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Dear ones of mine,

A post-holiday season greeting of sorts.

Some rabbis are relieved when the new month of Cheshvan arrives. I generally feel a loss. After such a relentless season of holidays, here is my attempted summary. This is what goes on inside of me every year at the end of the Tishrei cycle of Jewish holidays.  At the end of a cycle so full of life, so full of energy, so full of prayer and promise and hope, I yearn to carry it with me. I yearn to carry this crucial sense of returning. Returning to a deep love, a love of self, of family, of friends, of tribe, and our collective future on this planet.

If you were a part of my journey the past 80 days, you may find yourself somewhere in here these two offerings / reflections.... 

Sending love to you all, (feel free to forward to anyone who might want to see this).

M'ayin Yavoh Ezri! 

From Where, to Where – Will My Help Come? (Psalm 121)
to Vermont
From Philadelphia 
to San Francisco 
From the new building in Bernal Heights 
to Beth Israel in Berkeley
From square dancing at Ashkenaz
to dukhaning at the Mission Minyan
From sounding shofar on the beach 
to running from microbes
From Spiritual Embodied Practice 
to Hardly Strictly Elvis Costello
From borrowing hair ties 
to getting friends to ask each other for forgiveness 
From reminding friends that we need each other 
to disrupting family patterns 
From amazing Mexican food 
to old friends and their new children (to me)
From new friends 
to expanding family 
From the Albany Bulb art
to teenagers in tifilin
From imagining the Center of Jewish Living Arts 
to seeking redwoods but only finding eucalyptuses  
From the ensemble 
to healing services 
From ride shares
to fog-lifting walks in Bernal Park
From divorce podcasts
to tefila podcasts
From Daf Yomi: Ketubot 
to crossing the bridges 
From feeling the friends who've lost parents 
to a really cold outdoor mikveh
From the shehechiyanu hazaka 
to Kohenet and Kehuna
From full out loud Birkat Hamazon
to contagious dancing in the Sukkah
From Torah Orah - A Torah that Illuminates
to a truly FULL Hallel that lifts me up
From Yiddish speaking friends 
to surprise opportunities for prayer leading at home
From Pitka Tava 
to Jr. Congregation and the old tunes 
From the entire birthday cake falling onto the deck 
to the pinnacle holiday of Shmini Atzeret 
From asking for rain and getting it
to All Streams One Source
From Romemu, Kohenet and Koren siddurim
to Artscroll Interlinear Transliterated 
From campfires, big Rebbe, and Sukkahfest: The Musical
to late night heart opening tisches 
From the 7^th Hakafah
to Integration for Heshvan 
From 100 year celebrations and pilgrimages to old camps
to the Phillies going to the world series....

80 days…. Of the Tishrei Cycle

80 days of regaining our inner map.  

80 days of getting interested in our own liberation again

80 days of "Revoice’ing" and hearing what the “still small voice”  needs to express

80 days of expanding our notion of family and reclaiming biblical Hagar as our step mother 

80 days of contemplating my own origins as a Torah Family

80 days of disrupting the feeling of being frozen in my own stuck-ness        

80 days of inviting people to invite people to “ask me about my prayer practice.”

80 days of visioning a future through the lenses of the seven year cycle 

354 (days in the Hebrew calendar) - 80 =  274 days of integration and infusion.   

THIS is the year.  

To a new month... and a new season and a new cycle....

Chodesh Tov - A good month!  

R. Ezra