Shalom my friends, welcome to the Light Lab Podcast! My name is Eliana Light. And I'm joined by my two incredible co hosts Cantor Ellen Dreskin.
Hello, everybody.
And Rabbi Josh Warshawsky!
Boker tov, good morning!
Boker tov good morning. It's so good to see both of you. Now, friends, I want to give you a little bit of behind the scenes of what just happened here. We knew that we wanted to come together and record a shorter episode, a more informal episode, sharing with each other, what's been on our minds, what are we thinking about? We're recording this right before Rosh Hashanah. And you're definitely going to hear this after Rosh Hashanah. But we're still in the Days of Awe, and the Season of Repentance, what's been on our minds. And we came up with the word spark. Has to do with light, we love that here at the Light Lab. But also, I like asking folks in a class or in a session what was sparked for you, not just what you learned, but what was sparked in you, based on what some, something, someone else said or something that you learned, we can have new insights, even if we didn't learn them from somebody else, per se. And then we turned it into an acronym. So welcome to our very first spark, where we'll be going around and sharing what's been on our minds and hearts lately, hopefully sharing some sparks with you. And listener, what is sparked in you by this conversation? I'm excited to try out this new format. So we're gonna start with the S in spark, which stands for song, or at least it stands for song today. What is a song or music that has been on your mind and heart lately? Ellen, let's start with you.
I knew you were gonna start with me. Okay, well, what keeps popping up for me at this season over and over again. And it's probably maybe the most common song that we use in the season. And that is all the different versions of Hashiveinu that we hear. This, it's such a confirmation for me, an affirmation of coming back to the same place for the first time. In this season. I particularly, so we're talking song now not really in tech. So I have to say that I really appreciate Noah Aronson and Elana Aronson's We Return. Because I'm so interested in the concept of returning to something new, or the idea of what you're asking me to return to what I'm being called to return to, is something I must know, I must have been there already. And so rediscovering myself that the text does that for me, but that that we return and everyone assumes that we must be returning to God, which I'm not going to argue with that one, believe me. But the idea of the song We Return by Elana and Noah composed is, it says we return to You, we return to truth, we return to love. And they also include the Hashiveinu text as a bridge to to give to anchor everything. And for me that that opens the world and what I might be returning to for the very first time in both English and Hebrew. And I think that the people that I work with for the High Holidays really appreciate it.
Totally reimagined what I think about the spot where we say those words, usually at the end the Torah service, because I wrote a melody for the first line of that paragraph that never gets sung, which is after we say, unvnocho yomar, and we put the Ark, the Torah away, this is what we'll say. And then we just sort of mumble those next couple lines, sometimes at least in the synagogues that I grew up at. But that line is Shuva Ad-nai rivevot amcha yisrael, which is G?d, return to the myriad remnants of Your people. And then at the very end of that paragraph, we say Hashiveinu Ad-nai eilecha venashuva, and I always had been thinking about that shuva as like, G?d is the one who's doing the returning. And that's and I thought that was like a really cool flip that we're asking G?d to return to us. We're the ones who are here, present, and maybe it's G?d who has gone far away. And then here at the end, we have ourselves returning also. So it's what is this like to sort of meet in the middle? And now with that reimagining of that prayer, to meet truth in the middle, to meet love in the middle, to, to realize that you're coming towards something and and to assume that that there's this mutual mutuality of that returning. So open up that whole end of the Torah service for me.
Wow, I love that so much. I love that idea. I'm thinking, right, about to tshuva as that return. And Ellen, I love the idea that if we're returning, we must have been there before, there must be like a solid core of goodness, and holiness and love. And we're just returning to something we already know. But this idea that we see in other places in our tradition too, about, if we're reaching out to holiness, holiness is reaching out to us. Like we're, we're coming together, we're circling each other, which gets into some interesting wedding metaphors in my mind now of circling each other. But something that was sparked for me also, Josh, in what you said, so this this is great. Spark is just about tangents, right? We're drawing it all over the place, is about how that text, Hashiveinu, appears in so many different places and means such different things depending on the context, right? Because, from what I understand, and we can look this up, it comes from Eicha, right? It comes from Lamentations. And when we sing it at the end of having read Eicha, Hashiveinu Ad-nai eleicha nevashuva chadesh aleinu kekedem. Like it feels very different than when we sing it in the high holiday services. And very different than we sing it at the end of the Torah service and how the same lines, taken a different context, bolstered by the different melodies that we use, can have such a different impact. And then maybe that turning feels differently. It's like there are these videos on YouTube that I that I love where they show movie scenes being underscored by different types of music, and how a scary scene if there's like do to do to do music behinds it just becomes totally silly, but how the music that we use can really inform the way that we feel a particular piece of liturgy.
I was just gonna say, and how now I'm thinking about the many times that we use it and that how is Torah a tool for returning. Why are the High Holidays a tool for returning? And this meeting halfway and that the wedding reference, Eliana, is just, well now, it was the wedding reference, reminds me of Elul, and the acronym for Elul being a Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li. And someone said I just read yesterday I think somewhere that, well why didn't we rearrange the letters because it could also be why isn't it Dodi Li V'Ani Loh? we should have called the month something else so it could have been acronym for Dodi Li V'Ani Loh, why Ani L'Dodi? And it's because it begins with us. And this is a really Kabalistic idea that that it's the vibrations, the shimmering below that awakens the shimmering above. And that it starts with us and maybe end but starts with us asking to be caused to return. So in every way it's a conversation. It's a tossing, it's a game of cash back and forth. It's a well, as Josh said, you know, okay, I'll meet you there. First of Tishrei I'll be there I know you will be too, and we all know we have a lot of wonderful work to do together.
Well that takes me right back to another holiday text for me that it comes in the first time I spotted it was in this Machzor but the first holiday that I heard that I really loved for it was yours Ellen, as Yah Enai Amtzecha, Harashti Kirbatech, which is you know, I, I saw your nearness, I yearned to be close to you. And I went out searching for you. I already found you coming towards me. That's a beautiful Yehuda Halevi poem that I can mostly just hear in your in dance melody.
That's a beautiful opportunity to come back to the touchstone. But no, I want to move on. But I don't want to move on yet. I think this is what we are learning is that we are like weaving this incredible web of sparks to mix, to mix metaphors. But there's something powerful about the idea of coming back to the same place, right? And being able to see how am I different? How are we different? And I think I'll say as a Jewish professional. There have been times kind of earlier in my career over the years where I have bemoaned the fact that Rosh Hashanah, and especially Yom Kippur is like the day that everybody shows up to services, partially because I think, I love I have fallen more in love with the liturgy of the Machzor over the years, that I've come to a more expansive G?d understanding, but at first blush, and on surface level, there's a lot of very challenging stuff in the high holiday liturgy about what G?d is and what G?d has the power to do over our lives and asking for forgiveness and directly tying our actions to what happens to us in the world, which I just don't, that doesn't leave room for the randomness and the chance that actually governs a lot of our lives. And like bemoaning why don't they come on Sukkot? It's so much more fun. We're why don't they come on Shabbat, Shabbat is our kind of weekly touchstone. And instead, this year, one of like, my mantra for myself has been rachmanus. It's the like, a Yiddish way of saying, compassion. Rachaman. Just like Rachmanis, isn't it amazing that this is when everybody is getting together that we get to come back to these touchstones. And they're the melodies right what I call touchstone tunes, right? We're going to do this for Avinu Makleinu at least once because it feels like coming home. And that's not a bad thing. I think what does it mean to recognize those touchstone melodies and those touchstone moments.
For the many Jews who come to synagogue, primarily on the High Holy Days, and sometimes only on the High Holy Days, it's interesting because we, the mood is so different. And the mood is often so somber, that I find in my work now, what I'm trying to do and encourage is to certainly give the holy days their do and to pay special attention to this liturgy. And also to not have it feel that the only reason I come to synagogue once a year is to beat myself up. And so this music since we're still in the S of song kind of, we blurred all the lines here among our spark, that that I do gravitate towards even the High Holy Day music that has a real uplift to it. So that people will say, well, I know I'm coming this time of year, but actually, there's a joy to returning, there's a joy to reflection, there's a joy to letting go of some of the baggage I've been carrying all year and being able to walk out at the end of the season feeling lighter. And so I hope that maybe everyone listening to this will be able to say you know what, this is just a start to the whole year. And and there's more to my worship, perhaps, than just Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and I can't wait to bring my new me into the rest of the year. And with this continued continued sense, returning again and again and again.
Beautiful. I've seen that really reflected my own practice, too. I remember at Hebrew school, this past Sunday, I had these groups of kids and I asked them, what emotion do you associate with Yom Kippur? Or what do you think we're supposed to be feeling on Yom Kippur? I had a lot, you know, sad. I had a lot of people say sad, right? That kind of somberness. And then we learned V'Yitnu L'cha Keter Melucha, which we talked about, the last time we hung out together, which is a Piyut, a prayer poem, kind of about this theme of corronating the Holy One, which I could I have a lot of other things to say about. But it's in this very joyful melody, and about how I've experienced some Yom Kippurs as the most joyful prayer times because, isn't it incredible that we have all of these chances to do better, to to interact with other people better and to make the world better, and to have a deeper relationship with holiness. That can be very joyful. So the nice thing too, okay. Shuving, circling back to our song, Josh, what is a song or a piece of music that's been on your mind or heart recently?
So it was it was very hard for me to decide. And also, it's kind of connected now. The songs that I'm listening to right now are all sort of on on message, I guess, right? It's all these different High Holiday pieces. So it ends up that, you know, the things that have been on my mind are also prayers, but I'll think of it in the song mode for right now. The one that I have really just been familiarizing with a lot this year is I'm trying out Yair Rosenblum's melody for Unetaneh Tokef for the first time, which I've never done before. And so I'm very excited about that. And I've just been singing that a lot in my head. But just we could just drop that in the show notes because of what I really want to talk about is. Well, also, I've been listening to Aly Halpert's Achat Sha'alti a lot which is just like so gorgeous. And everyone should also listen to that because we have lots more time after you hear this before the end of this season. So you can still sing that every day, all the way through at the end of Sukkot. But the melody that's really been been sort of haunting in my ears is by a dear friend Nachum Peterseil. He wrote a really beautiful melody for Adam Yesodo Meafar, which is at the end of Unetaneh Tokef, about all these different sort of like temporary things that human beings are compared to, like a whispering breeze or a leaf that's flying away or a passing shadow. But this really beautiful and kind of hopeful melody that just is very wistful and lovely. And so I've been, I've been thinking about that one a lot and thinking about how it sort of changes the way that I'd always experienced those words.
Josh, I just want to ask, because you just put a whole lot of Hebrew and a whole lot of names of prayers on the table. Could you take one step back maybe and give us some English for the for these prayers and where they fall in our in the liturgy?
Yes, thank you. Sorry about that. The Unetaneh Tokef is the prayer that the prayer leader says in the Musaf service, the afternoon service, or sometimes in other places in different communities, that sort of all about the seriousness of the day. It's the first part that says, hey, let's talk about what's actually happening today. It's where the the very iconic prayer, who will live and who will die that text comes from, u'v'shofar gadol yitakah, the great sound of the shofar, V'kol demamah dakah, this still small voice, all these really beautiful and iconic pieces of text come from the Unetaneh Tokef, and this amazing composer in Israel Yair Rosenbaum wrote a melody for that whole section Achat Sha'alti is from Psalm 27, it's the prayer that we say starting from Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first day of the month of Elul, all the way through the end of this season, lots of gorgeous melodies for lots of different pieces of that text. And that one was written by Aly Halpert, it's really beautiful. And this Adam Yesodo V'Afar comes right at the end of that Unetaneh Tokef section, right before we move into the Kedusha, the central part of the Amidah and it's it's really, Adam Yesodo V'Afar is a person's origins are dust. So it's sort of you know, it's very finite and final, but then it talks about all the different metaphors of different sorts of things that we might be compared to a human beings life short in the span of the earth, and in the span of, of all of our history. But the melody itself is really, really hopeful and lovely and thinking about what is it that we can do with that passing wind or flying leaf in our time?
I'll say that the songs that has been on my mind and heart have been mainly from Micah Shapiro's albums, Zeh Ha'sha'ar that came out a couple of months ago. I keep coming back to it because there's always something new that I hear or a part or a song that speaks to me, that I need to listen to over and over again, kind of like the liturgy itself, where we come back and we find new things that are sparked/ Micah's melody for Hashiveinu which he turns into Hashiveni, Hashiveini, I return or may I return is so powerful, it's I think, for me personally, it's my if I could only sing one song, the rest of my life, less about singing it in groups, but more about when I sing it by myself. It feels so prayerful to me and it feels very deeply connected to my own heart but all of the songs they're like that these days. Zamru lo has been reaching out to me, or Ashira also from Hallel. There are a lot of Hallel pieces, Zeh Hasha'ar itself, the name of the album is This is the Gate, which is from the Pitchu Li section, Open for Me, Zeh Ha'Sha'ar L'Adonai, this is the pathway, the gateway to all that is and maybe I'll play a little bit of that.
And then we can spark back to Unetaneh Tokef because that's what I put down. I have found that Untetaneh Tokef is where, like the crux of my difficulty with the theology of the High Holidays resides. As Josh was saying, it's this right today. Let's speak about how sacred and powerful this day is. That's what Unetaneh Tokef means, let's talk about it. And this piece right about on Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur, it is sealed, that there is something about our fate that is decided by G?d based on our actions, and that G?d decides right now who shall live and who shall die, that part very hard, because it certainly is not in my theology, to understand the crises and challenges that people face and the loss and the death that people face as being G?d pushing a particular button because of something them or their ancestors did. But a couple of things. I think once I once I started looking at the liturgies as being written by human beings attempting to make sense of their world, I was able to have a lot more empathy for whoever wrote Unateneh Tokef, and a lot more empathy for our ancestors who understood the world in this way. And I was able to find so much more beauty in it to say, Ellen, what was sparked in me that I've never thought of before also is going back to what you said, if we do the work of the High Holidays, something has changed, right? So there is maybe something that has been written anew and something that has been sealed, anew, that if something has changed, the trajectory of our year could be different. The lines that I've been thinking about a lot recently are one from after the first paragraph, the beginning of the second, if this is the same way it is in your Machzor, U'v'shofar gadol yitakah v'kol demamah dakah ishamah, the great shofar is sounded and the still small voice is heard. And how profound that is, that the stimulus is this big, loud, overwhelming sound. But what you actually hear is the still small voice. Now is that inner resonance, coming to meet an outer resonance is that an out an outside voice that you're hearing an inside voice that you're hearing, thinking a lot about that in terms of the shofar and I'll leave it there for now there's another line I love but what's on your mind and heart?
I was only going to say that it's the blessing, the mitzvah concerning the shofar is lishmoah, to hear. And and then to tie that to what is heard, hopefully, is is the still small voice. What is heard is is not only what's going on out there, but listen for what it's doing to you, in your spirit, and in your heart. That's what it means Lishmoah kol shofar, perhaps is that to take it personally. I have I write down notes on my desk ladder here of just things that people say are things that I read that I just want to remember. And I have a note here on my bladder that says noise is external, but a signal or a call is internal. To take the noise and turn it in to something personal. What's it what's it a signal of? What does it symbolize? What is it calling me to do and and what you were speaking about what the shofar just opens that up for me is what is it I'm supposed to be listening for. I also for my prayer piece I wrote down Unetaneh Tokef when we were we took a couple of minutes before we started to jot down exactly, you know our own individual thoughts before we start riffing with each other on these things, and also Unetaneh Tokef. I think because it is so difficult theologically, it's so important to remember that all of this, to a certain extent, is metaphor. And however, that's not meant to take it any less seriously. I love one line, the end of the first paragraph of the Unetaneh Tokef, and it's before it goes into the Rosh Hashanah piece of who shall live and who shall die, Unetaneh Tokef says that the Book of Life is opened. And then it says chotam yad kol adam bo, did I get that right? I'm not looking at a machzor at the moment, that to me is the most important line, or the one that I really use as an anchor. Because chotam yad in Hebrew is a signature, which takes it away from G?d in the heavens, writing all of our names in one book or another, and takes it to what book am I going to assign? Where do I want to sign my name? To, How am I going to in the coming year influence who shall live and who shall die and who by this and who by that? Because I can feed the hungry, I can house the homeless, I can save lives. I can. And yeah, I'm signing up for that. And that final line of U'Teshuva U'T'fillah U'Tzedakah ma'avirin et roah hagezerah, at the very end of the passage of tshuva, of return and T'fillah and prayer and tzedakah, acts of loving kindness and righteousness. This tempers the severity of the decree, and all of those three things are in my hands to do not for myself, but we're all in this boat and in this book together, that might tzedakah might lessen the severity of a decree for someone else. My t'fillah, my prayers for healing, et cetera do make a difference in the lives of other people. And what happens next is could be phenomenal. It was all of us signed up for what we were really willing to do and then follow through with our commitment.
I love this so much. I'm so glad we're getting to have these conversations. Especially I mean, I'm sorry for everybody who has to hear this after Rosh Hashanah. But just kidding, just to sit and listen to this right now. I've never thought about that chotem yad line before like that. And I I love that idea. I think it in some ways, it almost flips the whole meaning of the text. It says we don't have to accept the fate that's written there. Right? If we're not going to sign we don't have to sign for the for the fate that's written unless that's that's what we believe we want to achieve in the next year, right? We have to be in that mutuality, we have to be partners in that we have to put our signature down on that line. And we get to say what it is that we want to appear on that contract. But we're not we're not just sort of just letting this happen. We have to be partners in our own decisions about what's happening for our futures. So I I love that idea. And I'm going to hold on to that as we're singing together.
It's so so beautiful. And I'm wondering how it connects. One of my favorite lines is right before that, umealav kikareh, which the Lev Shalem mazhzor translates, well, I'll say the line before that, You recall all that is forgotten, and will open the book of remembrance, which speaks for itself. I love that to say, it reminds me of this song that we've sung together before me the life I lead speak for me, right? What does it mean for the book of zichronot, of memory, to speak for itself? Because zikaron, as I've heard a couple of people say this season and I want to look up a better source for it is that when we when the word zocher, memory is used, that it always has an action component, that in Exodus when it says in G?d remembered the plight of the people Israel, it doesn't mean that G?d forgot about it. And it's just like, Oh, hey, I totally forgot that my people are enslaved. It's that, not just that it comes to mind, but that, then we're going to do something with it. So that memory has a component of, of action. And so what does it mean, to let our lives speak for themselves, and to really look at them with with integrity, and compassion, but to say it is really our actions and what we sign our name to that gives, that shows us what's what's really going on in our lives? If we look at it clearly.
can I connect that to my prayer choice?
Please.
Yeah, I think that the choices that we make in the what we bring into it is I think it affects I think it's such a, such a serious and true way, the prayer that I was thinking about once we came up with our acronym, and it's one that I've just sort of flipped through the Machzor, and spotted here, again, is a medieval piyut that comes right at the end of the Kedusha, piyut is like liturgical poetry, when there's a lot of insertions in different siddurim and a different communities just to add more beauty and prayer and poetry to the text. This one was in the Machzor that we use when I was a kid. And this is also in this Machzor that I use now. It's called the V'chol Ma'aminim. It was written in the sometime between the fifth and the seventh century by a poet named Yanai in Israel. And I've been singing it my whole life. And then today just looked at the words again and said, Hmm, there's a really interesting interplay that's happening here, which is that it's a double acrostic, right, there's an aleph line, and then another aleph line, and then a bet line and another bet line. And the first line says, an attribute of G?d. And the second line of each one always starts with v'chol ma'aminim, which is we believe. And so what it does, it says, an attribute of G?d and then it says, the human perspective, like we believe that this is something that G?d does. So for example, it starts with Haochez b'yad midat mishpat, G?d upholds the standard of justice, V'chol maaminim she'hu el emunah, we believe that G?d is faithful. Habochen uvodek ginzei nistarot, G?d examines the stories of our hidden hearts, v'chol ma'aminim shu bochen klayot, we believe that G?d knows our deepest feelings. And I like the idea of saying something that, that we said was an attribute of G?d, but then affirming that, in this particular instance, this is something that we believe, this is something that we hope is true. It's not just saying that it's saying the fact. it's a fact that we believe in, especially now when truth is questioned so often, to announce the truth and then to say, this is a truth that we affirm and this is a truth that we stand for, I think adds such a like a an emphasis and and a powerful independence and choice to the truth that we seek to uphold. So I'm singing it out with with a newfound meaning and understanding now, I think it's a nice hold on to what we just signed that we just signed our name on that page in Unetaneh Tokef. And here we are two pages later and we're saying these are the things that we believe and we hope that they come through in the year to come.
That's really beautiful because I find V'chol maaminim to be challenging. You know, if we say in services, and we all believe this. I'm like to we do? Do we? Do I? And what it means, what it means to look at these things and say, what is the world that this piyut this prayer poem is describing or hoping for? Right? Because a lot of our T'fillah is aspirational. And what does it mean if there are things that I don't find to be true for me to, like not say that line, skip that line? What does it mean to have that sort of integrity in my T'fillah? If I'm saying these are things we all believe, I don't know, I'm gonna sit with that.
I think that's a really important thing to sit with. And I also wonder, a sort of, there's a question of what is collective belief, right. And if we're in a community, and there's one thing and one thing here, I'm like, you know, maybe this isn't sitting with me, right, right now today, but you know, at the same time, maybe that's the line that somebody came for. And they're like, that's the thing that I need to believe right now, even though that's the thing that you don't need to believe. And I wonder what you know, that I talked about this sometimes when we go into singing communities, and we say, you know, if you didn't hear the melody that you wanted to hear, and that's why you showed up today. But for somebody else, that melody that we're about to sing is their favorite melody, and to be a part of a community means being present in that moment, even if this moment isn't for you. And so I'm trying to think about what it means. Because some of this, you know, like you were saying earlier, the theology of this is not my theology, and so much by holidays is not the way that I view my relationship with divinity with G?d with whatever name you choose to call that. But I also think there's power in sort of this few days during the year to experience or to explore what would my relationship with G?d be like if I felt this way? Or what does it mean to sort of let go of the the choice and say that there's this justice in the world that I want to sort of affirm for myself and affirm for the world? And how can I be a part of a community that holds on to these ideas, see what it feels like to sing it out? And at the same time, you know, be able to sit backward to be able to look at it and question it, and look at it with a sense of intention and an eye of understanding, I think that's really important.
Yeah. What would it look like to actually live in a world where the people doing the most harm are held accountable? And where we're able to take care of each other like, sure, one might say, we believe that G?d is going to swoop in and fix that. But I think, at least in my theology, perhaps the Holy One or holiness or this idea that it is possible is what gives us the hope to do it and to make the change. I think it's the word belief that I have a hard time with. I don't talk about believing in G?d, I find belief to be too much of a binary you either do or you don't. And I talk about or I understand G?d is experienced, something that we experience and then attempt to put into words, but I was looking at my maaminim and its connection to a emunah, faith, and amen, may it be so, what does it mean as a as a hope? Or as a what if instead of a belief, I'm going to play with that,
You know, I'm always going to try and turn it in a different direction. I'm, certainly theologically it's challenging. And it's not a text that I'm very, very familiar with full confession here. And at the same time, and listening to you all speak about it, to see G?d as, as a source of these things is one, you know that G?d, being active in our lives in that way, from above, is very challenging for me, extremely challenging for me. That being true of I have faith that these things exist. And if if there were a tipping point, if enough of this were going on in the world, things would be different if I didn't believe all this, can I believe all this from a G?d that is within me? Can I believe that somewhere in my Tzelem Elohim, can I believe in myself enough to bring some of these actions into the world? I think that what I'm realizing while we're talking here, not for the first time, but re-realizing, returning to is how much I take the High Holy Days as unless something happens within me ain't nothing happening outside. And what happens outside is a direct result of my actions in the world. And my inaction is an action. Things are gonna happen because I don't act. And so it really is this, this idea of self examination gets more serious and more, more curious about it and more exciting every day is Rosh Hashanah, and the High Holy Days drawn closer.
So beautiful and so much to think about and speaking of what we do, we decided that the A in spark stands for action. What are we doing? What are you up to? What is something that you have been acting on or doing in your life that's been on your mind and heart that you'd like to share with us?
Eliana, why don't you go first?
Oh, I get to go first, this time, how exciting. Thank you. So something that I have been trying to get off the ground with a lovely group of folks in Durham is singing for its own sake. I get to do that a lot in my professional life, I get to sing with people, which is the best and I love it so much. And there's value in singing circles, not to learn melodies for the service and not to rehearse, but just to be together and to sing. And we met for the first time last Sunday. And it was really sweet. Just to spend some time singing, I was really inspired. The whole group of us was inspired by Let My People Sing, where I was a couple of weeks ago and the great work that they're doing. And they're kind of guidelines and cultural commitments for what it means to hold a space like that. I was very excited. I bought like a Post It, a giant Post It board that becomes a little easel and I wrote all the commitments in different colors of Sharpie. And then the other side is a whiteboard, which is exciting. So when someone had a new song to teach, they just wrote the words on the whiteboard. I was very excited. But I love that we're seeing that grow and blossom here in Durham. It's something I think I need for my own soul and getting to yeah, getting to sing with other people is just an absolute joy. I'll pass it to to Josh or to Ellen, whoever unmuted first.
I'm just jumping off of that because in my notes about action for me for this time of the year. You know, as a Cantor, and for all of us who lead communities in various ways for the High Holy Days. The beginning of Elul marks the Okay, let's start the choir rehearsals and pull out the binders and remember the melodies and find the newest and the latest and the greatest melodies. And sometimes for me Elul can are usually does begin on a very surface level. Off hardcopy, what are the notes on the page, again, in terms of the singing. And I have come to through different kinds of means try to remind myself that my spiritual practice is preparing these songs and songs, these melodies of these holy words of these prayers, preparing to lead these. And so when I'm saying the simplest things already re rehearsing these melodies and getting them back in my in my muscles in my vocal muscles. It's my spiritual practice for Elul. It's, I have really tried to refind each year, something new for myself, so I suppose is not unusual. But I do remind myself every time I pick up my guitar to practice, I do remind myself every time I Xerox a page of music for a choir member, there's a spiritual reason that I'm doing this. There's a, I tried to and because there's such a huge volume of work to be done in Elul for all of us who are leading worship. And we can say oh gosh, I was just so busy with all this actions, with all the stuff I had to do that Elul you know, kind of flew by and I didn't really get to where I, so I try to make a conscious effort when I'm doing anything for the holidays, to have a little mantra or a little melody or a little reminder that this too is spiritual practice because it's going to enable that energy to exist in the room in the moment when the time actually comes. So I'm I'm really dwelling there at this point three or four days before Rosh Hashanah I'm really dwelling thee.
Ellen and I'm sitting in the in the same space as you and that's that's why I wrote down the same thing also is that I I just I take out my Machzor, right a couple of weeks before or a month or so before the holidays, and I flip through the pages, and one of my favorite things is to just sort of see the the pencil marks that, notes that I have from years past and the little post it notes and then the loose sheets of paper that have stuck in of a piece that I wanted to stick in this moment or a piece that I've stuck here and I open it up and something falls out and and sometimes they're in a page where I had used something later on like a Yom Kippur and then I I actually had to you know, pick up that page and move back to Rosh Hashanah. And that's you know, taking the Hineni piece from the Yom Kippur section and putting it in the first day of Rosh Hashana section is like a real wow, I'm winding back the clock and I'm saying I'm going to start over again this year and I'm returning to that and, and I have to remind myself that there's something spiritual and intentional about, about getting to do this work year after year and see what what feels different the things that I want to try and do the same way again, the things that really struck home for a community in a particular way, because I get to go back to the same place again. And so that's been that's also been really sitting with me over the last couple days are just like looking through those notes. And again in to try and set an intention around that being a really meaningful practice also. And that also being an act worthy of setting an intention for.
It's beautiful how we're able to take these actions and turn them into spiritual practices or to find the spiritual spark within them. Which connects to the R of our spark, ritual. However we want to take the word ritual today, what is a ritual that has been on your mind, in your heart? I think I'll start for this one too, because it's connected to so much that we've shared before. I find the shofar to be very powerful all the time. But particularly this year, I've, I've been thinking about how the shofar is like, sound healing work, like if you've ever been to a sound bath, or you've heard a meditation bell, there's something about that vibrationally that immediately helps me come to the present moment and center and calm down. It's almost as if, if the sound is filling my ears, then it's not my chattering thoughts that are filling my head. It's not my, you know, circles and pounds of what next? What if that kind of anxiety that like when my mind and my brain and my body are full of those reverberations, then I can just sink into the moment. And I love the teaching around the shofar, one of the pieces of liturgy around shofar, from the Machzor is Min Hametzar Karati Yah, from the narrow place I call out and from expansiveness I was answered, and how that is what a shofar looks like. That you blow into this teeny weeny hole and you call out from that narrow place. But it is from the wide end of the shofar that is expansive, but also this expansive sound that you hear. So there's a part of me that is very sad that the first day of Rosh Hashanah is on Shabbat, which means that my synagogue and in my family service we will not be blowing shofar, which I totally understand. It's also cool to see that even on Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat takes precedence, this holiday that comes every week, but I look forward to any opportunity that I'm going to get to hear shofar this holiday season.
I've been thinking about this ritual question because I, I participated in a ritual that I'd never participated in before this year. I've now in addition to doing the work of sharing music in different communities, I've been working as a rabbi at my community here in Columbus, Ohio, my synagogue, and I was honored to be able to participate in a ritual called Kever Avot, which I'd never done before, around the High Holiday season, people gather at the cemetery, and take a moment to remember loved ones who have passed, we gathered together at the cemetery with with a group and we shared some some psalms and some music together. And then everybody went off to the graves of their loved ones. And I walked around in and just learned about people's relatives and got to share in El Maleh Rachamim, a memorial prayer for each one of those people. And it was really a special moment to be able to share that with people to be able to, to be in the cemetery and not just, you know, going to a funeral and burying someone is a chesed shel emet, it's a kind of grace that can never be returned, right, you're doing something for someone that you can never get, it can never be paid back. Because that person, sadly, cannot ever pay you back for that. But then to be in the cemetery and be with relatives and loved ones who are still alive, remembering those people and, and also to get to wander all over the cemetery and get to see all these people who are coming together to remember their loved ones it was it was really a special moment. And there's a lot of power in in memory. There's a lot of power in ritual, and getting to connect those two at this particular time of year and do something that I'd never done before, but that people have been doing for so long, was really, really beautiful. So I'm glad I had honored to have been able to participate in that.
I have tears in my eyes right now from your words, Josh, because the ritual that I was thinking of that connects so very much to what you just said, is Kol Nidrei, and the the melody and the moment the fact that the Torah has come out of the ark as a witnesses to this ritual, that it's a melody it's a set of words that we intone, three times. And the reason that it brings tears to my eyes from what you were saying Josh is because I think my earliest other than lighting Shabbat candles at home, my earliest ritual memory is standing next to my grandmother during Kol Nidrei. And I grew up in a congregation where there was not a cantor. For the first number of years of my life, there was there was no one doing the singing except the choir and the choirlav. However, Kol Nidrei was only played on cello with the organ. I never, really until I was a teenager, I don't know if I ever heard it sung. So my Kol Nidrei moment, memory, the source of it is the voice of a cello. Which is what thank goodness has struck enormous fear into me singing it each year, because I'll never be able to replicate the sound of the cello. I'm not looking to replicate someone else's voice I'm looking to, to go for that cello sound, and my grandmother standing next to me sobbing. And when I say Grandma, what what's why the tears? She would say, because for so long, there were so many times when we couldn't do this. And now here we can do this. And that was her whole ritual, right there was this is Kol Nidrei. And I can be here and and the whole season was just overwhelming to her. And I was there to witness it being overwhelming for her every year. And so I was thinking about Kol Nidrei as ritual and why three times. And the melody that I imagine all of us are very familiar with. And then as an adult, I started to say, well, three times, how are we going to do this three times differently? How's it going to be new each time that we sing Kol Nidrei? And then I started to realize we're familiar with the Ashkenazic melody for Kol Nidrei. There are other melodies for Kol Nidrei. There Sephardic melodies for Kol Nidrei. In one year, I have done it in Aramaic once, I've done it with Sephardic melody, one of the three times, I've done it in Hebrew, as opposed to Aramaic one of the three times. so at least then people who speak Hebrew will have a different sense of it. And the idea of, of different ways of awakening, we used a poem one of the three times.Just in this ancient I call it ancient, but very old ritual, to wake people up within it and still spark something new. All that being said, oh, let's do something new. Let's wake people up. One of the most meaningful Yom Kippur or Kol Nidrei evenings that I've ever had was one Kol Nidrei, I had laryngitis. And it put me in the second row with a congregation with my children, which I never get to do. And because my daughter had heard the story of me and my grandmother, so many times, I started crying. And I looked at my daughter and my daughter was crying. And I thought, Oh, now this is a ritual. Maybe somebody would have no idea what is going on here. Except I'm crying because my grandmother cried, my daughter is crying because I'm crying. And you know what? That's enough. Because real moment of that'll, that'll do, that'll do.
That'll do. It's so beautiful. Kol Nidrei, I think also a moment where if we're focused, it's good to have intention if we're focused so much on what the words mean, literally what we're actually doing, if we're focused too much on the words and what we're actually doing, we miss kind of the cosmic significance, and the spiritual significance of Kol Nidrei. This is also beautiful, and I'm glad you shared because I was asked by our Chavarah Minyan, the lay-led minyan at synagogue to give the Drash slash Sermon on Kol Nidrei. And I keep forgetting that I said yes to that. I haven't written it yet. So I feel I feel this in my heart. Yes. I feel like I've learned so much in this conversation. But our K in Spark stands for knowledge. What is something that you have read or listened to, learned recently that you want to share with us and with our listeners? Anyone feeling called to share some knowledge?
I don't know that this is knowledge because I'm going to very quickly throw the ball to Josh, because of what I'm going to mention, is I have read things this year for the first time about Yayom Harat Olam, and it's funny because in the Reform Machzor there are two passages that appear after each set of shofar calls on Rosh Hashanah, and they are Areshet Sefateinu and Hayom Harat Olam. For my entire life for some reason I've only most mostly been exposed to Areshet Sefateinu. And this year I am become very attracted to Hayom Harat Olam, Josh, the reason I mentioned you in the sentence is because you have this beautiful setting Hayom Harat Olam. But the idea of this is the birthday of the world, that something is actually being born by what we are doing here today. I love that idea. And for me it connects immediately to in the same way that Hashiveinu was considered a High Holy Day text which is used all year round. Hayom Harat Olam iss not used all year round. However, we have in our daily prayer this in the Yotzeir Or, hamachedesh b'chol yom tamid ma'aseh bereshit, that every day is an opportunity. And I'm really excited because one of the congregations that I'm serving this year on second day of Rosh Hashanah is featuring Josh Hameira. So this so the two to have come together for me this year. And it's a knowledge and an intention that I hope to take into my prayer during the year at each time I say Mechadesh kol yom tamid ma'aseh bereshit, that every single day, the acts of creation are renewed. And the Day of Day being Hayom Harat Olam, and this is how. this is when it all started. It just makes me grin from year to year. I can't wait.
Thanks, Ellen, thanks for sharing that. And thanks for sharing with your community too. I really I'm really excited about that. That I mean, that idea of newness is something that I try and keep with me all the time. And it connects to the piece of knowledge that I was hoping to share also, which is one of my favorite podcasts is a podcast called 99% Invisible, which tells the stories of like things that we don't really think about in the world infrastructure or design or features that are that are created so intentionally, but so much so that we don't even think about them because they work so well. And there was recently an episode a couple weeks ago, called Trail Mix that was about trails and creating trails. Eliana, is that what you were gonna say too?
No, I have a different podcast, but I loved the trail episode. So good.
The trail mix episode was about the creation of trails, like hiking trails, which was possibly like the first invention of creatures, right? The fact that we walk different places and other creatures follow them, right? Ants have ways that they create pathways so that other ants can follow them, bears all animals and human beings, how did we create the hiking trails that we have, which are designed in some way, actually, with different difficulty levels, and the trails have to be set up, sometimes they set a difficulty level for a trail. And then they actually the trail creators have to actually put like branches in the way or other things in order to make it as difficult as it has been leveled to be. And I love the idea of of sort of being so intentional about something that is then designed to look as if it is like totally natural. Right, the trails are set in all these forests in different places. And they're cut so that you can find your way but also in ways that are supposed to be set up so you feel like you're totally immersed in nature. And the main thing about the trails is that no matter what if you are walking the trail you are adding to the trail, right you are leaving something behind you're at you're leaving your footprints, you're leaving something that the trail is changed just by you walking in it. So every time the next person walks in it the trail is new, right and every time that you walk through it, the trail is new, because you've left something that people who've walked there before you have left something, there's something new to experience, to anticipate. This mechadesh, this newness is that's in our liturgy is just, it's all apparent in the world around us if we just take a moment to open up our eyes and see, and I love getting to experience it in something so natural as hiking trails. So check it out.
Beautiful, we're definitely going to put that link in the show notes. 99% Invisible is one of my favorite podcasts. This is gonna seem like I've had nowhere to say this, but so, this is our podcast, I guess I can share. So Stitcher is a podcast app that I've been using since I was in early college or late high school. I was a very early adopter of podcasts and it shut down last week. It was bought by iHeartRadio. And they just got rid of it. So I've been migrating my podcasts over to other places, but it's kind of it's really thrown a curveball to me to have been using this one system for so many years. Stitcher used to keep track of how many hours of audio you've listened to and it would be like you've listened to, but it would keep growing you listen to this many weeks of audio. You've listened to this many months of, it stopped because I think I would have had like a year I don't know. But speaking of time, that was a terrible segue. I was introduced through my friend Meg's Instagram to Upstream, a podcast that's been going on for a while but I'd never listened to before. The idea is that they look at economic issues and problems and ideas by going upstream to finding the source, which I love. They look at root causes. And the conversation I listened to yesterday, the first episode I did is called reclaiming time. And it's an interview with the writer Oliver Berkman, and we'll link to this in the show notes. His book that I immediately after listen to the podcast downloaded to listen to an audiobook is called 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. And the conversation was about time. And the difference between or the challenges we face today, often stemming from us looking at time as a separate thing from us. And he kind of goes through that history, time as a separate thing from us. And us kind of doing all of these things, working on our to do list for a future time where we will have it all figured out, where we will have maximized ourselves to the point where we will have the time to do the things that we actually want to do. And however really inviting us to say that time is never going to come like what if you just say it's impossible? What does it mean to let that go and say, I will never fully maximize this time? What freedom does it give us and so many of the things he talked about, fit so well into our Jewish conceptions of time as cyclical into Shabbat as a rest from doing and to just being in time. And he talked in one part about what he calls cosmic insignificance therapy, said I think all of us could use some cosmic and significance therapy, to really be reminded of how small we are in comparison to the universe. But let that not lead us to despair, but lead us to a sort of liberation. And I thought, maybe that's one of the things the High Holidays is attempting to do, or so many other things in our Jewish tradition is that cosmic insignificance therapy. So I'm excited to listen to the book and share more insights. But I would highly recommend the Upstream Podcast, in particular, the Reclaiming Time episode. So friends, we, we have reached the end of our first Spark. How exciting. I learned so much, this was so much fun, we're definitely going to have to do this every couple of months or so, cuz this was so lovely. And we want to end on another K which is kavanah, for each of us to share an intention, maybe for ourselves, going into the High Holidays inspired by what we have, inspired by what we have learned today. And what has been sparked in us today. I can share that. I think a kavannah for myself is to be attuned to listening, not just to my own inner voice, but to what's going on around me, to the people around me to the places around me and me that helped me be present in the current moment.
Amen I think each of you mentioned this at some point in the in the podcast today. You know, Ellen, you mentioned about the lishmoah the shofar, to hear the shofar and Eliana, you mentioned that this year on Shabbat, we're not going to be hearing the shofar. And I was recently noticing that the bracha that we have for the shofar is lishmoah kol shofar, to listen to the voice of the shofar. And I've been thinking about what a reread of that blessing looks like. Now that we won't hear the the literal sound of the shofar, what will fill the void? What voices will take its place, and what where we'll be able to hear and understand what the shofar was supposed to do for us. Its purpose is to wake us up to read and re energize us and to set us up for our tasks. So my blessing is that we find a way to hear the still small voice, the voice that could be replacing this moment of shofar, may come from ourselves may come from the communities with whom we gather, may come from the voices coming together in prayer, may come at home, may come in the sanctuary, may come wherever we happen to be present. That we find a way to hear the voice of what the shofar represents.
Amen to that. A big change for me this year, is that I have been in the same congregation for the last 10 years. And this year, I'm someplace else. And I was mentioned to Eliana before we started recording this this morning that my role, not only is the community if my role in the community is different, and it's not quite as frontal and major as I am used to, where it has been in the past. And so I find that I do have the bandwidth and the time in the moment during the services to to pray to really be there not as a leader. But as we say as a Jew in the pew. And my kavanah is that I be able to really take that time when I'm not, quote unquote, on, to allow these words to enter me differently.To take the responsibility, whether I'm driving the bus or not to be fully on the bus. And that if these words do not, if I don't hear it if I don't walk away with something, if nothing is sparked, I want to accept responsibility for that and I want to go in, even though it's new, and even though it's different than my role is different. Please G?d, may I be sparked. That's the most I can ask for it is that that the, the elements of the service, do their, work their magic on me, and that I do the hard work that I need to do for the High Holy Days. May all of us accept responsibility for our own prayers, not put it our fate for the year, our fate for the High Holy Days entirely in the hands of the people on the Bima. The work to be done can be done by me. No matter what's going on on the Bima. I got the words I've got the community I've got the melodies I've got the the year and I've got my neshamah to nourish and cultivate. And may it be a season of open heartedness and open mindedness for everyone, and I'm going to try and have it start with me.
Amen, amen, amen, and listener, if you're in a place where you can we invite you to take that deep breath and set a kavanah, an intention for yourself. For whatever time you are about to enter when you are listening to this. Set yourself a little intention and we say amen, amen to that. Thank you so so much Ellen and Josh for sparking together on this wild experiment. I can't wait to do it again very soon.
Well, a Shana Tova Eliana and Josh. May it all make a difference.
Amen, Shana Tova!
And Shana Tova to you dear listeners. Big thank you to Christy Dodge for editing this episode, to Yaffa Englander for doing our show notes, to Rachel Kaplan, our Podcast Producer and Wisdom Weaver. You can find show notes, all the things we talked about and all that was sparked in us at light lab.co and we hope you'll share with us on social media what was sparked in you and we'll get together again really really soon.
