The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer, by Rabbi Jill Hammer
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=26802
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license date_src_start: 2019-08-31 date_src_end: 2019-08-31 languages_meta: [{"name":"English","code":"eng","standard":"ISO 639-3"},{"name":"Hebrew","code":"heb","standard":"ISO 639-3"}] scripts_meta: [{"name":"Latin","code":"Latn","standard":"ISO 15924"},{"name":"Hebrew (Ktav Ashuri)","code":"Hebr","standard":"ISO 15924"}] Date: 2019-08-31
Last Updated: 2025-04-16
Categories: Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit), Repenting, Resetting, and Reconciliation, Tashlikh
Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers as poems, תשובה teshuvah, תשליך tashlikh
Excerpt: Today I turned my heart toward the new year and wrote a prayer-poem for Tashlikh, the Rosh haShanah ritual of casting bread or stones into the water to cast off one's past wrongdoings. . . .
Content:
Today I turned my heart toward the new year and wrote a prayer-poem for Tashlikh, the Rosh haShanah ritual of casting bread or stones into the water to cast off one’s past wrongdoings.
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The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer
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I cast this gift to the water.
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It is my past: blessing and regret.
It is my present: reflection and listening.
It is my future: intention and mystery.
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It is what I did
and did not;
it is yes and no and silence.
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It is what was done
and what arose from what was done
and what arises in this body remembering.
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I let it all go. I own
neither the sting nor the sweetness.
I hold on to nothing.
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The river has no past.
Each moment of rushing water
Is a new beginning.
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Harm that has been:
heal in the rush of love and truth and time.
We who are lost:
let the current take us homeward.
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May these waters churn what is broken
into what is whole.
May each separate droplet
reach the ocean that is becoming.
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The journey awaits.
I have no power to refrain from it;
only to steer it when I can.
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May the One who is
the great Crossroad
guide my turning.
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Three times I declare:
It is finished.
It is born.
It is unending.
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Three times I listen:
It is love.
It is the river.
It is before me.
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May my offering go where it is meant to go
and may the one who offers it
find the way.
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Amen.
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Contributor: Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.
Co-authors:
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Name: Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D.
Bio: Jill Hammer is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion. Jill is the author of two books: “Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women” (JPS, 01) and “The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons” (JPS, 06). She is the co-founder of the Kohenet Institute, a program in Jewish women's spiritual leadership. An essayist, poet, midrashist and ritualist, her work has been in publications including Zeek Magazine, The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, The Torah: A Women's Commentary, The Forward, The Jewish Spectator, and Lilith as well as on-line on many websites. Several of her divrei torah can be heard on soundcloud, thanks to the Romemu congregation.
Website: http://telshemesh.org
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/jill-hammer
Featured Image:
Title: Stream in the redwoods (inajeep, CC BY-SA)
Caption: "Stream in the redwoods" (credit: inajeep, license: CC BY-SA)
