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- To Jerusalem

- Large and In Charge

- On Vending Machine Theology

- worlds that germinate

- thanks for doing this with me

- the right and the good

- Visualizing the mitzvot

- What the Trees Know

- On Organizing

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 9, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

To Jerusalem

How Centralizing the Temple Changed Everything

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

Do you remember when we started talking about the origins of Deuteronomy, and how King Josiah, who ruled Judea from ca. 640–609 BCE, just "happened" to find this scroll that told him to do things that were related to centralizing Temple worship to Jerusalem?

We didn't get into the nitty-gritty of why, then, but it's hard to understand Deuteronomy without that context. So we'll open that door today.

As the Book of Kings tells it, the First Temple in Jerusalem was constructed in the 10th c. BCE. For a long time, it served as the royal headquarters in Judea, but it wasn't the only place from which sacrifices to God were offered.

As discussed previously, we have mentions of altars elsewhere all over the biblical texts– Shiloh, famously, from the Hannah story in I Samuel 1, and there's also archeological and/or textual evidence of altars in places like Bethlehem, Beersheva, Arad, Gibeon, and Bethel.

This small limestone sanctuary, on the southern border of Judea, in Arad, is the only full-on satellite Judean temple (rather than just an altar) that's been found. And like the Temple in Jerusalem, it had a number of spaces, including the Holy of Holies-- which included two altars with the remains of incense and matzevot--uh, sacred standing stones. At least according to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the sanctuary here was "intentionally buried" during the reign of King Hezekiah. By whom is an interesting question. (Ancient stonework ruins. The stonework is a tan/cream color, and appears weathered with various textures, shapes, and sizes of stones. The structure resembles a tiered altar, with the various stones assembled to create a layered effect. Small, uneven steps are visible descending the middle of the structure, constructed from the same material. Two tan pedestals are discernible within the stonework arrangement, as well as two large, tan oval stones towards the back. A blue sign says "Holy of Holies" in English and דביר in Hebrew.)

King Hezekiah ruled Judea from 727–698 B.C.E. According to the Book of Kings,

He abolished the high places/shrines and smashed the pillars and cut down the sacred post. (2 Kings 18:4)

We'll get into the pillars and sacred post business another day. But the shrines are notable now.

Why did he do all this? Let's see. In 722, the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom– a horrific disaster that resulted in mass death and many, many northern refugees streaming down into his kingdom. It may have been that Hezekiah saw this disaster as a sign that his own kingdom ought scrub out any traces of religious corruption, clean up their own act.

It may have been that, as the Assyrians encroached, he thought centralizing could simplify things, help him have oversight and control over operations generally. (The Assyrians did siege Judea pretty hard around 701 BCE, which ended with Hezkiah becoming the tribute-paying subject of the Assyrian King Sennacherib).

It's also possible that Deuteronomy was basically sci-fi– that is, that, by the time the Assyrians had rolled through the North in 722 BCE and then Judea 20ish years later, these satellite altars weren't much to speak of– that the Assyrians themselves were the ones who razed them, not these pious Judean kings. (That's what Bible scholar Lisbeth Fried argues.)

Anyway, assuming it was Hezekiah, as reported:

Would you like to guess how popular this plan was? Tell people that they can't have their local cultic shrines, and give them nothing to fill the void?

Mmm.

The minute that Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, took the throne,

He rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed… (2 Kings 21:3)

And yet. The whole Centralized Temple In Jerusalem (Conveniently Next to the Royal Seat of Power) concept never really left. When Manasseh's grandson Josiah took the throne,* there seemed to be a key reason for him to try again– carefully accounting for a few of the factors that caused great-grandad's attempt to fail.

*Josiah's dad Amon was assasinated after two years of reign-- that's a short story.

Josiah's campaign was more of a grassroots effort, based on his charisma and ability to move a crowd. (Just kidding, he was a total nepo baby. He only got the job because it was a family operation; it's not even like he had to intern or pay his dues or anything.)(Photo is of a Shepherd Fairey Obama Hope-style image, but it's some ancient Judean king-looking dude with a crown and a beard, and it says SMASH (the high places.)

Now, this thing before of smashing the high places but not filling that emotional or spiritual void– that didn't work so hot. So now?

We're going to create a new system wherein people are going to find a new relationship with worship, and with the Mothership:

You are not permitted to slaughter the Passover sacrifice in any of the settlements that God is giving you; but at the place where God will choose to establish the Divine Name, there alone shall you slaughter the Passover sacrifice, in the evening, at sundown, the time of day when you departed from Egypt. You shall cook and eat it at the place that God will choose; and in the morning you may start back on your journey home. ...

Three times a year—on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the Feast of Weeks, and on the Feast of Booths—all your males shall appear before God in the place that [God] will choose.. (Deuteronomy 16:5-16, very abridged)

Come visit!!!!!

Come visit a lot! Regularly! (The walk from Beersheva to Jerusalem was about two days. Very few places in Judea would be farther than that.)

No doing Pesach at home; it's a Temple holiday, now. And then, seven weeks later, the wheat harvest, Shavuot. And then, four-plus months later, come back for the fall harvest, Sukkot!

Show up and get absolutely blasted by the holiness and the awe, the mystery and the grandeur of the place, the power of being in that space with the entire community– get hit so hard that the good stuff fills you up until the next sacred time.

Get full up on the sense of us– strengthening a collective Judean identity.

Why, though?

Why is Josiah/Deuteronomy going through all the hassle of trying to rewire these longstanding traditions? Getting people to do things in new ways (always... easy.... right?)

What's at stake for him, here?

One possibility: The Assyrian Empire began falling apart not long after Josiah took the throne– but all these generations of paying the imperialist bullies had taken their toll on the place.

So while there was suddenly a lot of opportunity to annex lands that the Assyrians had once held strongly (*cough* the Northern Kingdom of Israel *cough* ), they weren't in the strongest position economically to jump on a, uh, plan of attack.

But:

...look only to the site that your God will choose amidst all your tribes as God’s habitation, to establish the divine name there. There you are to go, and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, your votive and freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks... (Deuteronomy 12:5-6)

Ah, yes. The tithes.

The tithes that are now not going to the local shrines, but, rather, to Temple HQ to shore up the royal treasury. The same tithes and agricultural surplus that will help build Judea back better, rather than letting the bulk of it go to the local officials.

And, of course, if need be, those traveling from too far away could– if necessary– bring the cash value of the grain (Deuteronomy 14:24-25).

And to offset some of the hassle of this new system, folks would be able to eat some of the tithe due – God would partially pay travel expenses, if you will. (EG Deuteronomy 14:23, 16:7-8, etc).

Even so, it may not surprise you that all these changes likely got mixed reviews.

Bible scholar Norman K. Gottwald posits that of course the Temple centralization was great for those who were in charge, and suggests that

it is likely that the biggest supporters of the reforms among the exploited sub-classes were day laborers who were descended from refugees of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE or who came off farms in Judah that they had lost to indebtedness. This rootless group, often unemployed, would profit from increased work in military preparations, in public construction, and in service jobs occasioned by the pilgrimage trade. Living in and around Jerusalem, they also stood to gain more from public charity than peasants scattered in the countryside....

Others, though– the ones who were happily settled across the countryside and who were perfectly content with their closest franchise altars might have been less excited about having to schlep cross-country three times a year. But schlep, it seems, that they did– tithes and traveler's checks in tow.

Shalom of Safed, Levites Playing Music in the Holy Temple, 1972Full-color, stylized illustration of a multi-tiered, terraced landscape with various levels of buildings, some resembling small houses or structures. Buildings are depicted in warm and muted colors such as various shades of orange, yellow, and light brown. Some buildings have red or orange roofs. A group of figures, dressed in similar clothing, are shown ascending a flight of stairs, playing musical instruments, such as trumpets or horns. Similar groups of figures are marching through the scene on lower levels. A large building (the Temple) with a central arched window, is situated at the top of the elevated areas. The building is constructed from light and dark brown/tan tones with a blue roof.)

Josiah also had to deal with the HR implications of shutting down all these subsidiary branches.

The priests who'd been serving at all these local shrines got brought to the Jerusalem Temple, but weren't allowed to work the altar (2 Kings 23:8-9). It's thought by many scholars that this was the real beginning of the division between priests, who performed the sacrifices themselves, and the Levites, who did things like carry stuff, serve as guards and, most famously, sing and play music.

To put it another way: the now-Levites who'd been working at the local shrines were suddenly out of a job, and also hit the list of marginalized folks in need of care. So– now we need to make sure that they get cared for! That has to start being spelled out, explicitly:

You shall rejoice before God your God with your son and daughter, your male and female enslaved-person, the Levite in your settlements, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow in your midst..... (Deuteronomy 16:11)

There are other practical issues that need to be resolved:

Up until this point, meat was eaten only as part of a sacred ritual slaughter at one of these franchise "high places." But to tell people that they can only eat meat if they're in Jerusalem wasn't going to work. As if everybody in the Bethel suburbs will just forego BBQ most of the year? Yeah, right.

So Deuteronomy had to come up with a workaround:

But whenever you wish, you may slaughter and eat meat in any of your settlements, according to the blessing that God your God has granted you....But you must not partake of the blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. (Deuteronomy 12:15-16)

Ahhh! OK. We don't need a local priest anymore, but we just have to be careful not to eat the blood (because blood is life, and we have to continue to remember that taking this life is a big deal. So then we'll engage this meat-eating with the appropriate reverence it deserves.)

And the examples continue.

Law after law, ritual after ritual in Deuteronomy is related to the great project of reorienting Judea spiritually, ritually, culturally and financially, and perhaps even mythically.

This reworking, sadly, did not last long. Josiah was killed in battle in 609 BCE, not long before the Egyptians, and then the Babylonians, were to come into the picture. (The Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE.)

But by giving us this radical reworking of the Judean people's relationship to the Temple– to worship, to authority, to everything from meat-eating to holy day observance, from Temple staffing to a myriad other things that we'll see in the following weeks, Josiah gave us the blueprint to a world, and a worldview, that would far outlast even his own ambitious vision.

🌱

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This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/temple/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 5, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

Large and In Charge

A Cross-Torah Measure Hunt

View this paid post here: Large and In Charge.

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/large/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | DEC 2, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

On Vending Machine Theology

God is not a kiosk and your prayers are not a quarter

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

There's a lot of what's at risk of being understood as what I call Vending Machine Theology in Deuteronomy. A lot.

And, in fact, one chunk of it eventually becomes part of the core Jewish liturgy, known as the second paragraph of the Shema.

So, after that first "Hear, Israel!" line, and then the better-known first paragraph about loving God with all your heart, soul and might and so forth, we get to this one:

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving God your God and serving God with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.

Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For God's anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that God is assigning to you.

Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates—to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the God swore to your ancestors to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth. (Deuteronomy 11:13-21)

Seems pretty straightforward on the face of things, doesn't it?

If you're a good little goober and do all your homework and your chores, if you don't swear or scuff your shoes, you will get cookies!!

If, however, you are a naughty noodle, you will be sent to bed without dinner and you will not like that at all.

So do what you're told, yeah?

Or, to put it another way: If you insert mitzvot into the Divine Vending Machine, you will receive rewards. Quid pro quo.

We can understand how people get an idea of an authoritarian, somewhat abusive parental deity from passages like this, no?

And sure, the Renaissance love of ancient Greece and the depiction of God as Zeus didn'thelp things much, either.Yes, Mickey, I'm looking at you. (Michelangelo's fresco, "The Creation of Adam," captures a pivotal moment from the Book of Genesis. In the foreground, Adam, a nude male figure, is portrayed in a reclining position. His posture suggests a sense of anticipation and potential. Hovering above, God, an old male dude with a long white beard-- of course-- extends a hand towards Adam. They touch fingers, E.T.-to-Elliot style. Surrounding God and Adam are a bunch of angelic-ish figures, in a cloud that is the shape of the human brain (probably not by accident, since Mike had been dissecting bodies since he was a teen. Cool, no?)

The only problem is– I don't actually believe that this is how the world works.

Do you?

You don’t insert deeds or prayer into the divine vending machine and genuinely expect to get exactly the candy you’re hoping for, do you?

Sure, it's a tempting line of thought, especially if you're having a good hair day and happen to be economically stable and able-bodied: If I pray just the right prayer in just the right way, I will be granted this parking spot and this life partner or be deemed exempt from cancer or mass shootings because the Big Skydaddy has decided that I'm Good™️.

Those other people, though? The ones whose lives were destroyed by hurricane or bombing, or who starved to death by blockade, or the ones who live in constant pain after the malpractice of medical racism or who were deported back to where it wasn't safe before? They definitely didn't bind the right way, didn't impress properly upon their hearts, clearly fell behind on their inscribing. And look what it got them!!

This song, from Mark Growden, is a...gritty response to Big Authoritarian SkyDaddy theology.

Needless to say, Blame the People Who We Have Decided Aren't Feeding The Vending Machine Right (Who Are Always, Conveniently, The People We're Trying To Demonize And/Or Bend Into Submission) is a popular, time-tested strategy among some religious elites.

But we know that that's not right. Intuitively, intellectually, and through our lived experience. The Parkland school massacre didn't happen because same-sex marriage became the law of the land three years prior; Hurricane Katrina wasn't God's punishment for Israel's withdrawal of settlements from Gaza; and, well, that one pastor who said that floods happened because of abortion access legislation was mighty surprised, a few years later, to find his own home... flooded. (Whoops.)

So, then– how might we make sense of this passage, above?

I first heard the great Rabbi Arthur Waskow teach his approach to that set of verses almost 25 years ago– what he, many years ago, called the "acid rain" approach.

He begins, in one version of his take, with the Shema, which he renders as a reminder

to experience what is One beneath: “Listen up, you Godwrestler: The Breath of Life is your God, and the Breath of Life is One.”

I linked to the pieces reminding you why Israel might be translated as one-who-wrestles-with-God and why the Tetragrammaton, the great true name of God, might be translated as the Breath of Life, or.. pure being. The latter, especially, is important for Rav Waskow's reading, here.

From there, he notes that the first paragraph after the Shema–the V'Ahavta, the charge to love God– is in the first person singular, whereas the second paragraph, the one we've been looking at today, is in the plural, is directed at the whole community. And in it, Rabbi Waskow notes,

We look beyond all human life at those beings that do not speak at all—mountains and rivers, ozone and oak trees, beetles and krill. We might imagine they live in an utterly separate world beyond us, on which we have no effect at all.

So we pause to remember that if we pour poison into earth and air and water, it is poison that we will eat and drink and breathe.

If we chop up the sacred reality that all life flows and breathes as One, if we elevate useful parts of the Whole like our own prosperity and ambition into Godlets...that we worship, then the rains will dry up or turn to acid, the atmosphere itself will scorch us, the very heavens become our enemy. So we remember: Sh’ma!? [Listen!?] All life is One!

...At the individual level, this wistful hope of just reward and punishment is indeed very often false. But when society as a whole pursues decency, the chances are much higher (not 100%) that it will prosper, while a society that makes a habit of evildoing is liable to have evil fall upon its head.

Perhaps an individual person gets cancer less because they personally have done something wrong, but because we as a nation and a globe have poisoned our air, our water, and our food with toxic chemicals and negligence?

Just as the increase in climate disasters– wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, heavy rainfall, hurricanes and tsunamis– are not signs that specific sections of the world have been marked as sinner-filled so much as a sign that the climate emergency in which we now find ourselves has ravaged out of control, taking myriad innocents, and homes, and livelihoods in its path?

And as the increase in human beings displaced as a result of these events is not because the individual people have failed to inscribe, failed to bind, failed to impress upon their hearts, but because we, as a nation and a world have failed them, both before and as they needed to seek sanctuary. It is collective impact that has displaced those by drought in Syria, soil erosion in Bangladesh, the hurricanes in Central America that drove many into Mexico and towards the US, in search of refuge, the 3-4 million (or more) people in the US who are now considered "climate migrants," or the many more around the globe– 32 million people by 2022, possibly up to 1.2 billion by 2050. Not any of their specific individual fault.

As it happens, only 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement– emissions which have all gone up in that time. And the U.S. military may be a bigger polluter than 140 countries– most medium-sized nations.

So it's not to say that the climate crisis is nobody's specific fault, or that it cannot be solved with clarity and focus.

Individuals do have free will, and sometimes they use it atrociously. Sometimes they use it to perpetuate great horrors upon other humans.

In many of these cases, it's likely that many of those who are culpable tell themselves that there's nothing that they can do, or that they're doing the right thing, that they're making the right choices for themselves, their family, their people, their country.

Here, as most situations in which harm is being perpetuated: the best paths forward are not mysterious.

The top map shows the countries responsible for the highest emissions (predominantly the Global North). The bottom map shows those most severely impacted by the climate crisis (predominantly the Global South) In case you happened to still be wondering if colonialism's legacy was enduring, or nah. (Two world maps. The top map displays "Overshoot emissions" (Lancet Planetary Health). A color scale, ranging from light green/beige (low emissions) to deep red (high emissions), shows the relative amount of overshoot emissions in each country. The bottom map shows "Multi-dimensional climate vulnerability" (ND-GAIN). A different color scale, from light beige/white (low vulnerability) to deep red (high vulnerability), displays the relative climate vulnerability of each country. Both maps use a varying shade-based color gradient to illustrate the differing levels of a given metric across countries and regions. A key or legend is included for each map, showing the color ranges and corresponding values.)

We are part of not only the great interconnected Everythingness, but to complex systems and structures– and we are tangled up, inextricably, in both problematic and in hopeful ways, with the collective actions of our community, with the nations in which we live, with all people.

How we connect to the great Breath of Life– the Big Bigness that binds us and unites us, that ties us to the earth, the skies, to one another, to the passage of time– it all matters.

Yes, even now.

Yes, especially now.

It’s upon each of us, in the ways that we can, to attend to our role in the collective political, economic, environmental and social well-being — and to not pass the theological buck to a deity who has done nothing if not give us the power of free will, the power to heal or to hurt, to agitate for a better world or capitulate to the interests of power and capital, to support war or fight for peace, to figure out how to use our resources and talents towards pushing the needle, to pretend that we're not rubber stamping the harm of others— or to stand idly by and do nothing.

I shared a draft of an organizing playbook a few weeks ago. In it, there was a reading list– some important starting points for us. (I'll note that Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Thelma Young Lutunatabua and Rebecca Solnit is on there.) And this summer, I shared a guide to how to find your place in the work. The essential concepts still apply, even if the terrain has since shifted a bit.

Some of us have monetary resources, some have resources of talent, or time, or connections. There are so, so many different ways to show up now.

In love.

In dedication to the ever-flowing stream of life, the principle of care and connection to and for the whole.

(And remember, if you're in the process of figuring out how to keep yourself safe because your state just made your existence illegal or you're scrambling to set up a backup plan in the event that you lose the health care you depend on for your chronic condition or etc. you are doing the work of caring for life, for the whole. You'll support not-you when you're able. Please feel invited to let us know, too, so that we can support you, too, eh?)

Please, let's all reread the passage from Deuteronomy, through Rabbi Waskow's understanding:

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Breath of Life– your God– and serving the Breath of Life with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.

Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the anger of the Breath of Life will flare up against you, and the Breath of Life will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Breath of Life is assigning to you.

Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates—to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the the Breath of Life swore to your ancestors to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth. (Deuteronomy 11:13-21)

May we all fight to care for one another.

To create a more whole future for tomorrow.

May we impress our love of, and commitment to the very Flow of Being upon our heart. May we recite its truth everywhere we go, may we take it with us and may it inform every choice that we make.

So that we, and all of the children, may endure as long as there is heaven over the earth.

🌱

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A note on the subscription model:

I want my work to be as accessible to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. That's why the Monday essays are free, and why we donate subscriptions to anyone for whom paying is a barrier to the House of Study posts.

I also believe people should be paid fairly for their work. Needless to say, these two values sometimes seem to be in conflict, but I do what I can to find a fair balance. I offer many resources for free, and charge for others. When you donate generously or pay at the top of our scale, that helps support the work I do, provides access for those who have fewer resources, pays for the infrastructure and the technical and practical support that it takes to do this, and helps us keep the work sustainable.

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Sending a big pile of blessings and goodness your way. 💕

PS.

This isn't to say that all suffering happens because of even an identifiable collective misuse of free will, let alone individual. This is such an age-old issue that an entire book of the Bible is dedicated to it. Job is described as "blameless and upright,"– and yet, suddenly, for no reason that he can see, he loses his money, gets seriously and painfully ill, and his children die. He spends 37 chapters trying to figure out what he failed to recite, inscribe, or bind properly, and eventually the character of God appears, out of a whirlwind, asking– literally–

Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundations?  Do you know who fixed its dimensions or who measured it with a line? Can you tie cords to Pleiades or undo the reins of Orion?!?! (Job 38:4-31, very abridged)

Like– little human down there!! Did you make the universe?? No? Can you make giraffes? Naw? You so sure you get to know how this all works??

Because sometimes suffering just happens, is just part of the human condition for no comprehensible reason. It just is.

Sometimes there just isn't a why that we can make sense out of, unfortunately.

PPS I couldn't share Sistine Chapel God and leave you without the, uh, ending:

You gotta give Michelangelo credit for having the chutzpah to paint The Divine Badonkadonk, though. I mean. I know, I know, Exodus 33:23. STILL.(Painting of God, depicted as an elderly, white-bearded man, hovering in the air, accompanied by celestial figures, with one hand outstretched. We also see God in a second image, floating away/hand outstretched, with robes clinging to the Ineffable Tushy. On the Fourth Day, God Created the moon.)

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/vending/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 28, 2024, 10:45 AM EST

worlds that germinate

Indigenous voices for today, and every day

If you're in the United States, today's a national holiday.

It is (as so many US holidays are– and so many holidays generally, honestly)... emotionally layered.

It's a time of love and family and togetherness for many. A time of, well, complicated, fraught family stuff and/or loneliness for many. And it's a communal celebration with the stories of colonialism and Indigenous genocide baked in.

That's a lot.

Here's a piece on the history of the Thanksgiving holiday from an Indigenous perspective, with a few more of the less-flattering (to settlers) details than they teach kids, and here's a version with some resources for engaging kids.

And here, below, are some other offerings from Indigenous culture– for today, for every day.

Music! Poetry! Podcasts! Books!

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/thanksgivingday/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 26, 2024, 11:33 AM EST

thanks for doing this with me

catching up and checking in

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A screenshot of my digital TBR -- to be read-- list, with just the top of a long list of URLs and links to emails containing docs, all full of things that I'm itching to get to just as soon as I have time for them. Hmph.

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

PS: If you'd like a bit of hope and strategy at the beginning of this new political era, the data cited in here might help:

On Organizing

time to level up / an early draft of a playbook

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/thanks-for-doing-this-with-me/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 25, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

the right and the good

on going above and beyond

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

A lot of times, when non-Jews (well, OK, especially a certain strain of Christian, for Gospel Reasons) talk about Jews. they talk about us in relation to Jewish law, halakha.

Those "legalistic" Jews, one might hear– implying that they're (we're) bogged down in details, they (we) don't notice anything but the minutiae of requirements, and are clueless about the big picture, what really matters.

This characterization sits in contrast, naturally, to those who focus on the "spirit of the Law;"– never mind that there may be different understandings entirely between the two religious communities about what a particular mitzvah might be about in the first place.

Nevertheless. A lot of the time, when non-Jews of various stripes (and, for that matter, Jews who've never observed Jewish law) think about halakha, they picture something of a cage, a trap, I think.

Or somebody being so anxious about checking the vein of each particular leaf that they forget to see the forest.

But how beautiful each leaf is! Have you ever spent time with just one leaf??(Image of a yellow-green leaf against mossy bark, with the background and foreground a bit unfocused, but it appears to be green out there.)

And yes, this is indeed a different kind of magnificent. (Image taken from the center of a copse of tall tall trees, looking up, so you see their trunks surrounding you and the bright green of their leaves connecting up at the bright blue sky, as the sun just barely peeks through the center.)

Well. I used to describe halakha as something of a portable monastery– a form of divine service that keeps my attention focused on what really matters and away from my ego. A form of spiritual practice. (Maimonides teaches that it ultimately doesn’t matter if we find reasons for the mitzvot or not. The reason for mitzvot are mitzvot.)

And why this is of note is not just because it's a framework that tells you how many handbreadths high to make your sukkah wall or what to do if your dairy spoon falls into your meatballs; or that it's an ever-evolving system with which there are a myriad of ways to engage. Or the fact that there are also laws about things like, how to give someone appropriate rebuke. How to repent when you've screwed up. The obligation to pay workers a living wage.

But rather, Deuteronomy teaches, we're commanded to

"Do what is right and good in the sight of God..." (Deuteronomy 6:18)

(Gif of The Dude from The Big Lebowski stirring his drink, looking confused)

I mean... yes? Obviously?

This is the part where the Jewish legal tradition doesn't think it's cute to just leave ambiguous verses like this up to every individual predatory megapreacher to interpret however seems most appealing.

("It is right and good in the sight of God that you pay your alms directly to the Mercedes dealership, account number...")

🤨

Let's look to our favorite French vintner-slash-11th c.-commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, aka RaShI, for a clue about how we've made sense of this:

This refers to... acting beyond the strict demands of the law.

Going beyond the letter of the law. Lifnim mishurat ha-din, we call it, לִפְנִים מִשּׁוּרַת הַדִּין.

As Nahmanides, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (RaMbaN), the 12th c. Spanish Kabbalist, explains, this is a great blanket concept in a constantly changing world:

Now this is a great principle, for it is impossible to mention in the Torah all aspects of a person's conduct with their neighbors and friends, and all their various transactions, and the ordinances or all societies and countries. But after God mentioned many of them- such as "You shall not slander;" (Leviticus 19:16) "Do not seek vengeance or hold on to anger;" (19:18) "Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor;" (19:16) "Do not insult the deaf;" (19:14) "You shall show deference before an elder;" (19:32) and the like, God then went back and said generally that one should do the good and the right in everything, until through this a person reaches [the level of] 'going beyond the letter of the law.'

Got it? The Torah lays out the basic ideas around interpersonal behavior– and, notably, the examples given here aren't about keeping kosher or being punctilious about the details of prayer, but rather how we care for one another and create a just and loving society.

And then, the Torah throws us this extra verse as a catch-all, lest we think that it's fine to stick with the bare minimum, and not have to do anything more than that. Especially knowing that contexts will, inevitably, change in various "societies and countries" over time.

The 16th c. Kabbalist Moses Cordovero asserts that going the extra mile is a form of Imitatio Dei:

The Holy One, blessed be God, acts... beyond the [letter] of the law. God does not take the law (judgement) to its [full] force, even in the way of straightness.... (Tomer Devorah 1:25)

Right? [The anthropomorphized character of] God could be a lot meaner than God is, and God would be entirely justified. (Have you seen us? Especially lately? But, like, ever? We really do deserve whatever judgement would come our way as a species.) But, Cordovero argues, God holds back, giving compassion and mercy wayyy beyond the strict letter of the law.

For, as we see in this lovely Talmudic midrash:

The Talmud asks: What does God pray? To whom does God pray? Rav Zutra bar Tovia said that Rav said: God says: May it be My will that My mercy will overcome My anger towards the people of Israel for their transgressions, and may My mercy prevail over My other attributes through which the people Israel is punished, and may I conduct myself toward My children, Israel, with the attribute of mercy, and may I enter before them beyond the letter of the law. (Talmud Brachot 7a)

We pray that God's merciful, and God, like a parent standing in the hallway trying to count slowly backwards down from ten and to not start screaming about how I already asked you three times to start your homework, prays to Godself to let God's [non-anthropomorphic] attribute of mercy overcome God's anger. What an image.

And here's a story of what the tension around "going beyond the letter of the law" looks like in action:

Some porters [negligently] broke a barrel of wine belonging to Rabbah son of Rav Huna. Thereupon he seized their garments; so they went and complained to Rav. 'Return them their garments,' he ordered. 'Is that the law?' they inquired. 'Even so,' he rejoined: 'That you may walk in the way of good men.' Their garments having been returned, they observed. 'We are poor men, have worked all day, and are in need: are we to get nothing?' 'Go and pay them,' he ordered. 'Is that the law?' he asked. 'Even so,' was his reply: 'and keep the path of the righteous.' (Talmud Bava Metzia 83a)

Rabbah ben Rav Huna's porters messed up.

Here's an amphora from 4th–5th century CE what's-now-Iran, dating a couple of centuries after our boy Rabbah, here. It's about the same height as a bottle of wine, with double the diameter, probably holds a bit more or the same as a wine bottle. Is this what they broke, or was it more like this 1900 photo of Turkish guys carrying a big cask on a pole, or something else entirely? I do not know. But this was the closest thing I could find of the correct time and place. Easily breakable, anyway!(Gorgeous golden glass amphora with handles and hexagonal indentations standing upright.)

Did Rabbah technically have the right to take their clothes as a way of claiming what was owed to him? Sure. Technically.

But, come on, says his teacher. That's not good enough. You know these guys can't spare this. You know that you're a rich guy whining over lost wine and they're literally workers trying to make ends meet. That's not menschkeit. That's not how we operate, here.

Beyond the letter of the law: They made a mistake. Don't just relinquish your claim, even, by not taking their stuff. Pay them their wages, son.

Let go of what you're entitled to, and look to what will bring a more whole world into being.

And this idea that a person who only did what the law demands– and neglected to engage with factors like compassion, empathy, context, the humanity of the person in front of them–was so great a sin that it brought about, according to the Rabbis, the destruction of Jerusalem:

Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Jerusalem was destroyed only for the fact that they adjudicated cases on the basis of Torah law in the city. The [Talmud] asks: Rather, what else should they have done? Should they rather have adjudicated cases on the basis of arbitrary decisions? Rather, say: That they established their rulings on the basis of Torah law and did not go beyond the letter of the law. (Talmud Bava Metzia 30b)

Doing the bare minimum– just what was expected, and not trying to get to the heart of the thing, to justice, to wholeness– destroyed worlds.

It always does.

"Stately stairway approach to Herod's temple of 1900 years ago, Samaria, Pal." c. 1910(A black and white stereoscopic view of ancient stone steps, arranged in long, parallel rows, ascending in a slight incline. The stones are relatively large, rectangular blocks. A person is standing on one of the steps, visible near the center of the image. The image is reproduced twice, side-by-side. The image's border contains printed information, including the name Keystone View Company, the location of its manufacturing and publishing, and the title and date of the photograph: "11388 -Stately stairway approach in Herod's temple of 1900".)

Now, more than ever, we need to take seriously the mandate to go beyond the bare minimum.

We know that the first rule of resisting authoritarianism is:

Do not obey in advance.

From On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy D. Snyder. (1 Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, indi- viduals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.)

We know that.

But nonetheless, there are going to be a lot of people acting from fear now, and in the weeks and months to come.

Some people will start acting even more from self-interest than they already have, if that's even possible.

Some people will find that their trauma's been triggered, and suddenly (functional) freeze or fawn are going to be driving their particular trains.

Some people will just be straight-up terrified, and easily bullied into submission, out of their own desire for self-protection or because of their concern for, say, family members or the like.

Some people will, well, "just follow orders" because it's easier than making any other choice.

We must, friends, we must prepare to go beyond the letter of the law in every way.

Of course this means things like resisting unjust orders, refusing to cooperate when that is simply the right thing to do– get enough people together and every drop of rain becomes a tornado, a gale force.

But more than that.

It means that we must bring compassion and empathy where there is none.

That we must be the ones to fill in the larger sociocultural context, even if nobody else has.

It means that the humanity of every single person must continue to be regarded as, treated as sacrosanct.

These are the principles that must inform our choices.

Not what is expected of us. Not what everyone else is doing. Not what seems to be the vibe, or safe, or easy. Not our desire to scroll on by. Not our feelings of entitlement and what we believe we may be owed.

We must be the ones who go beyond the letter of the law.

Who stretch ourselves beyond it, past it, into the place where mercy lives.

We must hold on to what is good, and what is right. In the eyes of God, and in our own eyes.

We can see every detail on every leaf, even as we also look up and remember the sky, the forest, the whole habitat that we're working to save.

We must.

Whole worlds are at stake, once again.

They depend on us.

🌱

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Sending a big pile of blessings and goodness your way. 💕

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/beyond/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 21, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

Visualizing the mitzvot

Show Me What Torah Looks Like

As you've likely discerned by now, I not only put a lot of thought into the words that I send you each week, but also into the images that go with the words. Whenever possible, I try to bring you visual treats that match the moment, that meet what I'm trying to do with language appropriately. Sometimes that's just a lil' stock illustration, but sometimes I'm able to find something that's a bit more exciting than that.

When I was working on Monday's post, I confess that I was hoping to do better than your usual "Moses holding up the two tablets" kind of image– so I was delighted when I came across all those great visual interpretations of the Ten Commandments by contemporary Jewish artists. And then, towards the very end of the process, I stumbled upon the top image, of the astronaut illustrating the first commandment by Archie Rand, and I knew that I had hit jackpot.

See, the Rand painting is part of a massive project; he took five years and painted every single one of the 613 mitzvot/ commandments in the Torah, as compiled /articulated by Maimonides in his 12th c. masterwork, the Mishneh Torah. The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco displayed them all in 2017.

Rand's hardly a literalist. He combines a sensibility of both comics and pulp novel covers with humor, reverence, and an electric palette to his interpretations of each of these mitzvot– like "Marc Chagall on a bender," as the New York Times put it.

So I thought it might be fun to use these images as texts today. I've done my best with the image descriptions, knowing that it's an imperfect art and that this is one entry in a long line of entries, a long context of different media used here. And, as always:

As you look, consider:

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/visualizing-the-mitzvot/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 14, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

What the Trees Know

we should remember

View this paid post here: What the Trees Know.

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/treesknow/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | NOV 11, 2024, 5:00 AM EST

On Organizing

time to level up / an early draft of a playbook

This is Life as a Sacred Text 🌱, an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. More about the project here, and to subscribe, go here:

As we all try to get our bearings in this bewildering, terrifying new chapter of U.S. history, there are a few things that seem to be, that are, clear to me from over here, in terms of next-steps thinking and action.

This post is about some of that.

First of all, all of the wisest people that I've been listening to have been saying basically the same thing:

Solidarity is the only way home.

We must build collective power.

We must deepen our relationships of trust and care across lines of difference, across coalitions, across communities. That's the foundation upon which everything else resides.

Lives are, have been, will continue to be even more at stake: We must put aside petty in-group and intergroup squabbles and focus on the white supremacist Christian nationalist authoritarianism that has arrived to our door and is, I'm sorry to say, is very, very real.

So: How?

Here, today, some wisdom both evergreen and more recent to help us meet this moment.

Because we need all hands on deck, and there's a lot of deck.

We need you.

“Organizing is to the community what spiritual practice is to the individual.”

–  adrienne maree brown

1) LOOK TO THE EXPERTS

There are folks with deep knowledge of every issue, and every methodology, who have been working in the trenches for a long time.

We must look to them for guidance and follow their lead.

(Same goes for all the things one may suddenly notice will be an emergency or bigger emergency now. There are already sanctuary and support networks doing their best to get people access to abortion care, gender affirming care, working on im/migrant aid, etc. Yes, they're strained now and things will only get harder, but the mandate now is not to reinvent the wheel, but rather to figure out who's already invested the time in building up systems and structures and to support those things usefully. And if there are ways to be constructive, great, but looking to the people already doing the work and honoring their expertise must be the starting point. It's amazing what one can find with a bit of research.)

One of the people who's become a real light for me recently is the political scientist Erica Cheoweth, an expert on nonviolent civil resistance movements.

Their story is great– towards the end of their master's degree, they were at a workshop about nonviolent resistance, and were that student with all the questions and pushback about the efficacy of that method as more than just an occasional anecdotal success. Their soon-to-be co-author, Maria Stephan, said to them something like, "If you're right, why don't you prove it?"

Nobody had ever studied this systematically. (So many of us accidentally go write the book we were looking to read.)

They collected data on all major violent and nonviolent campaigns for the overthrow of a government or territorial liberation since 1900– the whole world, anywhere where there were at least 1,000 known participants. After combing through hundreds of cases, they found that only a quarter of the violent revolutions achieved their aims, while more than half of the nonviolent campaigns did. And they found that those using nonviolent means were much more likely to end in democracy, while violent methods were more likely to saddle you with tyranny.

Cheoweth's initial data, from their 2013 TED TalkBar graph illustrating the success rates of nonviolent and violent campaigns from 1900 to 2006. The x-axis is labeled with three categories: Success, Partial Success, and Failure. The y-axis represents the percentage (from 0% to 70%) of campaigns that fell into each category.Two sets of bars are present, one light blue representing nonviolent campaigns, and the other, a light red, representing violent campaigns. The graph indicates that, across all categories (Success, Partial Success, Failure), violent campaigns had significantly lower success rates. For instance, in the "Success" category, nonviolent campaigns show a higher percentage of success (around 60%) compared to violent campaigns (around 30%). A similar trend is observed for "Partial Success" and "Failure."

It makes sense, but still. The data is stunning:

2) DO YOUR RESEARCH

(When you do, you learn things like:)

When resistance campaigns used nonviolent tactics– instead of violence– they were 10 times more likely to transition to democracy– even if the campaign failed in the short term. And even when nonviolent campaigns didn't bear immediate fruit, they tended to– eventually, slowly– prompt the moderates in power to make useful reforms.

And this data came out of Chenoweth and Stephan picking only huge resistance campaigns that sought to either secede, expel a foreign occupier, or overthrow a head of state. (So: Civil Rights in the 1960s– with its many wins– didn't count, since it was only calling for reforms within the current system.) AND movements were only labeled successes if they won within a year of their peak activity, and without any other help– so the campaign led by Gandhi and others didn't count because the Brits took too long to leave India.

And even with all of these (strict) limitations: Over half of the nonviolent resistance movements they looked at were a success.

Got that?

More than half the time, a nonviolent resistance movement toppled an unjust regime within a year.

Over half the time, a nonviolent resistance movement toppled an unjust regime within a year.

Sit with that for a sec.

Victoria Garcia, Make America an Endless Expanse of Old Growth Forest Again. "Prior to colonization, what is now known as the U.S. was half forest. What remains of that today is only 10%. This piece is representative of the different ecosystems that exist across the nation, their trees, and calls people to identify more with the earth—instead of political symbols."(The flag is divided into four quadrants, each a different color, suggestive of a checkerboard pattern. Two quadrants are a light beige-tan, and the other two are a muted, slightly greyish-green. Each quadrant features a stylized, black outline illustration of a different kind of tree. A circle of white stars appears in the center of the flag. The colors and design of the flag evoke a vintage design.)

The key ingredients of a successful nonviolent resistance movement, Chenoweth and Stephan found, are:

1. A large and diverse population of participants that continue to grow both in size and diversity, and can be sustained over time.

Chenoweth and Stephan even discovered something so important here that it gets a name: the 3.5 Percent Rule.

Everywhere they looked where a nonviolent resistance campaign engaged the “active and sustained participation” of at least 3.5% of that nation's population: they won.

“If I had to pick one characteristic that correlates with a movement’s success, it’s the extent to which everyone in society—children, disabled people, grandmas—feels that they can either actively or passively participate.”

– Dr. Erica Chenoweth

There are a lot of ways to help if things go as Trump has promised that they will. We need all hands on deck, and there's a lot of possible deck. From this article at WagingNonviolence.org. Worth reading the whole thing if you haven't yet.PROTECT PEOPLE harm reduction, protect targeted people DEFEND CIVIC INSTITUTIONS safeguard democratic institutions (elections, EPA, etc) DISRUPT AND DISOBEY strategize acts to support disobedience and protest policy BUILD ALTERNATIVES parallel institutions, alternative party platforms, new culture-building

Other key success factors include:

2. The ability to create loyalty shifts among key regime-supporting groups such as business elites, state media, and—most important—security elites such as the police and the military.

3. A creative and imaginative variation in methods of resistance beyond mass protest. Marches aren't enough. Public actions aren't enough. (Strikes! Boycotts! Civil disobedience! Guerrilla theatre! Ritual protests! Integration with art! Banging pots and pans! Wild, even hilarious, shenanigans! What will mess things up and move things along??)

4. Strategies for unity, and the discipline to keep the whole movement nonviolent, even in the face of direct repression– no falling apart, no opting for violence.

5. And a bonus insight, from Chenoweth's forthcoming book with Dr. Zoe Marks,

"when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy."

According to Chenoweth, people tend to underestimate the importance of #3 and #4, especially the need for creativity and imagination.

Some updated data shows not only that violent movements have become much less prevalent and successful these days-- but also that nonviolent campaigns have seen a decline in success. Important notes about why that is below, keep reading. We can learn and do the things needed to win.(A line graph displays the success rates of nonviolent and violent mass campaigns by decade, from 1930 to 2019.The x-axis represents the decades, ranging from 1930-39 to 2010-19. The y-axis represents the success rate, ranging from 0% to 70%.A gray line represents the success rate of nonviolent campaigns, while a black dashed line represents the success rate of violent campaigns.The graph shows fluctuations in the success rates of both types of campaigns over time. For example, the violent campaign success rate peaks in the 1970-79 period. The success rate for nonviolent campaigns reaches a peak in the 1990-99 period. Both nonviolent and violent campaigns show varying levels of success throughout the decades.The graph includes data points (numerical values) next to the lines indicating the approximate success rate for each decade. For example, the success rate of nonviolent campaigns was approximately 33% in the 1940-49 decade, and the violent campaign success rate was around 15%.The graph includes labels and a title, "FIGURE 2-SUCCESS RATES OF NONVIOLENT AND VIOLENT MASS CAMPAIGNS, BY DECADE (1930-2019)". The data points for each line are labeled with the number of campaigns included in the analysis (e.g., nonviolent (n=320)).

Elsewhere, Chenoweth noted a bunch of things that have been missing from recent movements, leading to fewer wins. And... 1, 3, and 4, above, were on that list.

Some movements that relied overly heavily on rallies and protests were less likely to succeed– and became easy targets for a state looking to silence them.

On the other hand, movements that used a diversity of tactics and engaged a wide swath of society were more likely to succeed in unseating a repressive regime.

The political scientist Gene Sharp surveyed centuries and found 198 types of nonviolent action. It's not all sit-ins and street protests, or even vigils and die-ins. There are so many ways to gum up the works– some might involve not cooperating, like striking and boycotting, or even walking really, really slowly at work.

Gains are often made through a combination of tactics, rather than pushing hard in only one direction.

“The real craft is in the planning, the strategizing. Having an entire sequence of tactics in mind—if I do this, then this, how do I ultimately win?” –Nicole Carty

Some of the other factors that are key, but that have been missing in movements as of late include:

- "careful planning, organization, training, and coalition-building prior to mass mobilization" (instead of: protest first, figure out next steps as we go.)

- Organizing in ways that DO NOT RELY SO HEAVILY on the internet!! Because:

3) RELATIONSHIPS!!!

As the great Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes write in Let This Radicalize You:

Activists who experience success using online tools sometimes undervalue or neglect the kind of on-the-ground work organizers practiced before social media, and which many still practice today. But online mobilization born out of interest in event pages or the hot political topic of the moment can be fleeting, and organizers who rely on their ability to summon large numbers of people for protests and actions via social media, without developing any fabric of community between participants, often find themselves adrift as high-intensity political moments ebb. The bonded energy of protesters in the streets can help sustain the momentum of a protest, but it does not, in and of itself, create a sustained capacity for organized political action.

It's not for nothing that the core building block of organizing is the one-on-one conversation (think: a coffee date), just getting to know someone– their perspective, what drives them, developing connections and trust as well as figuring out how, authentically, the movement or campaign might address a need or concern the person already has. Relationships matter. Trust matters. This is hard, long-haul stuff, and it requires showing up into the messiness. "Moving at the speed of trust," is a phrase we hear in some circles a lot these days, and it matters, for real.

Elsewhere in the book, Kaba and Hayes write,

"When we believe in each other, we are more likely to take risks and to invest ourselves in possibility, even when our own hopes are not fully formed. In this way, our relationships and the work of relationship building can change our sense of what's possible."

Art by Camila Rosa. (A stylized illustration features a fem with a light brown or beige complexion with dark eyes and eyebrows and a light lipstick or a similar rosy hue on her lips and long, dark hair, looking intently at a book. The book prominently displays the text "HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF" in large, bold, uppercase letters, and the words "UNLESS WE LEARN FROM IT" are written in a different, equally prominent font, with a slightly darker line or color under the word "FROM". The words are positioned so that parts of both phrases are visible. There are stylized wavy lines in a light cream color that evoke a sense of energy radiating around her head.)

Related to this, it's key to remember, when it comes to any major undertakings:

4) DON'T DO ANYTHING ALONE

For so many reasons. In part because trying to get people on board or moving on things can be hard and it can be discouraging to be a one-person band. In part because it could be that your idea or approach is in need of some, er, refining, and your co-pilot(s) can help you work through the potholes of your plan or help you see an angle you might not have considered– hence sparing you wasted time, effort, and possibly your one shot, depending on what we're talking about. That rugged individualism is what got us here in the first place, in so many ways. (That's a whole other post, I think.) Un-gerrymander yourself as much as possible. Find your collaborators, partners in crime, hevrutot, teams, people with whom to jam, accountability buddies, community.

As my friend Jaclyn Friedman, feminist author and organizer, often says:

“Community is the antidote to fascism.”

And– also–

5) NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US

That's a longstanding slogan from disability rights activists. People impacted by a thing should be at the center of planning and execution re: anything related to them insofar as it's possible. This is also a really, really helpful check on savior tendencies, because it can be so, so tempting for well-intentioned people who are not impacted by X to want to go in on addressing issue X and to just— miss some things that they couldn't have known because X is all theory, no lived experience for them. Even if it's the lived experience of someone they love, yes. Which isn't to say that you can't work on the thing! But back to principle #1: Look to the experts. Find out what they need. Go support them! Be of use.

Victoria Garcia, Tapestry"Through this piece, I wanted to create a sense of belonging for all of the diverse cultures that make up America today. The various textiles shown here create a “tapestry” that is a more accurate representation of who we are as a people, and includes textiles and patterns from the Hmong, Guatemalan, West African, and Jewish cultures, among others. Joining these fabrics together shows how our identity is comprised of many nations intertwined."(A flag with a navy square in the left upper corner, and a circle of white stars in it. Horizontal bands of patterned fabrics run across the image, from top to bottom. The patterns include variations on plaid, repeating geometric shapes, embroidered or woven patterns with colorful stripes and abstract designs. Colors are vibrant, and they consist primarily of teal, deep blues, reds, oranges, purples, and greens, which are arranged in visually rich and textured horizontal stripes.)

6) EDUCATION MATTERS. MORE URGENTLY THAN EVER.

As I mentioned above: There are experts in everything. This, too. It's time for us all to level up in our strategy, our theory, our approaches.

The data from Dr. Chenoweth and Dr. Stephan is a critical piece of the puzzle. You should read their book. It's linked below.

But there are so many lenses that we need now.

For example! This (below) is one great way to think about how to map power.

Those pillars can be the laws, courts, media, and schools that support unjust systems or policy and the people who advance or maintain them. Other pillars could be individuals who may personally oppose what's happening but nonetheless keep everything running— including administrators, regulatory bodies, educators, and more. Suddenly power isn't so intractable, it's– movable. The fewer people comply with injustice, the more difficult it is for unjust regimes to function.

(A hand-drawn diagram presents two contrasting perspectives on power. On the left, a triangle with its peak facing up and downward-pointing arrows emanating from the top represents (per text) a Traditional view of power. The text above the converging arrows says: FLOWS DOWN. On the right, the triangle is inverted-- the peak is down, the flat base is at the top, and several thick, parallel lines extend from the base to the apex. The text below this triangle reads: “Pillars of Support.” The diagram visually contrasts a top-down power structure (left) with a structural view wherein power is maintained by many supportive points holding it up (right).)

Here's another way to think about power mapping.

Anyway, the point is that strategy, tools, best practices come from somewhere.

One of the most important things we can do right now is focus HARD on our individual and collective political educations. There's going to be a lot of work ahead and we need better strategy, sharper analysis, more research, best learning from the wisdom of elders, most knowledge of what's been– everything – more than ever before.

Here's a list I've got going of books to start with. I'll keep adding to this, and feel free to suggest your faves, as well.

Yes, click the image, click the link above or the button below or here, clickity click click. There are way more than whatever randomly popped up in this image. (Image: On the left side of the image, a diaganal banner of book covers that appear in the book list. On the right, the words "Political Education by Life is a Sacred Text" in white, with the Life is a Sacred Text logo in a circle, against a purple background.)

And! Haymarket Books is making a bunch of ebooks free! this week, so get in on that. (No, I'm not endorsing all of them. BUT!) They include Let This Radicalize You:Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, Rebecca Solnit's classic for these times (and so many others), Hope In the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Start leveling up now.

573, Kit Ballum Cohen "The contemporary American Flag pays tribute to thirteen colonies, fifty arbitrary states, and the blood shed over a civil war between two factions of settlers. All of this imagery pretends that our nation's history begins with the colonists. My submission utilizes a similar design language to instead honor the 573 American Indian and Alaska Native nations that far predate 1776. Instead of war and invasion, the stripes on this flag represent natural coastal boundaries."(Full-frame view of a repeating pattern. A navy blue background is filled with numerous small, white five-pointed stars. The stars are uniformly spaced in a grid pattern, creating a repeating motif. A thin, solid, royal blue border appears along the both vertical edges.)

And let's end with this poem, that to my mind is really more of a psalm, from the good Rabbi Ariel Tovlev:

The Birds Don't KnowRabbi Ariel Tovlevthe birds don't know what my people just did their morning song not a song of mourningthe trees don't knowthat fear and hatred prevailtheir leaves on a different mission to transform and let gothe bees don't knowa life without altruismtheir sisters out seekingnectar to nourish their mini nationthe sun and moon don't know they will rise and they will set but today is not the sameeven if earth remains unchangedI will sing a song of mourning I will transform and let goI will seek nourishment for mynationI am both changed and unchangedbecause I know what they don't know

A FEW MORE RESOURCES

If you're one of the podcastally inclined:

How Social Movements Win

A great lil' free course that's an intro to, well, movement strategy 101.

Trainings

Resources for trainers, organizers, facilitators and activists.

Trainings

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

A note on the subscription model:

I want my work to be as accessible to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible. That's why the Monday essays are free, and why we donate subscriptions to anyone for whom paying is a barrier to the House of Study posts.

I also believe people should be paid fairly for their work. Needless to say, these two values sometimes seem to be in conflict, but I do what I can to find a fair balance. I offer many resources for free, and charge for others. When you donate generously or pay at the top of our scale, that helps support the work I do, provides access for those who have fewer resources, pays for the infrastructure and the technical and practical support that it takes to do this, and helps us keep the work sustainable. ❤️ 🌱

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/organize/ on Dec 9, 2024 at 6:20 PM EST.

Table of Contents

Life is a Sacred Text: 2024 Dec 9

All articles

To Jerusalem

Large and In Charge

On Vending Machine Theology

worlds that germinate

thanks for doing this with me

the right and the good

Visualizing the mitzvot

What the Trees Know

On Organizing