“In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
A. J. Heschel
Join Lab/Shul for our annual PREPENT series, a month-long journey of daily digital insights leading into the new Jewish year.
Prepent daily posts will be shared on weekdays from the New Moon of Elul (9/3/24) until the Eve of Yom Kippur (10/10/24).
This year’s PREPENT is about the ways we are complicit, featuring voices from our community with personal reflections on public responsibility, reckoning and repair during these difficult days of communal, national and global challenges. Our hearts are simultaneously holding the growing climate crisis ,the divides and political frictions in our country and worldwide, and the devastating developments of the war in Israel/Palestine. As we take the time to turn the corner and begin another year, we turn to the Jewish archive of liturgy offering a public confession for personal & public transgressions. The “Vidui” prayer is recited in plural form, and is a central feature of the new year season of T’shuvah – reflection, remorse and repair.
In what ways are we each complicit with what’s wrong in the world?
What tough truths must we face so we can all grow?
How can we replace confrontational face-off’s with face-to-face encounters that help us heal and hope?
This year’s PREPENT adapts the Hebrew prayer of communal confession for transgressions, into daily digital posts, following their original alphabetical sequence, fusing traditional liturgy with current intentions in English – from A to Z. We adapt this liturgical list for today, not to add to the toxic load but to bring the poetry of prayer as medicine into the world.
Each daily post will feature original art, and different voices from our community, so that we can honor our hurting hearts, help us enter this new year with more intention and focus, to make more sense of what’s going on, and commit to making a difference in what we hope will be a much better new year. The original art for PREPENT 2024 is inspired by recent art of award-winning Israeli artist Omri Danino. The Alternative Ashamnu is shared with the courtesy of its creator, Rabbi Deborah Brin.