‘And For The Sin Of Greed That We Have Committed ...’

by Rabbi Jennie C. Rosenn
Special To The Jewish Week

This is the season for proclaiming our vulnerability. This year it is not hard for any one of us to feel a profound sense of uncertainty. The Yom Kippur liturgy still ringing in our ears — “Who shall live and who shall die.... who by fire and who by water” — echoes our own ruminations. Who shall be fired and who shall be swimming in debt? Who shall hold up our nation’s highest values and who shall lead our country?

Current events conspire to illuminate the existential truth of the Days of Awe. Our financial crisis has been described as the worst since the Depression and we have become accustomed to the refrain of “privatized profits and socialized loss” from every economist and

political pundit. Our climate is deemed “catastrophic” as hurricanes of dramatic proportions come with increased frequency and heighten our own sense that the future is uncertain.

Throughout Yom Kippur we reflect on our individual wrongdoings of the past year, yet we proclaim them in the plural “Ashamnu, Bagadnu ... We have sinned, We have acted treacherously.” We each pledge to make deeply personal changes in our lives even as we direct ourselves toward collective responsibility. Our fate may be unknown, but the cause of the current crisis is hardly a mystery.

As Jews we can no longer support a system skewed toward rampant profit and rapacious greed. We need to shatter the complacency around the fundamental imbalance of resources that has led inexorably to the current economic crisis.

Our broader Jewish institutions will be challenged — quite possibly in unprecedented ways — to respond to the overwhelming needs of our communities. Federations, local social service agencies, and synagogues will do their utmost to respond to these demands — as varied as they will be urgent. But these times call for words and work that go beyond meeting immediate needs. As individuals and as a community, American Jews must also name the root causes that have led to the current state of affairs and advocate for systemic solutions.

This is a strategic moment for the broader Jewish community to join with Jewish social justice organizations around shared values and collective action. Jewish social justice organizations, as reported in our recently published research, “Visioning Justice and the American Jewish Community,” stand on the forefront of organizing across religious, ethnic, and class lines to fight for some of the systemic changes we need — fair labor practices, universal healthcare, affordable housing and immigrant rights. In recent times we have witnessed solid examples of alliances between broader Jewish communal agencies and Jewish social justice organizations — in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; in the face of genocide in Darfur; and on behalf of abused workers in Postville, Iowa. This is another such moment of need.

The broader Jewish community, together with Jewish social justice groups, can bring a compelling Jewish voice to every media outlet and decision-making table to help bring an end the war on the poor and middle class and to affirm the basic rights of housing, healthcare, education and pensions. In broader terms, they can define the values and principles that should determine governmental policies going forward. It is time to reframe our role as Jewish citizens and to take collective responsibility for making our values manifest in our policies.

Jews of every generation and affiliation — from those active in secular social change to those devoted to their local federations — can also act individually on this responsibility. Congregants can engage their synagogues in congregation-based community organizing. Jews of every generation can do volunteer service that addresses real needs in poor communities and speaks to the root causes of poverty. Professionals in transition from the private sector can bring their intelligence and skills to the Jewish social justice field. And we all can ensure that our tzedakah remains robust; these are days that call for shoring up, not scaling back, our giving.

The Yom Kippur liturgy reminds us that there are no guarantees; we can only hope to “soften the decree.” Some of us will pray (tefilah), most will give money (tzedakah), and all of us — individually and collectively — will have the opportunity to repent (teshuvah) and do all that we can to return our world to greater wholeness. If we act now, with full force and vision, then our time of crisis may emerge as the beginning of transformation for American Jewish life and for the world at large.

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn is the director of the Jewish Life and Values Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. The recently published report, “Visioning Justice and the American Jewish Community,” is available at http://www.nathancummings.org/jewish/001081.html.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization