Tag: Social justice

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Passover Pesach Prayer Social Justice

When It’s Time to Stop Praying and Start Marching

Two weekends ago, many of us took to the streets with our communities to “March For Our Lives,” and last weekend we welcomed the festival of Passover, which makes this a good time to remember that the Torah tells us “thoughts and prayers” can only do so much; we need action to move forward.

In Exodus 14 we read that when the Israelites were stopped at the shore of the Sea of Reeds with the Egyptians fast approaching behind them, Moses began to pray. The people were distressed and feared for their lives and were demanding action — and Moses offered prayers. God said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. Lift up your rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it, so that the Israelites may march into the sea on dry ground.” The Torah is pretty clear that there is a time for words, but when trapped between the Egyptians and the Sea, it’s time for action.

Our sages expanded on this idea in the Talmud, which teaches us that as the Jews were standing at the shore of the sea, Moses was prolonging his prayer. God said to him, “My beloved ones are drowning in the sea and you prolong your prayer to me?” Moses replied, “But what can I do?” God said, “Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to go forward. And you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand.”

There’s a midrash that imagines God saying, “My loved ones are drowning in the sea, and the sea is raging, and the foe is pursuing, and you stand and wax long in prayer?” To which Moses replied, “God of the universe, what can I do?” And this is when God replies with the words from Exodus 14.

A story in the Talmud teaches that while Moses was busy praying, one person — Nachshon — stepped into the sea and began to walk. Nachshon had faith that God would see them to safety on the other side, and demonstrated his faith by stepping into the water.

Even in a tradition that annually celebrates the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, it is clear that we can not just cry out or send “thoughts and prayers” – we must take action. Faith is not waiting around for God to do the work, but taking that first step – speaking out and raising your hand.

That is what the teens are trying to teach us: there is a time for thoughts and prayers (and often that is where we find comfort in the face of tragedy), but the Torah teaches us that when you life is in danger, you don’t stand around praying; you have to speak to the people and take action.

This is faith. Not that God will fix it, but that we have within us the power to change the world for the better; that even when it looks as if there is no way forward, we can find a way; that even when enemies are fast approaching and threatening us, we have the strength to keep going. Faith is working together to bring a future where everyone is free from violence.

—

Rabbi Shawna Brynjegard-Bialik is an artist at Paper Midrash and also blogs on her personal blog.

Categories
Gun Control Social Justice

Praying With Our Feet at the March For Our Lives in Washington, DC

Dear Friends,

I write this while on a plane en route from our nation’s capital after having shared in a remarkable and life-changing Shabbat experience. On Friday night, I was honored to be asked by my dear friend, Rabbi Bruce Lustig, to participate in an Erev Shabbat service at Washington Hebrew Congregation along with other musicians including Dan Nichols, Stacy Beyer, Noah Aronson and Alan Goodis. Our Director of Youth Engagement, Megan Garrett, and two parent chaperones also accompanied a delegation of several of our teens.  They spent the night in the Synagogue along with over 450 young people from across the country. During the service,we were joined on the Bema by several young people who spoke – many who were students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Others were leaders of their NFTY regions.  After the service, my musical colleagues and I led a short concert and song-session during which I sang the protest anthem that Steve Brodsky and I co-wrote, “Praying With Our Feet.”  While the music was an important part of the evening, the primary focus was on the teenagers. The poise, pain and incredible leadership that these young people displayed while sharing their stories was both moving and inspiring.

On Shabbat morning, the entire NFTY delegation and many other adults prayed together in a pre-rally Shabbat service.  We were joined by many dignitaries – including Debbie Wasserman Shultz – the US Congresswoman who represents Parkland, Florida, and Rabbi Rick Jacobs who addressed the congregation via video feed. But once again, the major focus of the service were the young people who led us in prayer and song.  There was one incredibly moving moment towards the end of the service when my friend and colleague, Rabbi Brad Boxman, who serves a congregation in Parkland, FL, shared how, on the first Shabbat following the shootings, he asked all of the adults in his packed sanctuary to turn to the children who sat with and near them and bless them.  He then asked all of us who were present to do the same.  As we placed our hands on the heads of these beautiful teenagers and said the words of the Priestly blessing together, tears flowed freely down our faces. You see, we knew that we had come to DC to protest. We knew that change had to come. We were charged and ready. But there was something about praying for God’s protective blessing on these precious, beautiful souls that shifted our focus and made everything very real. We were not about to march for a cause: we were marching for our children’s lives.  And then we started our journey to the rally.
We carried signs and banners with sacred texts:
  • “If not now, when?”
  • ‘It is not up to you to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from carrying it out.”
  • “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds”
We chanted, we sang, we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. But our march soon came to a halt when we realized that there were so many people filling the streets that we could only go a few blocks. Every space in the street surrounding the Capital was filled.  But it didn’t matter. We watched on video screens, heard from loudspeakers and felt the determination in the million other marchers who were with us. We came from all walks of life – all colors and creeds – but we shared in our determination to speak up and say enough:
  • Enough killing;
  • Enough pretending that the issue is not guns, but people;
  • Enough ignoring the plight of people of color;
  • Enough manipulation from the gun lobby;
  • Enough silence from legislators who are afraid to address the issue of easy access to weapons of mass destruction.

This was not a political rally – although, after today’s events, many politicians will be worried about keeping their seats – and they should be. We marched for moral, not partisan reasons. This was not, as some have charged, a volley of Left Wing talking points – it was a rising up of a generation raised in the shadows of Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Las Vegas, Parkland and too many other tragedies that have been lost in the endless cycle of shootings that have become yesterday’s news.

The rock stars and celebrities who were on stage were not the focus of the rally either. No, it was the children- the survivors who have taken on the mantle of leadership – who stirred our souls and compelled us to action. We heard about the toll that daily violence on the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC has taken. We wept along with speakers who had lost brothers and sisters to bullets. We heard the passion of the newly-energized victims of school shootings who have watched as the adults in their lives relinquished the responsibility of protecting them and, as a result, have taken it upon themselves to give notice to their elected officials that silence is complicity, and that they refuse to remain silent.

As I contemplate this remarkable 24 hours, I am in awe. The vision, poise, leadership and power that these young activists have discovered gives me hope that not all is lost, and that the future will be in good hands. I also am more determined than ever to both speak out against and call out the hypocrisy and callous disregard for human life that the gun lobby and its enablers have fostered in our society.

Let me be very clear:  I am not opposed to guns per se. I am, however, opposed to the idolatry that gun worship has spawned in our nation. We owe it to our children to speak out as loud and proud as they do. They have taken on the mantle of leadership. I am compelled to follow. Will you join with me?

We can do no less.

—
Rabbi Joe Black serves Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado.  This blog was originally posted on his personal blog. 
Categories
Books Passover Pesach Social Justice

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: The Obligations of Our Exodus

In anticipation of the release of CCAR Press’s newest book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, we’ve invited Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, co-editor of the book, to share an excerpt of the book on Passover. Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press.

A couple of months ago I was arrested in the grand rotunda of the Russell Building of the United States Senate. Nearly one hundred Jewish clergy and leaders joined in song and prayer, demanding that the United States Congress pass the DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to the nearly eight hundred thousand Dreamers who came to the United States as children and are every bit American as my own daughters. As we sang “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” (“We will build this world with love”) over and over again, hundreds of Dreamers stood cheering us on from the balcony, ringing us like a human halo. In an intentionally ironic twist on the famous cry from Moses to Pharaoh, we chanted, “Let our people stay!”

When we were handcuffed, removed by the Capitol Police, and placed under arrest, we understood that we were following directly in the footsteps of our ancient Israelite ancestors. Ironically, our being put into fetters was inspired by the Hebrew slaves, who rose up from their slavery in Egypt and cast off the chains of Pharaoh’s bondage in their journey to redemption. As our hands were locked in cuffs and we were led away, we chanted the verse taken from the Song at the Sea “Ozi v’zimrat Yah, vah’yi li lishuah,” “God is my strength and might, and will be my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). There seemed no words more fitting than those our ancient Israelite ancestors sang as they passed through the parted seas of their redemption.

Even as we were led into police custody, our group understood that we were walking in the footsteps of countless generations of Jews before us, generations who internalized the Rabbinic mandate in the Passover Haggadah that “it is incumbent on every generation to see itself as if they themselves—every person—had personally escaped from Egypt” (Babylonian Talmud, P’sachim 116b). Our deeds of civil disobedience were an act of moral resistance to the injustices being perpetrated on the Dreamers, along with tens of millions of other immigrants and refugees. We acted on the spiritual authority inherited from recent leaders like Rabbis Richard Hirsch, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Maurice Eisendrath, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because they internalized the most often repeated commandment in all of Torah: “You shall love the stranger, because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). Jews have marched throughout history because the core narrative of our people, the defining master story of our tradition, is the archetypal tale of redemption. Our Exodus from Egypt is the story of the transformation of the world-as-it-is, in which “strangers” are continually crushed by oppression, into the world-as-it-should-be, one where all people know justice. The power of the Jewish master narrative lies in its inherent call to every generation to live empathy; because our ancestors were strangers, we—in this era, and in every era—are to love the stranger.

Jews not only retell the master story of redemption throughout our ritual and cultural life; we have relived it throughout history. Our history has served to reinforce the most central exhortation of our Exodus narrative: we are obligated to love the stranger as ourself.

Among the many gleanings of the Exodus narrative that ground Jewish life and values, three stand out as the sources of the spiritual authority demanding that Jews resist injustice and champion morality in every age (and regardless of the challenges we face). First, we learn not only that resistance is required by our faith and experience, but also that it is always possible. Second, we are reminded that our empathy extends beyond the “stranger” to all those who are vulnerable in our midst. Finally, we instill in our souls that the Exodus is not simply about freedom from bondage; our master story culminates with the agency to enter into a covenantal community in which all people are bound to one another.

—

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for social justice.  Rabbi Pesner is the co-editor of CCAR Press’s  upcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice, as well as a contributor to Seven Days, Many Voices: Insights into the Biblical Story of Creation.

Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social Justice is now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. 

Categories
Social Justice

How Social Justice Work Blossoms in One Congregation

I have always had a passion for social justice, both in my career as a television producer and in that as a rabbi. Over my nearly ten years at Temple Beth El (TBE), I have pursued this work with interfaith partners but rarely with my own congregation. There is a twofold reason for this. One, when I first arrived, the congregation had been through a decade of revolving door rabbis and was emotionally scarred and diffident. I determined that my job was to heal the wounds, not to rally folks around causes. Two, TBE had no history or culture of social justice engagement. I make a distinction between social justice and social action. Feeding the homeless is social action, and many of our congregants are involved in that. Addressing the causes of hunger or homelessness is social justice, and this is where we have not participated.

A little over a year ago, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) offered a Community of Practice called “Bringing Justice to the Center.” This was a two-year training program in how to engage one’s congregation in this work. I immediately signed up with two lay leaders, Diana Goldman and Dalia Martinez. Over the past year, we attended monthly webinars, consulted with our coach, Lee Winkleman, and began the process of community organizing. This involved finding folks who would hold one-on-one conversations as well as house meetings with other congregants to determine how they viewed the brokenness of the world and what their vision of a more perfect society looked like. Eventually, the idea would be to find an issue we could all work on together, an issue that would represent systemic change.

Our congregation is pretty solidly middle class. There are not many people of means and leisure: the vast majority of our younger families have two working parents who also spend a great deal of time shepherding their children to a wide variety of activities. Our older congregants have, for the most part, been there, done that. They want to enjoy life and spend their time with friends, family and, particularly, grandchildren. All to say that this model of community organizing, where people need to step up as leaders and take ownership of the process on a consistent and long-term basis, did not work for us. We conducted some one-on-ones and some house meetings, but the appetite for undertaking advocacy work on the part of a majority of the congregation was not there.

On the other hand, through this process, we were able to identify 15-20 people who were enthusiastic and eager to become involved in some way. It became clear that a different model was appropriate for us: rather than a grassroots effort which characterizes community organizing, we needed a more grass tops one. I found that, if I proposed an action, I could rally these 15-20 congregants to join me in the work of Reform CA whose leadership team I am on. Reform CA, the West Coast arm of the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, determines which California legislation to support, and educates our congregations about the issues involved prior to lobbying our state representatives to vote in favor of these bills. I have had success in bringing TBE members for legislative visits, both here in Riverside and in Sacramento, to make phone calls to constituents, to educate other congregants, and to attend a regional meeting of Reform CA. Indeed, with 11 people from TBE attending the Los Angeles area gathering of Reform CA in early December, we had the largest delegation of any congregation by far.

My congregants and I learned that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to be effective social change agents, and that it is absolutely essential to work in coalitions. With Reform CA, we have been able to join forces, not only with other Reform congregations, but also with partners such as the national network of faith-based community organizations, PICO, and the ACLU.

I am grateful to the URJ and to Lee Winkelman for helping guide us on this path. I know we will continue to do important work in the year ahead.

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, CA.

Categories
Social Justice

Social Justice in 2018: Not for Ourselves

A cherished friend of mine, a Christian working as a Synagogue Administrator, once asked me, “How are the same people both conservative with the congregation’s money and so liberal politically?” Her observation was mostly accurate; the Board members eager to grow the Temple’s budget were as much in the minority as the political conservatives.

I answered: “Jews are commanded to remember the heart of the stranger. We take that seriously. Yes, we may fit in here in America now, but Jews acutely remember when we were despised, outcast, and impoverished. Therefore, we identify with those who are vulnerable, and we advocate for their interests more even than our own.” Viewed in this light, our social justice priorities are largely shaped by the welfare of others. Temple finances, on the other hand, are strictly about the health of our own institution.

Upon reflection, though, my answer was too simplistic. A political conservative may be just as concerned about the poor as the liberal, with different philosophy about how best to benefit those in need. Moreover, some of our social justice advocacy – on behalf of Israel, for example; or protecting the separation of church and state – is self-interested.

Perhaps the most problematic part of my answer, though, was that we are far from the only Americans with a history of persecution. Unlike other ethnic or religious groups that are mostly white and at least middle income, though, American Jews remain strongly identified with our historic vulnerability and that of many people around us. What makes us different?

Why are so many American Jews deeply worried that Dreamers may soon face deportation? Yes, a Jewish DACA beneficiary or two has been identified; but most American Jews today are neither immigrants nor the children of immigrants. Why have we made a priority of compassionate immigration reform when so many other groups who share our immigrant history have not?

Why is our Reform Movement mobilized to protect access to health care for the tens of millions of Americans who gained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act? Yes, more than a few of us have ACA policies, but still more of us benefit from the tax reform that imperiled ACA’s viability by removing the individual mandate. Other demographically-similar groups tend to take the view opposite our Movement’s.

At the dawn of 2018, a century removed from the end of the last mass wave of Jewish immigration, we may think that we are motivated by our immigrant history, but we are more likely inspired by our religion itself. Torah is the reason. Thirty-six times, Torah reminds us that we must pay attention to the welfare of the stranger, having been oppressed as strangers in Egypt.

As we welcome 2018, in an era when the fastest-growing religious identity in this country is “none,” American Jews, even the self-proclaimed atheists among us, still believe: We are here to make the world a better place. We are duty-bound to seek the welfare of the most vulnerable in our midst. We are grateful that most American Jews are neither needy nor oppressed, and Torah turns that gratitude into action.

 —

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees.

Categories
Social Justice

A Narrow Bridge

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav[i] taught: “All the world is a very narrow bridge; the key is not to be paralyzed by fear.”

I have been on a narrow bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver, Canada is only wide enough for single file, spanning its 230 feet, hanging 460 feet above a river gorge. Not afraid of heights, I wasn’t scared when I crossed, enjoying magnificent scenery. Trusting that engineering had permitted millions to cross before me, I never considered the possibility of not arriving safely on the other side.

Our world, though, is full of less secure, narrower bridges.

When a devastating hurricane drops four feet of rain or threatens deadly winds, a person’s world can suddenly become a frighteningly narrow bridge – from security to survival, from a roof over one’s head to the peril of homelessness.

When armed white supremacists march in the thousands, people of color rightly fear for their lives. Is America a safe home?

When we hear the phrase, “Muslim ban,” America may quickly become precarious foreign land, even for a citizen.

When thousands, perhaps millions, cheer a border wall, we may ask: Why is America narrowing its bridge to the world?

When Charlottesville marchers shout, “Jews will not replace it,” American Jews wonder: “Will we have to get on a narrow bridge again, hoping to arrive safely at our next land of refuge?”

When young immigrants – who know America as their only home; and who have lived honest, productive lives in this land of opportunity – nevertheless face the prospect of deportation, they need look no further than their parents to see the narrow bridge that life in this country can be.

When a Black-majority school board is replaced by one white man, sixty years after the hard-fought but minimal desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, we may be frightened by the answer to the question: What temporal power is keeping this bridge from collapsing?

When LGBTQ Americans in many states can legally lose their jobs solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the supports on the bridge of LGBTQ life in this country, which seemed to be strengthening, may become wobblier yet again.

When the white working class sees industry change along with culture, they wonder if the sturdy highway of their lives has become a rickety bridge.

When millions upon millions of Americans, and billions around the globe, do not have access to adequate quantities of nutritious food or to excellent medical care, living paycheck to paycheck, if there’s a paycheck at all, then the slightest unexpected misfortune can destroy the bridge of life beneath one’s feet.

When climate change is denied, even as historically devastating storms rage, Rabbi Nachman’s words seem particularly prescient: The whole world is on a very narrow bridge, between a healthy environment and global self-destruction.

We who are on this bridge – and make no mistake, we are all on it – live in fear, and not because we are afraid of heights. We know about people who have crossed these bridges in the past. Too many did fall to their deaths. We cannot be secure about the engineering of the bridge we must walk to traverse oppression.

Tonight, we have come together to push the bridges’ boundaries, to make each one less narrow, and to shore up the infrastructure.

If an undocumented immigrant links arms with a Muslim, then the Muslim is not alone when her people are maligned, and the immigrant may imagine refuge rather than deportation.

If a cisgender woman of color brings a transgender woman with her into the restroom, then the transgender woman may feel more secure in her place of vulnerability, and the person of color will know she’s not the only target of white supremacists’ slogans.

If a white working class American and a descendant of slaves share their anxieties about our nation’s future, each may build a better future with the other.

If the wealthy nations of the world, beginning with our own, will take responsibility for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint, then we may all take responsibility for defeating the climate injustice whose victims are disproportionately the poorest people on Earth.

If the person of faith and the unbeliever share the diverse sources of their comfort, perhaps we can hearten one another.

We do not know what the months and the years ahead may require of us. Perhaps churches will need to transform parish halls into sanctuaries from deportation. Perhaps a synagogue will need to shelter threatened Muslims. Every single one of us will have to decide: Am I going to collaborate with oppression? Am I going to remain silent, imagining there’s nothing I can do? Or am I going to use my body and soul, my voice and any power I have, to stand in the way of injustice?

We do know this: All the world is a very narrow bridge, and the only way to conquer fear is to emulate the Children of Israel at the Red Sea, “joining hands, marching together,” to a Land of Promise.

We do know this: In order to fight injustice, we must be disturbed by it. If we are not personally suffering, then we are obligated to summon empathy for those who are. We must know the heart of the stranger, for all of us have been strangers in one Egypt or another.

Nearly two millennia ago, the rabbis of the Talmud made a decree about those who live in a community beset by suffering, a world like our own, on a very narrow bridge. Hear now the rabbis’ teaching: “When the community is immersed in suffering, a person may not say: I will go to my home and I will eat and drink, and peace be upon you, my soul. . . Rather, a person should be distressed together with the community. . . And anyone who is distressed together with the community will merit seeing the consolation of the community.”[ii]

A task lies before us. Let me suggest that each of us seek to sit down for a meal with a person different from ourselves, a person we may not know well, a person who may be afflicted during these difficult days in ways that we are not. May we enjoy one another’s company, but let us also hear each other’s pain. Let the bread we break together also be our bread of shared affliction. Then, may we build a bridge – a strong, broad bridge – and may we be consoled, together.

Amen.

—

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

 

[i] Unverifiable attribution.

[ii] Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 11a. Gratitude to Rabbi Paul Jacobson for pointing out the text.

Categories
Social Justice

DACA and Your Congregation: Ascend the Ladder

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught:  People were on a ship.  One of them took a drill and started drilling underneath him.  The others said to him, “What are you sitting and doing!”  He replied, “What do you care? Is this not underneath my area that I am drilling?”  They said to him, “But the water will rise and flood us all on this ship.” (Vayikrah Rabbah 4:6)

Some of us see the Dreamers as sharing our ship.  They may be our children’s classmates or we may meet them in the community.  We are moved by how hard these youth have worked to achieve success in school, work, or the military.  We hear echoes from Biblical texts and our own history that compel us to help.

Yet other congregants dissociate themselves from the issue of DACA.  They worry about their own economic security — whether their own vessels are seaworthy — failing to recognize that we are all in the same boat.

If 788,000 Dreamers are forced back into the shadows, or worse yet, are deported to countries they don’t remember, we will all be affected — seeing our country act without humanity, coping with the economic repercussions from lost talent, and fearing who will be the next victims of xenophobia.

How do we speak out as Jewish institutions, recognizing that the polarizing political views in America today are represented within our congregational membership?   How do we respond as rabbis when our conscience calls us to act?  And if we find traction to move forward, how do we guide our congregations to respond to DACA so that our actions make a difference?

Over the past three years, we, Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen, have been researching how synagogues work for social justice in local communities, states, and our nation.  We have seen multiple ways in which synagogues effectively respond to the critical issues of our day — the rungs on what we call the “Ladder of Civic Engagement.”

In Genesis 28:12, Jacob dreamed about angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven.  Just as the angels were said to have dwelt on earth, congregations eager to support Dreamers would be wise to start from the more accessible lower rungs — volunteering, educating, and donating — and then some congregants may continue the climb with our institutional support.

In responding to the President’s phased termination of the DACA program, many synagogues are finding that their volunteer efforts have enabled them to hear and understand the struggles of the immigrant community. This rung leads us to build relationships with those most affected.

Another non-controversial rung is education. Create programs with professors, lawyers, experts, and Dreamers themselves to understand the issues and build support for further action.  Your congregants will be inspired by the successes and aspirations of the Dreamers.

Philanthropy can also support social change.  Some Jewish communities are considering raising funds to help DACA youth submit renewal requests by the October 5 deadline by paying the $495 filing fee — a steep financial barrier for any young person with four weeks’ notice.  Others are working to fund lawyers so that these young people have legal advice and representation.

Ascending the upper three rungs becomes more challenging to many congregations. Advocacy is about using our voices to create changes in policies and laws. Examples include raising the issue at social events, posting responsibly on social media, and calling representatives.

Organizing entails joining with others as you strategize ways in which to protect our undocumented youth. Collaborating with other synagogues, other houses of worship, and immigrant rights organizations will guide and amplify your efforts.

Joining a movement is the fuel that helps us cross the finish line. The RAC — the voice of our movement — is supporting the most recent bipartisan Dream Act, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a bill that will pave the way to legal status for these youth.

We feel called to act — by our consciences, by our faith, by our history, by the Dreamers themselves.  We will be most effective if we work with our lay leaders and boards to find the rungs they are willing to ascend, and then perhaps inspire them to climb one more.

Rabbi Tarfon urges us forward:  The day is short, the work is much…it is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from working on it (Pirkei Avot 2:15-16).

—

Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen are the co-authors of Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement is Good for Synagogues, Jews, and America – now available for pre-order from CCAR Press. Rabbi Judith Schindler is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice at Queens University of Charlotte. Judy Seldin-Cohen is a community advocate and author. She has spent the last ten years collaborating on social justice issues with Rabbi Judith Schindler, her then synagogue rabbi and now co-author.

Categories
Social Justice

Minister March for Justice

Yesterday I had the privilege of addressing the Ministers March For Justice. It was a day filled with inspiring moments. In these difficult months, marching with people of faith, seeing clergy decked out in their religious garb take the streets of Washington, gave me a renewed sense of hope. When we rounded the corner onto Pennsylvania avenue and the capitol dome came into view, there was new meaning to the words spoken by one of yesterday’s many inspiring speakers, “they have the position, but we have the power.” Yesterday was about harnessing the power of faith leaders of communities all around the country, and I left with an even greater sense of urgency to rally our congregations to do this work. 

I am Rabbi Hannah Goldstein, I am a rabbi at Temple Sinai, in Washington D.C. and my congregation is like many of your congregations. We will not stand idly by.

This is a sacred season for Jews. We are in the month of Elul, when we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest days of the Jewish Year. At the very end of this period of soul searching and introspection, late in the afternoon on Yom Kippur, in the final hours of our fast, we sing words from Psalm 118. We conclude our worship on the holiest day of the year by crying out to God: Pitchu li sharei tzedek, open the gates of righteousness.

We are here, to open the gates- to open the gates of righteousness, to open the gates of justice.

We are here because it certainly doesn’t look like that’s what our justice department is trying to do. Lately, it seems like our justice department is working overtime to close those gates, and to barricade them shut.

To lock the gates to the voting booths, to lock the gates of the private prisons, after filling them to capacity. They want to lock the gates to this country, to lock the gates to our hospitals and our clinics.

Yesterday, I stand with my brothers and sisters, people of faith, to say that when our justice department closes the gates, together, we will push them back open.

Open the gates.

If they punish sanctuary cities, then we will open wide the doors of our sanctuaries to welcome in those who are vulnerable and afraid.

Open the gates.

If they ban courageous transgender Americans from defending the values of this country, then we will defend our values by standing with them in solidarity.

Open the gates.

If they’re going to send tweets about the devastating hurricane in Houston, we’re going to send food, and diapers, and people to help rebuild.

Open the gates.

If they want to build walls, well then we’re just going to have to lift each other up higher.   “Open the gates”

If they want to teach hate, then we are going to have to love harder.

Open the gates.

Because, of this, we are certain. They are not truly the gatekeepers. They are not the ultimate gatekeeper. They can try to barricade those gates closed, but we will walk tall and unafraid. And we will keep marching right up to those gates, and we will push on those gates with our bodies, with our voices, with our words, with our songs, with our prayers, and we will open the gates.

Arm in arm, we will open the gates, and we will walk through those gates into a land of righteousness, into a land of justice, and into a land of love. Together, we will open the gates of justice.

—

Rabbi Hannah L. Goldstein serves Temple Sinai, in Washington D.C.