We are living in very tense and trying times. I serve an online community called Secular Synagogue for cultural and secular Jews looking for Jewish connection and community. Like many other Jewish communities, our folks have been struggling with division and discord around Israel/Palestine, the impacts of Trump’s policies, antisemitism, and many other current issues. In hard times, it can be easy to give up, to let despair take over, to shrink. But there is another way.
Recently in a meeting, someone said to me, “We need to bloom where we are planted.” By that, she meant: We might not like where we are, but given that we are here, we’d better do our best to make it good. It reminded me of the Leonard Cohen lyric from his song “Democracy,” which I’ve had on repeat lately:
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet.
Jews are known as the “stiff-necked” people. We can be stubborn. We refuse to bow down to false idols (well, the best of us do). We make things beautiful, wherever we find ourselves.
When trying to connect with my community about all of the grief and fear and pain we are holding on a recent Shabbat, I wanted to encourage a way to move forward, in spite of how hard things are. I shared how in 2016, after Trump first became President, I started wishing away time. I acted as though I could put my head down for four years and survive something. But four years later was… 2020–not a good year, you may remember. And lockdowns. And fighting over vaccines and masks. And then just as all that was starting to ease? October 7th and more than a year of horror. And now here we are again with a Trump presidency. There is no hiding out until it’s all better. We are here, now. Our life is here, now. And our job is to make it beautiful. (Thank you, Maggie Smith).
You know what else has happened since 2016? My kids, at the time a toddler and a newborn, have grown into the most amazing people. I have seen amazing places, oceans and mountains that remind me how beautiful our shared home really is. My community of Secular Synagogue was born and has blossomed, alongside so many other dynamic and life-affirming expressions of Jewish life nurtured through Clal. We have had political wins. We have laughed and loved; created and connected. We have been perfectly imperfectly humans right here, this whole time.
I know your heart is likely hurting now. Mine too. It is overwhelming how callous and unkind and, well, evil people can be. We aren’t going to win every fight but neither do we get to sit it out. Don’t wish away your one wild and precious life. (Thank you, Mary Oliver).
Let’s be stubborn. Brave. Make beauty right here, right now. If you bake challah, fold love and care into the strands and braid it for a sick friend. If you make music, dedicate a song to your hurting or scared neighbours. Whatever it is you have to offer, we need it now.
In Megillat Esther, which we read at Purim, Mordecai says to Esther, who is facing the daunting task of standing up to a tyrant and saving her people, “Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.” This is our time. We are here to repair the world and the world needs us now.
I am like you. I have no magical powers or crystal ball to be able to tell how any of what is happening in the world will turn out. I can only cry, and write letters, and sing protest songs, and reach out and say “I love you.” Just like any and all of us can. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
All of this to say, you deserve to make your life good now. Don’t wait. We have no idea how long we have. Enjoy the long dinners. Go for those walks. Visit the art museum. Call that friend for a chat. Revel in leisure and the pleasures of being human. Bloom in the place you are planted.
Rabbi Denise Handlarski is the creator and spiritual leader of the online community Secular Synagogue and the author of the book The A-Z of Intermarriage. She was ordained by the Secular Humanistic Jewish movement. In addition, Denise is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, Trent University, Canada. She teaches courses in history and social justice education, particularly gender studies and anti-racist education, for the B.Ed. and M.Ed. programs, while also leading the School of Education well-being program, and Sex Education Alternative Settings Placement. Having served as the M.Ed. Director and B.Ed. Coordinator, Denise’s research areas include: spirituality and community in education, sex education, well-being and education, Jewish studies, and birth/motherhood studies. In 2022 she led a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada on Jewish Responses to the Loneliness Epidemic. Denise is also a certified labour/birth doula.