Rabbi Brous says the plagues do not speak of God's wrath against humanity as much as they speak to God's divine rage against injustice. She said, God sent Moses to reason with Pharaoh, to invite him to let God's people go. And by sending Moses to Pharaoh first, God was saying that love, joy and liberation are available to us all -- even Pharaoh. He too could participate in his own liberation. Because all of our liberation is bound up in one another. But when Pharaoh opted to hold on to his supremacy, choosing power and dominance over freedom, when he opted to continue to oppress the people of Israel and see them as subservient, ones who should labor and failed to consider their humanity, the plagues were to show that God would not compromise when it came to issues of injustice, or with supremacy of any kind.
I admit I have spent a large part of the day asking God why it feels like humanity is okay with sacrificing Black bodies for systems, where is Love in the face of injustice. How will the Cruciform God redeem and restore even this? My cry today has been, "Show me Love in the face of pain." And "Why is the body so silent?? Why, dear God, does it take a video for people to be moved with compassion? Why have we grown numb to this unchecked, brazen display of disregard for Black lives?"
Rabbi Sharon said divine rage can be an expression of anguish with the world as it is. And the plagues were God's way of saying, NOT SO. This is not the world of Love that I have ordained to be. NOT SO. Take notice. Take sides with me. Love, joy, and liberation are available to all. But the way to liberation is not through oppression. It's not through Separation. Dehumanization. Criminalization. Commodification. Fragmentation. State-Sanctioned Terror. State-Sanctioned Murder.
Some things ought not be so, for #DaunteWright and for all Black bodies who fear getting pulled over by the police. Some things ought not be so.
And a video should not be necessary for your liberation to be bound up with mine. The silence is deafening. Where is the outcry? The divine rage? The righteous indignation? Where are the people who will not turn away?
When we as a people learn to access pain and see it in its purest form, we can feel compassion. Today is a painful day. Can you enter the depths of Black America's pain, a Black mother's pain? Can you allow our tears to mingle? Rabbi Sharon says, "Grief is an affirmation that every single one of us is precious and valuable." Every. All. Big inclusive words that leave no one out, cast no one aside, including #DaunteWright.
Comments