And Let Us Say is a space for mending* histories. Its foundation is the traditional Mi Shebeirach, a prayer that has existed in Jewish liturgy for hundreds of years, that asks God to heal those who are living with an illness. In 1987, folk singer Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Drorah Setel recreated the Mi Shebeirach in the early years of the AIDS crisis.** Building on a burgeoning Jewish healing movement, their lyrics centered spiritual resolve, lending support to many in their communities who were living with AIDS.***

As a child in Reform services, I sang Friedman’s and Setel’s Mi Shebeirach for my grandmother when she was battling Leukemia, and for my friend when she was undergoing surgery. At the time, I did not know that the Mi Shebeirach was unpopular in Reform shuls until Friedman and Setel reinterpreted it in 1987.**** I did not know Friedman and Setel were lesbian partners who were deeply affected by the AIDS crisis. I did not know Setel worked for AIDS Project Los Angeles where she made specific written materials for Jews facing AIDS.***** I mainly considered the prayer trite.

Singing their version of the prayer now, I begin to feel its original intent, and, in the transient moment of the song, I am transported into a capacious history of the ingrained rituals shared by my chosen and traditional families. As I interweave Friedman’s and Setel’s Mi Shebeirach with my own references to challah-baking and quilting, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s clocks and circles,****** I commune with queer Jews of the 1980s and 90s as they built a healing movement.******* I make my own prayer for mending.

And Let Us Say

stitching names, braiding time
mi shebeirach
teacher, elder, first love, friend
avoteinu
blood, line, family, line
m’kor hab’racha

felix, rise, ross, rise
l’imoteinu
sing, mend, meld, mend
may the source of strength
stitching names, braiding time
who blessed the ones before us

shadow, echo, out, line
help us find the courage
larry, thread, wayne, thread
to make our lives a blessing
blood, line, family, line
and let us say

pour, knead, touch, dry
mi shebeirach
muriel, molly, dan, mend
imoteinu
stitching names, braiding time
m’kor hab’rachah

m., s., k., bye
l’avoteinu
down, divide, braid, rise
bless those in need of healing
blood, line, family, line
with r’fuah sh’leimah

shadow, echo, out, line
the renewal of body
rise, brush, heat, eyes
the renewal of spirit
stitching names, braiding time
and let us say
blood, line, family, line
amen

* When I was asked to write about correction, I found myself correcting correction to mending.

** At the 2011 revival of his 1985 play The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer distributed leaflets to theatergoers urging them to pay attention to the ongoing threat of AIDS. He wrote: “Please know that here in America case numbers continue to rise in every category… Please know that all efforts at prevention and education continue their unending record of abject failure.” Or, more succinctly, in a note at the front of her sprawling historical project, Let the Record Show, Sarah Schulman writes, “AIDS is not over.”

Masha Gessen, “Larry Kramer Had the Courage to Act on his Fear,” The New Yorker, May 28, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/larry-kramer-had-the- courage-to-act-on-his-fear.

Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021).

*** In his 2020 essay, “Queer Healing: AIDS, Gay Synagogues, Lesbian Feminists, and the Origins of the Jewish Healing Movement”, scholar Gregg Drinkwater describes the feminist and LGBTQIA+ Jewish individuals and organizations that created an enduring American Jewish healing movement in the late 1980s. This healing movement, led by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and feminist thinkers, had not existed in liberal Judaism until their interventions in 1988. This small group of women would go on to found the National Center for Jewish Healing, an influential organization that has provided hundreds of rabbis and Jewish professionals with resources to reinterpret ancient Jewish healing practice including prayers for doctors and patients, support groups, and mikveh rituals. For the majority of the article, Drinkwater foregrounds the queer leaders of the Jewish healing movement such as lesbian feminists like Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Drorah Setel, and rabbis and lay-leaders at LGBTQIA+ synagogues like Congregation Sha’ar Zahav and Beth Chayim Chadashim. Their interventions included healing services for people living with AIDS and their loved ones, Shabbat rituals, and pastoral care. Drinkwater writes, “These gay and lesbian leaders brought a sensibility grounded in both gay and lesbian and feminist communities which emphasized communal, public, and participatory engagement with questions of gender, the body, intimacy, and the personal.” Inspired by these leaders who centered community-driven work, “And Let Us Say” makes connections across generations of LGBTQIA+ people such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Ross Laycock, and queer Jews such as Wayne Koestenbaum and Larry Kramer.

Gregg Drinkwater, “Queer Healing: AIDS, Gay Synagogues, Lesbian Feminists, and the Origins of the Jewish Healing Movement,” American Jewish History 104, no. 4 (2020): 605- 29, doi:10.1353/ajh.2020.0053.

Rachel Cowan, “The Feminist Revolution: Rachel Cowan,” Jewish Women’s Archive.
https://jwa.org/feminism/cowan-rachel

**** Drinkwater, “Queer Healing,” 613.

***** Drinkwater, “Queer Healing,” 618.

****** I have gratefully borrowed the form of two touching circles from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) (1991). His piece consists of two round clocks right next to each other on a wall. They are set to the same time. Eventually, they go out of sync.

******* I sing to remember the generations of queer elders I never met, and to honor all of the knowledge their generation has passed on to us through prayer.

Jason Lipeles (he/him) is a writer, video artist, and human-being-with-feelings. He co-founded the ee!, a space for loving responses to zines and art books, with Marcella Green. He is an alumnus of Image Text Ithaca MFA; Reciprocity Artist Retreat; and Institute for Jewish Creativity. His chapbook, Letters to M., a finalist for the Chautauqua Janus Prize, was published by Pilot Press in 2021. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Denver.