Last week I wrote about the beginning of the Shiva d'Nechemta—the Seven Weeks of Consolation that carry us from Tisha B'Av to Rosh HaShanah. Jewish tradition doesn't ask us to move from grief to renewal overnight. Instead, it gives us seven weeks to practice becoming the people we hope to be when we stand together on Yom Kippur.
With a week of reflection, I am thinking of that piece as the first in a series of seven taking us through the Days of Awe. I hope we can spend these seven weeks together in learning and practice, synchronously and asynchronously.
While I don't know exactly where each reflection will lead – these are not prewritten and released weekly – I do know where I hope we will go together: toward deeper honesty, greater compassion, and a community more capable of repairing what has been strained within ourselves, between one another, in the fabric of our Kadima community, and in the world we share.
This week I've been struck by the strange emotional landscape of August already.
Seattle is beautiful this time of year. Lingering outside after dinner. Watching the tomatoes and eggplant ripen. Gathering for Shabbat in backyards and parks. Playing with (or near) our young people later and longer with family, with neighbors, and at camp. There is something expansive and joy-inviting about these long summer days.
And yet.
The violence in the West Bank continues unabated. A shooting at Seattle Center has shaken our city. Wildfires are burning across Washington, and while many of us west of the Cascades are seeing hazier skies, our neighbors to the east – including the Jewish community in Spokane – are experiencing the fear and devastation they bring.
How can the world be so beautiful and so broken at the same time?
Jewish tradition rarely asks us to choose one reality over another. Instead, it invites us to become people whose hearts can hold many truths.
And that is perhaps where the teshuvah process begins.
Many of us think of teshuvah as repentance, or feeling sorry for something we've done. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, in her wonderful book On Repentance and Repair, which I am relistening to this season, reminds us that our Jewish ancestors imagined something much richer. Teshuvah is not simply feeling bad. It is telling the truth. It is acknowledging harm, taking responsibility, making repair where possible, and becoming someone less likely to cause that harm again.
Importantly, she also reminds us that teshuvah is not only personal. Institutions can – and must – practice teshuvah, as well.
Congregations can and must.
Boards can and must.
Communities and individuals can and must.
That has stayed with me as the board continues its work of Reconstructing Kadima.
Every institution makes mistakes. Every community falls short of its aspirations. Ours is no exception. The question is not whether we have missed the mark. The question is whether we can become the kind of people – the kind of community – that tells the truth about ourselves without giving up on us.
There is a passage by the feminist theologian Judith Plaskow that I had the pleasure to learn this week. She writes that the "failure to grapple with the hard parts of tradition is spiritually and socially corrosive...it leaves destructive ideas intact to shape our consciousness and affect our hearts and minds." She goes on to say that "remaining silent about the negative aspects...not only leaves them to do their work in the world, it also deprives us of an important spiritual resource..."
I think the same is true of communities. The conversations we avoid don't disappear. The hurts we never name don't evaporate. Silence is rarely the same thing as peace. If anything, it often allows distance, resentment, and misunderstanding to quietly grow.
That doesn't mean every thought needs to be spoken, or every frustration aired. Judaism does not confuse honesty with impulsiveness. But it does suggest that healing requires a willingness to be present to what is true.
Over these next several weeks, let's spend some time thinking together about two deeply Jewish practices that belong to this season: teshuvah and tokhechah.
Teshuvah is the work of returning and repair.
Tokhechah is the practice of offering loving accountability – caring enough about another person, or about a community, to speak difficult truths in ways that preserve relationship rather than destroy it.
We'll come back to both in the weeks ahead.
For now, I believe the invitation is simply to soften our hearts. To resist the temptation to rush past discomfort. To notice where we become defensive. To make just a little more room for curiosity.
That is difficult work. It asks something of us. Especially after a hard season. Especially when trust has been tested. Especially when we are tired. Especially when we are busy.
And yet I believe this is exactly what the Jewish calendar is inviting us to practice in these weeks.
Not perfection.
Not agreement.
Presence.
As many of you know, these High Holidays will mark the end of my time as Kadima's rabbi and the beginning of a different relationship with this community as Rabbi Emeritus. Perhaps that is one reason these seven weeks feel especially precious to me. I don't want to simply count down the weeks until Yom Kippur. I want to spend them learning and practicing, together, the habits that I believe will serve Kadima long after any one rabbi, board, or moment in its history.
So this week, my invitation is a simple one.
Enjoy the beauty of this season.
Let it nourish you.
And don't allow that beauty to turn your eyes away from suffering – whether in the wider world, within our own community, or in our own hearts.
Hold it all.
Because I suspect that the same heart that can hold joy and grief at once is also the heart capable of repentance, forgiveness, and repair.
May this week of consolation continue to soften our hearts for the sacred work that lies ahead. And may we find some acceptance and inspiration in the fact that the new year awaits us. And with it promise, possibility, and yes, work to do.
Shabbat shalom and Shiva d'Nechemta tovah (may your seven weeks of consolation be good ones),
R’ David
PS – I hope to see you tonight at Volunteer Park for a Shabbat potluck dinner, at Torah study on Wednesdays at noon, or some other moment of communal gathering soon!
PPS – The primary elections this week brought some good news and some bad news for folks locally and beyond. I really appreciated these words of Torah in the Forward from Rabbi Alana Alpert from T’chiyah, a Michigan based Synagogues Rising community, about the Democratic senate primary there.
With a week of reflection, I am thinking of that piece as the first in a series of seven taking us through the Days of Awe. I hope we can spend these seven weeks together in learning and practice, synchronously and asynchronously.
While I don't know exactly where each reflection will lead – these are not prewritten and released weekly – I do know where I hope we will go together: toward deeper honesty, greater compassion, and a community more capable of repairing what has been strained within ourselves, between one another, in the fabric of our Kadima community, and in the world we share.
This week I've been struck by the strange emotional landscape of August already.
Seattle is beautiful this time of year. Lingering outside after dinner. Watching the tomatoes and eggplant ripen. Gathering for Shabbat in backyards and parks. Playing with (or near) our young people later and longer with family, with neighbors, and at camp. There is something expansive and joy-inviting about these long summer days.
And yet.
The violence in the West Bank continues unabated. A shooting at Seattle Center has shaken our city. Wildfires are burning across Washington, and while many of us west of the Cascades are seeing hazier skies, our neighbors to the east – including the Jewish community in Spokane – are experiencing the fear and devastation they bring.
How can the world be so beautiful and so broken at the same time?
Jewish tradition rarely asks us to choose one reality over another. Instead, it invites us to become people whose hearts can hold many truths.
And that is perhaps where the teshuvah process begins.
Many of us think of teshuvah as repentance, or feeling sorry for something we've done. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, in her wonderful book On Repentance and Repair, which I am relistening to this season, reminds us that our Jewish ancestors imagined something much richer. Teshuvah is not simply feeling bad. It is telling the truth. It is acknowledging harm, taking responsibility, making repair where possible, and becoming someone less likely to cause that harm again.
Importantly, she also reminds us that teshuvah is not only personal. Institutions can – and must – practice teshuvah, as well.
Congregations can and must.
Boards can and must.
Communities and individuals can and must.
That has stayed with me as the board continues its work of Reconstructing Kadima.
Every institution makes mistakes. Every community falls short of its aspirations. Ours is no exception. The question is not whether we have missed the mark. The question is whether we can become the kind of people – the kind of community – that tells the truth about ourselves without giving up on us.
There is a passage by the feminist theologian Judith Plaskow that I had the pleasure to learn this week. She writes that the "failure to grapple with the hard parts of tradition is spiritually and socially corrosive...it leaves destructive ideas intact to shape our consciousness and affect our hearts and minds." She goes on to say that "remaining silent about the negative aspects...not only leaves them to do their work in the world, it also deprives us of an important spiritual resource..."
I think the same is true of communities. The conversations we avoid don't disappear. The hurts we never name don't evaporate. Silence is rarely the same thing as peace. If anything, it often allows distance, resentment, and misunderstanding to quietly grow.
That doesn't mean every thought needs to be spoken, or every frustration aired. Judaism does not confuse honesty with impulsiveness. But it does suggest that healing requires a willingness to be present to what is true.
Over these next several weeks, let's spend some time thinking together about two deeply Jewish practices that belong to this season: teshuvah and tokhechah.
Teshuvah is the work of returning and repair.
Tokhechah is the practice of offering loving accountability – caring enough about another person, or about a community, to speak difficult truths in ways that preserve relationship rather than destroy it.
We'll come back to both in the weeks ahead.
For now, I believe the invitation is simply to soften our hearts. To resist the temptation to rush past discomfort. To notice where we become defensive. To make just a little more room for curiosity.
That is difficult work. It asks something of us. Especially after a hard season. Especially when trust has been tested. Especially when we are tired. Especially when we are busy.
And yet I believe this is exactly what the Jewish calendar is inviting us to practice in these weeks.
Not perfection.
Not agreement.
Presence.
As many of you know, these High Holidays will mark the end of my time as Kadima's rabbi and the beginning of a different relationship with this community as Rabbi Emeritus. Perhaps that is one reason these seven weeks feel especially precious to me. I don't want to simply count down the weeks until Yom Kippur. I want to spend them learning and practicing, together, the habits that I believe will serve Kadima long after any one rabbi, board, or moment in its history.
So this week, my invitation is a simple one.
Enjoy the beauty of this season.
Let it nourish you.
And don't allow that beauty to turn your eyes away from suffering – whether in the wider world, within our own community, or in our own hearts.
Hold it all.
Because I suspect that the same heart that can hold joy and grief at once is also the heart capable of repentance, forgiveness, and repair.
May this week of consolation continue to soften our hearts for the sacred work that lies ahead. And may we find some acceptance and inspiration in the fact that the new year awaits us. And with it promise, possibility, and yes, work to do.
Shabbat shalom and Shiva d'Nechemta tovah (may your seven weeks of consolation be good ones),
R’ David
PS – I hope to see you tonight at Volunteer Park for a Shabbat potluck dinner, at Torah study on Wednesdays at noon, or some other moment of communal gathering soon!
PPS – The primary elections this week brought some good news and some bad news for folks locally and beyond. I really appreciated these words of Torah in the Forward from Rabbi Alana Alpert from T’chiyah, a Michigan based Synagogues Rising community, about the Democratic senate primary there.
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