This is my name

(Rosh Hashanah 2019/5780)

This summer when President Trump attacked four congresswomen, saying that they should “go back where they came from”, The New York Times invited folks to share their stories of being told to “go back.” Maybe you saw these stories — they were heartbreaking.[1]

Justin Vasquez from Irvine California shared that the first time he heard that, he was 12 years old. “My mom and I were at Costco and it was Christmas Eve. We went there to pick up a ham. By the time we made it to the register, the lines were huge. At some point, a middle-aged white woman tried cutting in line. My mom stopped her, and when she did, the woman said, “Get out of line and go back to Mexico.”

Sakina Rasheed Foster from Dallas, TX shared: “ I am American. I was born and raised in Texas. . .. I am also Muslim and South Asian.” She remembers being in middle school and getting used to her first official locker, which she was really excited about. It was a top locker, and she hadn’t quite mastered it.

One day, rushing to change books between classes she accidentally dropped a textbook on the foot of a boy whose locker was below hers. She turned to him and his friends and said, “I’m sorry.” To which he responded, screaming in her face, “What is wrong with you? Go home you dirty. . .” and then used a slur. She goes on to share how these days her experience of this “othering” is more indirect. As an adult, she gets questions like, “Where are you really from?”

The Times received 16,000 stories, each one about a fellow American receiving the message over and over again that they didn’t belong. It didn’t matter that they were born here, or that they served in the military, or that they were deeply proud of being American. Whether because of the color of their skin, or their dress, or their name, or some other cue — they were perceived as other. They couldn’t possibly be from here.

— — —

Sometimes a fellow human shares their story, and, seeing your own experience reflected in theirs, you see your life in a new way.

My whole life I’ve had to manage other people’s discomfort with my name: רחל (My name is Hebrew — pronounced with a gutteral “chet”. Click HERE to hear it pronounced.).

When I say my name, people often ask me where I’m from.

I answer, “York, PA.”

And when they ask, “No, where are you really from?” I say, “I’m American.” Some don’t let it go at that point and persist, “No — before that.”

“It’s a Hebrew name,” I say.

Growing up in York, PA, in a segregated school system where my school was almost 100% white and where there were very few people with non-English names, I remember a substitute teacher who refused to call me by my real name. “I’ll just call you ‘RAY-chel’ — it’s easier.” And on the first day of school every year when they would call roll, my peers would have a field day with my “chet.” To make life easier I often still just say “RAY-chel” rather than “רחל.”

Until I read those Times stories I hadn’t given much systemic thought to my experience. Of course, because of my white skin, I pass most times. My experience is nowhere near as traumatizing or exhausting as that of people of color, trans folks, people with disabilities, and other more marginalized folks. But these stories revealed how accustomed even I have become to being othered.

On a regular basis, my Hebrew name is a barrier, causing me to fear rejection from the moment I introduce myself to someone for the first time. I’ve internalized the perception of other-ness, not seeing it as the other person’s problem, but as validation of my difference and sometimes as a reason to withhold the fullness of who I am.

Last night we discussed this Chasidic story:

Rabbi Zusya once came to his followers, visibly shaken, with tears in his eyes.

They asked him: “Zusya, what’s the matter?”

He told them about his vision: “I learned the question that the angels will one day ask me about my life.”

The followers were puzzled: “Zusya, you are pious. You are scholarly and humble. You have helped so many of us. What question about your life could be so terrifying that you would be frightened to answer it?”

Zusya sighed and replied: “I have learned that the angels will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you a Moses, leading your people out of slavery?’ and that the angels will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you a Joshua, leading your people into the Promised Land?’ They will say to me, ‘Zusya, why weren’t you Zusya?’”

“Why weren’t you Zusya?”

This is the central question of these days, the central question of teshuvah — the practice of turning back towards how we want to live and who we want to be. We are not required to be someone else or to live up to some unreachable standard. We are only asked to be ourselves — to allow that tzelem Elohim, the Divine image that lives within each of us, to shine.

But this is not such a simple thing! Obstacles, both internal and external, stand in the way of all people being able to share their unique light with the world.

We see this in our Haftarah, where Hannah has been struggling for years. She desperately wants a child, her fellow wife Peninah torments her for being barren, and her husband doesn’t get it. Keeping the pain inside has caused such suffering that by the time we encounter her, Hannah is not able to enjoy the special portion her husband has set aside for her at the yearly celebration at the Temple. But this year she does something new. She gets up from the meal, and alone, she stands outside the Temple and prays. Here, away from her family, alone with God, Hannah finally opens to her sadness and anger. She speaks silently to her own heart, she weeps, she pours out her bitterness. She is finding a way back to herself — a way back to an authentic expression of who she is and what she needs.

“Why were you not (insert your name here)?” we ask ourselves.

On the internal level, it is hard to be in touch with our deepest intentions for how we want to be in the world. One of my biggest obstacles is the perception that I am too busy to slow down and feel, that there are too many demands. That if I take the time to get still and listen to my heart, or look closely at what is happening in this world, I won’t get it all done. But if I investigate further, I see that the real reason I don’t want to listen or look or feel is that I’m afraid. I might see how far I’ve strayed from how I wanted to be living my life. My heart might break if I fully take in the unbelievable brokenness of this world that I deeply desire to respond to. But Hannah reminds me. Sometimes my heart has to break. Only then can I rediscover the light that is hiding in there and find a way to share it.

Unfortunately, even when we are in touch with who we are and how we want to act in the world, we run up against obstacles from the outside. Systems of oppression keep so many people from living fully and freely, and we all suffer. Emma Lazarus’ prophetic statement continues to be true: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

Hannah is finally freely speaking the words of her heart; the Divine Presence seems to be listening. And then the official representative of God’s Temple — the priest Eli — gets in the way. He has never seen a woman pray like this before. She is there all alone without a male chaperone. She has no official status and hasn’t brought an offering. And she is weeping and moving her lips while making no audible sound. Rather than bring any curiosity to the situation or inquire as to why she is distressed — Eli interrupts her prayer with an attack: “How long do you propose to carry on drunk like this! Get rid of your wine!” he shouts. She isn’t conforming to the norms of behavior, and this makes him uncomfortable. It threatens his control over who gets access to God. So there must be something wrong with her. She doesn’t belong there. She should go back where she came from.

As individuals, and most damaging, on a societal level, we do this. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we erect walls between ourselves and people we see as “other.” This too comes from a place of fear, which manifests in a range of ways, from lacking curiosity to ignoring or erasing difference, to attacking, the other.

People like our own president play on these fears and actively foment racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and almost any other fear you can think of. All of this contributes to the collective perception that one group of humans belongs and another group must be kept out. These walls prevent humans’ feeling safe enough to fully be who they are and to bring their gifts into the world for all of us to share.

By the end of Hannah’s story, she finally conceives and bears a son whom she names Sh’muel, “I asked him of God and was heard.” Sh’muel becomes her gift. Hannah dedicates him to God and he serves the people as the last Judge of Israel, spending his life speaking truth to power.

It is radical that our tradition preserves Hannah’s story, and that we read it on this most holy of days. This is who we are and whom we stand for as Jews. A marginalized woman, whose very presence threatens a corrupt, powerful man- she is the one with the capacity to bring light into the world, if only she can claim the space and find the safety to reveal it.

We can be the ones who create that safety, that space, that belonging.

Growing up in York, PA, a place (like most places in America) that has a lot of racism and anti-Semitism, I had a best friend named A (not using her full name in this public post). She isn’t Jewish. She doesn’t pronounce my name perfectly, but she tries, and she never made fun of me. But the best thing about her is that she she has always been curious. She wasn’t afraid of asking or of trying unfamiliar things, or of being seen publicly adjacent to Jewish people. She would sometimes come to my house on Shabbat and holidays. Later, she would tell everyone at school about how delicious the challah was at my house, and we’d giggle about the weird metallic taste of juice in a silver Kiddush cup. She even appeared on television with my family once. My Dad was the rabbi in town, and a news station came and filmed us lighting the Chanukah candles. A. was proudly featured, in my dining room, lighting the menorah with us. I never would have called it this back then. But these many years later, I see that moment as an act of solidarity

Curiosity, awareness, a willingness to stand with and be seen standing with others, especially when it is uncomfortable. Those qualities that A. brought to my life helped me feel proud and safe and like I belonged.

When we bring non-judgment and curiosity to our own hearts — when we can be with the truth of what is there, even when it is uncomfortable — this is how we get back in touch with who we are and how we want to be. And when we bring those same qualities of curiosity, awareness, a willingness stand with those who are suffering and bring uncomfortable truths out into the light. — this is how we make for safety and belonging for all of us.

The implications are powerful.

We’ve seen it this year in the joyful, raucous Stonewall 50 celebrations and Gay Pride events that stretched across the world and in every individual moment that a person came out proudly as LGBTQIA+. Every time someone feels safe shining their light, it gives courage to untold numbers of others who might have been afraid.

We’ve seen it in the thousands of Jews standing up publicly, risking arrest, to bring attention to the horrific conditions at immigrant detention camps. In the unapologetic use of the term “concentration camp,” linking our experience of fascism and xenophobia to what our government is doing right now, locking up children, imprisoning families in deplorable conditions. Only by bringing these very painful truths out into the light will we close the camps.

We felt it here in Diversity Plaza after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, when our neighbors of every imaginable background — immigrants, Muslims, Christians, New Yorkers — surrounded us with love as we mourned and observed Shabbat proudly in public. When we see and love ourselves for who we are, when others see us and love us for who we are, then we can bring the best of ourselves into this world.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, writes, in her “Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times: Do Not Lose Heart, We were made for these times”[2]:

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

May we take the time to show up for our own souls, listening to our hearts and finding our light.

May we feel safe enough to show our souls on deck, shining it like gold in these dark times.

And may the light of our souls throw sparks so that other struggling souls might catch light — so that we all might know and affirm — this is my name, this is my home, we all belong here.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/reader-center/trump-go-back-stories.html

[2] http://moonmagazine.org/clarissa-pinkola-estes-do-not-lose-heart-we-were-made-for-these-times-2016-12-31/