Some thoughts on the Exodus

I think I am absently borrowing a lot here from a book I read about all of this a few months back. I by no means intend to plagiarize Michael Walzer's Exodus and Revolution which was a great read....

The lessons of Egypt and the wilderness-Exodus as social change Model

I am often curious about why Jewish liturgy repeats phrases like, "because I, your God, freed you from the land of Egypt" and "Remember you were slaves in Egypt." Here is a framing that is speaking to me very loudly these days...

1. We, the oppressed, called out to God, an external force, for aid and assistance.
1a. That external force hears us and remembers the oppressed people

2. We needed an external force to help us find our own voices and to harness our power
2a. But initially, the oppressed people could not do it alone but the motivation for change and the modality of change was internally shaped by the oppressed more than the external power coming in.

3. God did not do it for us, but rather offered scaffolding for us to grow, develop and learn our own skills as self advocates-especially Moses.

4. It took us a whole generation to make the mental shift from slaves to free people

5. By coming in to Israel we became more than just free people, but a people with a responsibility for ourselves and others

6. The total trajectory is from slaves to free people to leaders with great power and great responsibility.

7. By helping the oppressed to help themselves, the oppressed then become free to function on their own and are then obligated to hear the oppression of others in need, help them to find their own voices, scaffold them in their transformation from slavery to freedom to agents of change.

8. And PS-God gave up a lot to be that external force. Being that power was not always fun and it meant self sacrifice (we are the stiff-necked people). For us too, we too need to remember that helping others and fighting oppression means discomfort. Regardless of that price to pay, we are still obligated (And hopefully even inspired!) to hear the voice of the voiceless and do what needs to be done.

An image of a Synagogue Community Doing Justice

This is excerpted from an email I sent to a dear friend in an ongoing conversation about different ways to bring Justice Work in its various forms into a synagogue so that it could more fully live out being a Justice Congregation...Ok, blog readers, your comments on how this sits with you would be very very appreciated!!


"Oh, but I had an idea about the social justice congregation. What if it was "beit praying with our feet" and Saturday morning services looked like this (for example). Psukei, birchot hashachar, shema, social change action (like everyone picks up their phones and calls 3 members of the synagogue or 3 politicians about one policy piece or 3 local food establishments to ask about their worker's labor rights-like each seat in shul would have a piece of paper on it with the three names and numbers with a script written on it (and on any given day everyone would be making the same sorts of calls just to different people so all health care one day, all inreach one day etc etc) and then Alenu, Kadish, Ein Kelohenu (I am not sure if Amidah would still be included...)..."

What do you think?

Stories of iritation and agitation

My body is irritated. My chosen mode of transportation here in the twin cities is bicycle. It is wonderful. Yesterday I rode the high bridge over the Mississippi River. That was really cool! Today Elyse, my friend’s sister-in-law who is giving me a place to live for the summer, showed me to the bike paths of Minnesota which are just gorgeous. I have ridden twenty-five miles in two days and have another 10 to do tonight to get home.
But oy, my under-carriage is sore! My body is irritated.
Today, I was talking with the person in the office working on foreclosures and housing issues. We were talking about the one-to-one. I asked him what he thought a successful one-to-one looks like. He said, when the other person is so agitated that they shoot up out of their chair and run out the door to go change the world. And I thought, Yah! I want to make people do that…but then thought about what that means…
Agitating people. It is the nature of creating change. Change does not happen until the status quo becomes so uncomfortable that staying as is means MORE uncomfortable than the discomfort of that necessarily accompanies change.
The conversation in the office continued. There is a dynamic tension between building relationships and agitating others. The one on one works to do both. This is a continuum. In pure organizing or on a shorter campaign, agitation is king. But in congregation life where a rabbi, for example, needs to not only agitate a congregant but also facilitate that same congregant’s baby naming, wedding and or funeral, the relationship may have to take precedence over the agitation for the rabbi to keep their job or to be effective as a service leader…
Wait, does that have to be true? I mean, can we be adult enough that I, as your rabbi, can, with full transparency, piss you off for the greater good on Monday and then offer you comfort for that agitation at services on Friday night? I mean, why not be both? Isn’t that my job as a rabbi…

Isn’t that our responsibility to one another as people?

What would the world look like if I felt it was my job to not only tell you when you are being self-contradictory, hypocritical, unnecessarily self-defeating, and then also hold your hand while you undergo the process of not doing that anymore?
I want my people to feel like it is their job to that for me…you all have my permission to do so.

Hmmm, on to the next task, how do I get right with, get comfortable with, actually putting discomfort in the world? And, will I be willing to take responsibility for it too?

Shoosh, this is a tall order…

Because really, my inner honest person (also affectionately referred to as inner bitch) knows the words to say. Does my inner softy also know the words? I think she does. Now, can I truth them both to work together and get along for the sake of what could then be possible?

So bottom line is this...irritation and agitation are not the same. There is no greater good to the soreness I feel sitting here right now from all the biking. That pain for pain's sake (I am building my callous which is not a greater good but more of a necessary evil). I think if I ONLY anger then I am irritating. If I also comfort and guide, then I am agitating. If the greater good is the reason, then the ends justify the means.

Right?

I am working all this out in my head. Am I just rationalizing??