Elul Week 1: Letting Go of Perfectionism

At our Virtual Morning Minyan on August 24th, Rabbi Lizzi urged us to be gentle with ourselves as we reckon with the past year's shortcomings.

The song featured in the opening of this episode is "awaken" by Marni Loffman (@singingjewess) off their new album "the long short path".

Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. Our Thursday sessions are hosted by Mishkan's Founding Rabbi, Lizzi Heydemann. 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-summer-fall-2023/

Mishkan Chicago's High Holiday tickets are now on sale to the general public! For scheduling, pricing, venue information, and tickets, follow this link:

https://www.mishkanchicago.org/high-holy-days/

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For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

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

Transcript

Transcript

For those of you who were around during the pandemic, I lead a service I co lead a service with a young musical artist named Marni Loffman, a rising Tiktok staron Tiktok as @singingjewess — we made some Tiktok duets which was very fun. Anyway, they  just put out an album and it's so beautiful, so this is from that album and it is very much in the spirit of this season. I'll be curious to hear what you think we may even sing it later together but for now just kind of take it in

...

such a way to go into the holiday season I will be dropping that in the minyan channel in Slack All right well good morning welcome to your morning welcome to this day

this can be sort of like a mantra that follows you throughout your day and throughout the month

...

All right.

That was Marni laufman and truly like you know you can find their stuff in all the places you can find you know people's stuff but the whole albums really beautiful yeah

thank you Cassandra.

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that guy Jeff as beanies man at this time

grateful am I grateful my as I said before you living speak this soul you gave me your great faith in me may I be graceful

May I be god

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beanies Maddie

So, one of the things I've been thinking about, along with the fact that on Shabbat on Rosh on Rosh Hashanah, the tradition is not to blow the shofar. If it's Shabbat, if you came to the class the other night, we talked at length about this. And so, you know, one thing that that does is make it that much more meaningful when we hear it in minion in the morning and we hear it throughout the month of LFO. makes it all that much more meaningful when we hear it on the second day of Rosh Hashanah on Sunday, and at the end of Yom Kippur war, but it forces us to reckon with what is like what appears when the thing that we are expecting to have happen doesn't happen. You know, what, what fills the space if there's a sudden absence of something that we were maybe looking forward to or hoping or thinking was a given. And then it turns out that's not a given. And Rabbi Brian field, it talks about how this is an exercise in non attachment Which maybe sounds like, oh, okay, now we're doing Buddhism. But the truth is the High Holidays are kind of an exercise in non attachment, if we are going to forgive, if we are going to grow, things have to be let go, we have to experiment with how we are, if we don't remain exactly the same all the time, if we don't hold on to all the things. One of the jokes for rabbis, new rabbis, when they, you know, go to synagogues is that the membership of the synagogue hires the rabbi and says, Oh, Rabbi, we really need you to change things around here, you know, we really are excited for you to like, shake things up. And then the rabbi says, Great, why don't we try? You know, this song is a closing, and they're like, Oh, well, no, no, we have to do the donor love. Everybody loves that one. And then it's like, oh, okay, well, what if we do this song for this? And they're like, Well, you can't do that. Because there are too many people who like that. And it turns out, you know, what they meant by change was more like the idea of change. But actually, when it comes to implementing change and growth, we retreat to our place of comfort and fear often and can't let go. And then that makes it really hard for us to actually become new versions of ourselves create new versions of the world around us. And so, you know. So with the shofar, I think actually, now is a great moment to blow it. You know, just like wake us up before going into our who Yeah, I'm all about it. Ricky, are you ready? Do you have it? I do. I think Eric might have one too. I think Oh, amazing. Well, maybe we can blow and blow before barcoo Now and then also, and then also at the end sound alright, now Eric, are you Are you all set with your original sound on

let me I will fix that right now.

Oh, I love it. You've also got one bear. Oh, yeah. All right. All right. Well then, Alright, first of all, if what we're going to do next actually is go into bar who I want to invite people to stand you know, as if standing at attention as we listen to the sound of the shofar but then also, we'll go straight into barcoo And how about this I'll do a round of calls for you. Eric and then I'll do a round of calls for you bear and then at the end of minion today, Ricky, you can take us out Okay.

Sounds great. One of my goals goals for this season is to actually learn the calls instead of just sort of fake this will be a starting point.

Okay, amazing and maybe after the minions over if you can get some tips from Season shofar blowers All right. And the intention this morning you know as as you as you hear the sound is you know is there is there anything in particular now that you know you actually will benefit from letting go of but it's a little hard to imagine letting go you know it's a little hard to imagine like really letting go and so you're holding on we'll see what comes to mind see what comes to mind as we hear the shofar this morning

to Kia to Kia

chivari

Theresa

I thought this was a great example actually like great learning moment I can't wait to process later all right to Kia

okay to Kia is just the one

to Kia.

Ah,

I'm confused about whose turn it is. I'm sorry. I'm confused about the round.

All right. It actually sounded great though. Everybody snapped. Yeah, really awesome. We could hear both of you. We could hear both of you going back and forth. All right.

I'm facing east

God

by Laura Lee

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one thing to let go of is perfectionism. This has been, this has been, you know, a work in progress. I mean leading services is always a work in progress. And I don't know if this is a story I've shared with all of you. But the first time I led services was in college at a Friday night minion that happened to be alumni weekend. And so there were all of these, uh, you know, Stanford alum, visiting Hillel, you know, coming to see their old stomping grounds. And you know, what the students are doing now, and I was a freshman. And my rabbi there Rabbi know what Kushner who's like, now a colleague in the Jewish emergent network, she runs a kitchen in San Francisco, the time she was our Hillel rabbi. And, you know, she was engaging me as a leader, and she tapped me to lead services. And I protested that I really didn't know what I was doing. And she said, I'll work with you, I'll help you, we'll get there. And and, you know, we work together and so it was Friday night, and we all had our books in front of us. And you know, when you get to the section, that's like the, the meat of the prayer, which includes the bar, who the blessings after the bar, who the Shema and the blessing before and after the Shema, you know, like, I have I rebab beforehand, and then halftime, all blessings afterwards. So in many seadream, that section is called the Shamar and its blessings. And I, I turned the page, and I open to the Shema and its blessings. And I like froze, and I freaked out because there were all these people in the room, and they were all older than me. And they all seemed smarter than me. And like they were looking at me and expecting me to do a good job. And I just like launched into the Shema. And, of course, what was on the page was what you see in front of you here, the bar flew to kind of wildly different Jewish prayer experiences. And everybody just kind of looked at me, my parents happen to be in town to my mom saw this and she will never I mean, if you if you ask her if you bumped into her at high holidays and say, you know, Rabbi Lizzi was telling us about that thing that happened at Sanford Hillel, her first time leading services, she will rage like a mama bear, because then what happened was, like one of these, you know, alum gently said, You skipped a couple of prayers, you know, and then I kind of looked with my eyes, and I realized, like, oh, I skipped a couple, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you know, and I like went back and did it. But of course, like, I kind of felt bad, and they lost my confidence. And, and it was fine. Like, here I am. Now, we all survived. But, you know, in that moment, had I quit. Because I didn't do it right the first time. You know, the world would be a different place, I would be a different person, you wouldn't be here this morning. You know, and so I watch my kids, you know, four and six years old. And they're like learning simple math, you know, one plus five, six plus two, nine minus three. And at a certain point, it starts to get challenging, you know, and one of them will just be like, I'm done. And it's like, oh, no, now it's just getting interesting. Now. It's just getting fun, you know? And so, you know, I want to invite all of us to let go of the sensor, you know, that we need to be perfect. We need to do it right all the time. And certainly in front of people. If we're to be worthy, because we won't grow that way. And the world needs us to. The world needs us to learn and needs us to learn in public and what just happened with the shofar? God bless you guys. We're at the end of this Ricky will like hold up numbers of fingers and you know, show us what call is what? And, and we'll grow and that's the best

or ha hada shots you don't take care of any scaffold none of my hair out there. Oh, row by row Katana, you'd say I mean Oh, I have Rabbah I have time why don't I let me know I'm not gonna do Olivia Tara I'm outta la new IV new machina by for Butina Chabad, who will? guide you have loved us with an unending love teach us

to live to trust to embrace one another and ourselves and all of our imperfections place in our Hearts the ability to understand, to have discernment to listen to pay attention, to learn and to teach and to observe and to uphold and to be an upstander in all of the ways of your Torah but I have with Love

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taking just a moment to center yourself set up a little more straight so that every word of the Shema can be an expression of God's presence emanating from your voice out into the world Shema

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okay, I want to go into me kombucha as a healing prayer this morning. So go ahead and place names in the chat or say them out loud. One of my teachers Rabbi Sharon brows, many years ago for High Holidays gave a great sermon, I think it was called, like Plan B, or something like that. And and she talked about how you know, we have plan a plan A is Be healthy, stay married, you know, be in your relationship, do all the things you love doing, eat the food you want to eat, do the things you want to do we live the life you want to live, that's Plan A. And then life gets in the way. And sometimes sickness gets in the way mental illness, physical illness, and then you start making new plans. You know, and instead of imagining living till 85, it might be living till 60. And instead of doing that big trip to, you know, Sri Lanka that you were planning or Japan or you know, the Himalayas, going for a walk around the block actually becomes the new goal and you let go of some of the things on your bucket list because actually, you realize the most important things are right in front of you, or the people around you. You know, and and you wouldn't Just like to plan B, and realize, well, that's just that's actually that's all. That's all all of us are doing it all the time. And so for all of the people on your list that you're praying for, and for all of us in this room, just to take this opportunity right now in this moment to think of what are the essentials? What are the things that give us a sense of nourishment and being buoyed and supported that are not like the big things, you know, way out beyond what we can control in here but actually the things that have to do with how we show up you know, what we can do in our homes and around our homes when we lie in our beds when we walk on the way how do we bring a sense of presence and attention and love to wherever we are and the people who are on our lists? You know, it might be Plan B. Plan A is never to get sick and never to need people's prayers for healing but thank God all of these people whose name Steve litter today have you? Have you thinking about them and praying for them and calling them and texting them and sending them love?

Me

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fleshly man to everyone on your list healing of body and healing of spirit seems we need a lot of healing of spirit in our circles this morning. Refreshed Lima

All right. And we're gonna go into the psalm for the month of ello and then do Kaddish Sam for the month of LoL as you know Psalm 27 gives us the opportunity every single day throughout the month to ask like okay, what what are the essential things I want to focus on? What's the what are the distractions taking up a bunch of space and time in my life? Oh, let's get rid of all these different little things what are all the distractions taking up space and time in my life that I'm doing? I'm doing for a reason but it's like at the expense actually of what I actually will benefit from what maybe means the most to me, and maybe I'm distracting myself on purpose. That's a good thing to explore this month. What's that about? Alright, you guys I'm going to do a funny fast tune for this one ready

check out deed a dad don't die. Okay, that's out D the dead don't die. by k a shifty, shifty shifty that you all go?

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all right, let that let that set the tone for your day and let us go into Cadiz Chateau mourners Kaddish. Is there anyone now who wants to share who you're thinking about as we go into Kadesh? All right, so of course, Feldman my mother. Yes. Yes. And

Merle.

Hannah Basiago of

Muriel. Yeah. My mother Muriel. Yeah,

my client Cassie Kolbert.

Thank you and you put a little more of her story in the chat this morning. Maybe you can link in the Lincoln Armenian channel in Slack to her obituary that you found so inspiring. Is there anybody who wants to leave Kaddish this morning?

If nobody wants to, I can lead it. Okay, thanks everyone. I gotta sit I can't see it. Obvious Kadesh shimmy Raba Amin, Jamar D Roc who say via Malik moku say but how you hold of your microphone will create the whole base is for ale but I got it was one Kobe VM brew Amen

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man A man may their memories be blessings and we'll close out with no say Shalom

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wherever your day takes you,

I want to send you off with blessings and with love for yourself and for everybody around you.