7 Okt - Returning / Teshuva

Oy Vey offers Jewish activities in the Netherlands. Join us 7 Oct in Amsterdam for Returning / Teshuva

About Returning / Teshuva

This year in the tender 10 days of reflection – between the new year celebration of Rosh Hashana and deep inward movement of Yom Kippur in which we encounter our own mortality – the 7th of October is located. 

It is forever a moment of extreme shock, pain, grief and (Jewish) (re)triggered trauma. 

It also marks the start of this round of a war on Gaza with over 40.000 Palestinians killed so far, dislocated into a deep humanitarian crisis. It brought into focus a Kahanist government in Israel who abuses the fundamental questions around Jewish safety in order to cause havoc. 

We feel that so many of us have been pitted against one another in these past months and that that’s been hard. At Oy Vey we have tried to keep the doors open for all of us, regardless where we find ourselves on the spectrum of these tragedies, and we have labored to create spaces to talk about it with respect and empathy to one another’s brokenness and a commitment to justice. We have tried to make sure that being Jewish is not reduced to these tragedies and that we find our joy, creativity and resilience. At the same time we do not want to be deaf and blind to it. This High Holiday period provides us with a framework of teshuva – return – to self in which we can explore this day.

On the 7th of October we want to gather together and let us be gently guided by the waves of Jewish time which hold us and move us towards introspection. We will gather in grief, marking this day. We will explore the uncomfortable ramifications of the war in Gaza and how we personally and collectively can relate to this tragedy, done in our name or in the name of our safety. And finally, we will use the sacred time of introspection to go inside ourselves and see where we can grow, and what beliefs we need to let go of to return to ourselves, broken en whole, in this new year. 

Date: 7 Oct
Time: Doors open at 19.15

Are you Jewish Enough for Returning / Teshuva?