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RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | JUN 26, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT

dispositional (subscriber only)

(how) [much] can people change ?

View this paid post here: dispositional (subscriber only).

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/dispositional/ on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM EDT.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | JUN 19, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT

Juneteenth Voices

grant peace

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:

Juneteenth is today– marking 160 years since that June 19th in 1865 when General Gordon Granger and his men marched into Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued two and a half years prior.

It is the day of rejoicing in the end of American chattel slavery, of honoring what has come to pass, and what has yet to come to pass.

There are so many things to say– but nobody needs to hear my voice in all this– so today is comprised of Black voices and of traditional sources that my Black Jewish colleagues lifted up over the years in other Juneteenth-related resources.

In 2020, the Womanist theologian Rev. Dr. Eboni Marshall Turman penned a "A Theological Statement From the Black Church on Juneteenth," signed by over 1,000 Black pastors, clergy, and theologians representing over 400 Black churches in the U.S. In it, she wrote,

The Black community has been regularly assaulted by the phalanx of white terrorism since our forced disembarkation on the shores of Jamestown in 1619.  From the bombing of our churches—like the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—to the torching of our homes; from the lynching of our children—may God bless the memory of Emmett Till—to the massacring of our communities; from the assassination of our leaders to the pillaging of our economic prowess... we have been criminalized by the neoliberal logics of a new Jim Crow that builds prison cells based on third-grade reading levels in Black communities and that has exchanged a white hood for a gold badge, a burning cross for a taser, a horse for a cruiser and a noose for a gun.

The incessant onslaught of anti-Black violence that is the progeny of white racist structural evil constitutes the very fabric of U.S. society... We are not confused...

And this year comes in the context of the white supremacist regime's attacks on affirmative action and DEI initiatives (often: basic Civil Rights era laws and policies) and so much more.

We, therefore, affirm that Black freedom is always communal...We reject notions of white freedom that are compelled by the value of American individualism and the pursuit of one’s own destiny without interference and without concern for the well-being of others.

Rex (left to right), Dana Singleton, Marvin Bailey, Bobby Miles and Chuckie Banks rollerskate during the 1983 Denver Juneteenth celebration.

God said to Abram, “Know that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth. (Genesis 15:13-14)

BW image of Martha Yates Jones (left) and Pinkie Yates (right), daughters of Rev. Jack Yates, in a decorated carriage (with the wheels of the carriage filled with white flowers; they are all in white, with elegant white hats, and pulled by a white horse) parked in front of the Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston's Fourth Ward, 1908

In 2020, Sasha King wrote in TribeHerald with an ancestral perspective:

I am a direct descendant of two formerly enslaved Texans, John and Mary Lee and their infant son J.R.E. Lee. My ancestors received word of their freedom on the June 19, 1865, with their year-old child in their arms... I receive the gift of their love and hope for my future every year that I celebrate Juneteenth rich red drinks, desserts, barbecues, and connecting with Black American history. Yet, the holiday is also a bittersweet realization that liberty has not come to fruition for my family despite the progress we have allegedly made in our society.... The racism and exclusion in Texas post emancipation was one of the most brutal state systems of terror. The Lone Star State had one of the largest Ku Klux Klan strongholds in the South, with Black men and women hunted for sport, lynched for asserting themselves, maimed for attempting to change employers or secure payment for their work. Even children were not spared....

Juneteenth became a holiday of joy despite the brutality of Texas. Freedmen, freedwomen, and families gathered to celebrate the anniversary of their freedom. This was dangerous, as gatherings with several Black people would attract desperados who would kill men, women, and children with impunity.

Men and women would express their freedom with the finest clothing they owned, eating foods such as tea cakes and barbecued meats that were usually reserved for masters and mistresses....When parks refused to allow Black Texans to host Juneteenth celebrations, a group of four men and the AME Church bought 10 acres of land for to form the Emancipation Park in Houston... They never let racism interfere with their humanity.

Set of seven old-fashioned black and white photos. Clockwise from top left: Group on Emancipation Day, circa 1880s, in Houston's Emancipation Park. Reverend Jack Yates, who led the community purchase of the Park in 1872, is pictured on the far left, and his daughter Sallie Yates dressed in black in the center. Group of children on Juneteenth, celebrations in Eastwoods Park, Austin, 1900. Group of elderly people on Juneteenth, celebrations in Eastwoods Park, Austin, 1900. Group of men in Civil War uniforms, likely for a re-enactment of the Union’s entry into Galveston; Juneteenth celebrations in Eastwoods Park, Austin, 1900. Juneteenth band, Eastwoods Park, Austin, 1900. Detail from a photograph of celebrations in Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1905. Main stage Juneteenth decorations, Eastwoods Park, Austin, 1900. All Austin photos by Grace Murray Stephenson.

There are necessary, urgent calls from within and beyond Jewish community. For example, a couple of years ago, the wonderful folks at the Black Jewish Liberation Collective wrote,

Unfortunately, Juneteenth has been subsumed by capitalist opportunism, corporate greed, and spiritual bypassing. In the legacy/white Jewish institutional community, Black Jews have been offered thoughts and prayers or asked to labor for white consciousness to be at ease that there was a “commemoration”.

We, the Black Jews who brought Juneteenth to the forefront within the Jewish community, expect more than emails sharing optional prayers, or invitations to events. We expect our Black voices and stories to be centered, our Black bodies to rest from the grind of racialized capitalism, and our Black lives to be valued. We expect white people across the United States to do their work to look critically at the role their communities played in the transatlantic slave trade, still play in the benefitting of racialized capitalism, and commit to a praxis of reparations...

How can you join us in continuing to value collective liberation of Black bodies in this country? We call on our Jewish community to be woke (conscious) about the past and present harm caused and to engage in the process of teshuva. From public accountability, to taking actions to eradicate antiBlack racism, to reparations, we demand justice, belonging, equity, and liberation.

Participants and spectators during the Galveston, Texas Juneteenth parade, 1991. A row of kids sits on the edge of the long bed of a truck, and another row stands behind them, while little kids and a couple of adults look on as the truck passes.

Kofi Robinson wrote for JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice),

Juneteenth serves as an urgent invitation — a call to action — to collectively imagine and cultivate Black liberatory spaces in Jewish community. I imagine these spaces as ones where Black Jews like me, and my Blackness, are always already seen as facets of Jewish life and Jewish priority.

A Black man with an afro and a goatee and a slight smile holds a Black baby in a pink dress eating a lollypop; the man is also holding on to two balloons, one of which says Happy Juneteenth 1984, from Juneteenth events in Fort Worth, Texas.

In that same JFREJ piece, Kofi Robinson wrote,

Liberation is not a one-time event but rather a continuous process that includes everything from crafting just legislation, to how we interpersonally and politically structure our communities and friendships. It’s something that must be constantly revisited and reprioritized.

From the very wonderful rabbi dr. koach baruch frazier. The Hebrew of this prayer translates to, "Grant peace, goodness, blessing, grace, loving-kindness, and compassion..."

A smiling Black woman with a straw hat with flowers, a green and red dress, and three boys-- one of whom carries a drum, one of whom appears to operate a wheelchair, in the 1993 Juneteenth parade in Denver's Five Points neighborhood.

In 2022, the JFREJ Juneteenth Haggadah included the words,

To celebrate and settle into our joy and our freedom is an act of profound bravery given the incredible vulnerability of Black life in this country.... Black freedom is a tenuous thing — beautiful and powerful, strong and vulnerable. It can be snatched away in a moment. It is sustained by continual acts of resilience, resistance, and care. Liberation is not something that once happened to us, in the past. It is something that must be recreated again and again, through action and imagination. Freedom is something we make, together.

rabbi dr. koach baruch frazier, with Marques Hollie. "Sim Shalom" means "Grant peace," and the lines of "Oseh Shalom" translate to "May the one who creates peace on high bring peace to us and to all the people of Israel, and to all the inhabitants of the world. And we say: Amen."

This is the day that God has made—let us exult and rejoice in it.

Please God, deliver us! Please God, let us succeed! (Psalms 118:24-25)

Philadelphia's Juneteenth Parade in 2019. Marchers of various ages wear yellow NAACP shirts, and one young person waves a black, green, and red version of the American flag. The flag combines the colors of Marcus Garvey's pan-African flag with the traditional structure of the American flag and was designed by artist David Hammons.

JUNETEENTH 2025 (Jewish) EVENTS

Atlanta: Congregation Beit Haverim, Juneteenth Seder: June 19 7PM

Bay Area: Gathering for Jews of Color Professionals June 20 5pm (for self-ID'd JOCISM only)

DC: Juneteenth Shabbat at Washington Hebrew, Jun 20, 6pm

MORE RESOURCES

Koach Frazier | Ferguson Voices

Ferguson Voices

As long as we're getting some good r'kbf today, hear this story and its lessons: Show up. Figure out what you have to offer this moment. Bring it. Don't wait to be asked. Pay attention to what's happening around you, how you fit into the larger picture. It's all here.

Guest Post: Reading the Torah Towards Liberation

Kendra Watkins Saperstein on what matters most

Life is a Sacred TextRabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Opinion | Juneteenth Offers Us A Day For Celebration, Reflection, And Healing

“Juneteenth is an important reminder to all of us of why we fight for freedom.”

The ForwardSandra Lawson

The amazing Rabbi Sandra Lawson.

Education | Be’chol Lashon

Be'chol Lashon

Opinion | Why Juneteenth - Which Marks The End Of Slavery - Should Be A Jewish Holiday

For American Jewry, celebrating civic holidays “has symbolized our commitment to the American project,” writes Tema Smith.

The ForwardTema Smith

OPINION: Not just a second Passover — Juneteenth’s unfinished journey

Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S., is more akin to the liberation of Nazi death camps than to Passover, writes Robin Washington.

J.Robin Washington

Ariel Samson: Freelance Rabbi

Freelance Rabbi

Shais RishonShais Rishon

This isn't about Juneteenth per se, but as long as I'm lifting up the words of some of my Black Jewish peeps today, cannot sleep on this searing, biting, over the top, hilarious but also hits its targets with 10000% accuracy novel about a Black rabbi, written by a Black rabbi.

🌱

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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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This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/juneteenth/ on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:22 PM EDT.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | JUN 5, 2025, 10:00 AM EDT

a little more Ruth for the season (subscriber only)

a few gleanings

View this paid post here: a little more Ruth for the season (subscriber only).

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/ruthchesed/ on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM EDT.

RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG | JUN 1, 2025, 7:00 AM EDT

Re(joy)cing

some thoughts on doing

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:

May's Zoom Salon is coming up!

What We Say Tells Us Who We Are: Torah and Metaphor

Sunday June 8th, 2pm ET/1pm CT /11 am PT

We talk about sacred text as fire, as water, as the living tree. As the inverted mountain. As so many other things. Why? What does that tell us about who we are, and what we seek; how we see ourselves; about facing ultimate truth; and the difference between what we want and what we need.

Join a rollicking journey through delightful, thought-provoking midrash that offer the soul nourishment we badly need today.

(As always, cost should never be a barrier to Torah; info at bottom of email to get in touch if you want in but paying's not for you now.)

Shavuot, the holiday marking the wheat harvest and the giving of Torah on Sinai, begins tonight.

As it happens, we've been hanging out in Deuteronomy 16 (which is giving Leviticus 19 a run for its money for most posts for a single chapter!)

And in this same chapter, there are some verses about this very holiday that can teach us a lot about what it is to experience, and create, joy.

It's been seven weeks after Passover/Pesach, the holiday of leaving Egypt– before which we removed all traces of old leaven from our homes. The barley harvest began on the second day of Pesach. And later– Sukkot marks the last fall harvest.

If you recall, a major innovation of Deuteronomy was about centralizing the Temple in Jerusalem; Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot became, through this, the shalosh regalim, the three pilgrimage holidays.

First, the Deuteronomy 16 tells us to observe Pesach by doing the paschal sacrifice and not eating leaven/chametz –

so that you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt as long as you live..... (Deuteronomy 16:6)

But then it seems to get more... emotional... when we get to Shavuot, tonight's holy day:

Then you shall observe Shavuot for God your God... You shall be joyful before God with your children, your workers, the [landless] Levite in your communities, and the non-citizen, the orphan, and the widow in your midst, at the place where the God will choose to establish the divine name. (Deuteronomy 16:10-12)

"You shall be joyful."

The chapter commands something similar around Sukkot (the one with the huts, yeah):

"You shall be joyful in your festival," (Deuteronomy 16:14)

Can you legislate a feeling? Can God tell people what they should feel? Can Jewish law obligate a person to feel happy?

Except the commandment isn't to feel happy. Not really.

If we could all easily turn on the joy fountain on command, our culture would look very different, would it not? Whole profitable industries are built around selling the idea of happiness in some form or another– and then selling you Happiness, Part Two when the first edition doesn't actually deliver as promised.

I feel like this man so, so often, because of course our culture (still!) loves selling people the lie that bath bombs will ease their personal stress rather than, you know, universal medical care, comprehensive free childcare systems, non-exploitative labor practices [etc] to say nothing of [checks news today,](White guy in 70s/80s suit shouting "THIS IS A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM" out the window)

V'samachta– "and you shall rejoice."

In context, “to rejoice” really is the better translation. Which is to say: you should do a series of actions.

The TL;DR of the Shavuot commandment is: You should come together with your family, your workers, and the various people in your community who are most on the margins and/or struggling to get by. You should come together and engage in acts of celebration.

The commandment to be joyful is really a commandment to throw a party, to have a celebration, to bring people together, all the while making sure that even those most on the margins of society are enfranchised.

Because our joy isn’t really joy if it’s only available for the privileged. That’s not holy rejoicing.

And, this text seems to suggest, as a result of this celebration, the text tells us (with regards to Sukkot),

“You will have nothing but joy.” (Deuteronomy 16:15)

This is a ketubah (wedding contract) for Shavuot, a custom popular among the European Sephardim and some communities of Islamic countries. It commemorates the mystical union between the Jewish people and God (the Torah). This one is thought to be from Tetuan, Morocco, first half of the 19th. C. Here, the groom is the people of Israel, the bride is Torah, the witness is Moses, and the dowry given is "a heart that understands, ears that hearken and eyes that see...248 positive commandments...and 365 negative commandments." (The Ketubah text is set within an arch supported by two columns. Two large urns with tall plants flank the arch and are topped by two perched birds. An additional pair is in the central window at the top of the page, flanked on each side by two windows with inscriptions and a double headed bird. The exterior frame is comprised of geometrical designs.)

What does rejoicing involve, exactly?

The Rabbis of the Talmud (Pesachim 109a) ask, referencing the passage above, how should we bring joy to our family on the festivals?

They come up with a few suggestions, including such mystical notions as "new clothes," and "meat," (actually, tho) and ultimately land on an answer of mixed pragmatism:

But now that the Temple is not in existence, rejoicing is only with wine, as is written, "And wine shall gladden the heart of a person." (Psalms 104:15) (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 109a)

Because the Jewish tradition, anyway, isn’t ascetic.*

The body and its pleasures are considered a holy good in their own right.

Even when the Rabbis want to lift up the joys of Torah learning, they won't leave the joys of the body behind:

“Rabbi Eliezer said: ‘On a festival, a person has nothing to do but either to eat and drink or to sit and study.’ Rabbi Yehoshua said: ‘Divide it: half for eating and drinking and half for the House of Study.'” (Talmud Pesachim 68b)

*And/though health is the most important thing to the tradition--and obviously alcohol is contraindicated to some people's health, whether physical or otherwise.

And yes, other kinds of bodily pleasures, too– the same word used to "rejoice" is also used as "to make happy" with regards to spousal obligations. (More on all that here).

Rejoicing also involves reveling in nature, and greenery. The Rema, aka Rabbi Moses Isserles (16th c. what's now Poland) commented in the authoritative law code the Shulchan Aruch,

We have the custom to spread out plants on Shavuot in the synagogue and in houses, as a memory for the joy of the receiving of the Torah. (Shulchan Aruch OC 494:3)

Connect with green things! To help extend the memory of joy! (One might suggest that one could also, you know, go out into nature, if one is not a Kraków/Lublin city slicker such as the Rema.)

Flowers decorating the Great Synagogue of Rome, Italy for Shavuot in June 2019

Joy is about connecting with each other and the Earth, about celebrating, about pleasing the senses, about enjoying beauty and special opportunities (either of which might be what the “new clothes” thing is about), about sights and sounds and tastes and smells and also laughing and hugging and connecting.

This ethical/mystical text by Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horowitz was written in Ottoman Palestine in the early 17th-century. In it, he taught some ideas in the name of the 12th c. Tosafist Eliezer of Metz:

a person is obligated on the holiday to engage in any proper enjoyment and any joyful thing which makes them rejoice; with anything from which their heart derives joy and bliss, like eating, drinking and strolling. So a person is obligated to do everything that makes them rejoice. And just like one is obligated to make oneself rejoice; so too is one obligated to make their children and his household rejoice...[and the] others....[who are marginalized, mentioned in the verse.] (Shenei Luchot HaBrit, Aseret HaDibrot, Sukkah, Ner Mitzva 85)

tl;dr: whatever works for you, whatever will fill you up. And then you have to do what will work for those with whom you live, with whom you are in community, those to whom you have obligations of mutual care. One size does not always fit all, but joy? Must be sought, must be found.

Yes, even now.

Even given everything that's happening, we must aggressively, ferociously celebrate every single win. Guard every spark of light. Let them fuel us. And let them help us bring the world we need into being.

Emma Goldman – the late 19th-early 20th c. Jewish anarchist, activist, writer– is often quoted as saying,

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.”

But actually that's a paraphrase of a longer, more interesting paragraph from Goldman’s autobiography Living My Life:

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal... should demand the denial of life and joy.

From Lilly Drosch's adorable illustration of the above quote. (Blue and red crayon-looking illustration: Sascha's cousin yelling angrily, Emma rolling her eyes, her dancing away: happily-- we see him in one frame, still angry, but farther away, and then in the last frame, it's just her, dancing even more fluidly.) We have all met some of Sasha's cousins. Dance away, literally or metaphorically.

In other words, we must, in the ways that we can, live the future we hope to bring into being.

There's plenty that is hard, that is painful, that demands serious work of us. Engaging of acts of intentional rejoicing–singing together, dancing together, marking important moments and milestones, coming together to break bread and maybe open a bottle of wine and breathe with the trees and connect and experience the beauty of being alive is crucial, too.

And it's not about how we feel, it's about choosing to do.

If authoritarianism is about fear and obedience, acts of rejoicing upend that agenda.

And collective joy? All the more so.

And for those who have been most harmed by the systems and structures of power? As Black South African feminist malebo sephodi frames it,

“radical joy is... an act of defiance. a reclamation of our right to thrive in the face of systems that seek to diminish us.”

And collective joy?

All the more so.

So make joy.

Make joy for you, and the people who are yours, and the people who are all of ours–

Do the action of choosing celebration, community or beholding exquisite art or hanging with the trees or delicious food or exaltation or something else entirely.

Because it's Shavuot, because it's Wednesday, because we're all at the protest so we may as well dance, because you're not going to let them win, are you?

Because maybe today demands it, because it's time.

Because, as Emma Goldman reminds us, our life should not be denied of it.

The Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman 18th c. Lithuania) ruled that the aforementioned decorative green plants and flowers weren't going to be a thing in his turf (because this too closely resembled local observances of the Christian holiday of Pentecost) so a practice evolved of doing pepercuts ("Shavuoslekh") that, as you can imagine from these late 19th c. examples, may have originally evoked the idea of flowers. More on some traditional sources here. (Thanks to Russel Neiss for sharing them with the internet.) (Images of three intricate, round white papercuts, with bird and leaf shapes, with Hebrew words on two of them noting that it is the holiday of Shavuot, the time of Revelation.)

🌱

Like this? Get more of it every week.

For free every Monday—sign up at the ‘Subscribe now’ button just below.

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Especially without Substack's built-in network, word-of-mouth– forwarding emails, sharing on social media, etc– matters more than ever.

Please spread the word about this post and Life is a Sacred Text in general.

Thank you. 🙏 ❤️

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.

And as always, if you want in to the Thursday space but paying isn't for you now, just email support@lifeisasacredtext.com and we'll hook you up.

And if you’d like to underwrite one of these donated subscriptions, you can do so by signing up at one of the higher subscription points.

And if it resonated with you, please share this post.

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

May's Zoom Salon is coming up!

What We Say Tells Us Who We Are: Torah and Metaphor

Sunday June 8th, 2pm ET/1pm CT /11 am PT

We talk about sacred text as fire, as water, as the living tree. As the inverted mountain. As so many other things. Why? What does that tell us about who we are, and what we seek; how we see ourselves; about facing ultimate truth; and the difference between what we want and what we need.

Join a rollicking journey through delightful, thought-provoking midrash that offer the soul nourishment we badly need today.

(As always, cost should never be a barrier to Torah; info at bottom of email to get in touch if you want in but paying's not for you now.)

This article was downloaded from https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/joyshavuot/ on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:22 PM EDT.

Table of Contents

Life is a Sacred Text: 2025 Jun 26

All articles

dispositional (subscriber only)

Juneteenth Voices

a little more Ruth for the season (subscriber only)

Re(joy)cing