- [April] How can we, as Jews who are committed to justice, and are committed to racial justice, leverage the sanctity of Rosh Hashanah, of this day of the season, of the days of awe, to advance our racial justice work?
- [Narrator] This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice" with April and Tracie, a weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker. In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. We have a lot to talk about. Let's dive in.
- Hi, April!
- Hey Tracie, we're really doin' this!
- I know. Hey, Rosh Hashanah is right around the corner.
- It is! And I believe it is 5781 that we are soon about to enter.
- That's right, that's right, 5781. So tell me about Rosh Hashanah. What's your favorite part about it? Or how do you think about it? What's your Rosh Hashanah thing?
- Yeah! So like basics obvs, some of us know, but some may not. So it's considered the birthday of the world. And... What am I trying to say? So I'm a little distracted right now, because now I have, I was getting into that new year energy. And so I had Prince's 1999 starting to play in my head. And I was like-- I felt like, it felt very Jewy to be like, ♪ Party like it's 5781! ♪ Okay, so now that I...
- Got that off your chest.
- Yeah, now that I got that off my chest. So what was the question again?
- I don't remember. I wanted to hear your thoughts about Rosh Hashanah. Like where, besides Prince,
- Yeah!
- Where, what comes up for you?
- Yeah, I think it was the first time I ever thought about Prince in the relationship. I don't really think about white clothes and apples and honey and shofars. I think for me, what I feel inspired to talk about right now is the journey that my relationship with Rosh Hashanah has been on over the course of my life and still some of the existing tensions that I have about the holiday. Which is, I had to look it up when we were talking earlier, Tracie, for the word, like this heavy, icky word.
- Right.
- That I attribute to the days of awe, around repentance. You know, the Hebrew word for it is teshuvah. And there's something about repentance. This is me, like not officially, it feels very like old school, oppressive, Christian, heavy and judgy and gross. And I just don't like that English repent! It just sounds like all the kinds of things that I'm working to like...
- Yeah, yeah.
- Clear out.
- It's almost like this penitentiary, like a jail, penitentiary, is related to that word. It's not [Inaudible], right?
- Yeah! Yeah, viscerally. And it wasn't until college, I think... I don't want to give credit to the wrong Rabbi, the different campus rivalries around different...
- Right, right. Heaven forfend.
- And collaborations, but I think it was in college where I learned that the root of teshuvah means to return.
- [Tracie] Right.
- And I was like that! That is something I can relate to! This idea of returning to our inherent goodness, who we are in terms of who Shekhina, Mother Earth, God, the universe, who we fundamentally are. And my understanding from my Jewish upbringing, is the understanding that humans are fundamentally born good, or humans are fundamentally good. And so the process of teshuvah, or return, is we're turning back to our own divinity. And that to me feels poetic and like I can breathe. It aligns with how my dad raised me, which I'll probably say many more times over, where he would always clarify when I was a little kid, which meant a lot, because I remember, of like experiencing being in the ether as a kid in America, in terms of being in the context of Christian hegemony, that I, when I would get in trouble at times, I remember having this fear of like, "Oh my goodness, does this mean I'm a bad person, or I'm a bad kid?" I used to be so scared of that. And my dad, almost intuitively knew to come to me and say, "April, what you did was bad. But you are a good person, you are a good girl." And so when I heard, when I learned that teshuvah, that the literal meaning in Hebrew, the Jewish meaning of that word is return, that felt more Jewish to me, it felt more humane and it aligned with my understanding of the word. And as I learned that, that totally began to shift and internalize and I would say even feminize my Judaism for me, about it being something that's not this external patriarchal energy about oppression and criminal justice system and all judgy, but instead was more like air and flowing and light and movement, that's not attached to any particular form and more about me assessing within myself, where have I not been in alignment? Where have I strayed from what I know to be correct? And how do I reconcile that and engage in the act of healing and come back to my own home and to remember my inherent goodness and cultivate that within myself, if and when I've strayed. So there's a lot more I could say about, how I navigate services and how much I love to be in nature, and that's a fundamental tension I feel during the high holidays, is knowing the sacred nature of community and often, and as someone who's sort of, I would describe myself for lack of a better word, I always struggle with this where I fall, as someone who's sort of an ambivert. I want very much to be in community, but I don't have the energy to, or haven't yet had the energy to establish my own chavurah with the kinds of people. I often want to be by a moving body of water, or in the woods, or at the ocean. The awesomeness that nature provide, matches to me, the magnitude and sanctity of Rosh Hashanah. So those are some of my reflections of what I come into with Rosh Hashanah, is that I've loved the evolution as I've gotten more deeply connected to Jewish, to the origins of the Hebrew and outside of the assimilated, some of the more assimilated descriptions, some of which are very much a part of my Judaism, there's no judgment there. But as I've gone more deeply into our tradition, I found so many, I continue to find so many treasures that are helpful for me along my path. How about for you, Tracie? What's Rosh Hashanah about for you?
- Well, I wouldn't have expressed it the way that you just did, although there are some similar things. What's coming up for me right now, interestingly, I haven't connected these two things together, but I'm really loving it, is that I'm reading Tara Brach right now.
- Oh, nice.
- "Radical Compassion." And she tells this story of the Golden Buddha. So there's this Buddha in a monastery and it needs to be moved, for some reason and so they bring in a crane, cause there's this giant Buddha. And when they move it, it cracks and they get really worried. But then overnight, one of the monks comes out and he sees something glinting through one of the cracks. And they realize that in fact, it was a solid gold Buddha, that several hundred years before, monks in the same monastery had covered with clay in order to protect it. When marauders were coming through, they were afraid that their Buddha would be stolen. And so they'd put this clay on top and then thought the clay was the Buddha. And so when you're talking about returning to your inner, it's just coming up for me, that part of teshuvah for Rosh Hashanah, is realizing the clay that you've put on top of your gold and trying to remove it and not conflate that clay with who you really are, which is exactly what you're talking about, with a totally different metaphor. But even in thinking about shame versus guilt that you just beautifully described, when your dad said, "You did bad, you're not bad." Even that... the actions that were bad are the clay and they can be removed, because at heart, we're golden. And so that's what's kind of coming up for me, just listening to you, that wouldn't have been my answer prior to listening to you, but that's really coming up for me right now. I do, I actually am a little worried for this Rosh Hashanah in the age of COVID. I hear what you're saying about the power of nature, and I do not disagree. And I also find something really comforting about a whole room, sanctuary full of people, who are all doing their own work, to think about what is clay and what is gold. There's something really powerful about being a part of a congregation. And I'm really gonna miss that this year. My synagogue has decided to go almost entirely virtual, which is what the situation demands, so that we don't make each other sick. I mean, to save a life overrules everything. And I'm really gonna miss that.
- It's not the same. It's not the same. Oh, I love that story so much. I know, isn't it great?
- [April] It's so good!
- And it's so useful, it's so useful in so many places to think, especially for me, when I get caught in a shame spiral, right? Then if I can interrupt that and say, "Are you really, are you, is this real? Or is this just the clay that you've put on top in order to protect yourself?"
- Right, and get through this world. And these oppressive systems that we're navigating often. Oh, that's so good, oh, I love that. And it ties in, to I think, what we want to talk about next. Oh, that's so good. Because I think that clay is also, if you could also use that clay as a metaphor for racism in different ways. And I do this parlor trick that I think I've done with you before. And I don't have the right, actually I do. I'm gonna do it right now, but you know, Doctor, Professor, Doctor Barbara Love, who's a Professor Emeritus from UMass Amherst, she's a phenomenal luminary, black liberation luminary, black and collective liberation. And she always does this parlor trick thing. I have my notes on my white board desk here, so I need to cover it so I don't get it that wet, with my bandana, you know? And she talks about similarly, just like what you're saying, with the clay that we, that our oppressive patterns that many of us get, become like tissue paper, and this is toilet paper, so it's two-ply, so it's thicker. But often when I do this, even with my light brown skin, you can normally not see this. It becomes translucent, right? And what she talks about is these oppressive patterns. And in the context of our show, we mostly focus on race and racism, but it's like this. And at times, when we start to talk about this, what happens with white fragility, or some of these things, is that we think that our skin is getting cut. But if you have a good facilitator, or you take time to read, you begin to start to notice that as it gets lifted up, it's scary, kind of like the Buddha cracking, but then you're like, "Oh, actually wait a second. No, actually I'm fine. And I can actually start to peel away some of these different beliefs and parse this out." And I think that that's a beautifully poetic transition segue into the next part of our conversation around how can we, as Jews who are committed to justice and are committed to racial justice, leverage the sanctity of Rosh Hashanah, of this day of the season, of the days of awe, to advance our racial justice work? And so I thought it might be nice, Tracie, if we take a few moments to think about for each of us, and I'm happy for you to start, what some of your, unless you want me to, but what are some of your intentions around racial justice for the coming year?
- Yeah, I'm happy to start, thank you. So... For me... Rosh Hashanah always, I mean... the resolution that I think about for Rosh Hashanah are not like the secular new year. It's never about losing weight, right? It's about showing up and being more true to who I am and making sort of spiritual resolutions, or intentions, kavanot. And so for me, I've been thinking a lot about, well, teshuvah and returning to that path, which we've talked about, the fact, you and I have talked about the fact that it really is a practice. Anti-racism is a practice. It's something that you have to come back to again and again and again, like fitness, or healthy eating, or...
- Shabbat, the Torah!
- Exactly.
- So it's not a thing that you can check off your list. And so my intentions are to continue to show up and to deepen, and also to really look, my intention is to look at my intention. I know that's a little meta, but I think it's really easy for people with white skin, or white privilege, to fall into performative allyship. Am I doing this because it is the right thing and advances racial justice? Or am I doing it so that I could get a cookie, an ally cookie? And have someone who, like you, or another friend of color say, "Thanks, you're one of the good ones." If that's why I'm doing it, then it's for the wrong reason. And so I really want to get deep behind my own intentions and make sure that I'm not doing it, I'm not centering myself in it, in an unhealthy way. So that's the biggest one of, sort of the focus of my returning to the practice again and again, in the coming year. What about you?
- Nice. I think for me personally, as a woman of color, Oh! I mean, I think it's continuing and deepening, I'm gonna cry... For me, it's facing a lot of my internalized terror around, oh, I just had this... I'm trying, I'm not a linear thinker, so I'm trying to be as linear as possible, so I can contextualize what I'm saying and feeling right now, but there's like so much. One, just an ongoing kavanah, or intention that I have, is to continually be as... powerful and effective and as nourished as possible, as I can be, so that I can sustain my social justice work and increase and strengthen it over the course of my lifetime. And right now, I'm at a point in my mid-thirties where mid-pushing-late-thirties, where I'm wanting to up the ante, big time. I make a lot of kavanot, I'm really into intentions at any chance I get and Rosh Hashanah is one of the big, one of the biggest, and certainly, it's sort of along the lines of what you were saying, Tracie, the most internal, for me, around really, what am I going for? And the theme that's been coming up for me is stepping into my own power more. Claiming my sovereignty. And for me, a part of what that anti-oppressive power looks like, is truly cultivating my spiritual health, reaching for a relatively small inner-inner-circle of folks who are there and who nourish me and support me and being really clear about the concentric rings of broader people who I'm blessed to be in relationship with, further out. But that I really cultivate that inner-world, so that I'm prepared to have as meaningful of an impact as possible and really work on the deeper, more subliminal. But the more I focus on it, the more visible it's becoming. Deeper parts of my being that internalized since I was a child, to not bring my full power and passion to bear, which I think some people would find funny, like really? You're not already doing that? I'm not already doing that. Not as much as I could be. And so the last thing I'll say about this is that I had this, I'm continually having epiphanies as I push myself, as I'm constantly in stretch mode and on the edge of my learning. I now, the other day, I had a huge spiritual breakthrough that's deeply personal and I better understood the Jewish rule, or the old traditional rule around not studying the deeper elements of Jewish mysticism until you're 38. I've often resented that. And as a 36 year old, having been deeply engaged in mysticism and spirituality and my continual evolution, it amazes me that with all of the intention, how long it takes and our brains don't even develop until we're 29. So for me, it's wanting to really focus in this year around, as a woman of color, accessing more of my power, dissolving the walls that have been established within me that keep me from knowing and leveraging the fullness of my ability and power. So with that, Tracie, I have another question written down for us here to think about, in terms of, what are some of our, going more broadly, as we enter into 5781, the sacred, special Jewish year, what are our racial, what for each of us, is our, or part of, it might be too much to say all of it, but what are elements of our racial justice vision for the world? In honor, of this being considered, Rosh Hashanah literally being the head of the year, that this is also a collective global birthday from a Jewish perspective and what are our longterm visions as we blow the shofar, instead of the birthday candles and ask ourselves to wake up and welcome in this new year. What's our bigger vision?
- April, I think given what you just said about your intention for yourself, you should start with the answer to this one.
- Oh, okay. So I think, yeah, so, I mean, for me, what I would say is a bunch of things. I think after this conversation, the answer to this question, I think is a huge, it's a significant linchpin, because I think a lot of people don't know fully what it looks like when racial justice comes. I think that they think it might be like a reckoning for white people who just have everything. It's kind of like a blank. And I think it's really hard to work towards something when we don't know what we're working toward. And so what I would say, there's so many different things, but what immediately comes to mind for me, is when I envision, like the world I envision for us, our world, if our world had achieved racial justice and equity and healing, I think that we would be so incredibly powerful, as a human, as a species. To me, I think when I think holistically about collective liberation and justice. So to me, racial justice, when it's achieved, and I know these are also beliefs that come out of many of the leaders and founders of the movement for black lives, is that there's a sense of intersectional justice, meaning that all of the different people who are impacted and peoples who are impacted by oppression are thought of well and cared for. So that's one thing for me to say. So I think really holistically, because when I think about racial justice and if we center the voices of black folks, as the people who are sort of the anchor, or the thing holding racism in place from the bottom end of it, that if we think about intersectionality, black people are queer and poor and are impacted by, are disabled, all these other things. So if we're gonna help black people and other people of color get free, it's gotta be collective liberation. It's gotta be something that comes from many different liberation, black liberation leaders. And so in the world that I envision, with some of those things having been achieved... And I don't fully know what the journey looks like, but the outcome is that there's more relaxation and fun, because we've stopped, yeah, because we've stopped having to hustle for our worth, and we've started to collectively see that we are inherently divine and deserving of being able to be in meaningful and accountable and beloved relationship and community with each other. And we've figured out how to equitably redistribute and share our different resources. And people get what they need. And in my vision of racial justice being achieved, our world is going to be so much better off because we would be able to drastically benefit, dramatically is what I want to say, drastically shift the current, or the old paradigm and dramatically benefit from all of the collective wisdom and social capital and brilliances out there. I often used to think when I lived in Boston and I lived in a poor black neighborhood in Boston, and I always found it funny how explicitly racist it was when people often they would talk about it being a bad neighborhood. Whereas I experienced it as a family neighborhood. Right, right? It was safe and where there were connections and where I knew my neighbors and had the best community health center, or one of the best, in my opinion, in the Boston area. And anyway, I loved it there. And I remember often riding the bus and people who were black and navigating racism and poverty and homophobia and all of these different things had so much pride and resilience, but were clearly tired. And I would think on almost a daily basis, and I know other people thought about this too, in our own urban cities and countries around the world, like the cure for cancer could be on this bus right now. Multiple innovations that could help us live more sustainably. So for me, a world in which we have racial justice, is a world in which every person has the room and space to access and leverage their talents and that we are interconnected and we support each other and progress is measured, not by more things and bigger things, but progress is measured by the quality of our relationships and the fact that no one is left behind and that our innovations, instead of going wider, go deeper. And we figure out how when we're supporting certain people, how to support them better. How can we increase their, or how can we decrease their recovery time? How do we increase their sense of love and wholeness? That in a world of racial justice and collective liberation, to me, addiction largely wouldn't exist. Since so many, not necessarily all, but so many addictions are connected to fundamental elements of loneliness. And because we've contradicted white supremacy culture, that's also woven in with capitalism, unchecked, unbridled capitalism and misogyny, we've also dealt with these different patterns that separate us from our fundamental interconnectedness. So those are some of the things. I know that I'm getting really big and dreamy, but I think, even if I bring it down, okay, what does that mean in terms of super practical things? What that means is, the studies that I share, the results that I share from multiple studies that demonstrate that multicultural organizations and communities that have intercultural competence, meaning affected abilities to be in a relationship with each other and work across lines of difference. They consistently outperform monocultural institutions and communities, as well as diverse, intercultural institutions and communities that lack the effective tools to work effectively across lines of difference. And so what that looks like in the short term, is the better we get at racial justice in ourselves, one, I think we're going to have more confidence. And as we work to rid ourselves of internalized racial oppression, or superiority, the closer we get, the more deeply we engage with teshuvah and the closer we get to our fundamental divinity and humanity. And I think as we begin to clear up that fog around racism and all the trauma that still lingers in the context the United States, the more we resolve that, I suspect it's like other forms of trauma, that the more that gets healed, the more clearly we're gonna be able to see and move and lead, around a variety of issues. How about that was super meta. I tried to bring it down. I hope that's helpful, but I'm really curious about how you respond to this now, Tracie! I tried to have you go first.
- So yeah, April, you are envisioning a world that unfortunately I don't think we will see in 5781. But may it come soon and in our times.
- Yes.
- But I do think there's some, knowing where you're going, right? Postcards from the destination, is a really important part of the journey, right? Because as you said, when you started, that if you don't know what you're working toward, how can you know which direction to go? And so I think it's really important to have that future world articulated. So some of the more practical things that occurred to me for 5781 are, you know, you and I have talked about, sort of separately, offline, how frequently we hear people talk about black Jewish relations, right? As if there were no black Jews. As if that Venn diagram were two circles that don't intersect. When in fact, the intersection is significant and growing. And so--
- I'm right here! Hi!
- Right, and you're not the only one!
- [April] Not at all .
- And so I think that having our Jewish community, specifically, really do some of the work to try and break down that either/or thinking, of Jewish or black. Or even the one that I fell into, when you and I were talking, that you're a Jew of color, or you're a white Ashkenazi Jew, as if a Jew of color can't have an Ashkenazi parent. So breaking down some of that either/or thinking, specifically within our Jewish community, so that we are able to more fully recognize, embrace, welcome, hold, nurture our entire community. That's one of the, oh, sorry, that's one of my goals for us, as a Jewish community in America and in the world. 'Cause I think that that kind of blinder that we have all put on about what a Jew is and what a Jew looks like, is hurting all of us. So for instance, I hope we never, no one ever says, ever again, "You don't look Jewish." I hope that that phrase is just banished because I think it is, it's so often said as a compliment to white-skinned Jews,
- Right.
- Who maybe have have smaller noses, or blue eyes, or blonde hair, or whatever. It's said as a compliment, which is really messed up. Or it's said in a way to make, it's supposed to be funny to a Jew of color, in a way that makes light of their identity. That, yeah, let's just stop saying that . Let's find other ways to engage with one another, in ways that can truly allow folks to feel fully seen. That's my smaller step on the road toward your much bigger vision.
- Nice, I love it. And what I would add is like, I'm wondering what the positive replacement to, "You don't look Jewish," because yeah, that should just go. It's antiquated and I understand where it comes from, and they're very real things, but ideally variables, but they don't account for all of it. That you can literally look like any single person. And so whether it's the Jewish multi-racial network, network's tag line, Jews come in all colors, or we are a multiracial people, or thinking to yourself, I don't think it needs to be said aloud, "Wow, I just love meeting, I loving engaging with the diversity of our vibrant community."
- I think about--
- I loved...
- I had a doctor, recent, within the past couple of years, an Asian woman, and she was asking, I don't know, it was like the end of the thing and she was asking me what I did. And I told her that I worked for a Jewish institution and she said, "Oh, I'm Jewish." And I wish I had said, "Oh, mishpacha, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you." I wish I had sort of, I didn't. I was like, "Oh, of course that's..." You know, I don't think I shamed her, or I don't think that I did that. Although if I could find her, I would ask her. But it was a moment where I can imagine someone might have said, "That's funny, you don't look Jewish," as if it were funny. So when you say like, "What else could you say instead?" I was thinking about the exact experience where someone might say it. And so I would love to invite us, to sort of in that moment, when you were maybe not expecting the person you're talking to to be Jewish, to say, "Oh, we're Mishpocha! We're family, I didn't realize." And that kind of can acknowledge your missing it, or correct me.
- Or, right. Or not. Yeah, although I think that's good. I think, I don't even think you necessarily have to say. Because in that moment, she's your physician. So unless she has a mezuzah on her office door, which she probably doesn't. But I think, "Oh, we're mishpacha, we're mishpacha, like, we're family. I think that I would just leave it at that. I'm so glad, you know what I mean? I think, but I love that affirmation. It reminds me of what staff and leaders in the Keshet community talk about, the Keshet, the LGBTQ organization, an inclusion organization, that they say, when someone comes out, that one of the good responses you can say to someone, to the young person, is "Mazel tov." Is there a way that's the equivalent of that, that's not necessarily Mazel tov, because it's like, you know, there's complexity and dangerous, but like you said, "Oh, it's so good to know that you're a member of our extended Jewish family as well." That I think can be nice, along with other variations. I think that that's a great possible replacement. And if you're meeting someone in the context, which is often, or frequent, like an oneg, like a meal after Shabbat services, or a snack, of just treating people in that space as though they Jewishly belong. And for the purposes of inclusion, I like to not make assumptions at all, for anyone, regardless of what they look like, around their Hebrew. So I do the custom that I learned in my reform context of saying Hebrew words and then saying the English translation, just always, consistently, unless I know someone, or unless they say, "Oh, actually I know Hebrew." I'm like, "Oh, great." I generally try not to make assumptions about anyone's Hebrew ability so that we can all engage. And I find that that works well. And that asking people simple questions, or profound questions around, "What did you think of the Rabbi's sermon?" Or, "What did you think of services tonight?" Or, engaging them around, "These are my favorite cookies." Like anything other than oddly focusing on their identity, unless it's something that they are bringing up and asking to engage in, in that moment. So, yeah, so I think that's about it for now.
- [Narrator] L'shana tovah u'metucha. Wishing you a good, sweet and racially just 5781. Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliott Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @elliotthammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com where you can send us a question, or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.