Hey, tribe.
Shavua tov. I hope your Shabbat was beautiful.
I have to tell you — I never had a visceral appreciation of Shabbat the way I do now, since deciding it would be the one day a week that I don’t write a substack post.
Let me be clear: there is absolutely nothing I would rather be doing with my life right now than this, and professionally, this is the happiest I have been in many years, even though I truly loved and believed in the stories I was bringing to the page as a ghostwriter and even though I don’t have the same sense of financial security now.
But writing between 1,000 - 2,000 words every single day, 6 days a week, and creating each one with the aim of giving you as much as I possibly can — it’s self-imposed pressure, but it is pressure nonetheless. It’s rigorous and demanding in the very best way.
But when I wake up on Saturdays now, the feeling I have is inexpressible. I feel like I have a whole day with nothing driving me hard. I can sleep in, have a leisurely coffee with my family, take walks, go on a day trip — it feels like the most luxurious freedom. And so, spiritually and emotionally, even on the one day a week I take a break from Jewish advocacy, I feel as if I’m having a very Jewish experience and going deeper into my Jewish practice / community.
I’m not religious, and yet: as a vegan, I am pretty much kosher by default, and at this point in my life, I feel that I am truly honoring the spirit of Shabbat each weekend, even if I’m not conforming to the letter of the law.
As with the candles, if you can find a way to embrace the spirit of the day in a way that will make you feel restored and recharged, I would highly recommend just trying it as you’re able.
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On Friday evening, I ran across an image online that made my heart sing. I posted it to my personal Facebook page, but since my substack and Facebook are not at all identical, I wanted to share it with all of you. I strenuously suggest taking in the conviction that’s written here, and then holding that thought for the rest of your life:
And at the risk of sounding like I’m smoking something illegal, I actually want to go into this sentiment in a nearly-literal and bone-deep way.
What drove me to create Never Alone was your pain. Every single Jew I knew — and I’m pretty sure I know at least a hundred — was in so much pain, and so many were flailing and railing and spiraling in a way that made me afraid for them.
There is absolutely no judgement in the previous statement. I understand that state of mind thoroughly and intimately. I’ve been there, and not so long ago, either. I was permanently altered by the Trump presidency and I remain unconvinced that it’s over for good. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was strung out and sleepless and frightened and enraged on a near-daily basis for long months at a time, over and over.
That kind of response, as justified as it might be, is not helpful or sustainable. And I want very much to offer other Jews a way out of that place.
During the last 5 months, here are phrases I have heard and read over and over and over:
“Your Jewish friends are not all right.”
“Your silence is deafening.”
“All the cherished groups and spaces that provided me with support for other facets of my identity (queer/trans/Black/Asian/feminist/socialist/DV victim/ etc.) have turned against me and made me feel unwelcome, betrayed and unsafe.”
“That’s it — I’m done standing with other groups because after fighting for and alongside them for years, they’re standing with people who literally want to kill me.”
“I feel totally homeless.”
And then there was the plaintive one that I personally found most distressing of all. I say this, again, not with judgment or disdain, just profound dismay. It hurt my Jewish pride. It was an ice pick in my heart every time.
And that one was: “Would you hide me?”
Fam, please believe me when I reiterate that I deeply get all these sentiments. I am in no way above any one of them and in fact, I still experience each of them internally and regularly.
Every day, I myself have similar flashes of grief, pain, terror, rage and bitterness.
These emotions deserve our attention. It’s fine for us to invite them in and listen to what they have to say and even to embrace them. Each one of them has something vital to tell us; each one of them has an essential piece of wisdom to offer.
I am adamantly NOT in favor of ignoring them, stifling them, denying them, gaslighting them, sweeping them under the rug or insisting that we need to “stay positive” or “look on the bright side.”
But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to let them drive the car.
And in my opinion, we should also not allow them to be the face we show the world.
Here are the deeper truths we should draw upon to steady ourselves and present ourselves to others:
We are and we will be all right. We have each other, we do have allies, we have the magical superpower of who we are, and all that is everything.
We are going to continue our social justice work on behalf of other vulnerable groups, because that is who we are and because commitment to social justice is not transactional.
We don’t need anyone to hide us. We are not going to live in anyone else’s attic. And we’re not going to hide ourselves.
We are strong, we are unswerving in our integrity and in our truth, and we’re unapologetic about standing with Israel and each other.
We are not homeless. Throughout our history, we have been locked out of so many spaces, and so we built our spaces. We built our own colleges. We built our own museums. We built our own theaters. We built our own hospitals. We built our own medical schools. We built Hollywood.
And we built our own nation. We recovered a tiny slice of our ancestral homeland, where we’ve maintained a continuous presence for millenia — and when we finally got it back, it was almost dead of colonization. What was once fertile Mediterranean land, like Greece or Cyprus, was now arid desert and malaria-infested swampland. We nurtured and revived it. We made the desert bloom. We invented drip irrigation and introduced it to vast swaths of suffering Africa. We went from a rag-tag war-torn traumatized collective of survivors, and we built a nation on the medical, scientific, technological, academic, artistic and cultural forefront of the entire world. We are always among the first to respond with aid in nearly every global crisis affecting other countries.
Rising out of the ash is what we do.
So what we’re going to do now is to build our own political home. I devoutly want Never Alone to be much more than a substack. My dream is to create a coalition. There are so many left-leaning, liberal and/or progressive Zionists and the only reason we’re not more vocal and visible is that people are afraid.
So here I want to draw on the words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav, the “Kol Ha’Olam Kulo”:
All the world is a narrow bridge and the essential thing is not to be afraid.
We’re going to come together and stand together. We’re going to strengthen each other and strengthen our allies. We’re going to take care of ourselves and take care of the world. Just as we always have, so we will now.
Another directive by Rebbe Nachman was: “Gevalt, Jews, do not despair.”
And I also like to draw upon a partisan song sung by Jews under Nazi fire in Eastern Europe: Mir Veln Zey Iberlebn, which translates as: We Will Outlive Them.
What I’d most love is for you, and for us, to go into our week with this authentic sense of strength and equanimity. If you’re struggling or if something is holding you back from that, you are more than welcome to DM me.
In the meantime, I send you love and solidarity. I hope the rest of your weekend is gorgeous.
Chazak v’ematz. Am Yisrael Chai.
Beautiful and fortifying. Thank you.
I am not left leaning but I respect what you are trying to do here so I’m gonna hang around and read everything you write and wish you success!!