On Aug. 19, I sat down with an African-American grandmother from Detroit to share breakfast. We sat at a plastic table under a tent in the parking lot of Ebenezer Baptist Church West in Athens, Ga. I was there to take part in America’s Journey for Justice, an 860-mile march from Selma, Ala., to Washington, D.C., which is working to raise awareness and effect change around issues of economic inequality, education reform, criminal justice reform and voting rights. I felt honored to have joined a contingency of almost 200 rabbis and members of the Jewish community, who pledged to carry a sefer Torah, a Torah scroll, for the entire length of the journey.
As we ate, I asked my breakfast companion why she had decided to leave her home and family to spend the summer marching in the South, marching for justice. Looking me straight in the eye, she answered matter-of-factly, “I am walking because our babies are dying.”
In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, we are taught, “If you see your brother’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your brother” (Deuteronomy 22:1). We find a similar commandment in Exodus: “When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him” (Exodus 23:4). Torah is clear: Enemy or brother, sheep, ass or ox — we are required to care for those in our community.
I discussed a similar concept with another marcher as we walked in the Georgia heat, single file, along the side of a road on a rural stretch of highway. She told me about how she had worked on issues of immigration reform, even though her family had no immigration story — they came to the United States as slaves.
I shared my reasons for marching with her. I told her that Jewish tradition compelled me to see “my story” and “my interests” as much broader than my own narrow experiences or those of my family. “If you see your brother’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it,” Torah teaches. I cannot ignore issues like voting rights and racial profiling. I take action because Torah teaches me to do so.
On the very day I marched, news broke that Mansur Ball-Bey, an 18-year-old African-American youth from my home state of Missouri, had been fatally shot by St. Louis police during a home search. As I heard the news that night, that morning’s message from my breakfast companion, delivered to me so earnestly, echoed in my ears: “I am walking because our babies are dying.”
As I marched alongside young activists, Jewish community members, grandparents, concerned citizens and Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of the NAACP, I felt the weight of the sefer Torah in my arms, and I felt the weight of its message in my heart. I watched as Brooks held the sefer Torah, marching with the same respect and sense of purpose as I did.
The rabbinic sage Rabbeinu Bechaya ben Asher sees a connection between the verse in Exodus about returning your enemy’s livestock and the verse in this week’s Torah portion about doing the same for your brother. He teaches that the very act of helping another person can cause an entrenched relationship to shift, effectively turning an enemy into a brother. He is clear: It is the act of doing for another — the act of performing a mitzvah for the sole benefit of our fellow — that has the power to make change.
Our tradition teaches that when we break out of our own bubbles, learn to see others’ stories as our own, and act alongside and on behalf of the welfare of our neighbors, we begin to enter truly transformative relations. Enemies can turn to brothers, strangers can turn to friends, and loose alliances can turn to deep ties. Sociologist Richard Sennett argues that it is such “togetherness” that creates the encounters and rituals necessary to bring about empathy and cooperation.
We face a critical juncture in our nation’s history. There are millions of people in our country who are either barred from voting or who face insurmountable hurdles that keep them from doing so. There are people who are being pulled over or stopped and searched for no other reason than the color of their skin. There is a generation of youth who are not receiving a basic education because their schools are failing.
We are failing each other and failing to live up to Torah’s message of justice if we do not respond. I encourage you to look into America’s Journey for Justice, which concludes this year Sept. 16, and learn more about the fundamental rights the marchers are championing.
In the end, I spent one day on the road and walked 15 miles. My steps were more significant than a single person marching on a single day, though. They represented my belief in Torah’s relevance to our lives and its values’ significance in our world.
As the days of Elul float by and the Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days, approach, I invite us all to reflect on that which our brothers and sisters have lost, that which needs returning and restoring, and the concrete actions we might take to help right these wrongs.
Rabbi Jocee Hudson is rabbi educator at Temple Israel of Hollywood, a Reform congregation.
