Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Mark

WHY MIRC NEEDS OUR HELP NOW

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Support our MIRC Fundraiser!

By Steve Merritt

I’ve recently been in touch with Christine Sauve, communication officer for the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), to better understand and be able to share with you about their work in the current political climate. MIRC is the leading provider of free legal services for immigrants in the state.

Increasing Demand for Services

Since the Trump administration took office in January of 2025, according to Suave, MIRC has received an extraordinarily high volume of inquiries. Last year, they took over 5,000 calls for legal assistance and handled 1,521 cases. They are currently receiving as many as 40 calls a week from newly detained immigrants and recently expanded their intake team to better manage the volume.

“The number of people being detained in Michigan is five times higher than previous years,” she said. Many detentions result from the increased involvement of local law enforcement, she explained, especially traffic stops that inappropriately escalate when local officers call ICE or CBP.

MIRC has historically worked in three main areas: direct legal services, advocacy, and community education, such as Know Your Rights training. With the increase in detentions, however, they have had to shift resources toward their detention work. A key part of that work is quick support in filing habeas petitions, because policy changes have made it harder for detainees to be released on bond.

A Constantly Changing Environment

The legal environment is turbulent, with about 700 immigration policy changes enacted under the new administration. According to Suave, “this blistering pace of change–changes that have real and consequential impacts for Michigan families–leaves everyone reeling.”

MIRC’s Unique Role

MIRC is the only nonprofit legal service provider designated to answer calls from people in immigration detention in Michigan. It is also the only Michigan organization listed on the pro bono list given to people in removal proceedings in immigration court.

The federal funding for several key MIRC programs–its Helpdesk in immigration court, its representation of over 1,000 unaccompanied minors, and its support for individuals deemed mentally incompetent to represent themselves, have all been terminated. While some services have been temporarily restored through litigation, the programs remain on shaky ground. “The starts and stops have made it more stressful to maintain service and staffing,” she said. Some staff have even received hate mail.

“As you can imagine, it is painful to bear witness to the suffering our clients and community members are experiencing,” said Suave. “We see families separated, struggling with the loss of a breadwinner, people not receiving the care they need in detention, and untold worry and anxiety.”

At the same time, “we have been buoyed by the incredible show of support from communities across the state, communities who know and love their immigrant neighbors,” she said. “We have been inspired by the notes of appreciation and creative fundraisers to support our critical work, so that we can help more people have access to free legal services when they need it most.”

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You–yes, you!–can help MIRC help these immigrants. Please buy a ticket or donate to our fundraiser on behalf of MIRC. Every dollar we raise for them will help pay for critically needed legal services.

Latin Music & Dance CELEBRATION!

Saturday, June 13, 6:00-9:00 pm

First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor

4001 Ann Arbor-Saline Rd, Ann Arbor, MI 48103

This event is both a celebration of Latin culture and a call to support our immigrant neighbors. It will feature Paul Vornhagen’s Afro-Cuban jazz band Tumbao Bravo playing music for listening and dancing. The doors open at 6:00. There will be dinner by Pilar’s Tamales and a cash bar. An optional salsa lesson with Mambo Marci from YA Salsa starts at 6:30. The band will take the stage at 7:15. Tickets are $50 per person. The registration deadline to attend is June 6. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to donate. Buy your tickets or donate here!

For more information contact LatinMusicAndDanceCelebration@gmail.com.

Rosh Hashanah 2025 Drash by Sam Bagenstos

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By Sam Bagenstos

Rabbi Gabrielle introduced this drash by referring to the power of memory.  I may be taking the point in a different direction than she intended, because I’m going to talk about how memory can sometimes have too much power over us.

For many of us, memory is central to what it means to be Jewish: memory of resilience in the face of oppression, memory of ultimate triumph, memory of the great contributions of Jewish scientists/lawyers/baseball players/what have you.  These collective, communal memories are a part of who I am, just as, I am sure, similar memories are a part of who you all are.

The liturgy tells us that “Nothing is forgotten in the presence of your Throne of Glory.”  But I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the dangers of too much remembering–too great a focus on our communal memories.

One danger is unwarranted nostalgia.  We may fixate on a time when we remember everything as better than it is today and try to go back.  It’s not just people in red baseball caps that say “Make America Great Again” who do that.  How many of us have secretly hoped to go back to a time before some rupture, some change, something that happened that unsettled all our basic understandings of the world?  (Maybe that something was the rise of all the folks in red baseball caps.)  But there are some facts we can’t ignore: even in our wished-for time before the fall–however we define it–everything wasn’t so great.  And the world has changed too much to go back in any event.

Another danger is unwarranted analogy.  We may fixate on particularly salient collective memories–perhaps especially painful ones–so much that we mistakenly see that history repeating everywhere.  Sometimes, we’re right:  Today, fascism, eugenics, and anti-semitism are resurging.  But we err when we let our painful communal memories lead us to see anti-semitism in legitimate–even harshly phrased–criticism of Israel for the injustices it is perpetrating in Gaza and elsewhere.  In these cases, memory leads us astray–it leads us to act from fear rather than from our basic humanity and the values we endorse when we are our best selves.

And a connected danger is unwarranted partiality.  Our community is not the only one with collective memory.  In Hebrew school, I learned a story about 1948–a brave band of people like me (I could even fool myself that I looked like Paul Newman in Exodus), underdogs who fled or were kicked out of every country in the world, fought for a place where they (we) could finally be safe.  For the people who lived in Palestine at the time and their descendants, though, 1948 marks the Nakhba, the tragedy in which they were kicked out of their homes, had their property taken, and from which they would never know safety.

The point is not to ignore or disparage our collective memories.  They are a source of strength and resilience as we navigate fearful times.  They are a part of who we are as a community and as individuals.  As I was flipping through the machzor during the Amidah, I found this passage from Isaac Leib Peretz on page 385 that captured the point: “If you have no past you have no future either, you are a foundling in this world, with no father or mother, without tradition, without duties to what comes after you, the future, the eternal.”

So the point isn’t to scrap our memories.  It’s to understand the limits of those memories–to recognize that our communal values are also at the center of who we are.  Values like those expressed in our Haftarah portion on Yom Kippur: “To unlock fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke.”  In 5786, I will recommit to living those values.  Shanah Tovah.

Creativity Kavanah (Rosh Hashanah 2025)

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By Kathryn and Seth Kopald 

Kathryn’s paragraph 

Rav Gav asked Seth and I to share how the power of creativity shows up in our lives and how it has allowed us to step into the fullness of life. 

For me, art making has become a sacred practice, and it’s been especially important during the past year which has had its share of challenges, sorrow, and pain. It is a place for me to connect, shift my perceptions, and know myself better. Engaging in the creative process, using my hands, quieting my mind is a sanctuary that I return to again and again. It allows me to step into my power, and be more fully present in the world. 

Seth’s paragraph 

Creativity is a life force that carries wisdom, potential, and hope. Creativity is not only expressed through making art, or making anything; it’s also a way of thinking and being. I like to use my creativity while woodworking, art making, playing music, writing, and more. It’s a place where I don’t follow other people’s rules, unless I choose to. 

Mitchell Widharma, a friend who was deported this year, just posted this on FB, “Be weird, do art”. To me, he’s an example of holding your power. 

Next, Kathryn and I will read a poem that we co-created. We each wrote ideas that were important to us on strips of paper, and we moved them around on the kitchen table until this poem emerged. We hope it’s meaningful to you. 

Creativity is the expression 
of Aliveness 
We are driven to 
moved by 
examples of 
pure expression 

It is nourishing to the very core 
Of who we are 
Connecting and reconnecting 
To the Divine within 

Creativity is 
Free Will 
My hands 
move 
with 
Divine Sovereignty 
I create for me 

It’s the why 
The purpose 
The heart 
Of all I seek to do 
And become 

Creativity is Freedom 
You cannot control my connection 
to the Divine flow 
There’s no right or wrong 
endless possibilities 
In this moment 
I AM 
Eyeh Asher Eyeh 

It’s unstoppable 
Its public expression 
can be controlled 
Its private expression 
CANNOT 

2
Creativity 
is one of the innate 
powers of all humans 
And it's one of the first 
to be squelched 
But the Pilot Light of Creativity 
can never be extinguished 
We need to give ourselves permission 
to turn on the gas 

As we create 
we are in a state 
of transference 
Ideas transferring 
out of our bodies 
Hands 
Mind 
and spirit 
Engaged 
Bringing hope 
when the world 
feels hopeless 

Creativity 
a force that moves 
through me 
A higher power 
who doesn’t 
follow 
human rules 

Connecting me deeply and fully 
to my own inner wisdom 

Creativity 
will live 
with or without me 
I pick it up 
or someone else will 

To make change 
when change is needed 
To make sense of 
what doesn’t make sense 

3
To feel into sadness and loss 
and see 
the beauty 
in feeling those things 

To release 
what was given to me 
what I didn’t ask for 
and 
what no longer serves me. 
To cultivate joy 
when joy cannot be found 

The way 
to tap into 
creativity 
is to be fully present 
in the moment 
where the fullness of life 
resides 

To be here 
in this moment 
present when the world 
feels darkest 
To be a light 
and point the way

Shedding of Skin (Yom Kippur 2025)

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By Seth Kopald

This is the year of the Snake in Chinese astrology, the wood snake actually. The Chinese Lunar New Year began January 29th, two days after my mother died. The year of the snake is a time of personal growth, transformation, and adaptability. 

I’m curious what comes up for you when I say it’s the year of the snake. Many of us fear snakes and think they are somehow evil or malicious. I’ve always felt they got a bad rap. I think snakes are love, like any other animal. They are animals trying to survive like the rest of us. In Shamanism, related to the four directions, the snake resides in the South and guides us to shed and clear limiting beliefs. We all have seen the medical symbol of snakes coiled around a winged staff. The snake represents healing. 

Upon hearing that this is the year of the snake, I thought to myself, perhaps this is an opportunity to shed my skin and to step into a new level of being, and this year, the snake has been knocking on my door. 

For instance, I invited Rav Gav to say blessings with our family at my mothers bedside, a few days before she died. We all gathered around my mother as she moved about in a dreamlike state. I looked down and saw Rav Gav was wearing a snake bracelet, and it fit the moment as 

she explained how we were cleansing and elevating my mother’s soul. I was like, “Ok Shaman Rabbi.” 

My mom was the root of much of my suffering in life. Her own suffering made her unavailable and even vicious at times. I truly never had the mom I needed and deserved. And during Ravs ceremony, she said we were offering my mother forgiveness and forgiveness for ourselves. Everyone in the family felt what happened there, and when days later my mother died, something in me released. The preparation for shedding my skin had begun. 

Prior to my mother’s rapid decline, I started my own forgiveness process. I read a forgiveness prayer for 32 days, as instructed. I learned in that time that forgiveness is not forgetting, or making it somehow ok that someone hurt you. It’s about releasing the charge of it all. It was the charge that caused me to hurt myself through anger, resentment, and even spite. Letting all that energy go, allowed me to stand next to my mother’s dying body and hold her hand. 

Since then, this year has been a year of healing. So much so, I started to outgrow my skin. I joined many healing circles and practices, and last June I went to Oregon and gave some of my grief to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think you need to do all that to shed old skin, but for me, it was necessary. 

Snake has followed me throughout all of this. Of course there was Rav Gav’s bracelet. When I was in Oregon I went to a Tibetan shop and bought a few things and when I got home, I found

an earring at the bottom of the bag. It was a golden snake. And just last month while I was at my cranial sacral appointment I noticed my practitioner had a new tattoo on her arm. Can you guess? A snake. I see snake imagery everywhere. Over the last month it felt like my old skin started to flake off bit by bit and just a few weeks ago, while at authentic movement I laid on the ground and wiggled my body out of my old skin. 

So what does it mean to shed your skin? Is it Tshuvah? Returning to Self? This answer came through: in Tshuvah we are shedding old versions of ourselves that block access to our light, to our soul, to our essence, to our true Self. It feels like expansion because we release what doesn’t serve us, and there is more room for me, more room for you, to shine our natural light. When we release the negative thoughts about ourselves and our negative thoughts about others: we forgive and we can expand. 

Our skin holds our current belief system of who we are. If we think we are small, our skin stays small. So, if you feel comfortable doing so, please repeat after me: 

○ I am not what my thoughts tell me I am 

○ I am not what others have said I am 

○ I am not what I assume people think I am 

When we realize this, we start to expand, and our skin begins to notice. Then, it’s time to start to shed. 

Our false beliefs about ourselves and others, our hiding, our protection, our fighting, usually come from drops of bad experiences – over and over – filling our bucket with burdens. And luckily, healing can happen drop by drop too, at your pace. As you continue to empty that bucket, there’s more room for you, and as you emerge, your skin will be ready and will naturally shed. And perhaps, on this Yom Kippur – we can start by stepping into forgiveness. 

Thus, I would like to read The Forgiveness Prayer I mentioned above for all of us. So feel free to take this in if desired. 

If there is anyone or anything that has hurt me in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it. 

If I have hurt anyone or anything in the past, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it. 

If I have hurt myself in the past knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive and release it.

Source: Akashic Records Consultants International (ARCI) 

May you Return to Your Self and have a healthy and easeful year. 

Shanah Tovah

Yom Kippur Sermon – 2025/5786

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Today’s Torah reading draws us into the ritual choreography of the High Priest—the one person permitted to enter the inner sanctum and stand face-to-face with Divine power. A relationship wrapped in mystery and inaccessible to the average Israelite.

But I ask you: is such intimacy really inaccessible? And if not, is such intimacy meant to be hoarded by a select few—by only adepts and elites—hidden behind the veils of some imagined Holy of Holies?

On Yom Kippur, we are invited to draw closer to that mystery—to what is true, to what is beautiful, to what is most meaningful. Only on this day do we proclaim aloud the second line of the Shema: Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto l’olam va’ed. The rabbis say these words are spoken only by angels. But today—we are pure enough to say them. Today, we declare that the Kavod—the Divine Radiance—infuses all creation, here and now.   Our very aliveness itself is an expression of that Divine Radiance, of the Kavod.

The invitation of teshuvah is to work with that aliveness. Not in a far-off mystical way, but in a real, tangible way – that embraces the power of life within us, the power of life that every living being carries.

The architecture of creation is full of powers:

  • A plant has the power to turn sunlight into food.
  • A flower has the power to lure a bee with its color and scent.
  • Fish have the power to breathe underwater.
  • And humans? We have the powers of imagination, language, creativity, and choice—powers that give rise to ritual, community, culture and complex expressions of civilization.

Power is a sacred capacity. And like the High Priest of old, we are entrusted to use our power with intention.  

On this day, we ask: What are our powers? How have we used them? Where have we misused them—or left them dormant? 

Asking these questions is the work of cheshbon hanefesh, the accounting of the soul.   Such work is not only about working on ourselves and becoming better people. It is about coming into our fullness. About being alive, vibrant, magnificent and beautiful.   

We become better people, when we know who we are, when we are authentic, when we are playful, when we are expansive and experimental and dare to love with all our heart, our soul and everything we’ve got.  When we dare to walk through life with holy chutzpah.  

Our tradition tells of the Lamed Vavniks—that in every generation, there are lamed vav [ל׳׳ו] 36 hidden righteous ones whose quiet merit sustains the world. They wear no priestly robes. They walk among us, unrecognized—even to themselves. They remind us that holiness is not locked in a chamber; it is carried in ordinary human lives of compassion, humility, justice and the holy chutzpah to be loving, generous and helpful as a way of being, with everyone, not reserved for our families, besties or curated social circles.  The Lamed Vavnik is fueled by love, radiates love and expresses love.   

We need to fill the world with more than 36 such individuals, don’t you think?   

Maybe hidden in the lamed vav is an even deeper message.  Maybe lamed – which contains the Hebrew root letters for “learn” and vav, which functions as a grammatical conjunction and connector, which means “and” – just maybe the combination of these two letters holds the message that we have to LEARN TO CONNECT.  All of us, not just 36 people.  

And if we do that, if we really learn to connect, we can sustain the world. We need the holy chutzpah to believe it is possible to live such a life.  To love in the face of our fears, to love in the face of our grief and pain.  

This is a year to focus on love – to radiate it with every step and every breath.  To be unashamed in expressing it.  

Let love be the measure of our power. The world is calling for it, aching for it.  We see abuses of power large and small—in our own country, in Israel, in Gaza, and in so many parts of the world. We are fatigued by endless conflict, horrified by unspeakable suffering, overwhelmed by continual waves of information and misinformation. And many of us feel powerless, even in our protesting, petitioning, and activism.  

And yet, Yom Kippur asks us to tap into the powers we do have. To go inward—not out there, on the world stage, but here—[hand on heart]—in the holy of holies of our own lives.  To have the holy chutzpah to love our neighbors, warts and all.  To have the holy chutzpah to be authentic and love ourselves, warts and all.

The task is not to have it all figured out. It is simply to begin: to step into the power entrusted to us, to align our soul with love, to let gratitude and compassion ripple outward. This is teshuvah. This is tikkun hanefesh—the repair of the soul—which makes tikkun olam—repair of the world—possible.

We are commanded to love.    This is the essence of Torah, as Hillel taught: v’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha, “and you shall love your neighbors as you love yourself.”  The rest is commentary.  Go and learn it.  

Lamed vav – learn to connect.

To love is the biggest mitzvah of all – the spiritual, ethical and moral imperative of our time.  To root every choice in love, in compassion, in justice. Everything flows from there. It is the very heart of Torah. It is the measure of our power, that pulses through each and every one of us.  

So, I say to you today: Step into the Holy of Holies of your own being. Claim the aliveness that flows through you. Let it be shaped by love—love multiplied, love abundant. The world is waiting. The world is depending on you. And maybe—just maybe—you are the one whose hidden holiness will help sustain us.    

G’mar chatimah tovah. 

Rosh Hashanah Sermon – 2025/5786

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By Rabbi Hazzan Gabrielle Pescador

Each Rosh Hashanah, we chant the story of Sarah and Hagar.

Two matriarchs of the Abrahamic lines—Israelite and Yishmaelite.  At odds.  Wounding one another.

Last year, I leaned hard on Sarah—on her harsh treatment of Hagar, her overreaction to Ishmael’s behavior.  I painted her as jealous, reactive, cruel.  And although that interpretation is legitimate, it is just a fragment – only part of a larger story.

We are living in a time when people are focusing on fragments, polarized fragments, partial truths, and it is not getting us anywhere.  We are living in a time that demands broadening our perspective.  We are living in a time of over-reactivity – and we all know that over-reactivity rarely comes from nowhere.


Heaven knows I have overreacted in my own life.   To criticism.  To insult.  To being dismissed.  To the ache of feeling unseen.  

And I know I’m not alone.

Add “power to the mix”—add differentials of power to that mix—and the impact – the pain deepens.

Those of us who value democracy, fairness, justice—we’re sensitive to power imbalances.  Such imbalances stir deep responses within us, and I daresay that over-reactivity is one of them.

Sarah was not without power – she had the power of position—she was wife number one. Hagar also had power—she carried what Sarah wanted most: a son.  Hagar also had the power of voice, and she used that power to taunt Sarah, to make her feel small, less than. Sarah used her power of privilege to influence Abraham to banish Hagar – she used her power to punish, to be vindicative. Both women wielded what they had.  And it wasn’t pretty.

And yet, despite their reactivity, despite their cruelty toward one another – neither was abandoned by God.  Sarah was graced with a child.  And Hagar—exiled, desperate—was met by God – whom she named El Ro’i: The God Who Sees Me.  She did not name God as All-Knowing or All-Powerful—but as The God Who Sees.  The One who promises that even in exile, even in despair, our stories continue.

That name, El Ro’i, has stayed with me. Because being seen—and truly seeing—are two of the more sacred powers we have.

The Midrash tells us that Sarah felt diminished when Hagar conceived – Sarah felt unseen.  Hagar also felt unseen when she fled.  It took exile, pain, surrender before either woman could feel God’s gaze.  Both women—flawed, reactive, human—were still beloved.  Still seen by God.  Still worthy of blessing.  Still worthy of love.  Still worthy of redemption.

And this story is not just about biblical matriarchs.  The pain of being unseen, of feeling overshadowed and dismissed is ubiquitous.  Overreaction to that pain is everywhere—in our families, our communities, our country.  In Israel, in Gaza. Across the world.  In our own hearts.

Deep pain triggers harsh responses.  It drives oversimplification, dehumanization of “the other.”  

Hurt people hurt people.  Hurt communities hurt communities.  Hurt nations hurt nations 

When hurt people, communities and nations—fail to SEE the pain that drives their behavior, reconciliation becomes impossible. 

So, on Rosh Hashanah, we begin here (hand on heart). With teshuvah. With the power of seeing, inwardly and outwardly. That is the power of El Ro’i.  The God who sees us.

This year, I ask myself—and I invite you to ask yourselves with me:

  • Who have we mis-seen?
  • Who have we dismissed because we only knew part of their story?
  • What within ourselves have we turned away from or diminished? 
  • And what do we learn from seeing – How does our ability to see, understand and recognize transform us? 

If I make may speak personally – I’d like to share a story about one of my family matriarchs.  Because let’s face it – if we don’t get real, if we don’t get personal about this stuff, it becomes too abstract, and it’s harder to learn the lessons that we need to learn.

My Bubbe Sarah—my father’s mother—was sharp-tongued and very quick to overreact.  She was also capable of deep love.  She adored my father and my uncle.  I also felt loved by my Bubbe—she taught me how to pray, she made clothes for my dolls, she played with me, and let me play with her hair and experiment with crazy hair styles, which didn’t seem to faze her. And she loved my interest in Judaism.  She would affectionately call me the Rebbetzin—the rabbi’s wife – I wonder what she’d think of me now.

Even though my Bubbe Sarah and I got along well, I recognized the pain that her sharp tongue caused others.  And as I got older, I grew less tolerant of it and even began to keep an emotional distance from her.

As the years have passed, I have gained some perspective and realized that my Bubbe Sarah lived a very hard life: she was the eldest of eight children, an immigrant, widowed young, poor, with the burden of raising two sons on her own.  Two sons who became doctors.  She was SO proud of that, she was SO proud of them.


My bubbe Sarah was tough, intelligent, quick-witted and devout.  And she ached to be seen—for her sacrifices, for her mind, for her experience— for her beauty that faded with age.  And when she felt the pain of being dismissed or unseen, she lashed out.  And I found that lashing out deeply unpleasant and even embarrassing.

So as a young person, I knew I didn’t want to be like her.  I wanted to be gentler, more accommodating, more diplomatic, more of a peacemaker.  And I overdid it, I overcompensated.  You could say that I over-reacted.  When I felt threatened or hurt, I did not lash out, but instead, I bit my tongue and made nice.  It took many years of life experience and self-examination to realize that biting my tongue and making nice – as a reflex reaction – was causing harm to myself.  

I realized that like my Bubbe Sarah, I also needed to be seen and be heard just as much as I need to see and hear others. In seeing my Bubbe Sarah more fully over the years, in seeing my over-reactions to her over-reactions, I see myself differently today.  

I see more possible ways of responding and I have stepped into some of them – I have experimented.  You could say that I forgive her – but that’s not really accurate – I see her and how she affected me – and as a result, I have opened to new ways, to hopefully healthier ways of relating.  I see her in me, not brushing against me.  She was a mixed bag just like I am a mixed bag, trying to do the best I can.  So maybe I forgive her for lashing out or forgive myself for not speaking up or maybe forgiveness isn’t even the point.  Maybe what matters is recognizing that I have space to move, to grow because I can SEE now.  

I wish my Bubbe Sarah could have had the chance to see.  Who knows, maybe she does now, on the other side, as an incarnate soul.  I love to imagine that possibility.

This intergenerational lesson of seeing can ripple outwards.  It is my hope that when we witness people speaking or acting in ways that don’t land well –individuals, communities, or even nations—let’s open our eyes wider.  

I really believe that widening our perspective helps – it does not erase wrong-doing – but it does help us to understand the reasons behind it – and helps us learn how to meet the other with more awareness, more compassion – because on some level, we get it.  If we allow ourselves to see, we’ll get it.  

Over-reactivity doesn’t come from nowhere.  

Seeing and being seen – softens tension, softens pain.  It eases the way for transformation, for healing and repair.  And that begins here [touch the heart] – with rippling effects moving inward and outward. 

That is how I imagine El Ro’i saw Hagar.  And how the messengers of God saw Sarah—not finished, not discarded, but still vital to the story, still unfolding, learning, growing, blooming.

We all deserve a second look—with eyes more compassionate, more curious. This year let’s commit to seeing ourselves and one another more fully.  

May we see.
May we be seen.
May we believe that repair is possible—
even in the mess and the ugliness.

Shanah tovah.

New COVID-19 page on website with updates and resources

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By Mark Schneyer

AARC’s website now features a page on pandemic-related issues for the benefit of our community. It includes:

  • The latest updates on how we are shifting services and programming online and how you can participate;
  • Links to resources to get or give help in our community; and
  • A cumulative and continually updated list of Rabbi Ora’s links to music, meditation, chanting, and rituals, as shared in her emails.

The page can be reached from the menu throughout the site and directly at https://aarecon.org/covid-19-information-resources/. I hope you’ll check it out soon and continue to seek it out whenever you need it during this challenging time.

Parashat Bo and Poetry of Presence

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Book cover in which several of these poems are published

During Ta-Shma (Come and Learn) and Shabbat morning service (Parashat Bo), Rabbi Ora used poetry and writings of all kinds to connect the parasha to our current lives (some of which led straight through to Sunday’s intro session of the new Ritual Lab & Learn, but that’s another post).
In case you were there and want to read and reflect a bit more, or in case you weren’t there but might still like to read a couple great poems and delve into an interesting article, here are the links. Thanks to Rabbi Ora for providing these:




“How can our water not be fine?”

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Today makes 1660 days without access to tap drinkable water. What’s even scarier is there are places all around the country with water worse then Flint and they have no idea yet. — Mari Copeny (@LittleMissFlint) September 11, 2018

By Mark Schneyer

In her Rosh Hashanah sermon this year, Rabbi Ora urged us to “Choose Life,” and focused our attention on issues that prevent people from having access to clean water. I thought it would be useful to list some of the people and organizations mentioned in her sermon, as well as a few related ones::

Finally, Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who stood up to advocate for the kids of Flint at a time when the state of Michigan claimed there was no problem with Flint’s water, has written a new book, What the Eyes Don’t See, telling the story of her fight and some of her own history as well. She spoke tonight in Ann Arbor, and said the title of the book refers both to the invisibility of lead in water as well as “problems we choose not to see.”

She described her inner dialogue when she was deciding to go public with the truth she was learning. “How can our water not be fine?” she said she asked herself. The government had experts testing and overseeing and enforcing the law, the water must be clean. But the evidence told her otherwise and she launched her fight.

 

Post election: What are you doing?

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Collage created by members of the Diversity Peer Education Team at York University in 2013, lifted from the blog Inclusivity Zone by Margaret

At last Saturday’s Human Rights Shabbat, Margo led a discussion about the emotional impact of the election and its implications for human rights. Many of us found the service cathartic, and it was inspiring to hear about the activities of our members.

With the hope that activity can be an antidote to despair, let’s try using this post to collect the list of constructive actions people are taking part in locally. As a start, refer to Margo’s post for a list of  ways you can get involved building bridges with people in prison.

What are you doing? If you’re volunteering or helping or organizing or protesting, add a comment to this post briefly describing what you’re doing and how others might get involved. Thanks!