SCRIPT:

On election night November 8th, 2016, I had a nightmare. In it, I was in a crowded synagogue looking towards the bima, the stage, from somewhere near the back of the congregation. Everyone was standing as the aging rabbi was in the holy act of opening thearc and bringing out a Torah, from which to read. As he carried the ancient scroll from its casing to place it on the podium, Donald Trump erupted onto the stage. With one fell swoop, he elbowed his way in front of the rabbi, grabbed the microphone, and knocked the Torah to the floor. A gasp spread over the hall. The rabbi clamored to his feet and waved us all out -he yelled, GO! GET OUT! GET OUT! GO! GET OUT! The aisles began to fill and a crush of devotees moved in haste and fear to an exit. Trump was still talking, yelling, proclaiming, and the Torah, still on the floor. In Judaism, there is only one sacred object and it is the Torah -our story is in it, carried from generation to generation, l’dor v’dor. Some Torahs have been passed forward in secret and in hiding, from the inquisition, across oceans, through the Holocaust, and are still read from today. Tradition says that the Torah is not meant to touch the ground -and if it is to fall, the person carrying it must fast for 40 days. In this tradition, the burden of fasting can be shared by many -4 people can fast for 10 days in solidarity with whoever dropped the scroll, or 10 for 4 days, 40, each fasting one day, even 120 people can share by fasting, each over one meal. It was this that I woke upremembering. 

If one of us is suffering, all of us are suffering.My faith --and our nation’s many faiths --teaches me about solidarity. It holds precious lessons about the unwavering need for the many to lift the one. Do not look away from the injustices, the inequities, the pain -this is also your burden to carry. Carry it in solidarity towards the healing of all people from allsuffering. That solidarity is not a performance, it is not a temporary gesture, it is an unwavering knowledge of the interdependence of all living beings, and the care required from each for the survival of all. I sacrifice so someone else can sacrifice a little less.But have we forgotten how and why we sacrifice? Have we forgotten what it means to give up one thing for something more worthy? What else have we forgotten? Do you remember your own body and its place in the world? Can you feel your feet on the ground? Right now, please, feel your feel touching ground.We must find this ground, as together, we are walkingtoward an unknown future, from a present moment of chaos. 

As we walk together, ask yourself: Have you ever been in total darkness, and allowed your eyes to adjust? Revealing detailed contours of your environment in the lowest light --silver spiderwebs, moonshadows and all? Have you ever discovered a truth in you so deep and old, that it rang through you as if from your ancestors directly? Have you ever surrendered to a pain so great, you thought you might not survive it? Have you known grace?Ourlives are part of a continuum, ever-changing yet ever-connected, as in a sea with many waves. Yet despite this inherent connectivity, it’s clear that as Americans, we are hurtling toward ever greater separation --separation ideologically through political rhetoric from the most powerful voices and polarizing social media feeds. And physical separation due, most acutely, to the coronavirus. We are being pushed apart and are forgetting our connectedness and our deep love for each other. We are forgetting to love the people we see in passing on our way to work, the friends of friends, the parents ofour childrens classmates. Yet, we forget that no matter their belief system, race, age, ability, or class, it is your neighbor, who is most likely to save you during a disaster. We are forgetting eye contact -forgetting our fundamental samenessthat runslike a deep river below all our differences. 

We forget this sameness at our own peril. If we give up on community, and continue to hold ourselves apart from others, we have lost. And then, Donald Trump -and all those who clamor for power, will have won. And the world will be even darker. But remember, we can see in the dark. We have our feet on the ground. And we can sacrifice so someone else can sacrifice a little less.As with much unfinished work for reconciliation and justice in America, a linehas been drawn: that’s their work, and not mine. I am here to say, that’s not the case. As with the man who drops the Torah , we must come together and all take up this work. We must fast together. The United States of America also has a sacred story. It is written in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, “...that all men are created equal...” But we have not everlived up to this edict. This great mythof equality and freedom, is not only on the ground, it’s been trampled, and buried under generations of abuse. We, this nation of Natives, misfits, rebels, queers, workers, immigrants, dreamers, and seekers, we, are called on to sweep the dirt, to pick up the book, to interpret, and where necessary, rewrite this story. 

History teaches us that in order to overcome oppression, we cannot separate, we must bind together. If one of us is suffering, all of us are suffering. We must listen to our 21st century Freedom Fighters, Black, Native, queer, and people with disabilities,and embrace their radical imaginations and futurist teachings. Let us diligently and compassionately, work to reconcile and chart a path forward as citizens united through grace. As a nation, it can seem as if we have no story to look to. But we do. Itstime to pick it up -open, repair, and re-write. This is our story:It begins, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all *people* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -(amended) Declaration of Independence, 1776 (?