11 things with my rabbi's words, "mere mortals"

Who writes the lines? Who draws the lines?

Nov 01, 2023

1. Driving to Pelham yesterday to deliver the November rent check, the word "splintering" came to mind. The us and them, hearts blockaded by pain, fear, abandonment, trauma. This cannot be the way. It feels almost irreverent, blasphemous, to write such simple words. Why share them at all? I have been asking myself this question. So one person might feel less alone? That has to be enough.

2. Mothers. Babies. Toddlers. Fathers. Elders. So far away, and so close to home.

3. First snow this morning. Geese flocking south, heading home. How all of this is about home.

4. The little pride flag I waved out my car window as we drove through town and school committee members’ neighborhoods last summer, asking to be heard, heeded, and taken seriously, propped up now against my desk lamp.

5. Little houseplants in mugs from Goodwill, all gifts from my mother, line the windowsill.

6. The response to my long text, the one I didn’t send without consent: I love you too. How this is the whole world. How each life is a whole world.

7. The action in #3 was painted as harassment, vitriol, bullying, uncivil. What happens when those who are suffering get cast as villains in some awful human play no one auditioned for but we all find ourselves acting in, reciting our lines? Who writes the lines? Who draws the lines? Lines in the sand. Lessons learned and forgotten. Anger, abandonment, anguish, the hard work of staying open without denying or diminishing one's own heart. Not making the heart wrong.

8. Our rabbi's words – mere mortals – keep returning to me:

“There are so many dimensions to this tragic conflict that I think it is only extremists of one side or another who know exactly what they think. Perhaps they are the lucky ones--but in the meantime we mere mortals will continue, I hope, to make space for each other to move through this complexity toward some degree of resolve--in support of our brothers and sisters in Israel, especially those who are grieving, or are in harm's way as soldiers or captives; in deep concerns for the nightmarish loss of life and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza; and in care and protection of ourselves as Diaspora Jews feeling our own modest degree of turmoil and threat.”

~ Rabbi Benjamin Weiner

9. How to be a writer at a time when anything will be so woefully incomplete, so prone to being misconstrued? How to balance vulnerability, mindful silence, and fears of adding fuel to the fire or contributing to intractable narratives? Engage or disengage? Keep going.

10. Oh, to make one's arms wide enough to embrace so many truths and so many falsehoods and all the things between absolutes. And how this lives alongside my own tribal pull inward, toward self-protection, towards “never again.” For us, for them. For anyone.

11. Instructions to myself: Be as intentional as possible without overthinking every last thing. Scroll less. Talk to real people. Listen. Know your own heart. Know, too, there is so much you don't know you don't know. You don't have to make yourself wrong, nor should you assume yourself to be right. We are all so much more than that.

Here are a handful of pieces I’ve read (or listened to) in recent days:

An Open Letter From North American Rabbis and Cantors Responding to the Crisis in Israel and Gaza:
www.truah.org/actions/north-american-rabbis-and-cantors-respond-to-the-crisis-in-israel-and-gaza-clergy-only