The Penitential Power of the Alphabet

So already, I'm a member of a poetry-writing group* called the No-Name Poets. Actually, we never call ourselves by this name. 

And really, this blog is much more about a particular poem and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, than it is about that group. Still, without that group, this blog post wouldn't exist. And I wouldn't be feeling much more Jewishly hopeful and connected than I was a few days ago--even though I'm the only Jewish No-Name Poet.

So first, two Jewish lessons related to the High Holy Day season, for those of you who aren't Jewish.

Jewish Lesson #1: As you read this, Jews everywhere are in the midst of the Ten Days of Awe; thus, we are at the height of the season of trying to return to God, to draw as close as possible to God, whom many of us understand as existing at the core of each of us as well as beyond us. Return and renewal are linked annually in this season.

Jewish Lesson #2: "Creation" is not limited to Genesis 1, though Rosh Hashanah celebrates the birthday of the world. As my synagogue's prayer book says as part of the Rosh Hashanah service, 

"Creation is an ongoing process.

Moreover, . . . , the human being is 'God's partner in the work of Creation.' . . .

There is still much work to be done: disease to be conquered, injustice and poverty to be overcome, hatred and war to be eliminated. There is truth to be discovered, beauty to be fashioned, freedom to be achieved, peace and righteousness to be established. . . . " (149).**

So speaking of creation, and therefore of creativity, back to my poetry group. Throughout the pandemic, we've been writing, attempting to find truth and generate beauty, and meeting every two weeks on Zoom, on porches, or in backyards. Like so many others who have tried to keep creating during the pandemic, we've often struggled. At one point, we feared that our tendency to be very understanding of our periodic COVID-related malaise was making it too easy for us not to write.

That's why during one stretch of poetic drought this summer, we agreed to create a poem in response to a poem prompt*** once a month, and to share that poem one month from the date of the "assignment." That's the great thing about groups like my poetry writing group: they help us stay the creative course when life tosses up roadblocks, spiritual and other.

Last Friday, the group decided that we'd each create an abecedarian for our October 1 meeting. "Related to acrostic," the Poetry Foundation web site explains, "[it's] a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet." A, B, C--"abece"--you get it; it's a great onomapoeic name for such a poem.

It was one of the abecedarian examples on the web site that really inspired this blog post. Written by Jessica Greenbaum, whose name immediately made me suspect she was Jewish, "A Poem for S." is in part about Yom Kippur. In particular, it refers to the traditional call to assembled worshipers to confess to and then let go of our sins--more often shortcomings than crimes--so that we can begin the new year with a clean slate as we recommit to doing good. One of the confessional prayers, the Ashamnu, lists those sins alphabetically.

Jewish Lesson #3: Yes, we Jews as a group confess in public to the sins we have committed individually--we even confess to the sins that we didn't commit, or at least don't think we've committed.

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I understood the rationale behind and the power of this collective, comprehensive confession of individual sins. As an educational document**** from the WJA Federation of New York explains,

But in the “Ashamnu” we don’t express our own sins, or if we do, it is done within the framework of a communal confession in which the individual Jew takes responsibility for the sins of the collective, whether or not they are things which the individual feels that he or she has done themself. 

Why on earth would an individual confess sins which he or she has not performed? – because of the idea that communal responsibility, responsibility for the collective, rests with the individual. The Biblical idea that God judges the collective, seeing the collective as an entity which either does right or does wrong and calling down reward or punishment on the collective according to the behavior of the individuals inside it, is here affirmed.****

There's another reason I like this practice, explained by the next Jewish lesson.

Jewish Lesson #4: Speech is very important in Judaism, not just because it called world into being in Genesis 1, but because it also enables teshuva. As Rabbi Alan Lew puts it,

"So the first order of business in the process of Teshuvah is becoming aware of the heart, either by direction and indirection. But this is only half of the equation. We must also speak of what we find there. By bringing our awareness out of our hearts and into speech, by moving this consciousness outward to the light of the great world outside, we complete the process" (190).*****

"Gracious Bend" by Scott Ketcham

It hasn't been an easy year for me to be in touch with my heart; it seems to hide from me, except in my most unguarded moments. This, of course, makes it hard for me to put its contents into words, let alone to speak those words. For that reason, I'm grateful to have something to say and people with whom to say it. Teshuva is in part about intention, and at least I do have intention.

So before we get to Jessica Greenbaum's poem, three final Jewish lessons.

Jewish Lesson #5: Hebrew letters have a great deal of creative power. As the publisher of Danielle Abravanel's The Secret of the Hebrew Alphabet explains, 

"The Jewish Oral Tradition teaches that the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are vessels that channel God's powerful spiritual energy for creating the world. In other words, God created the world with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which were pronounced within 10 statements, in order to create all of existence: time, space, light, stars: "Let there be light, and there was light ... ; Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters ... ; Let there be lights in the firmament ..." These letters are the "bricks" of creation that translate Divine will into reality. However, the creation process did not only occur in the past. God is continually creating and thereby intimately involved with the world every moment."******

Jewish Lesson #6:
The Ashamnu's alphabetical organization--its emphasis on Hebrew letters--makes it comprehensive symbolically; that's why some English translations of it preserve its alphabetization.******* It also reminds us of Judaism's orientation toward the future because Creation is never understood as something that happened just once long ago.

Jewish Lesson #7: Jews don't confess first and foremost to improve ourselves and feel better about ourselves; nor do we confess first and foremost to avoid God's harsh judgment. First and foremost, we confess so that collectively and individually we can get out of our own ways and have the best possible shot at creating a better future--doing our parts to create a more just, more compassionate world.

So now that the Jewish lessons, or my versions of them, are over, it's time, finally, to get to Jessica Greenbaum's poem and why it so spoke to me--and I don't use a form of the word "speak" lightly here.

Sometimes we find ourselves at our most alienated or distressed just at that moment in the Jewish calendar year that we might ideally want to be feeling more spiritual, reflective, meditative, and connected to God. It's Yom Kippur, but Greenbaum's friend "S." is immersed in, and therefore completely distracted by, worry about a loved one. So Greenbaum writes him a poem. I quote it in its entirety:

"A Poem for S."***

Because you used to leaf through the dictionary,

Casually, as someone might in a barber shop, and

Devotedly, as someone might in a sanctuary,

Each letter would still have your attention if not

For the responsibilities life has tightly fit, like

Gears around the cog of you, like so many petals

Hinged on a daisy. That’s why I’ll just use your

Initial. Do you know that in one treasured story, a

Jewish ancestor, horseback in the woods at Yom

Kippur, and stranded without a prayer book,

Looked into the darkness and realized he had

Merely to name the alphabet to ask forgiveness—

No congregation of figures needed, he could speak

One letter at a time because all of creation

Proceeded from those. He fed his horse, and then

Quietly, because it was from his heart, he

Recited them slowly, from aleph to tav. Within those

Sounds, all others were born, all manner of

Trials, actions, emotions, everything needed to

Understand who he was, had been, how flaws

Venerate the human being, how aspirations return

Without spite. Now for you, may your wife’s

X-ray return with good news, may we raise our 

Zarfs to both your names in the Great Book of Life.

At the moment that S. is worrying about his wife's x-ray, and feeling the weight and pull of the "responsibilities life has tightly fit" around the "daisy" of himself, the poet remembers who he is, recalls his old love for words, especially as collected, alphabetized, organized, and preserved in dictionaries. And then, through sharing a Yom Kippur story,********* she provides him with a sincere yet easy and in-character way to turn toward God in his moment of weariness and wariness: to atone, all he needs to do is speak aloud the letters of the alphabet from his heart.

During our current Days of Awe, I'm feeling somewhat like S.'s kindred spirit, so worried am I about the medical situations of several loved ones. I've found it difficult to push these worries aside all summer, so I haven't applied myself to doing teshuva as I have in other years. I know I've had a year of worry, mourning, and sadness. For the last few weeks, I've been wondering if have I covered those feelings over so often that I can't feel them. If I'm regularly estranged from my own heart, does that mean that on the threshold of another year like the one that's just concluded?

So at what has been a dark time for me, I find that Jessica Greenbaum's poem has let in some atonement light and some hope. I can't read a poem with a man and a horse in dark woods without thinking of Robert Frost. Like the speaker in "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," S. and the "Jewish ancestor" probably have miles to go before they sleep. But still, the ancestor finds the heart space to speak the letters of the alphabet. I think I can manage to do that, too. 

Writing this blog has helped me feel this way. And being part of the No-Name Poets has made me feel this way. Call it serendipity, call it good fortune, call it synchronicity, as fans of The Artist's Way might, but it's amazing how often various groups, and this group in particular, have provided me with exactly what I needed to move forward. May we all find what we need to move forward with hope and creativity--and even joy.

* Illustration accompanying blog: Bookmark. (2017, February 22). Introducing Poetry To Your Reading Group! [web log]. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from https://readinggroupchoices.com/introducing-poetry/. 

** Greenberg, S. and Levine, J. (2004). The New maḥzor: For Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Newly Enhanced ed., Prayer Book Press.

*** Photograph accompanying blog: Donovan, M. (2019, August 22). A Selection of Poetry Prompts from 1200 Creative Writing Prompts. [web log]. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from https://www.writingforward.com/writing-prompts/poetry-prompts/poetry-prompts-from-1200-creative-writing-prompts. 

**** WJA Federation of New York: Peoplehood Education Toolkit. Text: Confession LIturgy from Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. [PDF]. https://jpeoplehood.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Peoplehood-Education-Toolkit-Resources-Mutual-Responsibility-Text-Yom-Kippur-Liturgy.pdf

*(5) Lew, A. (2003) This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation. Little Brown & Company.

*(6) “The Secrets of the Hebrew Alphabet.” Google Books, Google, www.google.com/books/edition/The_Secrets_of_the_Hebrew_Alphabet/enxtAQAACAAJ?hl=en. 

*(7) Photograph of top part of page 513 in Stern, Chaim, editor. Shaʻare Teshuvah = Gates OF REPENTANCE: The New UNION Prayerbook for the Days of Awe. Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1978.

*(8) Greenbaum, J. (2012, July/August). A Poem for S. [online poem]. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from Poetry Foundation web site: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55645/a-poem-for-s.

*(9) photo on Tumblr attributed to Deviant Art: https://jaielegana.tumblr.com/post/61008025079