Photo from Getty Stock Images Home Shalom is dedicated to raising awareness of domestic abuse in the Jewish community, encouraging every synagogue and Jewish institution to become a safe sanctuary and providing tools for teens to master the skills of creating healthy relationships. Home Shalom is a program of The Advot Project.
“If you are not going to be better tomorrow than today, what need do you have for tomorrow?” – Rebbe Nahman of Bratzlav
The story is told of Rabbi Abraham, a famous Hasidic rabbi who lived in a small town in Eastern Europe. He was known to be wise and so people came from far and wide to seek his advice and counsel. One of his best-known teachings was that according to the Torah, everything, every creature, and every person has his or her own special place in the world and it is our primary task in life to find that unique place and purpose that is ours. Recognizing how much strife and discord there is in the world, his students asked Rabbi Abraham, “Why is it then that so many people can’t seem to find their place in the world?” to which Rabbi Abraham replied, “Because each one wants to occupy the place of the other.”
Here we are in the 21st Century and that characterization of the human condition is just as relevant today. So many are still trying to occupy the place of another, seeking power over others, control over another whether in the intimacy of their private lives, the board room of their professional lives, the halls of power in local, state or national government, or one race or people trying to keep another down and disenfranchised. Still in the midst of the turbulence of our times, the very unrest itself is a recognition of the deep-seated need for systemic change in our country, our communities, our relationships with one another. Change begins with the acknowledgment that for too long as a society and a nation we have institutionalized the suppression of one group’s aspirations over the privileges of others. Change begins with the recognition of how the toll on the very soul of our society has been so deeply scarred by the systemic institutionalization of educational suppression, economic suppression and suppression of the fundamental constitutional right to vote of people of color in America.
Given the challenges that confront us each day, we remind ourselves of the powerful words of Rebbe Nahman of Bratzlav who taught, “If you are not going to be better tomorrow than today, what need do you have for tomorrow,” and we act on the conviction that indeed, tomorrow can, will and must be better for us all if we stand up for what is right, what is sacred, what is just so that Rabbi Abraham’s vision of every human being finding his or her own special place in the world becomes a reality.
Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben is the founder of Home Shalom. Naomi Ackerman is the founder of The Advot Project.
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