The spontaneous dancing in the streets that erupted all over the US yesterday on Shabbat, of all days, spoke volumes. Even in the midst of celebration, there is an acknowledgment of having to hold multiple realities.
Thank God the majority of us voted for empathy, decency, a belief in science, and most of all, for unity.
It has been four years of being on edge as antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia raged and took human lives. At the time of this writing, 240,000 Americans have died of COVID.
Yet – now that the people have voted and spoken, we can take a collective breath as we figure out the path forward.
We know it is going to take a lot of time and hard work to move from an “us vs them” to a “we” mentality.
The truth is that it is necessary to find common ground and even though we are exhausted, to keep working.
To top it off, Just when we feel like gathering, and as Thanksgiving approaches, our scientists urge us not to because the pandemic is worse than ever.
We are asked to hold it all: the urge to get together and the need to stay apart.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi regime in Germany unleashed a series of pogroms against Jews that left the streets littered with broken glass.
Many of us have intergenerational cellular traumatic memories of the Holocaust and it is one reason we have been on high alert over the last four years.
Still, along with the many disasters, we are always encouraged to hope for and work toward a better tomorrow. We face tremendous challenges, but we can surmount them together.
We have to hold it all – the joy and celebration, the sadness and exhaustion. It’s a LOT.
I believe that it is going to take time as we process the last five years.
Blessings to you as you walk through this time in a way that has integrity and is filled with both self-care and connection.
Laugh, walk, sing, dance, sleep, eat, and learn.
Take a deep breath.
For all of you who worked so hard to get out the vote, wrote postcards, phone banked, or worked at the polls – thank you thank you thank you.
May we never ever take our democracy for granted again.
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