A wish this Rosh Hashanah

I have started to write a post several times over these past few weeks. But every time I start one, something else happens, my urgency is redirected, my heart hurts about something new, and my thoughts are completely tangled. Admittedly, that is part of the Trump administration’s strategy — flood us with so much horrific news that we can’t organize ourselves to take meaningful action. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impacted by this, at times feeling utterly overwhelmed by the awfulness of it all. Since I haven’t managed to complete a coherent post on this site for a few weeks now, I am going to attempt to untangle a few thoughts now. It seems appropriate to do so as mere hours separate us from Rosh Hashanah, a time of not just marking the new year but also for taking stock.

So here is my effort to take stock of my jumbled head and overwhelmed heart.

Ultimately, the theme of every post I have started and failed to complete is about centering safety. For me safety is the foundation, the guiding principle, and the North Star. Safety is both what drives the immediacy of my work and serves as my aspirational goal. The constant question I ask myself is whether a policy/practice/politician will work to keep people safe. People rail against political litmus tests but I’d suggest this is a pretty damn good one. If you are not offering something that makes people safer and communities stronger, pass me by. And if what you’ve got only provides more safety to those who already have the most access to it, you’re missing the whole point. Taking it even further, if your concern only extends to those in your community and in turn sacrifices the safety of other communities, then I don’t even know what to say.

My wish for this Rosh Hashanah is for more of us to center safety. To call out the things that are costumed as public safety but actually cause great harm to real people. To see the trauma of others and not turn our backs to it. To commit to the safety of all communities, not just those who look, think, and talk like us. To understand that our individual safety is impossible without communal safety.

This Rosh Hashanah comes at a time when our neighbors are being disappeared and cities militarized. Where our government finds money to build sprawling detention centers that cage people who dare to be born in another country, but can’t find any money to build affordable housing for those who dare to need it. We live in a country where someone got run over on a highway trying to escape being abducted by ICE and a 13 year old girl went missing after her mother failed to escape that fate. This week House Republicans passed a bill to allow D.C.’s 14 year olds to be tried as adults while funding is slashed to the programs that help teens from getting caught up in violence. And a few weeks ago Trump threatened a federal takeover of Boston’s South Station to deal with crime and homelessness. But this week Boston’s Health Care for the Homeless had to close some of its programs due to cuts in federal funding. In this country programs for students of color are deemed to be biased against white people because of their focus on race but the Supreme Court green lights focusing on race for ICE abductions. We exist in a world of exquisitely painful irony and cognitive dissonance, where nothing makes sense and the sky is purple. And none of it makes this country safer.

When we hear the shofar blowing this Rosh Hashanah, what is it calling us to do? I believe the shofar calls us to speak up and speak out. Every conversation about the actions of the federal government needs to not just name the harm but also identify what would actually keep people safe. The Trump administration is imbued with violence and we should absolutely call that out. But we also need a vision for the society we want to create. We need politicians to say what they would offer as an alternative and show their work — take us from a to z and explain how your proposal would result in making peoples’ lives better. We need to be as loud and clear as a shofar blast, and to demand our leaders do the same.

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated for his second term a colleague said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. My colleague talked about how we can’t just fight against the awfulness, we must also dream of the world we want — and then work towards making that world a reality. A world that is built on a foundation of safety.

I am writing this post as I don’t know how many thousands of people — including some of the most powerful people in this country — have gathered to memorialize Charlie Kirk. A man shot and killed in a country where ultimately no one is safe from gun violence. Who made a lot of people considerably less safe due to his hateful rhetoric and targeting of everyone from university professors to Black women to trans people. And who had lots of things to say about guns — words that caused a great deal of hurt to people I know and love. In another example of exquisitely painful irony, this very high profile incident of gun violence has only made it harder to focus on the things that actually keep people safe from guns. There are solutions, but those in power are only focused on fault and retribution, “free” speech for them and firings for those who aren’t them. But not solutions. Not safety. And the rhetoric I have heard from this event so far? Terrifying and profoundly dangerous.

Because a path forged with hate can never lead us to safety.

This Rosh Hashanah, may we begin a year where more people demand a path to safety — for themselves and for all communities. Where people refuse to accept policies based on punishment and instead call for solutions that give people what they need to be safe. And if those solutions are not forthcoming, that they become the solutions themselves. That this be a year of rejecting hate dressed up as debate and punishment dressed up as prevention.

May this be a year of more safety for us all, and of more of us showing up for the safety of everyone else.