Kadima Blog

Perseverance with Life & Community

12/5/2025

Growing up in Manhattan’s Upper East Side (yup), I attended a big Reform synagogue’s Hebrew School. My family was not particularly involved or active other than going for High Holidays and dropping me off at Hebrew School, and I do not have many memories from my time there, though it played a significant impact on me as a young person. One of the only things I remember from Hebrew School is learning the definition of the word Israel. At the time, it was presented as “wrestling with G-d.”

I thought “Jews named their country ‘wrestling with G-d’? Okay, I guess I am Jewish!” While it was much later that I developed nuance thinking about Israel/Palestine, the idea that Jews seemed to have collectively elevate the idea of wrestling with G-d to such importance resonated greatly with me. I can be one of those people!

It is in this week’s parasha – Vayishlach – that we find the scene of Jacob wrestling with…someone…resulting in his name change to Yisrael. A more nuanced understanding of the word Israel is not just one of “wrestling” (which is inferred because of a previous verse where Jacob and “a man” got dusty with one another). Indeed Yisrael comes from a word yisra- meaning “be persistent with, strive along with, persevere, or exert oneself – with -el, or G-d/the divine/the sacred.

Thus, being a part of bnei yisrael – the Jewish people – could be seen as being a spiritual descendant of those who persist/strive/persevere/exert themselves along with that which is sacred. Decades after learning the cursory definition in Hebrew School, I am able as a Jewish adult to say – yes, I am one of these people.

No matter how we understand our Jewishness in relation to our ancestors or a/the/any/no G-d, may indeed we understand ourselves as those who persist and strive. Persevere and exert. In this season nearing Chanukah – one of recommitment against and reassessment with assimilation, one of gratitude for the little bit that goes a long way, one of resisting nationalism and militarism, may we find pride and strength in Jacob/Israel and unearth a bit more of our ability to persevere individually and as a community.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

Dreaming Forward

11/28/2025

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, opens with a dream. In it, Jacob dreams of a ladder that is rooted in the ground and reaches up to the heavens. Angels go up and down the ladder.

Dreaming has also been a word and practice that I’ve associated with Kadima. Since I began my work with you as the Director of Membership Development in the Fall of 2024, I listened to your feedback which often resulted in your hopes and dreams for Kadima and for your Jewish life in the PNW diaspora. Dreaming continues to be a word I hold close as I work to manifest the dreams that I heard repeated over the course of my listening tour and beyond.

The name of our community, Kadima, means to go forward. Last week, Rabbi David shared a big announcement with the community. Another door has been opened for us to dream, a time to dream forward. Now is the time that we get to dream about Kadima’s future into its new era. I hope you will share your dreams with each other, with me, with the staff and board, so that we can weave our dreams together and then go forth and shepherd Kadima into its next era.

What dreams has Rabbi David’s announcement unlocked for you? When you think about Kadima in 5 years from now, what do you see? Who and how is the community being led? Where do we live? What does your community provide for you?

What support or accompaniment do you need in your dreaming? How do you relate to angels or the divine? May our dreams dance together and be supported too by that which is beyond us. Kadima! Forward together!

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi May

Kadima Important Announcement

11/21/2025

Dear Community,

After a great deal of reflection and discernment, and with a tremendous amount of love for this community, I have let the board know that I will end my employment at Kadima in June 2027, fulfilling what will have been 12 years as Kadima’s Rabbi. During my remaining time, I will support Kadima’s board and staff in figuring out the next era of Kadima rabbinic leadership and a staff structure that sets up our community well to thrive in longevity and joy. I will continue in my role of Rabbi & Acting Director until then. This decision comes not due to strife or worry about Kadima and its future, but due to what will be best for me and my family in the coming years. I believe that Kadima is poised for an era of success and growth ahead and I look forward to supporting that in new and different ways during and after my transition.

I was hired as Kadima’s Rabbi & Education Director right out of rabbinical school and began work at Kadima in July 2015. My position has changed a great deal over the years, evolving with different staffing configurations and responding to community needs. In that time, Kadima has been active in creating a great deal of change. It has also been responsive to immense shifts in the world, Seattle, and the Jewish community as a whole. Serving as Kadima’s rabbi has been a true honor and a growthful challenge. I will cherish the meaningful teachings and remarkable relationships gained along the way. As I share this notice, I feel proud of the work and impact we have had during this era of Kadima’s history and am so grateful to those who first invited me to join in this role more than ten years ago.

There are a variety of individual responses and reactions when a rabbi leaves a congregation. Some may feel sad or upset or frustrated. Some may feel neutral. Some may feel excited for what’s coming next for the community. During this time of rabbinic transition, my hope is that we can honor the range of feelings and emotions present for one another and hold that they are a normal and important part of such a transition. I know we can do this. Sharing our thoughts and feelings and staying present with each other is in Kadima’s DNA.

While I do not know yet exactly what lies ahead for me professionally, I do plan on staying in Seattle and I have asked the board to consider my offer to stay on in the role of Rabbi Emeritus after June 2027. In such a role, I would hope to stay connected, support future rabbinic leadership, and continue to think of Kadima as a Jewish home for myself and my family.

I deeply believe in Kadima and this community’s future. Kadima is a resilient and necessary community that has played an important role in forging a place for Jews on the left, as well as being a constructive force in building the greater Jewish left in Seattle and certainly beyond. This has been true since its founding and remains vital today. Kadima has an important role to play in each of our lives and in the Jewish community at large. Kadima’s leadership, supported by other synagogue and movement leaders, understands the importance of the transition ahead and will be responsive to the community’s needs during this time. Coming together as a community to support one another to collectively create a thriving future will serve us well, continuing to transform this community for the better. This moment presents a ripe opportunity to clarify and rearticulate who we are, what we want, and how to get there. A next rabbi can help achieve a beautiful vision that only this community coming together can create successfully.

I am so grateful to you each, and I regret this not being news I could share with you each individually. But I do welcome the ways we will continue to connect as Kadima discerns its next steps. Read a message from Kadima’s Board of Directors below for more about what happens now.

With such gratitude,
R’ David Basior

________________

Dear Community,

We on the board are feeling emotional in response to Rabbi David’s announcement that he is leaving his staff role in June 2027. We imagine that you might be feeling many emotions as well. All of us have been blessed to learn from and be led by Rabbi David, as he has also learned from and been led by us.

Rabbi David has been with Kadima through a decade of incredible growth, offering pastoral care through periods of joy and grief on a community level and in the world at large. The last few years have not been easy for any of us and we are particularly grateful for R’ David’s fierce and sensitive leadership.

The next year and a half will give us time to express our love and appreciation for Rabbi David, as we also move into our next stage as a community. While this is a sad and tender moment, it is also one of possibility.

In the coming weeks, the Kadima Board will appoint a Rabbinical Hiring Committee. The Board and Rabbi May have agreed to enter a period of mutual discernment throughout February and March 2026 to determine if Rabbi May will serve as Kadima’s next head rabbi. The Rabbinic Hiring Committee will involve as much of Kadima’s membership as possible in that process and then make a recommendation to the Board, which will seek affirmation from the entire membership prior to making a final decision. If either Kadima or Rabbi May decide not to move forward, the committee will then launch a national search in the second half of 2026 toward a successful mid-2027 hire. Should a national search happen, it will involve as much of our community as possible, and will conclude with the Rabbinic Hiring Committee recommending a candidate for the Board of Directors for hire. The Board will then seek affirmation from the entire membership before making an offer to the recommended candidate. We ask for you to make yourself available to participate in this important process with us. With this in mind, we will have a community meeting on January 11th where you can share input about this transition and hear from the Board and Rabbinic Hiring Committee.

These next months will be an important time to direct our energy and resources toward Kadima. Rabbi David’s announcement arrives as we launch a Board-led process, guided by Rabbis May and David, to evaluate and assess our community’s articulated values and vision. This process will allow us to affirm Kadima’s history and help us evolve toward a thriving future. We appreciate that we can do this while Rabbi David is still here to contribute his unique perspectives and wisdom. Similar to the rabbinic hiring process, Kadima staff and community will be central to the shaping of this vision and values work.

While we steward these processes, we will also invite the community to support our End-of-Gregorian-Year fundraising drive, running in December with a $20k goal. Contributing in this season serves as a way of affirming our shared belief in and commitment to Kadima’s sustainability, its place in all of our lives, and our agency in creating a thriving future together. Now is a time for us to invest in what Kadima is and can be.

As the end of 2025 approaches, please take this time to assess how this news is sitting with you, how you can and want to be involved in setting Kadima up for our next era, and how you and yours might be able to financially invest in Kadima to help us get there. In the mix of emotions, we also have a great opportunity to move through this transition collectively, to support each other, and to shape a strong future for Kadima. We are, as always, in this together.

With love and gratitude,
Kadima Board of Directors
Chelsea, Guy, Hila, Marion, and Michael

Measuring Life

11/14/2025

The mishnah tells us that every life is an entire universe. As the universe is expansive and unknowably larger than is observable, so too is every human life deeper, richer, more expansive than we could each know. It is arguably infinite, and the Hebrew word olam denotes a concept of endlessness.

So, as we consider for this week's Torah reading Chayei Sarah or “the life of Sarah,” we are poised to consider the limitlessness of life.

In Wednesday's Torah study, we considered the fact that the Hebrew word for life “chayim” is indeed in the plural. That there is no distinction between a single life and all of life.

And yet, we attempt to measure life. In years, in experiences, in impact, in legacy, our human tendency to quantify and qualify life is understandable and can perhaps bring important meaning, comfort, satisfaction, as well as drive and motivation. And yet, a single life is an entire universe. Period.

Let the life of Sarah give us all space to reflect on our own lives, remember the loves of our loved ones and ancestors, and remind us that our impact is unmeasurable. Let us share it as generously as we are able.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

Designing religiously inclusive services for Jews on the political left

11/7/2025

Beloved community,

I want to give you a window into what Friday night services have been like. I’ve found them to be really special, both on Zoom and in person, and I hope that you will join a service soon if you’ve been curious.

In the words of Dori Midnight who’s Hinenu prayer we often read to open our services I want to say welcome to you:

“If you don’t know how to read hebrew. If you have complicated feelings about hebrew. If you love torah. If you want to love torah, but struggle with it. If you don’t really get why people are so into torah. If you don’t know when you’re supposed to stand or sit or bow, or which direction you’re supposed to face and why. If you were raised in a traditional Jewish home (whatever that means) and in a process of opening to other ways to pray.”

There is a joke that every rabbi has one drash (sermon) that they give. If you’ve had a conversation with me about ritual and the Jewish left you’ve probably heard me spiel (ramble on) about how Jewish spiritual communities on the political left need to create space for the variety of Jewish practices that Jews on the political left come from, which ranges from Orthodox to Humanist and secular. Jews on the political left don’t just hail from one religious and spiritual background, rather we come from a multitude, and yet we often only have one spiritual community or synagogue space in any given geographic area that is safe and welcoming to us with our politics. Jewish synagogues on the left are tasked with a tall order to create services that are welcoming to the breadth of tradition and practice represented in our communities. We are trying to figure out how to do this in our Friday night services. We have been exploring how to create services that have room for the mumble and jumble of Hebrew in nusah (trope) that some may be familiar with as well as the inclusion of English poems and songs. In parts of our service we are davening (praying) every single prayer and in other parts we are davening abbreviated prayers and skipping prayers. You can think of our Friday night services as a playground. There is so much room for these services, which only began a couple of months ago in September, to grow and evolve. I hope you’ll come try out a Friday night service with me and offer your feedback so that we can keep adapting and shaping our services to meet the unique community that is Kadima.

You can get a sneak peek into some of the new melodies that we’ve been learning in the Kabbalat Shabbat section of this newsletter. These songs include a new melody for the Mi Shebeirach by Sarah Epstein, a song for mourners we sing after the Mourners Kaddish by Rabbi Koach Baruch Frazier, and a lively new composition of Veshamru by Eitan Kantor.

We gather in person this evening for Shabbat services in the University District at 6pm. Email [email protected] for the location if you need it. I hope to welcome Shabbat with you soon.

Warmly,
Rabbi May

From the Universal to the Particular and Back Again

10/31/2025

How quickly the Torah goes from creation of the world to stories of the origin of all of humankind to particularization. The stories of the book of Bereishit from here are out center the ancestors of the Israelites specifically, while relaying founding stories of how the Israelites – literally the children of Jacob or b’nei yisrael – relate to some of their relations who are objectified as other – progenitors of many other peoples they neighbored and interacted with throughout the rest of Torah (and beyond).

It is important to zoom in and zoom out, generally. In Lech L’cha, there is a zoom in, and in, and in, until we understand that one of Terah’s sons, Abraham, and one of Abraham’s sons, Isaac is where Adonai’s blessings will flow. Zooming is important to understanding nuance and detail, to knowing an issue, a person, or a people more deeply. And, it also can result is narrow perspective.

This season is the olive harvest in Palestine, for example. Israel just deported 2 American Jewish women for their presence with Palestinian olive farmers during the harvest. The harvest, year after year, is a time and a place for Israeli settler violence attempting to intimidate and dispossess Palestinian olive farmers from their trees, their livelihood, their culture, and their land. Participating in the olive harvest in 2005 was one of my first acts of solidarity with Palestinians.

To read parashat Lech L’cha with only the zooming in, one might read particularly chapter 15 as “proof” of Jews, as the inheritors of b’nei yisrael, as given a divine deed to all the land of Palestine. And yet that is to ignore both facts on the ground and the cousin relationship between the children of Jacob and the children of Ishmael, whom Abraham himself names in this parasha.

As we continue reading Torah from here, let us do so knowing that it will tell us one important narrative and cultural origin story, but not the only of the many peoples of that land from which it emerged. Let us celebrate and embrace Jewish culture and history, and also acknowledge it not as the only culture and history that matters nor has claim to the place of its origin. As we learn and tell our story, let us also learn and tell the stories of those around us.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

Our teacher, water

10/24/2025

“You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

This quote by Toni Morrison is a favorite of mine. I first heard it to frame a contact improvisation class I took some years ago. I’m thinking of it this week as we read Parasha Noach and the story of Noah’s ark which begins with a giant flood that G-d sends to wipe out the wickedness on earth. I also am reminded of this quote as I remember Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, of blessed memory, who passed away this week and taught so much about Judaism and the natural world.

I remember learning with Rabbi Waskow during a January term during rabbinical school. He asked us to pronounce the name of G-d, יה , yud-hey. Try pronouncing this. You will notice, as Reb Arthur taught, that what comes out is a breath. A breath that connects us to the natural world. We breathe in what the trees breathe out. Every other breath of oxygen that we breathe comes from the ocean, produced by algae undergoing the process of photosynthesis. The relationship between humans and plants and trees is truly symbiotic.

Ever since taking that class with Reb Arthur I have related to G-d through breath, through connection to the natural world. This week I am thinking of the power of water — something that nourishes and sustains life, something that destroys and floods and drowns, something that holds memory as Morrison describes of rivers, something that contains and protects such as in the womb.

May water be our teacher, connecting us to the breath of life, holding memory, and reminding us of our power to both create and destroy.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi May

Back to the Beginning

10/17/2025

The cycle of Torah reading that renews this week reminds us that, for better and for sometimes worse, cycles can repeat themselves.

Reading Genesis 1 in weekly Torah study with half a dozen other Kadima folks was a refreshing way to zoom out from the news of the hour, the uncertainty, the weeds of it all, and instead focus on the water and the sky. The heavens and the earth. On yom echad – day one of creation – that was pretty much all that happened. The chaos was transformed into order. How refreshing.

On Tuesday night, as our Women's Torah was communally rolled, back to the beginning, this beautiful ritual that is all things perspective- widening-and-wrist-workout at once, we collectively closed the holiday season and simultaneously opened a new cycle to reread the Torah – and our lives – anew.

May all cycles for good be repeated and renewed, made afresh through our persistent presence and renewed outlook. And may all cycles of violence and destruction be transformed or be done with. May all scrolls be unrolled, and may we bring choice and discernment to those we choose to reroll and continue.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

PS – if you haven't yet, take this opportunity to join the 90 other Kadima folks who have donated to Gaza Soup Kitchen to help us reach our goal of 100 contributions.

Hope, Joy, & Despair in a Season of Ceasefire

10/10/2025

As a member of Rabbis for Ceasefire since it first began organizing nearly two years ago, I cannot help feeling a mix of joy and pessimism upon the news this week of a ceasefire proposal accepted by both Israel and Hamas. May indeed a sukkat shalom – a canopy of peace of this ceasefire – be real and true and lasting. Though without atonement for a genocide, without a path to Palestinian self-determination, nor without certainty of withdrawal, any joy of returning hostages and prisoners is quite mixed with cynicism – perhaps a worried expression of sincere hope.

Rabbis for Ceasefire released a statement yesterday that said it well:

“The holiday of Sukkot brings us to return to the words of Kohelet. Traditionally attributed to King Solomon at the end of his life, this book holds both deep despair and profound hope. Its most famous lines feel especially resonant now:

“A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven…
A time to give birth and a time to die…
A time to kill and a time to heal…
a time to break and a time to build…
a time of wailing and a time of dancing…
A time to love and a time to hate…
a time for war and a time for peace”

With the announcement of the first phase of a ceasefire deal and the release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages, we fervently hope we are entering a time for peace, a time for loving, a time for rebuilding. Yet Kohelet also reminds us:

“Humans cannot guess the events that occur under the sun.”

We hold out hope that this is a permanent ceasefire, but cannot know what comes next. What we can do is remain ready to ensure peace, justice, and healing to Palestinians in Gaza and accountability for Israel’s genocide - refusing to let it begin again after the hostage exchange.

As we pray in our Sukkot the words of Hallel we add:

May this day bring freedom and safety for Palestinians in Gaza.

May we feel relief and joy with the families of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners reuniting with their loved ones.

May the gates swing open to allow life saving humanitarian aid to flow abundantly into Gaza.

May we hold hope alongside fear as we prepare for the work ahead—of accountability, repair, and healing.

May this first step be lasting.

כן יהי רצון

May it be so.”

May pessimism and cynicism be transformed into joy and gratitude, healing and justice, through accountability, atonement, and a lasting peace.

Shabbat shalom and mo'adim l'simcha,
R’ David

PS – Whether this ceasefire holds or not (and may it hold!), people remain in need of aid in Gaza. During the High Holidays, Kadima has raised nearly $10,000 for Gaza Soup Kitchen at time of this writing with 84 contributors. Help us get to 100 contributors by Simchat Torah this Tuesday! And watch this video of gratitude from Gaza Soup Kitchen to Rabbis for Ceasefire who was one of the instigators of the many such High Holiday tzedakah campaigns.

We Must Feel

10/3/2025

Sing: Palestine, my friend, you do not walk alone. We will walk with you and sing your spirit home.
This is the season in which we ask “who shall live and who shall die?” In Gaza, people are facing a choice between death and death. I want to bring you their voices.

“Displacement is more bitter, and thorny, and heartbreaking, than being killed. I want to be starved rather than be displaced again.” Says the niece of Abubakher Abed.

26 year old Ayat wrote: “May God have mercy on me. The sights are very scary. I don’t want to be collected in parts and put in a bag. The only thing I want is for my body to remain whole.” Ayat met his death on Nov. 20, 2024.

And Bayan said: “I haven’t left my home since this massacre began. I stayed. And the cost of staying has been immense. I’ve been besieged. Wounded. I’ve lost more than I can name. But still—I need not leave. Because this house… is my only destination. “But the army is getting closer!” They keep telling me. And I know—it’s not news to me. But the truth is, I have nowhere else to go. I don’t know the roads of southern Gaza Strip. I don’t have a house waiting for me in the south. I don’t even have a tent to shield me. I don’t know how to survive in the open. And I don’t have enough money left to rent a place for me and my mother… But I also know that heading south is no option for me. And if it all unravels faster than I can move, then I’d rather die here-even if by my own hands-than cross a checkpoint where humans are violated in every form.”

Why do I bring these voices to you today, voices preparing for their own deaths? Because today on Yom Kippur we are invited to engage in a practice of rehearsing our own death. A relationship is drawn between facing our own mortality and the atonement we are instructed to do in this period and on this day. There is a teaching in the Talmud, in Shabbat 153a, that says “Do teshuvah one day before your death.” Today is our rehearsal for our own deaths.

I have struggled to imagine this day and stepping into this practice as I recall the many goodbye messages I have read from Gazans on Instagram. Today we are invited to rehearse our own death as a spiritual practice. We have so much autonomy. We can decide for our bodies if it is safe and right to fast. It is a privilege to choose to fast for those of us who are able to. We are not being starved. We can opt in to wearing burial shrouds or clothes that represent them upon our breathing bodies. Our bodies are not being stuffed in body bags or left to rot under the rubble. We have access, albeit in dramatically varying ways, to healthcare. We can engage with the question of “who shall live and who shall die?” and believe that there is a very real world in which life could be in the cards for us this coming year. For those of us who are privileged to live in homes we are not facing a choice of death in our own homes because we refuse to be displaced again or face death in a so-called “safe zone” or death by starvation or ground invasion. Of course we know well in Seattle how housing is not a human right and how so many are unhoused.

I want to acknowledge and hold that living here right now is not easy. For many of us, especially those who are undocumented, non-citizens, unhoused, trans, chronically ill and disabled, students speaking out for Palestinian liberation, we are living in increasingly scary times here at home. Let’s take a breath with this reality. All of this is true, many of our lives are under real attack, and in this d’var we’re going to sit with how we still need to dig deep to continue showing up and escalating how we show up for Gaza.

How can we really drop into the spiritual practice and observance of Yom Kippur as we grapple with the heinous acts of genocide being committed in our Jewish name and by our American made weapons and tax payer dollars?

One of the most powerful experiences I have had praying on Yom Kippur was when I prayed inside of the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, CT. Let me set the scene for you:

The year is 2023. The Torah lays upon a bed of keffiyeh’s. A banner hangs from the bima podium that displays the tatreez design that is the logo of the Palestine Museum. I stand at the bima. At my back are the portraits of Palestinian martyrs, Razan AlNajjar martyred during the Great March of Return in 2018 and Shireen Abu Akleh martyred in 2022. To my right hand side are three mannequins of women. The plastic of their skin is white and their faces are blank. They are dressed in thobes, traditional Palestinian dresses. I feel the presence of these faceless thobed women beside me and the spirits of Razan and Shireen who I feel fill up the space. As I look out to my community, I see that they too are surrounded by Palestinian art. Along the window sills lie literature by Palestinian authors and poets. There is a mixture of photographs, collages, and paintings that surround my community, wrapped in a combination of tallitot and keffiyehs.

From the mouths of my congregants arise the al chet prayer which acknowledges the “wedding of sacred Jewish spiritual tradition to political nationalist and military might” and takes accountability for “rationalizing away Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people” in the version that we read. During the silent amidah, a time for personal prayer and reflection, expanded during the days of awe to include specific prayers for atonement, my congregants scatter throughout the museum to find a piece of Palestinian art to be with as they pray.

At the end of services, my friend Faisal, asks to come up onto the bima. He is the founder of the Palestine Museum, a Palestinian man himself from El Bireh. He thanks us for praying in his museum that he invited us into for this sacred occasion. He names what so many of us have felt weighed down with, that so many other Jews are using the same words our ancestors passed down to us, and using them to pray for ill. He remarks at how especially meaningful our prayers are on this day, in this museum, how important our prayers are to him, in spite of what other Jews around the world may be praying for and how they might be taking action on this very day. In his own words he says that we are making a teshuva, a repair, for other Jews and for our tradition that has been weaponized.

This was an occasion in which I really felt able and safe to sink deep into my prayers and to reflect on my mortality alongside the mortality of Palestinians dying in my name and by my hand. It was a rare occasion in which I felt able to pray and connect with my spirituality, to recognize how prayer strengthens my voice and action. On this day, I felt deeply, and I connected with the tradition of my ancestors to pray.

So today, entering the new Jewish year of 5786, how can we drop into the spiritual practice of rehearsing our own death when people in Gaza are being confronted with their mortality on a daily basis?

I would like to suggest that we need to feel. Take a moment now and check in with your heart and body: we’re going to think about our own deaths. If you were to die tomorrow, would you feel comfortable with your own death? What could you celebrate about the life you’ve led? And what would you regret? Are there things that would be left unsaid, actions left untaken?

How might you live differently with these reflections?

We need to turn towards, to witness, and yes, to feel. We must allow ourselves to feel and to be impacted by the images, by the news, by the destruction. Witness and feel. Allow the reality of the unfathomable to sink into your bones and feel the weight. Feel in order to connect with your aliveness. I fear that when we look away, numb, and forget to be in touch with our senses, we allow our humanity to die. The question of “who shall live and who shall die” should not just be one of physical life, but one of our souls and humanity as well. What life are we living if we are devoid of feeling or simply going through the motions of life?

Allow yourself to be moved by your feeling, moved to tears, moved to prayer, and yes, moved to action. History is already asking what we have done for the past two years of a genocide on the Palestinian people of Gaza. One day this genocide will really be over; Gaza will have miraculously survived and/or Gaza will rebuild. When your children and the children of your children’s children ask you, what did you do when Gaza was being genocided, how will you feel about the answer you are able to give today? Turn towards, witness, feel, emote/cry/pray, and then act. Repeat this cycle as many times as you need to. Do not linger in one place, let this practice be cyclical.

The tides are turning. They are. Can you keep going? Can we keep going? You owe the world your endurance. You owe your ancestors your endurance. You owe Palestinians your endurance. You owe yourself your endurance. You owe your children your endurance. We owe each other our endurance.

Palestinian psychologist and author Hala Alyan wrote: “We owe Gaza endurance. Endurance might feel impossible right now…All relentless entities depend enormously on a few things: your fatigue. Your hopelessness. Your turning away…We belong to long, gorgeous lineages of endurance. We are all here because someone, somewhere, endured. When it feels impossible, find land. Find breath. Find each other. Find songs and poems of endurance…These feelings (of despair, of rage, of unreality) is what helps us seek and preserve truth…Bearing witness is an honor…We witness so that we may tell the truth.” As we are called to rehearse our own deaths today, let this be a reminder that we are living the rehearsal every day. We die when we allow others to be abandoned, martyred, demonized, made less than human. We are in the rehearsal right now. We are in the rehearsal every day. Beloveds, in your fatigue and with your hopelessness, with your resilience and faith, let us keep going. Aleinu, it really is upon all of us, individually and collectively. Let us turn towards, witness, feel, emote/cry/pray, and act.

I would like to close with a poem. I hope that we can feel the weight of each of the words in the poem and more importantly that we can heed the plea of the poem. In July of last year I led a mic check of Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” in the Cannon rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Refaat’s 46th birthday fell on Rosh Hashanah. Through his writings and his students, we have lifted Refaat’s memory to be a blessing and not a number. Let the words of this poem implore us to let nobody be a number, to seek to know every martyr’s story so that their memories may truly be for a blessing. And may the words of this poem inspire us to feel, act, and endure so that we may take immediate and consistent action so that this genocide swiftly comes to an end. Please lift up Refaat’s words and plea with me in mic check style:

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

G’mar chatimah tovah, may you be inscribed in the book of life alongside our Palestinian kin. May this year you continue to feel as you witness so that you may act, and act so that you may feel.

Rabbi May Ye

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