Remarks from Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder and CEO of Dayenu, at Moral Monday “Season of Prayer and Action,” Saint John’s Church in Washington, DC, September 30, 2024. Coalition of clergy from many faiths, advocating for a campaign season grounded in truth, justice, love, care and compassion for all. Hosted by Repairers of the Breach and Poor People’s Campaign.
It is an honor to join you here in Washington, just days before the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During these days, we reflect and take stock of ourselves, our actions, and the world in which we live.
This is an incredibly auspicious and even perilous time in the Jewish calendar and in our nation. It is also a time of great possibility.
A time when we must ensure we are acting in accordance with our deepest values of tzedek – justice, and chesed – loving kindness. A time when we must double down on our commitment to bring about a world and nation redeemed.
But in order to do this, it is going to take all of us, and as we say at Dayenu, a whole lotta chutzpah. Because to win a just, livable, and sustainable future for all people, we need every eligible voter to cast their vote and make their voice heard.
But we know that in many states, politicians are intentionally making it hard for certain people to vote. They are purging voter rolls, increasing ID requirements, closing polling places. It seems that on a nearly weekly basis we are learning of new insidious forms of voter suppression.
And often, the communities facing barriers to vote – communities of color and low-income communities – are the very same people experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. These are people who live near polluting facilities or are experiencing extreme weather events – first and worst.
343,000 people in the path Hurricane Helene -in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama alone – live in poverty, making it much more difficult to evacuate, not to mention rebuild in the wake of destruction.
As Bishop Barber preaches: these are interlocking injustices – and THIS IS BY DESIGN.
The fossil fuel industry – and politicians who do their bidding – work to disenfranchise voters to keep them from building power. The fossil fuel industry spends millions of dollars to elect politicians who will do their bidding.
WE MUST PUSH BACK. How?
We must turn out every eligible voter so we can elect leaders who represent the interests of everyday people, not corporate polluters. That’s why Dayenu and our American Jewish climate activists have committed to call and knock on doors of half-a-million voters.
Because we know that climate justice, racial justice, and democracy are deeply intertwined.
We’re gathered here today, steps from the White House, to lift up the incredibly high stakes of this election and call our brothers and sisters and friends of faith to TURN OUT THE VOTE!
In the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah it is customary to blow the shofar (the ram’s horn) to rouse us from complacency and to awaken us to our highest values and to the hard and holy work we must do in the world.
I invite you this morning to hear the shofar blast. With this blast may we awaken to become the people we seek to be and to create the world as we believe and know it should be, it must be.
A world that is filled with justice and loving kindness, a world where everyone can not only survive, but thrive.
Tekiah!
Shofar blast
