Knowing You Are With Me: Learning To Be an Effective Ally

Rosh Hashanah 5778 / September 22, 2017

[Sung]

As I walk along this very narrow bridge
I will not be afraid, knowing you are with me.
As I walk along this very narrow bridge
I will not fear, knowing you are near.

I wrote this song this past winter, soon after Northeast Philadelphia’s Mt. Carmel Cemetery was vandalised. At that difficult moment, and throughout the past year, I found God’s presence in the space of relationships with friends and partners old and new- in people showing up for one another in profound and unexpected ways.

The past year has been a difficult one. For many it was a year of fear, confusion and disorientation. For our country, it was a year of lingering pain from old wounds and fractures never fully healed. Many of us have arrived at the threshold of this new year anguished and weary.

 Today we put the year 5777 behind us. To paraphrase the poem with which the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa open their Rosh Hashanah services, “may the year and its curses end, and may a new one begin with her blessings.”

The High Holy Days invite us to reset. They offer us respite-  an opportunity to pause, to reflect and to set the course for the year ahead with intention and an open heart. Our companion for these days is our Mahzor– a collection of liturgy and scripture rich with stories and metaphors of love and longing, sorrow and joy, penance and prayer,

Each year, we enter this season with fresh eyes, and encounter the texts of the High Holy Days anew. Images that we might have taken for granted may resonate with us this year for the first time. Familiar stories may take on new meaning. For me, the story of Channah is speaking to my heart and soul in a new way this year. I am particularly drawn to the relationship between Channah and Eli, the High Priest.

In this opening story of the Book of Samuel, Channah suffers from infertility. After years of sending her husband Elkanah to the Temple to pray on her behalf, Channah makes the journey to the sanctuary of the Lord herself. She pours out her heart to God in prayer, beseeching God for a son and offering to dedicate her child to God.

The rabbis of the Talmud see in Channah’s prayer a model for all prayer and the significance of this story is reflected in its selection as the first haftarah reading of the year, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.^[1]

Channah wants desperately to bear a child. Her infertility is a source of deep existential pain. She is marginalized and objectified, childless in a society that largely measures a woman’s worth by her role as a wife and mother.

After years of putting her hopes in Elkanah’s prayers on her behalf, Channah decides she is ready for a change in tactics. “,וַתָּקָם חַנָּה” Channah rises up and takes her fate into her own hands. Channahh stands in the Shiloh sanctuary filled with grief and indignation, demanding divine justice. Tears freely flowing, Channah offers her prayer, indifferent to conventions of decorum in shul. The High Priest Eli sees Channah praying and immediately makes assumptions about her character. He writes her off as a drunk and tells her to sober up.

I have more to say about Eli in a moment, but first- there’s a joke about three bubbies sitting together on a park bench. The first one lets out a krechtz: “oy!” A little while later, the second sighs, “oy vey.” A couple minutes after that, the third one cries out, “oy vey iz mir!” To which the first bubbie responds, “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about our children.”

Eli the High Priest has his own struggles, chief among them his children, Hophni and Pinchas. Despite Eli’s best intentions, his two sons are immoral and corrupt. They abuse their priestly position, bringing shame to the sanctuary and to their father.

In our story, Eli shows up at work for the day, trying in vain to take his mind off his grown children who are daily taking for themselves the choicest cuts of meat from the sacrificial offerings and committing adultery with the women who serve at the gates of the Temple.^[2] In walks Channah, acting oddly, and demanding of God none other than a child. “She must be out of her right mind,” Eli thinks, and he reacts harshly.

Many different things could have happened at this point. Channah could have been silenced, or she could have lashed out at the High Priest. Eli could have kicked her out of the sanctuary. Instead, what transpires is an encounter between two strangers of very different stations that leaves each of them transformed.

Channah begins with a simple, direct response to Eli’s mistake: “No, my master,” she says, “I have had nothing to drink. What you see is an expression of my hardened spirit. I am distraught, and I am pouring my heart out to God. This is not the behavior of a wanton or worthless woman; it is an expression of holy anger.”

She corrects Eli clearly, in a way that he can hear and without him feeling dishonored. And Eli acknowledges Channah’s reality and recognizes his error. He puts aside his own concerns, listens actively to Channah, and validates her anger and desire for a child with words of blessing. Channah knows she is not alone. She leaves the sanctuary visibly changed. Eli has been changed by the encounter as well.

Channah returns home and immediately becomes pregnant with her son, Samuel. We read that, as soon as she has weaned her son, Channah returns to the sanctuary of the Lord to fulfill her pledge. In a powerful image, the chapter concludes with Channah and Eli bowing together in prayer. These two contrasting characters- the woman from the hill country of Ephraim, and the High Priest, have forged a lasting bond. Eli bends down low beside Channah as an ally. Channah’s courage lifts up Eli.

This scene of Channah and Eli bowing down together in prayer reminds me of one of the most powerful experiences of prayer for me of this past year. It was on a June evening in Rittenhouse Square. Dozens of Muslims and Jews gathered on the grass to pray our respective Ma’ariv and Jummah evening prayers side by side. The occasion was a vigil for a  Muslim teenager, Nabra Hassanen, killed during Ramadan on her way to her Virginia mosque with friends. Along with a group of Muslim and Jewish activists in our neighborhood, I organized a prayer vigil followed by an iftar potluck break fast meal for Ramadan. As darkness descended, the sounds of our chanting were carried together on the summer air and we took turns bowing beside each other, some of us toward Jerusalem and some toward Mecca.  As we publicly expressed our faith together, dozens of others stood with our two groups in prayer, forming around us a circle of support and protection.

The evening drew over 200 Philadelphians, including many from our BZBI community, to sing, pray, cry and eat together. The event came together in large part because of relationships formed over the previous months as various groups in Philadelphia reached out to support each other in times of need or grief.

After the executive order in January temporarily barring entry for citizens from certain Muslim-majority countries and Syrian refugees, Jews and Jewish organizations in Philadelphia and nationwide stepped up to show support to the Muslim and Arab communities. BZBI members participated in visits to immigrant-majority mosques to stand with congregations as they called out to God in their time of fear. We stood alongside our Muslim neighbors as they prayed and listened to their imam and an immigration lawyer offer words of comfort and counsel.

Later that winter, Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and here in Philadelphia were vandalized. As our community was reeling from these acts of bigotry targeting our Jewish people and our deceased love ones, Muslim Americans were among the first responders, alongside Quakers and Catholics, who came out to Mt. Carmel Cemetery to lift toppled headstones.They were motivated in part by their gratitude to the Jewish community for standing with them.

Like Eli and Channah, here in Philadelphia and in our country, we are learning to be allies for one another. The word ally comes from the Latin word, alligare, which means, to bind together, in the words of our Rosh Hashanah liturgy, ka’agudah achat. When we are allies, we recognize that our lives, our stories and our destinies are bound up with one another. When we are allies, we strive to live by the words of Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Australian Elder, activist and educator who said: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

This past year, we at BZBI have taken brave new strides to show up alongside others in our city — as a community and as individuals — and others have shown up for us. We have partnered with HIAS Pennsylvania and joined the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, a local interfaith immigrant justice organization. In this new year we have the opportunity to deepen our relationships and grow in our practice of being active allies for our neighbors.

The work of allyship is hard and messy. Like all human relating, this work entails risk and vulnerability. We must have the courage to become uncomfortable, to speak our truths, to be challenged and to be changed by what we learn from others. We must have the courage to be held accountable and to hold others accountable. We must have the courage to make mistakes, to ask for forgiveness and to offer forgiveness.

When we enter into deeper relationship with neighbors who are different from us we may find that we hold differing beliefs, or that we share values but have conflicting views of how to enact those values. Authentic relationships are resilient. They can handle disagreement. Even when we do not see eye to eye on all things, we can stand unequivocally with others to honor and defend their dignity and humanity in their times of need.

We are living in a time of of increasingly frequent and brazen expressions of anti-semitism, racism, and white supremacy. Neo-nazis and white nationalists are emboldened and many minority groups are fearful about the possible curtailment of rights amidst legitimation of discrimination and bigotry. People are frightened and confused; they are angry and suspicious of one another. As a nation, we have lost faith in each other. For decades now there has been a drastic erosion in our country of social trust- the belief in the integrity, honesty, and reliability of our fellow Americans.^[3] 

Each of us has the ability, and the obligation, to rebuild that social trust one relationship at a time, one interaction at a time. The mindfulness instructor Tara Brach encourages her students to connect to a “sense that we are part of a larger community of care that [we each] belong to.” When we are afraid, she reminds us, “There are hearts throughout this world that are awakening, that are generous, that are concerned, that love and forgive, and are willing to act.”

There are hearts throughout this world, throughout this city, this neighborhood, this sanctuary – Hearts that are awakening.  That are generous. That are concerned. Hearts that love and forgive. Hearts that are willing to act.

We never know the impact that our actions may have as part of the larger community of care. Last week Stosh Cotler, the CEO of the Jewish advocacy group Bend the Arc shared a powerful story at a Jewish Federation Women of Vision event here in Philadelphia. In 2013 Bend the Arc’s former CEO, Alan Van Capelle, had been invited to speak at the gathering in front of the Lincoln Memorial to honor the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington – and a continued commitment to the fight for civil and economic rights for African Americans. As Van Capelle descended from the podium after sharing his remarks, an older African American woman approached him, looked him in the eyes and said to him, “Thank you. I didn’t know the Jewish community still cared.” I didn’t know that the Jewish community still cared.

This year, 5778, let’s take it upon ourselves as a community to show that we care about our neighbors and their experience. Let’s show up for our neighbors in word and deed and ask them to be there for us. Let’s walk with one another in narrow places and dark times, and dance together in moments of celebration. Our lives and our liberation depend on this.

The Talmud recounts that Rabbi Yohanan once fell ill. His friend Rabbi Hanina came to visit him, and asked him: Is your suffering dear to you? Rabbi Yoḥanan replied: I welcome neither this suffering nor its reward. Rabbi Hanina said to him: Give me your hand. Rabbi Yohanan lifted his hand toward Rabbi Hanina, and his friend stood him up, restoring his spirit. The Gemara asks: Why did Rabbi Yohanan not stand himself up? The Gemara answers with a saying: “,אין חבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים” “A prisoner cannot free himself from prison on his own.”^[4] We all need the hand of a friend at times to help us stand on our feet, to remind us of our strength and resilience.

Authentic allyship can hold the suffering and self-interest of both parties in the relationship. And there are times when being an effective ally means putting our struggles aside temporarily, as Eli does, in order to truly hear the stories of others.

I want to share some tools that we can draw on to become the best allies we can be. The writer Tamara Winfrey Harris offers strategies for supporting marginalized people and fighting discrimination. Harris identifies five requirements for becoming an effective ally: learning, listening, speaking up, taking action, and being brave.”^[5]

Learning
Listening
speaking up
taking action
and being brave.

The first steps are learning and listening.

In the case of racism, for example, those of us who do not experience systemic racism can’t understand its effects on the daily lives of people of color without setting our minds to study it- reading about the history of slavery and race in America, and how issues of race relate to issues of class and gender. It is on each of us to seek out voices of those with whom we care to stand with as allies, to learn about the experience of marginalized people directly from individuals in these groups and not only through what others have to say about them — African-Americans, LGBTQ people, women, Latinos, immigrants, people with disabilities, native Americans and working class Americans, including those who are part of our Jewish and BZBI community.

It is on each of us to listen deeply and patiently, especially when someone’s personal account of their experience differs from what we may have been taught or conditioned to believe.

The next steps are speaking up and taking action.

When a person or group is marginalized or faces discrimination, it is not their responsibility to remedy that; the responsibility lies with the rest of us, whether we created the situation or not. When people are suffering, we are called as Jews to open our hearts; to become part of the community of care. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote “…In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”^[6]

In his documentary film Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, filmmaker Byron Hurt examines toxic masculinity.  He points out that sexism is men’s problem to solve, not women’s. It’s on us – on men – to speak out against sexism and violence against women. Hearing other boys and men speak out powerfully gives other men permission to think about ourselves and women in a different way.^[7]

It’s important to back up our words with action. We are not all activists, and that’s fine, but we each have the ability to “work within [our] sphere of influence to make change,” as Tamara Winfrey Harris reminds us. Recently many of us have expressed our shock and outrage at the violent demonstrations of White supremacists in Charlottesville, VA.  I want to encourage us to go beyond words. How might we channel that outrage into constructive action to challenge the effects of white supremacy, structural racism and anti-semitism in our country and here in Philadelphia?

The first step is to get to know our neighbors better. As a congregation, we can build relationships with Christian and Muslim congregations right here in Center City across lines of race, ethnicity and class. As we enter into relationship, we can listen to the issues that are of greatest concern to our neighbors and take action together.  

Let’s remember that the work of being an ally is hard, and we will inevitably make mistakes, like Eli does in his first encounter with Channah. It is important to remain open to feedback about how we may be falling short in words or action, to be willing to make amends and to find a way forward collectively. Our liberation and our lives depend on this.

Finally, being an effective ally requires bravery. It requires a willingness to take risks and to push ourselves beyond our places of comfort. It demands the courage to be changed by what we hear. We can be inspired by the example of Channah who rose up and prayed truth to power, We can learn from Eli, who was willing to become vulnerable, to acknowledge his mistake and to prostrate himself in prayer, joining with Channah.

Yesterday the New Sanctuary Movement sent out a  Rosh Hashanah greeting in Spanish and English. The message included a midrash that teaches that the first human being was created using dust brought from the four corners of the world, in order to remind us that people from everywhere in the world are equal in God’s eyes. To remind us that our fates are bound together, ka’agudah achat.

I pray that the year ahead will be one of building relationships that bridge divides. May it be a year in which we find the courage to stand alongside each other in our times of need, with awakened hearts, even when it is uncomfortable.  May it be a year in which we co-create an expanding community of care. So that when we and others are afraid, we will know we are not alone.

Though I walk along this very narrow bridge,
I will not be afraid knowing you are with me
Though I walk along this very narrow bridge,
I will not fear, knowing you are near.

I am grateful to Rabbi Annie Lewis, Raquel Saraswati, Sarah Barasch-Hagans, Koach Baruch Frasier, Meir Lakein & Jeannie Appleman of JOIN for Justice, Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster of T’ruah, Rev. Gregory Holston of POWER, and the leaders of New Sanctuary Movement. Without you I could not have written this d’var Torah.

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