For Times Such As These: Wherever We Go There We Are

Olivia Ames’ Drash for Rosh Hashanah (and Tashlich)

Good morning! For anyone that doesn’t know me, my name is Olivia and I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Paris of Appalachia). I’m so excited to be up on the bima today giving this drash, and it's lovely to look out at this sea of both new and familiar faces.

Last night the Book of Life was opened and we all heaved a collective sigh before breathing in the new year. Whether that breath was one of relief, angst, hope, or ire, we have all begun those first unsteady steps into the world to come. We will walk through the next ten Days of Awe until we rehearse our deaths on Yom Kippur. And as we think through this time, we have also been presented with a sacred opportunity to reflect, collectively, on ourselves and our souls.

In 1970 Gil Scott-Heron released his seminal debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. The title of the 6th song of Side 2 of that album, is also a question: Who'll Pay Reparations on My Soul? This song has been bouncing around my brain while I’ve been writing over the last few weeks.

And while the question of that song is different to ours today, we arrive at the same answer. We will take care of our own souls. We already have what we need to do this. We have to remain connected to our ancestors, our traditions, and what has resonated through our lives.

For better or for worse we are stuck with ourselves. Wherever we go, hineinu, here we are. Hineini, here I am. And like clockwork as we have spiraled around once again to Rosh Hashanah, we have to examine our own souls. We cannot outrun who we are and who we have been this past year. No one else can do it for us, but we can do it side by side.

Teshuvah is what braids us together. And I have always thought of teshuvah as return, or the return to God through repentance. The opportunity to return to who we want to be and acknowledge how we have let ourselves, our friends, our families, and our neighbors down.

Beyond teshuvah, at this moment I am thinking about the sacred practice of cleaving to God,

devekut (d’veh-KOOT), finding the space to repair and return through love and awareness. But this requires vulnerability. Rabbi Alex Weissman says that “God is the space between the one that needs and the one that is needed.” So we have to find that space and hold it, tumbling and twisting as we discover ourselves.

In the Torah reading for today we’ve heard about the Birth of Yitzchak (Isaac) as God remembered Sara and finally delivered to her and Avraham (Abraham) the promise of a son.

We’ve heard about the subsequent banishment of Hagar and Ismael to the desert. Their struggles and near deaths, and then, their eventual rescue by God.

In the Haftarah we’ve heard about Hannah’s story. Her desperate and moving prayers that ultimately led to the birth of Samuel.

And the throughline in these stories is that Hannah, Hagar, and Sarah share their vulnerability intimately with God. Frequently they say it aloud. They cry out their pain.

One of my favorite lines in the Tanakh is part of Psalm 118, and is one that is actually read as part of Hallel, for our celebratory holy days. My favorite part is a line that directly calls out to God and it says “Min Ha-meitzar karati Yah, Anani b’merchav Yah.”

And while there are a few different English translations of this, my favorites are “From a narrow place I called out to YAH; God answered me within the expanse.” or “I have called you from tight spaces; you answered me with expansiveness.” I like the direct connection, the intimacy of that call. Jews are a people that wrestle, that cry out, that remonstrate, a people that argue with God!

This moment, right now, is stepping through the threshold of a meitzar, a biblically narrow place. And God invites us into the expanse to breathe deeply and see the possibilities that lay ahead of and around us as we enter the new year.

On Rosh Hashanah we say Hayom harat olam, today is the day of the world’s creation, pregnant with possibility and eternity.

And to that I’d like to add something that Rabbi Simcha Bunam of Pzhysha said that has really moved me while writing: "Everyone must have two pockets to reach into, according to their needs. In their left, a slip of paper reads: For my sake was the world created. In their right, a slip of paper reads: I am but dust and ashes."

So today, remember that this was created for you, these moments, these hardships and you are also just a human doing your best, reshaping yourself everyday as you awake. Finding your soul and putting it right.

To finish, I want to share a small story. When Rob asked me to do this drash several weeks ago I had an immediate private, internal reaction. First, it is an honor to hold space with you all today, but it also connected me to one of the most formative moments in my Jewish upbringing, which is the first dvar torah that I really remember because it was Rosh Hashanah and the speaker was a Black Jewish woman.

I grew up in a small Reconstructionist community in the heart of the East End of Pittsburgh, a deeply Jewish city, and though the community remains very progressive, and more diverse than most, I was usually the only Black child at services there. I sort of begrudgingly accepted that this was the norm until one fateful Rosh Hashanah service 15 years ago on the 29th of September 2011 where I saw myself on the bima for the first time. In that moment I understood what B’tezelem Elohim, in the image of God, really meant because I saw myself right in front of me and my heart burst open.

And I know the exact date of this because I had to write a vague email to the Congregation Dor Hadash administrator asking her if she could locate a particular record of a “Rosh Hashanah morning service given by a Black Jewish woman that would have occurred anywhere between 2005 and 2016.”

Now thankfully she did not think I was a complete lunatic, applauded me on having an “amazing memory” and connected me to Jacqueline, Jackie, Jonas, who in 2011 gave a speech called “The Big Pause.”

So I reached out to Jackie, fan girled, told her that she broke open my 12 year old heart, and asked if she remembered the details of her speech so that I could try to summarize what she had said. She kindly and quickly responded and told me that she had just moved to Costa Rica and that her computer was still in a shipping container at the port, so she couldn’t find any files or remember what her speech may have been about!

But Jackie told me that I didn’t really need the contents of her speech. She told me that when she was learning to leyn and obsessing over every Hebrew word’s meaning, her teacher told her that she didn’t need to know what each word meant, but that the melody was there to help people understand the story even if they couldn’t read or understand the language.

And her teacher told her that the story is not in the words, but the melody. And so Jackie told me that I didn’t really need to remember or know all the details of her speech 15 years ago because the story was not in the words, it was in the memory, the resonance of it all.

So if there’s anything you take away from my drash today I hope that somehow, somehow I could help you feel seen in the year to come, and make you feel even a fraction of the way Jackie made me feel 15 years ago.

We are all B’tzelem Elohim, made in the image of God, our souls are made of the good stuff and they’ll only keep getting better as we pay reparations on our souls over the Days of Awe.

So finally, we’re at the end. Together. Going back to that breath, these steps into our new year. I hope that we can quell our ire and angst, and transform it into hope and relief. A feeling deep in our bones and heart for the year to come. A year of renewal, of sweetness, and of a more just world that we can play a part in mending. And yet, if this has all felt too hard, and today too heavy, remember that there is nothing so whole as you are already. So even if your heart feels broken, let that lead a revolution.

Shana tovah.

Tashlich

Hello again! Now we are continuing with Tashlich. Tashlich is the ritual where we symbolically cast away our wrongdoings or sins in a body of water. Tashlich comes from the last verses from the prophet Micah (7:19), “He will take us back in love; He will cover up our iniquities. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” This tangible practice is an opportunity to let go of the behaviors that have led us away from who we truly are.

Remember that teshuvah is the braid that binds us all together. Repair requires confession and honesty with ourselves. We must take ownership of our missteps to move forward. To look into the water see who we were, who we are, and who we will become.

So we will move outside to cast away some pebbles that have been lovingly washed by myself and my cat Fred in our bathtub.

Cantor Rachel has shared a poem by Rabbi Jill Hammer with me that I’ll recite now:

The Offering: A Tashlich Prayer by Rabbi Jill Hammer

I cast this gift to the water.

It is my past: blessing and regret.

It is my present: reflection and listening. It is my future: intention and mystery.

It is what I did and did not;

it is yes and no and silence.

It is what was done

and what arose from what was done

and what arises in this body remembering.

I let it all go. I own

neither the sting nor the sweetness. I hold on to nothing.

The river has no past.

Each moment of rushing water Is a new beginning.

Harm that has been:

heal in the rush of love and truth and time. We who are lost:

let the current take us homeward.

May these waters churn what is broken into what is whole.

May each separate droplet

reach the ocean that is becoming.

The journey awaits.

I have no power to refrain from it; only to steer it when I can.

May the One who is the great Crossroad guide my turning.

Three times I declare: It is finished.

It is born.

It is unending.

Three times I listen:

It is love.

It is the river. It is before me.

May my offering go where it is meant to go

and may the one who offers it find the way.

Amen.