Find Someone Who’s Turning
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer
August 21, 2020 / Parshat Shoftim
I’ve been thinking about Silver and Evie Wiesler, two beloved Kitchen-ites ages 12 and 9, who, along with their parents and brother, lost their home, and all their belongings, in a fire 2016. In the aftermath of this trauma, members of their overlapping communities came forward with offerings of support. One offering, in particular, made a lasting impact. They each received a journal. Notebooks, that accompanied them, listened to them, held their drawings, confessions, fears, thoughts, and helped them write and draw their way through this trauma.
A year after they escaped their fire, Sonoma county was ablaze, and communities and lands were devastated. Silver and Evie, then 9 and 6 years old, thought of all the kids evacuating, losing their homes, losing the concept of safety, and they started to raise money: for journals. Journals for thousands of children they had never met, but for whom they felt a responsibility as fellow survivors.
As we stand in our foggy oasis, surrounded on all sides by raging fires whose glow casts an eerie light at sunset and whose smell seeps in through our closed windows, as we see images of bumper to bumper traffic of mass evacuation, with ash falling down, and read about Torah scrolls swiftly wrapped in tallitot and whisked to safety, how do we show up? What is our responsibility? There is the very human impulse to psychically fortify our own sense of security here. Self-soothe. To feel 14 miles very far away. Thank God it’s not our responsibility to deal with this. We’re safe. From this perch, we can empathize. A lot of talk of empathy of late--but is empathy truly empathy if it’s from a comfortable distance? perceived safety?
I’m getting away from myself, because for this week’s parasha, and for the Rabbis teasing out its meaning, the more pressing question isn’t empathy, it’s responsibility.
Here’s the scenario:
כִּי־יִמָּצֵ֣א חָלָ֗ל בָּאֲדָמָה֙ אֲשֶׁר֩ ה׳ אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ נֹתֵ֤ן לְךָ֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ נֹפֵ֖ל בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה לֹ֥א נוֹדַ֖ע מִ֥י הִכָּֽהוּ׃
A dead body is found
In a place in-between, not this town, not that town. The identity of the dead isn’t known. Just referred to as חלל, a corpse, a defiled thing. The identity of the murderer -- also not known.
Who is responsible for the murder? For the body? With no forensics unit in Biblical times. No DNA tracing, no photo ID, getting to the truth might not be possible. Who, if anyone takes responsibility? And who gets to walk away? The land on which the unidentified body lies is in no one’s jurisdiction. No man’s land. In theory, they/we could come upon this body, just turn around and walk away.
Which reminds me of a song by Neil Young. But I hear Annie Lennox singing it:
Old man lying by the side of the road
Blue moon sinking from the weight of the load
And the buildings scrape the sky
Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn
And the morning paper flies
Dead man lying by the side of the road
[Chorus]
Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning
Unidentified dead man, abandoned. Doesn’t matter the signs of progress all around him--high rises and a free press--no one claims responsibility. And the song, perhaps cynically, seems to recommend that we need not take responsibility either: ‘don’t let it bring you down; it’s only castles burning.’
But in this week’s parasha, Moses sings a different tune, he wants to counter human indifference, tendency to self-soothe; he says there’s no looking away, never mind walking away. When you come across a dead body, it’s your/our responsibility.
He designs a ritual for this moment:
Everyone from surrounding towns sends their leaders and judges to the scene of the crime.
They then find a heifer that has never pulled a yoke, and lead it to a wadi that has never been worked or planted, both symbolizing innocence, and they break the heifer’s neck, as Rashi and most commentators note, they re-enact the murder. They underscore their own guilt.
In front of the priests, the law makers, the arbiters.
They recite a formula/confession of indirect responsibility:
יָדֵ֗ינוּ לֹ֤א שפכה [שָֽׁפְכוּ֙] אֶת־הַדָּ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵינֵ֖ינוּ לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ׃
“our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see…
Absolve your people, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain amongst your people Israel.”
Responsibility is not a yes or no. Not like flipping a switch. If the question is: are we responsible, the answer in Torah is predominantly ‘yes.’
But how can we claim this responsibility? In these last few months, localized, personal- responsibility, -for our families, for our mental health, for hygiene has often felt too unwieldy. How can we look beyond? And there is a strong pull to hide from the morbid circuses and storms tearing across the world stage.
Our parasha, at a poignant time of year, tells us:
nope.
we can’t turn away. This anonymous body, in no man’s land, is still our responsibility. His murder and abandonment is on our watch. Our rabbinic ancestors legislated our responsibility to not turn away using this scenario.
Even when it is not our direct responsibility, we didn’t murder, or directly harm, we must show up with language and action and the leaders of our organizations and cities.
What does this teach us about our responsibility for our neighbors fleeing fire?
What does it teach of our responsibility when the alleged president takes unprecedented steps on November 4 to invalidate our election?
There’s a temptation to revert to Neil Young’s lyrics:
“Don’t let it bring you down, it’s only castles burning”
Instead, I want to look to Evie and Silver--Kitchenites, who, out of their own pain, found empathy, and turned empathy into responsibility.
And we just entered the season for taking responsibility. For making teshuva--restoration, return, coming back to right speech and action.
On the face of it, taking responsibility doesn’t sound sexy, so the rabbis led an effective PR campaign. Elul. Not just a month; an Acronym. אני לדודי ודודי לי. Elul. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Responsibility becomes a form of intimacy. Intimacy with brothers and sisters with whom and for whom we share responsibility כל ישראל ערבים זה לזו, we’re all responsible for each other; and Intimacy with ourselves and the Divine emerging from self-knowledge and vulnerability of confession. Acknowledging Where we have yet to take responsibility. When we’ve let ourselves off the hook for something on our watch.
It is Elul, people, and I hear Neil Young’s lyrics a little differently than before. When he sings: “Find someone who’s turning, and you will come around” -- I no longer hear ‘turn away’, ‘ignore’.
It’s Elul, and I’m not sure if Neil Young is Jewish or not, and it doesn’t matter, but he’s talking straight up teshuva. Not turning away, but turning toward. And he points to something else. In teshuva, we often feel lost on our own, you know, flailing a little. I don’t know where to start. There’s this on top of this. Overwhelm. Sometimes, we need to see how someone else is doing it right, so we see it’s possible for us to do it too, for inspiration. When I look to members of our community, like Evie and Silver, doing it, I don’t know about you, but I’m inspired. //
Dvar aheir, that’s rabbinic Hebrew for--here’s another take: I think Neil might be saying, find a teshuva havruta. No joke. This is Elul intimacy. Find someone who’s turning, and you will come around. Come around--come home. Find your way. Together.
And dvar aheir aheir: find someone who’s turning means accompanying someone who needs some teshuva support. A lifeline. a journal after a fire.
JOURNALING
I’m struck that Silver and Evie Wiesler raised money for journals. Not candy or games, but a private place for kids to express themselves, their fears, their hopes, their crushes, and frustrations. To write themselves home from a traumatic experience that destroyed their childhood understanding of ‘home’.
For Jews, Elul is national journaling month. I am sure that Moleskine and composition book-makers look forward to a strange but consistent rise in sales come August. We write our confessions, fears, our hopes, we write ourselves home. Our childhood vision of home is long gone. Our new home demands of us responsibility and action, the likes of which we have never faced.
How do we claim this responsibility? Our parasha says: Do not turn away--walk towards it, direct or indirect culpability. Confess, and atone. It is upon us.
And Neil Young says -- when you turn in teshuva, don’t turn alone. Especially now. Turn toward teshuvah inspiration to emulate, and collaborate. Turn to the organizations doing the work in the trenches, and join forces with them. And turn to those who might need help in their own turning, those who are stuck, or petrified in place.
I have faith, אמונה שלימה, full faith that when we step up and claim our responsibility, and when we turn together, truly together. We will turn ALL OF THIS AROUND.
