Al Nes (for the miracle we enlivened)

על נס

Al Nes (for the miracle we enlivened) a supplement, encouragement and follow up to Al Chet 

My ancestor kitchen altar. A place where miracles are enlivened.

This week we celebrated Yom Kippor, the shabbat of shabbat’s, the sabbath of sabbath’s, a holy day of forgiveness where we are called to remember who we really are, to come back to our essence. Tonight we celebrate the full moon, Shabbat and the beginning of our week long harvest festival, Sukkot.

On Yom Kippor we do the difficult work of understanding ways we have missed the mark over the past year and work to forgive ourselves and others. We work to bind ourselves to each other, in community, because this work is too hard to do alone. It’s always more difficult to forgive ourselves than others. We find the root of our pain is in what we know deep inside to be the truth of our existence vs our human faults. We know deep inside we are, love. There is incongruency in the ways we aren’t always able to express that. We hurt ourselves and other beings. We do so with consciousness and unknowingly. Judaism gives us the blessing of self and communal reflection. As we practice Al Chet, the communal confession, we work to understand that we are accountable to our actions and inactions. We do this together to symbolize our communal responsibility for repairing our world and because it is difficult to forgive ourselves, more difficult than forgiving someone else, so we forgive ourselves together, in community. We understand our essence isn’t defined by our faults and mistakes, we aren’t our conditioning, we aren’t the practices we have developed to survive and cope with abuse and capitalism but we are responsible for our mistakes. 

At the end of Yom Kippor, the mythology tells us, we are sealed into the book of life for the next year and the gates of the year close. I have some issue with this symbolism, it feels somewhat Christian hegemonic and dualistic to me. However, I also have a visceral understanding of the sealing, it lives in my body. Yom Kippor often just feels like a holy day in a way I can’t logically understand. There is a feeling of fate and mystery I love. 

This has been such a difficult and transformative year. My friend Mica Amichai (I always like to brag to people that they are a rabbinical school drop out, I love this about Mica because it speaks to my experience of them as someone who has redefined and defined their experience of spirituality and scholarship. I admire them greatly.) and I began this work during the Days of Awe (the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippor) of writing some additional liturgy for this time of year.

We need encouragement and to continue to keep dreaming. There is a kabbalistic teaching that we are not actually sealed until the end of Sukkot. So with that teaching I want to offer this prayer of encouragement (as Mica put it) as a follow up to the Al Chet (for the sin we have done). This is the Al Nes, for the miracle we have enlivened.

Perhaps remembering the miracle of all our good deeds, and noticing that they also aren’t done alone, they are done through our collaboration with the divine, will give us softness and encouragement for the year ahead. Letting go of ego means letting go that we are our mistakes. It also means letting go that we are our good deeds. But we could use some encouragement that we have done lots of enlivening things in collaboration with the divine. And we can grow that work by continuing to name it and speak to what is good. We can work together to repair our world and dream the world to come.

On Yom Kippor we cleanse ourselves of the human misconception of separation. On Sukkot we harvest all that is good, nourishing and miraculous. The work of our human lives is to come back to our truth: 

We are one. We are together. We are a miracle. We are god. 

We can do this!

Al Nes (for the miracle we enlivened)

For the miracle we enlivened with you of our own free will.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of open heartedness.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you inadvertently.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you through loving words.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of ethical alignment.

For for the miracle we have enlivened with you when no one is watching in the quiet of our own hearts.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you for all to witness. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you both with wisdom and without consciousness.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of through thoughtfully chosen words.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of by courageous truth telling. 

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you by experimenting with new ways of thinking.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of queer perversion and love making.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of humbly admiting our mistakes.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of confronting unethical authority, interrupting abuse of power and maintaining loving boundaries.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of honoring elders, ancestors and teachers. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you both when it comes with ease and when we work through resistance.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of allowing our inner truth to empower the choices we make in our lives. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of being moved by the beauty of life.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you by weaving spells with our words.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of making jokes, laughing and gifting humor.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you by giving pleasure and delight.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you, alone and in community.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of acceptance. 

For all of these, Shechina bless us, bless us and work with us to create more blessings. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you by forgiving each other for mistakes both implicit and explicit harm.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you for giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of generous sharing.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of eating, drinking and moving with care for our bodies, living in self love.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of amplifying the voices and work of those who have been most oppressed and supporting their calls for action.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of working towards climate justice.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of collaborating with us and allowing us to build upon the gifts of our ancestors.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of responding to the needs of our times. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of praising in magnanimity.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of flexibility of mind and spirit. 

For the miracle we have enlivened with you by a clear heart.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you in our acts of caring intention.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of noticing beauty. 

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of visiting the sick and dying.

For the miracle we have enlivened with you of working for justice in our communities.

And for the miracle we have enlivened with you of parenting our pets and children.

For all of these, Shechina bless us, bless us and work with us to create more blessings. 

For these miracles we build an altar to:

liberation of all beings 

Black liberation

Indigenous self-determination and leadership (including Palestinian self determination and leadership)

Disability Justice

reparations

gender expansive children’s expression

safety

thriving

mutual aid

prison and police abolition

carnivals in the streets

welcoming banquets at borders 

the end of nationalism

care

generosity

sharing

equity

telling the truth of history

healing 

raising the sparks of all that is good

dreaming

honoring and practicing the ways of our benevolent ancestors.

We burn herbs of cedar and rosemary, the smells gifting us with memory of wisdom on the wind.

We place our bodies on the dirt, with leaves and grasses to remind us we belong to the earth.

We bless the fruit of vine and tree, granting us sweetness for all that is to come. 

We listen to the call of the shofar, the song of the birds awakening the yearning of our hearts.

We shake the lulav and etrog in all directions, honoring all that is.

We return and return to our essence, our soul’s instruction.

And we are sealed.