זכור שנים עשר שבטים שהעברת בגזרת מים, שהמתקת למו מרירות מים This final petition from Tefillat Geshem, which we said on Shemini Atzeret, is the culmination of the many pronounced water themes that pervade the tefillot and Temple service of the yamim noraim and Sukkot. It has all built up to this moment. And up until now, the water theme has represented life, sustenance, Torah, and simcha — happiness flowing from the promise of a year of blessing and success. The first part of this final petition resonates with the hopeful emotions the water theme evoked up to this point: “Remember Hashem the twelve tribes who You lovingly carried through water as we left Egypt! Remember how You sweetened the bitter waters at Marah for their sake!” And then on Shemini Atzeret, something suddenly changes. It is the continuation of this petition that has been ringing in my ears ever since I found out, on the morning of Shemini Atzeret, that the Jewish people were at war: תולדתם נשפך דמם עליך כמים “Hashem, remember the twelve tribes! The blood of their descendants has spilled for You like water.” The joy of our chag, and the happiness associated with the nisuch hamayim ceremony, takes a sudden and violent turn on the morning of Shemini Atzeret. We are no longer thinking about the water of hope, happiness, and sustenance. We now encounter the water of tragedy, the water of suffering and pain. Here the water takes on new and heavier imagery, drawing on our visceral emotions as we think of the precious and immeasurable Jewish blood that has been tragically spilled over the course of our history. And for what? נשפך עליך! - It was spilled for You! This is the water of profound devotion, which courses through the veins of a nation of ovdei Hashem. What do we do with this image? How do we internally reconcile these disparate themes and emotions as we emerge from Shemini Atzeret? How do we cope with the daily horrors that our brothers and sisters, and our own community, are facing? The final line of the petition expresses this desperation and paralysis: תפן, כי נפשנו אפפו מים “Hashem! Turn towards us because our souls are saturated with water.” This liturgy puts into words the knot in my chest that I have been struggling all week to express. It is the feeling we have been carrying for days. The water is building up inside us, bubbling right beneath the surface, threatening to burst out in a torrent of tears. We are crying out to Hashem because this is the water we cannot bear. It is strangling us. Save us Hashem, because we are suffocating! We are drowning in a sea of our own emotion and pain. So what do we do? In the opening of Kol Dodi Dofek, the Rav tells us that the Jewish response to tragedy is not to throw up our hands, mired in questions of "Why?" To do that is to live an existence of fate in which we are dragged through life as passive subjects, tossed about like pinballs, reeling in the direction of the most recent blow that struck us. Instead, says the Rav, we are to live an existence of destiny. To do so is to act. We are not meant to be passive participants, watching our story be written for us, crushed by the weight of the realities foisted upon us. Instead, we are meant to be active drivers of our destiny — to stand up in the face of tragedy and find our voice, to hold each other’s hands, and to act. This is what we have been teaching our students this week: To be agents of their own destiny and writers of the next chapter of our nation’s story. We have taught our students to act through tefillah. We have been saying Tehillim, Avinu Malkeinu, and the tefillot for shalom hamedina and chayalim. We have reminded our students that when Jews are suffering, the first place we turn is to Hashem. When we are in an עת צרה — a moment of distress, with the water pressure building to the point of desperation — we cry out as David Hamelech did in Tehillim: הושיעיני אלוקים כי באו מים עד נפש! We have also taught our students to act by showing our tzionut. We marched at a rally in downtown Boston, showing our unwavering support for Eretz Yisrael and Am Yisrael, singing Am Yisrael Chai from the depths of our neshamot. We taught our students to live an existence of destiny as we wrote letters and packed care packages for our chayalim. And we taught our students to act by lifting up those who are suffering in our community and beyond. As we proudly watch our students, alumni, and community mobilize into action, I can't help but feel a rush of pride to be part of the Maimonides family, a community of destiny that stands up through our crushing pain and leans on one another’s shoulders. Mi k’amcha Yisrael! From the complex emotions and themes of Shemini Atzeret and Tefillat Geshem emerges a new tefillah, a tefillah whose seeming simplicity belies the complex and intricate nature of the layered and discordant themes it represents: משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם - Hashem! Raise us out of the suffocating waters of anguish and pain and shower us with the waters of life and hope. Wash away the tragedies of our history so we can drink from the life-giving waters of מיים חיים. As we add this new tefillah into our daily prayers, may it be so for us and for all of Am Yisrael: לברכה ולא לקללה, לחיים ולא למות. | 
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