No one is saying it out loud but the message is clear
“You must be strong alone,
You need to be disciplined and smart,
And cautious and vigilant.”

Tradition teaches to live with a pure heart,
Science says to live with clean hands.
Now is the time to collect our inner selves
And to be strong alone
Until the time comes again When we can be strong together.

Until then
Until that day
Let us resolve that we shall prevail.

– Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, PhD

March 13, 2020

Rabbi Lance J. Sussman Ph.D., is the senior rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, and the Chair-Elect of the Board of Governors of Gratz College. A historian of the American Jewish experience, Sussman has taught at Princeton, Binghamton University (SUNY), and Hunter College.

Categories
Inclusion inclusivity Poetry Prayer

In Unity and Hope

This prayer was written by Alden Solovy and Rabbi Ilene Harkavy Haigh at the 2019 URJ Biennial in response to the many conversations around politics, policy, and the many challenges facing Jews in America and beyond. As we enter into Shabbat during the largest gathering of Jews in North America, we come together physically and spiritually in unity and hope. 

How fair are your tents, O Jacob,
When we stand together,
In unity and love,
In the the name of hope and harmony.

How fragile are our tents
When our fears divide us
When we allow outside winds
To blow within.

Who but You,
Ruach Elohim,
Can define who we are?
What keeps us strong.
What keeps us whole.

Who but us,
Klal Yisroael,
Can shield us,
Carrying each other
As one against the storm?

How fair are our tents, O Israel,
When we stand together,
In the name of unity,
In compassion, in strength,
For our children,
And for our children’s children.

Ken yihi ratzon.

Alden Solovy is a liturgist and poet who has written five books including This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day and This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, both from CCAR Press. He is currently the Liturgist-in-Residence at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Rabbi Ilene Harkavy Haigh is the rabbi at Congregation Shir Shalom in Woodstock, Vermont and has been the recipient of the Bonnie and Daniel Tisch Leadership Fellowship, the Michael Chernick Prize in Rabbinic Literature, and the Weisman Memorial Prize in Homiletics, among others.

Categories
Books Healing Poetry Prayer spirituality

Book Excerpt: “Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry and Mindfulness Practice,” By Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar

CCAR Press is honored to release Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar’s latest book, Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry and Mindfulness Practice. This collection includes prayers for personal use, prayers for use at communal gatherings, prayers and readings for moments of grief and moments of joy, a collection of daily Psalms, and focus phrases and questions for meditation. Rabbi Kedar’s new book is available for purchase now.

Below, we are share one of the many inspiring passages found in Amen.

Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry and Mindfulness Practice, and other publications by Rabbi Kedar, are available for purchase here.

“The Archaeologist of the Soul”

I suppose that the archaeologist
delights in brokenness.
Shards are proof of life.
Though a vessel, whole, but dusty
and rare, is also good.

I suppose that the archaeologist
does not agonize over the charred
lines of destruction signifying
a war, a conquest, a loss, a fire,
or a complete collapse.
The blackened layer
seared upon the balk
is discovery.

So why do I mourn,
and shiver,
and resist?
Why do I weep
as I dig deeper
and deeper still?
Dust, dirt,
buckets of rubble,
brokenness,
a fire or two,
shattered layers
of a life that
rebuilds upon
the discarded,
the destroyed,
and then
the reconstructed,
only to break again,
and deeper still,
shards upon shards,
layers upon layers.

If you look carefully,
the earth reveals its secrets.
So does the soul,
and the cell,
and the sinew,
and the thought,
and the wisp of memory,
and the laugh,
and the cry,
and the heart,
that seeks its deepest truth,
digging down,
down to bedrock.

Rock bottom they call it,
and in Hebrew,
the Mother Rock.

God of grace,
teach me
that the layers
of brokenness
create a whole.

Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar is the senior rabbi at Congregation BJBE in the Chicago area. Her previously published books include God Whispers, The Dance of the Dolphin (Our Dance with God), The Bridge to Forgiveness, and Omer: A Counting. She is published in numerous anthologies and is renowned for her creative liturgy. Rabbi Kedar teaches courses and leads retreats that explore the need for meaning and purpose in our busy lives, creating an intentional life, spiritual awakening, forgiveness, as well as inspirational leadership and creating the synagogue for the twenty-first century. Her latest work has culminated in the newly released Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry and Mindfulness Practice, now available for purchase through CCAR Press.