Read Online Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin by Adam Byrn Tritt - Free Book Online Page A

that. When I
    tell them we’ll be chanting for an hour
    or so, still more leave. I tell them it won’t
    feel like an hour. That they will wonder
    where the time went but people want
    fast, instant results and they want them
    easy. They want to slouch in a chair and
    attain enlightenment from watching
    other people sing for five minutes. Good
    luck.

    ƒ The last rule is everyone comes to the
    center. I set up four chairs in the middle
    of what will be our circle and, at some
    point, each person comes to the center
    to sit and have the rest of us sing around
    them, letting them feel the sound, the
    vibration, the harmony. I often have a
    person help me make sure everyone gets
    their chance. I joke that I call her my
    shill. I tell them, at some point, I’ll be
    going to the center as well and, please,
    please, they should not stop chanting
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    The Harmony of Broken Glass
    just because I have. Always people laugh
    at this. The twenty or so people who
    remained did exactly that—laughed.
    The group had been culled and we were
    ready to start.
    The chants are short and simple. We learned
    the first one by listening to me say it once,
    then the group repeating after me. Then say-
    ing it with me. Then I sing it on my own and
    we sing it once together. That’s it. No lengthy
    process. Nothing written on paper until the
    end of the workshop. The first time I taught
    this I passed out the chants, with their trans-
    lations, on paper before we started. Then,
    with the chants written down, people read
    them over and over instead of singing, look-
    ing at the paper the entire time.
    People worried about losing the words.
    They always do. Don’t worry, I tell them.
    There is power in the tune itself. Hum, tone,
    sing dai de dai like we have all heard rabbis do. The tunes have lasted a thousand years.
    Two thousand years. There is power in the
    sound. Never worry about the words.
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    We sang our first chant, all in our circle,
    four times. It was practice, it was invocation,
    it was lovely.
    Hineyni
    Osah (oseh) et atzmi
    Merkavah l’Sh’kinah
    Merkavah l’Sh’kinah
    Hineyni is “here I am.” Oseh ( Osah for the guys in the group) et atzmi is “I make myself become.” Merkavah is a chariot. Sh’kinah is, literally, the Presence, but a distinctly femi-nine manifestation of the divine presence, so
    “Goddess” is a good translation. But not a par-
    ticular Goddess, however, and definitely not
    the word for small-g goddesses. That’s what
    Craig R. Smith told me, at least. And I believe
    him.
    Here’s how Shelly translated it:
    Here I am!
    I make myself
    A chariot for the Goddess.
    I like that. That’s how I translated it then.
    That’s how I translate it now.
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    The Harmony of Broken Glass
    We learned the next chant.
    Ana
    El na’
    R’fa na lah
    That simple. I sing it once through before
    telling them what it means:
    Please
    Strong One, oh please
    Heal the world (all)(nature) please.
    Here is what Craig says about it:
    Ana and na’ both mean “please,”
    loosely. It’s somewhere between beg-
    ging and pleading and a demand, so
    it’s closer to “oh please, NOW!” El ,
    one of the words translated “God,”
    means “strong one.” It’s the same root
    as other strong words. For example,
    the word ayil is a ram (strong one of
    the flock), ayal is a stag (strong one of the forest) and eyal is strength. R’fa means “to heal.” Tradition teaches
    that prayer need not be lengthy or
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    elaborate. This is the earliest known
    Jewish prayer for healing, uttered by
    Moses as a petition on behalf of his
    sister, Miriam: “ El na, refa na lah ,
    God, please heal her, please.” Lah is
    “her,” and the Kabbalists say this is to
    be expanded to all of nature.
    The chant is done four times, steady, rising,
    steady, falling, then starts over again, again,
    again, again, again. Ten minutes, twenty min-
    utes. An hour. Voices rise and fall. Voices high and low. Melding,