Fight for Me, for Us, for You, for WE

By Yehudah Webster

Image Description: Blog image with a photo of a mountain lake on a cloudy day. The lake is on the foreground,with layers of trees and mountain edges fading behind fog in the distance. Text reads, “Tammuz 5786 by Yehudah Webster”.

“Hamalach Hagoel Oti…The Messenger that Redeemed Me from all Evil: 

Bless my descendants and the world they live in. Create the conditions for them to continue to fight for Me, for Us, for You, for WE. Every generation has empires and leaders that strive to reduce the “WE” to only the “me and my family.”

The fight, however, isn’t just resisting the evil of your time. 

Fight the seductive pull of despair to give up and give in to carving out whatever comfort, security, prosperity available. Fight to invest in yourself, ourselves, each other, and HaShem/Sacred. 

Fight for Me, for Us, for You, for WE:

To know your worth is infinite and unique as B’tzelem Elohim

To build and grow your inner-life and spiritual well-being 

To wrestle like Yaacov with the Sacred 

To lift the darkness within and without and receive the light from the Heavens. 

To tend to and grow your fire and soul desire for connection and good

To cry out for spiritual redemption and intervention 

To put and keep YWHW/Sacred in the center of all

To uncover and live into your purpose and destiny

To relentlessly pursue Teshuvah, re-Turning

To turn and restore our relationship with the Sacred

To deepen your understanding of the significance of your lineage to the Blessed Creator

To love your neighbor as yourself

To love yourself

Hamalach Hagoel Oti, The Messenger that Redeemed Me: 

Bless my descendants and the world they live in to live up to the names of their ancestors. May they have the spiritual strength to fight for Me, for Us, for You, for We.

Your Ancestor,Yisrael (formerly known as Yaakov)”

—-

This month of Tammuz holds the American holidays of Independence Day and Juneteenth as well as the Jewish commemoration of the Babylonians breaching the walls of Yerushalayim. The American holidays both mark an effort to establish and expand who’s included in the WE of the United States; an effort that’s been ongoing to continue expanding the “WE” to include whoever wants to be here.

We, of course, are in a moment when the walls of the “WE” are being breached and torn down, with the walls of just me and mine being built high. This ancestral letter I wrote reminds Me, Us, You, and We that fighting to build our inner life is a necessary condition that makes the fight for WE survivable and winnable. It is hard to be well internally while living inside broken systems, but it is also a losing battle to try to repair those systems when we ourselves are not well internally. The inner work is not a retreat from the fight but rather a necessary condition that makes the fight survivable and winnable.

This letter emerged from a practice inspired by a teaching from Rabbeinu Yonah Gerondiin the 13th century, who writes in the “Gates of Spiritual Service” that the beginning of spiritual growth is recognizing our own worth and the “greatness and significance” of our ancestors to the Blessed Creator.

I invite you to try this practice:

• Write a letter to yourself from a distant ancestor, either someone you know from your family history or an imagined ancestor.

• Write in their voice, considering what they might want you to remember, what they might be proud of, or what they hope for you and for the future. Write freely and without worrying about accuracy or perfection.

Chodesh tov, Yehudah Webster, Kirva’s Program Director and Lead Faculty