G-d is Not What We Believe; G-d is What We Do: Reconnecting with the Least Among Us
Year Delivered or Published: 2007
Author: Michael Allen
Author's Faith: Judaism
Date Submitted to Inspiration and Issues: September 23, 2007
Topic: Morality
Citation: Isaiah:57-58
G-d is Not What We Believe; G-d is What We Do: Reconnecting with the Least Among Us
Yom Kippur Isaiah Talk—September 22, 2007
Michael Allen
On Yom Kippur, we examine our actions and relationships over the past year and ask ourselves whether we are worthy to have our names inscribed in The Book of Life. If we are honest with ourselves, we find that we have come up short, and we resolve to “atone” for our actions.
“Atonement” certainly means making amends or reparations. But it also means “to become reconciled” or to “bring into unity.” Think about the spelling of the word. A-T-O-N-E. “AT ONE.”
In that spirit, I stand before you today and I will try, as Reb David suggested to me, to “channel Isaiah.” I don’t pretend to be a biblical scholar or even, necessarily, an original thinker. I am an activist. And I’m looking for what the haftarah portion tells us about our lives today, and what we are called upon to do to become reconciled.
I’ve spent the last 25 years as a poverty and civil rights advocate, and have come to know thousands of people who might clinically be described as “disadvantaged.” Because of their low incomes, the color of their skin, a disability or addiction, their country of origin or some other cause, they are labeled as “the other.” They are the people about whom it is often said, “not in my back yard.” NIMBY.
At its heart (and, one might say, at its soul), NIMBYism reflects a fear of “the stranger”—the one who looks “different.” As people of good will, we support shelters, affordable housing, social services and job training programs, but we secretly hope they won’t be located too close to us, and sometimes we say so out loud in public hearings. When every back yard is “off limits,” two things happen: First, the people with the fewest advantages end up in bad places—homeless, in substandard and dangerous housing, in bad schools, in emergency rooms, or worse. And second, the social and geographic distance between us and these disfavored groups increases.
Like a snowball rolling down hill, it becomes more and more difficult to reverse. We surrender to the status quo, convinced that our own small acts cannot change this state of affairs. After all, isn’t it said: “You have the poor with you always…?”
No one said atonement was going to be easy. But we called upon to “afflict our souls” this day as part of the purification process. And for those of you who aren’t afflicted enough already, I am here for a few minutes to help you.
Whether you live by the precise commands of the Torah or by the ethical principles embedded in it, I want to leave you with these thoughts: We can’t pretend to know the needs of poor people unless we know poor people, and close the social, psychological and geographic distance between us. This will help us to respond as individuals, and will allow us to raise our collective voices in the political process, which determines how our country responds to these needs.
In the haftarah—the same portion we read every year during the morning service—Isaiah reminds us that real purification has nothing to do with empty, formal gestures. The Eternal asks: “Is a fast like this the one I asked for? A day for self-affliction, to bend the head like a reed in a marsh, To sprawl in sackcloth on the ashes? Is this what you call a fast, A day to seek the favor of G-d?”
Yes, the Eternal dwells “in the heights, in holy space,” but “equally with those of crushed and humble spirits, to breathe new life into the humble, to renew the heart of those who are crushed.” The real “fast” G-d calls for is in concrete deeds of reconciliation with, and support of, those “crushed and humble spirits.” Specifically, we are enjoined:
• To unlock the shackles of evil
• To loosen the thongs of the yoke
• To send forth crushed souls to freedom
• To tear every yoke in two
• To tear up your loaves for the hungry
• To bring the poor wanderer home,
• When you see the naked, clothe them
• When you see your own flesh and blood, do not turn aside”
Only “[t]hen … [will] your light … burst forth like morning… [and will] your reputation for justice … precede you….”
Our faith tradition calls on us to welcome—not to spurn—the “stranger.” Deuteronomy (15:7-11) reminds:
“Do not harden your heart or close your hand against that poor brother of yours, but be openhanded with him and lend him enough for his needs….When you give to him, you must give with an open heart; for this Yahweh your G-d will bless you in all you do and in all your giving. Of course there will never cease to be poor in the land; I command you therefore: Always be openhanded with your brother, and with anyone in your country who is in need and poor.”
Isaiah and Deuteronomy command us not to resign ourselves to longstanding social problems, but to remain in close geographic and spiritual proximity to “those of crushed and humble spirit.”
But most of us have done just the opposite: We don’t literally “ostracize” the stranger. That is, we don’t exile him or her to the edge of town. Rather, we move ourselves away from “urban problems” as quickly as we can. We avert our eyes from problems we think are too big or too intractable for us to address. Better, we tell ourselves, not to get involved at all because the problem has been around forever, and there is so little we can do by ourselves to address this problem.
Elites always distance themselves, because they can afford to. Of course, we send checks to worthy causes. But we have stopped sending our selves and our consciences. When we fall out of human touch with people who are the recipients of our tzedakah contributions, we run into the problem Jane Addams noted in her work at Hull House in Chicago a century ago: “A most striking incongruity,” she wrote, “at once apparent, is the difference between the emotional kindness with which relief is given by one poor neighbor to another poor neighbor, and the guarded care with which relief is given by a charity visitor to a charity recipient…”
I think she was focused on how that kind of “charity” is one-sided, and lacks the mutuality that tzedakah demands. Our tradition calls upon us to give tzedakah with “great enthusiasm” but without injuring the pride of the recipient. We cannot be satisfied with “drive-by tzedakah”; we must be in communion with the beneficiaries of our charity.
The persistence of poverty is not an excuse for sitting on the sidelines. Rather, it is the precise scriptural reason that we must redouble our efforts to address it. Commenting on the New Testament parallel to Isaiah, the evangelical preacher Jim Wallis writes:
“Jesus is assuming the social location of his followers will always put them in close proximity to the poor and easily able to reach out to them….The critical difference between Jesus’ disciples and [our current situation] is precisely this: our lack of proximity to the poor. The continuing relationship to the poor that Jesus assumes will be natural for his disciples is unnatural to [our affluent world]. [Our] social location … has changed; we are no longer ‘with’ the poor, and they are no longer with us. [We don’t] know the poor and they don’t know us. [We] talk about the poor but have no friends who are poor.”
(Jim Wallis, G-d’s Politics: Why The Right Gets it Wrong, and the Left Doesn’t Get It, p. 211).
We have moved our selves—geographically, spiritually and emotionally—so far away from “those of crushed and humble spirit” that we simply don’t know how to address them on a human, personal level. Their problems and their needs become abstract and clinical, and that’s why they persist. We comfort ourselves by saying: “Someone else will take care of it,” or “we need to wait for strong leaders to come forward.”
But you can see where that has gotten us. Over the past thirty years, our political “leaders” have either dismantled health and public benefit programs for poor people or stood idly by while the poverty rate and number of uninsured in the country have skyrocketed. We can’t seem to get immigration policy right, so counties and cities in our own region have decided to adopt xenophobic policies. The “top down” approach simply hasn’t worked. What we need are louder voices from people at the grassroots, from people like us who are deliberately moving ourselves closer to people in need. By people like us who are not fighting for our own, narrow special interests, but for social equity in partnership with “those of crushed and humble spirits.” Why do you think our national candidates are talking about poverty, health care and global warming? Why do you think the Arlington County board last week condemned the xenophobia in Loudoun and Prince William? It’s because the people have spoken and politicians do what they always do: they follow public opinion, rather than leading it. Wallis sums up the lesson quite nicely: “We are the leaders we have been waiting for!”
When poverty, hunger, homelessness and discrimination become abstract social problems that we don’t have to think about on a daily basis, we lose the ability to combat them. When we “divest,” spiritually, emotionally and geographically, we narrow our focus to what we can offer to poor people, and forget how our lives can be mutually enriched. And we forget to demand more of our elected officials.
After we break the fast this evening, what will have changed? Do we go back to business as usual, and welcome only certain people to our communities? Or do seize this opportunity to show our children that we can make the world a better place for all of them? Do we have the courage to say out loud to our leaders who neglect these needs: “You will not do this in our names.”
We all lead “busy lives,” and we cannot imagine taking on something new. But there are both personal and collective actions we can all take, beginning tomorrow, to reconcile ourselves with people who most need our support, and to make sure that it is not just our names that are inscribed in the Book of Life, but theirs as well.
Here are a few steps you can take personally to deliver your self and not just your dollars. (By the way, involving your kids in the activity will teach them the importance of the effort way more than simply talking about it). A longer list is available at the literature tables on your way out:
• Stop on the street to talk with a homeless person. You’d be surprised how much you have in common. After a period of getting to know each other, invite him or her to lunch
• Cook (and share) a meal with someone who would otherwise be eating alone. It may be a senior living alone, or someone with HIV/AIDS who can’t get out.
• Seek out a person at work, school or in your neighborhood whose race, faith or economic condition is much different from yours, and build a bridge. It may be as simple as a walk around the block or a cup of coffee. Again, you’d be surprised how much you have in common.
• Be a “Big Brother” or “Big Sister” and provide a positive role model for someone who might not have enough of them.
• Volunteer as an interpreter or to help someone learn English (while you learn another language and culture)
• Participate in a rally in support of immigrants, both to commit yourself personally to their cause and to communicate to others that you will not sit by silently as local jurisdictions adopt discriminatory policies
• Join the cause for better schools, housing, social services and safety in neighborhoods that need all of these, and more. Write letters to your members of Congress and to the President. Show up at council meetings on issues that don’t affect you directly. You’d be surprised how much your voice means when you’re not advocating for your own benefit.
Here are some steps you can take collectively, with your neighbors, co-workers, civic organization or faith group:
• Get your neighborhood organization to partner with one in a poorer neighborhood, and find out what skills and resources you can share with each other
• Get your friends together for a simcha, and celebrate by doing home repairs for a low-income senior or person with a disability through Yachad’s 5-H program. The same people who bring you Sukkot in April make this opportunity available all year round.
• Partner with an African-American or Latino neighborhood to do a community improvement project. It doesn’t matter whether it is cleaning up a park or streambed, or repainting the community center, or building a ramp for a person with a disability. The important thing is that you spend time together and get to know one another
Beyond those I’ve already mentioned, you should also continue to give your dollars to worthy causes, which enable really sustained efforts to solve social problems (and provide a framework for your volunteer activities).
Scripture has the power to inspire, not just on Yom Kippur, but throughout the year. To fulfill these mandates, we cannot be “two-day Jews,” content to consider poverty, hunger, homelessness and alienation from a safe distance during the High Holidays, when we are reminded that our theological and ethical traditions call on us to aid and support our brothers and sisters.
When we distance ourselves from “those of crushed and humble spirits,” and give (or care) from a distance, we risk reinforcing all the negative stereotypes about people we don’t know. And we risk passing these on to our children, who learn as much from what we do (or don’t do) as what we say. One thing is clear: the surest way to explode myths and stereotypes about “strangers” is to get to know them. Which is why it’s time to reconcile, and to raise our voices for better policies, at every level of government, to address these needs. When we do so, in Isaiah’s words, our light will burst forth like morning and our reputation for justice will precede us.
A wise friend of mine once said: “G-d is not what we believe. G-d is what we do.” I couldn’t say it any better. In that spirit, I ask you to begin the work of reconciliation today so that when we reach the High Holidays next year, we’re not cramming our good deeds and our giving into a ten-day period.
Michael Allen is with the civil rights law firm of Relman & Dane, PLLC. Contact: 1225 19th Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036-2456. Phone: 202/728-1888.
E-mail: mallen@relmanlaw.com .
