The Way Forward is Showing Up

The day after the 2024 presidential election, Rabbi Lizzi led us in a minyan dedicated to processing our anxieties about the future.

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://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

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

Transcript

Transcript

0:06  
Okay, I'll repeat what I just said. Thanks. First of all, I'm going to do what I do every morning here in this space, which is wrap myself in 1000 year old garment and say a blessing for the privilege of being alive, which doesn't change today for any of us who woke up. So take a moment, whether you've got to tell us or not, to just close your eyes and breathe. Feel your breath going into your nose, into your lungs, filling your belly, every breath of prayer, every breath a reminder of our resilience and our existence honestly against all odds, I'm gonna wrap myself and say this blessing. Baruch atah, Adonai, Elohim, a share. Keith Chatham, it's even seat. Seat.

Thank you. Yeah. I just said a moment ago was well, well, I have never lived in unprecedented times before, or it's such so consciously in unprecedented times I like, I like what Leah Ari said, don't, don't. We always live in unprecedented times after all, this moment has never happened before, and neither has the one that came last week or the one that came last week. So that's a good point, but it does feel like unprecedented moments are coming at us fast and furious more frequently than ever. Starting, I don't, I don't know when you'd start the clock on that, but, but I think it's a good thing to remember that our people have lived through unprecedented times and times that have been truly crushing and scary, and when I don't feel like I know what to do or what is the appropriate response, that's actually When tradition comes in, right and when a pilot doesn't know which way is up, when they're flying a plane and they get disoriented and they don't know which way is up, they have to rely on their instruments. Have to rely on their instruments. And for Jews, one of our most important instruments is this. So take a moment. I don't know if you're you're in speaker view or you're in gallery view, but, but, but if you're in speaker view, take a moment to go into the gallery and like, unmute for a second and just like, look at faces and say hi. Say hello to your community. It's nice to see so many of you here today, and I'm sorry. I'm I mean, I'm sorry we're gathering in a way that that essentially feels like we're coming together for a Shiva minyan. And as I said to somebody who wrote to me this morning and said, How do you say Shiva? How do you say Kaddish for democracy, which I know is what it feels like we need to do right now, I just want to remind us that there are stages between, you know what, when, when there's a diagnosis made, and when a person actually passes. And there are lots of interventions to be tried, and there is nothing that is written in stone, and the future is as we sang on the High Holidays unwritten. So I don't want to be I don't want to be pollyannish, but I don't think it's time for Kaddish, for democracy yet. So I do want to begin though, in a place of heart space, we also sang this on colna Dre after I gave a sermon that kind of anticipated this moment a little bit, although I didn't want to be too depressing about it. There was a moment when when I said, and you may remember this, I said at every point over the last 10 years that we thought to ourselves, it can't possibly get worse. It can't possibly get worse than this, right? No, no, and now we're at the literal bottom. And I said, but I think we should prepare for the possibility that it will which was the nicest way that I could come up. The first draft of that sermon said, but we on, and here we are, and here we are. So I'm going to play the song that nefesh mountain wrote. They wrote this after the Tree of Life shooting, and I have come back to this song. This is a. Jewish band named nefesh mountain, and I've come back to this song as a starting place very often. And then what we're going to do is we're going to do minion. We're going to do what we always do. We're going to pray. We're going to rely on the words and traditions that we show up every day with and that our people have been relying on for 1000s of years to navigate moments of joy and also moments of despondency. And I'm going to open it up and we can share kind of where our hearts are and what our anxieties and fears are, even just to have a place to put them. Not all of them will come true. I think one thing that it's really important to remember is that a lot of the things that we sit with that are fears and anxieties. We are reasonable, like they're reasonable, but they're not necessarily a true story. They're they're a true emotion for us, but they're not necessarily predicting the future. So in so we'll let's begin with a song. Let's begin with something that gets us out of our heads and into our bodies. I actually put a box of Kleenex next to my computer this morning in the event that I got teary. I see Carlos got one too. And we'll begin here, my friends and and I want to invite you to let, to let your heart, to let your heart be broken. We do not have to use this minion to, like, perk up and you know, we're we've got this like, there is a place for that, there is a time for that. But the space for minion is actually to be gently guided by the words, by the tradition, and also to feel however we feel, and to show up and be accepted and loved, whatever that is and whatever is appropriate for the moment. And I think for many of us, for many of us, and I will just speak for myself, despondency, anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, frustration. Extreme annoyance, but but much more than that is how I feel. We'll we'll do some sharing out after we get a chance to kind of locate ourselves in our bodies. So go ahead and take a few breaths and let this music actually penetrate your heart. Let me know. Also, if you're not able to hear it or see it, you can just unmute. Can you see this? Can you see, yes, I want to make sure, yes. Can you see,

7:39  
I being there's a black

7:42  
screen. Aha, that's why I asked. I've had this issue before. Screen sharing is pause, no share my screen.

7:52  
Well, to be clear, your screen is there. It's that the the video didn't start. Well, that's

7:59  
weird. Let's try that again. Aha. Oh, you know what? I think, for whatever reason, I can't I haven't figured out yet how to do full screen, but this I can do partial screen. That'll be fine. Tell me if this works for the lab.

To share your computer audio for the love. What Okay? Can you see? Can you see the screen, yes, all right, and let me know if you can hear it as well.

No, no. Hear it. For the love of Hashem, yes, some of us, yes. For some of you, yes.

9:00  
Did you click the Share sound button when you shared? Um,

9:05  
I did, and then it gave me kind of an issue, and then I just decided to share this. Share computer sound stereo, sure. Okay. I

9:27  
Oh, my God. I

9:43  
Lizzi it's not just that the sound isn't there. They're frozen, so maybe hitting play.

9:49  
Okay, I have an idea about this fold, please, and I'm sorry for everybody's wasting your time. Okay?

9:59  
Okay, we're together. Our time is not being wasted Exactly. I'm so glad we're together,

10:12  
and we're together while things are not working out the way we want them to.

10:17  
All right, I think I got it, y'all, I think I got it. I think I got it. Let's try this again. Okay, okay,

10:29  
so sound,

10:38  
yay. All right, together, we did it.

10:53  
Help these words heal someone out there. Voice just to cry in the air while I sing, nonetheless, through this pain we share,

11:23  
oh, sweet friends come and try your eyes and hold each other by this tree of Life. I'm angry and tired of this great divide, But I sing nonetheless with love on our side.

12:24  
Oh, sweet souls who feel broken. Now we'll heal together somewhere, somehow, time and again, we have been let down, but we sing nonetheless, still whole and still Brown. Oh sweet

12:55  
spirit, hear my prayer.

13:01  
Help these words heal someone out there,

13:37  
I'll drop that I'll drop that song into the minion Slack channel. And for anybody who's with us this morning, who's not usually with us, welcome. We do this every day, and we have a Slack channel in our Mishkan community slack where we sometimes post links. I lead on Wednesday, Rabbi Steven leads on Tuesday and Thursday, and Rabbi Rachel Goldberg in Jerusalem leads on Mondays, and then members of this community lead on Fridays. And I have a sense that over the course of the coming days and weeks, this will be really nice space to gather on a daily basis to remind ourselves and each other who we are, yeah, on the weekdays, who we are. I wanted to jump into Elohim, Shana, tatabi, tahorahi, the soul that you have put in me is pure. There's a narrative now. I mean, it's not now, but a narrative that just that just got elected to the highest office in the nation. That basically is a narrative of corrosion and fear that is kind of telling all of us that that things are bad. You know, one guy. I can make it better. But like, things are terrible, this place is terrible, a wasteland, you know, full of terrible things in people, and he can make it better. And that is that's a scary place to be, but our tradition resists that narrative with absolutely everything in its spiritual arsenal. We wake up in the morning every single day and assert that we are good, and assert that our souls fundamentally are good and pure, that we can that we can be whole, that we can be made whole, and that we can make whole and healed. And so I don't want any of us to get sucked into a narrative in which we are kind of brow beaten into depression and despondency, because that's what we're being told to feel about our world. We have. We have the choice to wake up in the morning, as our ancestors have every day and remind ourselves of our goodness and our beauty, and I think we're going to need that. So this sounds like this,

16:09  
and oh, hi.

16:10  
I'll wait a second as I'm playing guitar, I don't think I turned on my original sound. That's very important. Can you all see my screen? By the way, the sea door? Yes, we see that, yes, great,

16:24  
hello. Hi,

16:34  
hello, hi. Shana tabi, be. Shanna ta be, teh Rahi te

16:59  
hora, te, hora,

17:22  
ye, Rabbi

17:26  
Kirby, but me, many, many,

17:39  
I will wake up and I will offer gratitude for this life that I have, for my soul, which is in your keeping you creator of all of us, the one who wakes us up to new life every day, who gives life to lifeless bodies and renews us and renews everything.

17:58  
Hello, hi, hello, hi. Shanna tab,

18:23  
uh. Leah Ari, you told me this morning you were taking some comfort in a Reb Nachman of Bratz, love idea or line. You want to share it. You want to share what you're thinking about. Um,

18:43  
yeah, and I want to share the book I'm getting it from. It's called the empty chair finding hope and joy, and they're just little So for folks who don't know, Rabbi Nachman of brotzlov was a 17th century did I do that right? 17th century Hasidic master, and if you were living today, he would probably have been diagnosed with some sort of depression disorder. So he talks a lot about how he wrestles with despair and doesn't succumb to despair. And I like this book because it's small enough that it fits in a back pocket or a purse, and in interesting times, it is a helpful sort of like grounding exercise, because it's just, he just writes a lot of little aphorisms. And I have, like many, many that were coming to me today, and I was going to talk about one, and now I have totally changed my mind based on what folks have said in the chat and what Rabbi Lizzi has said this morning. So I am sitting with like two real thoughts that Rabbi Nachman presents that are in this book. The first is that human fallibility, being what it is victory and truth do not always go together. Therefore, if you. Always have to win. You can't always be true, which I am just sitting with, not as a destination, but as a launching off point, as I sort of like make sense of my reaction to the last 24 hours, and the other thought that I am sitting with that Rabbi Nachman offers up is to go that we should go out and defeat God. Yes, God actually wants us to conquer. God wants us to keep praying and praying and praying until we force the Holy One to do what we're praying for. And I think that that is helpful for me that has been helpful for me in the past and is helpful for me this morning, because, like, I have a lot of emotions in my body that I am not super comfortable having in my body, and that I am having a hard time not judging myself For rage, hatred, you know, despair, despondency, these things that like I know, are not good for me if I stay there too long. And it is helpful for me to know that I can channel that into my prayer practice and direct it where it belongs, which is frankly, at Hashem, which is not to say that we as human beings don't have free will and agency. We totally do, but there is only one personality in the universe who is the appropriate recipient of all of my anger and rage and disgust, and that's God. And you know, we have a centuries old tradition of doing that. So that's been helpful for me this morning.

21:45  
Thank you, Leary. I think I'll sort of weave we've saw him. We've sung into song and prayer into our sharing this morning. So for anybody who, for anybody who. Well, actually I want to look at, I want to look at Psalm 30. Psalm 30 is the one that is. It usually goes right into leads right into Chakri, the tradition places it right before, right before we go into the prayer service. And it's, it's sometimes called, like a dedicated a psalm for the dedication of the house, which, I mean, that's how it begins. Means more share Hanukkah. But I think they place it in this place, because it's kind of a dedication. It's an intention for going into prayer. And I want to show this to you, because psalms are one of the tools our tradition gives us for when you don't know what to say and you don't know what to do, and you know, you sort of feel like you have idle hands, opening up the book of Psalms and finding the ones that speak to that place of sadness and the possibility of joy can be very empowering. And to know that people have been doing this for 1000s of years. So it sounds like this, Mizmor Shir Hanukkah, a Psalm of David, a song for the dedication of the house, a ram Adonai, Keith, delatani, veloci, Mata, oi, Veli, I extol You, O Lord, you've lifted me up and not let my enemies rejoice over me. Any of these lines, by the way, you can, uh, phrase in the in I don't know what the grammatical what the grammatical construction is, but in like a supplication, please, let my enemies not rejoice over me. Oh Lord, I cry out to you, heal me. Lord, you brought us up from the Dark Pit. Preserve us from going down into that dark place. Oh, you faithful to the Lord. Sing, sing and praise her holy name for her anger lasts but a moment, and when we say anger, I wonder if that's tapping into what leari just said, what we experience as fear out in the world. We can direct that back at God, rather than a people. One may lay down weeping at night, let there be joy in the morning, when I was untroubled, back in 2009 as Aidan said, I thought, I shall never be shaken back when you, O Lord, felt pleased, I felt as firm and mighty as a mountain, and then you hid your face and I became terrified. A Lecha Adonai ekra. Ve el Adonai Ethan. Ethan i. Call out to you, God, listen to me. What is to be gained from my going down into the pit. Can dust praise you? Can it declare your faithfulness. Hear me. Shama Adonai vaneni, hey, yeah, oh. Zerli, help me be my help. Ha facili, patak ta sa Keith as rainy Simcha le mania. Zamir havod, below you do Maron ilohi olamo Daca, turn our lament and our morning into dancing, undo our sackcloth and gird us with joy. Let our whole being sing to you. Let us praise you forever. Help us find it within ourselves to find praise. That's Psalm 30. So for those who are able to stand, want to invite you to go ahead and stand as we go into bar Hu we'll hear each other's voices. Feel free to

26:09  
unmute as

26:18  
we respond. Blessed are

26:32  
you? You form light and create darkness. You make peace and create everything through us. Or had a shout out to ear. Venice Keith, who lanu mehara, shine a new light on Zion. May we be worthy of its light? Blessed are you the creator of the lights? May we shine a new light? I'll stop here just for a moment before we go into the Shema. Little longer minion today, and if anybody needs to leave, I understand we usually end at around 830

what else

27:28  
may I say something brief? Please

27:30  
say something brief to Hilo,

27:32  
thank you.

27:33  
Yeah, well,

27:34  
I'm in Philly, but I'm right here now with you. Yeah, I will be brief. The teaching that always helps me, even when I really want to give up, is the Miriam with her timbrel, because, you know, the way I've learned it from this community and incorporating it into me, is that, and I'm really going to try to focus, is that I understand that when not shown, was faced with the waters, it's not like he knew what was going to happen at all. You know, I can imagine that maybe the thought went that he might drown, or that the water might consume him, or whatever, but it seems like, and of course, I don't know, but the only thing he knew is he wasn't going to go back to what was right. So saying no has become a way for me to learn how to say yes. I am going to be officially homeless December 1. And I have looked at places that I can afford and was tempted to take them, even though they weren't safe. There were cockroaches. I mean, all I kept doing was needing to say no, and I didn't know why, and I was tempted to go back, and now I know why, because I'm stepping into the waters of the unknown, and I need to come back to Chicago to be with this community, because as what's been said, I mean, if I really go into what's going to happen to our world. I don't want to live but not the AMS, the hope of us all being together and going into the water, because we don't know what's going to happen, as long as we get in the water together.

29:40  
Thank you with our tambourines. Tambourine. Thank you, Tehila. For those of you who don't know Tehila, she has been around our community since the very first, very first Thai holidays we have, and has been like an avatar, a cheerleader, and hasn't been in Chicago for a few years. Years, and I want to follow up with you, Tehila, after what you just shared, but the teaching that Miriam brought her tambourine into the wilderness and what the Israelites faced leaving Egypt was a big wall of water, and that then what happened is people stepped into the water, and it didn't part, and the water didn't part, and the water didn't part until the water finally parted. But the idea of bringing your joy with you for the journey, not knowing what the journey will yield, and not knowing if you'll make it to the other side, but believing that you have to. And so you'll take another step, and you'll take another step, and then you're able to sing and dance on the other side of what was an absolutely harrowing and terrifying journey, which, by the way, doesn't you know it's not the end of the story in the Hollywood version. Sure, it can end there, but then they go on to 40 years in the wilderness, and so,

31:00  
oh no. Rabbi the one sentence from one sentence is that don't quit before the miracle, because we don't know what the next moment is.

31:11  
Thank you. Thank you. I wonder if there's anybody else who's sitting with just whatever feeling is rising up for you. You wanted to share with the group.

31:27  
I'd like to share just one thought, if I may, Rabbi, Lizzi

31:29  
resident, Canadian.

31:33  
Mishkan. Mishkan, actually, I'm a dual citizen, so I voted in Georgia, thinking my vote may make a difference. And we tried, we tried, but I did want to say one thing, and that is in my loneliness this morning, in trying to comprehend how I'm going to manage this, I said to myself, I need community more now than ever before, and we always talk about the importance of community, but we all need community more now than ever before, so that we feel we are valued and affirmed and acknowledged and important. Because we can't live we can't live in silos for the next four years. If, if, if anything, if anything, is going to make community come together. This is what's going to make community come together, whether it's online or whether it's in person or whatever. But I'm just so much more aware as soon as I turned into minion here and I I'm in Toronto, so my work day right now, but I thought, You know what? I got it, I got to connect. And I'm just sending this message out to everybody that this is what we all need and and I'm, I'm committed to doing whatever I can to create community wherever I can do it, whether it's online, through my connection to Mishkan by online, whether it's here in Toronto, but I just felt the need to share that with everybody then that we can all be here together for each other, because we need each other more now than ever before.

33:16  
Yeah, thank you for that.

33:20  
Thanks, Lauren. As people are sharing books, this is a book that I picked up during Trump presidency. Number one, how lovely the ruins. Is a book of poetry, and I highly, highly, highly recommend, because every one of these poems was written against the backdrop of despondency and hopelessness. And so I have a number of pages dog eared in here. Really like every poem. It feels like nourishment. And so I'm I want to just I'll read, I'll read a few. I won't read them all like all in order, but I have a feeling this is this is going to things like this are going to be part of what sustain us. Elizabeth Alexander wrote in the beginning, human beings have never lived without song across time and tribe. So poetry has always been necessary, and people have always made it and shared it and in some way, lived by it. That is the steady state in human history, when language is degraded from the highest purchase and public words regularly carry meaning that reduces groups to crude and false stereotypes. The nuance and precision of poems is an ever necessary more tool for living. Poems are how we say. This is who we are. Poems are the heart and soul made legible. Poetry is ancient. Poetry is the way that people. Have carried their songs forward across culture and time, saying, This is who we are, and this is who we come from. And I feel like that's, that's what Jewish tradition, that's what prayer is, is. It's poetry, you know, made manifest in, made manifest in a tradition, in a lineage of tradition. So poem, this is a poem called The thing is by Ellen bass, to love life, to love it, even when you have no stomach for it, and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands or your throat fills with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, it's tropical heat, thickening the air. Heavy is water more fit for gills than lungs. When grief weights you like your own flesh or more of it and obesity of grief, and you think, how can a body withstand this? Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, Yes, I will take you. I will love you again.

And then this one's on the next page. If I can stop one heart from breaking. Emily Dickinson, if I can stop oh the lat, the last poem. It was called, the thing, is by Ellen bass. Emily Dickinson, if I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching or cool one pain or help one fainting Robin into his nest again, I shall not live in vain. Let me invite you to gather the four corners of your seat. Seat together if you're wearing a Tallis, say the blessing for bringing bringing ourselves together in love from the four corners of the world, from the four corners of our community,

holding them together one hand. Be ahava with love.

37:36  
Maruja deronais, Rabbi El deava, Shema Yisrael, Adonai yadah, we know Adonai. He had

38:09  
eight Adonai, Bucha, levari, Sharon Oh, he met Sabha. I am all of aha, but she knows. Bucha,

38:34  
okay,

38:42  
SHA will

38:46  
continue to love this world with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Let these words which I speak to you today be on your heart, be in your heart, teach them to your children, like Rachel court was describing earlier, when you sit in your home, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, bind them as a sign on your hand. Let them be symbols before your eyes. Write them on the doorpost your house and on your gates. You know one of the things, one of the things that's happened, of course, you know, in a just a little bit of the analysis of, like, what what happened in this election, and what does it say about our country? You know, because one could say that in 2016 people didn't totally know exactly who they were electing. You know, it was sort of like a long shot, but, you know, sort of like the change change candidate, you know, even if it was, even if, even if he was saying many of the similar things. But, you know, people thought like, oh, surely he can't mean it. Ah, it's just bombast. Oh, you know, he's just a strong man. But now we know this is exactly. Exactly what he means. And, you know, he's got, and he's got the manpower to manifest all of those dark intentions. And everyone who voted for him knew that, you know, they they had their reasons. We don't want to, you know, like write off half the country, more than half the country as stupid, you know, because like they're not. And who knows who may be listening to this Minion later, who may, in fact, have had reasons for casting their ballot the way that they did, and so something that I have just been telling myself and reminding myself to model for my children is that xenophobic, you know, racist, anti immigrant in many ways, like misogynist, anti woman like that, that that modeling that is getting so much air time in so many places. We cannot mimic that we cannot descend to our version of that amongst ourselves. We have to model better for ourselves and our kids and so as much as I wanted to, as much as I wanted to deliver the bad news to my kids in a way that would demonstrate my ire, my disgust, all of that we we actually we want to be the people who we want to be, and that doesn't change. That doesn't change. And so as we read these words, you will love you will love the Lord your God. You will teach them to your children. You will speak these words when you sit in your house, when you walk on the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. I think it's another way of letting, of saying you will not let the world be you down into a person who you don't recognize. You will not mimic the worst of what the world shows you and amplifies on every TV station and and on the front page of the newspaper. We can't amen, amen. Amen. Thank you. Um, I want to go into Miha Mocha, which is a prayer for making it through hard things, for believing in the impossible. And I also want to invite this to be a healing prayer. We often use it as a healing prayer because it's about getting through hard things. And so if there are individuals who you're praying for this morning, and also if there's if you want to phrase what you're feeling this morning as a prayer before we kind of give that words with the Miha Mocha, I want to invite anybody to, you know, put it, put that in the chat, or to speak it into The space.

43:00  
Well, just say I just had my mother's first yard site a few days ago. So yeah, I want to honor her that she fought a long good fight and didn't give up until so yeah, I want to honor her.

43:15  
Thank you. Thanks to Hela. So

43:19  
I'd like, I'd like to send some strength to Jenna, who could use a little little help today, as so many of us do, just

43:33  
to just to say that Rabbi Jenna, your daughter, works at trua, which is a rabbinic organization that fights for justice and equality here and in Israel, and I'm sure it's a very hard day there. Thank you.

Everyone whose name is showing up in the chat here, healing for all of us feeling anguish. Amy G who's starting chemo today, Andra with an upcoming surgery. Joanne recovering from surgery. Howard Friedland, kidney warriors, Lynn and Eliab, minion members in need of healing. Oh, family members. I'm Jonathan. Brats off. I'm sorry. Elena, Hi,

oh yeah, every, everyone on this very long list, and I just invite, I invite you to, sort of you know, course, let your eyes course down the list. And if you, if you want, on your end of the on your end of the screen, to to say the names of the people, one by one by one, as we sing mija mocha.

Just I'm going to read some of these out loud, these prayers, a prayer for the world, our children. Inherent prayers for the trans community, healing those who are acting out against others due to their own loss, their own conditions, acting out of a place of anger.

Prayer. I want to offer a prayer that for those of us who are feeling big feelings, and I know it's many people who are here and many people who are not here, that we find the space both to channel into action those feelings and also the spaces to grieve, to sing, to build community and not feel that one comes at the expense of the other. I want to make sure that we are sustainable. We, we must be a renewable resource. You know, we can't flame out in our passion or in our, you know, in our in our fire. We, we have to be sustainable resources. So to give ourselves the space that we need to be nourished by each other, by her tradition, by song, by silence, by breath, by Shabbos. Hope I see many of you who live here in person on Friday Night. Miha,

46:22  
bye. Mika

46:29  
Moha na Dharma Kodesh, Nora Tahir, no, I take you long.

47:00  
O, say, fellow

47:07  
Shirah shibaho, Get holy le

47:21  
Shin ha, Ho Oh,

47:41  
do we

47:59  
love I am, love.

48:22  
So you, blessed?

48:22  
Are you our Redeemer, the one who helps us

48:40  
get Redeemer, the one who helps us get through hard things, who helps us navigate the impossible. I do want to turn to Khadija Tom only because I know we're kind of more than at time here. And I'm very happy to very happy to stay on. Oh, look at me. I'm scrolling past the prayer for our country. You know what? Let's say the prayer for our country. This comes from the sidur, sim, shalom. Um, different Sid, ream. Have different versions of prayers for our country, and it feels relevant today, even if it seems unlikely. And then we'll do mourners, Kaddish, Keith, and then I'll stay on to continue to hold space for anybody who wants to keep talking our God and God of our ancestors. We ask your blessings for this country, for its government, for its leaders and advisors, for all who exercise just and rightful authority. Teach them insights from your Torah that they may administer all affairs of state fairly, that peace and security, happiness and prosperity, justice and freedom may forever abide in our midst. Creator of all flesh, bless inhabitants. God bless all the inhabitants of this country with your spirit. May citizens of all races and creeds forge a common bond and true harmony to banish hatred and bigotry, to safeguard the ideals and free institutions that are the pride and glory of our country. May this land, under your Providence, be an influence for good throughout the world, uniting people in peace and freedom and helping them to fulfill the vision of your prophet. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they experience war anymore. Amina, mean, I mean, all right, who this morning are we saying? Khadija, Tom Warner, Scottish for Mark, near love. Anybody else? Nathan Pollock, Nancy Pryor, Theresa, Owen, Rosa, Lizzi,

Lynn Newman, Irving, brand wine.

Um and then also as someone who just was in our community, and was recently, was recently died Todd Bodenstein, brother of Leslie Harold,

Laurie, I think you probably mean the hostages who are still alive for a healing prayer, or people who have died while both. Yeah, so anybody this morning who would like to lead us in Kaddish, all those we've lost. Thank you.

52:08  
I could lead if no one else wants to.

52:11  
You got it? Susan, all right, just I'll

52:15  
draft off of you. Lizzi, please chime in if you need to. Okay. Ready? You ready? Okay, ready? Here

52:22  
we go. Ready? Play on, On. Belay. Youth,

52:25  
kadash, Rabbi, rock your hotel, michma, hut, a Bucha, The whole beat. Israel. Bag, Allahu, Bisman, kareeb, Beau AMI,

53:00  
Bucha, Mata da Meron, belma, Viru, a main, you're gonna raise it up with me a little bit for me, I'm

53:08  
sorry, yes,

53:11  
I'm not that good. Okay, ya. Hey, shalama, Rabbi mishmaya, call Israel alone. Elena, they are called Israel. They are called yoshity, belvi, marubi, Maru Amen, thank you.

53:39  
You know I had, I had one song queued up to end minion with, um, but I, you know, it just occurred to me, um, what's, what's the name, what's the name of the the name of the song that's often in America, called the Black national anthem. You always sing it on Martin Luther King Day,

54:02  
lift up our voice and sing. Lift up our

54:04  
voice and sing. Lift Every Voice. I kind of want to listen to that right now. You're here. You know what I mean. Let's do it. Yes, that, that, to me, seems Lift Every Voice I wish I knew, like, what the what the best video of this is. All right, we're gonna listen to Alicia. Alicia Keys sing, Lift Every Voice.

All right. Here we go. Can you all see if I make it big screen like this? Can you still see it? Yes or no, yes, yes, yes. Tiller than.

55:00  
One Ring, ring With our

55:21  
rejoicing rise.

56:00  
The present,

56:17  
facing the sun. I

56:28  
is let us march on till victory is won. Let us march on

56:41  
till victory. On till

57:02  
victory.

57:18  
You know, so I just wanted to vibe.

57:22  
I just

57:24  
going to turn off the turn off the recording here. I'm.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai