Parshat Balak. To Bless or To Curse (and why I have decided not to celebrate July 4th)

This week's parashah/portion is Balak (Bamidbar/Numbers 22:2-25:9).  In this narrative, Balak, king of Midian, hires the magician Bilaam to curse the Israelites. However, Bilaam tells Balak that he may only utter words provided to him by God. 

Three times Bilaam tries to curse the Israelites.  No matter where he stands or what he is ordered to do, he may only utter the words which are placed in his mouth by God.  His final  utterance curse is instead a blessing: “How good are your tents Jacob; your dwellings Oh Israel.” These words are the ones with which the traditional morning service begins every day.     

To bless or to curse? That was the question. Balak desperately wanted the Israelites to be cursed. Still, all Bilaam could do was bless the beauty of the Israelite camp. Yet, I wonder  what the camp was really like. Was it all beauty, peace and harmony, as the blessing suggests? Or perhaps, based on the Israelites' history of bickering and complaining, was it a place of utter chaos? Or was it simply a bit of both? Things are rarely so clear. Yet, in the end it didn’t matter what the situation was on the ground, nor what Balak wanted Bilaam to do, or even what Bilaam himself may have wanted to do. The only thing that mattered was what God told Bilaam to do.

Today I feel a bit like Bilaam, though in a more conflicted way. I am looking out on a land struggling with illness, afraid of it’s future, and reckoning with it’s past and I don’t know whether to bless or curse what I see. Some moments I want to curse. I want to rail at those who are risking their own lives, and the lives of others, by ignoring the rules and regulations concerning the wearing of masks and social distancing simply because they think only about themselves, they believe it is a hoax, or they simply don’t care. Yet, at the same time I want to bless those who are suffering from Covid-19 or have lost loved ones, as well as the overburdened first responders and everyone who is struggling with unemployment, depression, uncertainty, and fear.

I am also looking down upon a land where people of all races, creeds, sexual orientations, gender identities, and more are marching together for justice. We are protesting together. We are challenging the status quo together. We are shouting as loudly as possible the simple truth that “Black Lives Matter.” We are protesting to bring an end to our unjust police system, prison industrial complex, and to the effects of white privilege and white supremacy. I want to bless all who are protesting and working for justice. I want to bless their holy work. For I believe they are doing what God wants all of us to do (because it's what brings justice and goodness to our world)! 

This holy work is desperately needed because we live in a land where racism is not just “something that happens to people,” but it is one of the foundations of our government and our society. And so, we fight and we remember. We protest in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, Atatiana Jefferson, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, and all the other Black Americans who been murdered by police or by fellow citizens because of the color of their skin. We are protesting and marching not only because of them, but because of the legacies and history of Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney, and Emmett Till, most of whom were killed because they were black, and some because they were trying to be allies in in the fight for civil rights.

Because of their legacies, as well that of countless others, in memory and in honor of the 4000 blacks murdered by lynching, who are remembered at the National Monument for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL, people are marching. People are protesting and demanding change. After 401 years of living in a country where Black people were treated first as property, then as less-than-human, and then simply as expendable, change is long overdue. And those of us who see ourselves as white, or who are seen as white, must both accept our responsibility for perpetuating an unjust system and do our best to dismantle it.

It is our duty to march and to act to end systemic racism. Or we must do what we can by talking to and teaching others, contacting our senators and representatives. Otherwise we are simply helping to maintain the status quo. To paraphrase Ibram X Kendi in his essential book How to be Anti-Racist, if we are not actively being anti-racist then we are de facto being racist. If we are not actively fighting against our racist system in some way, large or small, then we are ultimately supporting it. 

And so the dilemma for me is that I want to bless and celebrate all those who are marching and protesting, while still cursing the systemic racism, police brutality, and white supremacy that make the protests necessary. This conflict is coming to a head because this Shabbat is July 4th, "Independence Day."

This day is celebrated in the United States because according to the national mythology our ancestors were freed from British tyranny and created a new country based on the principle that “all men are created equal.” And yet, we know that is a lie. Only the chosen ones were truly freed from tyranny. Only white male landowners were seen as truly being created equal, even though we read in Genesis that all human beings were indeed created in the image of God. Black slaves, women, indigenous peoples, and others were not treated as equals.

Due to this conflict I, as someone who presents as a "White man" related to Bilaal. I imagine many of us do. For our the force of everything labeled "history" that we've learned since childhood, as well as what our “leaders,” are telling us today is telling us that this is a day to bless and celebrate. Yet, when I look around me today, and when I think about true history, all I want to do is curse! I want to yell, I want to scream and I want to call for justice. I do not want to celebrate or bless. However, unlike Bilaam, I am not limited to one option. I can both celebrate and scorn, bless and curse. 

Yet, the Fourth of July remains problematic since, by celebrating the original founding, we are also celebrating its unequal treatment of African Americans, women, and others. I cannot truly celebrate this day for, as the great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer stated “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Or as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” Too many people are still not free and there is still too much injustice in our country and our world. And so my role is not to celebrate, but to work for change and to help teach others who are still unable to see the injustice and inequity that is at the root of our nation's history.

Personally, I would prefer celebrating Juneteenth, since it was the day when legalized slavery of African American ended in all states. Yet, as a white man I don’t feel that is my holiday to celebrate, since white America has kept blacks oppressed in many other subtle and insidious ways long after June 19, 1865. This continues today thanks to the abuses of our injust policing and prison systems, both of which have direct historical links to white Americans’ treatment of black Americans after “emancipation” (I recommend the documentary 13th on Netflix for a more detailed explanation). 

This morning on National Public Radio I heard someone talking about observing July 5th, as this was the day when the Declaration of Independence was signed and the day when famed abolitionist, politician, and activist Frederick Douglass, once enslaved himself, delivered a speech in Rochester, NY entitled "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" There is also a moving video of some of Frederick Douglass's descendants reciting excerpts from that speech, as well as commenting on today's reality.

His speech he began, “Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age...[Though] the point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….”                                                             

He then points out the hypocrisy of the “founding fathers”. He continues, "…Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

 “... such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..."

With his renowned passion and eloquence Douglass too is like Bilaam, but in reverse. There he stands looking down on the land of his birth, the land of his enslavement, and the land of his freedom. He is told to utter a blessing in his praise of the founding fathers, who achieved an almost superhuman feat. He does just this. However, more importantly, he then curses the inequality and the racism that has forbidden him from being able to truly rejoice and celebrate what white people call “Independence Day.” 

Douglass may have spoken these words in 1852, but his words ring just as true today. For me, they are a call to us that we must dedicate ourselves as not only allies of the Black community, but as fighters who are dedicated to equality and to anti-racism.

For myself, as someone who could celebrate July 4th, and who has done so in the past, I choose not to this year. For I truly believe I cannot be free if everyone is not free. I cannot be free if I am in any way complicit in the system that oppresses others. The Torah teaches numerous times that we are not to oppress others because we knew oppression as slaves in Egypt. That means not only directly oppressing others, but supporting oppressive structures in any way.

I urge all of us who are seen as white, or see ourselves as white, to take stock and to consider rejecting the celebration. And even if you do decide to celebrate the day in some way, make it different than in the past. Take some time to learn more about racism, white privilege, and white supremacy in our society. Take at least one action to show that you know that Black lives matter. Go to a march. Make a donation. Watch or read something that educates you. Though it may seem trite, post something meaningful and challenging on social media to teach about the realities of the day and of our times. Social media is a powerful tool, for better or for worse. If I didn't think that, I wouldn't have taken the time to write this blog post. And so, let us use it for better, since so many others are using it for worse.

On this Shabbat, let us each see ourselves as descendants of Bilaam, poised to do what we have been told and what we have been taught, but instead choosing to do what we know is right.

Let us listen to the voice of God, the voice of conscience, the voice of justice, the voice of freedom. Let us bless and celebrate that which deserves to be blessed and celebrated, and let us curse and denounce that which does not deserve our blessing.

Always being willing to push yourself beyond your comfort zone as well. Find a way to commemorate July 5th, the speech of Frederick Douglass, with its call for justice, equality, and an end to racism, as well as its criticisms of our nation. Perhaps you can read the speech aloud with others (with social distancing, of course) or find some other way to remember the mandate Douglass has given us.

Then, on July 6th,  let us continue the work together so that one July 4th in the future together. For on that day we will be able to look our upon our country and see an America where “liberty and justice” is truly “for all” and which is dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are created equal and treated as such.

Shabbat Shalom.