Elul Message by Emet Ma’ayan, LCSW
Rosh HaShanah, the day of new beginnings. Our ancestors knew that you can’t enter a new start without giving attention and healing from your past. In a new relationship, we hope we don’t repeat the mistakes of the last one. Expecting parents worry how we will parent if we haven’t healed our own childhood. Healing is a lifelong journey and it requires to awaken our bravery, lovingly hold ourselves and others accountable, and do so with communal support and witnessing. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, & the close with Simchat Torah offer that container. And it begins with this month of Elul.
When I look at the last year at Nahalat Shalom, I think of how we navigated after October 7th. Unlike other congregations and Jewish organizations where lines were drawn and people were meant to feel unwelcomed, our director, service leaders, clergy, Cheder educators, and Va’ad held the poles of our tent so everyone had a place. To all of you, Todah Rabah, thank you.
And with that I wonder if there were ways, we still missed the mark. Could we have even done more? Is it even possible to heal the pain of an American Judaism that allows ourselves to be silenced by a disproportionately fear-based framing that Jews are forever unsafe and Israel, no matter its behavior, our only sanctuary. Feeling uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe.
As this is written, more of the hostages were just murdered and for nearly a year Netanyahu refused to enter a ceasefire and a plan to release hostages, has continued to make the lives of Jews in Israel and outside unsafe while decimating Gaza, encroaching and imprisoning those in the West Bank and arming and empowering hundreds of illegal Settlers which is a shanda (shame) and a Jewish and human travesty. And yet, when our brave UNM students, Jewish for Palestine, If Not Now, and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) members and supporters protest, they are made to feel like criminals. The situation is not just nuanced, it is overwhelming to the human senses. And for one year our community has struggled with our grief, anger and confusion. As is the Elul tradition, I ask where have we missed our opportunity? Could we have done more?
Several years ago, Nahalat Shalom members who were also members of Albuquerque’s JVP, responded to a request and organized an intimate gathering where those of us who needed a space to question our relationship to Israel and Zionism could do exactly that, grieve, ask questions, and feel the hypocrisy of feeling an affinity to Israel and the pain of witnessing her oppressive practices on Palestinians. The group wasn’t about answers, it was about awakening our bravery, holding ourselves and Israel’s government accountable, and to do so within the support of community. I craved those types of gatherings this year and felt some, but also felt the unsafety of not wanting to offend, not wanting to lose members at Nahalat Shalom.
For me, that is the forgiveness I am asking.
When I was NS President, the Muslim-Jews United group started during Trump’s early weeks of office. They came together to find solidarity and organize against his Muslim Ban. Would that work today? Would our congregation stand for that? As that group sent letters asking for a Ceasefire, could NS even sign it? I must do my own repentance for asking this group to abide by just one ground rule – don’t talk about Israel-Palestine. In 2016, I assumed that such a topic would tear away at us and heard the same by the leadership at the Islamic Center. Can you imagine if that group that had built relationships was asked instead, please do what you can to find your bravery, build relationships so we can weeks dialogue and share our grief over the occupation that was has become a genocide. Where would we have been on October 7, 2023 if in 2016, we had done our work?
Moving forward as the only progressive Jewish congregation in our area; the only congregation who so steadfastly is intolerant of hatred towards queers, intolerant and proactive against racism, and continuously prioritizes justice, is also the congregation whose early years and reputation is tied up with the fight for Palestinian liberation. How may we enter 5785, with the bravery to heal and hold a tent, just as tight, and with a vision for Jewish voice and our liberation in place of our own fears and contorted silence.
At Nahalat Shalom we’ve had many a year at Yom Kippur where our repentance was for the global atrocities, the greed of our capitalism, as well as our individual accountability and shortcomings, the damage of our biases and choice of comfort over justice.
What will we do this year? How will we hold our tent so wide that everyone is welcomed? I believe in open tents and on October 14, 2023 when our congregation gathered, 75 strong in person and on zoom to pray together, to find comfort, we announced and pledged to be an open tent where everyone has a place. Our leadership at Nahalat Shalom has kept their dialogue open and kept that promise.
I don’t want to confuse comfort with safety. This was not a comfortable year, and yet we were safe. We were not the ones who were losing homes, who were sending our children to an army to destroy. We are safe. And perhaps our leadership as progressive American Jews may give us cause to be less comfortable.
Nahalat Shalom means inheritance of peace. What is it we are inheriting and how are we enabling peace? Not just peace 7,180 miles away, but peace in our own tent?
This Elul may we seek discomfort – and through that, awaken our bravery, find ways of holding ourselves and others accountable, and do so with the strength of a most beautiful and courageous community, whose name is literally to “inherit peace” (as is the translation of Nahalat Shalom).