Counting up to the election: Chesed

[sonia]

rosefox is adapting the Jewish practice of counting the omer, Kabbalah, to the seven weeks until the US election. See their initial post here: "Torah umitzvot, chukim umishpatim". The title looks intimidating (to me) but the rest of the post feels approachable and practical (to me). There are great links for suggested reading.

I worked through counting the omer in 2015 with a focus on connecting with my body. That was an intense experience! I'm tentatively going to follow along with rosefox's posts, although rereading [locked] posts from 2015 gave me a rush of nausea. Intense, like I said.

My issue with political donations is that they're used for advertising, and I hate advertising. As rosefox says, I'm giving myself permission to go with what works for me. I made a couple of donations to group slates recently on ActBlue. I also donated to local mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone, since I have Opinions about our current mayor.

But mostly I like to donate to local organizations that help people directly. I often donate to Sisters of the Road Cafe who feed houseless people. I just made a donation to Street Roots, our local street newspaper, and I put "In Memory Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" because why not. We are each working toward justice in our own way, and justice requires that everyone have shelter and food.

For my long-term organization, I recently joined the NAACP, on the theory that they know what they need and how to get there, and I can hand them money to support that.

My own social change actions: writing my articles and making them freely available, continuing to read and learn about social justice, biking for transportation, buying locally grown food... As much as I can, I've tried to shape my life to be part of the world I want to create.

Looking forward to seeing what other folks post about this as well! I think it might be a useful process whether you have a Jewish background or not.

Comments

[rosefox]

Thank you for spreading the word!

When you say "The title looks intimidating", which title are you referring to?

[sonia]

The title of the post, in transliterated Hebrew. It says to me, "Here comes something abstruse you won't understand." To be fair, that describes counting the omer fairly well, except I spent quite a bit of time sorting it out for myself in 2015.

[rosefox]

Ah! My post subject lines are almost always quotes, and are usually either a reference to something in the post or an in-joke with myself. I don't even think of them as something other people are likely to notice—I almost never notice them on other people's posts—so it's useful to know that a post's title can be enough to put someone off.

I'm sorry you have that association with transliterated Hebrew. That seems like it would make Jewish just-about-anything uncomfortable. :/

[sonia]

I'm sorry you have that association with transliterated Hebrew. That seems like it would make Jewish just-about-anything uncomfortable. :/

On the one hand it seems like you took this more generally than I meant it. I do have a fair amount of kitchen Hebrew, and a comfort with foreign languages generally. On the other hand, I don't have a religious Jewish education, so aside from a few familiar Passover blessings, Biblical Hebrew is opaque to me, whether in the original alphabet or in transliteration.