For Some Things There Are No Wrong Seasons
I had a plan this week, to weave the complicated and problematic language we find in the Torah into a metaphor about the ebbs and flows of the Jewish people's eternal fight for social justice. But then I put off writing this for a few days, and I read the news instead, and it became harder and harder to talk about embracing new perspectives, or waiting out the seasonal flows of our fight for social justice, when we seem to eternally stuck in this cycle of violence.
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I had a plan this week, with everything going on in the world, to weave the complicated and problematic language we find in this week’s Torah portion—Emor—into a metaphor about the ebbs and flows in the Jewish people’s eternal fight for social justice, about how our tradition makes room both for the complicated language we find and our reactions to that language I wanted to bring in a favorite Talmudic quote of mine for dealing with problematic text, from the guy with the funny name, Ben Bag Bag. “Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it,” and the Ecclesiastes quote that Pete Seeger put to music and The Byrds made famous.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven:
A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted;
A time for slaying and a time for healing, A time for tearing down and a time for building up;
A time for weeping and a time for laughing, A time for wailing and a time for dancing;
A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces;
A time for seeking and a time for losing, A time for keeping and a time for discarding;
A time for ripping and a time for sewing, A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.
And, in this plan of mine to talk about the struggle for social justice, I finished with a quote from Mary Oliver–a favorite poet of mine, from her poem “Hurricane,” first published in 2012. “For some things there are no wrong seasons.”
The idea was that while victories in the fight for social justice, and justice itself can feel seasonal, so to speak. They come at times when the public consciousness is awakened enough to a challenge that might have existed for generations, and when the political winds favor the type of change needed to address such systemic problems. So while it seemed last week like justice, especially for Black people in America, was coming back in season, I wanted to remind us all that there are some things that should always be in season.
But I put off writing this for a few days, and in that time a man died in Alameda, CA after police pinned him to the ground for several minutes. Meantime, in North Carolina, the family of Andrew Brown, Jr. released the results of their independent autoposy, which found Brown died from a gunshot to the back of the head.
According to the Chicago Tribute, six people across the country were fatally shot by police, all under different circumstances, in the 24 hours immediately after jurors declared Derrick Chauvin guilty on all counts of murdering George Floyd.
It’s hard to talk about embracing new perspectives, or waiting out the seasonal flows of our fight for social justice, when we seem to eternally stuck in this cycle of violence. Isaiah Brown, a Black man from Virginia, is in critical condition in the hospital right now, after being shot by police responding to a 911 call he himself made. He was shot at least 10 times by the same sheriffs deputy who, in the cruelest twist imaginable, had generously given Isaiah Brown a ride home less than an hour earlier, when he found Brown stranded with a broken down car. He was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher when he was shot, and the deputies who responded mistook the phone for a gun.
In their iconic response to police violence against communities of color, especially in Los Angeles where they lived, the rap group NWA even simulated a police raid during the recording of their song “Fuck the Police.” It’s an amazing song, and like the rest of the album it reflects the daily experiences of Black people in America. The album, Straight Outta Compton, was first released in 1988, and it’s as relevant today as it’s ever been.
…got it bad ‘cause I’m brown / And not the other color so police think ? They have the authority to kill a minority,” says Ice Cube in the opening verse of “Fuck the Police”
“Fuck that shit, ‘cause I ain’t the one / For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun / To be beatin’ on, and thrown in jail.”
“Fuckin with me ‘cause I’m a teenager / With a little bit of gold and a pager /Searchin’ my car, lookin’ for the product / thinking every [Black man] is selling narcotics. You’d rather see me in the pen / Than me and Lorenzo rollin’ in the Benzo.” I paraphrased that last line a bit, to avoid saying a word I’d rather not say.
I’m sure there are people listening to this right now who have never heard an N.W.A. song, or at the very least haven’t listen to Straight Outta Compton in years. I was a kid the first time I heard it, and it was the beats and production that drew me in, more than words I didn’t understand. But those words are worth repeating, especially this week.
Systemic racism is real, and there’s no better statistic to express that truth than this one. According to the New York Times, in the three weeks Derrick Chauvin was on trial for the murder of George Floyd at least 64 people in the United States were fatally shot by police, more than 3 deaths a day, and more than half of them were Black or Latinx.
There is a time and a season for everything, as our tradition teaches us, and yet there are somethings—like justice—that should be perennially in season. The drive to pursue social justice is deeply rooted in Judaism and Jewish life, but racism is a systemic problem in the United States, just like anti-Semitism is in Europe, which means there are days when the forces that resist our pursuit of a better world push back with hurricane force.
Which brings me back to Mary Oliver, and a poem she wrote later in her life, published in a book titled 1,000 Mornings.
It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.
I can’t change the weather, but I can bring an umbrella, and I can bend my body to walk forward into the wind, and I can hold hands with my friends who are trying to do the same so I can help them and they can help me.
So, like Dr. Dre says in “Express Yourself,” N.W.A’s updated sample of the classic 1970 single of the same name by Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band,
“When you got a subject and a predicate / Add it on a dope beat, and it’ll make you think”
Shabbat Shalom
