June 14, 2023
Jewish tradition teaches us that we are not free until ALL are free. We are in the middle of Pride Month–a time of celebration, education, unification, collaboration, and commemoration. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Pride month is also a time to rededicate ourselves to foundational Torah values like inclusion, respect, love, and equity.
We dig more deeply into these values as we consider that this coming Monday is Juneteenth–a now national holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas and announced that all slaves were now free. At that time, Texas had the distinction of holding the last remaining enslaved people in our country. Junteenth does not mark the beginning of the end of slavery–which was the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather Juneteenth acknowledges the last and final thread that kept some still enslaved. It was the important and long awaited moment that ALL were truly free.
In recognition of Juneteenth, I’d like to share a powerful poem by Lilyfish (inspired by Rabbi Sandra Lawson)–one that weaves together our ancestral stories of oppression and liberation, because none of us are free until ALL of us are free.
May Each of Us: A Jewish Prayer for Juneteenth
by LilyFish
after 246 years of slavery
on june 19 it was proclaimed in galveston:
– all slaves are free –
but also:
– freedmen are advised to remain quietly –
after 400 years of slavery
on nissan 15 hashem split the sea
but not before ten deadly plagues
and nakhshon risking his life
one hundred and fifty eight years later
three thousand one hundred and seventeen years later
we are here
thank you hashem
for making me free!
But are we free?
as audre said:
“i am not free while any woman is unfree,
even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
as talmud said
“at a time when the community is suffering, no one should say,
‘i will go home, eat, drink, and be at peace with myself.’”
the freedom i found upon crossing that sea was incomplete.
i wandered three months to sinai then forty years in the desert.
only to see my children to the promised land
land of freedom flowing with milk and honey.
our siblings are wandering their own desert today.
my ancestors wandered to eretz yisrael once, our siblings four times.
we celebrate each step toward liberation
every nissan 15, every June 19
and still we seek freedom.
each of us
may each of us
wade in the water like nakhshon
may each of us
reach the mountaintop
may each of us
learn what it is to do good
may each of us
devote our souls to justice
may each of us
aid the wronged
may each of us
remove the shackles of another
until there are no shackles left
until our stories have been quilted together
until we are all in the promised land
until we have build eden together
amen