Yom Kippur with a poem by Josette Akresh-Gonzales and a painting by Maurycy Gottlieb
Now we stand together before Hashem. We recite the same list of sins—together, out loud. I confess the sins you did, but that never occurred to me and you confess mine. Together. Achdut. אחדות-unity. We have no way forward without it.
We are about to recognize two years since October 7th. Two years and still hostages in Gazan tunnels. Still people under fire. My country unrecognizable to me. May this be the year we truly come together, not just Jews, but everyone. Like the viduy prayer, the al chet, may we come to realize that we all sin, we are all imperfect. And the only perfect thing we can do is to see each other in our human skin and forgive each other.
Shana Tova.
Atone. I can hardly imagine anything more insipid and indecent than the sanctioned feigning that God exists, and whoever (in contrast to the honest atheist) programmatically proceeds as if God existed well deserves that God proceed as if he, the feigner, did not exist. … God cannot emerge—only a God-image, a God-idea, can, and this, too, never from the human realm alone but only from where the divine and the human elements touch, from their encounter. —Martin Buber gmar chatima tova (“a good sealing”) —Traditional greeting on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) * * * * * * * * * * The rabbis wondered what Lamentations we ought to ponder with the verse “Turn us back, YHVH, to You, & we shall return; make our days new k’kedem” k’kedem — “the Day of At-One-Ment,” my rabbi wrote, was the original message but k’kedem — our days new like the east? our days new like the garden? our days new like the first day Homo sapiens penetrated the earth with their pointed tools? woke to the split cloud at dawn? How could they (the new ones) continue to have firsts after their first first? (deer bellowing) days new with the onset of autumn red deer starting their rut the air heavy with the scent of females the rules are simple: winner takes all (clash of antlers, eyeball of the bull, nostrils snorting shoulders pushing pushing raise heads, one splashes away) ( ) At the equinox we swing ‘round the sun faster than at any other point in the year Broad leaves that provided food & shelter since the spring now ( ) shed ( ) Ellipse Slingshot Slowing down as we approach the solstice Speeding up out of the solstice Decelerating round the bend of the solstice. Accelerating round the swinging door of the equinox. Breakneck Galloping Whirlwind ( ) Mushrooms sprout in a circle every Rosh Hashanah. The rabbis reheat their sermons in an era of endings. ( ) The world spins & spins as each morning the neshama fills the body, the human body formed from earth & nishmat chayim (breath of life) The creator of breath breathed life into the body, so every breath must praise the creator of breath a series of codas in the sheet music every single inhale and every single exhale ( ) a set of crosshairs a navigation marker where the exit from a repeated section is within that section ( rather than at the end ) ( ) “Kol haneshama tehallel Yah” O2 in, CO2 out O2 in, CO2 out a message to Yah who [is] Yah Yah [is] who the breath itself the body itself and God [what a character] said “here in the garden the human being has become like one of us” (who is us? the gods? the many other universes that stretch out to infinity while the universe of the human is restricted to one ellipsis? round and round?) ( ) The cloud funnel caps sprout in a ring every turn around the sun now [v’atah] now & God asks (as if God doesn’t know the answer): what if they should stretch out their hands and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever? a coda, after all this momentum is created, an expansion, time moving only in one direction after all in the garden, did they feast ( ) as we feast this time of year? …potatoes, sweet potatoes, daikon radish, watermelon radish, spinach, leeks, kohlrabi, parsnips, celeriac, purple-top turnips, cabbage, arugula, bok choy, tatsoi… soon harvest moon (sukkot) (season of joy) soon sealed in the life book ( ) but not forever unlike the meadow mushroom or the fairy ring which shower spores to the four corners regenerate every year As one scientist put it: “The difference between animals and fungi is simple: Animals put food in their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food.” (the “food” being death, of course, and thus fungi are immortal, or at least a coda to our mammal melody) thus for us, the now, the yearly, as ( ) the Blessed Holy One (said the rabbis) gave the human body an opportunity to do teshuvah — to return, to atone, to promise to do better — ( ) now (v’atah). ( ) & the rabbis asked, so I ask: what does “now” mean? every now is a gasp! a gulp in capacity to experience teshuvah! transform yourself & come to believe that you have become a new creation — but if (God forbid!) you do not believe you yourself have become a new creation, then your teshuvah is ineffective. “…it can be hard to stand by and watch the concept dissolve… where does this leave “us”? what about “Them”? “Me”? “Mine”? “Everyone”? “Anyone”?” (the Blessed Holy One, with great compassion, does not recall earlier transgressions; as Grace put it: “just as I can, if not as I ought”) ( ) touch, fly, invite the dead to your funeral, paint a hole in the ground, sculpt yourself, tear your clothing, tap your heart, bring the dead with the savior, come grandparents, ancestors, those whose Yartzeit long forgotten date passes without ceremony, now together, all in one thought of Holy One, in abundant compassion — ( ) Gulp. ( ) Going a little overboard with the awe factor Aren’t we, rabbis? (The faith in a divine rescue is hilarious even a tad offensive, isn’t it?) Haven’t we as humans gotten over this (ridiculous laziness) waiting for Messiah? Laughter the only logical response to the idea that a single person could quote unquote save us? Or even the idea that this savior will arrive at the moment we all acknowledge the hard truth, the voice of God — whatever? This again spills farce on my shirt like I forgot my lips (lol)? This again trips me on the sidewalk in front of my friends (lol)? Yet the winter’s gray crust eventually melts, and the first nice day in spring always kills me! And these mushrooms by the shul where we pray every Yom Kippur all sprout in a circle at the same time each fall! ( ) Frank at the bike shop’s not doing too well — cancer. ( ) Sit, stand, sit, stand, sit, stand. The endless high holiday service. My fist taps my heart an endless list of (collective) transgressions. Will we let Frank’s Spoke N’ Wheel close up shop? There are only 40 Amur leopards left in the wild, I heard, and that number is still falling. Sit. Stand. Will we let the leopards disappear? Now, atone, the Amidah, the standing prayer — room between every vertebra for weary lack of focus — Out of the rubble we sing a simple song we sing of pure love Over and over we sing: Adonai Adonai El rachum v’chanun erekh apayim v’rav chesed v’emet. My Lord, my Lord God of mercy & grace a stretch to fury an abundant loving-kindness & truth. It is This that we call out to, over and over on Yom Kippur, Day of At-One-Ment as the leaves fall in brilliant honey each year the same feelings made k’kedem —but how? How can awe sit quietly with repetition? How can apathy nod knowingly to joy? erekh apayim literally “the long nostrils” of God ( ) how can I not remember that I cried out Oh my god Oh my god when my body pushed the baby’s slick heavy head into this world and I felt my tears rolling into my nostrils and my heart outside my body— This again. V’ahta — Breath rested new on my breast.
Josette Akresh-Gonzales is the author of Apocalypse on the Linoleum (Lily Poetry Review Press). Her work has been published in The Southern Review, The Indianapolis Review, Atticus Review, JAMA, The Pinch, The Journal, Breakwater Review, PANK, and many other journals. Her poems have been included in the anthology Choice Words (Haymarket) and in Breaking the Glass: A Contemporary Jewish Poetry Anthology (Laurel Review). She was a “contributor” at the inaugural Yetzirah (a hearth for Jewish poetry) conference in 2023. She co-founded the journal Clarion and was its editor for two years. Josette lives in the Boston area with her husband and two boys and used to ride her bike to work but now works from home for a nonprofit medical publisher. Website: josettepoet.com.
Maurycy Gottlieb (1856 – 1879) was a Polish-Jewish realist painter of the Romantic period. Considered one of the most talented students of Jan Matejko, Gottllieb died at the age of 23. Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur is his most well known work. Gottlieb painted himself in each painting. Here is is in the synagogue on Yom Kippur.
Josette - you took me someplace I needed to go this afternoon, with your sublime, witty, irreverently reverent poem! Wishing you and your family a sweet new year. Is this poem published in your book?