Kinnah for the Exile Inside

For Jewish IFS Therapists on Tisha B’Av 5785

...אֵיכָה יָשְׁבָה בָדָד

How is it that she sits alone…

Dear G-d,

Give me the strength to shake myself up.

The courage to unshackle the brazen, visceral scream,

To release the raw, gaping soul wounds.

To be held by this day, stretched into a wide, parched meadow.

A space made for decomposition.

Fertilized by tears.

A welcome unraveling.

We all desire Your love.

With an urgent and wondrous yearning,

But who can contain such yearning?

It collapses into itself,

Like dough left rising too long.

Swollen, soured, then sunken.

And yet… I show up.

Of course she does.

She sets the table.

Books the appointments.

Teaches. Smiles. Listens.

But inside, she sits on the floor.

More ashes on the inside than out.

דרכי צִיּוֹן בְּדֶרֶךְ שׁוֹמֵמָה...

The paths of Zion have become desolate…

We walk through beautiful homes,

Raise beautiful children, wear branded clothing,

And carry exiles inside who are parched for a kind look.

We were told, with words - and worse:

You’re too much.

You’re not enough.

Enough already.

But I haven’t come down here in so long.

I’ve almost forgotten what it smelled like.

Almost.

שָׁבַת מָשׂוֹשׂ לִבֵּנוּ, נֶהְפַּךְ לְאֵבֶל מְחוֹלֵנוּ

The joy of our heart has ceased; our dancing has turned to mourning.

I yearn to be part of greater Oneness,

A soul parched for purpose.

Lonely in my lane.

You sent us into this world as souls adrift,

As if untethered from Source,

Starved for love

like water,

like oxygen.

And we landed in deserts.

Hot. Arid.

Parched for pulse.

No well deep enough to nourish souls...

that came down from on High.

So we searched.

Through gutters,

grocery aisles and glowing screens

Like creatures

craving crumbs of connection –

At all cost.

Belonging.

Resonance.

The harmony of real community,

Voices woven together in soul-symphony.

We ache for song,

and are handed hardened overstrung falsettos,

a rancid cacophony,

Shiny and high,

But hollow.

No bass. No breath.

The ache calloused.

Hope faded into strategy.

So far I've survived.

I calcified.

Beneath layers of Calvin Klein and Alo.

Maybe you don’t understand, I kept us alive.

When the pain seared my soul, I built walls.

When the world fell apart, I made dinner.

I made money. I made lists. I kept moving.

I built a life:

Nice. Quiet. Calculated.

Full calendars, full fridge, full inbox.

I’ve strived and succeeded.

I’ve quieted, as I was told.

But I am here. And I am willing.

Dear G-d, I want Your attention.

Am I offering You mine?

Am I opening my heart?

Maybe the lonely ache was meant

To be turned towards You all along?

Am I giving You my eyes?

Or have they been dulled by the daily stupidity on sale at Amazon Prime?

My heart yearns for You,

I know it does!

And it’s buried

under exhaustion, indifference, confusion.

I have reached the end, and I am still with You.

I have come to the end of all generations,

And in quiet moments, there’s a tremble

When a client tells her story

and something inside says,

"I know."

You say today is for tears.

My eyes… dulled by too much scrolling.

An absurd distortion of what a scroll used to mean

to generations before me.

On this day, I relish quiet from the noise.

A moment for safe dissolution.

To stop holding it all together.

To sink without shame.

To feel how much it hurts to still care.

How little strength is left to yearn.

In this strange meadow, with plush, open arms,

Wide enough to hold a pain like mine.

Like that of my people.

I pray for Redemption, Geula, Moshiach,

and wonder what will happen to the car, the job,

the endlessly marching notifications

like intravenous caffeine.

We know the chasm well.

To carry holy longing in one hand,

and protective gear in the other.

To believe in Geulah with our minds,

and feel utterly disoriented in our hearts and our bellies.

...בָּכוֹ תִבְכֶּה בַלַּיְלָה

She weeps in the night…

Tonight, I hope we’re allowed to stop pretending.

To remember:

We are not alone in our exile.

The Shechinah

Evicted from Her place,

longing for Her children

to notice Her absence, to want Her back.

...עַל אֵלֶּה אֲנִי בוֹכִיָּה

For these things I weep…

I weep for the parts of me that have been rescued and are still lost.

I weep for the parts of you that carry what your ancestors sealed shut.

I weep for the Shechinah in the therapy room,

waiting quietly in the corner for someone to ask how She is.

Maybe this is how it begins:

not with rebuilding, but with remembering.

With daring to sit on the floor and say:

"I miss You."

"I miss me."

"I want to come home."

"I want You to come home."

Really,

I want to come home to You.

I do not know how to restore the power of holiness to myself.

But I am here.

Still reaching.

Still shattered.

Quite messy.

Still Yours.