For the last four or five years, I have been teaching and leading a group of writers at Congregation Bet Shalom, in Tucson Arizona. We started to produce original work to include in the High Holy Day services, in some cases substituting our work for English readings included in the Mahzor. Our rabbi, David Ebstein, had suggested that I do this, since he knew that I was a poet and creative writing teacher. We have continued each year to reflect on High Holy Day liturgy, Torah and Haftarah readings, and seasonal themes, and to transform those reflections into poems and prose writing that communicate our individual thoughts and hopefully help congregation members to think for themselves, maybe in surprising ways, about the meaning of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. Each year we publish a chapbook of the new work to be read at High Holy Day services and distribute it (free) to all who attend. It has been my great privilege to facilitate this creative group.

The writers in the group have branched out from the High Holy Days to write about Shabbat, Passover, other holidays, and their own life experiences as Jews. (We also produced one Passover chapbook, with work read at our congregation's second night Seder and shared by many at their own family sedarim.) Most years we have met every week or every other week for several months before the High Holy Days or Passover. This summer, we began to meet the beginning of June. Our meetings were somewhat irregular, since I had a month-long family trip planned for July, but one of the group members led a session during the time I was gone. There have been some regulars who have continued with the group from the beginning, and others who have joined (or rejoined) the group more recently. It's a lively and very caring group that welcomes new participants. No previous writing experience has ever been required. This summer a young Israeli woman, Irena Pinchuvoski, who was working at the Tucson JCC and staying with one of our members joined us for a number of sessions, writing in Hebrew. She was fascinated by the focus in so much of our writing on the experience of being Jewish; in Israel, she said, that's just not an issue and no one would think to comment on it. One of her poems, a reflection on the end of "Ki Anu Ameha," appears in this year's High Holy Day chapbook in the original Hebrew and in translation. I can say that everyone who has participated in this group has grown as a writer, as a Jew, and as a person, and most important, we've all grown by sharing our ideas and our written work.

I lead the group very much the way my MFA program workshops were conducted. Sometimes we start (or end) the session with a writing exercise, based on a particular text or a word list developed by the group or any number of other ways-to-get-started methods. Usually we do these exercises for only 10 minutes or so, then read our drafts (I usually call them "drafty-drafts" to emphasize that they are by no means finished works) to the groups and get comments about what seems to get our attention - big stuff, ideas and powerful images. We pay no attention to editing at this stage. I urge people to take what they like in what they did, work on it, and bring back the revised work for more feedback at the next session. Often, though (now even at the first session in a series), group members will bring drafts they've already written to workshop immediately. We make copies of 1 or 2 pieces by everyone who brings work, have the writer read, maybe have another reader, and then begin to discuss?again, focusing first on the big ideas and images and sound patterns, and usually not being concerned about more detailed issues until the work is brought back another week. We focus on what works, but we do offer constructive criticism about things that don't seem as successful.

.

My own writing is primarily poetry, although I also write short fiction and some non-fiction, but I haven't stressed genre with this group. Some group members write primarily in one genre; most use different forms and techniques for different material. Sometimes work is revised into a totally different genre. However, I try to help writers work with the genre chosen. For example, we will talk about line breaks, stanza breaks, internal versus end rhyme, and image repetition in poetry and often come up with suggestions that the writer adopts. Often, a work seems too long, or incomplete, and the writer will revise based on those suggestions. Sometimes that's hard - after about six different approaches to material she's working on about the High Priest's confession ritual for Yom Kippur, Marilyn Evans agreed to publish the latest version but sighed, "Sometimes writing doesn't work out the way you thought it would." She'll probably keep working on that piece, but it seemed finished enough to include in this year's book.

Rachel Port has been writing midrashim on Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac for several years. This year, she wrote from Abraham's point of view. Sophia Bressler, a Holocaust survivor who has written many powerful poems and memoirs about the ways her mother saved the childrens' lives, wrote "Teruah," a simple summary of Rosh Hashanah Asseret Yamim Teshuva, and Yom Kippur, closing with a moving prayer that combines traditional language and direct from-the-heart emotion: "Avinu Shebashamayim, I pray to You for Peace on Earth, for Health Peace and Happiness for my whole family." Anne Lowe, who is both an artist and a writer, submitted a lovely drawing of a pomegranate which we all agreed should be the cover of this year's book; later, she wrote a memoir about the pomegranates her grandmother brought from New York to her childhood home in Saratoga Springs. Norm Rubin looked at the Isaiah haftarah read on Yom Kippur and asked if it might not be "Holy CPR?" Sara Fryd wrote two poems based on quotes: "God Doesn't Throw Dice" for one and "Get God on the Whisper" for another. Both quotes, and what she had to say about them, led to intense theological as well as poetic craft discussions during several workshop evenings. Helene Boxer wrote about the chicken-killing-to-get-rid-of-sin ritual she'd observed while living in Israel and working as a poultry store cashier. Fran Krackow raised questions about the war in Gaza through the lens of 'Al Het.'

I didn't write anything myself that would be included in the book this year. I find it's hard to teach and write at the same time, but I have done class exercises and assignments and produced some good poems and essays in the past. This summer I've been dealing with my mother's dementia and illness and some health issues of my own, so I've been a little distracted from doing any real writing. Two of the drafts that had enough interest for me to want to keep working on them, though, were about texts that others had written about so well that I put my own drafts aside. Maybe next year.

.

We want to thank Rabbi David Ebstein, whose original suggestion that we write some original contributions to High Holy Day services has blossomed into such an energetic continuing effort. His support and his teachings have had a profound impact on all of us. When I mentioned this group to a non-Jewish writer friend, she was astonished that any congregation could be "so democratic" in material used during religious services! Rabbi Ebstein has shown that creatively opening up the words we say can increase the meaning of prayer and study for many in the congregation.

Shanah Tova Tikatevu, may we all be written for a good year. Next week, I'll blog about what actually happened when we read our work during Rosh Hashanah services.

.

Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Lynn Saul, Guest Blogger

Lynn Saul is a poet who has been leading a creative writing group at her synagogue in Tucson, Arizona for about five years. She also teaches writing and humanities at Pima Community College. Her work has appeared in Poetica, SandScript, Jewish Women's Literary Annual, and elsewhere. She has published several chapbooks and is working on a book about the women in her Hungarian Jewish family over more than 150 years.