I know I haven’t
written in a few months, and I’m not sure how often I will continue to write.
But I’m sitting on the train back from my amazing, relaxing vacation in Maine,
where I spent almost a week with my partner in near-solitude, with a car lent to
us by my parents and a house lent to us by his parents, kayaking and watching
movies and shutting out the world. Now I’m on the train back to the real world,
and I’m listening to Ani DiFranco’s album “Not So Soft.” I received the album
as a holiday gift sometime around 2004 and didn’t even realize at the time that
it was already almost 15 years old. The anger at classism, racism, and sexism
was still so current and felt so validating for my budding teenage raging
leftism to hear. And now, another ten years later, the tones of the album are
still so relevant and still feel so validating for my young adult raging
leftism. So, with Ani’s melodic anger in my ears, thinking about my anxiety
about my work load in the coming months once the school year starts and sadness
about certain events of white male entitlement of this past year, I turn to
Torah.
This week’s Torah
portion is from Deuteronomy, the final book of Moses. The parts of the Bible
that lose narrative tend to get overlooked or forgotten, but this parasha,
Shoftim, is full of some good lines. It contains my favorite laws regarding
fairness in war, reminding us that trees are innocent bystanders and not to cut
down the foliage surrounding the city your warriors are sieging (this seems
like a good time to remind anyone who reads this in time that the Arava alumni
are throwing a fundraiser at Central Bar in NYC on Wednesday, August 27 from
6:30-9:30, and if you cared about environmental cooperation between conflicting
nations, like the Torah tells you to, you will be there!). Ahem. Also, most
notably perhaps, Parashat Shoftim contains the line “Tzedek Tzedek tirdof,” or,
“Justice, Justice shall you pursue” (16:20).
Many of you are
already pursuing justice. Good on you. Some of you think you are, but more
likely are doing exactly what I am doing. Seeking half-heartedly to better educate
yourself, getting sad and angry at the situation, thinking to yourself, “Someone
should do something!”, wondering what you can do to help, then going back to
enjoying your privilege and what’s left of your summer and shutting it all out
because it’s just so hard. Probably no one who would read this is heartily in
favor of maintaining the racist or sexist systems that in some fashion hurt us
all (and in all fashions hurt others significantly more). However, every time
we don’t actively pursue justice, we are aiding these systemic subjugations.
And just in case,
any readers out there might be on the wrong side of history (and I assure you,
this is not a matter of difference of opinion, there is a wrong side in cases
of violent sexism and racism), and are willing to support systems of oppression
that pre-judge certain members of society, I remind you that this Torah portion
also contains two verses that tell us at least two witnesses are needed (17:6
and 19:15) to pass judgment. Whatever your feelings on the death penalty as the
outcome of a fair and honest trial, and whatever you may think was done that
warrants persecution, it is at least clear that no one person ever has the
right to take the life of another person, for any reason. Claims of
self-defense muddy the waters and tend to be open to interpretation, but
self-defense rarely involves multiple gun shots, including to the back, or strangling
someone from behind to death. And anyway, self-defense starts to seem a flimsy
excuse when those doing the “defending” are people in power and those dying are
people without.
Although my
references should be pretty clear and not at all vague, I’ve purposely not
named specific cases, because these specific cases represent a larger whole and
the larger whole is completely abhorrent. Elliot Rodger’s killing spree in May
and the police killings of Mike Brown and Eric Garner this summer were very
different in nature, but were equally wake up calls for me. It is not enough
that I have been loud and proud with my raging leftism my whole life, that I
have always considered myself a feminist and anti-racist, that I got on some
soap boxes and used to have a serious interest in social activism before
rabbinical school consumed my whole life. We are too long overdue for real equality
in this country to be self-satisfied with our own baby steps toward progress
and equality. I understand real change takes time, and we are battling
centuries of colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, but come on. It is
2014, people.
I’m partially
writing this because I needed it off my chest, because Ani inspired me, because
this week’s Torah portion suited it, because I needed something to do with this
train ride, because I wanted anyone else who wasn’t jolted awake by these
killings to be awake now, because I love my #LizzRants. But I also am writing
and posting this, because I’m hoping it will make me more accountable to
myself. This is out there now. You all know how I feel and I that I am setting
a goal to get more educated, more involved in fighting systemic oppression.
First and foremost, I am participating in a fellowship with American Jewish
World Service and have pledged to bring more social justice mindfulness and
hopefully opportunities to the Academy for Jewish Religion this year. But that
isn’t really enough. Please join me in pursuing justice. Let’s hold each other
accountable, educate one another, and gently remind one another when the
[social] media gets bored of #Ferguson that we can’t get too comfortable and
forget that racism still lurks there and everywhere. Rapists and misogynists
continue to walk the streets and troll the internet despite the fading of
#YesAllWomen, but the awareness it sparked is real and it hasn’t completely
disappeared yet. Real change is attainable, but only if we pursue it. Justice Justice shall you pursue. Let’s pursue
it.
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