I know many--if not of all of us--are feeling a lot of stress as we head into this week of the election. In addition to worry about the outcome of the election, I know there is also concern that the voting process itself, and/or its aftermath, may be disrupted by violence or other kinds of obstruction.
I wish I could offer words to counter-act these fears. But the reality is it’s impossible to know what is coming, or how to prepare for such an unknown. What I do know is that struggles over democracy, struggles to overcome injustice and violent oppression, are not new in America. Our national history is a long one of “becoming.” Regardless of the election results, that journey will continue. My hope is that in January we will be celebrating the beginning of a historic presidency. But even if that does come to pass, there will still be an enormous amount of work to do to realize the promise of equal rights and justice for all, to preserve life on this planet, to create a society in which every person is nurtured and valued. As part of that journey, our votes truly do matter.
When I was in rabbinical school, one of our “practical rabbinics” assignments was to come up with a ritual for a life event for which there was no Jewish ritual. My classmate Jeremy Schwartz came up with a beautiful ritual for voting for the first time (or at any time). He created a blessing that has become something that we – and many other Reconstructionist congregations – say whenever we conduct communal business. The blessing is:
Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha’olam, asher kid’deshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la’asok b’tzorchei tzibbur.
Blessed you are YHVH, Source of life, making us holy through mitzvot, instructing us to engage in the needs of the community.
If you have not yet voted, you may want to recite this blessing as you drop off your ballot or vote in person next Tuesday. A blessing sanctifies a mundane act, and in this case, is a powerful reminder that we should not take our ability to vote for granted, and that our participation in democracy is indeed a mitzvah, a holy obligation.
There is a beautiful teaching from the Netivot Shalom, a 20th century Hasidic rebbe, that one of the lessons of this week’s Torah portion – the story of Noah and the great Flood – is that “one person may act corruptly in private, but inserts some degree of corruption and impurity into the rest of the whole world.” When these acts multiply, the world is threatened. And yet, “the Torah also teaches us how to respond to a situation like that of the Flood: by means of a ‘Noah’s Ark.’ Just as there was an Ark for the sake of the whole world, there is one that applies to the individual; a power of protection that the blessed Holy One gave so that such corruption should not spread abroad... [There is] some small corner somewhere, pure of all those things that spread corruption.” One of these “arks,” he teaches, one of these places of refuge, is Shabbat, “a day on which our souls can ‘rest in the shelter of God’s wings,’” on which our souls can find “repose and restoration.”
We will explore this teaching, in which the Netivot Shalom offers other types of “refuge” and instructions for practice in a corrupt world, during services tomorrow. But I hope we can take in this suggestion that Shabbat is itself an “ark” of refuge and comfort in tumultuous times. As we enter into Shabbat and mark the beginning of the new month of Heshvan, may we feel the potential for renewal that each new moon brings. May our souls rest, even if only momentarily, in what we might imagine as a divine embrace.
