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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

In Every Generation …

B’chol dor vador chayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza mi-Mitzrayim.  “In every generation, a person must view herself/himself as if s/he had gone out of Egypt” (Pesachim 116b). Our sages teach this text to emphasize the need to praise God for the Exodus each and every Passover.  At the Seder, we celebrate as if we were actually there and the stories we recount actually happened to us. In a broader sense, we view this text as a call to compassion and action.  In each generation, we must think of ourselves as if we had known personally the bitterness of slavery and then the joy of freedom.  Knowing the pain of oppression, we are compelled to work for justice, b’chol dor vador, in every generation.

The text took on a deeper layer of meaning for me as I marched with the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice this summer in Aiken County, South Carolina.  When I got off the bus at the staging area, holding the Torah scroll we would carry, I was approached by an older African American woman named Linda.  “Rabbi,” she said, “Thank you for being with us on this march.”  Making conversation, I asked her if this was her first day marching, meaning, had she participated the day before?  “Oh Rabbi,” Linda laughed, “I was marching back in the ‘60s!”  B’chol dor vador, in every generation we must work for racial justice.

My marching partner for one stretch of the journey was Eugene, an African American man about my age.  He was wearing a button that said, “I Am Marching For Civil Rights.”  Around the outside of the button, it said, “Washington, D.C. 1963.”  His grandfather had been there in DC in 1963 and worn that pin.  He had later given the button to Eugene when Eugene was 5 years old.  And Eugene wore it that day as we marched again for racial justice.  B’chol dor vador.

We were housed overnight at Paine College, a historically black liberal arts college in Augusta, GA.  Students were just beginning to arrive back on campus.  Nevertheless, one of the college’s theatre troupes heard that the marchers were staying there and, on short notice, prepared a performance for us.  They did a dramatic reading of pieces from Langston Hughes, Dr. King, and others, including a haunting 90 second rendition of Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe.”  At the end of the performance, one of the college actors explained why they felt compelled to perform:  “We know why you’re marching.  You’re marching for us.”  B’chol dor vador.

Before I left to march, I talked with my young children about why I was going: people are being treated unfairly and unjustly due only to the color of their skin, and we hoped the march would make people pay attention to these things that weren’t right and do something about them.  My daughter, age 7, made the connection and said, “Like in Dr. King’s time, right?’  “Yes,” I answered.  Then this quizzical look came over her face.  “But why didn’t they fix that back then?” she asked.  “Why is this still happening now?”  She was incredulous that we hadn’t gotten it right yet, that racial justice still needed to be worked on.  And that, I told her, was why I was marching.  The struggle for racial justice from the past is, unfortunately, still incomplete.  That struggle belongs to us now in our day and age:

And so we march with Linda, who had to march once again, this time with the next generation. We march with Eugene, marching in the path trod by his grandfather.  We march with the Paine College students marching for their future.  The effort of old is our responsibility now.  B’chol dor vador, in every generation, we will continue to work for racial justice.

Rabbi David S. Widzer is the rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Valley in Closter, NJ.  He  currently serves as one of the CCAR’s representatives on the Commission on Social Action.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Joining Hands, Marching Together

On Tuesday, five of us[1] flew to South Carolina to march in the NAACP’s Journey for Justice.[2]

Why? This poem from American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967):

“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
            (America never was America to me)…”

We began. Passing the Columbia State House, we noted the poignant absence of the Confederate flag, finally removed following the tragic, racist church shootings in June.

At the front of our column, an American flag was carried high by a black veteran of Korea and Vietnam. He drew his name, Middle Passage, from a slave forebear.

“Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
            (It never was America to me.)…”

Each block, passing stores and restaurants, folks came out to cheer. Cars honked, passengers waved support. We marched through middle class and lower middle class neighborhoods – and people noticed. They came out for hope. We were a bit of evidence that black lives matter.  And not only to blacks.

“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak…

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
Hungry yet today despite the dream…”

We weren’t a large group.[3] And there wasn’t much publicity, in local or national news. What was the value in our participation?
We Barnert folks celebrated our own Rabbi Martin Freedman z”l, a Freedom Rider in Tallahassee, FL.[4] This was our chance to “walk the talk.”

Times have changed. But not enough. I walked alongside an Episcopal priest. She was white, her husband was black, and their bi-racial children suffered terrible discrimination. Her 14 year old son had been arrested by police in Edison, NJ on charges of assault.[5] But there had been no assault. Her son, walking in their white neighborhood, was stopped by police; when he answered a question with a smart-mouthed teen response, they handcuffed him.

This mother was drawn to a ministry with black prisoners, guiding them to manage anger and resentment, to forgive and then shape new lives.[6]

We marched with Keshia Thomas, a black woman devoted to spreading the message among frustrated teens that violence is wrong, period. Her story: in 1996, the KKK tried to organize a rally in Ann Arbor, MI. Hundreds of people gathered to protest. A rumor spread that someone was a Klansman, and people began to mob him. Keshia leapt forward and spread herself over the man, protecting him. A photographer from LIFE captured the moment, and Keshia gained a name for peaceful resistance. Her message has influenced thousands. Most recently she met young people in Baltimore after the death of Freddy Grey and the subsequent torching of a CVS store. “Look across the street,” she said to them. “There’s a Senior Home. What do you think those folks are thinking and feeling about you? Would you want to be in that home, and not feel safe going out on your street? Find another way to protest. Advocate peacefully with me!”

Alongside the American flag, we carried a Torah. Each night it was passed to the next day’s Jewish marchers. Torah: symbol of just civilization. Torah: witness to our own brand of persecution. We get it. So we speak out.

“…For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a ‘homeland of the free.’ …”

Civil rights earned can be lost. Racism is real.  Criminal injustice is real. The challenge to the Voting Rights Act is real. The cycle of Poverty is real.

Returning at the end of the day, we unwrapped the Torah around us, and shared our reactions. We recalled the Jewish Journey, fleeing slavery, seeking freedom.

“Standing on the parted shores, we still believe what we were taught before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot; that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt; that there is a better place, a promised land; that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness. That there is no way to get from here to there except by joining hands, marching together.”[7]

There’s a lot more to be done in our nation. Let’s do it together.

Rabbi Elyse Frishman serves Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ and is the editor of Mishkan T’filah.

 

[1] The Barnert team: Lisa Dugal, Marni Neuburger, Isaac Hart (a sophomore at Glen Rock High School) and Anya Gips (senior at Fairlawn High School and BarTY President) and me. Read Anya’s and Isaac’s pieces separately!

[2] August 1-September 16, from Selma to Washington, hundreds of Americans are walking in solidarity for black civil rights.

[3] In fact, the greatest number of participants over the last 25 days has been Reform Jews.

[4] Our journey was much safer than his – we had the protection of state troopers.

[5] Her story echoes others I’ve heard of young black teens walking the streets in white north-western Bergen.

[6] She said to me, “Forget prison reform. It’ll never happen. After decades in my ministry, I’ve learned to devote all my energy to the victims, helping them move beyond their radically unfair pasts.”

[7] by Michael Walzer, adapted from Exodus, as found in Mishkan T’filah

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Rabbis Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

True Strength at America’s Journey for Justice

I know what strength is. Reflecting on marching in the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice, I witnessed true strength. Now back home in New Jersey returning from LaGrange, Georgia, my husband and I had joined the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ delegation of over 150 rabbis who are also representing the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center. We are taking turns supporting this 40-day march to Washington, DC. I sit here nursing sore muscles, while marveling that we actually walked 15 miles, all in one day, in August, in the South. And we also carried a 20-pound Torah, recalling the iconic photograph taken in Arlington National Cemetery of Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, President of then-Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism, as he held a Torah scroll and marched next to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, I feel strong for the physical feat, as I feel strong for engaging in action after I have felt so powerless watching tragic injustice after tragic injustice. I felt strong when I walked by Confederate flags, a pro-Confederate flag billboard, a Confederate monument, and scowling faces uttering rude comments. Yet, I felt proud that the majority of spectators, representing all races, were supportive or nicely inquisitive. They honked, waved, and leaned out of cars to ask about our unexpected parade, protected by the local police and state troopers. I smiled as mothers brought out their young African-American sons to see us walk by. Our leaders shouted that we were walking for them, so that they could get an education, stay out of jail, and have hope for justice.1mary

However, the true strength I witnessed was in the elders who led our march and carried the American flag. These men, beaten and brutalized so many decades ago, had marched with Dr. King during the original Freedom Marches. At their age and health condition, they deserve to sit or try some gentle exercise classes. Yet, they are dedicated to walking much of 18-22 miles a day for 40 days! Every night they will wrap blistered feet, sleep on uncomfortable cots and rise at 5 a.m. to walk with dignity. They are finding the physical strength to match their passion for justice. I also saw strength in a group of five women who joined the march, representing their local NAACP chapter. These five African-American grandmas showed up looking like they were ready to visit the shopping mall. Some did not even have sneakers or proper walking shoes. Instead, they wore their summer jewelry and sandals! They walked and sang uplifting church hymns in beautiful harmony. When our leaders announced that the last stretch would be walked at a pace double our normal stride, just as the heat index hit its peak at 120, these ladies dug in for the last miles with determination. Additionally, I witnessed strength in the young people, the next generation of NAACP professionals and volunteers, who have dedicated themselves to fighting injustice. Finally, I marveled at the strength of the woman, an African American community activist and organizer, who showed me the well-known photograph of herself at age 18 in 1996 throwing herself on a stranger suspected of being a white supremacist as an angry mob sought to attack him. She continues to have the strength to smile every day as she dedicates her life to bettering our nation.

During the walk, our shift of rabbis sang “Ozi v’zimrat yah, vay’hi li liy’shua. God is my strength and might; God will be my salvation. (Exodus 15:2)” I know I am blessed to have witnessed God’s strength working through so many amazing people. May the marchers continue to be endowed with strength to see the justice journey home.

Rabbi Mary L. Zamore is the editor of and a contributing author to The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethics.

This blog was originally posted on Huffington Post Religion. 

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Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh Prayer Reform Judaism Torah

How Do You Read This?: The Art in Mishkan HaNefesh

One of the things I remember most distinctly from Freshman English in college was the question, “How do we read this?” Most often, it was applied to a text — a poem or a passage in a novel or essay. At times, however, the question was directed to a visual image. We would study a piece of art, or a photo from a newspaper, and “read” it. The professor was teaching us to be readers of signs, symbols, and visual imagery, pushing us to analyze the world around us and not just the written word. His goal was to enable us to become nimble critical thinkers, able to explore, probe, and question anything we confronted.

“What do we do with those pictures in the machzor?” is a question I’ve been asked about the art by Joel Shapiro that appears in Mishkan HaNefesh. This question brings me back to Freshman English.

Kol Nidre Shapiro
Art for Kol Nidre by Joel Shapiro

When we read a text, by necessity we bring ourselves to that text. Our reading, our understanding, is a meeting of our particular set of experiences and references, and those of the author. There is a midrash which teaches that the manna which sustained the Israelites while they wandered in the desert tasted different to each person. Just as each person tasted the manna differently, so too does each of us process and understand a text uniquely. Indeed, each time we read a text, we read it differently based on who we are in that moment.

So it is with reading art. More relevant that what the artist meant is what we see. Each of us will have our own understanding of an image. All the various elements that are in a piece of art become part of the language of that art-as-text. The colors, the white space, the border or lack thereof, the texture, the particularities of the wood grain, the density of the ink, the shapes – all of these form the language of each piece of art. And just as with any written text, there is no one right interpretation.

Art is a language – each image creates a new world, a singular and uninhibited space for experience and interaction. Abstract art, like that of Joel Shapiro, may at first glance seem hard to read. It may seem like a completely unfamiliar and incomprehensible foreign language. But the question we must ask is not, “what does it mean,” but rather “what can it mean?”

How do you read the art in Mishkan HaNefesh? Reading art is like reading poetry, only with visual language rather than verbal. Look at the image. What does it evoke? What sense does it tug at in you? Rather than trying to understand what it means, try to read it, that is, try to experience it. Does it feel full or empty? Does is evoke a sense of hope, or sadness, a sense of communality, or a sense of being alone? Does it feel tortured, or twisted? Does it make you think about fear, or courage, or buoyancy? Is there a sense of rootedness or eternality? Does it reach out joyfully into the future or does it feel tentative or grasping? Is it turned back on itself, or does it seem open and inviting? Does it feel like an opening into a new beginning, or perhaps a closing off from the past? Does it feel uncomfortably raw, or breathtakingly beautiful, or both?  Is it sure of itself or perplexing? And then ask, how can these these images be visual translations of the overarching themes of the high holy days? How do these images convey awe? T’shuvah? Forgiveness? Redemption? Chesbon nefesh? Majesty?

Image for Yizkor by Joel Shapiro.
Image for Yizkor by Joel Shapiro.

Start by simply letting yourself read the art. Let yourself experience it. Move beyond the discomfort of not knowing what to do with it, and just look it. Read what the editors of Mishkan HaNefesh thought about the art, and read what Joel Shapiro himself has to say about it,but remember that the artist’s intent is only one part of the experience. What you bring to it is also part of what it “means.” Our prayerbook is full of metaphors and imagery that don’t necessarily make rationale sense, but nonetheless move us and connect us with the divine and with the big questions of life and eternity. Think of the art as visual metaphors that helps move and connect us through a different modality.

Our tradition teaches that the Torah was a combination of black fire and white fire.  The Talmud even discusses the importance of the white space around the black letters, considering the white to be another, albeit hidden, kind of Torah text (Menachot 29a). Both texts are critical to the whole, and elicit different ways of reading.  The art then is like the white space around the written text – it is an invitation to experience the metaphors and imagery of the high holy days using a different kind of language, a different kind of metaphor, perhaps even a different part of our soul.

There is no right way or wrong way to read the art in Mishkan HaNefesh. Just like the beautiful poetry in the machzor, or the challenging sublinear commentary, it is there to enhance our experience of the high holy days.  The art gives us another language with which to engage with the big ideas of these Days of Awe. It may not be a language you’re familiar or comfortable with, but that’s all it is, another language, another way of reading.

Rabbi Hara Person is the Publisher of CCAR Press and the Executive Editor of Mishkan HaNefesh. Before attending rabbinic school at HUC-JIR, she received an MA in Fine Arts from NYU/International Center of Photography. 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Taking Torah on the Road

Do you remember holding a Torah scroll? Its sudden weight in your arms and soul, the joy of connecting through the generations to Sinai in an instant. When was that moment? Was it being called to the Torah for the first time as Bat or Bar Mitzvah, accepting a Shabbat or High Holy Day honor, or passing the scroll to a child or grandchild? In almost all of these memories, likely that the place of that moment is in the sanctuary.

The contrast between holding a Torah in synagogue and holding a Torah anywhere else but a synagogue is what struck me the most when I held the Torah scroll on Friday, August 7. Along with twenty others, I was on Route US-29 walking for nineteen miles with the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice from Opelika, Alabama to West Point, Georgia, flanked by six Alabama State Police. The Torah had come down the mountain. I held the Torah tight, embracing its teachings, its symbolic presence, my personal memories of holding Torah when I was ordained a rabbi and when I handed the scroll to my son and then daughter as they became Bar and Bat Mitzvah, and my vision of the iconic photo in Arlington National Cemetery of the Torah in the arms of Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, President of then-Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism, as he marched next to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

The Torah in my arms came from Chicago Sinai Congregation because of the leadership of Rabbi Seth Limmer, who invited his congregation to lend a Torah scroll to make the entire 860 mile journey over forty days from Selma, AL to Washington, D.C. A waterproof backpack with Torah messages written on it and a banner from the Religious Action Center was at the ready if there was any threat of rain. Over 150 rabbis have volunteered escort the scroll, taking daily shifts during the entire journey.

Mirroring the forty days Moses stood on Sinai receiving the message of Torah, we will march about forty days bringing the values, teachings and relevance of Torah to the streets of America. On Friday, August 7, I was joined by Rabbi Peter Stein, from Rochester, NY. Several other fellow marchers enjoyed taking the scroll for a mile or so. Many were not Jewish but felt – as they called it – the inspiration of carrying God’s word.

For those watching us march, on their porches, in stopped cars, once in a while lining the roads, there were only two visible symbols: the American flag and the Torah scroll. That was all: six police cars, about 20 marchers, and two symbols. What could they be thinking? News reports prepared the remote townships about the march. We would sing our songs and shout our chants for justice. Still our march took many by surprise. I am sure that this was the first Torah scroll many had ever seen. I wanted to stop to explain, but we had our marching orders. We did not stop from 8 am to 4 pm that day; the Torah did not rest; our message was on the move. For those who knew even a little, the symbol of the Torah demanded a response: we have Jewish values that are synonymous with Christian values and Muslim values and many other peoples’ values and most importantly with American values: we cannot stand idly by when our neighbors are in need.

W.E.B. Du Bois said, “The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans.” Over those many miles, my feet though weary felt lightened by the embrace of Torah. Etz Chayim Hi – The Torah truly is a Tree of Life, and all who hold it tight will find happiness (Prov. 3:18). I will never hold the Torah scroll the same way.

Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker has served Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, Minnesota for eighteen years.  

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog.

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Tora(h) is Her Nickname

I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama fifty years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led marchers to that city from Selma, sixty years after Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus there, and two days after America’s Journey for Justice began. As I explained to my congregation before I left, after too many needless deaths of African-Americans over the past year, participating in the march felt like the most powerful way I could stand up for the Jewish teaching that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  So I set out for Montgomery, together with two members of my congregation, to march and most proudly, to carry the Torah along the route.

My connecting flight to Montgomery was on a small plane, the kind only big enough for one flight attendant.  The flight attendant was a young African-American woman.  “Welcome aboard,” she greeted us before take-off, “my name is Torah.”

Coincidence? That’s one way of describing it.

I had to know more about her name, so after the plane had landed, I told her a little bit about the Jewish meaning of Torah, and why I was coming to Alabama. She corrected me on the spelling – it’s actually Tora – and she told me it was her nickname.

Standing face to face with her, I thought of a legend about the early Chassidic master, the Maggid of Mezrich, who used to tell his students: Don’t just talk about the Torah. Be Torah.

And here she was.

It was a good reminder that the most sacred aspect of my journey would be listening to other people’s Torah.  Fundamentally, it’s not about issues, politics or policy; it’s about people. I came to the march, first and foremost, because I have plenty to learn about other people’s experiences with injustice in our society.  Just as importantly, I have plenty to learn from other people’s insights into how we can overcome it together.  The march seemed like an incredible opportunity to learn from other people who are busy being Torah.

So who was the Torah I learned while marching? I met Alabama churchgoers, New York union workers, college student activists, people who lived through the civil rights struggles of fifty years ago, and their grandchildren in tow, many wearing t-shirts with pictures of Dr. King.

I listened as one young organizer addressed the room, taking for granted the fact that everybody there knew someone who had been killed by a police officer, and most people nodded in agreement.

I chatted with one of the Alabama State Troopers who protected our group all day, in poignant contrast to the march of 1965, and who told me it was an honor that he held the Torah scroll for a few moments.

I commiserated about the heat with a woman who told me she had been searching for a job for so long, so long.

I sat on the bus with a retired minister and firefighter who had been beaten walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. King, who described his childhood dread of the Ku Klux Klan, and the promotions he knew he had been passed over for at the firehouse because of his race, who explained to me why he felt so uplifted organizing this march, and why he was so confident about the power of the next generation to fight for a better world.

Rabbi Leib ben Sarah elaborates on the principle associated with the Maggid:  “A person should see to it that all her actions are a Torah, and that she herself becomes so entirely a Torah that one can learn from her actions and her motions and her motionless clinging to God.”*

I don’t know too many people who can claim to live up to that challenge all the time, but marching in Montgomery seemed like an important step in trying to meet it a little more fully. Like the other 150 Reform rabbis who signed up to participate in the march, I feel honored to have been able to participate in such a historic and sacred event, and privileged to have had the chance to jump on a plane to practice what I preach.

By carrying the Torah, I learned so much Torah; by learning so much Torah, I have seen again just how much this world needs us to be Torah.

*Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim. I adjusted the language for gender in honor of Tora.

Rabbi Beth Kalisch lives in Philadelphia and serves as the spiritual leader of Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne, PA.  

A version of this blog originally appeared on Rabbi Kalisch’s blog and the RAC’s blog.

 

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Being but a Cog in the Work to Make our World a Better Place

On August 1, 2015, I was lucky enough to pronounce the final benediction at a ceremony beginning the NAACP‘s 45-day American Journey for Justice. This was the day when I was able to share words of Torah in Selma, AL before marchers undertook the first steps of an 865-mile trek to make the world a better place. This was the day I was truly honored and overwhelmed by the privilege of carrying a sacred scroll of the Torah over the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, taking about 700 of the million steps that lay ahead on the sojourn to Washington, D.C. This was the day I walked12 miles down a highway in the blazing 98-degree Alabama heat.

“We are now bonded,” said my new friend, Mary Sorteburg, in a remarkable embrace that topped everything else. That’s how I felt after my day, only one day, one in a series that will be marched by my compatriots who yearn for justice, by my new partners and friends in the NAACP leadership, and by my CCAR colleagues who will march that same Torah scroll all the way to D.C. I felt bonded.

Bonded to Mary and her remarkable husband Jeff Merkley, who–despite being the Senator from Oregon–is now my spiritual representative in our nation’s capital.

Bonded to the remarkable Cornell William Brooks, the President of the NAACP, with whom I walked that remarkable road as we shared our stories in the blazing sun.

Bonded to leaders Leon Russell and Dwayne Proctor, with whom I shared continuing conversations; bonded to Sierra Club President Aaron Mair and a man named Middle Passage, both of whom I came to know as they carried the Torah down State Highway 80.

Bonded to Rabbis Denise Eger, Bruce Lustig, Beth Singer and Jason Roditch—who previously had been at best a quick ‘hello’ at convention or sometimes just a disembodied voice on the other end of the phone—and who are now brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

Bonded to Susan Solomon, Merle Terry, Jill and Grant Peters, who traveled with me from Chicago Sinai Congregation to help our Torah scroll take its place in the American Journey for Justice.

Bonded to the struggle to prove that Black Lives Matter.

Bonded to the fight to end racism, to fight racism, to talk honestly about racism.

And bonded to the Torah scroll.

I am not a rabbi overly focused on ritual, often moved by symbolism. But carrying this sacred scroll down an open highway, playing a small, literal role in a massive, literal journey erased any capacity for me to relate to Torah only metaphorically. Even having passed the scroll to a beloved and esteemed colleague, I now feel as if I have a missing limb: part of my mental energy is constantly wondering where the scroll is, in whose treasuring arms it rests. But with the Torah on that historical highway, I have never felt smaller and bigger: I was one brief person carrying the Torah down a long road for one brief time; I could hardly see the end of the day’s walk, let along the final destination. I have never stood so proud and tall as I did as the clock approached 6:00 and my feet were blistering. I was able to carry the Torah proudly, to serve my role, to play my small part. The knowledge of being but a cog—but a vital part of the machinery to make our world a better place—is exactly the lesson of our American Journey for Justice.

August 1 was filled with love, with hope, with solidarity and community. It was also filled with anger, confusion and disappointment. It was a day of contradiction. We were so generously and safely guided and granted passage by Alabama State Police; how different, not only from 50 years ago when police presence on the other side of the bridge signaled danger, but also what a vast chasm from the terror black people continue to face in nearly every encounter with law enforcement. The Chicago Tribune published a wonderful story about my colleagues’ choosing to walk in support of the NAACP; the only ink the Tribune spent on the American Journey for Justice was to document the participation of white people. In one day, I feel as if I built real relationships on the road that will last into the future; in 13 months in Chicago, I have built precious yet few relationships with black leaders. The contradictions of the day still puzzle me; it is upon me now to work towards their resolution.

On September 15, I will fly down to D.C. to meet up again with my comrades in justice, to carry that Torah scroll again in my arms as we bring it together into the very seat of our American democracy. I will travel with members of my congregation, my daughter and my determination to bring about racial justice. I look forward again to being with Cornell, with Jeff, with Bruce, with Dwayne, with Leon, with Mary, with so many more: the handshakes, the hugs and the commitment to end racism. A commitment that binds us as tightly as hands clenched together in hope and love.

Rabbi Seth Limmer serves as Senior Rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation. He is also the Chair of the Justice and Peace Committee of the CCAR.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog.

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News Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice Torah

Why We’re Marching in America’s Journey for Justice

We are participating in the N.A.A.C.P.’s “America’s Journey for Justice” is, individually and as part of the collective of 140+ Reform rabbis, a giant step for Justice. This 40 day march from Selma, AL to Washington, D.C., with 5 final days in DC, focused on racial and structural inequality under the banner, “Our Lives, Our Votes, Our Jobs and Our Schools Matter,” is more than a Journey of many rabbis over 860 miles. With at least one rabbi marching every day of the American Journey for Justice, a sacred scroll of the Torah will experience the entire length of this journey. Our sefer Torah that teaches of our 40 year journey through the wilderness will accompany us on this 40-day journey for the justice our Torah demands.

Why are we working for racial justice at this time? Why are we marching?

We march because we say enough. Enough of the tragedies. Enough of the subtle and overt racism. Enough of standing by. We march not only in the name of those whose deaths woke up our nation’s consciousness, but for the millions of others whose loss of life, loss of home, and loss of dignity never made a headline. Our hearts break for the world as it is–parched by oppression–constant, crushing, and unacceptable. We remember the slavery and oppression that bloodied our own past even as we recognize the privilege into which many of us were born. We, therefore, march arm-in-arm with other people of faith in our humble attempt to live up to our tradition’s demand to be rodfei tzedek, pursuers of justice, equality and freedom.

We feel called by our God, our tradition and our consciences to march. At the same time, we know that simply marching in this remarkable forty-day Journey to Justice is not enough. We march for the forty-first day, the one-hundred and twentieth, and the years and generations to come. We march, as our ancestors taught us, to get from Egypt—the world as it is, filled with injustice—to the Promised Land. We march toward a vision of this land’s promise: our world redeemed, overflowing with chesed, tzedek, umishpat—compassion, justice and righteousness.

Thank you for joining us.

Sincerely,

Joel Abraham, David Adelson, Erica Asch, Peter Berg, Shoshanah Conover, Wendi Geffen, Sam Gordon, Asher Knight Esther Lederman, Seth Limmer, John Linder, Greg Litcofsky, Ari Margolis, Joel Mosbacher, Mark Miller, Jason Rosenberg, Adam Spilker

On behalf of the ROR Leadership Team

This blog was originally posted on the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s blog

Categories
omer Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

We All Count: Shavuot

This blog is the eighth in a series from Rabbis Organizing Rabbis connecting the period of the Omer to the issue of race and class structural inequality.  Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is a joint project of the CCAR’s Peace & Justice Committee, the URJ’s Just Congregations, and the Religious Action Center. 

Each day of intentional counting through the period of the Omer, as the attributes of mercy, spiritual strength, beauty, truth, compassion and justice shape us, we are brought to the night of Shavuot when, through our learning together as community, we glimpse the way the world can be.  From Passover to Shavuot the bread with no ego of Matzah and the simple barley of the Omer prepare us for the Challah; the symbol of being able to taste the sweetness of freedom without having our freedom and our privilege dependent on the oppression of others.  We pray that we will be able to enjoy the puffed up Challah without becoming so full of ourselves that we forget the lessons of our journey and that we will always remember never to do to others what was done to us.

Shavuot  is the climax of our story as Jews, to accept a Torah, a guide for living, that creates a world where all can flourish.  The Talmud dares us to fiercely defend the rights of all humanity to have infinite worth, to have a level playing field, and to be able to be creative and unique.  This is a radical vision in a world of have and have-nots, of the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor and by destroying the environment, of state sponsored laws and cultures that dehumanize and even brutalize other human beings.  Today there would be signs on the mountaintop that proclaim that black and brown lives matter, that Palestinian lives matter, that Jewish lives matter.  Signs that lift up the voices of those who are marginalized, who cannot find a place to be free from prejudice, who suffer the oppression of being judged by the hue of skin color instead of who they are.  Signs that affirm that these lives matter as much as all other lives.

Based on the models of truth and reconciliation sessions that have been used in South Africa, Rwanda, and in Greensboro we launched our first of ten sessions in St Louis this week.  As I listened to the black and brown truth tellers speak across lines of age, gender and class to the panel that practiced radical listening without defense and with open hearts, I heard a common agonizing thread.  Each person spoke from a strong place of self.  I could hear them saying, “I may be different from you but I am a whole human being of infinite worth, why don’t you see me and treat me as such?” They also said, “I do not want your pity or your sympathy but you must reach within to find a place of empathy.”

I thought about an article by the feminist lesbian woman of color Audre Lorde, in which she says that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.   Lorde wisely teaches us that “those who have been forged in the crucibles of difference,” must learn to take difference and make it a strength outside the structures of oppression and build a new world where we can all be valued.  I also heard the truth tellers (and Lorde) say that it is not their job to educate the oppressors.  It is an old tool of oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns.  “Tell us what you want?”  is a diversion from the source of the problem that lives within the souls of those who do not see themselves as a part of the suffering of people of color in this culture that has been shaped by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws, old and new.  We are all a part of the problem and the Torah teaches us how to be a part of the solution.

The blacklivesmatter movement is challenging us to change the systems of policing and mass incarceration that threaten those lives daily.  Our demands are for basic the human dignities that come with access to health care, a living wage and a government that serves all the people.  The Torah teaches us that when we are more upset about the destruction of property than we are about the loss of these lives we are committing the sin of idolatry.  Make the counting we have done each day to arrive at this holy time of learning on Shavuot open the heart of the world to the healing necessary to count each and every life and make sure that every life counts.

———

Rabbis Organizing Rabbis is project of the Reform Movement’s social justice initiatives: the CCAR’s Committee on Peace, Justice and Civil Liberties, the Religious Action Center, and Just Congregations.

Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation of St. Louis, MO. Central Reform Congregation recently was the recipient of the Fain Award for their work on Ferguson Activism. 

 

Categories
Ethics Rabbis Reform Judaism Torah

Parashat Sh’mini, Mindfulness, and Food

In Vermont, where I spent the last year living (and where I still spend my time off), there’s a beautiful culture of paying attention to where food comes from. In part this is because of the agricultural heritage of the state, and lucky for me, it’s meant that I’ve made a number of friends who are farmers. As a result, over the past year I’ve farm-sat when friends have gone on vacation (to Israel, no less – our local Jewish educator is also a farmer), helped friends tap their maple trees to make homegrown maple syrup and cared for chickens and lambs. I have harvested the summer’s abundance, too: dried garlic, blanched kale, made raspberry jam from local berries picked by my own two hands, and turned pounds (literally, pounds) of basil into many frozen containers of pesto – enough for the (very) long Vermont winter! I’ve even learned to make my own sourdough bread and created my own sourdough starter.

For a Rabbi’s kid who grew up in Chicago this has been a wonderful, unexpected and delicious adventure. I feel truly blessed. I have learned, intimately, where my food comes from, and the incredible labor that it takes to feed the state of Vermont. I have also become a regular at the local farmer’s market, friendly with the guy who sells me my kale, have found a farm where I pick up eggs and bread year-round, and have, overall become much, much healthier. I have also, for the first time ever, begun to understand the place of dietary laws in the Biblical imagination and what it must have felt like to live according to an agricultural rhythm where you always worried what the new harvest might (or might not) yield. Food, I have learned, is never merely a product. It’s also a process. 

This week’s parshah, Sh’mini, is known for its dietary laws, the laws of kashrut.  And though I could write at length about kashrut and Reform Judaism, I’m more interested in asking us to consider how halachic structures around eating can help us sacralize and become mindful of how we eat, elevate it from noshing to something worthy of blessing. Because serious engagement with the tradition and with the parsha calls for not just a historical critical interrogation of where the laws come from but also an acknowledgment that the laws present us with an opportunity to think deeply, and seriously about how we consume (and if we are doing so ethically). And though we ultimately may not choose to give up cheeseburgers or non-kosher meat, we might at least feel compelled to engage in a centuries old conversation about what it means to sanctify this simplest of acts.  

Jordie2For me, this has meant making an effort to know where my food comes from, and a commitment to only buying food that is organic, free-range, hormone free, or sustainably raised  (this means I eat much less meat, as it’s far more expensive this way). For others, it may mean becoming a vegetarian or vegan; but no matter what, it will mean consuming consciously, thoughtfully, in a manner that reflects our understanding of the earth – and all its inhabitants – as holy and precious in their own right. This, though not traditionally halachically observant, is halachically responsible, in keeping with the spirit of a law which asks us to bring a disciplined heart and head to what – and how – we consume.

This, in part, is what it means to eat Jewishly.

st-cover_with_seal_2B’tayavon.

Rabbi Jordie Gerson serves Temple Emanu-el Beth Sholom in Montreal. 

For more on Judaism and food, check out The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethicedited by Rabbi Mary Zamore