Inner reflections, Divrei Torah and Growth in Spirituality

Good evening. Last week a group that I had guided in Poland earlier this year took advantage of the fact that we were in North America and brought Tovi and I to Boston for a few days. We used much of that time to visit interesting places . On day three we went to the African American History Museum housed in the building that was the first public school for African Americans in Boston.

As a veteran diaspora Jewish educator it interested me to try to understand whether this public school was a place to nurture, develop and impart the traditions that the slaves and free men had brought over from west Africa, or a place where African Americans were taught the general American culture. The answer was largely the latter. What seems to have remained from the rich culture and traditional values that they brought with them from Africa was an interactive participatory style of prayer and traditional dishes.

This observation lead me to consider that civil rights was somewhat of a disaster for African Americans. It was too solely focused on the abstract human rights and political equality of theoretical human beings. Not the validation of different cultures and values and the empowering of disparate groups in society to make their unique contribution to the overarching whole.

That left people theoretically equal and free members of the general American society, without either a deep integration into the largely white Protestant values of that society; or a validation and assertion of their own native values and traditions.

This could be seen as a major contributing factor to the crisis of values law and morality in American inner cities.

I know that this might not be politically correct, but not only does it seem intuitively valid, but it also reflects essential Jewish values.

The exodus from Egypt was not merely a process of liberation from external domination and control – providing a greater sense of agency and self determination. It was not only freedom from Egyptian domination but freedom to develop a uniquely Jewish relationship to God and the universe. A unique understanding and appreciation of reality; a sense of partnership with God in תקון עולם; and a challenge to work towards universal redemption through focusing on individual and collective moral and spiritual perfection.

We need to strive to empower and validate all, with true human freedom; rather than narrowly focusing on brittle and one dimensional human rights.

With much love from icy Canada