Who knows what this is? It is my kippah that I bought right here, in Elgin, during my demo weekend. Precisely because it is from Guatemala. And I wear it proudly. Even more proudly now then when I first purchased it.
Sitting high on a balcony overlooking the town square in Quetzeltango, sipping hot chocolate, we were learning about moral courage. Then we jumped. What was that? Gunfire? A car backfiring? No, it was homemade fireworks, celebrating a candidate’s arrival and what was then the upcoming election.
What is moral courage? It is taking the awareness of the world’s problems and the awareness of self together with righteous indignation, imagination and risk which leads to action. It is the capacity to act according to one’s values despite the risk of adverse consequences. It is the ability to speak out when there are injustices and a risk to one’s own person.
It is exactly what Isaiah does in this morning’s text when he asks, “Is this the fast I desire?” He is crying aloud in the wilderness, with full voice, full throat, as he is commanded. He is speaking truth to power. Begging the leaders of the community to not be complacent. To not just fast. To feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. House the homeless. This is our mission as Jews. This is our promise as Jews. Never forget to remember. We were once strangers in a strange land.
Last summer I received a phone call from the Renz Center. They were doing a program on tolerance for teens at risk as identified by the U46 school system. They had hoped we would do a program about the holocaust at the synagogue as a field trip to teach tolerance. I called Gale Jacoby and she graciously committed to teach with me. She has a traveling kit of memoriablia of her father’s. He escaped Germany on a Kindertransport to Great Britain without any papers. I suddenly looked at the room, filled mostly with immigrant children and I asked, how many of you were not born in this country. I knew enough not to ask how many of them didn’t have papers, just like Gale’s father. Some of them no doubt. The parallels were striking.
As we AJWS Global Justice Fellows bounced on a bus, we neared the town of Quetzeltenago. We saw a larger than life statue of the hero. The hero is the one who made it to the US but who sends money back to his family. Last summer thousands of children arrived in US border towns from countries like Hondoras, El Salvador and yes….Guatemala. 68,000 children. Children. Without parents. With no place to go. Hoping to make it. They are arriving again, as my sister-in-law who works on the frontlines of this in Tucson can testify to. Talk to her or Simon’s brother Fred, an immigration attorney at the break-the-fast.
Why do those children flee? The reasons they come are varied. Hope to find relatives who might already be here. Escaping unprecedented violence in their home countries. The promise of a better life.
Last night we spoke about promises. Promises made and promises broken. We Jews make lots of promises. We promise that everyone is created b’tzelem elohim. We promise that we will take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Those are old promises. Promises from the Bible. We promise to clothe the naked, visit the sick, feed the hungry, bury the dead. Those are newer, yet still 2000 year old promises, from the midrash, bound up with the Torah. That in the words of Hillel, If I am not for myself, who will be for me. If I am only for myself, what am I. If not now when? Still newer, based on these older promises, we promise that the Holocaust will never happen again.
These are my guiding principles. My core values. It is part of what drives me as a rabbi. Or more importantly as a human being. Hillel also said, “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” I take him to have included women too in that statement. I take that to mean I have an obligation to be a good person. To speak out, like Isaiah, when there are injustices. To find my voice.
My voice is rooted in my own story. That is true for all of us. People have asked me, why go to Guatemala when there is so much to do right here in Elgin. That is true. And there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t try to improve the world, right here in Elgin. Just yesterday I attended the Martin Luther King commission meeting. Well, actually, I begged off, still struggling to find the right words for Yom Kippur. Last week, joined by Risa and Simon, I went to the community policing meeting at Second Baptist. I am the chair of the 16th Circuit Court Faith Committee on Domestic Violence. In truth, I have been working since college to prevent violence against women. That story, my story, is because like too many, I am part of that 1 in 4, a victim, a survivor of violence against women.
American Jewish World Service has helped me find that voice. AJWS has found that in order for their partners to provide the critical services that are needed in the 19 Global South countries that AJWS works in, they are more effective when violence against women and girls are reduced. This is familiar territory for me, having worked to reduce violence against women for decades.
I went to Washington to the AJWS policy summit. Early one morning, I crossed the street in front of our hotel, looked up and saw the Capitol Dome and I realized how fortunate I am. After coffee, I would be meeting with the IL legislative delegation. Senators Kirk and Durbin, Representatives Peter Roskam, Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis, Mike Quigley and I would be doing exactly what Isaiah demands. I would be speaking truth, my truth, to power. I cried as I finished crossing that street, realizing how far I have come since that horrible night in 1981.
Last night we spoke about promises. We promised to not make the same mistakes that we made last year. We promised to uphold our vows. Kol Nidre. All vows.
The power of our speech is important. We can use our speech without thinking—spreading gossip, causing hurt, being unkind. Or we can use our speech for moral good. To improve the world around us.
I didn’t know much about Guatemala. Yes, I do have a son-in-law from Guatemala and yes, I proudly wear my Guatemala fair trade kippah. I didn’t know about Bitter Fruit, about the coupe in 1954 or the connection between the United Fruit Company, the CIA and the coupe. I had seen the movie Worse than War based on the book of the same name written by a Holocaust survivor and his son. More people have been killed by genocide than by war. One of those genocides happened in Guatemala. Since the Holocaust. Between 1981 and 1983 42,275 people were exterminated. Murdered. 83% of them Mayan. There have been more “disappearances” since then. I thought that the civil war had ended in 1996. However, the disappearances continue until today. At one NGO, CCDA, the coffee plantation, the leader was running for Congress. Despite that, there are 84 arrest warrants out for the leaders.
The statistics are horrifying. The stories are even worse. Chilling. I went to Guatemala to hear the stories. To bear witness. To provide hope. To say, Never Again. Anywhere. Anytime. To teach. To learn.
I discovered that they had as much to teach me about these topics as I had to teach them. In our prayer Ahava Rabbah written by the rabbis of the Talmud 2000 years ago we say “limod v’lilamed,” to teach and to learn but in Hebrew they are the same verbs.
I went to Guatemala because I support the mission of American Jewish World Service. “Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.” AJWS has been at the vanguard of doing precisely that. They were the lead sponsor of the work to Save Darfur. Ask me later about flunking Talmud to Save Darfur. It is a good story—if it were really true! They have worked extensively in Haiti and now Nepal after natural disasters. Currently their campaigns are around civil and political rights, land and natural resources rights, sexual health and rights and ending child marriage.
I discovered that the NGOs we visited are really skilled at organizing. For instance, one NGO has managed to make sex education mandated in all the schools of Guatemala, even the Catholic ones. I carefully brought home their Spanish language materials to the Crisis Center, who does precisely that here. Why should they have to re-invent the wheel if Guatemala is already being effective.
I discovered that civil disobedience can be effective. Like Shifra and Puah, the midwives in the Exodus story who saved the baby boys including Moses, Codecut, a training organization for midwives has been very successful in training Mayan midwives and even some men and gaining access to hospitals that previously were closed to them. They have saved countless lives with their dogged determinism. We are taught that if you save one life it is as though you have saved the world. Codecut has done precisely that. The star of the skit performed about ethnic discrimination, a man who is a pharmaceutical rep and an EMT training now to be a midwife is a symbol of hope. So is baby Winston who we all got to hold during the presentations. He will have a better life because of the work of Codecut.
I discovered that they greeted us warmly and fed us at every meeting, They have an audacious hospitality we should model. I am reminded of the Jewish value of hachnassat orchim, welcoming guests. We at CKI could continue to learn from them. At every meeting we played an icebreaker, a mixer, so that we would be a more united community, a more connected group. Sometimes these were silly, like Fruito Misto and sometimes more serious, like we did here at Selichot, weaving ourselves together with a ball of yarn, reminding ourselves that we are each connected to each other as we build community. And I was reminded that laughter is a universal language.
I discovered that they have a deep spirituality that in many ways feels very Jewish. When they perform the ancient maize dance I am reminded of our own corn fields here in the Prairie State. When they light candles before every meeting, I am reminded of Shabbat and Chanukah. When they talk about land rights, I close my eyes and hear the strands of Eretz Zavat Chalav, a land flowing with milk and honey or perhaps coffee, honey, macadamia nuts, sugar and bananas. In their struggle to maintain access to land they already own, there are echoes of Abraham buying a plot of land so that he could bury Sarah. Land we still struggle over. That coffee is a symbol of hope.
I discovered that organizations, non-profits everywhere, need capacity planning and training in order to grow and be effective. That while we need to feed hungry people today—and you have done that with the food you brought last night, we also need to understand why they are hungry and work to prevent that hunger. That is a model called upstream, downstream, and we studied the theory on a boat. Really!
But all the theories in the world are not going to solve the problems. Once we understand those upstream causes, we need to work for the systemic changes. Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a life time. As we learned at CCDA, give a woman a chicken as part of the patio systems group where they learn container gardening, and you can put a girl through middle school in the income from just that one chicken. It is microfinancing at its best. That chicken is a symbol of hope.
I discovered that the country has unsurpassed beauty. G-d will ask us “Have you seen My Alps” as one of the questions we will be asked in heaven. I have. When we got off that boat at Lake Atilan, we entered paradise. The flowers, the lake ringed by volcanoes. The fragrance of the flowers. The vivid colors. The butterflies and parrots. The tastes of mango and papaya, avocado, jaimaica. The lightening, thunder and shooting stars. Yet that unparalleled beauty is marred by the brokenness. We had a Shabbat morning labyrinth walk at the hotel. It was set in a rose garden. All the roses were labeled with their year and name. One of those roses was called William Shakespeare and was planted at the height of the disappearances. In 1982. At first I was angry. How could they possibly be planted right then? Weren’t there other things they should be doing—like preventing murder? I came to see that rose as a symbol of hope.
I discovered the power of walking (or running) with another. My first morning I went running with a women I met running Disney races. She lives in Guatemala City. She had much to say about the upcoming elections but it was too early in my trip and I didn’t understand much, although I noted the very heavy police presence in the city. According to what I can follow, she had been heavily involved in the protests before and after the recent election. She wants the corruption in Guatemala to end. She is a symbol of hope.
The last night we met with Claudia, a woman whose story begins at the height of the disappearences. Her first memory was of a bomb going off that shattered glass on her crib. She now journeys with people who are testifying about the genocide. She says what they do is simple….who we are and what we do is simple: we act as a support team for human rights defenders. She is working to end the current corruption in the government. Her story was riveting. Her faith and optimism amazing. She is a symbol of hope.
I discovered so much more and could tell stories all day…
But I am left with a question. What has happened to those children? Those 68000 children? Immigration proceedings are started. Because of an anti-trafficking law, children must have a court hearing. The Department of Health and Human Services gives each child a health screening and immunizations and assigns them to a shelter. Most children stay in those shelters an average of 35 days until they can be placed with family or a sponsor. According to the New York Times last October, 43,000 were able to be placed with family or sponsors already in the United States. There are 100 permanent shelters but with the unprecedented sudden influx 3000 beds were created on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.
This is not a problem that only effects border states. Places like Tucson or Dallas or San Diego. Not our problem here in Elgin? Not so. Elgin is now 43% Hispanic according to available census data. And that number is difficult to quantify because of the fear of identifying. One of my Starbucks baristas is from Guatemala. One of the hotline workers at the Crisis Center is from Guatemala and was birthed by a Mayan midwife. The bananas some of you enjoy are mostly from Guatemala, check those Chiquita labels…and are processed in a factory on Route 20 that uses mostly day laborers. Paying less than minimum wage and providing no benefits. How many of us drive past it and never even see it? How many of us wonder what goes on there?
Now we have a new crisis on our hands. Or maybe it isn’t new. Last week we read about another mother, Hagar, who was kicked out of her home, forced to flee with her son, a little bread and a skin of water. She put her child under a bush and cried out, “Do not let me look on while the child dies.” And G-d answers the cry of the lad. Opens Hagar’s eyes and finds the water that was there all along.
Now a new group of refugees is gripping the headlines. 20,000 refugees arrived on the Austrian border just this past weekend. Germany has said if they are coming for economic reasons they will be sent back. The US is thinking of opening our borders to an additional 100,000 people. However, as Secretary of State Kerry pointed out, these refugees need to be vetted and we need to hire people to handle that vetting. That will cost money. This is a complicated, complex, nuanced problem as Deborah Lipstadt pointed out in her piece last week in the Forward. It doesn’t reduce to sound bites. And she, herself, the renowned Holocaust scholar, is not comfortable with her own four questions. So this will require study, much study, as well as humanitarian aide and compassion. Our tradition, the tradition outlined by our very readings this morning demands no less.
As we learned about moral courage on that balcony in Quetzeltango, we are at a behira point, a choice. We have a great social action/tikkun olam program here at CKI. We are involved in lots of things and we make the world a better place. We work with the Crisis Center, with PADs, with Food for Greater Elgin, with the Elgin Cooperative Ministries, with Habitat for Humanity and Heartland Blood Bank. The challenge is to kick it up a notch. To continue to partner. To learn why the need is so great. To do the hard work of advocacy, of systemic change, of justice so that we begin to see long term effects.
This is the moral courage of that Yom Kippur demands. This is the moral courage of Isaiah and Claudia, Santos Margarita and Ceci, Leocadio Juracan and Maria Louisa .
I promise I won’t be silent. I can’t be. That is my Kol Nidre promise.