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
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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