Rabbi Stephen Weiss
A Moment of Torah June 10, 2020 Parshat Beha’alotekha
Close your eyes and take a deep breathā¦ Now let it outā¦ Now inhale againā¦ The average person takes 23,000 breaths a day, virtually all of them unconscious.
How long can you hold your breath?Ā What happens when the air is almost all used up? It becomes uncomfortable very quickly, doesnāt it? What would it be like to hold our breath involuntarily?Ā What would it be like to not be able to breath for 8 minutes and 46 seconds?Ā It is beyond our ability to even imagine.
Yet that was the unimaginable horror that George Floyd experienced in his final moments of life.
When such events happen, we are filled with sadness and anger. We cry. We shout. We protest. But then, too often, we move on with our lives until we hear of the next incident.
Because we are white, we have that luxury. Blacks do not. In Leviticus 26 we find the curses that God says will befall the Israelites if they are not faithful to God. One of those curses is: āYou will quake with fear though none pursue.āĀ That aptly describes the experience of our black neighbors and friends in contemporary America.Ā They live in a constant state of fear.Ā Even when there is no immediate threat, they still feel that haunting and overriding fear of what may happen next.
Perhaps this time, the tide has turned. It is not the violence that is leading to this shift. Violence is never the answer and should always be condemned. No, we can see the tide turning in the thousands of people who are protesting in the streets in all 50 states and around the world every day for three weeks and counting. There are even protests occurring here in Beachwood and Orange tomorrow. Ā Even those who lived through the many marches and protests of the civil rights era have said that they have never seen these kinds of numbers, of people of all colors and backgrounds, in so many places all protesting together.
There is reason for hope. Many of the protesters have said they will not stop until there is substantive change that brings about justice that reflects equality and security for people of color. A Washington Post poll shows that 74% of Americans believe what happened to George Floyd is representative of a broader problem of the treatment of blacks by police. 81% told the pollsters that they believe police need to continue to make changes to treat blacks equal to the way they treat whites.
It may surprise you to learn there were blacks and biracial individuals among the Israelites in the wilderness, and that even there we can find an example of racism. In this weekās Torah portion, Bāhaāalotekha, we read that our esteemed leaders, Aaron and Miriam, stoop to calling attention to Mosesā wifeās skin color.Ā We do not know if this is Tzipporah, who earlier is called a Midianite in the Torah, or if perhaps Moses had a second wife. In any case, Aaron and Miriam gossip about their sister-in-law twice, speaking out against her and calling her a Cushite ā a word that means āEthiopian.ā āKushiā is still the word used in modern Hebrew for a black person. Lest you think the term was not being used in a derogatory fashion, God punishes Miriam immediately. Aaron seems to escape punishment. We are not told why. It is left to Moses to intercede and pray to God, asking God to show compassion and forgiveness to Miriam and heal her.Ā I like to think what Moses means by those words: God, please heal my sister of any hate or prejudice in her heart, so she can be the leader and prophet you intended her to be: pure of heart and filled only with love. It is a stunning story with a clear message that God does not tolerate discrimination.
We as Jews have stood by the black community in their struggle for civil rights. But as with Aaron and Miriam, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we are not completely immune to stereotypes, misconceptions, and latent prejudice. We also too seldom pause to acknowledge what it means that we benefit from white privilege, a benefit that is ultimately grounded in structures in society that perpetuate racism.
Did you know that one out of every 7 Jews in America today is a person of color? Yet despite that number, Jews of color are all too often viewed as outsiders.Ā When white Jews meet a Jew of color, they often assume wrongly that the other person must be a convert.Ā A black rabbinical student reports being asked, āDonāt you have to be Jewish to go to rabbinical school?āĀ Rabbi Marra Gad, author of The Color of Love:Ā A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl, writes, āI am blackā¦whiteā¦and Jewish. That is my wholeness. I am here to be seen for all that I amā¦and I will not allow anyone to deny any part of me.ā
In the words of Mosesā prayer for Miriam, Please God, heal us. Heal us of our stereotypes and misconceptions. Heal us of hatred and bigotry. Heal us of the systemic inequities that plague our society. Heal us of our failure to acknowledge our own white privilege and to work harder for true equality. Let your light shine so brightly within us that all division between us disappears, and we comprehend that that the glory of Your Oneness is only found in the oneness of your children.