Ep 15: Oil, Co-Creation, and Having What We Need

April and Tracie mark the end of the Festival of Lights with a drash (interpretation) of some of the lessons of the Hanukkah story. When one day's worth of oil lasts eight days--exactly as long as is needed to press more oil--we learn that we already possess what we need to move forward. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be pressing more oil! It means we shouldn't allow a feeling of lack to keep us from doing what we can right now.

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about April’s work at Joyous Justice.
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at bmoreincremental.com

Resources:
So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
RacialEquityTools.org is a great place for fundamental definitions and other resources.  

Transcript

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- [Tracie] In today's episode, we explore the Hanukkah story and its wisdom. TL;DR, don't discount one day's worth of oil.- 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.- Want me to start?- Yeah, let's do it. Let's hear your song. It's Hanukkah, and I want to sing a song but I don't want to engage in copyright infringement(laughs)- Now that should be kosher because I made it something different, but(laughs) that was my thing. I want to sing a song about a holiday but I can't engage in copyright infringement So we'll just talk about the themes for this week.- Love it. Talking with you will be such a treat. Okay, great.(laughs)- Amazing.- In general, you should know I'm going to sing. I'm not going to sang, I'm going to sing something like what I just did.(laughs)- I mean, you sing like that all the time but you told me you wanted to start our Hanukkah episode with a song, so I loved it. It was great.- You're welcome. Thank you.- Thank you. Speaking of songs, actually for Hanukah Shabbat the Zoom services that my synagogue did there was a lot of singing and I was sitting there singing along and thinking like I really wish they would sing"This Little Light of Mine" for Hanukkah. I associate "This Little Light of Mine" with Hanukkah, and then they did, they closed it with "This Little Light of Mine" and it was awesome. And in fact, the cantorial intern like added a new verse about "eight nights of Hanukkah, I'm gonna let it shine." It was great.- Nice.- I won't torture our listeners with my singing, but it was pretty awesome. You can imagine "eight nights of Hanukkah, I'm gonna let it shine," to the tune of This Little Light of Mine.- I love it.- Yeah, it was pretty great.- So there are many things that are talked about on Hanukkah and I feel like this holiday was a little trickier for us than other ones where there are just obvious, I feel like there are obvious things to talk about with the high holidays, with those different holidays around different things to grab onto that can be corollaries for racial justice, and it felt trickier, outside of using the very popular, common, still meaningful, but arguably from a production perspective arguably like, or content perspective perhaps pushing the boundaries of being cliche because it's so frequent and given to children around inspiration and illuminating the world, which I'm all for. But I wanted to enjoy thinking with you in advance of this episode about, what can we bring that's a slightly different twist from what many of us are used to hearing during this holiday. And I think we came up with something interesting in large part, thanks to you Tracie.- Thanks- I'm excited for us to take a little bit of time to talk about this.- Yeah, yeah, so, when we were talking thinking about the holiday and the story that we're given about the Maccabees sort of rededicating the temple and the story of the oil, which is the basis of a lot of our minhag, our culture around this holiday, which may or may not be factually accurate, it sounds like maybe probably not factually accurate, but there is truth in story, even if it's not truth with a capital T, and the truth that--- True that.- And the truth that I'm feeling that actually I reflect it, you say I brought it, but actually I'm reflecting back something that you and I have been talking about offline for weeks, which is that, its reflected in the story where, so the, when we rededicate the temple and we relight the eternal flame, but this oil lamp, the eternal flame, which represents God's presence, we only have enough oil to burn for one-- Is this burning?(laughs)- Yes, yes, thank you.- An eternal flame. Sorry, you were saying?- That was like my favorite song when I was in middle school.- It's a song that I attribute to a lost loved one, so it actually has a lot of meaning for me, so when you were saying that earlier... but sorry, you were saying, back to the--- We only have enough oil for this oil lamp which represents God's presence to burn for one day and miracle of miracles, it lasts eight days, which is exactly the amount of time that it takes to press more oil. So I'm not telling most folks anything they don't already know. The thing that is really interesting to me based on coming out of our conversations April, is they already had everything they needed.- They already had everything they needed, everything they needed.(claps) That deserves claps.- Yeah, we already have everything we need. And more than that, for me personally they already had everything--- Wait, what? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You can't just drop something, like, I don't know what you're talking about. There are like trillions of dollars in industries that thrive on people thinking they don't have what they need.- Right, right, you're right--- Which is not to say that people don't benefit from meaningful services, but there's the point at which, you know. So you just dropped a big bit of wisdom and I think something that I just, do you mind if I add a quick caveat and can you hold on what you were saying?- I never mind.- Okay, thank you. Oh, that's so sweet. I wasn't sure if I was in trouble or if that was an affirmation. Which is that I just wanna say for folks. And I see other teachers talking about this, so you may have already heard this too that over the course of our show you're going to hear things that are seemingly conflicting at different times. And the thing is we always come back to the both/and so we're not saying that you always have everything you need, but we're saying that more so than folks realize you have what you need. Please continue, Tracie.- I guess I would add that, nuance it that that feeling that you need more, is often felt as a fundamental failing. And I guess that's really what I'm trying to say is that you have what you need. So it may be that you have, I continue to have a lot of learning that I need to do. And I already possess what it takes to do that learning. So it is not that I am--- Learning and to still meaningfully contribute in various ways. It might not be fully what you want, but people often get stuck in a place of paralysis or stagnation, there's been forward bent and meaningful progress that can be had without rushing. It's the in-between between doing nothing and going full steam ahead without engaging with humble practices around learning and checking in with in this case, when we're talking about race, leaders of color and people of color, the people who are most directly impacted by racism.- And doing some of that learning on your own too I feel like we have this pattern of behavior. I don't mean we, you and me, but I mean we Americans have this pattern of behavior where something isn't right and so we look for the right thing to buy or pill to take or words to say as if there's a thing, a perfect thing that will fill the hole in our lives. And that's what I'm saying, we don't need. We already have the things that we need to fill that hole, if we rededicate ourselves, coming back to the Hanukkah story, to finding that solution to figuring out what that thing is from within the skills that we already have. Now, this may involve relationship, it may involve additional learning, it may involve purchasing something, but that can't be the only thing. Happiness cannot be bought, racial justice cannot be bought.- So you often play this role, we're a little bit switched right now sort of which is kind of fun and cool. You know, so for me, going back to this narrative around the oil, I would wanna ask you what's one day's worth of oil in your life? What is one skill, one bit of knowledge you do have that it's easy to overlook? The Maccabees in this story as it's told, could have been like, dude we only got one day's worth of oil, you know what? Like, guess we're not going to have oil, we should go off, we should find the perfect oil vendor. I hear there's one over a couple of countries, like over yonder over the mountain, however they used to say back in the day, but--- Or they could have said, "let's wait," they could have said, "let's wait.""Let's not rededicate."- Right. Right, exactly, that's what I'm trying to say. Like they could have said"we're not going to take action," right? And instead they said, "here's what we have right now."And we're not saying that it's eight days,"but you know we're just going to use what we have"in the present moment"and do what we can." And I love this story, and I actually think this has been talked about in an episode, a few episodes back in a different sort of way of really valuing... we at times like that one day's worth of oil is equivalent to a first step and not knowing the second step. It's saying, "I'm clear about this first step,"and I know it's valuable,"and even though I don't know what the second one is"I'm going to take that first step." Now again, I just caveat here. If it's something like someone, if you're someone who is in an urgency pattern, and you're saying I'm just going to say I'm hosting an event and you're hosting a racial justice event and you're not in relationship with partners, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about reaching out to someone you know to reach out to. If there's an organization that you can give to, centers, black liberation and POC liberation and any number of things that you might not know what the next step is in your leadership or activism. For people of color it might be like, there's that one person. I find this at times, it's really interesting to me, I have my own learning journey where when I finally find what I need, like in certain books I'm building out some of my spiritual and meditative skills, and I literally read a book about energy management that I stopped reading earlier this year because I could tell it was like the next thing in my learning, and there's a lot of emotion. I guess I want to say that there's, Bren Brown talks about this. She describes it as foreboding joy and that might not be quite it, but like this I'm going to love this light, and so how do we say when there's only a little bit of resource, trust that whether it's by miracle and divine intervention or through divine intervention used more lightly in the context of a number of other allied and aligned folks stepping up and joining us.- Right, right. And to bring it down, you know into the weeds a little bit, I'm reading Ijeoma Oluo,_So You Want to Talk About Race?_ right now, and she talks about the internet and how a lot of these questions, these conversations, these difficult conversations around race often turn into these ugly conversations on the internet in different forums. And she says, you know, if there's a term that's used that you don't understand what it means or how it's being used, in the time it takes you to beg and plead for someone to explain it, you could have Googled it. And that's kind of what I mean too about-- Google Yeah.- RacialEquityTools.org, is a phenomenal compendium of a bunch of resources, reliable resources around these subjects. Glossaries, definitions, resources.- Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot out there. And I know there's a lot that's not good on the internet. I mean, that's the other edge of the double-edged sword of the internet is there's so much information and it's hard to know exactly what it is, but you already have what you need to understand what is meant and you don't need to beg and bother and, interrupt folks to get there.- Yes, exactly, and one of my favorite, I can't remember if I've talked about on the show or not. I love it so much. One of my favorite quotes from Will Smith when he was and still is, but when he was really on his metaphysical journey like in the stuff like he had this interview, I think it might've been with Charlie Rose. He was being interviewed and he said it, and so it's funny to me that I'm quoting Will Smith, but it's such sage advice, and I love it that if you can get to a point where you can ask a question or clarify a desire about something you're wanting to learn or overcome, most likely the vast majority of the time there is someone else who has already been on that journey and has written about it and made a blog post, made a YouTube post, did a radio interview about it that, especially with today's technology. And I notice at times, even for me, it's interesting, it's ongoing, like I've continually enhanced my life. Like ever since he said that the amount of reading and learning and entire ways I've shifted my life. So I guess I just love that principle that there's all you have to do is get to a place where you're clear around what the question is and get better in your searching, right? Like as someone who arguably, because of my ADHD it's hard for me to read, and also the, the phone, like I have Kindle on my just my little phone and it's hard. I get distracted and my mind goes to other things, right? But with the accessibility feature on the phone now all of my Kindle books are audio books. Like I'm really passionate about this. Like I think if people really internalize this there can be a lot more ease in our lives, when we have moments of hardship. And not that necessarily at anyone, everyone, although often much of the time someone has gone through literally exactly what you've gone through. Whatever your identity is, whatever your race is, whatever your class is, like there's probably someone who has been through that exact thing and written about it somewhere, right? And if not there's someone who like it might be slightly different, but is related, right, is like adjacent to you and has written about it and can give you insight and guidance. Okay, I'm hopping off my little soap box.- Well, I guess I'm just going to nuance it because I think one of the things that you're saying like your example of the Kindle book, I could see someone in that same situation as you are, sort of just kind of bemoaning, what is, and should-ing on themselves. Like, I should be able to read this or to read on the phone or to read whatever, but I can't, and that getting stuck in that, should right, then you just get into the spiral and then nothing happens. And instead you just embrace that fact of the way that you learn and the way that your attention goes because of the ADHD or whatever, just because of how you are wired.- And I can't be the only person. Right, I can't be the only person.- Even if you are, I think recognizing how you are built and then adjusting what you want to accomplish based on that truth is, so for instance, you and I were talking offline about--- And I wanna give a pushback to that, but I'm not, 'cause there's a billion people on this planet--- No, you're not.- So statistically, unless I'm literally a cyborg pretending to be human, there's probably someone who's as special and unique as we all are, we all are also dust and ashes and nothing is new under the sun. As much as you think it is.- Yes, I completely agree. And there's comfort in knowing that there are others who have the same struggles. There's also sort of at a certain point like figuring out what works for you. It may be that other people who have the same intersectional combination of factors can help you find that thing, and also you have what you need to figure out what that thing is.- Yes, we're not alone in that either.- If you can get clear on the question, so for me when we were talking offline it was about plants, and I thought that I just wasn't good at keeping plants alive because I thought I should, I'm putting air quotes around that, be able to remember, you know, to water them. And so right now my husband is away, he was the plant guy in our house and he's away for an extended period for his job, and so I put reminders on my phone to remind me to water the plans and they're doing great, they're thriving. So when I stopped giving myself a hard time for not doing what I thought I should--- And making negative meaning, right.? The meaning, the thoughts like, right, like the circumstance to choosing thoughts that are like really right. And yeah, that's right, go ahead.- I stopped fighting, it's exactly it. I stopped fighting what is, accepted what is and then figured out how to accommodate to get to where I wanted to be. And I'm happier, the plants are happier. I mean, all the way around, like that recognizing that it's not a lack in me. I already have what I need, I just need to do it differently, find the thing.- Right, and so I want to add a couple things here and then invite you to share a quick story. I think to bring us home, your Shabbat challah story, a story that I think is so beautiful and ties in really beautifully with this theme we're talking about over Hanukkah. Excuse me, I have to cough. And remember what I was going to say. Right, and I think the middle ground here to be really clear, at times I do have this awesome skill, now that I've honed for about 10 years around learning to ask the right questions, that's a really great point is that once I clarify what the question is, I'm really into law of attraction and co-creation. And so at times just when I clarify the question in my mind, I haven't said it to anybody, anything all of a sudden like I see an ad outside on the street, or it comes up in conversation. And the thing is that might've been coming up before, so part of it is that I may have attracted it to me, and part of it before is now that I've clarified my honing internally, when I encounter it then, I'm able to easily identify and say, ah, yes, that's the program that I wanted. I'm really into training programs and classes and things or like, Oh, that's the partner I was looking for. Or when someone emails me, they might've been emailing me anyway, but when I clarify it, I'm looking for a partner who has these different traits and who I trust and I've worked with them before, but I haven't talked to recently, and then when they message me, it's just like shout out to Catherine Bell, Oh, perfect, I've known this person for years but in partnership, she's also looking to create some things let's co-create together, right? But I wanted to be really honest like with the story I told about Kindle, I didn't immediately have that thought, right? Like I had that moment where I was like, right, there's that reminder again, like, it didn't occur to me, but in the interim I was neutral. So I wasn't like, oh, I'm having this problem. I can't read core books that I want to read, to strengthen my leadership and my personal development and for entertainment and I can't do it and so I'm down on myself, it was just more like noticing like, Oh, I'm not able to do this right now. I would like to be able to read these books. Sometimes I can read it at night when there are very few distractions, and it's a nice way for me to read before I go to sleep. And I just stopped mostly buying books there. And I didn't give up on it, but I just kept it as neutral, while I was pretty busy with my life, you know what I mean? And to me, I feel like that state which I didn't do intentionally, but I've been doing enough of my own inner work around things and really being thoughtful about how I contextualize things and the analysis or meaning-making that I do. I've gotten very intentional over the years because so many of us are conditioned. I certainly was just by what's in the ether. It wasn't even from my parents, mostly. It was just like out in the ether, right? Like just to be very harsh and judgmental. And I found for me in college and in my young adult life, that was not sustainable. I couldn't maintain it, so I needed to read books and engage in therapy and do different things in college and in my early 20s to find a new way of being because it wasn't sustainable. So I really loved the story that you shared with me a couple of weeks ago, and again, this morning, before we started recording Tracie, about an epiphany you had, that came as a part of your process around baking challah recently.- Yeah, thank you for the invitation. So this year, 5781, this Jewish year, I have started making challah every week for my family. And occasionally like this past Shabbat, I actually there was a loaf in the freezer that I baked, but I didn't actually bake this past Friday. Anyway, I've been baking challah every week and it really has changed the way I think about the Bracha that we say the Motzi for challah, for meals, bread. So in English, it blesses God, and thanks God for bringing forth bread from the earth. And after this process of weeks and weeks of baking challah and, combining making the dough, letting it poof, braiding the challah, letting them rest, and then baking them, it really struck me that actually God doesn't bring forth bread from the earth. God brings forth wheat and farmers cultivate it, millers grind it, and then other people bake it into bread, I bake it into bread. And so when we say that, Bracha, blessed is God who brings forth bread from the earth, we actually are including ourselves whether we realize it or not in the act of creation. God needs humans to make bread, not to make wheat, but to make bread. And that just feels so powerful to me, and has added such an important layer in what I do every day. I eat, and I do try to say Brachot before I eat, I don't always remember, but I often remember. And so I'm saying this Bracha many times a week and now when I say it, it's not just about God, but it's a deeper relationship that I have with God. And I know that this conversation about God you know, as a divine being separate from humans is a little uncomfortable for some of our listeners, and I gotta be honest it was uncomfortable for me for a lot of years, but I'm sharing it anyway because I'm hopeful that you'll be able to translate it.- It's your truth.- It is my truth, now, and I'm hoping that those of you listening will be able to translate it into your version of that which is more than. Because I have a feeling that my version of that, which is more than is not the exact thing that you have rejected, it's certainly not a big white dude with a beard in the sky.- Just really love that story. Because I think when I heard it, I just took it to mean like all of the prayers that like, yes, we are an embodiment of the divine and we are expressions of the divine. So, I love that. So to bring the episode full circle, I think simply stated, I would say just don't, whatever your equivalent of a day's worth of oil is, don't discount it. Because whether it is the mythical Hanukkah story or many stories in our movements and in our lives and in our families of not having quite enough, of not having enough food, of only having a few dollars in the bank and still managing to make a beautiful meal for one's family. That we do have... So much can be done with what we perceive in part because that thing is not all there is. It's not just the oil in the Hanukkah story. It was also God's presence and impact. In the stories of our movements and our communities, it's not just our thing, it's the pieces that we all bring together collectively, and naturally as humans, unless we're taking stock of everything all the time, which we're not, we don't actually know what will happen when we bring, when we get to see the sum of all of our different contributions together. And so I wish you happy Hanukkah, and--- I wanna add. Yeah, I wanna add one thing that I say to my daughter and myself all the time, and which is related to what you're saying about the oil, the one day's worth and that is we can do hard things. And I think that's also where we get stuck when we see only one day's worth of oil and we think, well we can't do it with this and we can do hard things.- And it's not only on you, when we have the courage to take a courageous next step or bring the bit that we have, we have to always remember, we're often in community and it's not only on us. And so we can do hard things. And often those things get elevated when we do them collectively.- Yes, amen to that.- Hanukkah Sameach, happy Hanukkah, everyone, and we will see you next week.- [Narrator] Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. 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.