Ep 53: Yom Kippur, T’shuvah, and the Load-Bearing Beam

As Yom Kippur approaches, April and Tracie reflect on T'shuvah. We specifically dig into what Jewish tradition teaches us about what to do when “return” requires us to ask how much of ourselves we are willing to dismantle, especially when it comes to perpetuating white supremacy and racism. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-53

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Read more about what T'shuvah means here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/repentance/

Read from the Talmud (Gittin 55a) about an exchange regarding what to do with a stolen Load-Bearing Beam of a house here: https://www.sefaria.org/Gittin.55a.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

Read more about Alan Morinis and the book Everyday Holiness here: https://mussarinstitute.org/books-by-alan-morinis-faculty/

Learn more about Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horwitz, the Alter of Novardok here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Yozel_Horwitz

Check out more from Yavilah McCoy here: https://twitter.com/yavilah?lang=en

The leprosy that can affect the stones of houses is mainly mentioned in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. It is discussed in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 71a:20 (among other places):
https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.71a.20?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English&lang=en

Listen to our past discussion about DARVO here: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-6-white-fragility-darvo-and-accepting-feedback 

Listen to last week’s episode and learn more about our “life curriculum” here:
www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-52

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- As the day of atonement, Yom Kippur approaches, we dig into some of the obstacles and patterns around teshuva or return.- This is Jews talk racial justice with April and Tracie. A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy Decker.- In a complex world, change takes courage. Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- All right, Tracie. So we're into our second episode of 5782. If I say it enough times, I will remember the correct year, I think maybe, and we are doing a continuation of sorts. Last week session was a full session in and of itself and we decided to punt what we originally thought we would be talking about. from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur and I'm excited for us to have a loving and brave conversation that hopefully gives our folks support. If this is something they're facing or perhaps helps to enhance their analysis around different journeys they see around happening for the people who are in their lives.- Yes. Yes. Thank you. So Yom Kippur, well, this whole period, it's all about teshuva. So Teshuva is much more complicated than any English word that I've ever heard associated with it. It's a constellation, right, of English words.- Yeah, it's juicy.- To give us Teshuva because we hear it as atonement and repentance and return and renewal and recovery. There's a whole kind of constellation of English words that are all summed up in this one Hebrew word. So that constellation of words that we're talking about, it's not always easy because it involves first acknowledging that one has turned away from or stepped off of or moved off of the path that they want to be on. Right? And it involves admitting something about yourself that's not always easy to admit.- Right, and it's not easy to admit because often these are things that we, the reason we wound up there in the first place at times, is because there was something we didn't want to look at and now is the time where in our tradition, we are told to attempt to, that we need to. If our actions have caused harm or have not been of the utmost integrity in certain ways, that we need to, to use the phrase from a healing community I'm in, engage in a process of facing what feels like the unfaceable.- Yeah. You used a metaphor when we were prepping for this, that I thought was like, just so helpful. Like if our lives are a fabric and we see a snag, which is the thing that is not what it should be. And then we start to pull on that snag and it feels like that fabric is going to unravel.- Right, and the idea here is that like we see the snag, we think, oh, that's lint or something that needs a, stray thread. What's when something is pointed out to us, we're going to remove it. And then it starts to pull in like, okay, okay. And then you're like, whoa, hold up. If I deal now to switch to the actual issue at hand with this pattern, that's hurting other people and, or is problematic. And I'm actually seeing that this isn't just an issue where this person has pointed where someone or a circumstance has pointed, has brought this to my attention. But actually this is either exactly the same or the other side of a coin or associated with a core coping mechanism I have and or a core strategy that has led to my success to date, to date. So that's the question that we want to unpack is how can we support ourselves and how can we think about and navigate teshuva when that teshuva feels like feels just terrifying and feels like if we're going to look at that basically, then what's not on the table or it feels like a lot is at stake.- Yeah, yeah. Our tradition has a brief exchange between the houses of Hillel and Shammai in the Talmud. Gittin 55A about a beam of house.- All right, Tracie. Bringing our Judaic reference here. I love it.- I know those of you listening will correct me if I get it wrong. So I've got the Sefaria page up right now. So the argument is around. So this is in the Talmud it's actually in, it comes out of the Mishnah as well, but I'm looking at the Talmud right now. So if it is discovered that a house was built on a beam that was stolen, so this is a load bearing beam. You cannot remove it without destroying the house. What do you do?- I'm seeing the alignment here.- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there was a disagreement because you know, we're Jews and the house of Shammai said, you got to take it out, take it down, deconstruct the whole house in return that beam to its rightful owner.- I'm telling you, Shammai in a number of ways is a champ for a number of not just only Jews of color, but I feel like a lot of Jews of color really groove with with Shammai like, yeah. Okay. So please continue.- Yeah. Beit Hillel, the house of Hillel says actually the house can stand, but we do need to pay the injured party. So reparations. That's not the word that's used in the Talmud, but that's what we're talking about. Reparations are due to the original owner of that beam.- I need my money.- Yeah. So, I mean, and there's actually a lot of different cases. I mean, of course, because that's what the sages did. They sort of said, but what if this happened, but what if that happened? I'm not going to go into all those other things. Because it just gets complicated. But this metaphor of that stolen beam in the house, like it's really powerful.- So apropos. It's a similar sort of thing as the fabric where it's not, yeah. Where it's a load bearing beam and there's something deeply profoundly problematic about it, that's central in your house now. And how do you address this? And I think often a default can be at times if someone is not fully present or is too busy to take the time is to ignore it and pretend that that is not the case or to fret and feel overwhelmed by the prospect of needing to tear down your house or completely unravel the fabric.- Yeah. Yeah.- But here's the thing y'all, that I want to say. So I just want to both give a lot of koach power and strength and like, Gevurah, like just a lot of strength and rigor and also Rachamim, this idea of not only individual but collective compassion. Here's the thing is that one, even though it feels like it, our life is not as simple fabric and us being willing to courageously look at something doesn't mean that we need to completely undo all of those things right now in this second. I think in some ways it's helpful to think of this a little bit. This is already getting complex in my mind, but like not to excuse them, to say it's okay, but sort of like a fitness journey or anything in our lives where we need to make a massive change. It's generally not great to do it overnight. And you find ways of making a commitment and then saying, this is something that I'm going to mindfully work on over time. So, just to kind of cut to the chase now, and I still want to unpack this more and share specifically how I think this can play out as it relates to race and other things that are pertinent to our work that we do with within the Jewish community, Tracie.- So I think that one thing that's coming up for me as well, your point about people, it's not good to change overnight is I think really important. And I'm coming back to the book that I mentioned in our Rosh Hashanah episode, Everyday Holiness, where Alan Morinas quotes the Alter of Navarodak, who is also he, that is the common name for Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz. Anyway, the Alter of Novodorak said"the problem with people is that they want to change overnight and have a good night's sleep that night too." And that's not how it works, right? I mean, change doesn't happen overnight. It happens over time. And I think the thing that I'm thinking about about the beam metaphor or the fabric is that in both of those metaphors, we've been assuming that like that thread or that beam is somehow sound. As if leaving it there is in fact an option.- Right.- When in fact in the cases, in particular of where we're talking about racism, where that snag is in fact racism or white supremacy culture, or some form of bias.- A pattern that has you, and has your behavior.- Causes harm.- Being complicit with racist oppression.- Right, right. Where your behavior is causing or perpetuating, or even benefiting from harming others. That threat is not, that beam, that thread is not in fact sound. It is rotted. It is toxic.- It's not benign. And it's not benign.- Right, right. That's yeah. That's maybe a better way of saying what I was trying to get at. And so even this idea.- No, I think what you're saying makes sense too.- And so I think this idea like where Shammai was that the house to be deconstructed is on point. And in fact, and of course I don't have it up, but there are stories of, there's. I don't know what this thing was, but there was a leprosy of the ancient world that buildings could get, and I will try to find it and make sure it's in the show notes, but there actually are discussions of what happens if this leprosy gets into the stones of your house. And that's more like what we're talking about. It's not about like a stolen item, but actually a diseased item, right? Like that is foundational to this edifice, whatever it might be. Our behavior.- And it may have been helpful at one point. And what's interesting about that. And the may have been helpful at one point, but over time, you've come to see one, ideally that it's hurting other people. And ideally even that cause a number of people are really engaging with this work. You notice that it's not actually only hurting other people. It's actually not good for you. And yet the pathway, the alternative forward isn't fully clear yet, but you're now aware that this does need to be addressed.- It's not clear. And it's also really scary. Like I think it's important to name that.- It's very scary. Like it's interesting because in a slightly more benign way, but it feels very important for my spiritual evolution. I'm going through this right now. And it's terrifying. It's terrifying around things that I wasn't even, that I felt fine about before. But now I realize in retrospect that there were different ways that, there were boundaries or limits that my life happened to live within in a certain time. And now as I potentially am gearing up to have a different relationship with those boundaries and limits and noticing the ways in which I've internalized them and that I need to excise them or shift my relationship with them if I'm going to be my full, deeply spiritual multi-racial embodied self, it's terrifying about. Part of it is just emotion. And as I think about it more, it's actually become clear to me. And again, I don't know that that's, well, maybe that is what I'm talking about, as opposed to all the other external examples, who knows. But a number of people in spiritual advisors have said, you know, but what is really real about it? But the more I think about it, the more I'm like, I think ultimately it'll be okay, but there actually is potentially a price for this. There is potential fallout and there shouldn't be. And if we lived in a non-racist world, in a world where complexity and depth and nuance and where there was lots of space for women of color to be truly multi-dimensional, then yeah, it wouldn't be terrifying. But there's potentially a price that I may end up paying directly or indirectly for something that I have spent years building and creating and establishing relationships. And I'm not sure if everyone with whom I work is at a point where they're evolved enough, where they can hold me. Where they can not hold me, I don't need them to hold me, but where they are able to be present and can understand and respect the fullness of my identity. So yeah, it's and that's just, I'm sharing that just to offer up that we're not, this is not just an intellectual conversation that you know, that around my own journey, around my own noticing of a snag that wasn't there before, but it has developed for me. around what I believe is important to me spiritually and other things are still very much important, but as I unravel it, I'm like, oh, this is to have different implications for these other things. And so I'm very much engaging with it. I'm dedicated to doing it. And I'm being mindful about how I do it and the time I take and really preparing myself and seeing what's around the next bend or what's coming in terms of the work I need to do and what kinds of implications it can have and how I'm preparing for that.- So April you have accepted this unraveling, that this is a thing that needs to happen and you're following that path, but not everybody does.- Not fully.- Yeah. Hesitatingly.- Yeah.- But what I really want to ask about.- No exactly, that's where I wanted to go too.- There's a pattern that you named that I think definitely happens where folks notice that snag or it's pointed out to them and they start to gently pull on it and then it's clearly much, much bigger.- It runs deeper than they realized.- Oh crap, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. And then what happens and then like, how do you, like, what do you want to say to that feeling that like, Nope.- And that action, right. And what I want to say, how this can play out, what this looks like in conversation as someone who's been a coach to a number of Jewish leaders of color, who's experienced this in my own life in different ways is how it can, how it has shown up because I also am always open to things changing. So I don't want to be predictive, but name what I've seen to date that we live in a dynamic world. Is that a leader of color, typically Jewish, but not exclusively in our orbit, there are a number of Jewish adjacent or people of color of other faith backgrounds who work in our midst, work within our Jewish organizations, in our communities where there is a courageous conversation that is had to one extent or another, and the white Jewish person acknowledges that. And I think that as much we were talking about this now that I've acknowledged kind of opaquely, but for another episode, it's the whole thing in and of itself. And since I admitted it, it seems like messy and huge and impossible but I know it's not. My brain knows it's not, but my emotion and my heart feels like, oh my gosh, like I could lose everything, which is not true, but that's what it feels like. So I feel better having foregrounded with that now in talking about this. And so where a person, Jewish or otherwise, of color has a conversation, has a tough and courageous conversation, with a white Ashkenazi Jew around racism or a racism related challenge that has arisen in the context of their relationship. And this can go any number of ways, but I want to talk about the times where the person listening, the person being confronted about this often mindfully, not always, but often mindfully and carefully, because there's a lot at stake for people of color when we do this for reasons that many authors and scholars and experts have spoken about. And so I want to specifically talk about the scenario where this thing is shared and this person hears often because of the kindness and the caretaking of that person of color is doing it. Hears the validity of it. And opens up and a meaningful conversation is had, and then the following day or a week later, but often the following day or in the days that follow it's like the conversation kind of didn't happen. Right? And so part of my analysis here.- I'm guilty. I am guilty of that.- Thank you for sharing that.- I am guilty of having done that. Absolutely.- You know, and so, fortunately I think to date, just in case, anyone's wondering, not in the context of our working relationship to be clear, you know? And so, my perspective is that there's one of two things happening and one might be if a person is callous and cold and says, yeah, that was true but I get a lot of benefit from this and I want to keep doing that. That is possible. I think most of the it's the other scenario that we just spoke about, where someone is like the conversation is had, and we're having this converse and we, or they are having this conversation. And this person is talking about this beam that is really problematic or this little thread here. And then that person later that day, or that evening, or in the coming days starts to do some of their own work around it and notices wholly-ish, that's a supporting beam or whoa, that's this also tie, this is actually a key part of my quote unquote diplomatic strategy, or this is how I've gotten to where I am and how I've gotten acclaim. And if I face this, then I have to give everything up. And that kind of makes me a bad person and I'm not a bad person. So I mean, I apologized in the conversation. So I just think it's kind of like a series of rationalizations. And here's my idea. And I haven't actually gone through this, but I'm also sort of intuitive. And often I say these things to people and people are like, whoa, that's exactly what happened. And sometimes they don't, but you know, so I think it's some combination of things like this where there's some which we've already spoken about before, but I want identify it here. And especially if you've listened to some of our other podcasts, or maybe we could even reference something back in the future. We can reference something from a previous episode for you to listen to. But so I think at a certain point, some sh like any combination of things happened that even just thinking about that thing and thinking about what the person said and realizing it, a lot of shame arises that people don't know how to deal with, or they start pulling at it or analyzing, pulling up the thread or analyzing the beam and saying, oh crap, this is like central to my core, to what has served me.- Or even harder, that is who I am. I don't know how to change that. Like that's just.- Right. And I don't even know if it gets that far. I think like that we're confronted with whoa, that's who I am. And I think that any number of thoughts happen that aren't helpful, that don't help us divert that. And we shut down. One thing that Yavillah McCoy has taught in trainings that she's led that I love is that there's a point where we reach something that's hard. It's often not necessarily this like deep, deep stuff, but I think it applies here too, where there's almost like a circular journey. And there's a certain point where you hit in that journey where you can either flame out and one of her core recommendations, or you can get curious and keep and keep an observer's eye but a lot of people, it feels too close to the jugular, too close to the heart, or too close to the core. And it feels poor of strategy of who we are, of any number of things. And it's terrifying. And we look, and we flame out, as Uvela has said. Right? And, instead of one thing that we can do is, so in that moment, I think right now, I just want to recommend some things for people. One as we often do on this podcast and in a lot of our work with joyous justice is acknowledge and leverage the power of naming and identifying. That I want to say this now, so that if you have someone in your life who you think is reaching one of these choice points, and you have the kind of relationship where there's trust, and you can discuss this with them, or talk about this with them to an extent and say, if you have the capacity for it, I see you. Or if now, or in the future, in the past, you had one of those moments and you can identify this and potentially use some of our strategies to re-engage with that Heshbon Hanefesh, that if I'm going to go with another metaphor we've had in here, from last session of your soul curriculum, if you got an, if you have a late assignment, put this stuff on definite pause, you either have ignored it and actually like it's other. Basically the assignment, the life curriculum is still there. You just put it on the shelf, right? And so if so, we want to share this so that to make it, to name it, to demystify it and just by naming it, it takes some of it, it's still a lot As someone who's navigating it now. this idea of something that's just tied to bigger things, and there's a lot at stake, but it's also clear that this is the way to move forward. And I just want to name a few more things here, and then also let you speak Tracie. There's like lots of different things we could do here, but is that I believe our soul curriculum for in our lifetime is our soul curriculum. And we need to take it on it's part of our purpose. And I want to be someone to say, as someone who has been deeply hurt by different folks with whom I've partnered or worked opting to ignore it and act like this thing, isn't there. It still is there and it's hurting people. It's hurting people. And so it's important as a part of your hashbon hanefesh for you to stop causing that harm because it's hurtful like and bonus for you. Thanks to the wonderful world we live in and the radiant insights of Tracie and me. We want to give you different tools and give you ideas around how this can be more faceable. How the unfaceable can be faceable. We've already named the part of it is also around timeline. And again, let me be clear here. It's not, I'm not talking about the fake incrementalism that people use right now at times, which is basically them doing business as usual and making little fake superficial changes, but not actually doing deeper work to shift a trajectory. I'm talking about real true, like atomic habits, best practices around massive change and improvement in lives and in fields and in organizations is taking on what's manageable and doing it in earnest and continuing to do it and in time. As you can starting to take leveraged action where it's a small thing, but doing that thing will make the next thing easier or necessary; Beginning to take actions around our relationships. How we relate. When we're ready to do that. That's what I mean by that, just side note, to be clear, I'm not saying so. I don't want that to be used as an excuse like, oh, April Baskin said. So don't bring that up in the conversation with somebody. If somebody has asked you to engage in a process of Tikkun of repair or healing, or has asked you to address something saying it's hard and I'm working on it and they are on a consistent basis saying that you are hurting them. That means you are hurting them. For the most part. At times, that person may, it can be a little bit more complicated than that, but more often than not, there's something that we need to fix.- I think with everyone, we have to at least entertain that possibility. Right? I think part of it.- This is something that everyone faces. We're talking about it specifically with race and white Ashkenazi Jews, but everyone has this homework in a variety of areas in their life.- And I just, I want one of the patterns that you haven't named yet, that I think is really important that we name and that I think what you just said starts to point to is it's too hard for me to face the fact that I could be causing harm and so I just flip it around and make it your fault, right? And say, no, no, this is all you. We've talked about this before. Actually we've talked about DARVO before. Deny, attack, reverse victim and oppressor. DARVO right. Well, that happens all the time, all the time.- You see my voice. Like I literally started to like have post nasal drip, like my insides are crying.- Your posture changed completely when I said that.- Yeah.- Because I'm sure it, I am.- Because it's not as rare as one would think.- No, it's not rare at all. It is very common. It is very, I was just talking to my sister the other day.- And I want to make a connection here. Oh, go ahead. Finish your thought on that. Actually, may I make a quick connection and then you can talk about the other day in conversation. Is that what you're saying? You know, there've been some great articles that have been written about this. Is in a nutshell, the reason for the the agent, the actor involved in people of colors pet to threat trajectory within organizations. They go from pet to threat because there's tokenization and different things at the outset that makes them a pet and tokenized. And then as they engage in their work and they point out real shifts that need to happen because of racist patterns and because of people's general lack of change, but especially around the racist patterns, a number of people and enough people at times that it becomes basically the institutional culture as a whole, DARVOs that person and begins to treat them as a threat. So this, and this is something that articles have been written about. Like, this is because as you were about to share Tracie, I wanted to say, or I was thinking in my mind, and this is something that isn't very common, but then as you said, that thing, I was like, oh, this is way more common than I want it to be. And that I think a number of people think it is.- It happens all the time.- white and people of color.- Yeah. It's not just about being accused of perpetuating racism. It's about anything. My sister and I talked about how that happened with a loved one of ours. Nothing about racism, just about our interpersonal relationships. You know, where that person was causing harm, but couldn't hold that and so sort of made it our fault, So this is a really, really important pattern that I think you April referenced Yavillah's advice to get curious. And I think that advice is really, really powerful here. So I want to name that about getting curious about sort of really like, why am I feeling this way? Why am I so agitated? whatever that feeling is.- Notice, what am I feeling? Where am I on the emotional thermometer? Which some of the else that she recommends. Like I'm being triggered? Let me actually measure it on a scale of one to 10 or one to 100, but it's basically the same thing. You know, one to 10, where am I right now? It's really high. That means this is something important. What is like, and just start to get curious and ask yourself questions. And I think I want to quickly, because we all got some teshuva to do, to bring up a few other things that you can carry with you when that moment happens. One thing that we, again, is another key thing that we talk about that's super relevant here that I think is a thread in that DARVO scenario, part of what can help mitigate that pattern. Part of that's just oppression, but a part of it is tied to, I think, often the person who was doing that, who avoids looking at the thread or the beam or all these different metaphors is they are not holding their inherent goodness. And from a Jewish perspective, this is a part of our tradition, our texts, that when we confront these things, if we can isolate this as, Ooh, this is an ugly pattern, but it is not an ugliness that's inherent to me. It's become very normalized for me. It's become a regular pattern for me, but at my core, I am still inherently good. I think I've mentioned it before, but it's like what my father would say when I would get in trouble as a kid. And I think that that's given me such an advantage in life is he would often think to stress, just so smart. And he would say, April, I'm angry. What you did was bad. You are not bad. You are a good girl, but what you did today was bad. And we need to fix that. And what you as an individual or Tracie or I around whatever that thing is, that's really tough to look at that thread is bad. That beam is bad. What that house contains, that cloth, the clothes, that person is inherently good. And we've just got some patterns. So that's another thing I would say is to one, hold your inherent goodness. And if you can start to create separation and distance between who you are fundamentally and this pattern, it starts to become more workable rather than thinking, oh my God, it's me and I am an inherently flawed. No, you are not. You are not. There's any number of possibilities. Other thing that I want to share here is you really don't and shouldn't, if this is something that's tough, have to do this alone. Don't do it alone. As Brene' Brown has beautifully said before, not necessarily everyone has a right to that story, but you can find one person, a few people who you trust, where there's good relationship, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a best friend, whether it's a close family member, whether it's a professional mentor and it's appropriate in the context to talk about whatever your issue you're facing, someone who you trust and who you know. And so he needed to look for someone who you inherently trust and who you know can hold your inherent goodness and has some of the chops either just to hold space for you while you process this. Or can also someone who can help you parse out some of this pattern and start to see where are there additional choices. Because that's the last thing I'll say is that often it feels very black and white to us. And, often if we can remember our inherent goodness, reach for support, we can start to see there's actually more choices and more nuance and more texture and places where we can work. Tracie, other brilliant ideas that you have in addition to what you've already you shared.- This is the I think this is the last thing I'll share for today. But one of the things that I just want us all to hold, regardless of what the teshuva is that you need to do, what it's around, is that what we're doing is working toward completeness, right? Like we were created incomplete and we are working as God's co-creators, if that metaphor works for you, to complete our own creation. And that's amazing, and it's beautiful and it's really, really hard work. And this moment, I mean, if we were complete, if we were perfect beings, we wouldn't need a Yom Kippur every year. Right? But we do, we do. And so this is an amazing opportunity for us to really do that work, to figure out where that additional work needs to be done toward completeness.- I want to add a Midrash to what you said.- I'd love to hear it.- Which is I like this. I think I would edit it to say, I actually think we are born complete usually for the most part, but we consistently like clockwork enter a very broken world and that, and we are not immune to that brokenness, impairing or putting muck or mud to go back to the golden Buddha metaphor that Tracie shared via Tara Brock. And that doesn't mean that we accumulate junk along the way and do our best with our brilliant minds to navigate the brokenness. And it can be pretty tough without lots of supports and without lots of interventions around that brokenness, which usually aren't there for us to figure out how to best effectively navigate the brokenness without creating more brokenness. Right? So, and that's where the tikkun olam comes in is I think we can bring and try to access, even though it's deep within us. But I think, I believe for the most part that babies are born pretty perfect, but they're born to people who have lots of scars and wounds and aches and a world that is filled with injustice. And that's kind of hard to maintain that flawlessness in the light of all those shards.- So I think that's really beautiful April and I guess I would just, I agree and I accept that metaphor. And I would also add that I feel like we are complete in the way that wheat is complete and we can be more complete in the way that bread.- Yes, absolutely.- Is more complete. And so in the way that wheat is incomplete, we are incomplete. So wheat in and of itself.- We're like an acorn. Like an acorn is a perfect acorn most of the time, but it can become an Oak tree.- Right, right. The potential.- Let's be mighty Oaks y'all.- The potential embedded within us.- Is immense.- Immense.- Oh, that's good. That's good. And that ties perfectly into where I wanted to finally conclude this episode, which is to say beloved y'all. Oh I'm feeling emotional. What it is terrifying to go on that courageous journey. To often go into the wilderness and the unknown. But on the other side of that consistently is like with the metaphor of the Oak, I like that I'm going to build on that. Our higher Heights is greater strength, is more capacity, not only around that thing, but around, in many other facets of our lives to be courageous and to be the type of people we have the capacity to be. If we're willing to be vulnerable enough to ask people we trust for support and to help us with some of the brokenness that's gotten lodged in our skin to heal, to heal that. And then just to take it a step at a time and figure out how can we be stronger? You know, I've have a lot of experience and I know a number of people have a lot of experience with people not choosing this courageous path. And what I want to say, if that has ever been you, is each moment is new. And this may be the year for you to pick up some of those things, or maybe it's going to be next year. And where I'll really officially end is to say, and I want to say both for us and all of a number of us, if not all of us can think of times where we've chosen the courageous thing, and we couldn't imagine our lives without doing it is also from the perspective of the people who have trusted and loved us enough to tell us when we have hurt them and to say, I still want to be in relationship with you, but this needs repair. In some ways, in some of my relationships, I wish some of those things hadn't happened and the people and the friends and partners who have chosen to take that courageous path, I wish that hadn't happened. And I have to say, I love them more for that. I appreciate their courage. I have more respect for them. And I see how in their lives, they are stronger people. They're stronger professionals. They're stronger friends and more is possible for them. And I want that for you. And I want that for all of us. I want it for me, so we don't have to do it alone. And I hope we have a sweet and meaningful, and as Tracie said it, safe and whole 5782 this year. Not in spite of, but because you're choosing to take your time and look at that bread or figure out how to get that beam fixed and or figure out how over time we're going to start working on a new home and mitigating damage and figuring out these new possibilities with support.- Amein v'amein- Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.