Praying with your Feet: Finding the Courage to Speak and Act

I don’t know about you, but lately when I casually say to a friend, “Hey, how are you doing?”, I often get back “My head is spinning”, or “It’s all so much,” or a defeated shrug.  I get it.  Our world is changing and the last month it has been changing at a faster pace than many of us expected.  Some will be happy with the changes, others not so much.

With climate change, political instability, rising antisemitism, and the audacity of some of the policies coming down the pike, it can be tempting to pull the covers up and hide, but our tradition has wisdom that can guide us through times like these, regardless of your politics.

We’ve all heard the saying “Go big or go home.”  I want to flip that a bit to “Go small AND go home”, or better yet, “Go big AND go small.” On the “Go big” side of the equation i.e., actions we can take in the public sphere.

Several years ago, on Christmas Eve like many Jews, Michael and I got Chinese take-out.  The garlic eggplant and the mu-shoo vegetables were delicious, but the fortune cookies were extraordinary. My first one read “Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied” and the second read “A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.”   Wow.  Powerful messages for tiny cookies.  My cookies were conveying to whomever had the fortune to get that small slip of paper, that they/I/ we have a role to play in building the world that we want to come. We, yes average people like you and me, must act. We must use our votes, our voices, our phone calls and letters – whatever tools we have – and we must use them now.  We can’t turn away and expect someone else, like Superman, to solve the problem. 

The last couple of months our Torah portion has focused on the Moses story.  Coming from a humble slave background and condemned to die as an infant by Pharaoh’s decree to kill the first-born sons of Israel.  Moses was rescued and raised by the daughter of Pharaoh as an Egyptian but later in life, he had an awakening and returns to his Israelite roots embracing his growing Israelite identity.  After a period of time, he is called upon by God to assume leadership and lead the Israelites from slavery to freedom.   Sure, you might be thinking “Moses stood up to Pharoah and said, ‘Let my people go!’, but hey, he was Moses”… but before Moses was “our hero,” he was a guy who stuttered, who was almost drowned at birth, and later, he found himself in the right place at the right time, and with his brother Aaron and sister Miriam at his side, he stood up, found his strength, led a people. I get that speaking out and acting on our values can be scary but that can’t stop us. I share two vignettes that hit close to home. 

First vignette - Last month, the Fremont City Council passed an ordinance aimed at reducing the presence of the homeless on their streets by banning homeless encampments.  Granted no one wants to have a homeless encampment on their street but banning them without compassion because they are unsightly, doesn’t address the root causes of why they sprung up in the first place.  On top of that, the ordinance also threatens to lock up for six months anyone "aiding, abetting, or concealing" violations.  If this ordinance were in place here in Danville where I participate in program that houses unhoused families during the winter cold months, what would it means for the Winter Nights Shelter program?  Would the program be shut down?  Could I go to jail because I handed an unhoused person a sandwich on the street?  Our tradition teaches that if someone borrows money from you and you take their only cloak as collateral, come the evening when it is cold, you must their cloak to them, so they don’t freeze to death.  We are taught to be compassionate and to stand up for those who are less fortunate. Where is the compassion in this ordinance?

Second vignette - My cousin, Jason Manning, was a prosecutor in the Justice Department and he was assigned to the January 6th cases.  He resigned a few months before the election, but had he stayed, he most certainly would have been fired. When the January 6th folks were pardoned, Jason came out publicly on news channel all over the country saying that to pardon those convicted of breaching the capital was an insult to the police officers who had risked their lives that day to protect our elected officials.   He received a lot of praise and a lot of venom for his stance. I am proud of my cousin for taking a stand but what is most remarkable about Jason, besides being really smart, and a mensch, is that he is unremarkable.  He is a regular guy who grew up in Los Angeles, went to Berkeley and then Georgetown, played water polo for Cal, became a lawyer and went to work for the Justice department during the first Trump administration.  He found himself doing important work, not for overt political motivations, but because it was his job.  And then everything was turned upside down, and like Moses, Jason felt he couldn’t remain silent, and he too found his voice. 

I am very proud of Jason, and I am also scared for him. And there are moments when I, like many of you, am scared for myself.  When I am asked to sign letters of support for Reverend Budde who asked the president to act with compassion and mercy; or to add my name in opposition to the dismantling of trans rights; will there be repercussions? Will I end up on some blacklist?  I am proud that Congregation P’nai Tikvah in Las Vegas where I was the rabbi, and whose name means “the face of hope”, had a large trans and gay/lesbian community.  As a spiritual leader, to not add my name, would be cowardly and devalue people I care about deeply.

Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel taught “[A person’s] ethical responsibility grows in accordance with [his awareness of] the interconnected nature of such a universe.” I spent years becoming a rabbi and studying Jewish texts and ideas to have the tools of our tradition to help navigate difficult moments like these.  

The Mishnah teaches

וְלֹא הַמִּדְרָשׁ הוּא הָעִקָּר, אֶלָּא הַמַּעֲשֶׂה

Study is not the most important thing, rather action.

Heck, even those fortune cookies I mentioned said it, I/we have a responsibility to do something.

In times like these, we need tools to maintain our personal equanimity and practice self-care, so we feel strong and balanced to get through the day.  In traditional circles people pray the morning service, starting their day with intention.  Those minutes infuse their day with meaning. If you are like me, then the first thing you do in the morning is pull out your phone and check your newsfeed to make sure the world is still here.  Actually, before I check my phone, I say the “Modah ani” prayer, taking a moment to express gratitude that I woke up at all, and to start my day in an elevated way.  Then I check my phone, and the ups and the downs of the world flood in...  What if we elevated our encounters with the morning news, with intention and prayer?   We open and close our meals with blessings, why not with scrolling the headlines?

Rabbi Irwin Keller draws from the liturgy of the morning service and offers this prayer to prepare us to encounter the news -

Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi.

My God, the soul you have placed in me is pure and vulnerable. …. I am afraid that looking at today’s news will be painful. Encircle me in a robe of light so that I can witness the wounds of the world without being wounded myself. Let me learn what I need to know in order to be of my greatest use, without being overwhelmed by despair. I feel your protective light now as I open myself to the world’s suffering and the world’s joys.”

After taking in all the news of the day – good or bad – Rabbi Keller offers a closing blessing. In recognition that we must not remain indifferent, Rabbi Keller closes each day with something that demonstrates he didn’t just read words - whether sitting quietly, breathing deeply, or putting a few coins in the pushky - rather, he acknowledged what he read, and was affected by it.

The last thing I want to offer is that you are not alone.  The noted sociologist Dr. Stephen Windmuller suggests that in these times, a way to find strength and inspiration is to have a sense of community and a place of learning.  The Mother Lode Jewish Community can be that place for many of us.  We come togetheras people who care deeply about our world, and about each other.  Our lives are intertwined, and the more we become involved, the more we feel the depth of that connection and the strength of community.

You are not alone in your fears, your concerns, or your confusion.   Our tradition calls on us to build a just world, Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof, Justice, justice, you shall pursue” and there is a lot of work to be done, but our also teaches

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה

…that while we may not complete the work, we must start it.   

Key y’hi ratzon – May it be so.

Rabbi Jamie