Growing up Reform Jewish, one of the values that was drilled into me since preschool was “tikkun olam,” or ‘repairing the world.’ I was taught that my role in my community and the broader world was to live out a certain set of values, among them justice, mercy, righteous giving and giving voice to the voiceless. Even as my belief in G-d ebbed and flowed throughout my childhood, I always believed in something higher than myself; I believed that people are called to support something bigger than ourselves, be that our communities, our world or a common cause of morality.
One of the hardest parts of reckoning my faith with the world (the sheer horror and suffering that comes across my news feed or passes before my very eyes) is the inconsistency between the world as it is and the world that people with an eye towards justice believe it should be. As the second Trump presidency drags on, and we see nothing but abject, intentional cruelty, the question for many people — religious or not — has become: Why? And what can we do about it?
Since my freshman year, I have been involved with Interfaith Social Action (IFSA), a faith-based social justice group. Over the past two years, I have seen us accomplish real, tangible things. We tackled the cause of transportation justice my freshman year, and we were able to secure a subsidized bus route for Northfield Lines to Minneapolis. My sophomore year, the fight was quite a bit harder as we sought to respond to heightened levels of food insecurity over the summer when dining halls are sparsely open. That mission also saw relative success. This past summer, I cooked community meals and staffed a food shelf for summer residents.
Those two causes, while they did respond to painfully neglected needs among our student body, were admittedly easier to tackle. While I am forever indebted to my co-leaders and a variety of faculty and staff who helped us when we got stuck and felt like there was no way to make progress, I nearly always felt like there was a path forward. Even when we were caught between a rock and a hard place, feeling like we were trying to convince the administration to something they would never agree to, we always knew what we would do if we had the chance. The sphere of action was contained, we had an incomplete, yet workable idea of what the needs of our sphere were and we had ideas of what we could do to respond to those needs.
Since Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol and other federal agencies have begun a siege-like takeover of Minnesota, IFSA found itself facing a new and complex cause. Though we still thought about a variety of other campus issues, a fire burned within many of us to do something about the terrors occurring in Northfield, the Twin Cities and throughout the state.
The difficulty with taking on this issue, however, is that the damage is so severe and the community needs are so large that it is downright impossible for a group of a dozen students to “fix” anything in a tangible way. Sure, we didn’t “solve food insecurity at Carleton,” but our summer food insecurity response program made an observable dent. What could we possibly do about our friends and neighbors being kidnapped from their homes, and the ones, who have not been taken, self-isolating, and thus have no way to get needed resources or supplies?
I know I am not alone in feeling this way. The problem appears insurmountable, and meaningful solutions remain unclear. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, there has been an air of defeatism. The damage is irreversible, the systems that produce harm are so shrouded in power and our democracy is being dismantled so quickly and to such a degree that there is no “fixing” it, there is no making it better.
While I have certainly been known to wallow in self-pity and fear over the problems of the world, I think there is a much better way to conceive of our response. My reasoning is grounded in my faith, and it comes from a quote that I used on the front page of The Carletonian just a few weeks ago. It’s from Pirkei Avot, or the Ethics of the Fathers, and it states “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” In our day, this could mean that in the midst of a world full of deep-seated issues and suffering, it is not our job to fix it; in fact, it shouldn’t be. Instead, our job is to find ways, no matter how small, to prove to ourselves and our community that abandoning those who need us most will not and cannot happen.
How can we dedicate ourselves to others in a way that can make a difference and honors the urgency of their plight without losing ourselves within it? To provide a framework for this sort of justice, I look back to Pirkei Avot, specifically to a quote from Hillel, one that is familiar to the religious and non-religious alike: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when?”
Firstly, we need to, in some manner, be “for ourselves.” Burnout is a real thing in all aspects of life at Carleton, and taking on the burdens of the world in a completely selfless manner leads self-destruction. If one dedicates their life to the plight of others, they must also have a support system, reciprocal relationships and healthy coping mechanisms. Taking a break is not abandoning our duty; it is simply keeping us in check.
But in the midst of wide ranging problems, we cannot be only for ourselves. The second part of this quote affirms that to be human is to care about others. The concepts of “joy and rest as resistance” have value, but one cannot be so caught up in their own problems that they have no time for the problems of others. To make change we need to “be for” others as we expect others to be for us.
Finally, and most importantly, we must act urgently. Whether or not our systems of government continue to function as we want them to, ignoring our problems or waiting for the right time to act simply allows things to get worse. “If not now, when?” contains its own answer. If we do not act now, “when” becomes “never.”
Though I write from a religious perspective, the model of action that includes urgency, self-preservation and action on behalf of others can be applied to a variety of faiths or none at all. We may never see this moment, so sitting and waiting for “when” to act is fruitless; act for yourself and for others, and act now.
