The Hard Work of Looking for Hope, by Emily Herzlin
Inspired by Natalie Diaz’s poem Of Course She Looked Back
Over the past eight months, people have been leaving New York City. People moving upstate or out of state or out of the country, because of the pandemic or out of fear of what life will be like after the election. As if messengers of God had visited and told them to get out while they still can. I get why people are leaving. I’ve had more than my fair share of moments during this time. Especially during the height of the pandemic back in April and May, stuck inside, ordering grocery deliveries, wiping down mail, seeing images in the news of mass graves being dug by inmates and the refrigerator trucks for the dead outside the nearby hospital. I fantasized about a little house in New Brunswick near the sea. I’ve got the area picked out. I know what the garden will look like. My spouse is Canadian, we could do it. We’ve said, “let’s see how the election goes.”
But even if we left, what then? In this week’s parsha, Vayera, when Lot flees the city of Sodom, he asks the angel not to send him to the hills, it’s too scary. So he goes to a small town, and it’s too scary there, so he goes to live in a cave, which doesn’t work out, either. Where is the place where there is no pain or struggle, where we don’t need to show up bravely and compassionately for ourselves and our neighbors? Where is the place that is immune to the suffering caused by greed, hatred, and delusion, which can travel across all kinds of borders?
Certain people have said that New York is a wasteland. That everyone’s fled, the city’s in shambles. Others call us an anarchist jurisdiction. Here’s what I see:
People in Queens, the borough hit hardest by the pandemic, are staying to take care of their neighbors;
They advocated for city streets to be open for pedestrians to gather safely outdoors while maintaining social distance;
They are organizing coat drives and food drives;
Mutual aid groups are forming and organizing to care for each other’s needs;
Community fridges are being filled, and community gardens popping up;
Neighbors and local groups picked up each other’s compost when the city shut down its composting services;
Protests for racial justice are happening every single day of the week since the spring;
Lines to vote early wrapped around city blocks, in the rain and wind and cold;
Volunteers gave out food and water and masks to voters...
Of course Lot’s wife looked back. Because even in a city where so much suffering was taking place, she knew there was good. There was strength, there was potential, there was hope.
She looked back because the angels who came to Sodom didn’t look hard enough for the ten good people God required in order to not destroy the city. They were there and she knew it. Did the angels even look, at all, actually? Did they really try to search for the ten people? Or did they base their decision off of how they were treated by the most aggressive people with the loudest megaphones and the biggest flags? Did they look at the sea of red on the map and just feel too tired?
She looked back because she had hope, she saw hope, and that hope could have been put to work, to good trouble.
In the words of Rebecca Solnit this week:
“Not only is Canada not the Motel 6 that left the lights on for you, but we are not guests in the USA, especially those of us with the privilege that also means the power to protect others. We are the cleaning staff, and we are here to clean it up and make it safer for the next people who come along….
“This is our country, and this is our work, and we were put here to do it, those of us who are safe enough in this regime and who have the capacity to influence outcomes and protect the more vulnerable. There is meaning in hard work as there is not in disconnected leisure and insularity.
...So deepen your roots, stretch your branches, and plant yourself like a tree. Here we are, here we will be.”