The following were the opening prepared remarks R' David delivered as part of MLK Social Justice Week at Seattle Colleges, 2024. A unscripted conversation with Associate Vice Chancellor D'Andre Fisher followed his talk.
Thank you so much for this profound honor and opportunity to speak with you today, Associate Vice Chancellor Fisher and with all of you at the Seattle Colleges, students, staff, and faculty, board and community. Particularly yourself, D’Andre and your team, particularly Dr. Coop and Reed. And thank you Laura and your team for the ASL interpretation to increase the accessibility of these talks.
I want to start with a short embodiment practice. It is for you as much as it is for me. It is a practice I have developed for myself as a student of multiple disciplines, some of them Jewish, some of them not. I use this practice most closely on shabbat, the day of rest, the Jewish sabbath.
I take my cues from the chasidim rishonim, a group referenced in the 2000 year old text called the Mishnah, where it says the chasidim rishonim would sit for an hour before prayer. (Mishnah Berakhot 5:1)
Not knowing what they did exactly when they sat, the point of this for me is about going slow, is about being in a space for a while before engaging in practice in that space. It is about arranging our time intentionally, but with pause and slowness instead of rush and immediate transitions.
PAUSE. Take in the history of this moment. The thousands of years of breath. Jewish liturgy connects breath and soul in a single root word. Breath - nishama and soul - neshama. Let us connect our mind-body-spirit, and let us reach out as we feel able to connect with the mind-body-spirit of others here with us right now. In the spaces in which we sit now, and across the zoom-verse.
...I'll close our practice with the words of disabled Ashkenazi Jewish Puerta Riceña, Aurora Levins Morales:
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more. (excerpted from her V’ahavta)
With this in mind, let me tell you a bit about my journey to become a seasoned social justice pursuing rabbi, a father of two daughters, an 18 year partner of an amazing woman, and a dog owner.
I was raised a suburban white kid in Westchester NY who happened to be Jewish. I was not raised in a particularly Jewish part of Westchester, NY, known for some very Jewish and very wealthy suburbs of New York City. But I was raised near by to my father's cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents. Our extended family, the Basior/Schwartz/Forsythe family had a family business in the meat packing district of Manhattan, and we spent a lot of time together. We were both family and community in one.
This intergenerational big extended tight knit family was where I learned about politics and race and class and assimilation, despite no one intentionally saying a word about any of it.
This bubbled suburban utopia was created by the first generation in my family to be born in the United States and continued by their kids, the first generation of college graduates in my family. My great grandparents were all immigrants who were actively escaping state sponsored violence and repressive institutionalized antisemitism and Jew hatred. Where they lived, in the Pale of Settlement, they were racialized as Jews. Where they moved to in New York, they were racialized as white, despite it being somewhat conditional as Jews.
And it is in this conditionally that I want to focus and think about resilience.
What is resilience?
It can be traced to its Latin root as the jump or spring back. It is defined variably using words such as return, resume, recover, and resist, especially after crisis, disaster, disruption, depression, illness, destruction, and pressure.
To me as a rabbi, I translate the Hebrew word teshuvah as resilience. Teshuvah is the central theme and ideal act to be taken by a Jew, central to our Highest of Holidays in the season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the first thing we say in the morning as we liturgical thank divinity for the return of our soul-body connection upon awaking as well as the liturgy of forgivenes, a powerful return from grudge and disruption to relationship, said before falling asleep.
Ultimately, Jewish time is bookended with the plea and reminder for resilience. It is core to truly living - l’chayim: to life.
And so, how could a Jew not stand up against the threat of life anywhere? How could a Jew not, all the more so, stand up and speak out when the threat against life is threatening a fellow Jew? How could a Jew, all the more so more so, not stand up and speak out when it is their fellow Jew who is threatening the life of another?
Now is a time when as Jews, we must find ways to say these things. To act of these things. To do what it takes, because it will take us all. We must, truly must, not just for those being threatened – at this moment the current survivors of the onslaught in Gaza – but to make live the most important and central of Jewish values: teshuvah. Resilience. We are its caretakers, its guardians, and we must find ways to protect it. We must demand a ceasefire, especially when the threat to life is happening in our name.
And this leads me directly to community care. Firstly though, I must honor my disabled ancestors, elders, and teachers. In particular the creators and founders of the movement for Disability Justice– people like Aurora Levins Morales, Leah Lakshmi Peipzna Samasarinha, Rabbis Lauren Tuchman, Elliot Kukla, and Julia Watts Belser, Morgan Scherer, and Naomi Finklestein. And so many others. The idea of community care is certainly older than this particular iteration and movement, but in the neoliberal individualist late stage capitalist empire we currently live in, many of the ancient and ancestral systems of community care have been broken nearly to annihilation, and these folks have breathed life into the valley of bones. Thank God. They have catalyzed the resilience of community care.
Community care requires community. And it is a positive feedback loop from there if you and those you are in the community with can continue, persistently and unselfishly, to show up for one another. This sounds simple as I say it, but in a world where our entire economy is based on us not having this, it can be harder than it might seem. But the studies show and the wisdom traditions demand that when we give of ourselves to others – in ways that do not harm or impoverish ourselves and our dependents – we are healthier, and the we here is that we that is inclusive – both the individual or group who gave and the individual or group who received.
I think I'll pause here and open this up to conversation with Dr. Coop before taking questions from you all. I am eager to be in dialogue and delighted to be here with the Seattle Colleges at this profound and critical moment for human survival and potential thriving.
Thank you so much for this profound honor and opportunity to speak with you today, Associate Vice Chancellor Fisher and with all of you at the Seattle Colleges, students, staff, and faculty, board and community. Particularly yourself, D’Andre and your team, particularly Dr. Coop and Reed. And thank you Laura and your team for the ASL interpretation to increase the accessibility of these talks.
I want to start with a short embodiment practice. It is for you as much as it is for me. It is a practice I have developed for myself as a student of multiple disciplines, some of them Jewish, some of them not. I use this practice most closely on shabbat, the day of rest, the Jewish sabbath.
I take my cues from the chasidim rishonim, a group referenced in the 2000 year old text called the Mishnah, where it says the chasidim rishonim would sit for an hour before prayer. (Mishnah Berakhot 5:1)
Not knowing what they did exactly when they sat, the point of this for me is about going slow, is about being in a space for a while before engaging in practice in that space. It is about arranging our time intentionally, but with pause and slowness instead of rush and immediate transitions.
PAUSE. Take in the history of this moment. The thousands of years of breath. Jewish liturgy connects breath and soul in a single root word. Breath - nishama and soul - neshama. Let us connect our mind-body-spirit, and let us reach out as we feel able to connect with the mind-body-spirit of others here with us right now. In the spaces in which we sit now, and across the zoom-verse.
...I'll close our practice with the words of disabled Ashkenazi Jewish Puerta Riceña, Aurora Levins Morales:
When you inhale and when you exhale
breathe the possibility of another world
into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body
until it shines with hope.
Then imagine more. (excerpted from her V’ahavta)
With this in mind, let me tell you a bit about my journey to become a seasoned social justice pursuing rabbi, a father of two daughters, an 18 year partner of an amazing woman, and a dog owner.
I was raised a suburban white kid in Westchester NY who happened to be Jewish. I was not raised in a particularly Jewish part of Westchester, NY, known for some very Jewish and very wealthy suburbs of New York City. But I was raised near by to my father's cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents. Our extended family, the Basior/Schwartz/Forsythe family had a family business in the meat packing district of Manhattan, and we spent a lot of time together. We were both family and community in one.
This intergenerational big extended tight knit family was where I learned about politics and race and class and assimilation, despite no one intentionally saying a word about any of it.
This bubbled suburban utopia was created by the first generation in my family to be born in the United States and continued by their kids, the first generation of college graduates in my family. My great grandparents were all immigrants who were actively escaping state sponsored violence and repressive institutionalized antisemitism and Jew hatred. Where they lived, in the Pale of Settlement, they were racialized as Jews. Where they moved to in New York, they were racialized as white, despite it being somewhat conditional as Jews.
And it is in this conditionally that I want to focus and think about resilience.
What is resilience?
It can be traced to its Latin root as the jump or spring back. It is defined variably using words such as return, resume, recover, and resist, especially after crisis, disaster, disruption, depression, illness, destruction, and pressure.
To me as a rabbi, I translate the Hebrew word teshuvah as resilience. Teshuvah is the central theme and ideal act to be taken by a Jew, central to our Highest of Holidays in the season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the first thing we say in the morning as we liturgical thank divinity for the return of our soul-body connection upon awaking as well as the liturgy of forgivenes, a powerful return from grudge and disruption to relationship, said before falling asleep.
Ultimately, Jewish time is bookended with the plea and reminder for resilience. It is core to truly living - l’chayim: to life.
And so, how could a Jew not stand up against the threat of life anywhere? How could a Jew not, all the more so, stand up and speak out when the threat against life is threatening a fellow Jew? How could a Jew, all the more so more so, not stand up and speak out when it is their fellow Jew who is threatening the life of another?
Now is a time when as Jews, we must find ways to say these things. To act of these things. To do what it takes, because it will take us all. We must, truly must, not just for those being threatened – at this moment the current survivors of the onslaught in Gaza – but to make live the most important and central of Jewish values: teshuvah. Resilience. We are its caretakers, its guardians, and we must find ways to protect it. We must demand a ceasefire, especially when the threat to life is happening in our name.
And this leads me directly to community care. Firstly though, I must honor my disabled ancestors, elders, and teachers. In particular the creators and founders of the movement for Disability Justice– people like Aurora Levins Morales, Leah Lakshmi Peipzna Samasarinha, Rabbis Lauren Tuchman, Elliot Kukla, and Julia Watts Belser, Morgan Scherer, and Naomi Finklestein. And so many others. The idea of community care is certainly older than this particular iteration and movement, but in the neoliberal individualist late stage capitalist empire we currently live in, many of the ancient and ancestral systems of community care have been broken nearly to annihilation, and these folks have breathed life into the valley of bones. Thank God. They have catalyzed the resilience of community care.
Community care requires community. And it is a positive feedback loop from there if you and those you are in the community with can continue, persistently and unselfishly, to show up for one another. This sounds simple as I say it, but in a world where our entire economy is based on us not having this, it can be harder than it might seem. But the studies show and the wisdom traditions demand that when we give of ourselves to others – in ways that do not harm or impoverish ourselves and our dependents – we are healthier, and the we here is that we that is inclusive – both the individual or group who gave and the individual or group who received.
I think I'll pause here and open this up to conversation with Dr. Coop before taking questions from you all. I am eager to be in dialogue and delighted to be here with the Seattle Colleges at this profound and critical moment for human survival and potential thriving.
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