It is summer. The longest Shabbat of the year. At Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley, the sun wheel turned again last night, as it does every changing of the season.

That sunwheel is based on the El Adon prayer that we sang earlier. It was commissioned in April 1981 for Birkat Hachama, the blessing of the sun that occurs every 28 years in Judaism. The last Birkat Hachama was April 8, 2009. That’s all about the sun. Temple Emanuel decided that it was so beautiful and so meaningful to spin the sunwheel that they didn’t want to wait 28 years to do it again. So they do it every changing of the seasons and live out El Adon and Ma’ariv Aravim that talks about how G-d makes the seasons alternate.

It fits in a longstanding Jewish tradition of Mizrach, usually hung on the Eastern Wall or Shiviti, designed to focus our prayer. And for me it works. I was thrilled to find this photo of it and can envision mounting it on card stock and having a personal sun wheel.

You might have noticed the intentional elements that are included on this sunwheel. The Hebrew letters of the weekday El Adon in Aleph Bet order. The starry skies or is that water. The gold leaf and the rainbow.

This is Pride Shabbat. Perhaps some of you attended the parade in Aurora last Sunday. I know that the congregation in Aurora actually marched. Perhaps you are attending the big Pride Parade in Chicago tomorrow.

Today I am proudly wearing my rainbow tallit. And my rainbow necklace I bought in Guatemala. A rainbow, is a perfect balance between sun and rain. Keshet in Hebrew, has become a symbol of the LGBTQ community. It represents our diversity. There are two organizations called Keshet. One is the national gay pride Jewish organization headed by Idit Klein (No relation). And the other is Keshet in Chicago which works with people of varying abilities. Our member Ted Frisch is an active participant in their programming. Both organizations represent our vision statement of “Embracing our diversity” and I am proud to support both. Let me underscore this. All are welcome here. We are all children of G-d, created in the image of G-d, b’tzelem elohim. All means all.

One of my favorite parts of my job is working with our B’nai Mitzvah students. And hasn’t Mandy done a lovely job thus far leading the Torah service and Ashrei. Kol hakavod.

Earlier this week, working with another student who has Noah as his portion, we were talking about the covenant that G-d made with Noah to never again destroy the earth through water, by a flood. In the haftarah, that promise is echoed and we are told that G-d will give the Israelites a briti shlomi, My covenant of peace, of friendship. When we talked about what it would be like to be on the ark, the tevah, our student mused that maybe the whole earth is the tevah. It was a new image for me and so right for this week.

I hope that your summer journey might include spending time by water. Cool, clear, bountiful water. Perhaps Lake Michigan, on either side of the lake, or the Fox River or some small pond. Just sitting here, watching waves and the dance of sunlight on the water. Watching the sky and the clouds. Watching the quality of light. Maybe dunking in and out of the cooling, life sustaining water. Just the right amount of water. Not too much so that we have floods. Not too little. Maybe just the right balance to produce a rainbow, a sign of the covenant.

Simon and I hike a lot—he loves the mountains. I love the water. It’s a mixed marriage. Last weekend for Father’s Day, we went hiking at the Morton Arboretum to see the trolls. It was hot. We planned to be out for about an hour. We got lost—that’s a story for another time—but it was like we were wandering in the wilderness, in the desert. We were out too long and we ran out of that essential ingredient. Water.

Have you ever been really, really thirsty? What happens when you are thirsty…you get lightheaded, maybe dizzy, maybe faint, maybe disoriented. You can get leg cramps. You can get chilled. Someone said you might lose your faith in G-d.

They say when you are thirsty, it is already too late. You are already dehydrated. Last week I stood here and told you to drink lots of water. Tomorrow, like last weekend, the heat is back on and after a week with lots of rain, we all want to be outside. So again, remember, drink lots of water.

We are lucky. We have that opportunity. We can drink water. Life sustaining water. Not every one is so lucky.

Now imagine being part of the children of Israel, wandering in the desert. Miriam had just died. Miriam had a unique gift. Finding water. You are thirsty. Really, really thirsty. It is now a life or death issue. Like children everywhere you beg your parent for water.

Think of Moses as that parent. He is your parent and he is supposed to supply water to you. He, however, is frustrated. Really, really frustrated. And mourning. His sister has just died. G-d tells him to raise his staff and speak to the rock.

Instead, he strikes the rock twice and water pours out. Why did he do it that way? We will never know. But I can imagine, without Miriam, he was afraid it wouldn’t work. He wanted to make sure it would work. He went over and above what was needed. He didn’t listen to G-d. Or obey G-d. And for this, the tradition tells us. For not trusting. For not obeying. He was punished. Never to set foot in the Promised Land.

Imagine being a parent and wanting to make sure your child had access to the basic need of water. Imagine that you are afraid by the violence surrounding you every day. That you want to prevent your child from becoming a member of gang, or being killed by a gang. Imagine like Hagar who placed her child under a push and pleaded with G-d to not look on while her child died just because expelled from Abraham’s household, they were now wandering in the desert. Wouldn’t you do everything, anything to help your child?

When I was in Guatemala, as an American Jewish World Service Global Justice Fellow, I learned more about water rights. People need access to water. It is a basic human need. For years, I have been concerned about the bottled water industry. I have been concerned also about the amount of plastic we use to bottle that water. And the waste of that plastic. But the real question becomes access to water. Nestle, Coke, Pepsi. Even recently Starbucks. All buying up water rights. Including watersheds in Michigan, potentially draining the Lake Michigan watershed.

On May 11 we got word that one of the leaders of an AJWS grantee, CCDA had been assassinated. I remain deeply saddened by the assassination of José Can Xol, a human rights defender with our partner organization Comité Campesino del Altiplano (CCDA) in Guatemala. I have spoken about CCDA before. They have a cooperative fair trade kosher coffee plantation. The proceeds from the coffee and the patio container gardens and the honey pay for amongst other things letting girls go to school. It is a travesty that people would think that so threatening that they would assassinate Jose. May his memory be a blessing.

For me, this is personal. Families belong together, and children do not belong in prison. It was true in 2001 when I worked for Refugee Immigration Ministry and visited asylum seekers in the Rockingham Jail and then in for-profit jails that were detaining children with their mothers in Pennsylvania and Batavia, New York. It is truer today.

Violence persists in Guatemala, although I felt safer there then I did in Miami when I returned. My own son-in-law as a young child was airlifted off a football field in 1983. If I had been his parents, desperate parents just like the children of Israel wandering in the desert without water, I would have done anything to help my children survive. I am grateful to his parents for immigrating and risking everything. I am grateful for the work that AJWS does because it bears witness and holds people and the government accountable, reducing poverty and violence.

It brings me hope, in a week that saw lots of angry, angry people. Miriam brings us hope too. While her ability to divine water was curtailed with her death, Miriam’s well continues to travel with the children of Israel, for any of us to access. That is part of why many have added the tradition of Miriam’s cup to their Passover seders. A cup filled with clear, spring water. A cup that can nourish us all with life sustaining water of hope.

Even since the 1970’s when the ritual first appeared, there are many variations. Again that is embracing our diversity. Today we are going to pour fresh, spring water into Miriam’s Cup and each of you are going to be able to drink it. Deeply.

My childhood rabbi, Rabbi Albert M. Lewis, used to teach that each of us has a unique mitzvah to do in our lives. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz teaches similarly that each of us has a unique gift to offer, that “you will spend your life giving to others. There may be no question that is more existentially and morally pressing for each of us to answer & to align our days with! Because as Rebbe Nachman taught: the day you were born was the day that God determined the world could not exist without you! We are desperately in need of your gift! Bold or humble, global or local, in the home or out of the home – your unique giving, that only you can do, is so desperately needed!”

That is what Frederick Buechner would describe as your unique calling. “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Then we will add water back into the cup. Water from a second bottle, representing your unique gift. Just like Miriam, your unique gift. There is enough water to go around. There is enough hope to go around. So come up here. Enjoy a cup of this water of Miriam, water to be life-affirming, water to bring us hope. Help us find the water. Help us to bring that water to all the children of G-d, all of us who are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of G-d.

Lyrics:
Spring up a well, and sing ye unto it
Spring up a well, and sing ye unto it

CHORUS:
Oh the water in the well and the healing in the well
The women and the water and the hope that’s in the well (x2)

When the world was created, there was heaven and dry land
And all the waters gathered, upon hearing God’s command
There was a bit of water, that was left or so they tell,
That was the water that became the water from the well

CHORUS:

It was in Miriam’s honor that the first well came to be,
To celebrate her music, her dance and prophecy,
The people came to Miriam when their spirits rose and fell
She nourished all their visions with the water from the well

CHORUS:

“Spring up a well!” the twelve tribes sang and the rushing waters flowed
High as pillars, into rivers to the oceans they would go
Surrounded by the trees and fruits so rich and bountiful
The Israelites were nourished by the waters from the well

CHORUS:

When Miriam dried, the well dried up, and Moses’ shed his tears
And God said, “Moses, touch this rock and water will appear”
Well Moses raised his staff in anger and upon the rock it fell
And out came springs of water, it was water from the well
CHORUS:

Bridge:
For the memory of the women, for the memory of the well
For the ones who came before us, their stories we must tell
We are searching for the water, where we wander, where we dwell
For Miriam and all of us, who thirst to find the well

Debbie Friedman, z”l