Sukkot/Harvest/Thanksgiving Pt 2: Visions for a Modern Harvest

A New Thanksgiving (continued from part 1)

Enjoying that turkey? Tyson Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim's Pride Corp., and Sanderson Farms Inc. were recently named in an NBC News article on how poultry workers in their plants "are routinely denied basic needs such as bathroom breaks to the point of being forced to wear diapers while on the line, a new report claims."

Also, due to corporate reliance on artificial insemination to breed turkeys, modern turkeys have gotten so large the many of them cannot even walk; they can barley stand upright!

And in the frenzied days before Thanksgiving, it is likely that the poultry worker who prepared your turkey to be ready for the supermarket went 50 days without a day off. These factories are some of the most dangerous places in the country to work, and "poultry processing plants are located in largely rural areas where they seek to hire the nation’s most vulnerable workers. Half of the workers are women, and most are minorities — many immigrants and newly resettled refugees. The industry is widely known to have high turnover — in some plants reaching 100 percent a year — because the work is so physically demanding and the conditions so harsh. There is no paid sick leave in most of these plants. If workers can’t go in because of a work-related illness, they are given points; after accumulating too many, they are fired. "

Enjoying those cranberries? Migrant seasonal farm workers (MSFW) probably picked them, especially if you live in New Jersey, according to this state study which also notes how vulnerable they are to oppression.

Perhaps we can have more legislation guaranteeing access to fresh, affordable and healthy food as a human right. 

Perhaps we need more urban farms like in the film and book about Cuba's organic urban farm revolution after their dependence upon Soviet Russia for food was broken. 

Perhaps curriculum and museum and television programs should teach children and adults about how food ends up on our table and what justice looks like at every stage from point A to point B. 

A New Communion

This has relevance for the Christian practice of communion.

"The holiest things in our faith come from the people who we don't even want here". ~ Dr. Claudio Carvalhaes, minister, theologian, liturgist and artist, on communion in the context of modern globalization and immigration

Communion bread requires Latin American immigrants, as they harvest the wheat for it, as does communion wine! 

A New Sukkot

Perhaps America needs to move to what I have variously heard as "African time," "Indian (Native American) time," "Arab time," "Colored People (African-American) time"- people linger in conversations longer and social capital is built, at the expense of promptness. Perhaps America just needs to listen more, to show curiosity, to be the first one to open up in conversation. Hospitality isn't simply letting someone into your home, it's a matter of giving people your attention. If you let someone into your home, yet ignore them, that's not hospitality but insult. Likewise, you can be on the street and engage a homeless person on a human level- that's the true threshold of hospitality being crossed, not the literal threshold of your front door. Each of us can be a living tabernacle.

The "booths" in Manhattan's Financial District

To make Sukkot democratic this year, I decided to text my friend Elaina about sharing a meal with homeless under scaffolding, because the scaffolding reminded me of the makeshift tabernacles / booths / tents that mark the Jewish celebration of Sukkot, a reminder of when they were wandering in the desert, a nomadic people who had to depend upon the shelter of God's clouds and the food of God's manna in order to survive (likewise, Elaina contacted me because she was organizing to care for the homeless for Thanksgiving).

For Sukkot, Jews are to eat one meal at least out of the seven in their makeshift outdoor tent. Every night I went out, I had already eaten dinner, but as I handed the food to the people who were homeless, I realized that by speaking to and humanizing them, that was my meal. I wanted to cross the threshold from stranger to intimate through conversation, about their lives or about God or politics, the same way that a meal is an intimate experience. Each Sukkot can be uniquely observed by each of us, though the common themes of intimacy, protection, sustenance, democracy, community, and a special care for the weak and oppressed make the most sense to me.

Poetry for a New Harvest

We in America may have, for the most part (this isn't true for everyone) lost our connection to the harvest. Yet poets like Kahlil Gibran's imagery of harvest however speaks to deep ancient part in us. Also, part of devaluation of food is devaluation of earth and the divine feminine. 

Part of the problem is also the disposability of products that comes from mass production. Gibran incites us to work in such a way that we can stamp our soul onto our work:

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. 

      And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, 

      And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, 

      And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, 

      And all work is empty save when there is love; 

      And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. 

      And what is it to work with love? 

      It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. 

      It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. 

      It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. 

      It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, 

      And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. 

On the dignity of work:

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil. 

      And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet." 

      But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; 

      And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. 

      Work is love made visible. 

      And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. 

      For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. 

On Eating and Drinking

      Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking." 
      And he said: 
      Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. 
      But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, 
      And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many. 
      When you kill a beast say to him in your heart, 
      "By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed. 
      For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand. 
      Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven." And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
      "Your seeds shall live in my body, 
      And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart, 
      And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons." 
      And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart, "I to am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress, 
      And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels." 
      And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup; 

      And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress. 

On Buying & Selling

      And a merchant said, "Speak to us of Buying and Selling." 

      And he answered and said: 

      To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands. 

      It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. 

      Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger. 

      When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, 

      - Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value. 

      And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour. 

      To such men you should say, 

      "Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net; For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us." 

      And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, - buy of their gifts also. 

      For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul. 

      And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands. 

      For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

....

May we all demand more time off to bring about the satisfaction of every soul on earth. Nobody will be free until we are all free.

Sukkot/Harvest/Thanksgiving: The Possibility of the Throng as a Gathering / A Possibility for Surviving the Political Famine

"The Possibility of the Throng as a Gathering." It's a play on words. A throng is always an assembly of people, but it isn't a gathering until it's an assembly for a common purpose. I might as well have called it, "The Possibility of the Multitude as a Gathering." Multitudes can exist in a certain space, but there is no automatic sense of togetherness or community that is associated with a gathering. But "throng" sounds more chaotic, and thus, more realistic.

I live on a campus in New York City where I, like many others, experience a deep sense of loneliness, and where there are deep divisions. We couldn't properly come together as one to mourn the election results, because some of the white people couldn't hear how they sounded to the students of color when they centered their own experience of how it affected them- it was almost analogous to someone at a town hall complaining about traffic caused by a car accident the prior day saying, "I'm so upset that that traffic because I was late for work! It's just so stressful," next to the person who had to be MedEvac-ed out of the accident scene (both feelings are valid, yet it isn't right to ask the latter to empathize with the former). I'm part of the problem because I didn't speak up. I'm also part of the problem in regards to my loneliness- I'm ambivalent about being social. In all of this, is a gathering of souls possible?

Unity

The word "throng" is like a human equivalent of a sheaf (a bundle, like the bundles of wheat above), and it is similar to "assembly" - a word with democratic religious implications as all people would gather to the harvest of sheaves. This happened in all ancient agri-cultures, as they pressed the wheat together by binding; likewise, "throng" as a verb means "to fill or occupy by pressing into." Everyone was bound together, pressing into the same space, in a festival of deep thanksgiving that the tribe would survive another year. In later, less-egalitarian times, the kings and pharaohs would have peasant workers sent out to harvest. But for a period of time, like for the tribes of Israel, it was supposed to be a gathering of the entire community.

In some moments of my life, including on campus, I've experienced small-scale moments of unity that cut across divisions. 

There was the dance class where we all worked together to creatively spell out our names using our bodies; 

There were moments in church where we all lost self-consciousness as we got in to the music and movement;

There were movie nights where many of us cried, and laughed, at the same parts. 

Of course, we can't expect perfect harmony- a joke might not be funny to everyone, based on their life experiences. A sad part might hit a wound that is too raw. True community comes from responsiveness, from the ability to process what parts worked and didn't work, and for whom, so people can learn how to relate to each other's unique needs and protect what they value the most. Without this kind of dialogue, hope is shot. Outside help is needed.

Loneliness 

As the saying goes, you can still be lonely in a crowd of people. You can lack a sense of community in a crowd, therefore it's only a gathering of bodies and not a gathering of souls. This is the predicament of the modern community-less community. Tokyo, the largest city and urban market in the world, is having such a spiritual crisis that the cultural phenomenon of "rent-a-friend" is being capitalized on by Client Partners. The company's CEO, Maki Abe, says that the goal of her company is to address the spiritual health crisis of a broken social ethic, and do it so well that her company goes out of business. She says that after World War II, Japan titled away from a social ethic, tilting toward selfishness. Japan has always valued the ability to project an an outward display of invulnerability in the face of unbearable stress, a virtue called gaman. It's a mask. What's real is kodoku, isolation. Yet the social-community ethic held people together, held families together. Today, 1/3 of all suicides in Japan are now work-stress related. Capitalism and the Western individualistic ethic have ravaged Japan. They also harm us here in the West.

I myself awkwardly try to impress other people in order to fit in, by showing off to them how resourceful I am in my knowledge and wittiness, because I often feel like don't have much else to offer. Of course I have much more to offer, but to get people to buy in to that idea, I usually go for trying too hard to let people know that I'm clever, have a bunch of resources to help you, and am "woke," or more precisely, OOTGO, "one of the good ones."

One Vision (of Many): Civic Holidays 

To have a true harvest yet again is to overcome loneliness and recover true unity.

I woke up on the Friday before Sukkot this year from a dream where I was looking through Will Smith movies on Netflix and one of them was called "The Possibility of the Throng as a Gathering" (admit it, that sounds like the name of one of those serious Will Smith movies). It had a picture of giant golden sheaves of ripe wheat. I woke up and realized it meant "the possibility of the Harvest as a gathering," but was a play on words. As I thought about it some more, I thought of the words for this post, and of a solution:

Conservatives make the family and community the primary unit, and liberals demand justice for workers. Both can meet at the avenue of lessening the length of the work-week, for time to be home with family and active in the community, solving problems and building bonds. 

Before I was a student, my communities consisted of 

A) Friday Jummah/Dhikr Night, 

B) Saturday Bible Study (teaching the social justice ethic)

C) Sunday Church 

D) Wednesday Human Relations Council Meetings (where we plan marches, rallies, concerts, fundraisers, handicap-accessible playgrounds, police-community issues, etc.) 

E) Wednesday Open Mics 

F) Thursday Mentoring the Youth 

G) Anti-Racist/Sexist/Homophobic Work (New Jim Crow book club, social justice theater, anti-racist trainings for white people, interviewing locals about gentrification, migrant issues, criminal justice issues, tenant issues, etc for presentations) 

If it were not for my unemployed-status at the time, I would not be able to be involved in these life-sustaining communities. What communities are/were you involved in? What privileges do you have which allow you to partake in them? The fact is, we need time for this, yet not everyone has that time.

Some people don't have the time to drive to another state to see their family members whom they haven't seen in years. Some people don't have the money to go to therapy. Some people would love to go out to dance or hear/recite poetry that is their therapy, but don't have the time because they are working or can't afford/access day-care. Some people with a lot of talent need to be crafting it but can't, because they have to work overtime. If we had holidays, be they set holidays or ones which the individual designates, which paid people the equivalent they would have needed for themselves/their family to survive, then we could have a system where people like me don't feel guilty knowing that they are developing their talents, doing their healing group practices and their civic duties to empower the vulnerable and recover from their inherited evil of racism, classism, abelism, etc., only because they have the privilege of being born to the right circumstances.

Expanding Privilege: Using Religion as a Means to a Social Justice End

Enter the throng as congregation, ijma ("consensus" in Islam), Jummah (weekly socio-political religious gathering and day with messianic expectations in Islam); qahal (The word in the Hebrew Bible for "assembly"). Every day of the week, communities should meet together, and those who cannot meet should be able to be represented, and provided with minutes of their issues. I'm not just talking about town halls:

Everybody who benefits from an organization that gentrifies minority communities- basically every city hospital/pharmaceutical company, every luxury condo, and university/college - should find ways to keep those community's cost-of-living and jobs stable, and meet consistently to do so. Every young adult white person should mentor at-risk white youth against the growing bullying against minorities and women, emboldened by Trump. Every Jew, Christian and Muslim who believes in the Messiah should prepare the way by being the Messiah in communal action to make the world a better place.

That's the point: to not just enjoy our privileges but to democratize our privileges. We need more holidays in order to do this. That's why I am proposing a short work-week, and more federal recognition of holidays so we can each interpret a social-ethic spirit of each holiday and act on them. 

We need this time off, whether we are religious or not, to be able to use the holidays to make society work for the most vulnerable. To relax during the weekend knowing that you're otherwise working to ensure that everyone else can do the same. To laugh at a meme about "first-world problems" but then to go on the equivalent of a religious pilgrimage to a third-world country, learn their needs, meet their locals, and join a community back home that sends resources to meet those needs. 

And on that note, the government needs to pay every descendant of slaves in America to be able, if they so desire, to go on a trip to Africa as their birthright. 

Pastoral Care, Therapy, Personal Guidance:

When I attend Unity Fellowship Church NewArk, it showcases people's talents, provides fundraisers for young and struggling people, promotes Black businesses, and uplifts people to follow their dream- to take that risk- be it in dropping that toxic person, going for that promotion or dream job you've been putting off, writing that book, taking that course. I find myself crying at altar call because I know I have been procrastinating yet the tears are tears of inspiration and motivation, of renewal and regeneration. 

Yet there is also the pastoral care outside of the sermon: the groups for men and women to talk about what's specifically going on in their lives, the drop-ins at the LGBTQ PRIDE Center which is connected with the church, the one-on-one conversations. This need, to not just be moved by a sermon but to change, applies to all religious communities; here is a Muslim speaking of it in relation to attending Islamic events:

Instead, like a drug fiend looking for a high, we attend event after event searching for that iman [faith]-rush. Once the high of the hit has faded, we go back to our terrible habits and troubling states of mind – subconsciously seeking the next event or gathering to fill our spiritual voids.

I am not blaming the events, the event organizers or the speakers. Nor am I blaming you and me. I just think it is high time for all of us to start asking questions like: Do I truly have the intention to change after attending X event or seminar? ... Am I using this Islamic event to genuinely grow, or just to make myself feel better without any practical intention of changing? Is the knowledge I am learning spiritually fulfilling, or is it time that I seek something greater?

These are all very personal questions and the answers will be even more subjective. However, if we are looking to overcome the spiritual impasse we have found ourselves in, it is critical that we begin to take a closer look at ourselves and our surroundings. To answer the above questions will take intentional self-awareness, honesty, courage, increased emotional intelligence, and a striving towards critical thinking. It will also require striving to learn Islam on one’s own; to engage in a healthy amount of self-study to equip oneself with the truth, rather than solely relying on external resources to fulfill one’s personal responsibility for seeking knowledge.

With some soul-searching and healthy questioning, you may find that in actuality, Islamic events have been taking the place of what you truly really need: a personal teacher, a therapist, a friend, a loving family member, a community, acceptance, an Islamic identity – the list goes on.

I believe that one’s Islamic self-concept should extend outside of Islamically conducive environments such as events, lectures, halaqahs, retreats or the mosque, into other realms of one’s life. Only then can we truly examine the practical impact that our learning is having on our lives. Anyone can be a great Muslim when surrounded by other great Muslims at various events and gatherings, but the truth is in who you are when you are with your family, at work, at school and, especially, when you are alone.

As well as calling my brothers and sisters in faith to self-examine, I also call for a reform in our delivery of and approach to Islamic events" so that they don't shame people.

Responsiveness & Dialogue: Pillars of Community

I am a Muslim, and part of what amazes me about the life of Muhammad is how he ran his religious center, the masjid (mosque), as a community center. Here are some of the things he conducted there-

Dream interpretation every morning, where people were asked to talk about their dreams

Mentorship/ friends bringing up issues

Homeless shelter

Soup kitchen

Giving out odd jobs so no one was unemployed

Makeshift hospital

Social security Treasury

Town hall; Muhammad used the call to prayer even if it wasn't prayer time to gather people for talks, where he gave sermons about pressing issues, such as his sermon against wife beating and other criticisms of community problems, and he asked for consensus on other issues

Entertainment- cultural dances and poetry, theater

No trade

Fun foot races with his wife

General sermons followed by walking sermons directly addressing a hand-chosen group, like women

Non-obligatory prayers done in private nearby

Open to anyone, even people who were ignorantly not respectful of it. A Bedouin ("hick") came in an peed in a corner of the mosque, and Muhammad's companions were about to yell at him for having no manners, when Muhammad stopped them and told them to deal gently with him 

Muhammad invited the Christians of Najran to pray in his mosque, before engaging in dialogue with them

Receive delegations and allow interfaith prayer and mass/other important celebrations

Playground for children

Umayyad mosque in Damascus, Syria. In NYC I've seen adult Muslims do aerobics on their noon-prayer break, and other mosques allow kids to get their heebie-jeebies out

Perhaps we can have more secular equivalents of communal meetings and more frequently in order to address our problems, assemblies where even the most marginalized have a voice equal to that of the wealthiest. 

In New Jersey, legislation was passed in 1997 to create The New Jersey Human Relations Council (NJ-HRC), which in every town "shall promote 'prejudice reduction' education and address the problem of bias and violent acts based on the victim's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or disability." The HRC I am involved in in Highland Park, NJ, does not simply address issues reactively, but proacitvely tries to prevent them. Our meetings are democratic, transparent, and open to all. Dialogues are not always perfect, but they are ongoing, as we meet consistently, and offer individual meetings between official meetings.

Click here for Part 2: Visions for a Modern Harvest
(A New Thanksgiving/ A New Communion/ A New Sukkot/ Poetry for the New Harvest)