The Grand Bargain that will gradually raise the Massachusetts minimum wage to $15/hour and fund paid family and medical leave with a modest payroll tax is not a win for everyone. Using the threat of a sales tax reduction referendum, business negotiators walked away with A Grand Wage Theft: no overtime for Sunday and Holiday work.

One estimate is that 300,000 workers will be injured by this change. That Sunday shopping is now “normal” is not an excuse to require workers to forego their family, rest and religious observance time without compensation. It obvious that it is not necessary to the successful operation of the vast retail industry that operates on Sunday – they are doing it now, they can do it in the future without this new immense subsidy.

Progressive legislators, I was told by informed by observers, were given twelve hours’ notice of the vote on the Bargain. Not so much for considered action or constituent response. Now, the Bill is on the Governor’s desk and I hope he will sign it.
 
Then, the next Session of the Legislature should restore overtime pay for Sunday and Holiday work.  If employers want to put workers to work on these days, they should pay for it. One of the most important 20th Century stories is the successful struggle for the eight hour day, for respect for time off, for our common understanding of the precious value of time for ourselves, time the employer does not own.
​
Repeal the Sunday Wage Theft.
 
Robert J.S. Ross, PhD
President, Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium
Research Professor of Sociology and
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

See Slaves to Fashion the book about poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops.

By Marya Axner

​Opening remarks from the 17th Annual Labor Seder:

Good evening and welcome to the 17th Annual Labor Seder!
 
Many of you have seen me at protests carrying my Jewish Labor Committee sign. Almost every time I’m out there with my sign, someone comes up to me and says, “What’s the Jewish Labor Committee?” and I give them my elevator speech: “We engage the Jewish community in issues that affect workers and we engage the Labor Community in issues that affect Jews.”  And then I ask them, no matter how they look, “Are you Jewish?”
 
And then often I have the pleasure of hearing some amazing story about this person that’s not a yes-no answer: like, “Well, my mother is Latina from Argentina and her parents were Holocaust survivors but I didn’t know I was Jewish until my grandmother died.”  Or, “I’m Iranian and my father is Jewish, but we are also Muslim.” Or, “My parents are Jewish but we don’t go to synagogue, but we celebrated Passover and my dad worked as a organizer.”  So after I listen to these wonderful stories, I invite this person to get involved in the Jewish Labor Committee.
 
So now I’ll tell you another story: About a month after the last Labor Seder, Verizon went out on strike. And there was a big protest out at Government Center, a few steps from our office. So a few people and I from the JLC went out to go to the protest. I carried several extra JLC signs in case I ran into other JLC people who wanted to hold one.
 
Shortly after we got there a man with a red Verizon T-shirt, clearly a Verizon worker, comes up to me and says, “Can I hold one of your signs?” I said “sure, and tell me, are you Jewish?” He answers, “No.”  I say “Okay, so why do you want to hold one of our signs?” And he answers, “You are standing with us, so I want to stand with you.”
 
I’ll say it again because this is the most important part of what I have to say tonight: “You are standing with us, so I want to stand with you.”  Now isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that what we are doing here tonight and in most of our work?
 
By the way, the photograph of this man is on the cover of our Haggadah. I don’t remember his name but I think his last name was Connelly or Donnelly. After the Seder if you know him, please tell me his name.
 
(Another way of saying “you are standing with us, so I want to stand with you” would be, “the people united will never be defeated.”)
 
So we know that for thousands of years, some people in power figured out how to keep their power by dividing the people that they ruled over. It’s called, “Divide and conquer.”
 
Anti-Semitism is just one of the ways people get divided and are manipulated into believing that the other group is bad, or not okay, not as righteous, not as smart, not as good, not as hard-working, not as honest, not as beautiful, not as deserving, not as precious, as another group of human beings.
 
And if you look at the big picture, when one group is singled out for attack, it’s bad for all of us. For example, when Jews are targeted by anti-Semitism, we are not the only ones who lose. Working people from all backgrounds also suffer the effects of this divide and conquer tactic.
 
I’ll try and explain: People are told, in rather indirect ways, and sometimes direct ways, that Jews control the banks and are responsible for poverty, economic inequality, and our corrupt system. These are myths, just like the myth that all Jews are wealthy.
 
And non-Jewish working people, when they get fed up enough about how they’ve been treated, are more vulnerable to believing these lies and their attention is diverted away from changing our inequitable system.
 
And that’s a big loss for all of us. And anti-Semitism certainly isn’t the only way we lose our unity and direction towards a more equitable society.  We are we are thrown off course by racism, classism, sexism, anti-immigrant oppression, LGBTQ oppression, disability oppression, Islamophobia, etc. All of us working people get divided from each other.
 
And right now working people and labor unions are also under attack. With this administration, there have already been moves to dismantle protections for workers and there will be more attacks on labor unions as the “right to work” laws are growing and some want make it national law. We will all be affected by this and we need to stand together to fight it which is what my friend the Verizon worker said, “You are standing with us, so I want to stand with you.”
 
What if we didn’t feel like we were alone in this battle? What if we could imagine we were in this together in one unified movement? So here’s what I’d like you to do as a start. Not now, but before you leave this room tonight, find someone who you don’t know. Ask them to tell you some little story about who they are, and the group they are in and the work they do. And listen. And then tell them something you want them to know about you, your group, your work.
 
But now, I invite us to follow the lead of my friend who I met that day at the Verizon protest. I want us to stand with each other.

Whoever isn’t Jewish, if you can, would you stand right now with me?

If you care about working people would you also stand right now?

If you will not let anyone use oppression to divide us, would you stand now with me?

Thank you, Happy Passover, and I hope you enjoy the Labor Seder.

Marya Axner is the Regional Director of the New England Jewish Labor Committee.

By Amy Mazur

​As we watch what is happening in the world unfold, it can be extremely hard to stay optimistic.  But staying connected, to our guiding principles, to our selves – and being in community – I believe this is what sustains us in hard times. What does being in community really mean?   Over these last few weeks, I have had a chance to experience this up close and personal.
 
 It started in December, when I attended an event co-sponsored by the New England Jewish Labor Committee and Matahari Women Workers’ Center, a Greater Boston organization of women of color, immigrant women and families who organize as sisters, workers, and survivors for personal and societal transformation, justice and human rights. The event was entitled, In Our Care: Creating Community Protection in an Era of Uncertainty/First Report on Oral History Project of Domestic Workers and Employers of Domestic Workers.  This community building event provided those in attendance the opportunity to discuss the future of domestic care in our lives and in our society, and ask the question, “How does our view of domestic work/labor impact the way we all care for one another in society?”
 
The event was a powerful experience in and of itself, as together we all shared our personal  stories of immigration, and how our immigration histories have shaped our lives, past and present.  I walked away with a much deeper appreciation for both the value of listening to the stories we all have to tell, as well as the different ways that the immigrant experience has had an impact on each of us.  The value of this event was heightened because, with the help of translators and translation devices, we were able to hear the stories in the native languages of the storytellers.
 
But what happened shortly following the event was yet another way that I learned about the real meaning of being in community.  Matahari and the JLC approached my congregation, Dorshei Tzedek, to help a domestic worker, who was in an exploitive working environment, find short-term housing.  The assistance was needed immediately, and many households in my congregation stepped up and offered housing (which was graciously accepted). Even more of my community offered additional support and resources. There was a real need and we were there  - for a stranger in need and for each other.
 
These two experiences have come at a time when I am struggling to make sense of the world around me.  I feel so blessed to be in this community – the one of which I have been a part for many years, and the one that continues to expand beyond where I thought it ended.
 
What I realized from these distinct and meaningful experiences is that I am more of the person I want to be when I am in community, and that community means welcoming and even inviting others in with whom I might not have had the chance to connect before. I am committed to being part of a community that allows stories to be heard, that steps up when there is a need, and that is welcoming of those who want to support each other. When I am in this community, I am able to move forward with hope and optimism for the future.

Amy Mazur is a member of Congregation Dorshei Tzedek in West Newton, and a volunteer with the Jewish Labor Committee who has supported the JLC’s work with the Hyatt 100, the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights and the Fight for 15.  Amy is also pleased to be building her community to include more collaboration with the Matahari Women Workers’ Center.  

By Rabbi Barbara Penzner

​This is the season when Jews celebrate the creation of the universe. According to ancient wisdom, when the earth was created it had no foundation. It was unsteady, unstable. And so God created teshuvah, a word that means repentance, which is to say the human capacity to grow and to change.
 ​
As one commentator explained, “So too, the power of teshuvah is implanted in every creature, and so too, and most essentially, in human beings who are microcosms of the world.” 
​
Teshuva is the foundation of the world.  It is hard-wired into us, the remarkable capacity to assess our deeds and the opportunity to change our ways. This is what we celebrate on Rosh Hashanah.
 
We come together in the urgency of a New Year to do nothing less than to repair our damaged souls, rebuild our moral character, heal our broken relationships, and revive our faith and our hopes.
 
We also come together in the urgency of this election, as we face enormous challenges in America: to bring prosperity to the poor and middle class; to combat the corrupting relationship between big money, elections, and governance; to heal our racial divide; to remake our criminal justice system so all Americans receive equal treatment under the law; to respond with compassion to refugees, immigrants, minorities and people on the margins of society; to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, to repair our inequitable education system, to reduce the disparities in health care; and to reverse the looming climate crisis.
 
These are all major challenges to the future of our United States. None of them can be solved by any president alone. If American society is flawed, if the democratic system is broken, then each of us, as citizens, is responsible for its survival; each of us is obligated to restore it to health. Our votes count, not just the votes for President or Representative or Senator, but also the votes for City Councilor and Sheriff and Register of Deeds. Democracy depends on ensuring a moral foundation at every level of government. If the system is unfair, it is not because the system has abandoned us, but because we have abandoned it.
 
The great teacher Rebbe Nachman taught, “If you believe you can ruin things, then believe you can fix them.” In other words, do not despair! We flawed mortals are capable of change, and so is our country. This is the point of having elections. Just as Jews come together for the High Holy Days to work on our souls, this is a time for us all to do some tikkun, some repair, on our nation.
 
In the spring, a voter drive was launched by the Moral Mondays Movement. The North Carolina-based movement was highlighted nationally when Reverend William J. Barber II addressed the Democratic National Convention. Its goal is “to support state-based fusion movements to combat extremism in state and national politics, and to be a catalyst for a resurgence of political activism in order to end poverty, racial inequalities, and the most pressing issues in our country.”
 
Three Mondays ago, I joined a Moral Mondays procession around the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill, led by an interfaith delegation of 100 clergy leaders. We joined others doing the same at 27 other state capitals nationwide. Afterwards, a delegation met with Governor Baker to present the movement’s Higher Ground Moral Declaration and to proclaim the revolution here in Massachusetts.
 
The start of a New Year is an apt time to begin a moral revolution. Revolution and teshuvah are both turning points. Today, we need a moral revolution in our hearts. And that moral revolution should compel us to a moral revolution in how we vote and how we choose our representatives and how we govern. We need a moral revolution to root out hatred and prejudice. We need a moral revolution to say “yes” to justice and equity. The foundations of our nation and our world depend on us.

By Ashley Adams

There’s a campaign to increase the number of charter schools in Massachusetts.  It’s called Question 2 — and it would raise the cap on the number of new charter schools in the state.  It’s funded with millions of dollars from right wing donors, from outside of Massachusetts, under the banner of “school choice”.  They’re running ads during the Olympics.  We Jews, especially those on the Left, as many in the Jewish Labor Committee are, generally embrace choice.  Choice is good, no?  So why is this referendum question, Question 2, so terribly bad for education and for those of us who embrace justice?  Let me tell you.

Chiefly, it’s about the money.  Right now, with the current cap on charter schools in Massachusetts, over $400,000,000 is diverted from the public schools to the charter schools.  And of that huge transfer of money, a disproportionate amount is coming from those school districts, like Boston, Holyoke, New Bedford, and Springfield, where the money is most needed.

That’s a huge problem — and exposes the underlying destructive power of the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts.  In the name of providing an educational choice for students, the funding of these charter schools is coming from the public schools that can least afford the draining of their precious educational funds.

The defenders of charters will tell you that the money just follows the students, from the public schools to the charter schools.  These pro-charter forces opine that as the public schools lose students, they lose the need for funding.  But this surely isn’t the case.   

Imagine an urban high school with 1,000 students, evenly divided among four grades, 9-12.  To make it simple, imagine that each grade has 10 classes of 25 students each.  A charter opens up near-by.  Five students from each class choose to enroll in this charter school.  Overall, the public high school loses 20 students.  Last year, the district spent, on average, $15,000 per student.  This year, since they have lost 20 students, their budget is slashed by $300,000.  Though each grade will lose 5 students, they haven’t lost enough students to have fewer classes.  So they still need the same number of classroom teachers.  They need the same heat, the same cleaning staff, the same secretarial staff, and administrative staff.  Their core costs don’t go down at all.  But they’re $300,000 poorer.  What do they do?  They’ll probably elect to cut the very things that make a high school education enriched — music, art, library, or sports.  In the interest of “choice” this urban school is forced to choose which part of their children’s education they will cut.  How can this be good for education?

There are many other problems with the expansion of charter schools.  Let me name one more for this relatively short blog piece.  (Check out www.saveourpublicschoolsma.com for more information).  Charter schools take a disproportionately small percentage of children with special needs.  Though they may not overtly discriminate against them, since they are not legally required to educate all students in a school district, they may not have the facilities or staff to properly serve students with special needs.  These students are also proportionately more expensive to educate — leaving the underfunded public schools with that burden.

When a parent with a child with special needs looks at the charter school, he or she will decide not to enroll his or her child in it— lacking as it may well be in appropriate services for their child.  Similarly, a child who is learning English as a second language (ESL), may well elect not to send their child to a charter school that lacks a robust ESL program.  These special needs and ESL students stay in the public schools, legally bound to provide them with a good education, and increasing the actual per student costs of the public school.  

Perhaps Juan Cofield, the President of the New England NAACP put it best.  “The ballot question would take hundreds of millions more taxpayer money, creating a two-tier education system”.  In the same of school choice, Question 2 would actually further an educational system that would be separate and unequal.  That’s why I am campaigning against it.  

Ashley Adams has been a union organizer, representative, and trainer for 32 years, since 2000 with the Massachusetts Teachers Association.  He is also the past-president of Temple Hillel B’Nai Torah, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.  He has been a loyal member, and is a past-co-chair of the New England Jewish Labor Committee.  He is happily married to a wonderful woman and is the proud father of two adult daughters.  In his spare time he is a poker player and author, having written'Winning 7-card Stud' (2003), 'Winning No Limit Hold’em' (2012) and 'Union Power Tools' (2012).

By Molly Schulman
 
“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.” –James Baldwin

A couple months ago, I called my nanny, Rita, on the phone. I was beginning a new family history project in which I sought to explore the complicated relationships between the women in my Ashkenazi Jewish family and the African American women who worked alongside them as domestics in their homes. Rita had moved back to Dallas, Texas after my younger brother and I had both graduated high school. As she reflected on the twenty years she spent in our home, she told me, “My real thing is that I still hold a great love for everybody that I have dealt with on the east coast. […] It’s like we were all supposed to be right there. We just different colors but we right there together. Something binds us all together.”
 
Growing up, Rita’s life felt intertwined with my own. She was there for play dates, doctor’s appointments, birthdays, and guitar lessons. She was the first one who would hear about my day when I got home from school and she was the keeper of my secrets. Yet, when Rita went into her room at the end of the day, I didn’t know what television shows she turned on or who she talked to on her cell phone. I felt like she knew everything about me and yet I didn’t know how she felt about her mother or what made her scared or her reflections on how she had raised her own children who were having their own children by the time Rita started working for my family. It wasn’t until later that I found out that before working for my family, she had had to work multiple service jobs to make ends meet for her three children. While she was there every day to help raise my brother and me, she had not been able to give her own children that same attention.
 
Rita was more than just someone who worked for my mother. She taught me how to stand up for myself, to see the humor in life’s troubles, and to see the great pleasure in giving more than receiving. She became a part of my family and I am still working on how I can show her how much she really means to me.
 
Since my mother’s family immigrated to Elgin, Texas from Torn, Germany in the late 1800’s, all of the women in my family have employed African American women to work as domestics in their homes. Writing this history has given me the chance to see these relationships in their nuance and complexity. From Rita, my mother, and my grandmother, I have heard stories of pain and comfort, anger and love coexisting in one relationship. At the same time, I have seen how each individual relationship between the women in my family and the African American women have been infused with systemic racism and class difference. My family is not unique in our implication in these systems—but that does not take away our responsibility to grapple with this legacy, to examine the ways we continue to hold up white supremacy whether knowingly or not in our own lives.
 
Working on this project has left me with more questions than answers. How do we address the American Jewish community’s implication in upholding systems of power? With Ashkenazi Jews having a history marked by both resistance and assimilation, where does that leave us now? What could collective healing look like both inside and outside the Jewish community? How am I going to teach my own children about their history? These are questions that I need to keep willing myself to answer, recognizing that my answers will change as I continue developing as an American Jewish woman.
 
Now, working at the Jewish Labor Committee I am excited to learn that I am not alone in my investment in this topic. The JLC and Matahari, an organization that works on behalf of domestic workers, are working together to record stories of domestic workers and their employers through their oral history project, Domestic Workers and Their Employers: Exploring the Realities of Work, Family, Care, and Communities. The two organizations will be sharing what they’ve learned at a forum near the end of the year. It’s affirming to know that my personal story is part of a larger story that needs to be told, in the Jewish community and beyond. 

Molly Schulman is currently working as Marya Axner’s assistant at the New England JLC. She has previously served as one of the co-presidents of the Tufts Labor Coalition and as an educator for the Leaders-in-Training program at Solar Youth. She is excited to start her position as a Team Leader with City Year New York starting this July.

​By Rabbi Barbara Penzner

​Mazal tov, Nelson Peltz!

We share your joy in celebrating the bar mitzvah of your twin sons.
​
Bar mitzvah marks a young man’s coming into an age of responsibility. The Jewish community welcomes our young men and women into the world of mitzvot, of Jewish obligations. We look forward to seeing young Zachary and Gregory stepping into this role of making important decisions about their lives, about their Jewish observance, and about how they interact in the world.

In our Boston congregation, the b’nai mitzvah students demonstrate their commitment to others by taking on a community service mitzvah.  In 2011, when T’ruah and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) called on us to speak to Trader Joe’s managers and executives to convince them to sit down at the table with migrant tomato pickers, our students showed up at our local Trader Joe’s with signs and petitions. It didn’t take long for Trader Joe’s to learn that consumers care about where their produce comes from. They didn’t want to buy or sell tomatoes that were associated with slavery, violence, or sexual harassment. Trader Joe’s joined the CIW’s Fair Food Program in 2012, leading to real change for farm workers and their families.

What is Nelson Peltz teaching his sons at their bar mitzvah celebration? While Peltz lavished them with a $2 million dollar celebration, featuring a hockey rink, stilt-walkers, and celebrities, he continues to refuse to even sit at a table with the workers of the CIW. Peltz, as head of Trian Partners, is the largest shareholder in Wendy’s—the last major fast-food corporation to refuse to talk to the CIW. 

While Peltz and his family enjoyed a bar mitzvah that celebrates wealth, he and his corporation profit from human rights abuses in the tomato fields.

Not only has Wendy’s refused to join the CIW’s Fair Food Program, which has unparalleled enforcement (with market consequences) of its human rights protections for Florida’s migrant workers, Wendy’s has abandoned the Florida growers to buy tomatoes from notorious growers in Mexico. 90% of Florida growers are part of the Fair Food Program, supported by 14 major food retailers such as Taco Bell, McDonalds, Subway, Burger King (in other words, all of Wendy’s competitors), Walmart, and Whole Foods. But Wendy’s doesn’t seem to care about true prevention of slavery, worker exploitation, violence, wage theft, or sexual harassment. Instead, Wendy’s chooses to buy cheaper tomatoes from known human rights abusers.

Today, our synagogue students are spreading the word to boycott Wendy’s, until they show real commitment to supporting farm workers rights by joining the Fair Food Program. Recently, the students sent Mr. Peltz their own messages about why he should represent justice, compassion, and fairness.

We hope that the Peltz bar mitzvah was a joyous occasion. And we also hope that the lessons of bar mitzvah are more than self-congratulations and conspicuous consumption. A Jewish education stresses justice, compassion, and acting for a better world for all. 

As one of our synagogue’s students wrote to Nelson Peltz, urging Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program, “Your parents would ground you for this.” 

“Your parents would ground you for this…”  And after that, there’s really not much more left to say.

Rabbi Barbara Penzner has served Temple Hillel B'nai Torah in West Roxbury, MA since 1995. She is also the co-chair of the New England Jewish Labor Committee.

​By Rabbi Victor Reinstein
Written on April 15
Republished from LivingNonviolence, May 5

There we were on a recent morning, a few rabbis and a few labor organizers standing in front of the Walk Hill Dunkin Donuts in JP. I found it ironic, since I often go to Dunkin, not for me, but for my dad, for whom the coffee and a glazed doughnut are as sustaining as manna from Heaven. My greatest worry was that things wouldn’t go well and there might come to be a boycott of Dunkin Donuts.

All did go well and it was a moment of encountering the gentle teaching of one woman who works at that Dunkin Donuts. As you may be aware, there were nation wide one-day strikes yesterday by fast food workers and others as part of the campaign for a $15.00 minimum wage, the “Fight for $15.” It is important to note that yesterday also marked the beginning of a strike by Verizon workers against an effort by the company to cut wages and benefits, particularly the retirement benefits of older workers. And so we waited in front of Dunkin Donuts, waiting for a worker who had stayed away from work yesterday to be part of the strike, to raise her voice for the sake of all who struggle to make ends meet while often working several jobs, all balanced with the same family and life responsibilities that we all know. We were there as part of a “walk back” taking place at many fast food locations, there to walk back into work with each worker to insure that there was no retribution for having taken part in the strike.

The woman we had the honor to accompany arrived with a labor organizer who was also there to insure all would be well. On the back of the labor organizer’s black leather jacket was a saying that seemed to say it all, “respect existence or expect resistance….” It is a powerful statement, so simple in its expression of a basic truth, the equal presence of every person upon this earth and in society, and the responsibility of each one to stand up for the other. We had come to stand up for one person whose existence we feared might not be respected. We had come to accompany her out of concern, but it soon became clear that it was a gift to us to be in her presence, that she was our guide and accompanying her became an opportunity to learn from her.

At first she was startled, embarrassed with the attention and care for her. She laughed and said she had been interviewed four times during the strike, that she had been in the newspaper and on the radio, and that she had never been interviewed before. She also had never been on strike before. She had also never had a raise in fifteen years of working at the same Dunkin Donuts. And that’s why she finally went out on strike. It was clear how good she felt, how good it felt to realize her own strength, to respect her own existence, and to know she was not alone. I was deeply touched by her humility and by the freshness of her own awareness of strength, the strength to do something she had never done, the strength to risk losing her job and accepting the turmoil of turning her life upside down.

That is why we were there, to help insure that she would not face such risk. After talking and sharing a bit about ourselves there in the parking lot, we all walked in together. It was a beautiful moment, as we heard that the manager was out sick. We asked the acting manager if everything was okay, that there would be no problem for our friend’s return to work. “No, she said, “everything’s cool.” They
were such beautiful words, all of us feeling relief. The woman whom we had encircled laughed, hugs all around. As she thanked us before getting to work, we thanked her for her strength and for what she had taught us in her simple witness. I realized that this is the teaching of someone learning to respect her own existence, a teaching that is for all of us, always needing to be relearned and refreshed.

Respect for one’s own existence and realizing that we each have something unique to teach weaves as a thread throughout this week’s Torah portion, Parashat M’tzora (Lev. 14:1-15:33) and throughout much of the book of Vayikra. The word m’tzora is generally translated as “leper,” though it is more helpful to understand it simply as one who is afflicted, whether of body or soul, someone in the midst of a hard time, vulnerable and so easily rejected. In regard to so many who are vulnerable or in a place of distance or separation from others, the Torah refers to ways of response and return, prescribing rituals and offerings meant to bring the distant near. At the end of each section concerning one who is apart, the Torah uses the phrase, zot Torat/this is the Torah of…, meaning of that person. It can be read simply as a technical phrase, Torah as instruction regarding what is to be done to facilitate this person’s return to ritual life. In just hearing the word Torah, however, meaning teaching, or instruction, a guide for living, we are drawn to the fullness of its meaning, hearing the phrase as much more than a technical instruction. We are being told of the unique Torah of each one, reminded that everyone has their own special teaching to share, regardless of their state or situation in life. At the outset of the portion, we are reminded to open our eyes and heart to the Torah of the afflicted, those from whom we might most quickly turn away.

Each of us is at times the afflicted one, at times whole and at times in a state of brokenness. In the course of our lives, we each gather unique teaching that is our own, Torah that tells of our own life and experience, teaching that only we can share. In his teaching on the phrase, zot Torat ha’m’tzorah/this is the Torah of the afflicted, the S’fas Emes, the Gerer Rebbe, offers a loving challenge: there are found words of Torah in every soul…, but they become blocked within…; and it is for us to bring them out from potential to real.

We learned words and ways of Torah that morning, the Torah of a fast food worker who had discovered her own potential and was striving to make it real. After fifteen years, one woman’s fight for $15.00 is about realizing potential, and so for all others, who like her are seeking respect for their existence. That is the Torah that she taught us in front of a Dunkin Donuts. It is the Torah that needs to go forth and spread throughout the land, a teaching of respect for each one’s existence, affirmed in the value given to their work.

Victor Reinstein is the rabbi of Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue in Jamaica Plain and Chair of the Public Policy Committee of the Mass Board of Rabbis.

​by Rabbi Jordan Braunig

​“Let us idealize…the trade union movement, show that it is the way towards the emancipation of the worker, and with that aim in view and a great deal of hard, earnest, persevering work, the victory will be ours.”
 
Revolutionary words. Whose are they? Bernie Sanders in ’16?  Nope. Try Rose Schneiderman in ’11…1911.  
 
It’s actually a fun party game. I call it “Bernie Sanders or A Leader of the Early 20th Century Garment Union?” 
 
How about this one? Our duty, “is to share bread with the hungry, and to take the socio-economically depressed into our homes; when you see someone who is without clothes, to put clothes on their back.”
 
Who said it? Hillary?  Nope. The prophet Isaiah. And that’s a little game I call, “Hillary or a Biblical prophet.”
 
All of which is to say, the connection between Jews and the fight for the rights of the working-class goes back.  Way back.
 
The Torah instructs us in the book of Devarim or Deutronomy about the treatment of the worker, commanding, explicitly: Do not oppress the hired worker who depends on their wages, whether a citizen or a migrant worker.  Don’t let the sun go down without paying them their wages.
 
There it is, a sacred Jewish commandment, like fasting on Yom Kippur or honoring your parents.  An essential way of honoring the Torah and exalting the Holy One of Blessing is to recognize the rights of the worker to a fair wage, paid in a timely manner.
 
Yet, the Torah goes farther than to set out a code of ethics for employers.  Rather, it will hold up work, in and of itself as a holy endeavor.  In this weeks parashah Tetzaveh, we receive the instructions concerning the bigdei kodesh, the sacred clothing that will be worn in the temple service.  The Torah had no way of knowing that for so many Jews the garment business would be their foothold in American society, and yet this ancient portion arrives and proclaims that there is holiness in this work.  Sewing: holy.  Hemming: holy.  Knitting: holy.   Quilting: don’t even get me started on quilting.  In fact, the construction of the Mishkan, the portable, wilderness sanctuary, will be the source from which every category of melacha, or work, will emerge.  In building, in metal work, in plowing and reaping, and baking and sculpting there is a sacredness inherent in the work.  It is to be honored; to be exalted.
 
As Studs Terkel, the great oral historian of working-America once wrote, “Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor.”
 
And, as much as the Torah raises up the value of work, even higher is the value of rest.  Shabbat.  To know the power of work, is to recognize the glory in refraining from it.  It is called both a taste of the world to come,  and a remembrance of the garden of Eden.  Yet, each of these readings make Shabbat seem to other-worldly, and in truth Shabbat is all about the grittiness of our everyday lives.
 
Indeed, one midrash is creative and audacious enough to imagine Shabbat as originating from the stance of solidarity taken by Moshe Rabeinu.  In this telling, Moses sees the suffering of the people in Egypt and confronts Pharoah.  He says:
 
If someone has a slave, and does not give him one day off each week,
the slave will die.
These are your slaves!
If you don’t let them rest one day a week, they are going to die.”
Pharoah responded: “Go and give your people a day of rest.”
Thus, Moses established Shabbat so that the Israelites could rest.
 
We have seen Moses play many roles in the minds of the sages, shepherd, communal leader, teacher, and yet here we have him take on the role of labor negotiator.  He sticks it to the management, and he succeeds.
 
How exactly does Moses raise his consciousness about the plight of the people?  The text says “Vayar v’sivlotam”  He saw their burden, and he recognized himself in them.
 
Sounds simple.
 
But, it is no easy task.  To see the burdens of others is to take off blinders that society wishes for us to wear.  To see, to truly behold, all of the work, the labor that is going on all around is… it is counter cultural.  In the campus center, to see the janitor as she quietly sweeps, on the T, to notice the individual helping direct the coming and going of the trains, in a restaurant, to witness the individuals who prepare your delicious, food.  It takes effort.  
 
Yet, it is just this effort that our tradition demands of us.  We are meant not to just live lives filled with shallow ritual, but to connect our traditions to the struggles of our time.  Shabbat is beautiful.  It is a delight.  And, it is meant to remind us of the holy labor that surrounds us every day.  This, after all, is the teaching of Isaiah who year after year chides us on Yom Kippur.  Don’t fast and look sad and feel bad for yourself.  That’s not the fast I want.  No.  The fast I want is the loosening of the chains of oppression, the liberation of the worker, the breaking of every yoke.  May we be blessed this Shabbat with the glory of rest, and may we arise awakened to the struggles of the laboring class, able to see the burdens of our world, and willing to make the radical step of seeing our liberation tied up in theirs.

Rabbi Jordan Braunig, Director of the Initiative for Innovative Community Building at Tufts Hillel, is a newly minted rabbi from Hebrew College in Boston. Before coming on board full-time, Jordan was the Rabbinic Fellow at Tufts Hillel, where he learned that there is no better place to work. Rabbi Braunig gave the above d'var Torah on February 19 in honor of Labor Shabbat, an event co-hosted by the JLC celebrating the role of labor in the Jewish tradition.