In the middle of summer, on the ninth day of the month of Av, we mark the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of our ancient Temple in Jerusalem (in the year 586 BCE and again in 70 CE). It is a fast day, and it often feels to me like a warm-up for Yom Kippur; like Yom Kippur, it calls us to acknowledge our vulnerability.
While I find it challenging to mourn the loss of a Temple that I never saw, having been to the Western Wall, I can imagine what it might have been like to enter the sacred space protected by those walls, a space dedicated to the practices that enacted our relationship with the Divine — practices of showing gratitude and asking for forgiveness.
When the Temple was shattered and our people scattered, the ancient rabbis remade Judaism into a portable culture that could both guide us and grow with us. Tisha B’Av represents both suffering and also the kind of change that is necessary for us to grow.
This year, we have a new opportunity to practice teshuvah (repentance; literally return) and become agents of transformation. Currently, our country is using walls not to create sacred space but to imprison more people than any other in world history. One in three black males and one in six Hispanic males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime. Black citizens are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites, and the overwhelming majority of people of color swept into the criminal justice system are non-violent offenders.
We need new policies aimed at real justice and public safety for all people. There is a growing understanding of the problems of mass incarceration, and there are opportunities for us to show up as Jews in partnership with other communities, especially those most affected by the policies of discriminatory policing, judgment and incarceration.
This is why I and many others are working with Reform CA, a network of 90 Reform synagogues and half a million Reform Jews across California, to launch a campaign of Reform congregations confronting a criminal justice system that wastes taxpayer dollars, treats people as if they are disposable and disproportionately punishes people of color.
We also want full voter participation by those who have been excluded from doing so. In this campaign we are guided by words from Leviticus: “You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or defer to a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness.” We want to work together for a criminal justice system that acts from righteousness for the benefit of all.
One policy to bring real justice to our criminal justice system is Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act, a sentencing reform measure that will be on the California ballot this on Nov. 8. If passed, this measure will allow non-violent offenders to win time off for good behavior and earlier parole if they can show they have rehabilitated themselves. Proposition 57 will also make sure more teenage offenders go through the juvenile system with access to rehabilitation programs as opposed to being at the whim of the adult prison system.
We are a people who believe in justice and in teshuvah — the human potential to change. I am proud to be part of Reform CA’s effort to walk our talk together, and I encourage you to join us in support of Proposition 57 this November.
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller is a rabbi at Congregation Sherith Israel of San Francisco, and a member of Reform CA, a joint campaign of the Union for Reform Judaism, Religious Action Center and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.