"We Have No Deeds" - On Connecting to Community and Activism (cross-post)

[cross-posted from ROICommunity]

In California, I'm in a strange time warp. Right now it's before noon local time. It's about 3pm in New York. And it's 10pm in Israel. Which means my Israeli friends are now past Kol Nidre, the opening prayer of Yom Kippur; New Yorkers are trying to finish up any last-minute prep for the holiday; and I'm still sitting here at the computer, finishing breakfast and wondering how the fast will go this year. And to an extent, I'm experiencing them all at the same time (except, obviously, fasting and eating), because people in our network are extensions of ourselves.

The nature of community in the technology age is an entirely new entity. Can people be there for each other, in good times and bad, across miles and without physically uttering any words of support, comfort and companionship?

Recently, I noticed that the Jewish community offline (and to an extent, it's online sibling) mobilizes best around tragedy. Protests, vigils, memorial services - we never miss them. We commemorate loss by gathering, having moments of silence, praying, lighting candles, creating emergency hotlines, petition campaigns, calling Congresspeople, crafting contingency plans, and framing it all within a fundraising appeal. There's no way around that, to an extent - money makes plans possible. But it also gives us an action plan over things that are events, unchangeable because they're in the past, or a future that feels beyond our control.

Around Yom Kippur time, I generally focus on the self - what did I do wrong, how could I modify my behavior, from whom should I beg forgiveness, and how did I possibly backslide to this extent in one calendar year, after last year's promises that I'd be better behaved in 5769? While the liturgy certainly features passages of individual regret, much of the prayer service is phrased in the plural. We are a community of individuals, and we are responsible for supporting each other and helping one another through difficult or weak moments.

Tomorrow afternoon, as I'm in the heat of the fast, Israelis will be asleep (some of them in a food coma), New Yorkers will have satisfied their hunger, and after a day of fasting, I will be in services, chanting with members of the congregation that's been my community this year in a new city, as we recite one my favorite phrases of the Yom Kippur liturgy:

אבינו מלכנו, חננו ועננו, כי איו בנו מעשים. עשה עמנו צדקה יחסד והושיענו.

Our Father, Our King, forgive us and answer us, because we are without merits/good deeds. Make with us justice and righteousness, and save us. (my translation)

Your prayerbook may translate it slightly differently, but here's how the language lands for me: we beg to be treated with compassion and forgiveness, even as an extreme humility/awareness of our own limitations sets in alongside feelings of nutritional deprivation. We know that even our hunger pangs are not really hunger, just a hint of what real hunger is like. All we do during the year to pursue justice, all those good deeds, we put them aside and embrace a modest subservience - not all is within our control. But, we remind God, or angels, or whatever body governs our collective and individual destinies, if you save us, we can continue to pursue justice and righteousness.

We lay our hearts bare and open - we say, we don't deserve it, but we know what's important - justice and righteousness. Save us in the name of all that is just and righteous, and we will continue the process of serving those two goals, and this activism, this very opposite of being without deeds, will be our salvation.

The plural underscores the point. As the congregation comes together in these final moments of self-deprivation and spiritual seeking, we connect to the community and become one tree of life, with branches that reach across time zones and international borders, and pledge to do better, and to do it together.

While half of my colleagues at ROI are already mid-holiday, I have the ROI site to myself. But I'm fairly certain that they join me in wishing you - all of you, whether you're an ROIer, a friend of an ROIer or one of my regular or occasional readers - a meaningful day, and a year filled with connection to your community, and a sense of activism that just might save us all. G'mar hatimah tovah, and shanah tovah, my friends.

Comments

[Michael Blackburn, Sr.]

I always enjoying reading your work.
Always well constructed, interesting and even entertaining.

"we know what's important - justice and righteousness. Save us in the name of all that is just and righteous, and we will continue the process of serving those two goals, and this activism, this very opposite of being without deeds, will be our salvation."

I agree wholeheartedly.
Todah rabbah,
G'mar hatimah tovah, and shanah tovah.