I read in the Chumash commentary on Parsha Yitro, that, "When people are confident that they are ruled justly, they are at peace, free from resentment and frustration, for people can more easily cope with problems and poverty than with the feelings that people who are more powerful or better connected individuals are taking advantage of them." This is a peace that only comes from wise and trustworthy leadership.
What is this leadership? According to the Torah: Men of accomplishment who are already wealthy and would resist the pressure of those who would attempt influence of their judgment. These are G-d-fearing men who will not be swayed by flattery, bribery, or threats.
Shabbat offers one kind of peace, but the peace people long for will not be felt until the Leadership of America has the qualities cited above.
To quote a story a Hillel-Shamai story: "Whatever is hateful and distasteful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary. Go learn." Appointing a DHS secretary who shot her own dog suggests what is happening was not an accident or simply acts of overzealous enforcement. It was planned from the start. This is far from the only example or area of concern.
With that said, the principle applies to all people and we need to recognize that regardless of the side at fault. In Canada, Jewish schools have been shot up (when out of session), there have been arson attacks and multiple threats. Bondi beach in Australia was shot up on the first night of Hanukkah in December. In the US we are being pushed out of the Ivies due to nothing but our ethnicity. Polls suggest around half (often more) of Jews in the UK and France want to emigrate due to antisemitism.
It has also been clear to me on a personal level, which actually ties to acting for the good of the community. When I got my first good job, I lost several close friends. They told me that, because the field was male-dominated, the job should have gone to a woman. I had no place there. I needed to get out. In my first three years I excelled and hit a senior contributor level. Despite sterling performance reviews, all opportunities for promotion or even meaningful work dried up. Instead the good projects were allocated to interns and entry-level team members who couldn't reasonably do them well due to lack of experience, simply due to identity group.
I have no opportunity for change, growth or meaningful work. There is no reasonable way for me to contribute through the place I spend the bulk of my waking hours. When I turn to friends for support, the message is that I was not born in a way that should engender support for growth or meaningful contribution here. That isn't my place. Because many of these people are Jewish it drove me away from the community. Is this really somewhere I want to contribute outside of work?
Reading your blog was my way of looking to see if I might be able to come back, if there was a part of the community where I could be wanted for what I can, and want to, do. Whether stated explicitly or not, supporting social justice with no mention of its issues tells me the answer is a clear "no". Stances like these will increasingly drive younger Jewish men like myself away. If there is no place to be accepted in the community, we will find communities where we are accepted. This hurts us, hurts Judaism and does so breaking one of our most basic moral tenets.
I feel your pain but I can’t say I have any real inkling of the source of the issues and why you find paying attention to social issues so alienating. To me, the personal and the social often intersect and it takes including both in the frame to plot the path forward.
I recently heard a report from a clergy person who went to Minneapolis to witness and support the resistance to tyranny that's happening there. It comes to my mind because what she witnessed included a lot of people who seem to be directing every action toward holiness. She visited a church, an evangelical church with a pastor who voted for Trump twice. The pastor realized that he can't live with himself if they don't take on caring for the strangers whom ICE is so determined to root out without the protection of the rule of law. So they put a note on their Facebook page, offering assistance to anyone who needed it. Within a few days, they had 300 families who are hiding in their houses, afraid to be seen in public for fear of capture. So every day that church's sanctuary is filled halfway with cartons of supplies for those families. Every day a big team of volunteers comes in and assembles boxes of supplies for those families and makes a bucket brigade to get the boxes down the stairs and out the doors and into cars where other volunteers are ready to deliver them. The delivery volunteers are given a list of who the boxes go to, but they are cautioned not to put it into their phones, lest ICE seize them. They have the list on paper, and if necessary, they promise to swallow the list.
Of course the church needs help to accomplish all this, so they put out a call for assistance. The first group that answered their call was an LGBTQ group. In the before times, the LGBTQ group would have expected not to be welcomed, and they wouldn't have offered, and the church would have been appalled by them and rejected them. But now they work together side by side every day, feeding the hungry and lifting the fallen.
My informant went with one of the volunteers to visit the school where her grandson is a 2nd grader. Last fall, there were 18 children in his class, but now only 9 come to school because the otehrs are in hiding. Those hiding from ICE stay in their houses 24-hours/day, with blackout curtains to keep the drones from spotting them and counting them. The teachers at the school are struggling to provide instruction half by zoom and half in person, and the 2nd graders are confused and afraid. The grandmother/classroom volunteer holds documents for 9 children which will give her authority to take custody of them if their parents are disappeared. She keeps her phone on at all times, in case news will come requiring her immediate action.
This is all in one neighborhood. Every neighborhood has a similar network of mutual support. In Minneapolis, they have widened their tents. I hope that they can get some genuine Shabbat-type rest, the kind where you can let everything go as if it's alright, and you can see the miracle of God's creation and feel the love of the creator. These people working so hard to advance holiness in the world need it.
My informant says that though violent oppression is present on a daily basis (a favorite tactic of ICE toward demonstrators is to first knock them down to the ground and then spray mace into their faces), there is a softness and kindness and generosity in most ineractions between people of a type she has never witnessed before. There is great hope to be had, and Shabbt observance can help us all to tap into it. As does a week spent doing good works.
Thank you, Barbara. The details of specific situations seldom make it into the media, and all the more if what’s going on is positive and good — not the sorts of things that make the headlines. There are many points to consider in your comments and one stands out for me, which is the importance of having a higher motivation. Trying to be ethical for the sake of being ethical provides weak motivation. You mention holiness and for me, too, that is the higher motivation that compels being ethical. There are innumerable examples of people doing evil in the name of God, but it seems inconceivable that could happen in the name of holiness.
I read in the Chumash commentary on Parsha Yitro, that, "When people are confident that they are ruled justly, they are at peace, free from resentment and frustration, for people can more easily cope with problems and poverty than with the feelings that people who are more powerful or better connected individuals are taking advantage of them." This is a peace that only comes from wise and trustworthy leadership.
What is this leadership? According to the Torah: Men of accomplishment who are already wealthy and would resist the pressure of those who would attempt influence of their judgment. These are G-d-fearing men who will not be swayed by flattery, bribery, or threats.
Shabbat offers one kind of peace, but the peace people long for will not be felt until the Leadership of America has the qualities cited above.
To quote a story a Hillel-Shamai story: "Whatever is hateful and distasteful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary. Go learn." Appointing a DHS secretary who shot her own dog suggests what is happening was not an accident or simply acts of overzealous enforcement. It was planned from the start. This is far from the only example or area of concern.
With that said, the principle applies to all people and we need to recognize that regardless of the side at fault. In Canada, Jewish schools have been shot up (when out of session), there have been arson attacks and multiple threats. Bondi beach in Australia was shot up on the first night of Hanukkah in December. In the US we are being pushed out of the Ivies due to nothing but our ethnicity. Polls suggest around half (often more) of Jews in the UK and France want to emigrate due to antisemitism.
It has also been clear to me on a personal level, which actually ties to acting for the good of the community. When I got my first good job, I lost several close friends. They told me that, because the field was male-dominated, the job should have gone to a woman. I had no place there. I needed to get out. In my first three years I excelled and hit a senior contributor level. Despite sterling performance reviews, all opportunities for promotion or even meaningful work dried up. Instead the good projects were allocated to interns and entry-level team members who couldn't reasonably do them well due to lack of experience, simply due to identity group.
I have no opportunity for change, growth or meaningful work. There is no reasonable way for me to contribute through the place I spend the bulk of my waking hours. When I turn to friends for support, the message is that I was not born in a way that should engender support for growth or meaningful contribution here. That isn't my place. Because many of these people are Jewish it drove me away from the community. Is this really somewhere I want to contribute outside of work?
Reading your blog was my way of looking to see if I might be able to come back, if there was a part of the community where I could be wanted for what I can, and want to, do. Whether stated explicitly or not, supporting social justice with no mention of its issues tells me the answer is a clear "no". Stances like these will increasingly drive younger Jewish men like myself away. If there is no place to be accepted in the community, we will find communities where we are accepted. This hurts us, hurts Judaism and does so breaking one of our most basic moral tenets.
I feel your pain but I can’t say I have any real inkling of the source of the issues and why you find paying attention to social issues so alienating. To me, the personal and the social often intersect and it takes including both in the frame to plot the path forward.
I recently heard a report from a clergy person who went to Minneapolis to witness and support the resistance to tyranny that's happening there. It comes to my mind because what she witnessed included a lot of people who seem to be directing every action toward holiness. She visited a church, an evangelical church with a pastor who voted for Trump twice. The pastor realized that he can't live with himself if they don't take on caring for the strangers whom ICE is so determined to root out without the protection of the rule of law. So they put a note on their Facebook page, offering assistance to anyone who needed it. Within a few days, they had 300 families who are hiding in their houses, afraid to be seen in public for fear of capture. So every day that church's sanctuary is filled halfway with cartons of supplies for those families. Every day a big team of volunteers comes in and assembles boxes of supplies for those families and makes a bucket brigade to get the boxes down the stairs and out the doors and into cars where other volunteers are ready to deliver them. The delivery volunteers are given a list of who the boxes go to, but they are cautioned not to put it into their phones, lest ICE seize them. They have the list on paper, and if necessary, they promise to swallow the list.
Of course the church needs help to accomplish all this, so they put out a call for assistance. The first group that answered their call was an LGBTQ group. In the before times, the LGBTQ group would have expected not to be welcomed, and they wouldn't have offered, and the church would have been appalled by them and rejected them. But now they work together side by side every day, feeding the hungry and lifting the fallen.
My informant went with one of the volunteers to visit the school where her grandson is a 2nd grader. Last fall, there were 18 children in his class, but now only 9 come to school because the otehrs are in hiding. Those hiding from ICE stay in their houses 24-hours/day, with blackout curtains to keep the drones from spotting them and counting them. The teachers at the school are struggling to provide instruction half by zoom and half in person, and the 2nd graders are confused and afraid. The grandmother/classroom volunteer holds documents for 9 children which will give her authority to take custody of them if their parents are disappeared. She keeps her phone on at all times, in case news will come requiring her immediate action.
This is all in one neighborhood. Every neighborhood has a similar network of mutual support. In Minneapolis, they have widened their tents. I hope that they can get some genuine Shabbat-type rest, the kind where you can let everything go as if it's alright, and you can see the miracle of God's creation and feel the love of the creator. These people working so hard to advance holiness in the world need it.
My informant says that though violent oppression is present on a daily basis (a favorite tactic of ICE toward demonstrators is to first knock them down to the ground and then spray mace into their faces), there is a softness and kindness and generosity in most ineractions between people of a type she has never witnessed before. There is great hope to be had, and Shabbt observance can help us all to tap into it. As does a week spent doing good works.
Thank you, Barbara. The details of specific situations seldom make it into the media, and all the more if what’s going on is positive and good — not the sorts of things that make the headlines. There are many points to consider in your comments and one stands out for me, which is the importance of having a higher motivation. Trying to be ethical for the sake of being ethical provides weak motivation. You mention holiness and for me, too, that is the higher motivation that compels being ethical. There are innumerable examples of people doing evil in the name of God, but it seems inconceivable that could happen in the name of holiness.