The Whites of Their Eyes

It’s June 1775 and Boston is under siege. It’s the beginning of what would be the American Revolutionary War. The leaders of the colonial forces learn that the British are planning to send troops out from the city to fortify the unoccupied hills that surround it. This would give the British control of Boston Harbor. In response, 1,200 colonial troops under the command of William Prescott stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill. Still haughty with their sense of might, the British perused the colonists, resulting in the famous battle of Bunker Hill. And while the British would prevail, it was a sobering experience for them. The Americans were stronger and more determined than they thought. The road to subduing the rebellion would be long, and ultimately unsuccessful.

William Prescott would become famous for uttering a tactile warning: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” Was the order to preserve gunpowder? To get a better shot? Whatever the reason, Prescott may not have been the first one to say it. Turns out the American Revolution likely wasn’t the first time it was uttered.

The origin of the phrase is disputed, yet popular – being assigned to many rulers and wars throughout history. One could look at it as a military tactic that ensures accuracy. Or you could see it as symbolic of the warrior’s resolve and commitment to reaching his target, his willingness “to go the extra mile,” so to speak.

As someone who has not witnessed war first-hand, nor had to look into the whites of the eyes of an aggressor, I wonder what this strategy has meant for soldiers through the ages. Say you reach your target, and then, while gazing into their eyes…watch the life slip out of them. What sense do you make for yourself of what you’ve just done? Sure, seeing the whites of their eyes got you your target effectively, but it also brought you face to face with the reality of your fatal actions.

Some never make sense of this. We’ve only begun to understand the depth of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and the other psychological effects of war.

On the other hand, what if seeing into your enemy’s eyes is a necessary step in helping to contextualize the morally complex minefield of taking another person’s life? What if it’s part of the thing we call war and helps one to understand the gravity of their actions? What if it’s part of justifying it?

The New York Times Magazine recently published a piece called “The Wounds of the Drone Warrior,” where journalist Eyal Press investigated the psychological life of the military technicians who operate drone aircraft. For example, one such person, Christopher Aaron, is described this way: “[he] sat before a wall of flat-screen monitors that beamed live, classified video feeds from drones hovering in distant war zones. On some days, Aaron discovered, little of interest appeared on the screens, either because a blanket of clouds obscured visibility or because what was visible — goats grazing on an Afghan hillside, for instance — was mundane, even serene. Other times, what unspooled before Aaron’s eyes was jarringly intimate: coffins being carried through the streets after drone strikes; a man squatting in a field to defecate after a meal (the excrement generated a heat signature that glowed on infrared); an imam speaking to a group of 15 young boys in the courtyard of his madrasa…The first few times he saw a Predator drone unleash its lethal payload — the camera zooming in, the laser locking on, a plume of smoke rising above the scorched terrain where the missile struck — he found it surreal...But he also found it awe-inspiring. Often, he experienced a surge of adrenaline, as analysts in the room exchanged high-fives.”

Drone warfare is the next frontier. It’s intriguing. This modern technology has made it possible for less American dollars and lives to be spent on foreign operations. It allows us to be more calculated and specific about our targets. It stops more bloodshed.

Yet Press cautions against this assumption: “Among ordinary citizens, drones seem to have had a narcotizing effect, deadening the impulse to reflect on the harm they cause. Then again, the public rarely sees or hears about this harm. The sanitized language that public officials have used to describe drone strikes (“pinpoint,” “surgical”) has played into the perception that drones have turned warfare into a costless and bloodless exercise. Instead of risking more casualties, drones have fostered the alluring prospect that terrorism can be eliminated with the push of a button, a function performed by “joystick warriors” engaged in an activity as carefree and impersonal as a video game.”

He's right. War is not a fantasy world on the internet. A real person commands the missile. A real person dies. The biggest change now is the distance between the enemies. The people who feel this jarring difference the most are the military operatives who struggle to incorporate the massive moral dilemnas of war into their everyday lives. Jeff Bright, a retired pilot, describes the “bewildering nature of the transition: “I’d literally just walked out on dropping bombs on the enemy, and 20 minutes later I’d get a text — can you pick up some milk on your way home?”

There’s no getting to know the people or environment where the violence is occurring. There are less moments for compassion or new information. We might have more intel, but we have less emotional understanding.

Judaism has much to say about war, from the Biblical injunctions to today’s commentators. Torah outlaws murder yet commands a military conquest. Over centuries, the rabbis have tried to reconcile these conflicting messages – calling human life sacred while also taking it, or saying that one can preserve one life by taking another. They rank the types of war, stressing that war of defense is the most just. Yet proactive war is permitted, especially against sworn enemies of the Jews. We aren’t a pacifist religion.

That said, all the ranking and discussing and debating is to say that we Jews recognize how it incongruent war is with our moral code, yet at the same time that it is a reality of the human experience and can be done in a just way.

So perhaps we are starting to understand “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” differently. More often than not, soldiers who board the planes and fight in the trenches see the turmoil and misery that they are there to heal. They see the eyes of the people they save, and yes, the people they kill. They live in that other world – the shadow world of war. They don’t return at night to regular life because what they are living should never be given the honor of being called real life. Those who serve in the military are heroes – not because they kill, but because they go an stand in that moral no-mans land for you and me, believing deep in their hearts that they are working on the side of justice.

I’m not calling for an end to drone combat. I see its advantages. But let us not have this new technology delude us into thinking that there is a completely moral way to wage war. The battle wounds will manifest – if not physically than psychologically. The hurt must out. We must, in every act of violence, draw ourselves close enough to see, feel, intuit the whites of the eyes of our enemy and see the life slip from it. We may still be called to combat tomorrow, but perhaps the days of war will lessen as we grasp onto our remaining humanity.

No Regrets - Shavuot Yizkor

What does it mean to live life with no regrets?

Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol lived in the area of Ukraine for most of the 18thcentury. He was a well-know tzaddik and part of the great Maggid of Mezeritch’sinner circle. He’s known for his particularly progressive take on life.

For example, A man once visited the holy Maggid of Mezeritch and said he had great difficulties applying the Talmudic principle that "A person is supposed to bless God for the bad just as one blesses God for the good.” The Maggid told him to find the Reb Zusya ask him. The man went and found Rabbi Zusya, who received him fondly and invited him to his home. When the guest came in, he saw how poor the family was: there was almost nothing to eat, they were all beset with afflictions and illnesses. Nevertheless Rabbi Zusya and his family were happy and cheerful. The guest was astonished. He said: "I’m here because the Holy Maggid said you could show me how is it possible to bless God for the bad in the same way we bless God for the good." Rabbi Zusya said: "This is indeed a very interesting question. But why did our holy Rebbe send you to me? How would I know? He should have sent you to someone who has experienced suffering."

Indeed, there are lots of stories of Reb Zusya’s optimism. Yet there was one moment in his life where is positivity was broken.

When Rabbi Zusya was on his deathbed, his students found him in uncontrollable tears. They tried to comfort him by telling him that he was nearly as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham, so he was sure to be judged positively in Heaven. He replied, "When I get to Heaven, I will not be asked “Why weren't you like Moses,” or “Why weren't you like Abraham.” God will ask, “Why weren't you like Zusya?"

This story is well-known and often quoted because it teaches us to live up to our own potential. But I don’t think it preaches self-enlightenment as much as it teaches us self-actualization. By that, I mean it’s not that we need to become consumed with finding out who we truly are on the inside – but that we need to live our lives in a way that is in service to others. Sure, our days should be filled with self-satisfaction. In our modern society, the language we use for this is living life with no regrets. We often take that to mean checking off boxes on our recreational bucket lists and accepting failures and moving on from them. But the Jewish take on “no regrets” is different.

According to our tradition, a life well-lived has more to do with figuring out how to make our days count in the grand scheme of the universe.

Because let’s be honest, just like Zusya, our tradition is wracked with guilt. We regret the calamities that befell our people due to our own sins. We regret the missed opportunities we should have taken – the Torah we never learned or the restorative acts we stood on the sidelines for.

“No regrets,” in a Jewish context, would mean that we fill our days with soulful acts – events large and small – that draw humanity closer to olam haba– the fulfilment of God’s dream for us – that we will live as peaceful guardians of God’s creation.

My grandmother died one week ago on Mother’s Day, just 4 days before her 92ndbirthday. Before you’re horrified by that fact, you must know that it was somy grandmother to die on Mother’s Day. None of us are sad about it. In fact, we’re delighted, because it embodies who she was: the matriarch of our family - revered, dignified, demanding, loving, and absolutely NOT a shrinking violet who wouldn’t concede her death to any other day but the one already set aside to honor women like her.

I had the blessing of sitting with her for three days while she was in hospice in Florida, experiencing some profound moments along the way. On Monday, she could hold a short conversation, on Tuesday she could respond with smiles and nods, on Wednesday, just a recognizing glance. 

Shortly after I arrived by her side, she mentioned how she was ready for death. She was ready to flow out, she told me. How could she be so sure of this?I wondered. “I have no regrets” she told me, over and over. 

Indeed, hers was a blessed life. But I don’t think she was thinking about that as much as she recognized the fullness of her days and the blessings that she birthed into this world. 

As her frail body thinned and faded, I believe she recognized the robust beauty of what she was leaving behind. Her muscles were no longer needed by this world, and even though they fought for another few days, they eventually conceded and went to sleep, letting the bodies of those she mentored and loved take up the weight of life’s purpose.

Psalm 90 encourages us: Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. When we take an account of our lives, no regrets will mean that we saw value in every moment, no matter how banal or exciting.

Shavuot highlights the importance of this “numbering our days.” Like a real pal, Rabbi Billy officiated my grandmother’s funeral on Thursday. He reminded us that after the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites did not spend their days plotting revenge or racking up as many hedonistic pleasures as they could find. Instead, they walked 49 uncertain, treacherous days to the base of Mt Sinai where they (in his words) “dedicated themselves to creating a society that would never permit one human being to diminish the worth of any other. At a place called Sinai, they produced a document – the Torah – that would shape the values and hopes of countless generations to come.”

By counting the Omer and then celebrating Shavuot, we celebrate those days in which our ancestors became wise in heart. We number each day so that we may be reminded that every step we take matters in the great scheme of the universe. Our job is to lift our eyes to the mountains, to maintain the optimism that Rabbi Zusya epitomized in his youth, and hopefully like Faith Zimmerman, in our ripe old age, regard death not as a fire extinguished, but a torch passing.

The Other Half Shekel

Did you see the story recently about Rob Leibowitz, the 60-year-old single father of 5, whose kidneys were failing?  After enduring dialysis treatments that were four hours each, three days a week, and learning that he was on an organ transplant waitlist that was 7 to 10 years long, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

You see, his search for a donor was complicated by his blood type, O Positive, which makes him a universal kidney donor, but only able to receive a kidney from a person with the O blood type. His children could not donate to him for medical reasons. It looked like he might not get a kidney in time.

So he had a t-shirt made – simple white with black lettering that read: “In Need Of Kidney - O Positive - Call” and it listed a phone number. Then he took his shirt and his kids to Disney world.

As they walked around the park, people snapped pictures of the shirt. They shared them on Facebook. The post went viral. Soon after, at least 100 phone calls came in – 50 with serious offers.

According to the Washington Post: “Donating a kidney requires a long screening process, including extensive medical tests and a psychological evaluation…After initial testing, three potential donors went to New York for additional testing, which included meetings with psychiatrists, social workers and a surgeon. Then there were blood tests, X-rays and tissue tests. None of the three were a match.”

Then he heard from Richie Sully, another single dad, who took at 16hr bus ride to New York for testing. Every hour was worth it, because they were a match.

The surgery was completed on Jan 18. I saw the two men post-op on the Today Show. They’re now best friends. When asked why he did it, Richie Sully said, “Because I could.”

Who or what do you think of when I ask you to think of your “other half?” A spouse, a dog, a friend, a sibling? So often we limit our “other half” to something romantic – but the concept of the invisible missing piece of you can be even more transformative than that.

It’s Shabbat Shekalim, a special Shabbat in the Hebrew calendar. The day reminds us of a specific mitzvah that was required of the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert – each person had to donate half a shekel to the upkeep of the desert tabernacle.

The half shekel was mandated as part of the census – meaning it would do two things: account for a person in the general population, and it would sustain the portable sanctuary until it came to its permanent residence in Jerusalem.

But why count the half-shekels and not the people themselves if a census was what we were really after?

The Torah says that the half-shekel was to “atone” for each person, that is, some interpret, for the sin of worshipping the Golden Calf. The Israelites atoned for their descent into idolatry by building up God’s sanctuary. Instead of giving their gold for an idol, they handed over their precious metal toward a positive, selfless, communal endeavor and to a God that, most importantly, they could not see.

It’s as if the Torah is telling us that a person doesn’t count until they contribute something constructive to the community. Being a body in a crowd isn’t enough. That body must give something – physically, financially – to a communal, holy endeavor.

But why only half a shekel? One, to keep it fair. Everyone from the poor to the rich was expected to participate and it was important to stress that each person was worth the same amount.

And then there’s a more symbolic explanation. Half a shekel implies tha…there is another half somewhere. An invisible half. A Godly half of the human shekel.

Which makes me think about value and the things we’re willing to pay for these days.

The internet has opened us up to the incredible value of sharing. Think of how often you offer to “share” something – either a picture on Facebook or a file on dropbox. Nowadays, we transmit knowledge widely and without cost. What an incredible re-introduction of such a compassionate social gesture – sharing!

But what’s come with this great invention is an antipathy toward paying for things. For example, most synagogues around the country collect dues. Same with many gyms, professional associations and other “member-driven” organizations. Post-2008, Americans, on a whole, have been understandably more anxious about their disposable income. We pay for things that we deem necessary to our everyday lives, things that we pay for and then immediately use.

So what about something we might not use every day? Why still contribute for its upkeep and not just for the service we draw from it?

The answer begins with the other-half a shekel. It’s the holy value we don’t readily see in some of the places where we spend our shekels – synagogue being one of them.

For example, the other day I was on my way to write this very drash at my top-secret sermon-writing location. Don’t ask where, it’s top secret!

I was driving through my neighborhood, thinking through my half-baked ideas on this subject. As I came to a small intersection, I saw a cab dropping off an older woman at a home. She started to scale a steep, icy driveway. She was not very steady on her feet. Almost without thinking, I pulled over, put on my flashers, got out and offered to help her up the driveway. She put her hand out. Holding hands, I guided her to the steps then up to the door. “Thank you, baby!” she offered. I told her to have a good day and headed back to my car.

I’m not telling you this story to make you think I’m a good person. Sometimes I question just how good I am. Instead, I tell you this story to illustrate the invisible other-half of the shekel. Because I was writing this sermon, because my identity as a Jew and as a rabbi was fresh in my mind, because I was psychically connected to this very special community of people, I was moved to righteous action in that moment.

We don’t always think of the long-term, indescribable, invisible benefit we derive from our connection to a particular community. But my connection to you all pushes for me, demands for me to be a better person. You make me seek out my other half a shekel and I find it in you and in what I understand to be God. That’s a value that you don’t reap the immediate rewards from, but should be counted nonetheless.

Hm, when you look at it this way, it turns out to be a pretty good deal: a whole shekel for the price of a half. Not bad.

Shabbat Shalom!

Closing

“It’s exciting when you find parts of yourself in someone else.”

The internet attributes this quote to someone named Annaka Silvia.

The internet offers no other insight into who this person is.

Isn’t it fitting that the source of this inspirational quote – so perfect for our theme tonight – is invisible. Does the author even exist?

God of our ancestors, unseen creator of connections and righteous action, may we never stop searching for our other half-a-shekel, that divine part of ourselves or another person or a community that holds us accountable. May we be counted among blessings, manufacturers of holiness, and keep reaching for the wholeness of shalom.

The Boulder of Racism, the Rock of Justice - Yom Kippur Morning 5778

The southeast wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art boasts an impressive Greek and Roman Art collection. As you stroll down the main hall, marble statues greet you with bashful smiles and virile poses. Centuries ago, their hard stone was sanded to a perfect, soft white, its bright glow dazzling all these years later.

But when was the last time you noticed that the same marble, the same white stone, was also beneath your feet? Imagine if the floor’s hard-worked marble tiles could speak to the marble statues?[1] Would they be jealous? Angry? Depressed? The marble was carved from the same brilliant stone, hewn high in the peaks of the Italian alps, but depending on when it was cut, and by whom, it either became a showcased statue or a timeworn pathway.

The same marble, different lives.

In August, the NYTimes Magazine had a stunning expose on Italian Marble[2]. The author gave the stone an almost human portrayal: “the story of Italian marble is the story of difficult motion: violent, geological, haunted by failure and ruin and lost fortunes, marred by severed fingers, crushed dreams, crushed men. Rarely has a material so inclined to stay put been wrenched so insistently out of place and carried so far from its source; every centimeter of its movement has had to be earned.”

Reading this, I instantly I thought of our Yom Kippur gathering. This whole day is made holy by the attempt to yank us out of place and pry us from our depravity; and we resist it every second along the way. It’s like every prayer is another tug on the stone around our hearts. The words are meant to cut into our core and wrench us even just a centimeter closer to the right path.

The Day of Atonement pushes this agenda by eliciting various emotions; the most powerful of which are regret and guilt. But expressing regret and guilt are not enough. Our liturgy tells us: the day of atonement does not atone until humans have made peace with one another. Regret is not an apology. Guilt is about me and my feelings. A true apology is about you and your feelings.

Social activist Diane Flinn (in a conversation with the Southern Poverty Law Center)[3] puts it this way: “Guilt allows…people to maintain the status quo. Guilt creates paralysis. Guilt transfers the responsibility…By saying, "I feel so guilty, so bad," it puts the other person in a position of comforting. The other person is then silenced, must reposition or restate their truth. Or worse -- maintain their truth and risk being viewed as mean, insensitive and angry.”         

According to Flinn, guilt is where we get stuck. By admitting guilt, we believe we absolve ourselves. We feel better because we wipe our hands clean and leave the offended party to deal with our emotions – instead of us truly dealing with theirs.

Yom Kippur looks to correct this failure in apology. We recite ashamnu – a prayer in which we feel the weight of our sins, pounding our chests to break the stone-like hardness around our hearts and truly feel the hurt we have caused. Then there is al chet, a litany of transgressions, straightforwardly expressed as facts. Al chet ends with a request of God: For all these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us! We offer an apology and we request that God show us a new way forward.

This morning, as a community, and as individuals, we have an apology to make. For years we have felt the guilt of our segregated society, where people of color are excluded from employment and learning opportunities; they are victims of police brutality and disproportionally imprisoned in our bloated prison system.

We say we regret these facts, but we have not yet made an apology.

For those of us who are white, we feel the shame, we may be disappointed with the current state of affairs. But we don’t know how to make an apology. We might even balk at the notion that we have to, thinking that “I, a liberal Jewish woman, I am not a perpetrator of racism!” But I am white and as such, I have internalized the privilege and prejudices that come with that. I may not have owned a slave, I may not have legislated the bigotry of Jim Crow, but I have been complicit – and benefitted from - housing discrimination, gerrymandering, disproportionally harsh legal punishments, and racial profiling.

The system is rigged, and we live and work in that system.

We didn’t create it, but we can’t ignore it.

Torah teaches us that the guilt of the parents is passed on to the 3rd and even 4th generation. One generation teaches the next its bad habits, its overt prejudices, its unjust employment and legislative practices, and its racial anxieties.

Yet this sin of ours is not etched in stone eternally. We can pry the aveira of racism from the rock of our souls. The Prophet Ezekiel (18:19-23) assures us that if the next generation does “what is just and right…The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.”

And then he reveals God’s own self-reflection: “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign God…[no,] rather, I am pleased when they turn from their ways and live.”

It is time for everyone, from you and me to the President of the United States, to stop pretending that racism is not deeply embedded into our everyday lives. We can’t just regret the history of racism in our country, we must make an active apology for it. This is when we turn to our neighbor and say, “let’s live differently.” This is when we tackle the big problems like police brutality and racial profiling. We dismantle the awful, uniquely American practice of mass incarceration.

We also tackle the problem in our own homes. We analyze the overt AND subtle ways we teach bias to our children. Ezekiel implores us – if we break the cycle of unjust action, the guilt can be alleviated. Until we truly live differently, the guilt of our country’s past is still passed down through us.

Again, of all things, Italian marble serves as an incredible symbol: “What we admire as pristine white stone was born hundreds of millions of years ago in overwhelming darkness. Countless generations of tiny creatures lived, died and drifted slowly to the bottom of a primordial sea, where their bodies were slowly compressed by gravity, layer upon layer upon layer, tighter and tighter, until eventually they all congealed and petrified into the interlocking white crystals we know as marble.”

America is beautiful, but it is built on the stolen bodies of slaves and the back-breaking work of immigrants who continue to face hate and discrimination. All Americans are made of the same beautiful marble, but some have been given places of privilege while others have been relegated to the margins.

So, how do we break this cycle? How do we show we’re sorry and start to build a better future? We’re not talking about a pediatric sorry, the kind you learned in pre-school that by simply admitting guilt – “I’m sorry I pushed you” - you were instantly relieved of it. I’m talking about an adult sorry. I’m talking about moving from perpetrator to ally.

If you are white, that means taking account of the overt and clandestine privilege you have. We need to know when to pick it up and lug it aside so someone else can step through. So let’s explore exactly what an ally is and, more importantly, how to be one.

Consider that after the presidential election, some folks started to wear a safety pin. It meant different things to different people. On a whole, it meant that “the wearer was a “safe” ally, ready to stand up for anyone who might be the target of abuse, whether verbal or physical.”[4] It was instantly controversial. Some saw it as an “outward symbol of sympathy” and a mark of resistance, while others saw it as self-indulgent and empty, a “self-administered pat on the back for being a decent human being.”

It would seem that the safety pin, which went viral, and then seemingly nowhere, is the perfect way to teach about being an ally. As writer Demetria Lucas D’Oyley put it, “Actually create a safe space instead of …designating yourself one.”[5] Simply put: ally is not a noun, it is a verb.

Invictus Animus – a queer writer who wrestles with being queer and white – writes[6], “being an ally is not about me: it’s about the community I support. It’s about shutting up, showing up, educating myself on the downtime from public sources available for me, and not taking up space with my privilege… I am not proud to be an ally. I am proud to be behaving like one. My behavior is what helps oppressed communities, not my identifier. I don’t need my own flag to help others in their struggles.”

What about I appreciate about Animus’ perspective is that they are part of the LGBTQ community, and therefore one of those people impacted by prejudice. Yet, they are also white, and they understand that in regards to race issues, their gender identity does not exclude them from figuring out how to behave as an ally to people of color.

And this is where the Jewish community’s involvement in racial justice comes in. Jews have, for decades, identified strongly with the Civil Rights Movement. We simply look to the Passover story – our own account of liberation. We look to the racially-fueled anti-semitism that has impacted Jews since ancient times and we see modern racism as cut from the same cloth. It is! Not to mention – close to 20% of Jews in America are from ethnically and racially diverse backgrounds.[7]

Yet we cannot ignore that, for perhaps the first time in Jewish history, we are considered part of the white majority. Most of us enjoy the societal privilege that comes with light-colored skin.

Yes, anti-semitism still rears its ignorant head. Yes, the neo-Nazis of Charlottesville chanted “Jews will not replace us” and swastikas seem to be in fashion again.

But that does not mean that we don’t have work to do in figuring out how to behave as an ally to minority communities – Black, LGBTQ+, Latinx, and more. I urge you today to adopt the old improvisational drama stand-by – “yes, and.” Yes, Jews have been victimized, and many of us are white by society’s standards. Yes, I’m a woman and worry about sexism, and I’m a white, cis-gender woman, which also comes with its own privilege to be grappled with.

Yom Kippur’s prayers remind us of this fact – we are never exempt from teshuvah – true repentance. If we are not personally guilty, then we are complicit. If we merely identify as an ally but don’t take action to act like one, then we might as well be the perpetrator.

Paul Kivel, author of Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Social Justice, offers guidelines for how we can do better. Here are a few things (in his words) we can do starting today:

Assume racism is everywhere, every day. Just as economics influence everything we do, just as gender and gender politics influence everything we do, assume that racism is affecting your daily life. We assume this because it’s true, and because a privilege of being white is the freedom to not deal with racism all the time. We have to learn to see the effect that racism has. Notice who speaks, what is said, how things are done and described. Notice who isn’t present when racist talk occurs. Notice code words for race, and the implications of the policies, patterns, and comments that are being expressed. You already notice the skin color of everyone you meet—now notice what difference it makes.

Notice who is the center of attention and who is the center of power. Racism works by directing violence and blame toward people of color and consolidating power and privilege for white people.

Notice how racism is denied, minimized, and justified.

Understand the connections between racism, economic issues, sexism, and other forms of injustice.

And, support the leadership of people of color. Do this consistently, but not uncritically.”

These guidelines can be extended to other minority communities and women, too.

I don’t purport to be an expert in this area. I’m talking to you about it because I’m still learning – and this talk is part of my education. I’ve always identified myself as an ally, but I, like all of us, can do a better job of living it.

In all my research, one thing I appreciated most was the strong message that in figuring out how to behave like an ally, there will be misunderstanding and mistakes. Part of this work is expanding our capacity for accepting mistakes when they are made.

For example, a tremendous thing is happening today. Today is the March for Racial Justice on the National Mall in Washington. When the date was announced, Jews doing the work of racial justice were hurt. Scheduling on Yom Kippur meant that many of us could not lend our support. We felt cast out and unappreciated. In an effort to be good allies, we reasoned, it’s not our march, it’s not about us. But it still hurt – we wanted to know that we were wanted. For many, an existential crisis erupted.

Then the march organizers issued a very public apology. It read: “Choosing this date, we now know, was a grave and hurtful oversight on our part. It was unintentional and we are sorry for this pain as well as for the time it has taken for us to respond. Our mistake highlights the need for our communities to form stronger relationships…We have learned from our Jewish friends that Yom Kippur is a day of making amends and of asking and receiving forgiveness. We hope that our sincere apology will be received with compassion, and that we will build a stronger relationship among all our communities as a result.

We are marching in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters who are observing the holiest of days on the Jewish calendar. Holding fast to Jewish tradition is also an act of resistance, in the face of growing anti-Semitism. We recognize and lift up the intersection of anti-Semitism and racism perpetrated by white supremacists, whether they wave Confederate flags, don swastikas, beat and kill people on the streets in Charlottesville, deface Holocaust memorials, or threaten and harass members of our communities and our religious and community spaces. And we recognize the need for all of us to work together in the face of an administration that condones widespread oppression of all those most vulnerable among us…we hope that on that holy day, Jews in synagogues across our country will pray for racial justice - lifting up black and brown people, Jewish and non-Jewish - in hope for safety and wholeness. Spiritual sustenance is an essential part of this work for justice. We’re committed to working together with the Jewish community throughout the year and every year until true justice for all of us is won.”

I believe this was a sincere and powerful apology. And I believe it was our responsibility to accept it without ceding support. A true ally moves out of the way.

This is more important now than ever. This Yom Kippur, we have a President who uses harsh, vitriolic language against black athletes who kneel in peaceful resistance, while he offers the benefit of the doubt to violet protestors in Charlottesville.

Sports players are sons-of-bitches, tiki-torch bearers are “fine people.”

Today, may we know the true meaning of apology. Let us begin, or continue, the work of critically assessing our privilege. Let us pry ourselves from the heavy rock, formed from centuries of bigotry, and create something new and beautiful; a society worth celebrating because it is fair, just, and holy. Amen.

Closing remarks

“From the Place Where We are Right” by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai:

From the place where we are right

flowers will never grow
in the Spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

We can muster the strength to lift up the heavy stone of racism and bigotry that weighs down our country. We cannot stand unmoved like a deep deposit of marble in the Italian alps. We must lift up the rock, let the grass breathe and let it grow. We do this through true apology and behaving as an ally. We do this through educating ourselves, looking critically at our own behaviors, and, even despite mistakes, committing ourselves to a new way forward.

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[1] This thought was inspired by the story on this webpage: https://www.wattpad.com/52131972-collection-of-inspirational-stories-marble-statue

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/magazine/the-majestic-marble-quarries-of-northern-italy.html?mcubz=0

[3] https://www.tolerance.org/professional-development/white-antiracism-living-the-legacy

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/15/safety-pins-solidarity-symbol-or-emblem-of-white-guilt/?utm_term=.e299a1a317ac

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/15/safety-pins-solidarity-symbol-or-emblem-of-white-guilt/?utm_term=.e299a1a317ac (emphasis mine)

[6] http://darahoffmanfox.com/why-ally-is-verb-not-a-noun/

[7] http://www.bechollashon.org/population/counting_color/counting_color.php