Minyan Replay — Juneteenth with Felicia Savage Friedman

Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan.  You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/series/morning-minyan-spring-2024/

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

All right. Well, I know a lot of you are here this morning because of who our leader is. And she's going to do an awesome job. And we're so blessed and so grateful. I'm going to turn it over to Felicia right now. We got a big morning ahead of us.

Yes, we do. Thank you. Rabbi Lizzi. Welcome, cousins. You know, that's what I say, everywhere I go. I'm just honored to be able to celebrate Juneteenth in the remembrance of Juneteenth. And I would be remiss in not holding up the life of our baby Antoine rose, because we're celebrating in Pittsburgh, specifically on this same day. On June 10, Antoine Rose was murdered by a police officer. So I'm holding him up on this day as well. Thank you, Liz, for that reminder yesterday at our meeting. Am I honored to hold space for our pain as well as our joy practices? Most of you all know that, you know, I'm the in the humanity business. My prayer is that one day, we as humans can see each other and see God within each other, and hold each other tenderly, and be able to dance and eat together and saying, do yoga together? Hey. I'm just so honored to be able to co facilitate with Rabbi Lizzi and Martin today. So we're gonna go right into I want to share this is the book that I'm reading from him. Martin can drop it in the chat. know if you all can see. But this is where I'm going to read a couple of our prayers from.

For those listening on the podcast later, it says Shema, in beautiful Hebrew calligraphy.

Thank you, Rabbi Lizzi. So I worship you yah, our God, cosmic Majesty, you form me human beings. So wisely. You created in me all manners of Hollows and ducts in our organs and intestines, as I am completely transparent before you, it is apparent and clear that if any of these openings with clog, or if any of these enclosures would seep I would not exist and live in your sight, not even for a moment. So I'm grateful and bless and bless you for healing me in amazing ways. And so for those of you who know me know, I talk about eating and pooping and peeing a lot. So this prayer is near and dear to my heart. It artfully shares in terms of us being thankful for all our openings and ducts and praying that they continue to work and so I pray that you know, maybe right after minion, you go and poo and move that stuff on through. Um, so now we're gonna go into the moda ani i gratefully Thank you. And so this is going to be led by Rabbi Lizzi on Sunday Rabbi Lizzi yes

mo ne

Hi,

there Kyle.

Beanie Smar t this m

o da.

beanies smile at Beth

rave Oh man as I said before you or whatever position you're in living spirit this soul you gave me your great faith in me. May I be great May I be good more Danny me less

kya chi m chef beanies Massey bed and one last time in English grateful Amma. As I said, before

you

living speak

of the word,

this soul you gave me, your great faith in me, may I be great? May I be good

thank you

the breath that you have given me universal creative presence, the breath you have given me is pure and refreshing. You create it, you form it, you breathe it into me, and you keep me breathing. One day you will take it from me, I will have breathed my last breath in this body and you will resuscitate me to the life of the spirit. With every breath still in me, I thank you, My God, God of my forebears, sustenance of all spirits. Master of all that happens, I worship you, yah. Hoo with each breath gives me new life a new so noticing where you hold in your body in this moment. Violent harassing horrific acts. So just noticing where you hold violent, horrific acts that have happened to you and your ancestor and and notice where does it show up for you. So just take a moment just to pause in this moment. And notice while noticing now begin to breathe joy into those parts of our bodies. So for me, it's in my gut, my upper abdomen and lower chests. I hold a lot of harm there. So I'm purpose breathing into that space and you can even lay hands on yourself and hold yourself. In the Baptist tradition we laid hands on you know, every every, every service. So laying hands on is really important. holding yourself intentionally with tenderness and kindness

and breathe

deep breath in, this is an invitation it's not mandatory. Breath out, breath out breath out breath out breath out breath

pause inhale, deep breath in. Exhale, breath out breath out breath Soccer, Soccer, Soccer Soccer so

inhale exhale slowly release your hands from your bodies. Let they and let them be where they met.

Now we'll go and sing calling response I have a rubber which speaks to abundance of love. And this is with Rabbi Lizzi get to sing with Rabbi Lizzi those of you know me for many you know that that's always a joy for me to be able to sing along with wrap up let's see

how are we gonna do it? Rabbi Lizzi

Rabbi Lizzi you me? You Me

gonna make singing together harder. Okay. So that's the first answer to foolishness question how are we going to do it? I'll come off mute. And then and then I think we'll I think we'll just do it the way that it the way that it's supposed to work I'll sing and then you'll sing and and everybody everybody who's here so we have the words up so that you can participate. Felicia is going to be off mute you should stay on mute everyone else otherwise it'll be messy. But you can sing with Felicia as we do this call and response with a deep and unending love we have been loved

I have Rabbi Rob

I have I have our Rabbi

oh this is optimized Oh yeah, that's what's going on. That's what's going on you need you need to have sound optimized for instruments because you're using your instrument your most important and powerful instrument which is your voice zoom thinks it zoom thinks it knows better than us when we sing it thinks we need to be speaking and actually know we need to tell zoom. Now I intend to be singing don't quiet me down. Don't tune out certain registers. But actually this is a good opportunity to re recalibrate. So if we if this is like 123412 so I'm I'm just a little bit like when I sing I'm just a little bit ahead of you, you know there's just a teeny weeny delay. So it's like once we get in time together it's almost like Don't wait for me to be done like I'll like I'll come through and then you can start you know the second I'm done because that'll there'll be a natural delay. Try it again.

One two

I have run Rob

one more time.

I have I have I have our Rabbi

And then we'll go to the blessing down here

by Jairo. Atta

I don't

have

Bammo you throw

B amo Israel Ba ba ba me

say Amen.

Now wait, did you want to go straight into the schema from here and then reflect on it? Or did you want to reflect first and then go into the schema?

Yeah, let's go right into the SHA. I really want to reflect afterwards. Okay,

you got it? Oh, well, no,

you are

gonna do a quick reflection first, quick

reflection first. So, just to set the scene for Smosh Ma is a prayer that is really near and dear to me. I really would like for you all at this moment to reflect on how we listen for understanding unconditional love, interconnectedness, understanding our oneness and connection to each other. And our relationships personally with our higher power. And from for me in this moment, I really want you to feel in your body and body this finding joy in the most toughest of times. So really sit in that and I know it's uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable for me. It's uncomfortable in this moment in my body, but I really want you to just embody the Shema specifically, yes. And so now we'll go into the smile. And if we could use a breath for each word of this ma i really love practicing like that pretty much right?

For those of you familiar enough with the words to be able to close your eyes that listening for understanding that ability to listen is often enhanced when our eyes are closed. But if you need the words on the screen to be able to say the prayer obviously you know keep your eyes open

Shema.

A

day ha

So, hello everybody. Good morning. So good to see all of you here. I am Martin Friedman. I'm Felicia Savage, Friedman's husband. And a any of you that know Felicia know that she integrates everything she does in her life, which means when she's asked to do something like this, she is going to create a team. And she's going to integrate everything that she does. And so she's asked me to share the story of Juneteenth knowing that I spent much of the last 30 years telling the story of the construction of race and racism in the United States. And this is, this is Juneteenth isn't one that I often talked about. And just to just to briefly share my relationship to Juneteenth. It was not something that I really ever remember learning about at school in any level, any level of school. I remember hearing the terminology, but I didn't know what it was until I was in my 30s. And I started to really study institutional, systemic and structural racism and to really start to know this story. One of the most interesting things for me around my relationship to Juneteenth is that I really didn't become familiar with the story until I was going up to the prisons in Washington State as a volunteer sponsor. And there was a group called Black prisoners caucus. And they celebrated Juneteenth inside of the prisons and people from from the community in Seattle would come up their families, friends were elected officials. And that's when I really first started to learn about it. And it's extremely ironic, because if you know the history of the 13th Amendment, which actually happens after Juneteenth, the history of the 13th Amendment is that it abolished slavery everywhere. And if we were more interactive, I would say everywhere except for where and a lot of you would say back to me, you would say, for those who are incarcerated, so slavery is still legal in the incarcerated in the in the criminal justice system and the incarceration system. And you know, I'll share a statistic that was from the book, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, and she said that by the year 2017, I believe, so we're well into it, there would be more men of African descent, incarcerated then were enslaved at the peak of slavery in 1860. So really, I learned about the Juneteenth from black men who were still in a way enslaved. The story of Juneteenth is that the union This is the one that most of us know is that the Union General George Gordon Granger, he issued the order which was order number three, which was the Emancipation order, he issued this order in Galveston, Texas, from a veranda on June 19 1865. This is approximately 900 days after the original Emancipation Proclamation went into place. And that was in that was the first of January in 1863. And this is before the 13th Amendment gets ratified in December of 1865. So what's really interesting about this is this is just, you know, the story that we're told is that the the news of the Emancipation hadn't reached Texas, because Texas was so deep South. And so, you know, deeply ingrained in slavery, that the news didn't get there. That's actually not true. Galveston was one of the biggest cities in Texas, it was a port city, and many African people of African descent who were enslaved, were working in the ports and actually ran aspects of the ports. And so they had heard this information a long time ago, but it didn't mean anything, because it wasn't changing their actual situation. So when this order comes, it's not that. And I'll say, I'll say another thing, too, that many, many Union soldiers had come to try to give the Emancipation Proclamation before Union General Gordon Granger did, but they were killed by by Texas troops. So they're literally we're killing people to keep from the message of freedom from getting into Texas, right? So when General Granger gives this order, part of the order says that you're free, but don't leave the plantation. So what's really interesting, what I really want to highlight here is that while we might have systemic change, the change is still often going to fall on the individual. And it's going to fall on the individual people, because it did not was not a miraculous freedom. He said, Don't come to our bases, stay on the plantation and come to some type of arrangement. So the celebration in the face of horrific acts means that yes, the celebration of knowing in Texas that you are free. And I also have to say that Felicia and I were in Houston, just this past week, this past weekend, honoring the grandfather of one of our closest friends and brothers, Dustin, and, and their families from this legacy. You know, this is in College Station, Texas was the funeral. So we were with people who are from this legacy, connected directly to Juneteenth. And the last thing I'll say is that, you know, general Granger was accompanied by 2000 troops. So this was a martial enforcement of this law. There were many black soldiers that were going black Union soldiers that went plantation by plantation to tell people that they were free. The last piece I really want to say is that, that this required self emancipation, like so much in the history of, of the people of African descent who were enslaved in this country. Yes, the legal orders were given, but it's still required you to to manifest it. So the massive the true emancipation comes from ourself. Thank you for letting me share this story.

Thank you, Martin. We really appreciate you. Yes. So just holding for a moment. Story and feel and notice

notice in your body where you're where you were feeling the words that Martin was speaking. In order to heal, we have to know what we need to heal from. And where do we start? And we begin again each day

so just noticing deep breath in, breath out deep breath in, breath out

so, my African American black folks who are my ancestors, how did they heal from such a horrific past and present in the ways in which we heal. It's first acknowledging that trauma has happened and is happening, still telling our story. Singing through it, praying through it, dancing through it. Chicago Mishcon is actually the birthplace of Chicago stepping. And if you don't know about Chicago steppin, y'all need to look it up. That's a way we celebrate by dancing, couples dancing. Eating good food, drinking liquids out of a red cup that's how we celebrate so honoring our lives and this is the news the good news I want to share with you is yes even in the midst of trauma in the midst of me being a black cisgender woman living on these lands I can still celebrate my joy even though I experience daily not being seen or not being heard daily so it can happen because I'm doing it

and for me, that's good news. And so what I want you to do is just take a moment and reflect on your ancestors Joy practices. So what practices have helped get your get you here? What practices did your ancestors have to do in order for you to even be here? What joy practices specifically? And then put them in the chat? I want to see an abundance of joy practices think about it not complaining

Yes. Laughing

shopping. Retail therapy is a fake eating Yes. Gathering together eating a lot beautiful come on fill it up. Ancestors gossip vain Oh, that's real studying Torah right toward storytelling laughing food with meaning Yes. Oh beautiful. Dancing. Reinforcing the floor so that our students that's cute food sharing music. baking bread yes gardening. Ocean gets pretty I'm with you on that with your mom finding joy through all experiences and Cindy be specific. How did they do it? That's what I want. Be specific. We need to remember the specifics because they give us a roadmap music family getting together being together eating Yes, nature walks ice skating. Humor humor humor and appropriate humor bad puns. Yes. Thank you

huh

oh celebrating 18 you Yes. Oh. ship arrived from unit Yes. Eating just mentioned. Absolutely laughing thinking giving back sharing. Yeah. As beautiful Yes. Beautiful. Talking music art. Yes. Art is a way that I doing. Art is a way that I heal. And I'll share some of that with you all a little bit later to Kuhn alarm practices. Yes, repairing the world, gathering family. So read through these. Read through these when you've put yours in prayer storytelling. Yes. And now, Rabbi Lizzi and I are going to share how she they knew. It's the old school, Craig Topman version. Martin and I have recited this prayer many, many times. And it's a prayer for peace, asking God to spread a shelter of peace over all human beings. And so at this time, please put the names of those folks that you want to send healing energy to put them in the chat their names. Yes, all Christy is here. Thank you.

Yes, free, so. Yes. Yes, please put their names in the chat. for healing. Rabbi Lizzi

Oh, Rabbi Lizzi. You're muted.

Yeah, I was like she's talking. It's so funny. Because being quiet is not one of the gifts God gave me in general. That's not you know, people don't know me for that. But I think it was just like, sensitive groups. So grateful to be able to listen to you. I'm just Yeah. So this, these words, help us lie down in peace and awaken us to life. These words traditionally go in an evening service, because the nighttime was scary. Right? When when these words were written, you didn't you didn't know if you would be attacked by wild beasts or bandits in the middle of the night. And they actually were quite specific in the same way that we were specific about our joy practices, just now. They were they were very aware of the things they were afraid of hatred, plague, destruction, famine, anguish. I mean, and so many and so many more. And so we often every single morning we pray, you know, we pray for the people who we know who are sick, but who are lonely, who need love, who are struggling with addiction, who are struggling with mental health, who are restricted in movement or in mind who are not free who are oppressed. So please you know, take take this time to really think about where you want to send healing loving energy. And these are the words in Hebrew. Of course the prayer is a lot longer but we'll just focus on these words right here.

Hashkee vane No, I don't I ello Hain shadow there Jaime de No, show me no their side Husky vein who tonight and oh Hain Hainault let's shadow Jaime de no Shomrei Wayne all this housekeeping or deny ello Hain all in shadow? The Jaime de no shimmering Wayne Husky vein and oh Hain shadow Jaime de no Shomrei Wayne Sonning suka.

Shallow man

down there, whoosh ma se ting

Oh boy

less I amo shallow man

ash giving oh no i don't i and oh hey no that shadow Jaime de no Shomrei Wayne all this I have scheming this shadow Jaime de day no shimmering

me you spread over us the shelter of Your peace bless us with peace and with life I mean

Rabbi Lizzi

I'm looking back over our over our Yeah.

So let's uh let's let's let's, let's frame the frame the morning Scottish First you want me to do it?

Yeah,

thank you, Martin. Awesome.

So Rabbi Lizzi can talk more about the mourners cottage, it's it's the prayer we say when someone has passed, or on their yard site, which is the anniversary of their death. So if you have somebody that you're celebrating the anniversary of their death, or somebody who's died recently, please put their name in the chat. Interestingly, again, Rob, I can tell it Rabbi Lizzi to tell you more than about this than me, but it's not really praying for the dead. It's really praying to, to appreciate life and that were alive and the life that they had, and they were living. And then today special to Juneteenth. We also would like everybody to think about who which of your ancestors, were not able to experience joy. And we want you to put their name in the chat today. Because so many of our ancestors were not able to fully feel joy, because of the trauma they had gone through themselves are generational trauma. And we want to honor them today. As we say the morning Scottish, we want to honor those who who have passed in our lives, who are not able to feel joy in their lives. So please put their names in the chat. And then Rabbi Lizzi will lead us in the morning Scottish and you can unmute and say it you can stand today to honor those those ancestors in your life who could not experience joy, you can unmute you can you can do whatever you want. But we want to make sure we honor people that we often don't think about and ancestrally who have who have impacted us, because of their inability to feel joy for all the different traumas that had gone through.

Thank you so much, Maren and Felicia, for helping ground us in a particular from a particular angle on this day around these prayers. For those of us who for those people who are here who are joining us every day, these are prayers we say every single day. And and it's really on special days like today that have a particular angle or focus that help us see the prayer in a new way experience it in a way that it was perhaps intended to be experienced. But it's too much emotion to do it from every angle every day. And so on this particular day, thank you, Martin and Felicia for helping ground us both in joy. You know, in how we experience joy how our ancestors experienced joy but but partly because so many of them were not able to because of the traumas that they lived through. Which is not something we talk about every single day, but it's true every single day and every single day we're transcending that. So just so really thank you for helping bring us to that today. I'm going to bring mourners Kaddish up on the screen. I'm just seeing everybody sharing the names of your your dear departed, ancestors grandparents friends. So this is for all of them. And that traditionally is to go back and forth and so if there's bolded like the bolded stuff, there's not as much of it you can you know, you can wait for those moments to say that or if this morning you feel called to say the whole thing. So you can join me yet get down.

Josh, robot teh leaf Mako teh home and their home. Hi Naga I call this my Caribbean Maru and

it's Barra Starbuck our ritual my Vietnamese say Darby it's a lei utilize Vedic could sharp Aima shear

beam ru Yeah Hey, ah man I shall I'm about to mention the HEMA Lena via call your BMO shallowly My Ma Ba Maru name

me all of their memories, for a blessing and for learning and for growing and for joy. I'm gonna say I mean

should we sing ourselves? Should we sing ourselves out within? Oh say Shalom tune? Oh, wait, hang on. No, wait, Felicia, you have you have a star dress star? Just crew? We are all connected something.

Oh, yeah, I was going to share I want to share some of my joy practices. Yes. So I can't share. All right, you can. Martin, what am I gonna

say? My Yeah, my suggestion is Rabbi Lizzi. If you want to, you know, for people that want to leave, quote, unquote, at the end of the service, Felicia is going to stay on and share joy practices and ask people to share them and we have a whole thing set up. But if you want to, you know, do that new version of the say shalom, just to close out the service part of it. And then we'll have as long as folks want to stay afterwards, Felicia will share and we'll ask you all to share.

Thank you. Appreciate My pleasure.

I appreciate you. I appreciate you.

We appreciate we all of us appreciate you aren't you know, Armenian is a very special place, you are a very important part of it. It is a great, it's like a great pleasure to wake up every morning and see your faces. And if not your your face your name. knowing you're out there in Boca or Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Seattle or wherever Martin Phylicia happened to be on any given day or week, helping make the world a better place for the people in your family and for the people who want to learn your Torah know who want to learn what you have to teach, which is so so much. And and every single day, we have a conversation at the end of minion about whatever and the two of you bring such wisdom and I'm so glad I'm so glad that we get that we that we get to be in community together. Thank you Felicia for saying yes this morning when I asked you if you might share your joy practice on Juneteenth with us and you know, and you and Martin putting together your prayer service team. Your in house prayer service team for all of us. All right, so this is a prayer for peace. Again, we close out all of our prayer services with some version of these words. So

oh, say shall we say shall long? Alina uncle histroy that out cool y'all che Tay Val I'll

tell you what it means in a moment.

Oh say Shalom the mama we say shot on ah Lena Vallco USRowing uncle your che che Oh say shallow mineral see shad all Elena will call you back all your stay man. They don't want they don't want to brings peace bring peace down bring peace down Badewanne middle one who makes peace bring peace down ring peace down man one man or one who makes peace bring peace down bring peace down. They the one maybe one who makes peace bring peace down bring peace down? Oh say Shalom Imran ma Oh, say Shah Dong. banning of alcohol is throwing shade at Oh say shallow mineral oil yes is shallow lane of alcohol yes they are cool you'll shave me the one beta one who brings peace bring peace down bring peace down

May the one middle one who makes peace bring peace down ring peace down made a one minute one who makes peace spring peace down bring peace down May the one may the one who brings peace bring peace down bring

peace down on all of us on all humanity.

I mean, that over to you.

Thank you Rabbi Lizzi yes and

wait. Alright, so here's here's the real question. Should I Should I close the recording? Like we let minion stand on its own and now it's conversation and people can stay if they want and also can maybe like share more freely if they want because this will not end up on the podcast? Absolutely. Yes. No. Okay.

Thank you