By: Mireaya Medina, SE Uplift Communications Manager &
Words of healing by Rabbi Debra Kolodny (Rabbah D’vorah), As The Spirit Moves Us
Lighting The Way, Healing After Mass Tragedy
Being an active member of the Portland United Against Hate Coalition PUAH), SE Uplift is fortunate to build with brilliant hearts and minds like Rabbi Debra Kolodny (Rabbah D’vorah) from As The Spirit Moves Us (www.asthespiritmovesus.com). Rabbi Debra is one of the trainers for “Interrupting Hate in Public Spaces”; a workshop that has helped Portland United Against Hate (PUAH) train over 1,400 community members.
After the violent shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh this fall, I checked in on Rabbi as soon as this tragedy happened and asked her to please share some words that could help us unite in love and hold one another closer.
Her response is below.
“What a scary time this is.
Children are separated from their parents at the border. Bombs are sent to leaders of the Democratic party and to one of the greatest Jewish philanthropists of all time. The identities of our Trans and non-binary beloveds are threatened with erasure. And today, on Shabbat, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh was attacked by a gunman. Eleven are dead. A community is shattered. Yet again the Jewish people are thrown into mourning.
In The Smell of Rain on Dust, Martin Prechtel writes: “We have to be able to turn the event of having lost into something whose cure is not only for us but for the rest of the people.”
How can we do this when our hearts are broken? How do we find a cure for the loss that is not just for ourselves but for everyone? When our epigenetic trauma is activated and the memories of a Black church in Charleston, a Sikh temple near Milwaukee, a Muslim mosque in Minnesota, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando are vibrating in our souls, how do we find a cure for loss for all of us?
I first heard about the attack in Pittsburgh from my friend, Pastor Matt Hennessee. Throughout the day I received an outpouring of love and connection from Christian and Unitarian pastors and Muslim leaders, secular activist friends, including those committed to turning out their non-Jewish minyans to the vigil on Sunday night. A veritable non-stop flow of love from allies asking what to do, how to help, where to show up. Asking if I was ok. Asking if I wanted to talk. Asking if I was remembering to take care of myself.
After 40 years of intersectional activism what I understood today was that this administration with its hateful rhetoric inciting violence has done what activists had not been able to do for decades: galvanize us to show up for one another, over and over and over again.
Grieve, Prechtel instructs us. Grieve our Sages teach us. Grieve and know as Psalm 23 teaches: “Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil, for Yah is with us.” Grieve wholly and fully with full-throated sobbing. Grieve our loss and offer praise for those who have left us. And together, within our community and throughout our communities of resilience WE WILL RISE and the cure for loss will be finding together a world where hate is known no more.
Nachamu ami, says the prophet Isaiah. Comfort my people. Let us gather and grieve, gather and restore, gather and love, gather and find the cure.”
I then asked Rabbi Debra Kolodny (Rabbah D’vorah) for resources on how to learn about and stand up to anti-semitism. She recommend two links, one long and one short.
The comprehensive piece is from JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice) :
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Jews For Racial & Economic Justice “Taking on anti-Jewish oppression is the act of building a Left not confined to reaction, but propelled by a deeper vision of a world we would actually want to live in.”
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Jews For Racial & Economic Justice “Taking on anti-Jewish oppression is the act of building a Left not confined to reaction, but propelled by a deeper vision of a world we would actually want to live in.”
And the short piece is from our very own Eric Ward: Skin in the game:
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The bombing of the Oklahoma City federal courthouse by White nationalists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols was painted as a conspiracy by the government itself as an excuse to take citizens’ guns away.
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