Velveteen Rabbi

New essay in Zeek about moving beyond binaries

I'm delighted to have an essay in Zeek once again. This essay owes a tremendous debt to Rabbi Irwin Kula and to the text study session in which he led my cohort of Rabbis Without Borders Fellows at our February gathering. The essay (like the text study session) looks at the Talmudic figure of Rabbi Meir as a paragon of post-triumphalism and a role model for striving to see through / beyond binary distinctions.

Here's a taste:

Talmud teaches (Eruvin 13b) that in the generation of Rabbi Meir there was none equal to him. He was the best mind of his generation, bar none. Why, then (the sages ask) was the halacha not fixed according to his insights? Because his insights were so deep that no one else could fathom them. “He would declare the ritually unclean to be clean and supply plausible proof, and the ritually clean to be unclean and supply plausible proof.”

The categories of tahor and tamei, clean and unclean (or, susceptible to ritual impurity, and not-susceptible to ritual impurity), were foundational to the sages of the Talmud. This was one of the primary binary distinctions through which they understood their world. And Rabbi Meir saw right through it.

A lot of progressive Jews are squeamish about the whole idea of tahor and tamei. (I’ve been there myself: what do you mean, the blood my healthy uterus generates every month makes me unclean?) Our discomfort with that system may get in the way of appreciating just how radical Rabbi Meir was.

But try this on for size: imagine looking at a staunch Republican and being able to see the Democratic values that person nonetheless holds. (And vice versa.) Imagine someone who could perceive the relativism beneath the most fundamentalist exterior — and the fundamentalism to which even the most relativist may be prone. In our modern paradigm, I think these are translations of what Rabbi Meir did and who he was in the world.

You can read the whole thing at Zeek: Being Meir.

Daily April poem: inspired by a Yiddish folksong

COMING SOON

Ribbons and pearls adorn
this golden land, and messiah

will come this very year.
If we can only believe.

The man who taught me this
wept every time he sang

his body shaking with yearning
for the world redeemed

where no oil fires burn
and no mothers grieve

where no one would pour water
down another man's nostrils, or

pack a handmade bomb into a square
where joyous throngs have gathered.

I don't know anymore
what would bring her, what

he's waiting for, but
tradition says moshiach sits

with the lepers outside the gates
with the sick and poor and frightened

waiting for us to offer
a drink of fresh water

a clean bandage
an embrace.

 

 

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This poem was inspired by the Yiddish folksong "Shnirele Perele." You can watch/listen to it on YouTube, read a bit about its history, and read the lyrics here at Perry Greenbaum's blog if you're so inclined. I love this song, though the melody (and meaning) wrenches at my heart.

The last few stanzas refer to the Talmudic story about the messiah sitting outside the gates.

3 Nisan: Slavery

T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights notes that "t]o be a Jew is to know both slavery and liberation" and that "[b]ecause of the Jewish experience of the Exodus, the Torah commands us to protect the stranger in our midst 36 times — according to the Talmud, more often than the laws of the Sabbath or of keeping kosher." T'ruah continues:

And yet, 3000 years after the Jewish people are said to have been liberated from slavery, and 150 years after the Civil War, more people are enslaved today than at any other point in history. According to the most conservative estimates of the International Labor Organization, nearly 21 million people are held in situations of forced labor today: 3 out of every 1,000 people in the world.

(That's from T'ruah's index page on slavery and human trafficking.)

It's easy to imagine that the story of our Exodus from slavery is ancient history. (Or perhaps that it's not history at all -- for some of us it's a kind of deep literary or spiritual story which doesn't need to be rooted in verifiable historical experience.) It's easy to think about the Pesach story as a metaphor for our relatively comfortable lives: to what -- our jobs, our expectations -- do we enslave ourselves? And how can we know ourselves to be liberated from those places of constriction? Those are great questions. I ask them every year at my seders, and every year the conversations which ensue are meaningful.

But slavery is still real. Slavery happens today. There are people enslaved in actual debt bondage around the world -- and human trafficking, which is a pernicious form of slavery, still happens. (See Slavery, trafficking, and people of faith, 2008.) That's the most extreme example -- but there are also people who work in unthinkably poor conditions for unthinkably small amounts of money, and that's a kind of slavery too. (Are the tomatoes you buy at the grocery store slavery-free?) There are people for whom credit card debts mount so high that they feel as constricting as slavery. (See Credit Card Debt Explained With a Glass of Water.)

When you sit down for your beautiful Pesach meal, be conscious that slavery wasn't just what (might have) happened to the Israelites in ancient Egypt. It isn't just a shameful American legacy. It's something that still happens, in a variety of ways. Our people's central story holds that we were slaves to a Pharaoh in Egypt but our God brought us out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. It's our job to be the mighty hands and outstretched arms which will free those who are enslaved today.

 

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This post is part of #blogExodus / #Exodusgram. Follow other posts on the path to Pesach via those hashtags!

God, let me cry on your shoulder

A prayer after today's school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. (See also R' Menachem Creditor's Prayer in the wake of a school shooting.)

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God, let me cry on Your shoulder.
Rock me like a colicky baby.
Promise me You won't forget

each of Your perfect reflections
killed today. Promise me
You won't let me forget, either.

I'm hollow, stricken like a bell.
Make of my emptiness a channel
for Your boundless compassion.

Soothe the children who witnessed
things no child should see,
the teachers who tried to protect them

but couldn't, the parents
who are torn apart with grief,
who will never kiss their beloveds again.

Strengthen the hands and hearts
of Your servants tasked with caring
for those wounded in body and spirit.

Help us to find meaning
in the tiny lights we kindle tonight.
Help us to trust

that our reserves of hope
and healing are enough
to carry us through.

We are Your hands: put us to work.
Ignite in us the unquenchable yearning
to reshape our world

so that violence against children
never happens again, anywhere.
We are Your grieving heart.

 

A poem, and a few links, for Election Day

Four years ago, I wrote this Torah poem on Election Day. That year, Election Day fell during the week when we read parashat Lech Lecha, in which God tells Avram to go forth from his native land and his father's house to the land which God will show him. (This poem now appears in 70 faces, my collection of Torah poems, published 2011 by Phoenicia Publishing.)

 

FIRST STEP (LECH LECHA)

 

It's not going to be easy.
All of your roadmaps are wrong.

That was another country:
those lakes have dried up

and new groundwater is welling
in places you won't expect.

You'll begin the journey in fog
destination unknown, impossible.

Don't be surprised by tears.
This right here is holy ground.

Take a deep breath and turn away
from cynicism and despair

listen to the voice from on high
and deep within, the one that says

I'm calling you to a place
which I will show you

and take the first small step
into the surprising sun.

 

I still find the poem meaningful as an expression of Torah and of my own experience of entering the voting booth and casting a vote for hope and change. Even if we're not reading Lech Lecha this week (we're not; this year, Election Day falls during the week of parashat Chayyei Sarah), there's something about the act of voting which feels to me very lech-lecha, very much a journey into hope for new possibilities.

Also worth reading today: Jay Michaelson's The Nexus of Spirituality and Politics in Zeek.

And: Rabbi David Seidenberg's Prayer for Voting, which I shared here four years ago.

May the outcome of today's US elections bring blessing to us and to the world.

Resources and information about African migrants in Israel

Since I referenced this summer's violence against African refugees in Tel Aviv in my Rosh Hashanah sermon Being Change, a few people have asked for more information about African migrants in Israel. Here is a collection of (English-language) resources: an overview, some news links, some opinion essays, and some nonprofit organizations in Israel doing good work in this area.

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Overview: Israel houses a large number of African migrants (most estimates say that the African population in Israel is between 60,000 and 70,000). Most of those migrants come from Eritrea and Sudan, and most are in the country illegally, which means that they cannot obtain work visas.

Some argue that the Africans who enter Israel illegally (sometimes called "infiltrators," which is a term with a specific history -- see Infiltrated by history, The Daily Beast) are linked to an increase in crime, that Israel does not have the resources to support them, and that they should be detained and/or deported. Others argue that the Africans who enter Israel illegally are refugees fleeing persecution and seeking a better life, and that Israel has both a legal and an ethical obligation to aid them. (I also know people who believe both of those at once: that the influx of migrants is more than Israel can support, and that they are refugees who deserve aid.)

Recent months have seen an increase in incidents of violence against Africans. Some blame the violence against Africans on crime committed by Africans, and others attribute the violence against Africans to general anti-immigrant sentiment or to poor economic conditions which contribute to social unrest. Also this year, Israel amended its 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law, which now permits Israel to detain migrants for three or more years. (See Migrants in prison protest 'infiltrators' law, Jerusalem Post.) A Jerusalem district court judge issued a preliminary injunction on October 12 banning the summary arrests of Sudanese refugees (see Court prohibits detention of Sudanese refugees days before mass arrests begin, +972); another ruling on this is expected soon.

For more information: The Refugee Situation in Israel (a page provided by the African Refugee Development Center); FAQ on Violence Against Asylum Seekers in Israel (that page is courtesy of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society); African Refugees in Israel (Rabbis for Human Rights).

This week's portion: Sodom and Gomorrah, Hurricane Sandy, and God

Here's the d'var Torah I offered on Friday evening at Shabbat Across the Berkshires, and in modified form on Shabbat morning at my shul. Crossposted to my From the Rabbi blog.

 

This week, in parashat Vayera, God decides to punish the wicked, declaring, "The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave!" And Avraham argues, "Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?"

The two angels who had recently visited Avraham go to Sodom. They've hardly arrived when men swarm Lot's house and demand, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them."

Lot says, "I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong." So far, so good. But then he becomes abhorrent in our eyes when he offers his two daughters instead.

This is the sin of these two infamous places. The next day the towns are destroyed.

This is one way we used to understand destruction raining down from the sky, and our responsibility for that destruction. People make evil choices, and God metes out punishment. In this story, all those who suffer are wicked. Avraham cannot find even the single minyan of righteous souls whose presence would have caused God to spare the towns.

This week too, destruction has rained down from the sky. Not sulfurous fire, but torrential rains and hurricane-force winds.

Here in the Berkshires, Hurricane Sandy toppled trees, leaving thousands without power. Many of us had to keep our kids home from school, brush our teeth with bottled water, eat all the ice cream in our freezers before it spoiled. We're the lucky ones.

The damage in New York and Atlantic City beggars belief. You've probably seen the same photos I have: water flooding subway tunnels, emergency vehicles submerged by the seas, buildings washed away or destroyed by fire.

There are those who interpret storms like this as the wrath of God striking down the wicked: the gamblers of Atlantic City, the queer community in New York. This is toxic theology, and when it is aimed at those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender it is as destructive to hearts and souls as the storm is to property.

What created Hurricane Sandy? A set of systemic causes, a welter of economic and environmental choices, made over time by wealthy nations and corporations. The water along the Atlantic coast this year is 5 degrees higher than average, which increases the likelihood of "superstorms" like Sandy. And yet climate change wasn't mentioned at all in this year's presidential debates.

A storm like this one is a reminder of God's infinite and awesome power -- and also of our own role in creating a planetary system where ice is melting, currents are changing, and a summer of searing drought is followed by wind and rain we can't help but fear.

Cheering for Anat Hoffman

Earlier this week, Anat Hoffman was arrested for daring to wear a tallit and to pray the shema at the Western Wall.

Above: video (Hebrew) of Anat Hoffman's arrest. If you can't see the embedded video, you can go directly to it at YouTube.

Here's how one woman describes what happened, in the blog post Reflections on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 2012:

Coinciding with this month’s Rosh Hodesh celebration is the huge Hadassah Convention blanketing the city. Although it would have been optimum to have the Hadassah women join us on Wednesday morning for the service at the Kotel, there was a scheduling glitch and thus they descended upon the Western Wall at 11 p.m. on Tuesday night. The evening program consisted of a warm welcome from Anat Hoffman, founder and current chair of Women of the Wall, followed by Hebrew songs, led by volunteer Rabbinical students.

When the WOW members and volunteers arrived at the women’s section of the Wall to prepare for the Hadassah contingent, the police and authorities surrounded us. They were harsh in their demands that we could pass out NOTHING, not even the song sheets we had prepared. So when the Hadassah women did arrive, Anat delivered her welcoming remarks and then we all started chanting the Shema, probably the most common prayer in our daily ritual.

Immediately a policeman approached Anat and arrested her for disturbing the peace. To say that we were all shocked is an understatement. We know that there are issues with ultra-Orthodox men opposing women who don prayer shawls and skullcaps and pray out loud, but this was beyond our imagination. Anat was handcuffed, detained overnight, and eventually went before a judge on Wed. afternoon. She was ‘sentenced’ to a 30 day period in which she is not allowed at the Kotel.

In an article in the Forward (Police shackle Anat Hoffman for saying shema at kotel), Hoffman describes her experience:

“In the past when I was detained I had to have a policewoman come with me to the bathroom, but this was something different. This time they checked me naked, completely, without my underwear. They dragged me on the floor 15 meters; my arms are bruised. They put me in a cell without a bed, with three other prisoners, including a prostitute and a car thief. They threw the food through a little window in the door. I laid on the floor covered with my tallit.

“I’m a tough cookie, but I was just so miserable. And for what? I was with the Hadassah women saying Sh’ma Israel.”

I admire Women of the Wall tremendously. As I've written before (most recently in 2011: Pluralism, prayer, and Women of the Wall), I'm not entirely comfortable with the extent to which the Kotel (the Western Wall) is treated as though it, itself, were innately extra-special-holy -- but as long as the Kotel is regarded as a central holy site in Judaism, it should be a place where people of all genders can pray, and not only in the ways regulated by Israel's Orthodox rabbanut (rabbinic authority.) Judaism belongs to all of us, prayer belongs to all of us, and the Kotel belongs to all of us. Shame on those police for arresting a woman because she dares to say Judaism's most central daily prayer aloud in one of Judaism's holiest places. Shame on the system which allows only certain, Orthodox-approved, modes of Jewish prayer at the Kotel.

More importantly, though: kol hakavod (all the honor) to Anat and her colleagues for asserting our right to pray our beloved prayers aloud, wearing the ritual gear which is appropriate to our practice, at this place which has for so long focused and concentrated the prayers of Jews around the world. Anat is an inspiration to me, and so is everyone who davens with Women of the Wall. I look forward to the day when religious pluralism is as alive and well in Israel as it is here in the Diaspora. When I lay tefillin and wrap in my tallit later this morning at my shul, I will feel extra gratitude that I live in a place where I can pray aloud, in my ritual garments, without fear. May the same become true for my Israeli family and friends, speedily and in our day.

 

For more:

• Anat Hoffman after arrest: a minority controls Israel's holy sites and abuses its power, Ha'aretz
• Reform leaders call for probe into Israeli colleague's arrest, police treatment, JTA
• Equality for All at the Western Wall, by Rabbi Wendi Geffen, Huffington Post

A little bit of prison ministry

Sky and wire. Outside the local jail.

I've driven by the Berkshire County Jail and House of Corrections for years, but until this fall, had never set foot inside. I had thought that it only housed people who were awaiting trial, for a matter of months at most. (Among other things, it's called a "jail," not a "prison," and in my understanding the distinction has a lot to do with duration of stay.) But it turns out that many of the 400+ men incarcerated there are there for two to five years. This facility was build in the late '90s, and dedicated in 2001; it replaced the old jail on Second Street which had been built by Civil War veterans in the late 1800s. By the time they moved out of the old jail, it was housing twice as many men as it was built to hold.

I was called in some weeks ago by the minister who manages pastoral care at this county jail. Two of the inmates had expressed the desire to see a rabbi and had articulated an affiliation with Judaism, so the pastor called me. Shortly before the Days of Awe, I met with him and we chatted about my experience working with inmates. (Short answer: very little, though when I was a chaplain in Albany, I did occasionally enter the locked hospital ward to minister to prisoners who had been hospitalized.) After my application was approved by whatever agency makes decisions about who's permitted to tend to ibmates, I made an appointment to see each of the men.

I'd never actually been inside a house of corrections before, so the logistics of the process were interesting to me. I put my things in a locker, gave my ID to the officer in charge, stood still for an ID photo, waited for the big metal doors to clang open so I could enter the locked corridor, waited for them to clang shut behind me and for the next set of doors to open, entered the visiting room which was faced with a set of mirrors which I'm guessing were one-way glass. I couldn't help filtering the experience through the lens of books I've read, from asha bandele's The Prisoner's Wife to Ted Conover's Newjack.

After a short wait, the first man entered the visiting room. While we met, another inmate received a visit from a woman and a toddler; they took seats at the far end of the room, and we tried to ignore each other, to give each other as much privacy as possible. I met with each of the inmates who had requested a rabbi, one at a time. Neither of them was born Jewish, but both have felt an interest in Judaism and a pull toward Judaism since their incarceration. As far as I know, they are the only Jews, or would-be Jews, at this house of corrections.

With each of these men I talked about Judaism, about their lives, about what makes them interested in this tradition. We talked a bit about Torah and a bit about prayer. Both of them have active personal prayer lives, and talk with God daily. I promised to send them Reb Zalman's translation of the prayer for forgiveness recited as part of the bedtime Shema. They asked about what's involved with conversion, and about Jewish congregations in Pittsfield which they might visit upon their release.

Both of the men are local, so they're able to receive regular visits from family. I get the sense that this is a tremendous blessing -- though also sometimes difficult. One inmate spoke with me about the challenges of maintaining his relationship with his girlfriend. They run up enormous phone bills each week (the prison charges a few dollars for each call, even if it only lasts for seconds) and they argue, sometimes. It's hard for her to understand what his life inside is like. It's hard for him to imagine all of the choices and changes which face her while he's in.

I don't know whether either of these men will pursue affiliation with Judaism in the long term. Perhaps this will be a comfort to them while they're inside, and once they return to the ordinary world they'll discover that the pull was temporary. Or perhaps their yearning to connect with Torah and to be part of the chain of Jewish generations will sustain them through their time in jail and into their lives afterwards. That's not for me to know. I'll do what I can to minister to them, regardless. It's a humbling opportunity.

I'm looking forward to further conversations, and to this new way of being of service to people in my community who are in need.

Jen Marlowe, "The Hour of Sunlight," is coming to town

I picked up The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker -- by Sami Al Jundi and Jen Marlowe -- after reading a review of the book in The Jewish Daily Forward. The review is by Israeli-American Emily L. Hauser, and here's how it begins:

Americans often hear about Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. We read Israeli authors in translation, buy Israeli products, and anyone within driving distance of a JCC can hear an Israeli speak on a nearly weekly basis.

What we don't often hear are Palestinians.

This is, I believe, understandable — particularly for the Jewish community. We want to know more about ourselves, our brothers and sisters, our homeland. We want to support our people and our future. We know the story, and don't feel a need to hear the version told by Israel's enemies.

But perhaps that's exactly why we do need to consider Palestinian voices — because after all these years, Israel and the Palestinian people are still enemies.

(Read her whole review here: Hearing Palestinian Voices.) Reading Emily's review made me curious about the book, so I picked up a copy last winter, and last spring I shared my own review (Book review: The Hour of Sunlight.) In my post about the book last March, I wrote:

This book wasn't always easy for me to read, but it is powerful and it is worth reading, especially for anyone who (like me) may have more access to Israeli narratives about the Middle East than to Palestinian ones.

My review reached the attention of Jen Marlowe, the American co-author of the book. I learned that she'd actually given a reading in Williamstown in recent memory, which I had somehow missed. And then she mentioned that she would be happy to return to the Berkshires to share the book and to engage in conversation about it, if there were interest.

MigrantHealth:IL - a ray of hope for migrants in Israel

On one of the rabbinic e-mail lists to which I belong, I read about a project in Israel which brings me hope. It's called MigrantHealth:IL. Here's how they describe the work they're doing:

The Need, explained:

In May, a young Eritrean refugee living in Tel Aviv contracted chicken pox. In most of Israel, or the Western world, this would not be a big deal; if the case gets complicated you go to the doctor, she gives you medicine and the infection clears in a few days.

This mother did not know where to go for help. She was not aware of the free medical care available for refugees who are not covered in the Israeli socialized healthcare system. Because of this, she remained at home and the simple case of chicken pox transformed into a deadly pneumonia.

MigrantHealth:IL addresses the disparity between available health care resources and the Israeli migrant community—our health outreach program prevents scenarios as the one above, that typify the disconnect between resources and needs. 

Our Campaign:

In collaboration with the Tel Aviv Refugee Clinic, we will employ nurses from within the migrant community to improve the health of this population. These nurses are uniquely qualified for working in the migrant community as they are multilingual, highly trained in their home countries, eager to work, and already have their fingers on the ‘pulse’ of their community.

If they can raise $15,000, they'll be able to hire three part-time nurses for one year. (The more money they raise, the more nurses they can hire.) If they can make it through this first year, they expect support from the Israeli Ministry of Health and local hospitals in year two.

Their website is here: MigrantHealth:IL. On that website you can see a short video about the project -- or, if you're reading this in a format which supports embedded video, you can watch the video here:

Short MigrantHealth:IL video, from YouTube.

There are some 80,000 migrants in Israel. (The African Refugee Development Center says there are roughly 60,000 African refugees there, most from Eritrea and Sudan.) This project seeks to tend to the health needs of the migrant community, and to employ members of that community in the process. There are currently some Israeli nurses working with African migrants in Israel, but there are difficulties arising from language barriers; most of the migrants are Eritrean. MigrantHealth will provide jobs for Eritrean nurses, and will provide for the community a pool of nurses who not only speak their language but understand their community context.

This is the brainchild of Doctor Jonah Mink, the son of Cantor Susan Wehle (may her memory be a blessing.) Susan was a part of the Jewish Renewal community, and while I didn't know her personally, I know that she was beloved to many of my friends and colleagues.

Dr. Mink received his MD from the Ben Gurion University School of International Medicine in Beersheva. He's already set up an electronic medical records system for the migrant community at the Tel Aviv Refugee Clinic clinic, which earlier this summer had served more than 7,000 patients and was overwhelmed with requests for care. (That's via the article ROI's 21st Century Vision; Dr. Mink is part of the ROI community, "connect[ing] dynamic Jewish leaders from around the globe, enabling them to turn their passion into action by creating transformative work for the Jewish world and beyond.")

MigrantHealth:IL is a crowdfunded project; they need to raise $15,000 over the next nine days in order to move forward. I just made a donation. There's special merit in giving tzedakah before Shabbat. My teachers teach, and I believe, that when we open our hands to bestow abundance on others, we open cosmic channels for God to bestow abundance on us. If you're able to give a little something, I hope that you will do so. This is so important and necessary -- not just because it acts as a corrective to the shameful violence against African migrants in Tel Aviv this summer (see my May 2012 post For you were strangers in the land of Egypt) but because this is a community of people in desperate need, and this is an easy way to help from afar.

Kol hakavod (props/honor) to the creators of this project. May it flourish and provide limitless assistance and blessing to those in need.

This week's portion: How to treat the poor, the foreign, the powerless

Here's the d'var Torah I offered yesterday at my shul, for parashat Ki Tetzei.

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Today's Torah reading began, "When you make a loan to your compatriot, you must not enter the house to seize the collateral." The word translated as "compatriot" is re'acha: your fellow, your other, your neighbor. A lender may not enter the home, burst into the space, of a borrower. A lender must see the borrower as a fellow human being. If someone is truly needy, they may have given you their only blanket as collateral. You must not keep it overnight, Torah teaches; even if it's collateral for a loan, give it back at night so the borrower can be warm.

Can you imagine a world in which creditors operated this way?

"You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow Israelite or a stranger in one of the communities of your land." If someone who is poor is working for you -- whether they are a fellow member of your tribe, a citizen of your community, or a stranger, an immigrant -- you must pay them their wages at the end of the day.

Reading this, I think of Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed. She chose to live for a time working for an hourly wage, cleaning houses and hotel rooms, in order to write about the difficulties of that life. Her book offers an unflinching look at the "hidden costs" of being poor: for instance, paying more to rent a daily hotel room than one would pay for a comparable apartment, but if you can't afford the first + last month + deposit, you can't escape the cost of the daily rental. The poor have to buy food which is both more expensive, and less healthy, because they have no access to refrigeration or appliances with which to cook.

Can you imagine a world in which even the person mopping hotel rooms or doing janitorial work received a living wage, not waiting two weeks until payday but getting paid each day as the work is done?

"You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow's garment in pawn." The stranger: the immigrant, the migrant worker, the person from across the border, the person from another town, the farm kid who's moved to the city, the refugee, the person whose race or skin color or features are different from everyone else around. The fatherless: the child, the one who is uncertain, the one who has no protection, the powerless. Ensure that someone who has no one to take care of them knows that they wil be safe and cared-for, not preyed-upon or mistreated.

Can you imagine a world in which no one oppressed another person because they are poor or foreign or powerless?

"Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Eternal your God redeemed you from there." Torah repeats this time and again. Remember that you have been mistreated, and never mistreat others. Remember that you experienced degradation, and never degrade others. Remember that you were caught in the narrow place, and have compassion for everyone who is in dire straits.

"When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow -- in order that the Eternal your God may bless you in all your undertakings." When you are harvesting your olive grove, the same is true. Whwn you are gathering grapes in your vineyard, the same is true. Share your abundance with those who don't have enough. Share your abundance with immigrants and refugees, foreigners and strangers, people who are powerless, people who don't look like you or talk like you. This is the path of blessing. Can you imagine walking on this path?

"Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment." Get this through your heads, Torah seems to be saying. How many times do I have to tell you? Treat the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the immigrant, your neighbor and your "Other," with kindness and compassion. Make sure they have warm clothes for winter and enough food on the table. Always remember that you have known loss and lack, confinement and constriction, and let that memory impel you to be righteous, to be kinder to others than the world has been to you.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we made our world really work this way?

 

Wishing for a different communal discourse

Late last week, I was forwarded links* to two Republican organizations trying to shame Rabbis for Obama by mis-representing several of the rabbis in that group (particularly Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb) as "anti-Israel activists."

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb first traveled to Israel in 1966, when she spent a year as an exchange student at Leo Baeck High School in Haifa. She experienced the call into rabbinic service the Shavuot she was fifteen, when she gave a speech called "Man and the Moral Law." (Women didn't begin receiving rabbinic smicha in the United States until Rabbi Sally Priesand in 1972, but Rabbi Gottlieb was one of the first eight women ordained as a rabbi when she was ordained in 1981.) Her first pulpit was Temple Beth Or of the Deaf. She's a trailblazer in the field of feminist liturgy (I use one of her poems in my seder each year.) And she's the coordinator of the Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence. A few years ago I interviewed her for Zeek, along with several other rabbis, in a roundtable about Israel: Roundtable: The Synagogue/ Israeli Politics Mash-Up. She is not anti-Israel, and neither are the rest of us who have subsequently been called out.

As this has unfolded, the xkcd cartoon has come to mind:

"Someone is wrong on the internet!" Courtesy of xkcd.

The cartoon is funny because it's true. Of course some part of me wants to rise to the bait, to correct the record because what is being said is not true. And then I think: why would I allow people who misrepresent us in these ways to define the terms of the conversation? And why does it matter to me that someone is, as the cartoon says, wrong on the internet?

This week's portion: Justice Shall You Pursue

This week we're in parashat Shoftim, late in the book of Dvarim (Deuteronomy.) This parsha is the source of one of the most well-known verses from Torah: "Justice, justice shall you pursue!" In this parsha we read: establish towns where someone who has accidentally committed manslaughter can flee, so that the spiral of violence and retribution doesn't self-perpetuate. We read: do not punish someone on the testimony of a single witness.

We read: on the eve of war, if someone has planted a vineyard but not yet harvested -- built a house but not yet consecrated it -- become engaged but not yet wed -- let that person go home and fulfill those holy promises. (I wrote about that in 2006.) We read: when you approach a town to attack it, offer it terms of peace.

And we also read that if that town refuses the terms of peace, Torah says to attack them and then put all of their men to the sword and enslave their women. And that's only for towns which are far away; for the towns which are nearby, Torah says, the ones containing inhabitants who are known to be idolaters, kill them all. Ouch.

And then we read: even when you are besieging a city, you must not cut down its trees. Are trees human, the Torah asks, that they could flee before you? Therefore show mercy, especially to fruit-bearing trees.

As I study this parsha this year I'm struck by my own oscillation. Some of these verses are beautiful to me, while others make me squirm with discomfort. I don't want such violence to be enshrined in my holy text.

The theme of the parsha, as I understand it, is justice. The cities of refuge are a matter of justice. Releasing young soldiers who haven't yet lived full lives is a matter of justice. Sparing the trees is a matter of justice.

And in the Biblical understanding, the stuff about killing all the men in an enemy city -- or, worse, killing everyone, including the women and children -- is also a matter of justice. But in today's paradigm our understanding of what is just and righteous has shifted. Killing all the enemy men, or slaughtering men and women and children alike, may have been understood as justice in antiquity. Today it would be an unthinkable massacre. I am grateful to live at a moment in time when we understand this kind of violence as horrific.

But violence is still endemic. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that "scores of Israeli youth" attacked a Palestinian teen named Jamal Julani in Jerusalem, rendering him unconscious and hospitalized. (NYT: Young Israelis Held in Attack on Arabs.) "If it was up to me, I would have murdered him," said one fifteen-year-old boy. Two of the other suspects in the beating are girls, one of them only thirteen years old. (The NYT blog The Lede has more: Account of a 'Lynch' in Jerusalem on Facebook.)

It's enough to make me wish for cities of refuge where people could go to break the cycle of the endless violence. Though in Biblical times, the refuge was only for accidental manslaughter, and it doesn't sound to me like the harm here was inflicted accidentally.

Fortunately Jamal Julani survived the beating. But what is wrong with our world that kids of thirteen and fifteen are swept up in so much hate? What is wrong with our understanding of Torah that we pay more attention to the injunction against cutting down a fruit tree (which is taught each year at Tu BiShvat with great gusto -- see, e.g., the beautiful exhibit "Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought" at the Contemporary Jewish Museum) than to the injunction to pursue justice and righteousness with all our might? (Even fruit trees aren't always safe -- as described in this 2012 Rabbis for Human Rights report about settlers destroying olive groves.)

We've entered the month of Elul, a time for soul-searching and teshuvah. I know I need to make teshuvah for giving in to the inclination to turn away from stories like this one, for closing my eyes to injustice and suffering caused by people who share my religious tradition and my holy text. But Torah does not belong only to those who use it to justify such actions. Torah belongs equally to we who are horrified by these stories.

Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: justice, justice shall you pursue. May we be strengthened in justice and righteousness. May we be brave enough to face injustice and to work toward transformation and healing, here and everywhere.

 

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Recommended reading:

• Lynching in Zion Square: Are We Responsible? by Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Rabbis for Human Rights

Broken world, broken heart

Sometimes reading the news makes my heart twist and my stomach sink. I don't know what to say about the horrific shooting in a Sikh gurdwara yesterday (CNN: Gunman, six others dead at Wisconsin Sikh temple). Not to mention the dreadful response of Westboro Baptist Church to the terrorist attack -- not surprising, but still depressing. This is not the America of our dreams.

I don't know what to say about the reality that as ugly anti-immigrant sentiment becomes more pervasive, Africans are routinely harrassed in Israel today. (YNet news: African diplomats in Israel: We're afraid to walk down streets.) Nor the reports of more than 50 instances last month of settlers attacking Palestinians. (Ha'aretz: Lambs to the settlers' slaughter, screaming and unheard). This is not the Israel of our dreams.

I don't know what to say about the situation in Syria. Rabbi Brant Rosen's essay Syrians Pay the Price in a Sick Proxy War is sobering. So is Marc Lynch's Preparing for Assad's Exit. I don't know enough about Syria to know whether, or how, things will get better. And these are just the posts at the top of my aggregator. Just today the Lebanon Daily Star reported a massacre which killed forty. I have no connection to Syria, but the news is pretty uniformly heartrending.

Everything I've just mentioned is huge, important, awful. Here's something tiny and grotesque: I learned this week that I've been named, along with thousands of my friends and colleagues, on a list of supposed self-hating Israel threateners. (I'm not going to link to it. Here's the Wikipedia entry about it intead.) On the one hand it's laughable. And on the other hand it's upsetting, and the fact that people chose to spend their time compiling this list makes me sad.

(The people who maintain the list are Kahanists; they're too far-out for even self-identified far-right Jews. But still. How is this a good use of anyone's heart, soul, or time?)

When I look at all of the hatred in our world today, I don't know how to find enough balm for our broken hearts. I want to hold all of this in my prayers, everyone who is suffering, everyone who has been hurt, everyone who is so damaged that they can only manage to hate and hurt others, but sometimes it's so heavy it crushes my prayers; I can't lift it up.

All I can do is close the laptop, say a prayer, and spend time with my son. What response can there be to hatred, other than teaching our children not to hate in return?

A Prayer for Syria

Shekhinah, in Whose womb creation is nurtured:
when your children are slaughtered you weep.
Bring peace beneath Your fierce embrace
to Syria. Let a new image of the world be born
in which American Jews pray for Syrians, who pray
for Israelis, who pray for Palestinians, who pray
even for American Jews. Fill the hearts
of the insurgents with Your compassion
so that when the regime comes to its end
no one seeks the harsh justice of retaliation.
And for us: strengthen our resolve not to turn away.
We bless You, Source of Mercy. Bring wholeness
to this broken creation. And let us say: Amen.

 

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The idea that poetry can create a "new image of the world" comes from Syrian poet Ali Ahmed Said, who writes under the pen name Adonis.

If this prayer speaks to you, feel free to share it widely. I ask only that you keep my name and URL attached so that people know where it came from.

Joy Ladin's Through the Door of Life

Joy Ladin's extraordinary memoir Through the Door of LIfe: A Jewish Journey Between Genders begins with a short chapter I wish I could excerpt in full. Instead, I will link you to it; it was published in Zeek, as the essay A Blessing Over Progesterone. Here is how it begins:

Every day I say a blessing in Hebrew over my medication: “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, who has kept us, preserved us, and brought us to this time.” That blessing is traditionally said at the beginnings of holidays, on the eating of new kinds of fruit, and at any joyous occasion at which Jews want to heighten their sense of gratitude by becoming mindful of the singularity of the moment and the precariousness of the lives that have brought us to it. It is not said on the taking of medication; it is specifically not to be said over daily events, for which there are different blessings; and it is never said over a disease.

The medications I take — progesterone tablets, which I swallow whole, and sweet circles of estrogen that I dissolve under my tongue — are synthetic versions of the powerful hormones that naturally define and regulate many of the physiological characteristics of normal female bodies. I don’t have a normal female body. Born without the capacity to produce more than trace amounts of female hormones, for decades my body instead has produced testosterone, masculinizing my face, bones, muscle, hair, and skin. Though there are few aspects of my physical form unravaged by testosterone’s effects, thanks to my medication, those effects are diminishing. For the first time in my life, when I look in the mirror, I see someone who has begun to resemble — me.

Every trans person has a coming-out story. Most of these stories involve struggle for acceptance -- from oneself and from others -- and often these stories are heartbreaking. Joy's struggle takes a very particular form: she dealt with the impact of her transition while teaching at the women's college of Yeshiva University, the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy. She writes:

Orthodox Judaism, like most traditional forms of religion, considers the things transsexuals do to fit our bodies to our souls to be sins. In my case, those sins included wearing women's clothing and taking hormones that destroyed my fertility. I was also violating customs and conceptions of gender that, while not mandated by Jewish law, are held to with religious conviction by many Orthodox Jews[.]

That conviction is so strong that Joy feared that even receiving tenure at Stern would not be enough to keep her in her job once she transitioned. And transition was necessary. "My gender identity crisis had destroyed my marriage, shattered my family, and turned me into an unwelcome stranger in my own home," she writes. Upon receiving tenure, she moved out of the home she had shared with her wife. "My children were grief stricken, angry, and baffled by the double blow of losing their happy family and the strange transformation of the father they loved."

When she explained to her dean that she was beginning the process of transition, she was forbidden from setting foot on campus. But she was allowed to return to teaching in 2008. After much negotiation (including which bathrooms she would be permitted to use), she returned to her life as an academic.

Finally, September arrived, and with it, my first happy day in a long time. After years of hiding and pretending, I was finally going to stand before my students and colleagues as the person -- the woman -- I knew myself to be. More important, after centuries of intolerance, an institution representing Orthodox Judaism was about to welcome an openly transgender employee...

My office was heaped with the same stacks of papers, the same teaching anthologies, but the name beside the door said "Dr. Joy Ladin." It was a miracle. I -- the real me -- was here, in plain sight. I walked through the halls, waiting for my transition to matter to someone. It didn't. Teachers rushed to and fro, students talked on cell phones or swayed back and forth in prayer. People had more important things to do than think about my gender.

Balm to my heart: Israelis celebrate Shavuot with African kids in Tel Aviv

I follow Mya Guarnieri on twitter, so when her post at +972 -- After race riots, Israelis celebrate holiday with African kids -- went live, I read it immediately. (The race riots in question happened last week in Tel Aviv -- I wrote about them in my post For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.) Here's an excerpt from Mya's latest essay:

After last week’s race riots, the mood in the area is dark, tense, pessimistic. While our conversations took place in public, a number of Africans told me that they are scared “even right now.” These were grown men who were frightened for their physical safety on busy streets in broad daylight.

So I was moved to see a couple of bright spots in the area. The Garden Library -- the initiative of local NGOs, including Mesila -- was up and running yesterday. Asylum seekers and migrant workers were perusing the books while Israeli volunteers played with African and Filipino children.

In the grass to the side of the Garden Library, a small group of Jewish Israelis and the children of African asylum seekers marked Shavuot by reading the Book of Ruth together in Hebrew...

This sign reminds that while racism and xenophobia are huge problems in Israel society, there are some Jewish Israelis who oppose hatred of foreigners (photo: Mya Guarnieri)

The whole piece is very much worth reading.

After posting a link to her essay, Mya tweeted "Caveat to last tweet: that bright moment does not mitigate or whitewash, in any way, the prevailing racism in Israeli society." In response, I tweeted back saying "Bright moment doesn't change underlying issues, but it does my heart good."

Mya's bio on +972 tells me that she's working with an agent on a book about migrant workers in Israel. I can't wait to read it.

For you were strangers in the land of Egypt

Photo of the anti-asylum-seekers rally in Tel Aviv by Tomer Neuberg.

My friend rabbinic student Marisa James shared this photo on FB, adding, "At the anti-asylum-seekers protest yesterday in Tel Aviv - the slogan on the shirt reads "death to the Sudanese." I'd love to know where the girl wearing the shirt would be living today if her ancestors had been deported back to where they came from. Or if she would be living at all." Her comment struck a chord with me, and it's been resonating in me uncomfortably all day.

I've been reading news stories about the violence against Sudanese migrants at the recent rally in Tel Aviv. Here are a few: Hundreds demonstrate in south Tel Aviv against illegal migrants (Ha'aretz); Israeli politicians are fanning the flames of anti-migrant tension (the Guardian); Africans attacked in Tel Aviv protest; MKs, 'infiltrators' are cancer' (+972); Politicians stoke hatred for African Refugees (NIF newsletter). The rhetoric is ugly (right-wing members of Knesset calling illegal migrants "a cancer in our body"); the violence and beatings (Ha'aretz reports that "nine people were arrested, some while they were beating Sudanese migrants") even more so.

Here in the States our discourse around immigration, and migrant workers who are here illegally, can get pretty ugly too. (I'm not going to dig up links, but we all know it's out there; instead I'll link to The Damage of Anti-Immigrant Laws and Rhetoric, an excellent interview which deserves the signal-boost.) If it's troubling to mistreat illegral migrants who are seeking a better life for themselves and their families, how much more so when the mistreatment is of those who seek asylum.

Of course, there are voices within Israel -- including members of the Knesset -- who are outraged by the rhetoric and the violence. (See, e.g., Gal On: Stop Inciting Against Illegal Aliens!) MK Gal On argues that the violence we've just seen in Tel Aviv is ultimately caused by economic hardship -- which makes sense to me; when people are feeling economically and socially marginalized, they lash out at someone more marginal than they.

Violence against those who are powerless happens everywhere. And it shouldn't. But one could argue that it especially shouldn't happen in a state which aims to embody Torah ideals. "You shall love the stranger," Torah tells us, "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (For some beautiful commentary on this verse, and how it applies today, see Va'ahavtem et ha-Ger: Love the Stranger; also Love the Stranger [pdf] by Rabbi Mordechai Liebling.)

Jewish history is filled with exile and wanderings. Our community retains the memory of being marginalized and mistreated. When economic times were tough, time and again, we have been the victims of attacks, of prejudice, of pogroms. I'm reminded of another verse from Torah: that which is hateful to you, do not do to another. (The sage Hillel famously cited that verse as a summation of the entire Torah -- adding, of course, "all the rest is commentary; go and learn.")

In Ha'aretz this morning I read an essay by Sudanese refugee Adam Ibrahim, who writes:

If you don't want us here, don't turn your rage at us, because we have no choice. I have nowhere to go. I just want to live in safety. I agree to be deported to any African country, other than Sudan. I just want to live with dignity, without people talking about the color of my skin, and I want to stop feeling hostility on the streets.

It is important for me to say that we are not a burden on society. We work for less than minimum wage in jobs that Israelis wouldn't want to do themselves anyway. We pay rent, and make do with organizations that we established ourselves. It is hard for me to hear Eli Yishai's statements in the media. Their impact on Israelis is tremendous, since in Israel everyone listens to the news.

The state is spreading negative propaganda against us – they say it is unsafe here because of us. I feel that the Jews are doing to us the exact same thing the Germans did to them.

(That's from his essay An African migrant's plea for a few basic rights.)

Props to my friends and colleagues in Israel who are standing up against this wave of anti-immigrant hatefulness. (ETA: props to the New Israel Fund for Our Book of Ruth, which connects this situation with the book of Ruth which we'll read in a few days on Shavuot, and to Rabbis for Human Rights for Today Ruth Would Be Considered an 'Infiltrator,' Forbidden From Gleaning.)  If you're wondering what you can do to help, The African Refugee Development Center does good work, and they're raising funds to support their community in the wake of the attacks.

I'll close with a few words from Haggai Mattar, from his essay How I Survived a Tel Aviv Mob Attack (again in +972):

Morning is now up, broken windows of shops and houses need mending, and the peace is somewhat restored. At the end of the day, we must remember that most of the people in our southern neighborhoods largely live together in peace. Many try to bridge gaps and find solutions. Many on both sides know that their enemy is not the asylum seekers or the local Israeli population but the government – which is both creating this impossibly flammable situation and throwing burning matches into it. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning.

What would it take to change the story -- to move from this beginning into a story of compassion and connection?

Awesome community media piece: Mind the Gap in Crown Heights

Via this post at Jewschool I found a pretty wonderful piece of community media called Mind the Gap in Crown Heights:

(If you can't see the embedded video, above, you can go directly to it at YouTube.)

 

This is a radio and film piece made as part of Radio Rookies, "a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world." Here's how the video is described on YouTube:

Four teenage girls, all new immigrants from the Caribbean, arrive at a high school in the heart of what was the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago. As newcomers they know nothing of the long history of tension between the Black and Lubavitch Jewish communities in the neighborhood. They set out to try to educate themselves about a culture so different from their own, in the midst of stereotypes and misinformation about Jewish people.

Editor's Note on video: The Crown Heights Community Mediation Center works to improve inter-group relations in Crown Heights by creating a safe space where people of different backgrounds are encouraged to discuss hard conversations, through activities and workshops. For example, the scene in the video where Amy Ellenbogen, the Center's Director, poses a statement about co-existence in the neighborhood is a part of a game, "The Human Barometer", where participants move to different parts of the room to show if they agree, disagree or feel neutral about the issue.

It's wonderful to be able to watch and listen as these four girls from the Caribbean begin to learn about their Chabad Lubavitch neighbors -- and vice versa. Of course, the encounter isn't always comfortable or easy; but I give these kids props for their curiosity and their genuine desire for encounter.

As I think on it, there are a lot of stereotypes which could stand to be shattered not just in the Jewish communities' relationships with the broader world, but within our own communities, too. For instance, the liberal Jewish kids I teach and the young people who attend yeshiva in a Chabad setting -- those are groups of youngsters who never have a chance to connect and who almost certainly have all kinds of unconscious prejudices and misconceptions about one another. I guess that's always true.

I wish it were more possible to create more of these kinds of encounters, both within the Jewish communities and between our communities and others! But meanwhile, kol hakavod -- mad props -- to Selena Brown, Chantell Clarke, Sabrina Smith, and Tangeneka Taylor for going outside their comfort zome and making something really wonderful.

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For more on this:

In Crown Heights, Getting Past Stereotypes Through Learning, in the New York Times