Open Temple High Holiday Ritual Lab 5781:
American Wanderers

High Holidays ask us to open our hearts, turn and return. Return to the Land of our Soul – a terrain inhabited in every footprint by those who came before us. This year, in the midst of fires, pandemic, economic crisis, racial conflict, climate change and political upheaval, Open Temple goes LIVE for outdoor services.  Featuring Open Temple Band, special guests including Zach Puchtel, Kent Jenkins, Shira Fox, Mark Shapiro, Faith Edelman, and others, Rabbi Lori offers all of us an opportunity to see one another, feel one another, and experience one another as we refract our world conflict through the wisdom of our ancestors.

A New Bubbe-ossus:

Not like the Brazen Giant of Greek fame,
but the Glowing Jewess of Biblical (and Matzoball) Power;
who washed ashore this land, sunset in her eyes,
a Mighty Young Woman, yet unknowing of her progeny,
as she was only 20 at the time.
BUBBE, we were to call her. From her thrifty hand
(she was to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory,
and escape the famed fire for a wedding fitting),
“I have no need for the finieries I fix,” she claimed
with silent lips. “Give me your pooped, your ‘po’,
Your BIPOC yearning to breathe free,”
one hundred plus years later, she summoned unto me,
From the grave, she spoke, like Fruma Sarah in a Dream:
“See these, the Homeless, that set up tents on your Street,
See these, the First Responders with blisters on their Feet,
See these, the Mourners who could not say goodbye,
and See these, the Masses, fearing that they will die;
for all that are before me, the courageous and less so,
time is indeed turning, and I implore you all to Go.
Go to Open Temple; a new dawn breaks through the sky
and asks for us to shatter the chimera of the “I”
A Soul Journey Awaits for Holy Wanderers to Journey within,
And Open Temple re-enchants Jewiness for these Seekers to Begin.