This shabbos I was honored to give a drash for social responsibility shabbat. If you want to hear it, follow this link. You can enjoy the entire service or start at the drash around the 70 minute mark.
August 16, 2014, just a few days after the murder of Michael Brown, I was asked to write down what I was feeling --- hard task for this extroverted over thinker. I went through a litany of feelings, starting with anger, frustration and disgust, but I ended on a hopeful note:
“We ARE the beloved community that Dr. King talked about, but we have forgotten. Over the last few days, we have had a chance to remember. Remember that we really are all family.
In the days, weeks, months and years ahead, we have a lot of work to do to ensure healing from this disease of racism. But this is an internal work. Those of us familiar with the passage in Leviticus know about it. Ve‐ahavta le‐re’akha kamokha. You are to love your neighbor as yourself. Gotta start with ourselves. Gotta respect, love and honor yourself. Then and only then can you master loving, caring for and respecting your neighbor. Fixing the problem as I see it is an inside job. I’m ready for a revolution and it starts with me.”
Then they murdered Kajieme Powell (August 19, 2014) Michael Willis (September 17, 2014), Kim King (September 19, 2014), VonDerrit Myers Jr. (October 8, 2014), Terrell Beasley (December 19, 2014), Antonio Martin (December 23, 2014), Isaac Holmes (January 21, 2015), LeDarius Williams (February 3, 2015) Thomas Allen Jr (March 1, 2015) and Thaddeus McCarroll (March 17, 2015). All of them were given a death sentence without a trial date, a lawyer or someone to be with them as they died.
I felt hopeless. All of those marches and rallies. All of the sacred conversations about race, all of the die ins and candle light vigils. It seemed like I was fighting a losing battle.
And, I was in pain. There was the pain of racism that seems to permeate every institution and system here in America, including Judaism. There was the pain of transphobia which cut deep when there were meetings held about me and other queer people in the movement for Black lives, questioning not only our motives but our very existence. Then the pain of anti semitism from within the movement for Black lives and the queer community. I have the good fortune of living at the intersection of such hatred and disregard for humanity and I have come to realize that there are no safe spaces, only courageous spaces that allow people to show up authentically and speak their truth.
Yet I have my own work to do which led me to the Selah leadership training where this year the 14th cohort was designated for Jews of Color. Last month I began this leadership journey with a cohort of 22 JOCs at our first meet up in California - and in this healing and refreshing space I experienced a sense of freedom and vulnerability that allowed me to connect deeply with my identity both as a Jew and a person of color.
Over the last several years, I have been triggered over and over again, via state and community violence, social media, and conversations with others. According to the surveys that were filled out by some of my friends and colleagues, this has led to a change in my demeanor that has put some people off. They reported that I have seemed less friendly and positive. While it was hard to hear those words, I know I needed to hear them because this was the work I went there to do in order to be better leader. Because for me, being a better leader means that I can engage in the work of tikkun olam without what my grandmother of blessed memory would say, “letting anyone steal my joy.” I spent a great deal of time exploring what feelings lay beneath the triggers and where it was felt in the body. And since then, not only have I been more aware of when I was being triggered, I could better respond to the people around me when it happened. What a blessing this has already been in my life. There is so much power in being in control of my body, my mind and most importantly, my mouth in times of high stress.
I also learned and practiced with intention how to listen deeply without thinking of my response. As an audiologist, I spend a great deal of time listening to my patients, students and colleagues. But I have been challenged, especially in situations of disagreement and confrontation, to gaze into the eyes of the person I am listening to and just sh’ma – listen. During our training It would sometimes feel strange, like I was staring at this person. But what was really going on is that I was giving my full attention to another human. Not because I wanted to respond, but because I wanted them to know that I see them, I hear them, and they mattered to me. A fellow trans activist, Lourdes Ashley Hunter, recently posted on Facebook: “No one is disposable. Not even those who went out of their way to cause me so much pain. We all deserve to be healed and liberated.” Yes, all of us, including the police officers who left this permanent scar on my wrist deserve to be heard, to be seen, to be healed and liberated. White supremacy and institutional racism hurts all of us and the only way we win is getting free together.
But it's hard to get free together when we are hurting the very people we call our family.
My fellow cohorts recalled that some of their children experienced racism for the first time in a white Jewish space. Another mentioned that they are often asked which one of their parents is Jewish, presuming that only one of their parents was. And more than a few of us get asked on a regular basis how we became Jewish as if we weren’t born Jewish and why is it that you need to know this information? Treating JOCs as spectacles and questioning us endlessly is a sign of disrespect. I would challenge anyone before they ask those questions to check their halacha. There is much work to do in our Jewish community when it comes to race, class and identity.
I believe that this week’s parsha, Parshahat Terumah helps guide us in this communal work. This week we get the instructions for building the mishkan. At the very beginning, G-d says to Moses, “tell the people to bring Me gifts, accepting gifts for Me from EVERY person whose heart so moves them.” We are told what types of gifts will be accepted – about 15 different things from precious metals, yarns and linen, spices, wood to dolphin skins. Right away we see that while everyone might not have the same gift, EVERYONE has a gift to share. And indeed, as the story plays out in the Torah, ALL of the gifts were important to making the sanctuary whole. Over the last couple of years, I have shared my gift of music and bringing people together in the streets . I’ve also shared the gift of just showing up and being a witness to what is happening in our sanctuary. What are the gifts your heart is leading you to bring?
One fascinating thing I learned from one of my teachers, Maharat Rori Picker Neiss is Midrash Tanhuma which connects the creation story to the building of the mishkan. The rabbis went line by line and verb by verb connecting these two events. And you might ask why that matters? It matters because this is where we get our laws for Shabbat. What is work for us? Work is building the mishkan, just like work for G-d was creating the world. G-d created a space for people to dwell and we created a space for G-d to dwell. We are co creators with G-d, bringing our gifts together to make a more just world.
Making a dwelling place that holds, cares for and nurtures Michael Brown Jr and his family, Darren Wilson and his family, and the 1,205 families that were forever changed in 2015 because their loved one encountered a police officer. If we are serious about mishkan building, my good friend and teacher Graie Barasch-Hagans says “we must be able to bring our fears, our hurts, our pains, our anger, our frustration, our joy, our pride, our fullness into this holy space so that there is room for us all”
Being apart of Selah has afforded me the opportunity to explore the pain and the strength that I live with at this scared intersection of Black and Jewish here in america. And I have to say that I feel revitalized, supported and dare I say hopeful.
My challenge to you is to look within and do the work to free yourself. This looks different for everyone. For some it is witnessing whiteness classes, for others it is putting both feet into a social justice cause, and for some, it might be learning how to be in a room, be it actual or virtual without taking up space. Then determine what your gifts are and as your heart leads you, use them so we can build this mishkan, this sanctuary, that helps us see beyond the binaries that gives us false choices of either or, that illuminates the need for healing and liberation for the oppressed as well as the oppressor and that allows all of us to be courageous enough to be our authentic selves without apology.
I’m ready for a revolution and it begins with all of us.
Shabbat Shalom.
Comments
Post a Comment