Kaddish For The Tree Of Life

   for The Tree of Life Synagogue

 

We rise 

for the ancient prayer 

for the dead

a pathway back 

for the living,

our voices weaving together

into a tallit of sound and shelter, 

our sorrow resting in the arms 

of sacred time. We are as leaves

bruised red, purple and golden, 

knocked from our Etz Chayim

by the wind of this moment,

mourning our broken branches.

 

And the prayer remembers 

beauty for us when we are lost

as if to say: 

notice the solidity of the roots,

tenacity of the trunk, of how even now 

sap is rising to meet the wound 

 

and so we rise to recall

the beauty of our brokenness, 

our people, our common earth,

lifting ourselves and each other

into this oasis of prayer,

 

perhaps we rock,

perhaps we cry, perhaps we find quiet

in the melodic cadence 

of the Aramaic words of praise 

first spoken long before we were born 

and will survive

long after we are gone. We rise 

 

because our tradition teaches us we must, 

that we can be comforted 

by comforting,  find healing 

by welcoming the stranger,  

speaking up for justice.

 

We rise, reciting 

Yitgadal V’Yitkadash, 

blessed and blessing

the words sounding from our 

wounded collective body,

 

together we rise.