Claiming Philadelphia as Our Own
At an afternoon Bat Mitzvah service last Shabbat, Lena Greenberg gave a probing, thoughtful talk about the importance of ‘place’ in the story of Abraham and Sarah. She asked challenging questions about the power of ’place’ in our lives. Lena’s questions about how we manage to live good lives if we are among the few people trying to do so have remained with me all week. How do we decide where we will live and how do we take responsibility as citizens of the place we are living? As I wrote my letter in the November Kol Shalom, I was immersed in thinking about these issues and I wrote about them. Yet I still feel the questions bubbling within me.
On Sunday afternoon, I took part in a program of Heeding God’s Call, the anti-gun violence organization. While there, I heard a frightening statistic: there are more people killed by guns in the United States every year than in the next twenty five largest western, developed countries combined. Laws in the United States have not adequately addressed this issue in any state, and Pennsylvania is no exception.
Pennsylvania has a strong National Rifle Association organization that cannot seem to understand that there is a difference between the right to own a hunting rifle and the right to buy a handgun in a city where straw purchasing is rampant. Philadelphia has a frightening underground culture of illegal gun sales on the streets, and there is not enough being done to combat it.
Three years ago, the Mishkan community looked at the issues that we wanted to work on and gun violence was not at the top. Yet, as I’ve gotten to know the pastors of churches around Philadelphia, I’ve learned that they need us to support them in this work that directly affects their communities. We cannot say that we’re working on improving education in our city unless we help make it safe for Philadelphia’s children to go to school. We cannot help support green initiatives like community gardens unless we make it safe for people to work in those gardens. And we cannot work for immigrants’ rights unless we help make the neighborhoods where those immigrants are living safe.
The issue of gun violence is a strange one; many of us don’t see or hear guns in our neighborhoods, but if we open our eyes, we see that guns are closer than we think. If we are claiming our place in this city, the only way to do it is by joining together with the citizens of the city who need partners in the work that they are doing. We need to stand up to the NRA and claim our place as a sacred community that stands for peace. This is one way to answer the important questions that Lena brought to us.