As Jews we often like a bit of humor to find the bright spot in tragedy. Tragedy has been the mode of living in 2020. Between the pandemic, climate change, and the resurgence of fascism in the United States and around the world, G-d has been telling us that it is time to take action. He has sent 100 year floods year after year, more tropical storms than meteorologists have the ability to name, the most horrific wildfires, and air that is unsafe to breathe, and yet there are many Jews who would vote for an administration that claims that climate change is a hoax. For years we’ve never had these problems, and for years and years, scientists have been warning us that things will get much worse if we don’t take action. G-d has been sending actual boats and helicopters, and we ignore the signals because Trump says it will all go away. As Jews, we are taught the concept of Tikkun olam תיקון עולם, repair of the world. All the things that G-d created on days 4, 5, and 6 we have watched as they are lain to waste. You can’t eat the fish because of the mercury in the waters, the ocean is filled with plastic, the greenhouse gasses choke the atmosphere. Instead of listening to G-d, we vote for a man who says it’s a construction of his political opponents, despite the fact that this warning was provided before he ever held political office.
But there is another interpretation of Tikkun olam, that of establishing a better social order. We have a president who mocks the disabled, calls any woman who opposes him “nasty”, who praises our enemies and assaults our allies, who beats and gasses peaceful protesters for a photo opportunity, who tells Americans to go back to where they come from if they are not white, who calls blacks who disagree with systemic racism “thugs”, who says other blacks are from shithole countries, who calls brown people “bad hombres”, who calls flocks of poor people fleeing persecution an invasion, who allows sterilization of migrants, who calls actual Nazis “very fine people”, and who rips families apart at the border and puts children in cages where they die from lack of adequate medical care. Is that a better social order?
We Jews know what this looks like. We’ve seen it before. A ruler who glorifies the nation above all else, who glorifies one people in that nation above all else, and who blames all of society’s problems not on problems of his own making, but on “the other”. How many times throughout our history have we been “the other”?. Hitler won with 37% support in the early 1930s. Trump has about the same. Many of them are Jews. How many boats does G-d need to send? How many helicopters does G-d need to send before we Jews stop sleepwalking into another round of fascism?
The signals just keep on coming. Yet many don’t hear the message. During the Unetaneh Tokef this week we are reminded that in order to save ourselves from a terrible decree, we are required to perform 3 acts, t’shuvah (repentance), t’filah (prayer), and tzedakah (charity). But there is an interesting thing about that last word, tzedakah. What is the root of that word? Tzedek - justice. In these days of awe, we are reminded by G-d that we need to practice Justice, in order to save ourselves from a terrible decree. A decree where those who would copy the Nazis, chanting “Jews will not replace us”, are declared to be “very fine people” by the President of the United States. A decree where a President who allows synagogues to be shot up by a white supremacist and people murdered without any changes in gun control or FBI task forces on white supremacy. Because the white supremacists love him, and if that’s the case, then they have free reign. They have no such love for Jews. Supporters who have free reign, drive across state borders with combat weapons with the express intent of hunting protesters, and are given a free pass because they support him. There is no justice there, and there will not be justice with a president who would solicit foreign interference in our sacred elections if he can get away with it. Similar to how he has gotten away with dozens of sexual assault cases. There is no justice. How will we be redeemed without justice?
Then there is the death of one of our own, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A legal icon but also a human rights icon, because she fought for Tikuun Olam. She fought for Tsedek, and she fought to establish a better social order, a more perfect union, where women were not treated as “the other”, but were instead welcomed to be part of society. She often attributed her fighting for the plight of minorities to her Jewish heritage. A Jewish teaching says those who die just before Rosh Hashana are the ones G-d has held back until the last moment because they were needed most & were the most righteous, Nina Totenberg explained. The most righteous? A Tzadik. We know this word Tzadik. A righteous person. But again, let’s look at the root of that word. Again, like some cosmic thread where G-d is repeatedly trying to send us a message. The root of Tzadik is Tzedek! Justice!
And why has the word Tsedek been on our minds lately? Only a few weeks ago we read some of the most significant lines in the Torah in Parshat Shophtim. Tsedek, Tsedek, tirdof. (Deut. 16:20) Justice, Justice, shall you pursue. “Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the LORD your G-d is giving you”. Just a few weeks ago we had another message passed down from generation to generation, l’dor vador, about Justice. As Jews, we know that G-d is infallible, G-d does not make mistakes or have a stutter. Then why did G-d tell Moshe Rabeynu to write “Tsedek, Tsedek”, “Justice, Justice”? G-d is exhorting us to pursue Justice! “Justice, Justice shall you pursue”! Not enabling fascists shall you pursue! Not pursue Justice but only in cases where there is minor property damage shall you pursue, which is some Jew's excuse for why they don’t support those demanding justice for their people. Justice, Justice! The President can exhort voters to be upset about property damage by “thugs”. He can claim that they don’t love the country like only he and his supporters can. But what are they fighting for? Why are they so upset? Justice! They are literally being murdered in the street over and over by the state. They are being sent away by the state. They are told to be peaceful, or to wait, or to protest quietly, and change will come. But they have been waiting. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee, that wasn’t peaceful enough, he was vilified by Republicans and the President. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.” When Dr. King tried for non-violent change as well (and marched with many Jews), he was killed by a white supremacist! And still they wait! For Justice. Jews know what it is to be murdered in the streets, we know what it’s like to be sent away by the state, and yet we enable a fascist who cares about nothing but himself and his poll numbers.
Here’s a number: 200,000. A horrific number. More than people who die in wars. More than dozens of 9/11s. A number the president doesn’t care about because fascists don’t see a problem with mass death. It’s a completely reasonable thing. In fascism, the “problem” are those who are weak, who are inferior. This is why Hitler didn’t have a problem murdering another number we know all too well. 6,000,000. Why? It is because the Nazis, the fascists, believed that Jews were weak and inferior. And if 200,000 Americans die, over 90% of them for no reason at all? Why would he care? They are mostly old or people of color. In other words, either weak or inferior. Why would he care about them?
So why do Jews support a fascist authoritarian like Trump? Israel. Israel is the reason Jews will let those who demand justice be trampled. Israel is the reason we support those who don’t concern themselves with the deaths of the old or the oppressed. For some Jews, the protection of Israel eclipses our duty to fight for justice. However, Israel is not going anywhere! Joe Biden has been a friend to Israel since he first met Golda Meir. If you need to, go look up Joe Biden’s speech from the 2013 AIPAC Policy Conference. Joe Biden is no threat to Israel, but Donald Trump is most definitely a threat to the United States, to Jews, and to justice.
There are those who will argue that the Jews will be fine in the US if Trump is re-elected because of Jared, and of Ivanka, as if she were Esther of the Purim story, firmly situated in the palace to protect the Jews. That view assumes that Trump is King Achasverous. But Trump is far more dangerous than that. Trump is Haman, the Amalekite. Haman advised the King that the Jews do not obey the king’s laws and therefore it was not necessary to tolerate them. That is Trump! He makes up stories about Anifa flying all over the country on airplanes, supports unmarked police in unmarked cars abducting people without due process or Miranda rights, supports beating mothers in the streets of Portland, all for the audacity to stand up to his idea of the laws which only allow protest by men in trucks who mace, shoot projectiles, and attempt vehicular assault on other protesters. That is not the 1st Amendment. I went to a protest where there were no police assaulting people. What else was there a lack of? Property damage. Violence. Trump purposely creates the situations he decries, so that he can claim that it is not necessary to tolerate those people, the people who demand Justice. Joe Biden’s son and sister both married Jews. Joe Biden does not tweet support for candidates from Georgia who support QAnon, a blood libel globalist conspiracy theory lifted straight from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and given a new name. We do not need to vote for Haman in order to have safety for the Jews here or in Israel. Bit. whether only Jews will be safe ignores G-d’s instruction. Justice, justice, shall you pursue. Not just for Jews.
So what do we do? Tsedek, Tsadik, Tzedakah. G-d is sending boats, helicopters! We need to listen. We need to mobilize for justice. Vote like lives depend on it, because they do. Vote for justice. Call people to demand justice for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died needlessly of a virus that has been controlled in almost every modern democracy but ours. Donate money to demand justice for Breonna Taylor who was murdered sleeping in her bed. Justice for Philando Castille who followed every single instruction and was still shot to death in his car in front of his children. And justice for Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy executed within seconds of arrival by police because he was a boy with the wrong skin color playing in a park. Drive people to polling places (with masks) to vote a out a fascist who rips children from the arms of their parents, not temporarily, but as a matter of policy. If you’ve visited Auschwitz like I did, you’ve felt viscerally, the pain and anguish of your ancestor’s families who were torn apart from one another when they got off the trains. It happened to my ancestors, for the crime of being “inferior”. The president talked about how good the genes were of a mostly white crowd on the campaign trail in the midwest last week. Are you so different?
When I was much younger, I had a crisis of conscience. I went to my Rabbi and said I thought it was horrible that Jews called themselves the Chosen People, that we thought we were better than others. He explained that I had it all wrong. The Jews have more responsibilities than other peoples. They are better than no one. They were chosen by G-d to be a light among the nations, to show the way. I think back to the Jews’ historical fights against fascism. I think of the Battle of Cable Street in East London after WWII, when the Jews refused to allow the British Union of Fascists to march through their neighborhood and intimidate them. I think back to the 43 Group. Jewish ex-soldier anti-fascists (yes, antifa) who would not let the fascists hold rallies and therefore cut off their support. I think from generation to generation, ldor vador, what the 43 Group would think of Jews in the United States voting for fascism in 2020, and what future generations will think, of the 2020 Jews, who support a fascist. What will future Jews think of Jewish votes for a man who is friends with some of the worst authoritarians in the world, who let the fascists take away democracy, and leave them a planet devastated by fossil fuels and global warming? What will future Jews think of Jewish votes for a man who doesn’t believe in science, or laws, or humanity, or justice, to be installed as the most powerful man in the world once again. That is not justice. That is not justice for the Jews murdered by fascists in the past. That is not justice for oppressed peoples who are crying out to stop the murder of our democracy. And that is not justice for the Jews of the future, who would inhabit a smoldering planet.
On these days of Awe, may we resolve to listen to the messages G-d has sent. May we recognize the rescue boats, and the calls to heed justice. Maybe we be resolved to be inscribed as those who pursued Justice, Justice, in this new year.