Connecting Pains

Newsletter April 24, 2023 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

Charting rap artist Meek Mill visited Auschwitz this past month. He joined over 10,000 people on the March of the Living, a program most famous for encouraging young adults to understand the dangers of hate through an exploration of the death camps. A CNN article noted: “Mill said he went to Auschwitz to ‘see this for myself and learn about it for myself,’ describing what he saw there as ‘terror, pain, something you can't really explain.’”

Mill, who is African-American, was noted as having no family connection to the Holocaust, but it was important to him to bear witness to the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. And he has committed to sharing what he has learned with others. 

Feeling empathy for another’s experience is a deeply human value. And it is a Jewish value. The members of the Black-Jewish Justice Alliance (of which Keeping It Sacred is part) recently joined with other organizations local to Los Angeles to explore the impact of slavery and the process of reparations. Blacks and Jews and Black Jews all bore witness as the viciousness of the institution as it was detailed. Each participant, whether it personally touched their family line or not, left wanting to work against the horrors of slavery and the atrocious racism it set into motion. See the program HERE. 

Today, in Israel, members of the Israeli and Palestinian communities will co-host a joint Yom HaZikaron /Memorial Day (a Jewish holiday that begins at sundown tonight). This event is meant to sensitize each community to the other’s human loss; it is meant to highlight the connection of grief. Connecting pains like this on a human level across communities hopefully will foster a brighter outlook for the future. The ceremony will be held at 10:30am PT/1:30pm ET and you can register HERE.

Today, the LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) is, for the first time ever, officially closing in observance of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Parents voted that we should all pause in the course of our school year to consider the value of human rights. And so that our kids, whether the genocide personally touched our family history or not, might understand the dangers of hatred, including the millions of deaths of Armenians a hundred years ago, and the lasting impact it has carried. 

When we make decisions to pause and understand others’ cultural griefs, we are put in touch with our own, and brought closer to the humanity of the other. Eventually, we realize that we are all part of the human family and another’s pain is not actually so alien to our experience. The hope is that it might inspire us to value and guard and uplift human rights for all.

I am proud that the Keeping It Sacred community has time and time again uplifted the sacred existence that each of us holds, in all of our beautiful diversity. 

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred….

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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