What We Still Have Right Now

The terms "left wing politics" and "right wing politics" originate from France. The left wing of the French National Assembly supported revolution, democracy, republicanism, and secularization. The right wing of the French National Assembly supported the status quo, monarchy, religion, and the divine right for a few to rule above the rest. These days, as my sister Jess put it to me, the right is the group that wins on fear, and the left is the group that wins on hope.

I don't think I have much hope left anymore. I feel too numb to fear. The left feels thoroughly crushed in America, and the consequences will be felt internationally. I have no hope, no fear, no grief, no plan, no panic, no strategy, no certainty, no faith, no confidence in much at all. I have despair, and the tingling pins and needles of numbness everywhere throughout.

At this time, I am remembering the words of Rabbi Ariana Katz in her sermon Chesed to the End:

All we have control over is the work of our hands. Instead of seeking to fight back the forces we cannot overcome, let us care for one another as we ride it. Releasing control feels foreign, wrong. But we are called in this season, I believe, to admit it. [...] What we can control, what is not hypothetical, is mutual aid and care, and the skills to look after one another as the world ends. I share this not because how we care for one another can take control over our collapsing fates. I think I might have believed that a few years ago, back before a global pandemic. But now, after all we have witnessed together, all the loss in our own lives, in our city and world, I know that I was wrong.

And just as our care for one another cannot save the world, our care for one another cannot save each other. But we can accompany one another. If the world ends this year, I don’t want us to be alone. If the world ends this year, I want to witness it alongside you. If the world ends this year, I want to take care of one another to the end.

I recommend reading the entire sermon. I believe it is a good use for your time, and you may find it to be healing.

Today, I am seeing people who have been friends, lovers, comrades, and coworkers–for years and even decades–lash out at one another. Who was too stupid to have hope in voting. Who was too stupid to not vote. Which minority group is to blame? I sat through a a ninety-minute transgender people in the workplace sensitivity training taught by the most visible Black trans woman in our city and trans coworkers lashed out at her, demanding to know how we would be kept safe when Trump regains the presidency. She had no answers for them, except that nothing yet has changed regarding the anti-discrimination laws in our city. I wrote her a thank-you letter, apologizing on behalf of my co-workers. She could not have been doing well today, and she did not deserve to receive the ire. All day, she has been fielding emails from scared trans people rushing to seek what they need now before it is not available anymore.

I have decided to extend universal amnesty to everyone. No matter how nasty you are today, or no matter if I was on the opposing side from you on how to handle the election, or no matter how nasty I was to you, I will not refuse you my support. I will refuse to hold against you anything.

One thing certainly has not changed: We can still be kind to one another. We can still care for one another. We can still extend chesed to each other–loving kindness. The communities and social bonds we have are the thing we still have right now that cannot be taken from us. I will not allow them to be destroyed by our despair.

I had my moments of being bitter and nasty too. I am going to try my best to halt. The people I know, fundamentally, are not the people at fault. Even if they were, it is too late for that to matter. They are the people who I have and right now the most important thing is to cherish them. Many of them are still being bitter, nasty, and even self-destructive and I will just try not to engage and let them do their thing. If it's targeted at me individually, I will try not to escalate it. If they are being self-destructive, I will at least to firmly make sure they know I am not leaving and if they need anything I am still here.

I don't think I can sway an election, organize an army, end a war, or reverse climate change. But I can be kind–I think. I hope I can be kind. I want to be nice to the people I interact with day to day. Not just to my friends and the people like me, but to everyone. I remember in 2020 when even in work meetings people would ask "how are you holding up?" I want to bring that back. We are all humans together in a shared place. Can we be kind and caring to each other?

Many of my friends are "making the rounds" as it were, checking in on every person they know making sure everyone is safe and nobody is suicidal. I don't know if I have it in me to be one of the people doing this right now. I am getting a bit worn from typing "I am numb" in response to every check-in. But this is a good thing to do, I think, if you are looking for something to do. Check in on the people you care about. Touch the bonds and make sure people know they are there.

I may be numb, dissociating, and self-isolating just a little. But I will take a breath before I speak, and try at the very least to avoid being snarky, harsh, or cruel. We are minorities, within minorities, within minorities. I will try my best to regard as many others as I can as my people.

There is a concept called Ahavat Yisrael. Love of Israel, in this context meaning other Jews. The idea is to regard every other Jew you meet with love and to consider them as family. I don't think, with what is going on in Gaza, that I can say I have much Ahavat Yisrael right now. But I would like to try to have, if not Ahavat HaOlam–love of the world, then at least Ahavat Feygeles–love of little birds, also translated as love of faggots. Love of freaks. Love of queers, fruits, trannies, and weirdos. Ahavat Ha'Am Sheli. Love of my people. Autistic people. Disabled people. People in my workplace. People in my city. I want to find a thing shared between us and regard you as my people and hold you in our small little boat with love and kindness and care. The older generations of LGBTQ people would ask "are you family?" to know who is one of us. I want to try, as well as I can, to regard other LGBTQ people as family, in every messy sticky meaning of the word. I want to try, in whatever ways that work, to see everyone who once held hope for a better world as a cousin, weeping and in pain, whether they still find the faith to fuel their fight, or whether like me they are burnt out and grieving the times when it felt like we could really win.

I have come to regard anarchism as a religion. One that I respect, like Quakerism, but a religion which is not mine. Marxism has scientific components that I believe in, but to many it is clearly their religion too, more-so than a proper tool of historical analysis. I don't think that it is new for people to behave this way with political ideology. I think religion and politics have always been intertwined even when people insist that they are not. The stateless society is Olam HaBa–the "world to come" that will always be only after we have died. The world we fight to make possible for our descendants, but not because we truly believe that we will ever see it. It is not scientific or strategic–it is a matter of faith.

Faith is the choice to believe in the irrational. Faith is knowing all evidence is against you, and choosing to believe anyway. Faith is a type of fuel that hope can come from. Hope is the fuel of victory for the left. I am struggling, right now, with my faith. I hope, in time, to restore it. I cannot, in this moment, tell you that everything will be okay. I cannot tell you that there is still a way to win for the left or which political strategy will get us there.

But I can tell you this: We don't have to be assholes to each other while we work to find hope again. We can choose to nurture and nourish each other while we recover. Fear is the fuel of victory for the right. The best way to fight our fears is to know that we do not face them alone. If you feel like you are walking a tightrope and you are going to fall: You will be less afraid if you lean into tightening your safety nets and setting yourself up to catch others when you can.

What we still have is us. We have our bonds. Don't them it burn in our despair. I am not a very warm person. I will try to be warmer for you. I am bad at reaching out, but I will try to reach out more. To my people, here in Philly, please do reach out to me if you have something you need. We have chesed, and each other, and I hope, beyond hope, that from there we can grow the seeds of hope again.