In the many years of offering this four week Elul course, I’ve kept the same format: week 1, a time for personal soul-searching; week 2, prompts to help navigate relationships with the many circles of others in our lives - close friends and family, community members, work colleagues; and week 4, an encounter with High Holiday liturgical themes. The third week has always been devoted to reflecting on our engagement with social justice, tikkun olam, literally the repair of the world. It’s not surprising that this year, surveying the world and the need for repair is by far the most difficult of the four weeks of Elul for me. Every day I’ve created a plan for week 3 on this site, generated prompts, and then deleted them. I am full of empathy and respect for those of you who are rabbis and leaders who are responsible for carrying a congregation through the Days of Awe to the other side. Nothing seems good enough, not nearly. But I need to offer my best version of not good enough.
What have I learned in the past 35 years about tikkun olam/repairing the world?
1-It can take many forms, depending on what your talents are and what you most care about helping to repair.
2-We can’t tackle every important issue, there are too many, so carefully choose the best project for you in this moment in time and then trust that as you work for the good of others, others are working for the good of you.
3-It’s important to have a vision, but make clusters of goals to work toward; break down the work into incremental steps.
4-You need to find mentors, friends, colleagues with whom to work, to learn from, to support, to lift you when you fall, or to sit with on the ground and cry.
5-Laughter is everything. It sustains you when you’ve lost all hope.
6-What you can do changes with your circumstances, stage of life, energy level, health. Don’t judge yourself for what you can’t do and then give up and do nothing.
7-You’ll never know everything you need to know about the broken places in the world. Make your peace with a path of learning as you go along.
8-Most important – next to laughter – practice listening.
Prompts for week 3
(1) - Entering the Conversation
~ Tell a story from your childhood or adolescence about someone in your life who, positively or negatively, modeled a way to interface with the problems in the world. What did you learn from them? How do you carry that person with you now?
~ Perhaps later on, when you were already an adult, you witnessed someone up close who made you rethink what you were capable of, what was possible, who inspired you through friendship and by example to move into unchartered territory, into the possibilities of activism. Who was that? Describe them and tell the story.
~Maybe like me, you’ve had multiple incarnations of work repairing the world. Tell another story from a different part of your life. Who were the people who were pivotal in those projects? What were the new circumstances that opened for you? What had changed in your life or in your world to inspire different commitments? What did you learn? How did you grow? [Feel free to respond to this prompt more than once.]
(2) - Getting Proximate to the Problem
Get proximate to the problem. Get close to the things that matter, get close to the places where there is inequality and suffering, get close to the spaces where people feel oppressed, burdened, and abused… See what it does to your capacity to make a difference, see what it does to you.
Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative; initiator of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery AL
~ When have you gotten “proximate to the problem” - in the past? this year? What was “the problem”? What qualities of yours allowed you to get close? What happened? Were you able to make an impact, to foster change? What good came of that?
~Who were some of the people you met who you might never have otherwise known? What did you learn?
~If your effort did not bear fruit, how do you assess the effort? How did you change, grow?
~ When have you felt an impulse to get “close to a problem” but wound up feeling unable to do so? What were the obstacles? What did you learn from this experience? Notice if there’s a punishing or judgmental tone – can you tell the story from the place of compassion?
(3) - Choosing Your Ground
~ Consider the dizzying range of local, national and global problems. What is one particular issue/need that feels most compelling for you in this moment? Working on the national or local political scene? climate change? LGBTQ rights? prison and sentencing reform? women’s rights to control their own bodies? Some of us have been standing together to bring home hostages; some have demonstrated to end massive civilian deaths in Gaza and now on the West Bank, to end the Occupation…
When choosing what to devote significant time and energy to, avoid the “should’s,” the causes that are of course vital but really not your particular passion. It’s important to declare some priorities, to feel called to what you’re doing so you‘ll have staying power - you can’t spread yourself too thin.
~ Now consider your particular strengths: calm in a storm? energetic? long-term strategist? focus on the here and now? tech skills? deep listener? creative problem solver? coalition builder? eloquent writer? connections to media? an understanding of the legislative process? fiery speaker? past experience or training in one of the above issues? I suddenly realize considering this prompt that one of my great assets has been earning the trust of others, caring for people, creating an atmosphere of safety and respect.
Respond to this prompt by digging deep to begin connecting how you might creatively harness your innate strengths to contribute to tikkun olam in one particular area of concern. Where and how can you make a contribution most inherent to you at your best?
(4) - Finding Mentors and Partners
~ I doubt that efforts to address societal problems can meet with much success when undertaken solo. How might you identify a mentor or colleague?
I realize considering this question that in a long succession of projects and partners through the years, collaboration always began with friendship and mutual respect. These were people I felt at ease with, could be myself, and without fail, they were people who relished a good laugh as much as I did.
~What might you hope to do with a friend or colleague? How might you begin a conversation with someone you admire to explore collaborating?
Here’s a poem about just such a friend, as committed and fiery a changemaker as I have ever know.
Not yet 75, Ruth
In November 2008, an interfaith group of forty Americans traveled to Israel and the West Bank to support the work of Rabbis for Human Rights. We visited Israeli and Palestinian human rights and social justice programs and planted trees at various sites in solidarity with peace initiatives.
Striding toward the far end of the rocky field,
the olive sapling balanced on her hip—
about the same heft as an eighteen month old—
she surveys the difficult terrain, the raw
November morning, then exercises patience
as she waits her turn for the pick.
She remembers another time, another world,
remembers what it was like to be here then,
working the soil in an infant country,
full of dreams and prayers and innocence.
A full lifetime of striding, balancing life
on her hip, looking for the places to plant life,
life that longs only to be planted and to grow.
Unbelievable, she thinks, that anyone fights
over this soil impervious to shovels, soil
that resists even a pick and a strong stubborn back.
And now, her turn, she digs. Rhythmically
the pick rises and falls, slowly persistence
is rewarded, the hole finally deep and wide enough,
she places the olive sapling in the earth.
But all the hard years have taught her
physical straining is just the beginning
of planting a tree. She stands and waits
for the song and the prayer to rise within her
then tears come too, tears of sorrow
and pain, tears of hope, fierce love.
What more have the hard years taught her?
Be on the lookout for what needs to be done
and for partners—the only hope is shoulder to shoulder;
surrender to the work, persist, especially in rocky soil;
don’t give in, don’t give up, don’t give out
and don’t get sentimental—it’s a waste of time;
always at the end, listen for the prayer, the prayer that rises
within, listen for the prayer of thanksgiving and the prayer
of supplication—thank you God for the strength to do this work,
thank you God for returning me to this beloved place;
please God, nurture this tender sapling,
grant it long life, let it bear much fruit.
And please God, see our suffering, hear our cries,
help us to find each other—isn’t it time yet for peace?
The raw morning is warming. She turns back toward
the truck, striding to bring the next sapling.
©Merle Feld, Finding Words (Behrman House 2011)
~ Now that I’ve reached the age of Ruth in this poem (she herself turned 90 this year), I feel my respect for and awe of her multiplied manyfold. As a result of long Covid, I’m simply no longer blessed with vigorous health, able to “strid[e] toward the far end of the rocky field, the olive sapling balanced on [my] hip.” If you feel yourself to be, like me, slowed down by age or by compromised health, explore in writing how you can continue to embody your still fierce commitments to repair the world. A few opening ideas: as ally; as funder and/or fundraiser; as mentor; as consultant; as writer; as recruiter; as volunteer office staff; as spokesperson; as protester…
(5) - Self-care
Participants on this site span a wide range of identities. Some of you are just starting to experience yourselves as activists, fired up by injustice, getting in the game for maybe the first time, while others have perhaps been on the ramparts all along, heartbroken now to see the efforts of decades go up in smoke before our very eyes. And then everyone in between.
~What we all have in common here, regardless of our stage of life and activism, is a need to sometimes rest, replenish our resources. How? Where do you find your sources of strength and renewal? How do you protect yourself from burnout in a world on fire? Make a list. Add to your list. Post your list somewhere in the house where you can easily see it, every day. Email your list to this Elul site and I’ll post it so others can benefit from your ideas.
My list, a work in progress: sitting on the porch which is encased in wisteria vines, feeling peaceful and complete; calling a friend; streaming old TV shows, ones that have no terrible endings; eating apples, apricots, cashews, avoiding junk food; going for walks in my rural neighborhood; music on the car radio; reading in bed; taking mental health breaks from the news…
Besides sharing your lists of self-care, please also email stories of your activism - what you accomplished, how you were impacted; or, if you accomplished nothing, how you tried. In other words, let’s give each other ideas this week.
May your courage and openness be strengthened by this Elul work and may it be a hallmark of your day-to-day life and spiritual practice in the coming year!