Walking in Solidarity from Purim to Pesach

This past Friday, many of us gathered in front of theMadinah Masjid forming a Ring of Peace in shared grief, solidarity andpartnership with Muslims after the white supremacist shooting of Muslims inprayer in Christchurch, New Zealand. We were a sea of people including membersof the DJC, members of our Danforth Multi-faith Community, along with folks ofother religions, fellow neighbours, politicians, activists and allies. At thatsame time on Friday afternoon, there were about 15 other Rings of Peacethroughout Toronto, organized by the Jewish community. We were woven togetherwith shared silence and song, words of comfort and common cause.

It struck me as potent that this action of solidarity andits affirmation of equality, diversity and justice was taking place the dayafter Purim. Purim is brilliantly absurd and absurdly brilliant. We tell astory filled with the threat of violence and impending slaughter fueled hatredand bigotry, permitted through the dangerous decisions of easily influenced andeasily frightened people. The reverberations of Megillat Esther with thecurrent rise of white supremacist ideologies of hate are striking!! If we doPurim right, it gives us the opportunity to embody our darkest fears and flipthem on their heads. With tongue in cheek and a strong, irreverent flipping ofthe bird, with costumes and inverted consciousness, instead of being terrifiedby it all, the customs of Purim let us shake our fears loose from their grip,encourage us to exaggerate our power, act out our rage and urge for revenge,and then exorcize them.  At ourpacked DJC Purim celebration this year, we did just that – with dancing, spoofand sharply-pointed satire.

If we do Purim right, weemerge the next day less afraid and more bold, with new clarity and enlivenedcourage, with a greater sense of our own strength and revitalized capacity tochange the course of events. Beginning the day after Purim, we enter thirtydays of preparation for Pesach as a process of conscious work towardliberation.

Below are words I shared infront of the mosque at the Ring of Peace last Friday. I hope they spark andshape our work in the coming month, deepening our engagement withever-unfolding Jewish liberation, personal liberation, and as our call to workin partnership for the liberation of others who are targeted and threatened.

“Friends, we are here asallies and partners to the Muslim community in this moment of shared horror andgrief in the wake of last week’s shooting. We stand together in protection andin solidarity with our Muslim siblings as they pray.   

We are here as allies andpartners to the Muslim community beyond this tragedy, as we work together tocounter white nationalism, as we work to end Islamophobia, alongside endinganti-Semitism, ending racism and ending all ideologies of hate. We do this bybuilding strong relationships between one another, between communities andacross faiths. We do this through education and we do this through legislation.

We are here to build asociety that affirms the full dignity and sacred worth of every human life. Weare here to build a culture that grows stability through our deepeningunderstanding of one another and our mutual concern for each other’s wellbeing.We know that our society is stronger and wiser and more resilient when we haveeveryone’s thinking, everyone’s voices in all our diversity.

We are here in empathy, inpartnership and solidarity, in the work of justice and in the rigorous embodimentof an ideology of love.

Friends, I want to asksomething of you while we are standing here and in the days to come. I want toask you to tell each other – What are your fears right now? What scares youabout our society and our world? Talk about it with each other so that feardoesn’t make us numb or paralyzed or small.

And then, look into each other’s eyes and tell each other what makes you hopeful right now? Where can you notice evidence for goodness and hopefulness? Talk about it with as many people as you can, with people as diverse and different from you as you can, so that we are grounded in a clear, resilient and brave vision of the world we are building together. Use hope as a discipline and so the enactment courageous justice and rigorous love become unstoppable.”

Please join us on Sunday March 31^st at 1PM for a Seder Workshop called “The Cry that Sparks Redemption.” We’ll explore the Haggadah’s telling of the first sparks of liberation – the cries and sighs of an oppressed people – and trace the arc from wordless sound, to courageous speech, to freedom-song. We’ll see how these teachings might guide the work of liberation today, for our world and for self-transformation.