Inward Grieving, Holiness in the Ordinary, & Sh’mini

Passover, in Hebrew and English, means jumping or skipping over. And I’m about to skip over my entire Passover holiday week.

Because the most wonderful thing happened yesterday afternoon—though it started in the most unexpected way.

I was walking home through the park, a gorgeous spring day, trees blooming everywhere, and ahead of me I saw a police van.

I hugged the side of the walkway, but the van switched sides, essentially forcing me to switch sides. I was annoyed. Why would they do that? It was obvious which side I was on.

As I was passing the van, it stopped. What the hell, I thought? While I’m not a person of color, and have never been directly targeted by the police, I essentially don’t trust cops. My younger daughter has even chastised me when I’ve treated them like human beings, smiling, saying hello. “They’re trained to kill, Mommy,” she says. She’s probably called them fascists as well, or pointed out that, at the very least, they’re a part of a racist, fascistic system, meant to control the population, certainly not to help, despite their motto: “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect,” now being replaced by "Fighting Crime, Protecting The Public.” And if you’re a person of color, you’re more likely not to have experienced any one of these in a positive way.

These are all the thoughts going through my head as this police van comes to a stop.

But it gets more confusing.

As I walk past, the officer in the driver’s seat gently sticks his hand out as if to shake mine. I approach, wondering what the hell he wants. Cautiously, I extend my hand, wondering, “Why am I doing this?”

“Do you recognize me?” he says, as I place my hand in his, looking suspiciously into his face, trying to see through the sunglasses.

I absolutely don’t.

Very incautiously, surprising even myself (and I suppose showing my “white privilege”), I say, “Take off your glasses.”

He does, and simultaneously says his name: “Jorge.” I gasp, putting my hands over my mouth as if I’m on a game show and I’ve just won a million dollars.

Every once in a while, as one does with favorite students, I’ve thought of him. In fact, he’d just come to mind about a week ago. Had he finished college? What was he doing? He was very smart, and one of those hard-working students who took my teaching seriously.

We also had a special connection, partly because he was from the coast of Ecuador, like my husband. And because we used to have deep political discussions. I often brought politics into the classroom, hoping to open my students’ minds to a different way of seeing the world and the U.S. I’d been lucky to have the freedom to do so in this particular setting, having been silenced in the past (as I probably would be now, if I didn’t censure myself). I wanted my students to understand that, if they didn’t succeed as immigrants, it wasn’t their fault, but rather the system that’s set up not to help them reach their potential.

But Jorge had been very depressed, and I’d worried that he seemed suicidal. I thought it was the state of the world (how much more so now, all these years later?) I’d tried to guide him, to give him strength and hope, to let him know that past generations had been through tough times as well, and they’d kept fighting. I’d taken his class to visit the studios of Democracy Now! and I remembered him being excited and inspired. Having students like him strengthened and inspired me, too, giving me hope in the younger generation.

What I hadn’t known at the time was that the main reason for his depression was his sister. She’d been killed in a car accident.

Why hadn’t he told me??? I wanted to know.

He’d needed to grieve inwardly. It’s just the way it was.

Again, we talked politics. I was curious about his choice to become a police officer. His dream had been a PhD. But he chose the NYPD for very practical reasons: the need to survive as an immigrant. (Costco and McDonald’s simply didn’t cut it.)

But what about his political beliefs? “I haven’t changed at all,” he said. “It’s true; the Police Department is racist and backward in so many ways.” But Jorge assured me that he offers a different voice and attitude.

And I thought, in a sense, he’s turned this into holy work. Maybe you can take something seemingly unholy and make it holy.

I hadn’t changed, either, I told him, though I’m a rabbi now. Although I’d felt guilty for a long time for abandoning students who needed me, lately I’d come to realize that my work now lies elsewhere, no less holy. Instead of serving young immigrants, I bring alternative views to a world that also needs my voice, yet in a very different way.

Bringing politics into spiritual spaces…this, too is holy, as I discussed a couple of weeks ago, before Passover.

The whole encounter was such a surprise, but for another reason. One of those strange things that happens at exactly the time you’ve been pondering something, looking to understand it. Over Passover, I’d been thinking a lot about the different ways we grieve as humans. And then I run into Jorge who tells me he’d kept this huge secret from me (and the world) all those years ago, while in his deepest grief.

How we grieve, I suppose, depends partly on our personalities. Some give voice to it (like me) processing out loud. I’d always thought, isn’t it better to talk instead of keeping it all inside, all alone? But I understand now that there are those who need to be silent and process inwardly.

And here was another example, presenting itself at exactly the right moment.

How amazing, too, that this should present itself just as we come to this week’s Torah reading; Aaron's sons, Moses’ nephews, are suddenly and tragically consumed by fire. (They’ve done something deemed unholy by God.)

And Aaron, their father, is enigmatically silent in his grief.

Moses tells him to get on with the holy work of the Temple; “Remove these (unholy) bodies from the camp.” This work must override Aaron’s grief.

And it gets worse. Moses gets angry with Aaron for not eating the sacrifice he is supposed to at the proper time in the proper place, a sacrifice meant to serve the people and bring them forgiveness. He is to take a piece of meat that in other circumstances would be ordinary, and make it holy, because this, also, is a matter of life and death, though for an entire people.

Then Aaron breaks his silence. He says, “Would it have been good for me to do this (in God’s eyes)?”

Rabbi Tali Adler implies that his grief would have affected his ability to properly serve the people; too much pain mixed in with a joyful day.

And Moses concedes. It is now good in his eyes.

We, like the Torah and religion, like to categorize things neatly as holy and unholy, good and bad.

But what if we can’t serve properly because of our emotional state? What if being silent is a way of grieving? And what if being silent is a way of serving? Or what if speaking up is a way of serving when others want us to be silent?

We might serve in the unlikeliest of places and the most unexpected ways…and it might be a matter of life and death for an entire people—or the world.

May we all be blessed to turn the ordinary into the holy, and to be open to serving in unexpected ways in unlikely places. Because it may not be obvious which side we’re on.

And please say Amen.