Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on
Between the Fires:
A Kavanah for Kindling Candles of Commitment
We are the generations
Who stand between the fires.
Behind us the fire and smoke
That rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima,
Not yet behind us the burning forests of the Amazon,
torched for the sake of fast hamburger.
Not yet behind us the hottest years of human history
that bring upon us --
Melted ice fields. Flooded cities.
Scorching droughts. Murderous wildfires.
Before us we among all life-forms
face the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth.
To douse that outer all-consuming fire
We must light again in our own hearts
the inner fire of love and liberation
that burned in the Burning Bush --
The fire that did not destroy the Bush it burned in,
For love is strong as death --
Love’s Fire must never be extinguished:
The fire in the heart of all Creation.
It is our task to make from inner fire
Not an all-consuming blaze
But the loving light in which we see more clearly
The Rainbow Covenant glowing
in the many-colored faces of all life.
(By Rabbi Arthur Waskow)
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Biblical Plagues | Contemporary Plague: Earthly Manifestation | Contemporary “Counter-Plague”: Liberatory Potential |
Water into Blood | Polluted, Undrinkable Waters and Mass Droughts, Super-Monsoons | Rainwater Catchments, Grey-Water Systems, Black-water systems. Reversing global scorching |
Frogs | Invasive Species and “Forever Plastics” | Treat “Forever Plastics” as invasive species. Stop making them. Isolate them from oceans and other vulnerable milieu. |
Lice | Opioid Epidemic | Trauma Healing on Individual, Collective, Intergenerational and Ancestral Levels |
Wild beasts | Species Extinction | Major expansion of Species Preservation Act & Reforestation |
Pestilence of livestock | Factory Farming Industry | Reducing Beef Consumption, Buying Local, Forbidding Antibiotic Suffusion of Livestock |
Boils | Exacerbated Spread of Disease; Coronavirus Pandemic | Free Healthcare for All
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Thunderstorm of hail and fire | Superstorms and Wildfires | Local Disaster Preparedness Networks and dissolution of energy monopolies. |
Locusts | Crop Failures. | Local, Organic Farms. |
Darkness | Failure to see and empathize with other humans & other life-forms; Mass Blackouts, Reliance on mass fossil fuel monopolies | Creation of empathic communities Congregation-based & neighborhood- based Solar Cooperatives; Renewable energy grids |
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(By Faryn Borella, Ira Silverman Memorial Intern for The Shalom Center)
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[On opening the door for Elijah to enter:] Here! I [YHWH, Yahhhh, InterBreath of life, Wind of change], will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahhhh, the InterBreath of Life. He shall turn the hearts of parents to children and the hearts of children to parents, so that, when I [YHWH, Yahhhh] come, I do not come as a Hurricane of destruction to strike the whole Earth with utter desolation.
(Malachi 3: 23-24)
[Everyone says, in unison:]We welcome Elijah in our own midst, covenanting together that we ourrselves will joyfully take on the obligation to heal our wounded Earth and give new life to the future of the Human species by doing this one act: [wait for people to say out loud, one by one, what each will do).
