When you head into the voting booth on November 8th, there will be a long list of ballot initiatives for you to consider. They address the widest range of local and statewide concerns, and many possess the potential to advance our Jewish tradition’s highest moral values for millions of people. However, two of those ballot measures are more than just a reflection of religious principles held by our city’s Jews; two of them are on the ballot in large part because of our city’s Jews.
A little more than four years ago, the members of Leo Baeck Temple, located in Bel Air along the Sepulveda Pass, committed to a bold new vision for Los Angeles … a vision that would break down the barriers that separate the segments of our city and bring us panim el panim, face to face, with one another. The idea was rail transit connecting the San Fernando Valley to LAX and to numerous points in between. The new trains would intersect with the existing rail lines that are growing around town, enabling Valley and Westside residents to escape the isolation of their cars and sit side by side with the rest of LA.
The advocates for this vision were told constantly that it would never happen – sometimes even by their fellow congregants. “You’re wasting your time,” they would hear repeatedly. But they were undeterred as they recruited partners: faith communities, including fellow synagogues, in the One LA network… business, labor and environmental leaders along the 405 corridor and throughout the county… and especially Mayor Garcetti, who became a champion of the concept. The result is Measure M, which will fund a whole host of transit projects, including the Sepulveda Pass train, with a half-cent sales tax increase on non-necessity purchases (items such as food, housing and health care costs are, of course, exempt from the tax). The Mayor has identified Measure M as his top priority for the coming election.
You might wonder why a synagogue would view rail transit as a vital Jewish issue. It’s more than just the preservation of the natural riches of the Earth, as we were commanded in the Book of Genesis. And it’s more than the thousands of green jobs that will enable so many people to achieve the self-sufficiency that Maimonides so prioritized when he constructed his famous “ladder of tzedakah.” Transforming our city from a car culture to a train culture will raise the kind of capital that Judaism deems to be the most important – human capital.
The great French Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, taught that “the approach to the face (of another) is the most basic mode of responsibility … the ethical rapport with the face is asymmetrical in that it subordinates my existence to the other.” This is what it is to be human – to welcome the subordination of my own existence by looking into the eye of someone else, and seeing that I am obligated.
We don’t get to do that all that much – we who live along the Sepulveda Pass – because we never get to see the face of the other from the unholy cocoon of our cars, as we drive by entire worlds that are closed off from us at every freeway exit. We never see a face there, so we never experience that most basic mode of responsibility. But when we build trains to connect us to those worlds, we will look into faces and eyes that will subordinate our own existence every time the doors open. We will get our chance to begin being fully human – and to create justice with jobs and environmental sustainability while doing it.
Simultaneously, a broad base of Los Angeles Jews across religious denominations have been partnering with Governor Brown to restore hope and the inspiration to change to some of our state’s most at-risk citizens. In fact, Governor Brown came to us looking for our partnership.
Just before Pesach this past April, I received a phone call from the Governor, asking me if I would convene a meeting for him with a dozen of our city’s most influential rabbis. Two days later, two dozen leading LA rabbis sat down with the Governor in Beverly Hills, and he urged us to help him get Proposition 57, which will reform criminal sentencing and parole for those who commit non-violent crimes, onto the ballot.
As a deeply religious person himself, Governor Brown knew exactly how to frame this issue for us – and his message is only more salient at this season of the Jewish year. “There is no greater incentive than freedom,” said the Governor. He spoke of teshuvah, the Jewish process of self-change that is the focus of the upcoming High Holy Days, and insisted that Proposition 57 will open the gates to that type of growth for countless young non-violent offenders currently languishing in prison without hope. He said that 80% of these prisoners are poor African-Americans and Latino-Americans, and when their initial brief sentences are trumped up through sentencing enhancements to last for decades, they have no reason even to try to transcend their errant ways. Instead, the gangs feast upon them, and they turn to violence and narcotics. Through a renewed commitment to rehabilitation, supervision and education, Proposition 57 will turn the tide on our state’s shameful and costly mass incarceration problem, rebuilding lives and safety along the way.
Your opportunity to vote for Proposition 57 is partly due to the many Jews around town who distributed petitions to get the measure onto the fall ballot at their Pesach seders this past spring, as they gave new meaning to the celebration of moving from bondage to freedom. And just two weeks ago, rabbis and lay leaders from many of our local congregations, in collaboration with our partners in faith from LA Voice, flew to Sacramento to meet with Governor Brown again. This gathering, organized by Reform CA, was devoted to heightening voter turnout efforts and to planning the next steps we can take to offer the wellspring of teshuvah to those in our state who need it most.
We have a lot of important decisions to make at the ballot box in November. But two of those choices truly belong to LA’s Jewish community, and we will have reason to be proud when we see our tradition’s most sacred ideals come to life through the passage of Measure M and Proposition 57.
Rabbi Ken Chasen is Senior Rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles.
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