Sh’nah tovah! It’s the head of the year for those of us Jews out there, and I just came back from a uninspired and disappointing service from my childhood congregation. A new rabbi replaced my dear one, and the service was rushed, flat, and small. But, it is a time for celebration so I’ll point to one thing that did land in me.
In the beginning of the service, we read a prayer on seeking forgiveness and letting go of grudges. Part of the new year is the ten-day period to seek guidance and clarity before we enter the time of atonement, on Yom Kippur. One line from the prayer read, “May no one be punished on my behalf.” This struck me, especially having come from the recent Critical Resistance conference. What would it mean if no one was punished on my behalf?
It definitely means a radically different question for me as a white guy than it does for someone with less privilege and power than I have. But if it were just for me, can I take that into my heart and practice it truly? In my experience, a deep faith requires a belief in abolition; our heart cannot hold the imbalance of the racist, sexist, sweeping inhumanity of the policing and prison systems and the complexities and truths of other human beings. If no one were punished on my behalf, but I were asked to take my grievances into my hands and meditate on them, and on others, what might my world look like?
One thing I realized in a dialogue with a friend of mine on abolition and police “safety,” was that I wanted to be living a life where nothing I owned was more valuable than the life of someone I might sacrifice to the prison system. This becomes more complicated when possessions and property are not the sacrifice, but other people, sexual safety, and dignity are at risk.
This thought of no one being punished was particularly resonant for me in reflection of the Palestine/Israel genocide. Though many Israeli Jews have significantly different Jewish identity as Jews as American Jews do, it would be quite the practice if this prayer were to ripple across the Holy Land and actually become a thought among the many forces operating in the $7.7 billion “defense” budget. What a new year that would be!
I don’t have any answers now, but in reality, any ideas or narrative I create only hold up in theory. In practice, it is only me, my faith, and what arises in that moment. I trust that I’ll be guided then.
For those interested in some radical Jewish work in the Bay, please check out: The International Jewish Soladarity Network
