The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.
Ki Tavo
Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8
Ki Tavo, this week’s Torah portion, connects us to a way of thinking that feels quite out of step with a predominant sentiment in our country.
The parashah includes the phrase “arami oved avi,” which a common translation renders as “My father was a fugitive Aramean,” and the more poetically minded Biblical scholar Robert Alter translates as “My father was an Aramean about to perish.”
These words, which feature prominently in the Passover seder, evoke the idea that we are all descended, one way or another, from people who have suffered because of historical turmoil. Because of our roots of having been downtrodden, we should have empathy for those who are now subject to the whims of history.
In fact, as Alter points out, the context in which these words appear in our parashah strengthens this mandate to feel compassion.
The Torah teaches that a farmer in the Promised Land should say these words when offering the first fruit of the soil to the priest. Alter writes, “the prosperous farmer, even as he brings to the sanctuary specimens of the first yield of his crop, recalls how his forefathers were close to dying from famine and were obliged to go down to Egypt, where in due course they were enslaved.”
During Passover and in the parashah’s prescribed ritual of the first fruits, Jews draw upon our own story of historical struggle. This practice helps us to have empathy for those in our own time who are struggling against oppression.
Still, not all stories of collective hardship are the same.
Jews who were victims of pogroms across the world suffered differently from enslaved people in the United States, who in turn suffered differently than Uyghurs in China today.
A natural extension of the very Jewish custom of finding empathy for the downtrodden is learning about what has to be endured by those who are oppressed.
About a decade ago, there was a widely used term for this practice of learning about persecution in our country. That term was “woke.”
Since then, of course, “woke” has become a slur.
When it is used pejoratively these days, the term “woke” is notoriously difficult to define. In fact, a video of a conservative columnist went viral when, a couple years ago, an interviewer asked the columnist to define the “wokeness” she was railing against. She sputtered and could not come up with a definition.
As linguist Tony Thorne describes it, conservatives have reshaped “woke” into an all-purpose condemnation for their opponents, often meaning something like “self-righteous leftist.” In this sense, Thorne says, “woke” joins “politically correct” and “metropolitan liberal elite” as terms conservatives use against political adversaries.
The term “woke” is older than I realized before I looked into it.
It emerged out of Black American culture in the first half of the 20th century to describe awareness of racist oppression. The blues musician Lead Belly used the term in his 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys” as a warning to Black people to be wary of racism.
The term was used in the early 2000s by the Black singer Erykah Badu. But it really took off with the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013 in response to Trayvon Martin’s killing in Florida and George Zimmerman’s acquittal.
During this era, which can feel like it was a long time ago, the Black Lives Matter movement gained common acceptance following the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. Even former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined the protests.
Just a few years ago, aspiring to be woke meant aspiring to be a good citizen. In keeping with the Jewish practice of finding empathy for the downtrodden, many of us sought out perspectives to help us better understand our country’s histories of oppression.
This was an important moment for our country and there was a lot going on. There was the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which looked into the important role racism has played in American story.
There was Ta-Nehisi Coates’ famous essay in The Atlantic “The Case for Reparations,” and the support it garnered. There was also the Me Too movement, which sought to bring about accountability and healing for victims of sexual violence.
At the time, it felt as though the mainstream of our country was making an effort to come to terms with the way systemic oppression has been so embedded in the way this country functions.
Looking back on it, there were parts of this broad movement that aspired to be “woke” that overstepped. There were examples of folks seeking ideological purity rather than trying to change others’ minds. There were examples of people offering rebuke without offering a path to reconciliation.
Still, the fundamental approach of awakening oneself to the history of oppression in this country was needed — is still needed — and reflects what the custom of first fruits in this week’s Torah portion asks us to do.
At this point, I doubt reclaiming the term “woke” is possible or expedient. Still, those of us who went on a journey of learning during that period were acting in accordance with a vital principle from our Torah and our tradition.
We were doing the learning required to have empathy.