The following sermon was delivered by Rabbi Ariana Katz on erev Yom Kippur 5780.
October 8, 2019 • 10 Tishrei 5780
A story of Rabbi Akiva:
The Roman government decreed that Jews should no longer occupy themselves with Torah.
Shortly after, Pappos ben Yehudah found Rabbi Akiba holding great assemblies and studying Torah. Pappos said to him, “Akiba, aren’t you afraid of the wicked government?”
He answered, “I reply by way of a parable:
To what is the matter like? To a fox who was walking along the bank of the stream, and saw some fishes gathering together to move from one place to another. He said to them, ‘From what are you fleeing?’ They answered, ‘From nets which men are bringing to catch us.’ He said to them, ‘Come up on the dry land, and let us, me and you, dwell together, even as my forebears dwelt with yours.’ They replied, ‘And they call you the shrewdest of animals? You are not clever, but foolish! For if we are afraid in the place that is our life-element, the water, how much more so in a place that is our death-element, the dry land.’
So also it is with us,” Akiba continued. “If now, while we sit and study Torah, in which it is written, ‘For that is your life, and the length of your days’ (Deuteronomy 30:20), we are in such plight, how much more so, if we would neglect it.”
It has felt some times like we are somewhere between a fox and a fisherman, no?
For those of you tracking, yes, last Yom Kippur we traveled with Rabbi Akiva, and a fox, in a different configuration. What are the chances?
We come to this story from the Gemara, in our written text of rabbinic discourse. The Gemara preserves here a moment of deep upheaval in the lives of the Jewish people. In resistance to the Roman occupation of the land of Israel, Simon bar Kosiba (whose stage name became Bar Kochba, Son of a Star) lead a rebellion. He was believed by many to be the Messiah--including, according to the Yerushalmi Talmud, our own Rabbi Akiva. Perhaps the tipping point, one of many, was the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the later construction of a new city on its ruins.
The Bar Kochba Revolt did push back Roman forces for over two years, re-established Jewish sovereignty in Judea, and worked to re-consecrate the Temple in Jerusalem. Ultimately, when the rebellion fell in 136 CE, over 500,000 Jews would be killed, and still more taken captive. Jews were banned from entering Jerusalem. And Rabbi Akiva would be one of the ten martyred rabbis of that fallen revolt, whose legacies we commemorate on Yom Kippur as a part of the martyrology known as Eleh Ezkerah.
So it is in this context that we come to meet the country mouse turned Torah scholar, Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef--between the Roman defeat of Bar Kochba, and before Rabbi Akiva’s murder. It is in this political context that we can examine Pappos’ plea that Rabbi Akiva should abstain from Torah, and his description of the real and oncoming danger of the Fishermen.
A Fish
The fish, the Jewish people, see danger approaching. They have seen it before. They must move to another place so as to avoid the nets of the fisherman, the Romans.
Fox, perhaps Pappos ben Yehudah, would prefer his fellow Jews to assimilate, leave the water--the Torah behind, rather than face Roman violence.
The Jewish people, these Fish, are not swayed. The water, the Torah, is life giving. Surrendering the very basis of what the fish know, what keeps them alive in the first place, would result in their downfall, even before they meet the Fox, or the Fisherman.
The brilliance of Rabbi Akiva is his knowing that danger comes in many forms. “We are in such plight,” he said, of living in the dangers of Roman rule and threat. “How much more so, if we would neglect the Torah.”
A Fisherman
But the story in the Gemara continues:
Not a few days passed until they seized Rabbi Akiva and incarcerated him, and seized Pappos ben Yehudah and incarcerated him alongside him.
I struggled with bringing this story into our Kol Nidre, knowing that Rabbi Akiva’s bravery and commitment to our Torah does not result in a long life of resistance and study, as it should have. Immediately following this parable we learn of Rabbi Akiva’s arrest and murder by Roman guards for his public and defiant study of Torah.
How could anyone possibly want to continue swimming in the waters of Torah, if that is its reward? How could any of us want to come back to shul tomorrow, let alone ever again, if that is what happens to our great ones? As we travel through Jewish history, we know there are flashes of violence, long durations of oppression, the hammer of attempted genocide.
One story born of this communal trauma is the one that connects event to event, says “our suffering will come in every generation, it is inevitable.” In these days, months, years, our fears and our anxieties blossom, they grow and tendril into the corners of our hearts. This fear comes from lived experiences of violence, from generational trauma, from collective fear and struggle.
Some of us are children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, who grew up on family stories that make indelible imprints on what we know of the world and our safety in it. Some of us were raised outside of Jewish life such that the wave of fear that settles in rooms of Jews can feel foreign, and present all the same. Some of us are new to Jewish life, and are just getting our arms around the diverse ways that oppression and fear has impacted the Jewish people.
One way that trauma responses work in our bodies: we cannot tell the difference between the past or present. Our bodies begin to pump adrenaline when we find ways that we might map our life and experiences onto this story. So collective, generational trauma would have us believe that whatever happened to our ancestors (genetic and claimed alike), will happen to us, too. It means we must work, work so hard, to see a similar situation, and imagine a different outcome.
We are not living in the ashes of the burned Second Temple, and we are not living under Roman occupation. But we are living in frightening times, all the same. Last October we witnessed the most violent anti-Semitic attack in United States history in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue. In March in Christchurch, New Zealand 51 Muslims were murdered in two different mosques. In the spring Black churches in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee were set ablaze. In April a shooter came into a synagogue in Poway, California. In July a 59 year old Muslim man was attacked in Baltimore. In August a 65 year old Sikh man was stabbed in California. I remember what it felt like to feel this collective fear in the fall. I now, standing with you tonight, feel that fear as it ripples through the room.
We are not living in the ashes of the burned Second Temple, and we are not living under Roman occupation. But we are living in frightening times, all the same. This year we watched collective consciousness raise and draw attention to our nation’s immigration crisis, the horrifying death-dealing of concentration camps to separate immigrant and refugee families. We said together, “never again is now.”
We are not living in the ashes of the burned Second Temple, and we are not living under Roman occupation. But we are living in frightening times, all the same. It is enough to make you want to follow Fox wherever he promises safety will lead, abandon any waters we must.
In these dangerous times, there are some who tell us that the only means by which we can be safe is to jump out of the water, abandon our values, and ally ourselves with the powers that inflict harm. We fear that the immense suffering in the life of one of our great teachers when standing up for Torah means if we stand up for the Jewish people, great suffering will come too. But we can write a new story.
A Fox
Immediately following the shooting at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, our President made calls to increase police presence in synagogues and community spaces. Not a call to combat antisemitism and white supremacy, or a rallying cry to honor our dead by establishing gun control laws, no. Only to bring more guns into our holy places of worship. You can remember, I’m sure, what it felt like in that time to move through the world, let alone come to shul. The Jewish community was terrified, and people in power said the only way to keep us safe was to increase armed police presence.
In fearful times, the President, and the Anti Defamation League look to strengthening police presence, putting more armed guards outside our places of worship. And this advocacy only increased in the wake of the Tree of Life Shooting, with Department of Homeland Security grants resurfacing for places of worship to put up surveillance systems.
And beyond the police, and the armed guards and congregants, was the increased distrust. The fear sown between groups of people, the competition for who was more impacted by the rise in violence, more fracturing of our communities. But these strategies come from a place of fear, of trauma, deep unrest and terror. Trauma tries to set the story of our future, distract and manipulate our every action, demand a narrow course of action.
In an article in March 2018, Laura Haft wrote describing in detail the one-size-fits-all advocacy from the Anti-Defamation League:
Each year, the Anti-Defamation League — an organization that’s been criticized for its close ties to law enforcement — pairs data on anti-Semitic incidents with a handbook for synagogues on “Security Strategies for Todays Dangerous World.” The handbook has over 160 references to collaboration with police...Furthermore, the ADL lobbies for the robust use of policing in synagogues, yet provides no concrete data on the effects of that policing. In other words, we have no way to know if spending hundreds of thousands on police leads to even a tiny reduction in anti-Semitic incidents.
For some of us in this room, increased presence of armed guards might be the exact right thing that would make it possible for you to feel fully safe. I grew up driving to synagogue, passing two others on the way, and seeing police car after police car parked on the medians as thousands of Jews went into our respective synagogues. That is more common than not today. And thinking back on this now, this breaks my heart right open, that is devastating. Our communities must withstand both tangible events of antisemetic violence, and the fear and generational story that it is one day inevitable. We all deserve to feel safe.
For others in this room, walking past an armed guard as a person of color, as a person who is trans/gender non conforming, or disabled, or undocumented, creates a wholly less secure environment. Like many communities around the country, the instruction to bring more police into our neighborhoods and our synagogues was not an option that brought a feeling of safety.
Jared Jackson, founder and executive director of Jews in ALL Hues, wrote just last week:
While security is needed at these celebrations, it also poses a threat to those of us who look like we don’t belong. All you need to do is look at the news of all of the people of color who have been terrorized, murdered, and beaten by police forces and neighbors.
Jackson advocates for training of police and security officers, and that is one option, certainly. But tonight, in the holiest time we can be in all year, knowing what we know about police violence and intimidation a, that introducing guns into our places of worship does not guarantee any more safety, and knowing all this, I wonder:
how dare we bring more police into this neighborhood?
Baltimore, whose population is 65% black, is overpoliced and surveilled at alarming rates. Just this spring community members and students at John Hopkins University occupied a building on campus for over a month, “to protest the university’s plans for an armed police force on campus, as well as Johns Hopkins’s contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” (And it must be celebrated that in the month of Elul just last month, Hopkins agreed to end all contracts with ICE!)
Hinenu signed on as a community partner of the JHU Sit-In, in opposition to ICE funding and seeing how the privatized police force in Charles Village brings only more turmoil, monitoring, and displacement to the long-term residents here.
When the option the fox is offering surely guarantees more danger, how dare we abandon the waters?
In the spring of this year, after months and months of study and discussion, our congregation passed an incredibly powerful and visionary values statement, unanimously. Among the values we named was that of Tzedek, which we define as “collective liberation and solidarity.” The statement reads:
We recognize that while the struggles for freedom by different communities are unique, they are bound up with one another. We are committed to building a community that centers justice and liberation for all people, working inside and alongside movements for racial, economic, migrant, reproductive, gender, indigenous, disability, and environmental justice. We oppose oppression, ecological destruction, and state violence around the world and in Baltimore, and work for a world where freedom, safety, and access to healthy environments are not determined by social position.
In the past year, dedicated leaders of our shul have been working to develop safety protocols that are in line with our congregation’s values of interdependence. The document reads:
While these times may call us to be brave, they do not call us to be rash or thoughtless. Thus, the Plan seeks to take useful, meaningful, safety-increasing action that neither compromises the congregation’s values nor engages in security theater. The Plan also acknowledges that safety and danger mean different things to different people, especially given congregation members’ varied and layered experiences of oppression.
In peacetime, expressing values of liberation, collective risk taking, and equality might come easy. But when we see the men with nets approach, we may balk at the water.
It is exactly in these times of increased fear that we must stay committed to our values, to stay swimming in the Torah. It is what will keep us alive. We will not sacrifice the safety of some of us for others of us.
Over the next 25 hours of Yom Kippur, we are called to account for our year, and for our lives to this point. We come toe to toe with mortality, think about what mark we wish to leave on this world. On Yom Kippur, between the lament and the stillness, we are challenged to dream big. To see a world wide open, full of potential to do good, sow mercy, act in Divine ways. On Yom Kippur, the Universe narrows to a fine, fine point. On Yom Kippur, the Universe expands, in all its potential for acting to bring about a world we want to see.
This Yom Kippur, we can vision new outcomes for our safety. We can look to the new year and plan for what we want to change. We can commit to seeing the world different, beyond the narrow point, beyond the slim menu of options the foxes have laid out for us.
The Shore
Perhaps what draws me in the most about the parable from Rabbi Akiva is the resoluteness of the fish to stay in the water, the Jew to stay committed to Torah, even when times are dangerous. Because, even how much more so, must we stay in what is life giving, when we see death-dealing around the corner.
A group that I was honored to be a part of convened first through Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, an an organization in New York. We created a community safety pledge for the week following the Pittsburgh shooting, that said:
After the horrific attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last Saturday, more Jews than ever around the country are asking—how can we protect our people? How do we ensure that the choices we make prioritize everyone’s safety and keep our values and humanity intact.
We can write a new ending for our stories.
And there are congregations and Jewish communities across the country asking these questions, “how can we prioritize everyone’s safety and keep our values and humanity intact?” A network now housed in Jewish Voice for Peace is resource sharing and developing best practices, sharing case studies, sharpening tools.
It is understandable in these times to be afraid. It is ok to feel fear. It is ok to wish you could go on the shore, and times might be so scary that you think the water isn’t for you anymore. But instead we can create a network of allies, of other fish, make sacred makom. We can realize the promise of the Fox is an illusion meant to trick us into colluding. What is true and what keeps us alive has always kept us alive. Torah, commitment to each other, and commitment to the world as we know it is, regardless of what we see around us.
In this new telling of the story, we don’t have to focus on the Foxes on the shore, trying to promise whatever it takes to get us to abandon our values. Instead, we can act as Akiva. We don’t believe one narrow idea about who comes to shul or what the ADL tells us safety is. We don’t default to old ideals that don’t work or aren’t true. Foxes cannot get us to forget our values, even when it’s scary. Trauma and foxes alike manipulate us into forgetting who we really are. In peacetime when the men with nets are far away, it’s easy to say what we believe. But it’s when we’re trapped between a fox and a fisherman, we have to remember what we believed in all along.
At this time next year, with untold foxes and untold fishermen, what actions will we have taken to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe? And how will we have stayed in the water? How will we have remained true to our values? What is it that we need for that to be possible?
Last May, Zainab Chaudry, Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, and Pastor David Norse Thomas convened the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Baltimore. At their May convening, they taught about safety for our faith-based institutions for about 50 participants. I am eager to see what comes of this coalition, and hopeful that it can grow into an opportunity for direct action, bystander training, and other direct services.
I dream of this growing into a Baltimore-wide organization that connects houses of worship together. Like our Friends from Homewood, from CAIR, and from Dreams and Visions who stood vigil outside this very building on Solidarity Shabbat to help us feel safe. This collective of which I’m dreaming is a multi-faith, multi-racial, inter-generational collective of houses of worship committed to building shared analysis and sharing our unique wisdoms, and taking action. We meet to build relationships through study, acts of chesed, and shared moments in our year cycle.
We meet to study individual congregation’s approaches to security and use case studies to think about how each of our groups can implement their plans. We learn from immigrants in our own congregations and in local organizations about sanctuary from deportation. We learn about direct action tactics to help keep undocumented neighbors and congregants here with us. We get training in de-escalation, mental health first aid, marshalling and crowd control, online threat monitoring, and community safety from the wisdom in our very city. We create a calendar of our internal services and events, and at each event, we keep guard outside, welcoming in all who wish to find safe place to pray and connect.
A New Story
We are in a long legacy of Jews resisting, proudly, publicly, staying in the water, not slinking off to shore. “Aren’t you afraid of the wicked government? Why not do what they say?” asked Pappos to Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva knew that to surrender the Torah, to even hide the study of Torah, was to surrender his life. In these times, when it would be safer to abandon our values of radical kinship and sowing justice, we must be like Akiva.
To break the cycle of stories in our heads that tell us no one else will ever show up for us, we are truly alone on this planet, in this existence, the answer is to look outside ourselves. Building radical kinship between our communities transforming places into mekomot, sacred places.
It is only us who can decide what forces to ally ourselves with. When it is the Roman guards, asking you to surrender Torah, do not submit. Do not get out of the water, to deal in the death-elements.
So the story, in the legacy of Rabbi Akiva, told once more:
To what is the matter like? To a fox who was walking along the bank of the stream, and saw some fishes gathering together to move from one place to another. He said to them, ‘From what are you fleeing?’ They answered, ‘From nets which men are bringing to catch us.’ He said to them, ‘Come up on the dry land, and let us, me and you, dwell together, even as my forebears dwelt with yours.’
They replied, ‘And they call you the shrewdest of animals? You are not clever, but foolish! For here in the water, we are surrounded by allies.’ And the fish swam deeper into the water to learn sanctuary building from Octopus, how to fortify a dam from Beaver, and how to cut out of a net, like Lobster.’
We do not know what the days ahead will hold, what threats come our way, we cannot control the future behavior of the fisherman.
We can only swim in schools, vibrant, multicolored, strategic, staying in the places we know bring life. It is from this place that we will find the answers and can face whatever comes our way.
The poet, activist, and movement elder Aurora Levins Morales wrote:
Don’t waver. Don’t let despair sink its sharp teeth
Into the throat with which you sing. Escalate your dreams.
Make them burn so fiercely that you can follow them down
any dark alleyway of history and not lose your way.
Make them burn clear as a starry drinking gourd
Over the grim fog of exhaustion, and keep walking.
Hold hands. Share water. Keep imagining.
So that we, and the children of our children’s children
may live
May the days of our lives be long, may they be safe, may they be full of the Torah our ancestors have taught us, and the sparks we ignite together in this life.
May we, our loved ones, our neighbors, and all the world be sealed in the book of Life for Good, Justice, and Mercy.
Amen.