Dear Brandeis community,

 

The Glass Household traveled all the way across the Bay for Yom Kippur, to Berkeley’s Urban Adamah. It was a very different experience of Yom Kippur services, for me—being outside, wandering to visit chickens and goats between songs and prayers. At one point, I sat in the space designated for kids with Alma, and we made our own havdallah herb sachets, stuffing rosemary and lavender into small burlap bags. As we did so, I found myself thinking of a line in the draft of our strategic plan, which is nearing completion and will be shared at our town hall meeting in November:

 

Following millennia of Jewish tradition, Brandeis students begin with questions in constructing their own understandings of Jewish practice and their world, becoming critical and connected thinkers.

 

Growing up, I thought of Jewish practice as a fixed thing—something that we did if not by rote, then certainly by following fixed pathways. At Brandeis, and in this creative moment for Jewish life in the Bay Area, I see the reverse daily: the many ways that we tell our children that they can make the tradition their own—even in something as simple as creating their own ritual object.

 

So, with that in mind, I wanted to share with you this week my own practice of making the tradition my own. In early 2017, I joined a group of poets from The Kitchen to study some foundational prayers and write our own versions of and responses to those prayers. While Brandeis commitments kept me from seeing how that project was completed, I did go to enough meetings to work through my own version of the Amidah, the standing prayer, which I share with you all as a reflection on these Days of Awe we have just come through.

 

World, sacrifice my breath.

           

 

Pour us into air, this song

of parents pressed to feet

 
mid- nights, ancient remedies

honeying our throats.

 

            World, sacrifice our sleep

            for the dreaming,

 

            the air of us thrumming to the stars.

 

            Song of our parents

            our children sing

           

past the breaking

voice, the lumped

throats, the ache

of our shattered

dark. World,

 

 

my ancestors are nearer.

I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes,

looking down the hill.

 

 

Wishing you all weekends full of songs, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan