Healthy Insanity
Dear friends,
“We have to learn to speak Jewish,” said the activist rabbi.
We were gathered in an Upper West Side living room to hear from Rabbi Arik Ascherman about the state of human rights work in Israel/Palestine after the elections. Rav Arik, an American born Reform rabbi has been living in Jerusalem and doing the work for several decades. He ran Rabbis for Human Rights for 21 years, and for the last six has been running Torat Tzedek; The Torah of Justice. I’d been to other such events with him before. This time, however, he didn’t spend much time describing his daily work accompanying Palestinian shepherds to their pastures, where they’re routinely attacked by settlers, or other such activities. Instead, his focus was on preparing for this next stage, in which the extreme far right will be in charge of both policy and police. He was talking about the need for lawyers to give a chance for the work on the ground to have an impact, and protect activists.
What was amazing about his talk was that I could not detect a hint of despair. Imagine spending your whole life in the streets fighting police brutality and racism, getting beaten, arrested, almost killed, and then the head of the Proud Boys gets instated as the Minister of Police. You might think he’d be contemplating a return to the States. Instead he’s diving in deeper.
What amazed me more was his hopeful suggestion that we might be able to change the tide of a religious right wing that has washed over the country by changing our language. “The language of human rights and democracy doesn’t speak to them. We have to learn to speak Jewish.” He explained how their language revolves around the Jewish texts and traditions, and the times when he’s managed to get through to them have been when he’s quoted Torah, Talmud or Midrash.
There is of course a lesson for us here in the US, and people all over the world. If we really want to have a chance to reach the religious right, we have to speak in their idiom.
We got a beautiful taste of how that could look this Tuesday night, when a Black reverend from the south told us that voting is “a prayer for the world we desire,” and that “democracy is the enactment of the idea that we each have within us a spark of the divine.”
We have been stepping away from our faith-worlds for too long, ceding the space to those who define religion as a conservative, selfish way of being. Warnock and Ascherman point us to a path of illogical faith – the belief that we might be able to have a conversation with people who see the world as the opposite of how we see it. What seems impossible, they tell us, should be attempted.
Speaking Jewish, in the sense that Ascherman suggests, is an attempt to do the impossible with words. To reach another who seems beyond reach.
On Monday night in another living room in the financial district we gathered to hear from another faith-hooked realist. Rabbi Or Zohar told us about life in the Galilee, where there are equal numbers of Jews and Arabs living in an escalating landscape of polarization. His organization, Spirit of the Galilee, works to create meaningful local ties between the two communities. They learn each other’s faith languages, through an ongoing inter-faith gathering of religious leaders from the region.
When the terrible Jewish-Arab riots erupted in other parts of the country last year, the ties forged between these different communities were key in preventing the same type of riots in their area. The trust built through learning each other’s languages allowed for clear communication during a time of crisis. Rabbi Zohar was able to speak to and calm a group of Jews talking about taking the law into their own (armed) hands, while his Christian, Muslim and Druze partners in nearby towns managed to bring an end to the burning tires that kept appearing on the road leading up to his village.
Rabbi Zohar’s efforts are a type of “speaking Jewish.” It’s hard work. Close to impossible. But with persistence it can create a crack in what often seems like a sealed shut reality.
These faith leaders continue to work toward the good because that is the work, not necessarily because it will work. It’s a type of insanity that, like John Lewis’ “good trouble” we might call “healthy insanity.” Sometimes, though, God sees these prayers-in-action, the universe responds, and a shift occurs thanks to the dogged work of these perfectly healthy insane people.
May we all find the faith, courage and drive to speak Jewish. And may we enjoy a shabbat brimming with healthy insanity.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha