Lace on Race

The First Night of Hanukkah

“Tikkun olam has become a catchphrase for social justice in contemporary Jewish life—and for good reason. Our emphasis on repairing the world speaks to something centrally Jewish: our belief in human responsibility. Jewish worship isn’t just about contemplation or petition, it’s about action. We don’t just sit around believing in God, or asking God for things and having faith that it will all work out for the best. We are empowered and expected to act.”

8 NIGHTS, 8 JEWISH VALUES: REFLECTIONS FOR CHANUKAH ON THE JEWISH OBLIGATION TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD”

–Sarah Hurwitz

As Lace on Race walks surrounded by the fragrance of the season, we marvel at the flickering candle of the First Night of the Festival of Lights.

Each night, we will together consider portions of the essay by Sarah Hurwitz, and reflect upon how each of these values align with the values of racial justice. It is fitting indeed that this first night guides our minds to the concept of Tikkun Olam. We are here to repair the torn; to mend the rending.

It is indeed a responsibility. One that, if we are truly serious about our thirst for a changed world, cannot be shirked. If we are truly serious, it means we cannot just hope, or rather, cannot only hope. We cannot anticipate and hunger for a better world that we have no intention of helping to birth.

To accept this responsibility is sobering, even in the lightness; even in the dance of the flickering candle.

It is not enough to watch others stitch. Not enough to hold our breath and hope the seams made by millions of others in the flickering light of this First Night will hold.

No. For us to fully enter into the concept of Tikkun, we must each wield our needles. We must learn the skillful ways of the seamstress; how to mend without pucker, or warping, or, crucially, of further tearing of the world’s cloth.

As we strive to mend, we must take care to never, ever, create further harm.

We must see and acknowledge our place in the tapestry and enter deeply in, so deeply that we may not see the whole of the design, but still determine with whole heart to do our part, our portion of the whole, and trust that the pattern, buttressed by our own tiny, seemingly insignificant stitches will align with and enhance the whole.

The unique threads we have each been given is ours alone; we alone are responsible for them, and while we are free to hold on to our singular threads, and the tapestry will still hold beauty and truth without us, still we are not absolved from this hoarding should we decide not to contribute our portion. The tapestry may not be ultimately diminished, but we, tightly clutching onto our individual threads, certainly will be. We must never drop a stitch at the expense of those we stand with and on whose behalf we walk.

Sometimes it will not be pretty from our close up, yet so limited view. Our needles will sometimes prick; leaving our very blood as part of the tapestry, visceral reminders of the work we do. We do not hide it; it adds depth and heft.

So we walk, and we stitch, and we sustain with our own orange trees.

And another First Night ends.

Lace on Race Admin Staff

10 responses to “The First Night of Hanukkah”

  1. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    This is such a beautiful essay.

    “It is indeed a responsibility. One that, if we are truly serious about our thirst for a changed world, cannot be shirked.”

    This is what keeps me going, in the end. Knowing that I cannot want a better world and do nothing about it. In a way, it’s a fear of being a hypocrite – of talking about wanting something and yet doing nothing about it. But I’m trying to transform that fear into something deeper and less fragile. A strength drawn from that call instead.

    “We must see and acknowledge our place in the tapestry and enter deeply in, so deeply that we may not see the whole of the design, but still determine with whole heart to do our part, our portion of the whole, and trust that the pattern, buttressed by our own tiny, seemingly insignificant stitches will align with and enhance the whole.”

    I struggle with this so much. I want to be the savior, the leader. And yet I know that my time and energy is often best spent supporting those who are already leaders or who should be leaders because they are the ones most affected by injustice. I will keep this metaphor of the tapestry in mind next time I feel this way.

  2. Kerri Fowlie Avatar
    Kerri Fowlie

    And so begins my catch-up with Lace on Faith. The first night of Hannukah lesson is another beautiful metaphor. While I’m tempted to wrap myself in the luxury of the metaphor, I recognise that I have work to do with repairing the damage I have done to the cloth in jerking myself away from the cloth when I found myself pricked. Maybe I undid stitches which had been so lovingly and patiently taught, but I’m back, hopefully having learned a hard lesson about my own responsibility to be resilient and reliable as part of something much bigger and more important than myself.

  3. Vicki van den Eikhof Avatar
    Vicki van den Eikhof

    I wonder how many times I have done further harm when I thought I was repairing… I love the idea of weaving and sewing. These are traditionally women’s work. Although I don’t appreciate being boxed into certain ways of living because of my gender, I feel the weight of generations of women who have been weaving and sewing for millennia. I am looking forward to more of Lace on Faith. (cross-posted on FB)

  4. Jennifer Epstein Avatar
    Jennifer Epstein

    I, too, am discovering ways that the cultural practices and religious beliefs, and experiences, of my ancestors are coherent with the concepts being called upon in the racial justice movement. It feels like a stronger footing than I have had before, even as I’m just beginning to learn.

  5. Emily Holzknecht Avatar
    Emily Holzknecht

    *crossposted*
    Last night I was trying to attach freshly picked holly leaves (or something that looks like holly and grows as a volunteer in our garden) to a form of paper. I tried hot glue at first and the holly leaves kept popping off so I ended up sewing them on to the paper with a needle and thread. It was a somewhat painful process as the leaves poked me again and again, each time hurting more than I thought they should. I kept going though and got it done. This morning my fingers are still sore. I am reminded of the German fairytale written down by the Brothers Grimm called “The Six Swans”. There are many aspects of this fairytale that are unhelpful for the metaphor of mending a tapestry as healing the world including what could easily become white saviorism. The part I am thinking of, though, is that in The Six Swans, a young woman has to make six shirts out of nettles with her bare hands in order to mend what is torn in her corner of the world. Earlier in the month too I was mending a doll and even though this doll was made of soft materials – wool and cotton – my fingers still became sore from that work with the needle. If I were to do that work every day, I would no doubt develop calluses to protect my hands from the needle. With the holly leaves and with the doll-mending (and for the young woman sewing shirts from nettles), the work was enjoyable at times and it also hurt. I do not know if the nettle shirts were ever beautiful, but the doll and the holly leaves are. Beautiful and painful. Painful and I kept doing it anyway. And I think also in mending my part of the tapestry, I will sometimes experience discomfort or even pain. My fingers may still smart the following day and I will keep mending, keep walking. And maybe the callouses aren’t armor my body creates to protect me, but rather me growing up, holding my own hand through the uncomfortable parts of the work.

  6. Christin Spoolstra Avatar
    Christin Spoolstra

    “We are empowered and expected to act.”

    I’m thinking about Marlise’s article about the quilt and how we are in community together. And, yes, the tapestry will hold without us but that does not absolve us from hoarding our piece because we are both empowered and expected to partake in this mending. This acknowledgement includes a recognition of the damage we have done as well as our responsibility for the damage done also by others. We’re in this together.

    (crossposted)

  7. Michelle Wicks Cypher Avatar
    Michelle Wicks Cypher

    Such a beautiful piece of writing. What a gift. I love thinking about my work as part of a larger tapestry of work that we are all contributing to. I see this working in a world wide scale, but also here in this community. I tend to want to hide from the mistakes I make and the harm caused – but seeing the blood, and the repair and the work and how it all contributes to the whole. Hiding from the mistakes does not contribute to the whole – it only makes holes. When I recognize, name and own my mistakes, then I can work on the repair and careful repair to prevent further harm, and that contributes to a beautiful tapestry that we can all benefit from. (crossposted to FB)

  8. Christina Sonas Avatar
    Christina Sonas

    I have been thinking a lot about my pagan-European, Greco-Roman, and Judeo-Christian heritages since our recent conversations around appropriation. This piece affirms that there is much in my own background that is coherent to my ethos and my praxis. I too have a foundational belief in human responsibility, something that, in these harsh days of renewed lockdown, is struggling for purchase among the hyper-individualisms of USAn nationalism and capitalism. I can strive always to keep my part of the tapestry in restoration, and encourage others to do the same. My ethos and my praxis can be strong and coherent, and when I come to the candles in community with others, together we can make a foothold, for racial justice and for a better world.

  9. Rebecca McClinton Avatar
    Rebecca McClinton

    It took a sewing class a couple years ago, walked in with my machine and said ‘I have no idea what to do with this!’ I think I thumped and clomped into racial justice work much this way and am still learning how to thread my bobbin, and do the very basics. If I don’t have the basics down the whole piece will fall apart (with which I have some experience). And I have to keep acting/working on it to make that happen. I love the emphasis here on stitches carefully placed not rushed through, and each thread, valuable, not sitting on a shelf collecting dust. While it might feel thrilling for a second to work my sewing machine full throttle, taking all those stitches out to make them straight is a bummer! I also thought of a Lace on Race quilt, and how cool it would be to make you one, Lace, each walker contributing a square (though I need to work on my sewing skills some more first!).
    *crossposted to facebook*

  10. Rhonda Eldridge Avatar
    Rhonda Eldridge

    Combining “We must never drop a stitch at the expense of those we stand with and on whose behalf we walk.” and “Sometimes it will not be pretty from our close up, yet so limited view.” Reminds me that I have no right to take out time to try and ‘look good’ to ‘look perfect’ which is my cultural habit. There is no time. There is too much work to do. Too many ways white people harm black and brown people that need to mitigate. Time to drop ‘wanting it to be pretty from up close’.

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