Category: holidays

Warp and Weft Sunset

This visual midrash combines the sentiment of Debbie Perlman’s new psalm, “Thirty Nine: For Consolidation,” and the text of the yizkor prayers, which ask that our departed loved ones be “bound up in the bonds of life.” It uses a design created by one member of Fabrangen Havurah to “bind up” the memorial threads of hundreds of participants in high holiday services.

YizkorEmbroidery

It began at Fabrangen’s yizkor service on Yom Kippur 5764 (October 2003). At that service, participants were offered an embroidery thread and asked to recall loves ones, calling to mind ways in which our lives already reflect — or might better reflect — what they taught us.

Using a common tune for the “Achat Sha’alti” verses of Psalm 27, we sang the final verse of Perlman’s poem:

You are the warp and the weft;
Braid in this slender thread upon Your loom.
You are the texture and the smooth cloth;
Form me in a running stitch to you.

Each person was asked to “choose at least one action you do or plan to do in memory of a loved one.” Memorial threads were gathered, with the promise that they would be woven into a “a memorial piece, thus weaving those precious, personal memories into a precious, public memorial, as we together seek a ‘pattern of holiness, bound tightly to God’s design’ for ourselves and our community.”

“Warp and Weft” Sunset

Following the service, Fabrangen member Dottie Weintraub drew a colorful sun reflecting on water as it sets as the model for the embroidery. Skilled and novice stitchers began weaving those threads to match the picture. Several of us gathered to recall loved ones while we took turns stitching. Many others took long solo hours working on the sunset.

For several years, the partially completed version graced Yom Kippur services. Finally, Dottie took the piece with her, when she moved to California, finished it, had it framed and shipped it back to DC. The “Warp and Weft” Sunset appeared at Yom Kippur services in 5770. It has since resided at the home where Fabrangen West meets and makes periodic trips to other Fabrangen service locations when yizkor is recited.

At the Yom Kippur service which first included the completed embroidery, Deb Kolodny led us in singing

I’m holding on
Got my eye on the road and my heart in a song
Whatever happened is already gone,
I won’t let go.
I won’t let go
— Sonia Ruttstein

With deep gratitude to Dottie for the final effort — she didn’t let go — and to Deb who helped launch the effort, co-leading the 5764 service, to every member of the community whose original promises of action went into those threads, to all who added their loving stitches and to all whose memories form the sunset and its reflection…

UPDATE: Deb Kolodny, now a rabbi living in Oregon, can be found here, and Dottie Weintraub and her artwork can be found in California, here, for example.

The less mobile Memorial Quilt continues to honor the memory of departed Fabrangeners and loved ones.



Debbie Perlman (1951-2002)
“Thirty Nine: For Consolidation,”
Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing and Praise

Twine my life to life, O Eternal,
Plied strength on strength,
To nurture my heart and renew my soul.

Join me in a partnership with You.
Tightly wrap my days in duties for Your sake.

Spin around me the worlds of Yours sages,
The dreams of Your children,
Rub my face with the rough weave of women’s stories
To strengthen my faint pulse

Bind me to Your Torah,
Four bright blue corners
Knotted together for Your glory.

You are the warp and the weft;
Braid in this slender thread upon Your loom.
You are the texture and the smooth cloth;
Form me in a running stitch to you.

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Ki Tavo: Something to Notice

At the beginning of the portion, Moses describes a declaration to be made in conjunction with the first fruits. It is, for a change in Devarim/Deuteronomy, not accompanied by commentary from Moses about the people’s lack of understanding and gratitude, despite long experience of God’s power and bounty. Instead, it is assumed that the people will be appropriately awed and grateful following the harvest.
Continue reading Ki Tavo: Something to Notice

Devarim: Something to Notice

“How [‘eikhah] can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden and the bickering!” — Devarim/Deuteronomy 1:12 (JPS translation)

Alter notes the unusual use of “the elongated form ‘eikhah, which often marks the beginning of laments” — instead of the simpler ‘eikh here. Plaut (The Torah: A Modern Commentary) lists two prophecies, in addition to this verse, begin with this elongated form: Continue reading Devarim: Something to Notice

Alone in the Sukkah

Alone in the sukkah, Kohelet* and me

“Havel, havalim,” he tells my coffee’s rising steam.

Yes, “vapor, all is vapor,” I’m willing to agree.

Lifebreath can’t remain for long

and the future can’t be told.

But does that make life “futile”

or just make it hard to hold.
Continue reading Alone in the Sukkah

(Deeply) in the Beginning

Every fall, I find myself somewhere different, “in the beginning.”

The Torah cycle carries Jews from Eden, one autumn, through to the edge of the Promised Land the next fall; then the scroll is re-rolled, and we start again. Forever rolling through that same five-book story complicates the concept of “beginning.”

And the idea of “new year” sort of rolls along for Jews:

  • One new year — once a sort of fiscal birthday for animals — begins with the eleventh month of the calendar, Elul. Elul has become a time of introspection to prepare for the much more widely heralded new year for years, Rosh Hashanah.
  • Rosh Hashanah, literally, “head of the year,” is part of a longer period of observance bringing folks from Elul, through the Day of Atonement, to Sukkot, known as “The Festival” in ancient times.
  • Sukkot, the booth-building, redemption-themed fall harvest holiday, AKA “time of our joy,” became, at some point in Jewish history, linked with renewing the Torah cycle. Where Jews once closed a harvest festival by praying for rain for the following year’s bounty, Simchat Torah (“Torah Joy”) closes and renews the reading cycle.
  • The fall holiday cycle ends with a reading of Moses’ death on the west bank of the Jordan and, immediately after, continues, “in the beginning of Elohim-God creating the heaven and the earth…”

So, last Saturday, we started the year’s reading cycle again: “…and there was evening and there was morning, a first day.”

By the end of that first reading, Eve and Adam have already been evicted from the Garden. The Eden episode, however lasting in imagination, lasts a total of 40 verses. Tomorrow, in the second reading of the year, God is already disheartened enough by the whole human experiment to consider destroying it all, finally leaving Noah and company to try again.

In our backyard the wooden skeleton of our sukkah — the fragile structure erected to help us celebrate the holiday of Sukkot — still stands. The walls are gone, packed away for next year, but no one has yet found the time or energy to completely dismantle last year’s structure.

And so it begins.
Continue reading (Deeply) in the Beginning

Declarations of Independence, Peace, etc.

[Originally posted on Fabrangen e-list, in response to a post, “Certain Unalienable Rights,” by R. Arthur Waskow encouraging “open discussion of what we would today write into such a visionary Declaration of peace, justice, and ecological responsibility, and — perhaps especially poignant in many countries this year what actions we might take to carry out such a Declaration.”]

Continue reading Declarations of Independence, Peace, etc.