I’m just about rallied out.
Last week I had an impromtu rally with two friends on the beach in Chicago. Three people probably doesn’t make a rally, but it gave me time to talk and pray with friends. And for me, a chance to sing Oseh Shalom.
Then on Monday I went to the Chicago Israel Solidarity Rally. I wrote about it at my home blog–moving, hot, and very polite.
Today I’m in DC for work and took my lunch hour to attend the DC Israel Solidarity Rally. I have to say, I’m all rallied out, I really am.
I came, I saw, I tried to listen, I nearly passed out in the heat. I walked around, I made a mental note of the organizations that showed up, the number of kippoted vs. bare headed men. The black hats and the baseball hats. The birthright t-shirts, hillel t-shirts, tel aviv one t-shirts, the f-ing Jews for Jesus t-shirts. I even ran into a guy from Chicago–I didn’t know him, but we schmoozed a little.
So why am I rallied out? Yeah, it is great to see Jews feeling good about being Jews and loving Israel. (and all be secretly relieved that our trip to Israel was last month and that we live here, so safe and sound.)
It is the rhetoric. I cringe when any speaker starts using soundbites. If Jews are one thing, it isn’t soundbite deliverers. Come on–we have the Talmud, you think we should be delivering soundbites? I don’t want to hear easy labels slapped onto enemies. I don’t want the terms good and evil tossed around like either is easy to define.
I also cringed when a rabbi today spoke about there being no room in heaven for murderers. Kind of saying that if the Islamic Terrorists think they are gonna get into heaven by being a martyr, well they have another thing coming.
Um, Rabbi. Those are their beliefs, not ours. That is why we are Jews and they are Islam. (Not the sole reason, but it is a theological difference.) I was uncomfortable to listen to a rabbi judge their religion by Jewish standards. Belief in heaven and martyrdom makes no sense to me, but if that is your faith, I have to consider that paradigm.
Does that make any sense?
We go to rallies to hear people say things we already believe or closely believe, not to learn anything. We go to see and be seen–there is some judgement there. “I didn’t see you at the rally today.” We go to express solidarity with Israel, but wouldn’t it be better expressed with our wallets and our feet?
It is a challenge I’m facing, I want to stand up and be counted. So do I just go to the rally to get the numbers up? To make myself feel better? To work on my tan?
Why did you go to a rally? Why didn’t you go? How are you showing solidarity with Israel?
Nothing is simple these days, lucky for us, the Shema is just six words. That is, in my humble opinion, our mission statement and at least we have that.
i’m going to offer two contradictory statements…
first, let me allay your concerns with encouragement and confirm that yes indeed, three people making a stand is as good as a hundred. good job.
second, let me confirm your worst concerns — most protest speeches are made of soundbites, and public advocacy movements inexorably evolve into pat, community circle-jerks. around this acretes a thich crust of self-rightiousness, protecting the soft group-think inside.
as someone who spent a couple of years organizing street demonstrations from the pov of the american center-right, i experienced this as, “good lord, i’m really just a bizzarro commie, imposing my harsh “pedagogy” on people who just want to go past me on the north ave ped bridge.”
still, its important that voices for republics and liberty, and the rights of liberal republics to defend themselves, is worth getting “out there” in whatever numbers possible.
Jummy-
Thanks for stopping by and for your contradicting comments. I won’t stop going, but I think I’ll go a bit more tempered than I have in the past.
Nothing will be as powerful as my first rallies… I was 20 on the “lawn” of the white house–does it get any better?
Leah