We Carry Our People In Our Bones©
BeShalach 2020/5780
The following Dvar Torah was delivered at Congregation Shaarei Kodesh after my return from Guatemala with American Jewish World Services as part of the Global Justice Fellowship. Fourteen Jewish clergy members are part of a nation-wide cohort. For more information about this program, please click here.
Let’s say you were a slave, and you were being freed from Egypt, and you could only bring one thing with you, what would it be?
(21st-century rules apply, but if you bring a cell phone, you better make sure someone has a solar charger! No need to mention your family, they will be there with you.)
We performed this exercise on our trip. Many people said the things you said, phones, letters, and two people said, their dogs.
One of the people who works with AJWS in Guatemala, I can’t share his name unfortunately, told us that this wasn’t a hypothetical question for him. He told us that the only physical things he has from some of his family members is four pictures which contained the pictures of his parents, his brother, and his sister - all were killed by the Guatemalan army during the Internal Armed Conflict, the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1964 - 1996. The man was Mayan, and Mayan villages and citizens were targeted by the government.
When I heard this, when I learned first hand about the estimated 250,000 Mayans who were killed indiscriminately, I was shocked to learn that a genocide occurred just a two and half hour plane ride from Miami during my lifetime. And suddenly, my eyes were open. Today, I want to give you a glimpse into my experiences in Guatemala - what I learned, the people I met, the charge I have.
But first, I want to talk about what Bnai Israel brought with them because it's important. When we think about what Bnai Israel brought back, everyone talks about the gold and jewels that God told them they could take from the Egyptians. Some people talk about the weapons they brought with them - gold and weapons do not make a people a people. But the three things they brought with them did make them who we are today:
Bones
Memory
Time
These three things are things that the people we met in Guatemala also hold dear - it’s their keys to freedom also.
First, the bones:
Our parashah this week, BeShallach, is a story of moving from slavery to freedom - from a people being reborn, but it wasn’t easy. It begins with the following note (Exodus 13:19)
וַיִּקַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת־עַצְמוֹת יוֹסֵף עִמּוֹ כִּי הַשְׁבֵּעַ הִשְׁבִּיעַ אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד אֱלֹהִים אֶתְכֶם וְהַעֲלִיתֶם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַי מִזֶּה אִתְּכֶם׃
And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.”
Here we see Moshe fulfills a promise that Joseph swore to his descendants 400 years before this point. Think about this - They just saw ten plagues, and Pharaoh lets them go. They know that he could change his mind at any moment, so yes, they need to be prepared with arms, and yes, they need to prepare for life in the wilderness, they will need gold, but what does Moses do at this pivotal moment? He collects the bones of Joseph. Why? Why do this when it could put everyone’s life at risk?
Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 13:19 says the following:
(Exodus 13:19) "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him": This apprises us of the wisdom and saintliness of Moses. All of Israel were occupying themselves with the spoils (of Egypt), and Moses was occupying himself with the mitzvah of the bones of Joseph. Of him it is written (Mishlei 10:8) "The wise of heart will take mitzvoth." And how did Moses know where Joseph was buried? It was said: Serach the daughter of Asher was left of that generation, and she showed Moses the grave of Joseph, saying to him: In that spot did they place him.
And when I read this Midrash, I realized something -I knew very little about Serach bat Asher. So I dug deeper and I learned the following:
She was the daughter of Asher, Asher the son of Jacob, she was the only person who survived from that generation; she convinces Jacob that Joseph is actually still alive which keeps him hopeful for all those years; 400 years later, when Moses comes to Pharaoh's court, she is the person who identifies him as the true Messiah of Israelites which led the people to trust in Moses; she was the only one who knew where Joseph was buried and finds him for Moses so the people could leave the land quickly, and the tradition goes on to say that she actually never dies - she lives for the 40 years in the Wilderness, she enters the Promised Land, and she enters Gan Eden alive. The character of Serah, who accompanies the Israelites to Egypt and enters the land of Canaan with them, embodies the history of the people of Israel.
And I thought, how had I never heard of Serach bat Asher? And then, I sat in a room in an organization called CAFCA- La asociación Centro de Análisis Forense y Ciencias Aplicadas - The Association Center for Forensic Analysis and Applied Sciences. They are a non-governmental organization that AJWS funds - they are anthropologists by nature, but they are the Serah’s of Guatemala. I mentioned to you at the beginning, that there was a civil war that we did not know about. Human rights groups describe periods of this conflict not as civil war, but as genocide—due to the Guatemalan army’s deliberate, systematic focus on terrorizing, torturing and murdering the Mayan people, including children.
During this time, there was a government policy proposed by a general. Choose Mayan villages and eradicate them - wipe them off from the map. Here’s a quote: “It is necessary to kill off 30% of the population in order to keep the other 70% terrified. We can't reverse this ratio, because then who would do the work?”
Over 200,000 Mayan men, women and children were massacred - their bodies thrown into mass graves.
They brought us into a room with a set of bones that CAFCA staff exhumed. She was a 25 - 35-year-old woman. She was murdered, pregnant, her leg broken right before her end, her body thrown into a pit, her corpse burned to hide the evidence. She had no known family, but they were searching - searching for an identity through her teeth, something. They told us a story of a school that was built over a mass grave - the kids knew about it, and finally, they had enough - they demanded that the bodies be exhumed, their bones be laid to rest respectfully according to their culture.
We heard things I cannot repeat here today, stories of people who dug their own graves before they were murdered; and when they told me about these horrific atrocities, I didn’t see Guatemala, I saw Babi Yar, the infamous ravine in Ukraine where an estimated 33,771 Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
After we left the room, one of the staff asked us, were you all just on the radio? We said no. He said, “I just learned about the Holocaust - a representative from the Israeli government just spoke on the radio. You lost 6,000,000…we only lost 250,000. I feel so close to you all right now, thank you for being here to be witnesses.” And the tears began to flow.
As Jews, after the Holocaust we had a charge - Never Forget, Never Again. We did well with the Never Forget, but Never Again? We struggled with the meaning of this phrase, Never Again for the Jews, or Never Again for any people? For the Mayans of Guatemala? For the Rohingya population of Burma?
We spoke to them afterwards, sharing that we are in awe of the mitzvah of Kevod HaMet - the respect that is offered to the dead - that they are the Chevrah Kadishah, the society of the holy that is charged with protecting the dignity of the dead.
And when they bring the bones to light, the people live again.
Rabbi Gordon Tucker, a colleague who was on the trip with us, told them about Ezekiel and the Valley of the Dry Bones. In this story, when our people were in exile, the prophet Ezekiel is brought to a valley of dry bones; he has one question for God - will these bones live again? God says, I will cause breath to enter them, and they will live again. And a wind comes, and the bones become people as they once were.
And I thought about the breath that we have, the power that we have, to make bones people again.
During our time in Guatamala, I heard the songs of Mayan spiritual leaders. They told us of the Mayan calendar that they kept alive for thousands of years, despite hundreds of years of persecution. And I thought about the first thing that made us free - the first commandment that God gives to the Jewish people - create a calendar.
I learned from a Mayan spiritual leader named Roberto about how they communicate with the energy of time, and how they access their grandparents and ancestors who are part of that spiritual process.
And we sang together, and we danced together, and suddenly, I was transported to Miriam dancing with the women, and men, as they were on the other side of slavery, as free people. But the Mayan’s still aren’t totally free - their land is being taken by the government for mines, their resources are being stripped.
Imagine if we went through the Holocaust, and we didn’t have an Israel to go to? Imagine if we never left that land; imagine if no one knew about our genocide? Imagine if no one believed us?
And so I returned our friend from Guatemala who spent Shabbat with us, the man who would only bring four pictures with him from slavery to freedom, pictures of his ancestors who were murdered. The pictures were his connection to his past, it was how he is free, and it is why he continues to fight for his people.
And I thought about the bones that we carry, the bones of our ancestors, and now I carry Edwin’s bones as well, and the bones of the young woman at CAFCA and telling her story so that she could be with Serach bat Asher, the woman who I had never heard of until last week, who is in Gan Eden, because the more I speak about them, the more breath is breathed into them, the more of a chance they can live again.
Upon my return, people asked me, ‘are there Jews in Guatemala?’ Yes, there are, but we went for other reasons. We support Jews, but we also support others. We went because we are Jews. We went because of the mitzvah “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed” (Leviticus 19:16). Now our neighbor is just a short flight away from here. We went to Guatemala to stand for human rights, the rights we deserve because we are created Betzellem Elohim, in the image of God.
We went because, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his jail cell in Birmingham:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
I took off on January 26, I landed seven days later on February 2nd, but my journey is just beginning. Our journey from slavery to freedom didn’t end with the splitting of the sea - it continues to this day. Together, we will walk, hand in hand, we will dance, we will sing, and we will carry the bones of those lost with us, so that God can breathe new life into them, and into us.
I would like to end with a song from my colleague, Cantor Vera Broekhuysen:
"We have not come here alone
We carry our people in our bones
We have not come here alone
If you listen, you can hear them in our souls.”
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For our Guatemala advocacy:
The Guatemala Rule of Law Accountability Act, if passed, will help return democracy and the rule of law in Guatemala, which is desperately and rapidly needed. See here for AJWS’s one-page explanation.
SENATE ASK: We ask the Senator to cosponsor and support (or thank the Senator for their support of) the Guatemala Rule of Law Accountability Act (S.716). See here if your Senator is a co-sponsor. Email or call their office directly!
HOUSE ASK: We ask the Representative to cosponsor and support (or thank the Representative for their support of) the Guatemala Rule of Law Accountability Act (H.R.1630). See here if your Representative is a cosponsor. Email or call their office directly!
For Burma advocacy:
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Relatedly, we support House and Senate bipartisan legislation that would deliver concrete measures to support the Rohingya people and other marginalized communities in Burma. See linked for AJWS’s one-page explanation of the Senate legislation and the House legislation.
SENATE ASK: The Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act, S. 1186, was introduced by Senators Cardin and Young with 15 original cosponsors. We ask the Senator to join as a cosponsor (or thank the Senator for their support of the bill) and do what they can to press the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to mark up this legislation.
HOUSE ASK: The Burma Unified through Rigorous Military Accountability Act (BURMA Act), H.R. 3190, passed in the House this September. If the Member of Congress voted “yes,” we thank them for the support of this bill.
Linked are the current co-sponsors in the Senate and the final vote results for the House bill, which won by 394 votes to 21 in September 2019 thanks to our shared advocacy.
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