So we’re going to try something new for the next few weeks here on Soulful Jewish Living. We’re going to talk about democracy.
Now don’t worry, this is not going to be a politics podcast.
We are not going to be talking about candidates or issues or strategy. We won’t talk about polls.
There are plenty of other podcasts to listen to if you want those kinds of things.
No, when I say we’re going to talk about democracy, I mean we’re going to talk about all the stuff you and I and all of us have to deal with during election season — whether we live in the United States or another country.
We’re inundated with news and images trying to persuade us or move us or make us feel a certain way. We can get swept up in all of it — in conversations, in group chats, on social media.
It can feel like the stakes are really high, and that can make the whole thing feel really tense. It all goes on for months (well, in the U.S. anyway), and that can be tough.
But I also think it’s so, so important. And I think that Judaism has a lot of good teachings and practices that can help us make our way through this season in a wise and mindful way.
So over the next five weeks, I want to explore some of those teachings and practices together. If you want, you can think of this as a kind of Jewish mindfulness election toolkit from your friends here at Soulful Jewish Living.
Alright, I said we’d do this for five episodes. Why five? Not because there are five books of the Torah (though bonus points if that was your answer).
No, the number five comes from a teacher of mine named Parker Palmer. About ten years ago, he wrote a book called “Healing the Heart of Democracy.”
I love everything Parker writes, and this book is no exception. In it, he identifies five key things to remember as we try to make this amazing experiment of democracy work.
Over the next five episodes, we’re going to look at each of them one by one.
The first principle is this: To remember that we are all in this together. Palmer writes, “We must embrace the simple fact that we are dependent upon and accountable to one another, and that includes the stranger, the ‘alien other.’”
It can be easy to forget this. With our American ethos of rugged individualism, we can sometimes forget that we do depend on one another, that we’re accountable to each other.
We depend on our neighbors to obey the law, to play by the rules, to pay their taxes — just like they depend on us. We depend on our friends and community to help us when we’re in need, just like they depend on us.
We depend on so many people in defense, law enforcement, health care, education, the legal system, the postal system, food inspectors, and on and on, to keep all of us safe and well. None of us can do it alone. We depend on each other.
But we can sometimes forget that. Especially when we hold little devices in our hands that make us feel like we’re holding all the power in the world.
We can get disconnected. We can start to forget how profoundly interconnected we are. We can forget the meaning of “we,” the very first word of the U.S. Constitution. In the words of the poet Adrienne Rich, we can find ourselves “reduced to I.”
Seeing ourselves as part of a we isn’t just something that happens on its own. It actually requires our attention and our practice.
I think that’s actually a huge part of Jewish life. It’s a major lesson of the Torah. So many of the Torah’s mitzvot, our ritual observances, are about helping us remember our interconnection.
The Torah tells us to notice when our neighbor has lost something, and to return it. We’re commanded to help someone else when we see that their animal is buckling under the weight of a heavy burden — even if we don’t like that person so much.
The Torah tells us to share our wealth with the less fortunate, to open our hands to those in need.
Thirty-six times the Torah reminds us that we were persecuted strangers in the land of Egypt — and it pleads with us to therefore remember the strangers in our own midst.
And, of course, most famously, the Torah tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
All of which is to say that the Torah is all about this first habit of the heart of democratic life: Remembering that we’re all in this together.
Remembering that all of us are created b’tzelem elohim, in the Divine image. Remember that we’re endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights.
Remembering that, whenever we feel that pull to shrink into our own little world, we can’t really be “reduced to I.” “It is not good for people to be alone,” God says at the very beginning of the Torah. All the rest of the Torah might just be commentary on that line, an exploration of what it means to live together — as we.
So I want to offer you a meditation practice to help us all stay grounded and connected in this fundamental awareness of interconnection.
You can use it anytime — during election season or anytime, but especially when you might start to feel that sense that you’re not really connected to people who live or think differently than you do. At the end of the day, we are created in God’s image, we are all in this together.
Begin by assuming a meditation posture. Dignified. Aware. Awake but relaxed.
If it’s comfortable for you, you can soften your gaze or gently close your eyes. Start to deepen your breath. Allow your body to arrive. Allow your mind to settle.
Notice what’s supporting you — a chair, a cushion, a bed, the floor. Allow yourself to feel that support. It’s already a small way in which you’re not alone. You’re supported.
Now try to bring your attention to your breathing. Breathe deeply through the nose, and out through the mouth. With each exhalation, see if you can relax a little bit more.
And just be aware when you’re breathing in that you’re breathing in, and when you’re breathing out that you’re breathing out.
Now my invitation is to widen your awareness beyond your breath. Consider where the air you’re breathing comes from — the plant world.
The trees and flowers and plants give us this oxygen to breathe entirely free of charge. And we take that oxygen in and convert into carbon dioxide, which we then give back to them — also for free.
It’s this amazing interconnection, this cycle that goes back thousands, millions of years and that enables life to exist on the planet.
Every breath each of us takes is the latest in this web of interconnection — between plants, animals, bacteria, people, this extraordinary thing we call life on earth.
And while your existence and my existence in that web is unique and unprecedented, it’s also totally bound up with every part of creation. Not only I, but we.
So let’s sit here for one more minute and just allow our minds and our hearts to feel into that larger world of interconnection.
When you’re ready, if your eyes have been closed, gently open them–and take a look around. And see if you can feel that sense of interconnection a little bit more than you did before.
It’s not good for human beings to be alone. And we aren’t alone. We are all in this together. And if we can remember that and practice it every day, then we’ve taken a solid first step on the journey of living together in a democratic society.
Blessings for that journey. Know that I’m on it with you.