Poetry
Shmot¸ the Book of Exodus, is a rich resource to support people committed to the work of racial justice. In the narrative-driven first part, we trace the trajectory of the enslavement of the people of Israel to our liberation from slavery. The narrative makes clear that our liberation was not to do anything we want but to make the transformative journey from brute avdut, harsh and meaningless work, to holy avodah, entering into service to and relationship with Adonai. And so we march directly from Mitzrayim/Egypt/the narrow place to Sinai to receive the Torah.
Avadim hayyinu, we were slaves, and we were liberated to become a covenanted holy people. This is the foundational story of the Jewish people. This is the animating impulse of activism of so many Jews. Some of us are inspired by the Exodus story. Some of us are inspired by the story’s interpretation at the Passover seder, where we say "ha lakhma anya/Let all who are hungry come and eat,” and where we are commanded to tell the story as if we ourselves were liberated from slavery, as indeed some of our ancestors were.
The Book of Exodus also recounts the encounter with God at Sinai as a moment so intense that the Israelites experienced synesthesia, where they saw thunder and heard lightning (20:15). After hearing Moses’ account of God’s revelation, the Israelites agreed na’aseh venishmah, first to do and then to understand (24:7). If enacted with care, this ordering—action prior to understanding–is a powerful teaching for white folks who are engaging in racial justice work. We take it on out of conviction and with humility, and with the acknowledgment that deeper understanding may emerge only after actions are taken, relationships are established or strengthened, and mistakes are corrected. In the Torah, there is clear recognition that structures and norms aid in this kind of transformative work. After revelation, the text begins a shift from narrative into practices and expectations. We read about the halakhot that God handed down, in the service of building covenantal community and fostering holy relationships beyn adam lemakom, between humans and God, and beyn adam lehavero, amongst humans.
The last five parshiyot of Exodus are about building the mishkan, that portable tabernacle that traveled with the Israelites in the desert. These Torah portions provide detailed blueprints, but there is dramatic narrative as well. Ki Tissa (30:11 – 34:35) tells of the Golden Calf, that story of anxiety and attachment to what is known rather than continuing down a new and largely unknown path that promises growth, however uncomfortable, and offers the possibility of ever-unfolding potential, including greater equity and justice. The double parshah of Vayakhel-Pekudei (35:1 – 40:38) ends Shmot and is about recovering from that episode. It’s about teshuvah (repentance), renewal, and completion of the mishkan, where each person contributed in their distinctiveness, and which was crafted to meticulous and beautiful standards.
There are three attributes of the mishkan that are particularly rich in the work of racial reckoning and reconciliation. The first draws on the very word itself, mishkan. Hebrew is a building-block language; we build nouns and verbs from a set of root letters. The root of mishkan is shin-kaf-nun. It’s the same root as shakhen, neighbor. It’s the same root as shekhunah, neighborhood. The root of the word for mishkan is about centering relationships; it’s about cultivating intimacy; it’s about recognizing the holiness in connection. This is always potent, especially so in this time of fracture and demonization of others and epidemic-levels of loneliness. These letters also form another word, Shekhinah, the feminine manifestation of the divine that accompanied the Israelites in their wanderings. Shekhinah powerfully reminds us that in and through relationships, we can experience - we can manifest - the divine. As Martin Buber taught, "When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them."
The second attribute focuses on a design feature of the mishkan. I want to call your attention not to the keruvim themselves, whatever they are, but to the space created between them. Rabbi Alex Weissman teaches:
It is in this space between the keruvim that the Shekhinah is most immanent, in this space of sacred relationship and witness, around which the community gathers and performs sacred ritual. The Kli Yakar [16th century Czech rabbi] teaches about this sacred space, “The Divine light radiated outward from the ark affecting everything around it. Thus the Sages say that [the ark] actually bore those who appeared to bear it” (Kli Yakar on Ex. 25:22). This is how our community ideally functions. We have the experience of both seeing and being seen, we experience God’s presence emanating from this space of witness and connection, and from that source of holiness, we are buoyed rather than burdened.
This is what we aspire for in our interactions with each other and in the communities we build, whether they are abiding or pop-up. This is what we aspire for the world—the capacity to see and experience and celebrate God’s presence in each and every person. And that’s why racial justice work, including bearing witness and reckoning with past harms, is essential. While ultimately dealing with the implications of the decimation of Indigenous populations and 400 years of chattel slavery is a structural matter, we must also pursue this work on an individual and communal level in order to bring to life that world where the Tzelem Elohim/image of the divine, in every person is recognized and can shine out.
Finally, the Talmud (Bava Batra 14b:6-7) teaches that the kohanim, the priests, placed two sets of tablets inside the mishkan, the first set Moses broke upon seeing the Golden Calf as well as the whole ones he brought down after his second sojourn on the mountain. This powerful story of acknowledging and keeping together the broken and the whole is especially important in racial equity work, and deeply resonant upon visiting Civil Rights sites and monuments like the Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) National Memorial for Peace and Justice. In such a pilgrimage, we bear witness to profound injustice and its lasting impact. We do this to recognize the brokenness and reckon with it. We do so always holding the hope of wholeness. We must live with the paradox that we all, individually and as a society, toggle back and forth between whole and broken. Reflecting on this paradox, Sabrina Sojourner shared a quote by Maxine Hong Kinston, from her amazing book The Woman Warrior: “I learn to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that I can hold paradox.“ After visiting EJI and the lynching memorial together with a group of 200 Reconstructionists, Sabrina remarked to me: “We really know now how huge the universe is.”
Elsewhere in the Talmud (Pesakhim 54a), we learn that God created teshuvah before God created the world. This means that there is always a pathway back. We will encounter brokenness, we will sometimes be responsible for the breaking, or we will fail to act and thereby let damage get worse. It is through teshuvah and in community that we can orient ourselves toward and work together for healing and wholeness.
In the book of Exodus, we see the trajectory ma’avdut leherut/from oppression to liberation. We see multiple examples of sinning and then repenting of sin and resolving to do better. We are taught the rules for and practices around building covenantal community—community grounded in relationships and accountability to each other and to the divine. We read about paradox and tension, about brokenness and wholeness. With the building of the mishkan, we learn about God’s presence and the centering of relationships. These are resources for all of us as we pursue the ongoing work of racial justice. In this work, may we draw deeply on Jewish wisdom and may we contribute new insights. This is how we as the Jewish people build up the Jewish civilization. This is how we support each other in our work of reckoning, in our work toward repair and justice.