Renewal

People have celebrated Rosh Hashanah with a festive gathering since Talmudic times. Weaving together symbolic foods with the familiar structure of a seder helps us start the new year mindfully. 

During this brief seder, we’ll make four toasts together and find opportunities for blessing and reflection. Each toast is centered on a way of understanding Rosh Hashanah - as a day of reawakening, of judgment, of remembrance and of recreation. The choice of beverage is up to you!

When the world is upside down,

I/Me/Us/We must flip the script:

Grab hold of the narrative,

revolt against the same old story,

resist the riptide of history

despite grim odds,

the plot twist brought

to untwist this plot.

Thus begins every

inner rebellion.

I/Me/Us/We enter

the cold wetness

of the cave

made of echo-stone

to retrieve the oil

hidden in secret

and Maccabean shadow-folds

for generations.

When the world is upside down,

I/Me/Us/We must flip the script:

Watch the exalted letters

dance into all possible combinations,

account for every permutation,

precisely as numerous

as each luminous star

in the numinous field

of our milky and honeyed galaxy.

I/Me/Us/We reclaim our sovereignty

over the landscape

of our heavenly body,

shore up our borders,

draw constellations as boundaries,

rededicate the sacred space

in the center of us,

sanctify the nourishment

of moon and sun.

Let us rise elemental,

offer our/self as vessel,

four mothers to the left,

four angels to the right,

we long to be anointed, filled with

hyssop and frankincense,

spikenard and myrrh,

balsam and cassia,

jasmine and rose,

holy olive.

Pour in the gloaming

moment of every tiny brave blaze

thrown in stark relief

against the gift

of mysterious darkness.

When the world is upside down,

I/Me/Us/We must flip the script:

Grab hold of the narrative,

revolt against the same old story,

resist the riptide of history

despite grim odds,

the plot twist brought

to untwist this plot.

Thus begins every

inner rebellion.

I/Me/Us/We enter

the cold wetness

of the cave

made of echo-stone

to retrieve the oil

hidden in secret

and Maccabean shadow-folds

for generations.

When the world is upside down,

I/Me/Us/We must flip the script:

Watch the exalted letters

dance into all possible combinations,

account for every permutation,

precisely as numerous

as each luminous star

in the numinous field

of our milky and honeyed galaxy.

I/Me/Us/We reclaim our sovereignty

over the landscape

of our heavenly body,

shore up our borders,

draw constellations as boundaries,

rededicate the sacred space

in the center of us,

sanctify the nourishment

of moon and sun.

Let us rise elemental,

offer our/self as vessel,

four mothers to the left,

four angels to the right,

we long to be anointed, filled with

hyssop and frankincense,

spikenard and myrrh,

balsam and cassia,

jasmine and rose,

holy olive.

Pour in the gloaming

moment of every tiny brave blaze

thrown in stark relief

against the gift

of mysterious darkness.