Last year I was part of midwiving a miraculous emergence of a radical, queer high holy day project in Western Mass called Nishmat Shoom. We weave traditionally non-traditional, reverently irreverent, deep, radically inclusive services from the eve of Rosh Hashanah through Ne’ilah, the closing of the gates on Yom Kippur. We are still unfolding into what this project is, who we are, what we are becoming, and as we do that, we offered services again this year! 300 people, from tiny babies to elders and everyone in between joined us to pray, sing, weep, laugh, fast and feast. It was profound and ecstatic and moving.
One of the things people kept reflecting to us during and after services was how welcome they felt, in ways they never knew they could feel in a Jewish spiritual community space, how they felt like they could be their whole selves, and specifically that the opening prayer, Hinenu, made them cry with relief and recognition. I wrote Hinenu the night before Erev Rosh Hashanah last year as a sort of participatory welcome ritual- game. As someone who leads ritual and workshops often, I really like to speak what often goes unspoken right off the bat to put people at ease. It feels important to name what might be coming up for people (social anxiety, comparison, fear of/remembering experiences of exclusion, racism, classism, ableism, transphobia, wondering if you belong, inadequacy, etc…) so people know they can trust the container, so they can soften and open and do the work they have come to do. It is an attempt to dissolve the ways we often isolate and think we are the only one feeling a certain way in a space and instead connect us, in all our longing, grief, and pain, as well as in humor. It’s good to laugh on Yom Kippur. So much arises in Jewish collective spiritual spaces precisely because of trauma and genocide and assimilation and it is so easy to just sit there and think you are the only one feeling disconnected and lost- this opening prayer seeks to name and release that.
I was inspired by the traditional Hineni prayer, a meditation on humility and receptivity recited by the cantor at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. The cantor says: hineni he’ani mima’as- Here I am, impoverished in deeds and merit, coming before You, to pray on behalf of my people. Hineni is a potent word in Jewish tradition- it carries a deep history of presencing oneself in relationship with the Divine, taking responsibility, and saying yes to transformation. When HaShem calls upon Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham says, “Hineni.” When the angel appears and stops his hand from this act, Abraham again says, “Hineni.” And when Moses is called by The Voice as he stands before the burning bush, he utters, “Hineni.”
Hineni is the answer to the call. It literally means, “I am here.” It calls ourselves back to ourselves and also perhaps calls upon the divine within us, aligning us to show up with fullness and aliveness to the task at hand. It is both bowing in humility and rising up in willingness. Part of our work in Nishmat Shoom is transforming some of the structures set up by patriarchy that keep the kahal, the community, feeling disempowered and less connected: we don’t use a bimah, instead we hold our services in the round, with leaders at the center of many co-centric circles of people. We rotate leadership. We write a lot of our own liturgy. We switch up the names and pronouns of the divine. We turn to face the diaspora or the Torah instead of east. So for Hineni, I wanted to expand the prayer to everyone- we are all here, with all of our complexities and wounds and needs, ready to engage. It feels like an act of permission and consent – permission to be here exactly as you are and consenting to stay engaged, connected even when it’s hard. And really, in order to reply with a heartfelt Hineni, I am here, we need to be called by our true names.
At the beginning of each service, after a land acknowledgment, we did this call and response game of Hineni, saying our holy yes as a kind of communal presencing. This year, my friend and stunning poet Romeo Romero joined me – we edited it a bit for each service, adding specific things that spoke to the qualities of the day, and read it together. It has now become a tradition! I’m sharing it with the hopes that if it resonates with you, you are welcome to use it however you like, feeling very free to add and change to make it most align for you and your purposes. To begin, I give a little framing and do a practice round, asking folks to say HINENI! Or HINENU! (we are here!) when I signal with my hand, at the end of a statement. At our services, because there were so many people and we were using a mic, Romeo and I led the statements, but I can also imagine many voices reading it, ending with a resounding HINENI!
I share this with the intention that we heal the wounds of inadequacy and disconnection and that we all may feel an ever-growing sense of belonging as we presence ourselves to the beauty and power of collective transformation and change, otherwise known as God.
HINENU : WE ARE HERE
If you don’t feel jewish enough. If you feel too jewish. not the right kind of jewish. If you aren’t jewish, but love judaism and/or jews.
HINENI
If this is your first time coming to services. If you’ve been going to services all your life. If you haven’t been to services in years because of your politics, family of origin, queerness, crisis of faith, because of racism or classism, or you just haven’t known where to go.
If you have felt scared to attend services because of the rise of anti-semitic violence. If the rise of antisemitic violence has pushed you to want to be more explicitly or visibly Jewish.
HINENI
If you don’t know how to read hebrew. If you have complicated feelings about hebrew. If you love torah. If you want to love torah, but struggle with it. If you don’t really get why people are so into torah. If you don’t know when you’re supposed to stand or sit or bow, or which direction you’re supposed to face and why. If you were raised in a traditional Jewish home (whatever that means) and in a process of opening to other ways to pray,
HINENI
If zionism has kept you away from judaism. If you struggle with how to relate to judaism when it shows it’s face as occupation and genocide. If your judaism is at the heart of your work in solidarity with Palestinian liberation. If talking about Israel and Palestine is breaking your family or friend circles apart. If you don’t talk about Israel and Palestine in your family. If you’ve been waiting your whole life for someone to say the words occupation and Palestine in high holy day services. If you long for Jewish communities and ritual spaces that are grounded in and in service to collective liberation.
HINENI
If you are fasting, not fasting, finding many ways to connect with the intentions of the day. If you are currently engaged in a process of teshuvah with someone. If your heart is opening and softening in forgiveness. If you are not ready, may never feel ready, to forgive. If you wonder what it would be like to forgive yourself even a little bit more.
HINENI
If you’re nervous. If you’re curious. If you’re ecstatic, if you’re ready. If you’re grieving. if you’re uncomfortable. If you’re exhausted. If you’re seeking.
HINENI
If you look around and see the faces of strangers, old friends, new friends, people who you want to be your friends, exes…exes of exes. If you are still figuring out if these people are your people. If all of this looking around is giving you social anxiety. If you have a crush on someone in this room.
HINENI
If your heart is breaking, broken. If you feel numb and shut down. If you are on fire with rage. If you feel hopeless. If the world feels like too much. If you don’t know what to do anymore. If you are longing to be in a collective dream of the world to come. If you are seeking sustenance for the long haul.
HINENI
If you have questions,
If you feel like you don’t know how to pray,
If the only thing you feel like you can do is pray,
HINENI
If you don’t know if you believe in God. If that word doesn’t do it for you. If you are curious about exploring new names and pronouns and infinite genders of the Divine. If you are homesick for something and long for spiritual practice. If you are agnostic, secular, communist, orthodox, conservative, reform, reconstructionist, renewal, kohenet, witchy, jew-curious or something that doesn’t even have a name yet,
HINENI
If you are just here to sing. If you love to sing but feel like you can’t, were told that you can’t. If you’re ready to let go of all the stories about what you can and can’t do.
HINENI
If you are Black, indigenous, a jew of color,
If you are sephardi, mizrahi, if your people spoke in languages your bones and tongue and ear remember and long for
If you are an immigrant,
If you are undocumented.
If you have felt the pain of racism within jewish communities and the pain of silence about racism within and from jewish communities.
If you are a jew by choice.
If you were raised poor or working class. If you have felt the pain of silence about class differences within jewish communities.
If you are disabled, chronically ill, neuro-atypical, neuro-queer, chemically senstitive,
If it’s a struggle for your mind-body to be here.
If you are a young person,
If you are an elder,
If you’re a new parent trying to figure out how to be here.
If you have family or friends in prison.
If you experienced a deep loss this year,
If you are coming to services in mourning.
If you are a survivor.
If you’ve felt alienated from or lost family, friends, community because of coming out as a survivor.
If you are a sex worker, queer, non-binary, agender, bisexual, trans, polyamorous, asexual, lesbian, a shabbes femme, butch dyke, gay faggot homosexual,
If you often feel like the only one in a room,
If being here is a big stretch for you,
If you have been longing, waiting for non-zionist, radically inclusive, queer, vibrant, emergent, sweet, traditional, non- traditional, welcoming jewish space to go deep, sing, eat, fast, remember, heal, play and pray in,
HINENI
We are so glad you are here.
*EDITED August/Elul 2020/5781
Here we are, approaching High Holy Days 5781 in a time of profound unraveling, pandemic, and uprising. We will not be gathering in our traditional sanctuaries, we will not be singing in concentric circles, we will not be crying with strangers, we will not be going to break fast potlucks, we will not be pounding on our hearts in a room full of hundreds of people. There is so much loss and so much change, so much to grieve and so much to innovate so fast. Jewish ritual leaders all over the world are staying up all night trying to figure out how to weave spaces for people to connect, go deep, feel held, experience some semblance of holiness- all while managing our own lives in this challenging time. We can’t pretend we know what we’re doing- we are all in the unravel. For me, it usually helps just to name the thing: This is weird! This is hard! This is a miracle! We are tiny praying faces in boxes on a little screen in our homes, connected by some kind of invisible magic. I recently attended Kabbalat Shabbat services where Binya Kóatz read this beautiful poem, and I felt so relieved and moved by her priestexxing of this moment, speaking to the magic and possibility of connection right now.
I offer these supplemental pieces to the Hinenu we at Nishmat Shoom use as an invocation and welcome to everyone, every feeling, every body for 5781. You are welcome to use it and adapt it to be resonant for you.
HINENU : 5781
If you are sitting on your couch, at your desk, in your kitchen. If you are in your pajamas, your sweats, wrapped in your tallit. If you are grieving the loss of not being together, of not sitting in a synagogue. If you are relieved to not be sitting in a synagogue. If you feel rage that it took so long to make services accessible to you. If it feels like a stretch for this to feel holy. If you are doing the dishes, putting your kids to bed, trying to find a way to connect to this holy day while parenting. If you are alone.
HINENI
If you have lost loved ones to Coronavirus. If you have been sick, are still sick. If you have been holding people, caring for people, at home or at work. If you are exhausted, burnt out, heartbroken. If you feel like it’s been Yom Kippur for six months.
HINENI
If you have been inspired, moved by, awakened by the uprisings for Black Lives. If you have been working towards prison abolition for years. If you have marched in the streets, shared resources towards Black liberation, felt the tectonic shifts of this powerful movement for justice.
HINENI
