Listening to people, hearing who they are and the stories that have shaped them, is one of the greatest privileges I get as a rabbi. Long before I decided on this path, I was blessed to be involved in community justice work as an organizer. My job was to meet people, discover what they needed and what was important to them, and help train them to take an active role in their community.
Over the years, I have had the good fortune of training hundreds of leaders, but over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about one leader in particular. Sarah (not her real name) came to this country as a young adult. She was a mother of two amazing, energetic kids, and an active member of her church, which had newly joined our coalition of faith groups. I was recruiting members at a service at her church and she was interested in meeting people and getting more involved in the community.
After talking with her for just an hour, hearing about her life and her passion for making her slice of the world just a little bit better, I knew I had found an incredible leader. So, I invited her to be a part of a leadership team that would be meeting with the mayor of Boston in a few weeks. Her reaction was swift and incredulous: “Who am I to meet with the mayor?!” And in that moment, without thinking, I simply responded, “You are someone who cares, someone with hope, someone who sees what is wrong and wants to make things better for the people around you.”
Sarah went on to become an impactful leader in our network of Boston-area religious organizations working for community justice. She rallied other leaders to get a streetlight put in at a dangerous intersection where multiple pedestrians were struck every month, forcing everyone in her community to pay attention. Sometimes, I check in on Sarah to see what she is doing on social media. She’s still leading and is a beacon of hope in the fight for a more just world. I smile at how the short time we trained and worked together over twenty years ago set her on a path that is still sending ripples of hope out into the world.
The Jewish tradition has a lot to say about putting good things out into the world. The great Mishnaic sage Hillel, speaking to us from Pirkei Avot, gives us two strong admonitions in two back-to-back teachings:
Hillel said, “Do not separate yourself from the community… (Pirkei Avot 2:4)
And in a place where there are no [upstanding] people, endeavor to be [an upstanding] person.” (Pirkei Avot 2:5)
Literally, Hillel says that “in a place where there are no people, try to be a person,” but we often translate the Hebrew word “
(ish)” here not as “a person,” but as a mensch. If you aren’t familiar, mensch is a fascinating Yiddish word. While it does literally mean “a man” or “a person,” we use it to mean an upstanding person, someone who exemplifies the highest standards of moral character.
Looking at the world today, it can seem as though menschen are in short supply. Everyday, we are presented with a grim and gruesome picture of our society. People hate others who don’t look, talk, think, pray, or live like them. We are constantly demonizing each other, to the point where we have deputized federal officers lifting people from their cars, their homes, their schools, and right off the streets because of how they look or speak or act. After reading the news, I often find myself deflated, angry, saddened, and hopeless.
And then I think about Sarah.
I think about coming to an entirely new place and embracing it as your home.
I think about what it took to be a working mother who took time to advocate for her needs and the needs of her community.
I think about being so in love with this country that you would give whatever time and energy you had left after work and kids and the craziness of your day, in order to learn how to make life a little better for the people around you.
I think about how she was able to find, within herself, the spark of passion that helped turn her slice of community into a hotbed of activism that put in streetlights, repaved roads, voted out incompetent leaders, and helped pass sweeping healthcare reforms.
Sarah showed me what it is to refuse to distance yourself from the community, to jump in with your whole self and to make the needs of those around you as essential to living as your own. She was someone who modeled for me what it is to endeavor to be a good person in a place where there were not good people, and to make a difference even if all seems lost.
When I think about sustaining my own hope throughout trying times, I remember Sarah and think, “Where can I be a mensch? Where can I be an upstanding person? Where can I spread even the smallest bit of light?”
Maybe you can log off social media and call a friend in need. Maybe you can fight the scourge of antisemitism by bringing other people in and sharing the joy you have in celebrating your Jewish life. Maybe you can stand with your community as they fight against unfair laws, biased practices, unethical treatment, or harmful rhetoric. Maybe you can put your body between someone with power and someone less fortunate than yourself.
However you feel you can add light to the world, do it. Find those people who revitalize you, and draw them close. Look for those people who need your help, and give it without hesitation. Grab onto those wins, big and small, that fan the embers of your hope. Because you never know what warmth the light of your hope might bring to your community.
Wherever you find yourself, be a mensch.