Tikkun olam is a Jewish concept that has—in modern times, by many Jews worldwide—become a rallying call to action in and for our collective efforts to repair (tikkun) the world (olam).

I ask myself: What exactly is the repair? How can I best support collective efforts to repair the world? And how might I repair the harm I have myself caused in being white, in benefitting from white privilege, in enabling white supremacy? What might it look like for me—for anyone—to heal, repent, and transform? As part of a lineage that has built an annual atonement (Yom Kippur) into the genetics of our traditional and historical body of ritual and prayer, what might it look like for me—a white American Ashkenazi Jew—to acknowledge my missteps—along with my inherited trauma, which includes said missteps—in order to embody my Jewish body?

And also, my whiteness is subject to change. It depends on how, and if, and when Nazis and/or white nationalists and/or fascists are in charge. The swiftness with which they might loudly or quietly let me die.

I have also worked hard to divest from my assimilation. And while I know assimilation can be a survival tactic, I also know that assimilating into whiteness is not only inherently racist and anti-Black, but also an erasure of my own ethnicity and ancestry as an Ashkenazi Jew. Yet, I have still bought into and participated in assimilation so much throughout my life. I still do.

Still, at some point, I came to understand that assimilation’s ability to save or protect me from anti-Jewish discrimination and oppression is a myth. I came to understand this because non-Jewish people in my life were—and sometimes still are—antisemitic whether they knew it or know it or not. I came to understand this because I have experienced anti-Jewish discrimination and antisemitism throughout my life no matter where I have lived or traveled in the world.

I also came to understand that assimilation will neither save nor protect me from anti-Jewish discrimination or oppression because I have never felt that the existence of a Jewish state would keep me—or other Jews—safe or protected from discrimination. Yes, I embraced going to Israel in high school on vacation with my family for spring break. I was so deeply moved by the ancient history I felt I could touch. I sat on the ground with a scarf on my head as I wrote a letter to G-d and tore it out from my journal and brought it to the cracks of the Western wall.

But that’s because I have always been spiritual. I have always felt a connection to divinity and G-d. I have always felt connected to my Jewishness. I have always been drawn to history, origins, ritual, tradition, ancestry, and roots. And yet, I have never felt compelled by or drawn to nationalism of any kind—in America, in Israel—as a pathway to how I connect with my identity.

I think that we are all G-d. I think that we are all the G-d within. I think that G-d is a metaphor for unconditional love and that we are all interconnected by an impenetrable and everlasting energetic force and so I think that at its root, oppression comes from forgetting we are holy. Forgetting we are all of us divine.

And so on the first day, G-d created these binaries of heaven and earth, but still left space for twilight to signify the potency of liminality. I think we spend too much time and space worshiping binaries. Rather than harvesting the liminality and mystery of the in-between.

Liminality is my birthright.

I am adorned with whiteness and white privilege, but I am still subject to easy, targetable murder or harm simply for being a Jew.

My hope is that my repairing—my participation in tikkun olam—can touch a liminality, a possibility, a steadfast unwavering anchoring to live unapologetically through and within the in between.

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