Dear TBZ Community,
I think I’ve finally hit my limit.
Watching the news this morning of the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis, the first mass shooting of the school year, I began to cry. For the stolen lives of these precious children, one the same age as my own child. For the parents who lovingly said goodbye to them at drop-off, not knowing it would be the last time. I pray about such a scenario each time I drop my own daughter off at her Jewish day school, where, perhaps like parents at Annunciation, I want to believe I’m entrusting her safety not just to her amazing teachers, but also to Hashem (God). But I know that’s not how this world works.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said what so many of us already know, that thoughts and prayers are nothing at this moment: “The kids impacted were literally praying at the time of this tragic and horrible shooting,” he reminded the listeners. We need to take action.
When considering who and how we take action, we often refer to “our society,” “our government,” and “our community.” But these things do not exist as separate entities apart from the individuals that comprise them. So, this urgent and painstaking work must begin with the individual. It has to start with you. It has to start with me. I think this is why the viddui (confession) on Yom Kippur (“Ashamnu, Bagadnu,” etc.) is so triggering to people who automatically respond, “I don’t do most of these things!” The capability, the seed, for each of these acts lives within us because of our human nature. And, if you’ve watched The Good Place (a sitcom set in the afterlife, which the show’s creators used to teach moral ethics and philosophy), you know that, in fact, you have done most of those things in some measure.
How fortunate we are to practice a spiritual path that calls us to action on the matter of personal accountability in this season of teshuva (returning), this month of Elul. The first words of this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Shoftim, offers us some guidance of how we begin this work of personal accountability. It says (in Deuteronomy 16:18):
שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים, תִּתֶּן-לְךָ בְּכָל-שְׁעָרֶיךָ, אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ, לִשְׁבָטֶיךָ; וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת-הָעָם, מִשְׁפַּט-צֶדֶק.
You shall set judges and officers of the law for your tribes at all of your gates that Hashem your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.
Rabbi David Wolfe Blank, z”l, points out that the word shevet, which here is translated as “tribe,” can also be translated as “rod,” and the rod of Hashem in the Torah is associated with the challenges we face in life. I understand this verse as requiring me to set judges and police at all of my gates, to judge my spiritual challenges towards an outcome of justice. This reading provides a mandate to be discerning at all of my gates: My ears, what do I allow myself to listen to? My eyes, what do I allow myself to see? Am I viewing this for the good or for selfish reasons? My mouth, what am I putting into the world with my words? What am I consuming into my body? Is it too much or too little? Will it meet my body’s needs? This self-discernment ensures that we are most able to meet the challenges of life with clarity, calm, and appropriate action.
If we’re doing teshuva, refinement and accountability work correctly, it will be challenging, but so very worth it! And we’re not alone doing this work; we’re together here in this beautiful TBZ community of practice and caring. So let’s get going, we have a lot of work to do in this world, and the work begins with each of us! I leave you with Rabbi David Wolfe Blank’s Unknotting the Torah for Shoftim, his interpretation of the verse cited above:
Integrity in the moment
Apply to yourself in each of the gates of choice
Offered to you by Divine Karma
Especially in your challenges.
All your community will benefit
From self-applied integrity.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Tiferet