Isaiah 58: 1-12 (excerpts)
Cry with full throat, without restraint; Raise your voice like a shofar! Declare to My people their transgression… No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him, And not to ignore your own kin…. YHVH will guide you always; will slake your thirst in parched places And give strength to your bones. You shall be like a watered garden, Like a spring whose waters do not fail. [People] from your midst shall rebuild ancient ruins, You shall restore foundations laid long ago. And you shall be called “Repairer of fallen walls, Restorer of lanes for habitation.” |
Adrienne Rich, “Dreams before Waking”
What would it mean to live in a city whose people were changing each other’s despair into hope? – You yourself must change it. – what would it feel like to know your country was changing? – | You yourself must change it. – Though your life felt arduous new and unmapped and strange what would it means to stand on the first page of the end of despair? |
April Baskin, Union for Reform Judaism,
May our cries soothe those whose lives were prematurely extinguished.And rattle the bones and stones of leaders and institutions.Leaving no question about the fact that things are never going back, only forward. |