Haftarah for the Rainbow Covenant

Submitted by Linda Carranza on

You, My people, burnt in fire,
still staring blinded
by the flame and smoke
that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima; 

You, My people,
Battered by the earthquakes of a planet in convulsion; 

You, My people,
Drowning in the flood of words and images That beckon you to eat and eat,
to drink and drink,
to fill and overfill
your bellies
at the tables of
the gods of wealth and power; 

You, My people,
Drowning in the flood of words and images That—poured unceasing on your eyes and ears— drown out My words of Torah,
My visions of the earth made whole; 

Be comforted:
I have for you a mission full of joy. I call you to a task of celebration

I call you to make from fire not an all-consuming blaze But the light in which all beings see each other fully. All different,
All bearing One Spark. 

I call you to light a flame to see more clearly That the earth and all who live as part of it Are not for burning:
A flame to see The rainbow
in the many-colored faces of all life. 

I call you:
I, the Breath of Life,
Within you and beyond,
Among you and beyond,
That One Who breathes from redwood into grizzly,
That One Who breathes from human into swamp-grass,
That One Who breathes the great pulsations of the galaxies. In every breath you breathe Me,
In every breath I breathe you. 

I call you—
In every croak of every frog I call you, In every rustle of each leaf, 

each life,

I call you,
In the wailings of the wounded earth I call you. 

I call you to a peoplehood renewed:
I call you to reweave the fabric of your folk and so to join in healing
the weave of life upon your planet.
I call you to a journey of seven generations. 

For seven generations past,
the earth has not been able to make Shabbos. 

And so in your own generation
You tremble on the verge of Flood.
Your air is filled with poison.
The rain, the seas, with poison.
The earth hides arsenals of poisonous fire, Seeds of light surcharged with fatal darkness. The ice is melting,
The seas are rising,
The air is dark with smoke and rising heat. 

And so—I call you to carry to all peoples
the teaching that for seven generations
the earth and all her earthlings learn to rest. 

I call you once again
To speak for Me,
To speak for Me because I have no voice,
To speak the Name of the One who has no Name, To speak for all the Voiceless of the planet.

Who speaks for the redwood and the rock, the lion and the beetle?

My Breath I blow through you into a voicing: Speak for the redwood and the rock,
the lion and the beetle. 

I call you to a task of joy:
For seven generations,
this is what I call for you to do: 

To make once more the seasons of your joy
into celebrations of the seasons of the earth;
To welcome with your candles the dark of moon and sun, To bless with careful chewing

the fruits of every tree For when you meet to bless

the rising juice of life

in every tree trunk— I am the Tree of Life.

To live seven days in the open, windy huts, And call out truth to all who live beside you— You are part of the weave and breath of life, You cannot make walls to wall it out.

I call you to a covenant between the generations: That when you gather for a blessing of your children

as they take on the tasks of new tomorrows, You say to them, they say to you,
That you are all My prophet
Come to turn the hearts of elders 

and of children toward each other,
Lest my earth be smashed in utter desolation. 

I call you
To eat what
I
call
kosher:
Food that springs from an Earth you do not poison, Air that comes from an Earth you do not choke. Energy that comes from an Earth you do not burn.

I call you to speak to all the peoples, all the rulers.

I call you to walk forth before all nations,
to pour out water that is free of poison
and call them all to clean and clarify the rains of winter. 

I call you to beat your willows on the earth and shout its healing to all peoples.

I call on you to call on all the peoples to cleanse My Breath, My air,
from all the gases
that turn My earth into a furnace. 

I call you to light the colors of the Rainbow,
To raise once more before all eyes
That banner of the covenant between Me,
and all the children of Noah and Naamah,
and all that lives and breathes upon the Earth— So that 

Never again,
all the days of the Earth, shall 

sowing and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night

ever cease!

I call you to love the Breath of Life— For love is the fire
That blazes in the Rainbow. 

I call you so to live for seven generations
As in the days when you went forth from slavery; 

So in these seven generations
Earth will bring forth bounty as it did with manna,
The bread of joy and freedom—
and all Earth can sing together --

Songs of Shabbos!

(Channeled through Rabbi Arthur Waskow)


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^