STEPHEN WISE FREE SYNAGOGUE - EMERGENCY FOOD PROGRAM is in need of volunteers this Saturday. Being a holiday weekend it is very difficult to find volunteers. It's early so you have the rest of the day to celebrate being an American and it's good for people of (almost) all ages. If you are available, please contact Scott directly and immediately at scott.disavino@thomsonreuters.com.
This week's teaching is from my dear friend, Debbie Mukamal, Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. Our tradition teaches "Tzaddik k'tamar yifrach," the righteous shall blossom like a date palm. Debbie has taught and inspired many, myself included, the importance of choosing our perception and perspective with care, respect and integrity for ourselves and the other. It is because of her and life's work, that I took on the mitzvah of visiting Jen in prison each month. We should not be defined by our worst action or moment. We should be seen as a whole, created in the image of the Divine.
May her words provide meaning and guidance.
Shabbat Shalom u'mevorach, may Shabbat be filled with fullness and blessing,
Laurie
D'var Torah presented by Debbie Mukamal
Congregation Beth Am, Palo Alto, CA
Congregation Beth Am, Palo Alto, CA
July 1, 2016
Shabbat Shalom. Thank you to Rabbi Marder for the opportunity
to share some words this beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat.
My friend Willard grew up in Menlo Park. In true Silicon
Valley fashion, entrepreneurship surrounded him from his youth. His dad owned
the shoe shine business on the Stanford campus, and he has fond memories of selling
hot dogs and ice cream on University Avenue, long before it was populated with
start-ups. These days, Willard is the proud owner of Magic Hands, a thriving eco-friendly
mobile auto detailing business. He’ll come to your home or your office and
detail your car with one bucket of water, rather than the 40 gallons a
traditional car wash uses. A brilliant idea that he conceived of and cultivated
in a Stanford program. His only daughter, Angela, recently graduated with a doctorate
in Education and works to promote diversity in educational environments. Willard
takes great pride in helping his community; each Christmas he participates in a
bike giveaway for kids in East Palo Alto. He is also a man of deep faith in
Islam, praying five times a day. Mostly a quiet, soft-spoken man, he enjoys a
good barbeque with loved ones. He suffers from bipolar disorder, which he
controls with counseling and medication, like so many others.
Three years ago, Willard was sitting in a prison cell having
already served 18 years of a 25 years to life sentence. Because it was his third
offense, under California sentencing laws at the time, he was automatically
sentenced to serve 25 years to life, despite the nature of his crime being
non-violent. When he went to prison his daughter was 9 years old. They shared
letters and photos on a regular basis but he didn’t see her until she was
enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Education for a Master’s degree,
and someone volunteered to drive her to the prison and visit her dad for the
first time. Willard still has the box full of letters and postcards he received,
as they became his lifeline to the outside and his only way to share in his
daughter’s childhood.
Proposition 36 was passed in 2014, making those serving a
non-violent third strike offense eligible to have their sentences recalculated.
Willard faced the prison doors being open, but his future felt uncertain. He
hadn’t prepared for release, and his years spent in prison didn’t give him the
employment training or education he needed to succeed on the outside. He was
fortunate enough to land himself in transitional housing, a home for recovering
addicts, where he lived for 9 months. He didn’t receive mental health treatment
for his bi-polar disorder. Having earned wages of $.09 an hour for the work he
did inside, his sense of self-value had plummeted.
Willard is not alone. Tonight, more than 2
million people are incarcerated in prisons and jails in the United States,
almost half of whom committed non-violent offenses. While we house 5% of the
world’s population, we incarcerate 25% of the world’s prisoners. Some 12
million alone will cycle in and out of local jail this year, and only two-thirds
of them will be there as punishment for crimes committed. Most will be there awaiting
trial or because they are too poor to post bail. In the last 50 years, we have
seen a four-fold increase in the number of people we incarcerate. Mass
incarceration doesn’t affect our communities evenly. Communities of color and
poor neighborhoods are most devastated; blacks are incarcerated in state prison at a
rate that is 5.1 times that of whites. Put another way, while they comprise
5.7% of the state population, Blacks make up nearly 30% of the state prison
population. Willard’s daughter is not alone: some 2.7 million children have a parent behind bars.
In this week’s Torah portion, Shelach (Numbers 13:1-15:41),
G-d instructs Moses to send scouts into the Land of Canaan. Moses sends 12 men
- one from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. After 40 days, the men return
loaded with grapes, pomegranates and figs. The men report that the land “flows
with milk and honey.” But they also share their concerns that the land is full
of strong, formidable people, including giants. “There we saw the nefilim, the giants,
descendants of the fallen ones. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and
so we were in their sight.” After hearing this dire assessment, the Israelites
panic, crying to Moses and Aaron that they wish they had died in the
land of Egypt or in the desert, rather than have to face the challenges ahead
in Canaan.
Only two of the scouts – Caleb and Joshua – are optimistic
about their abilities, and beseech their brethren to trust in G-d to bring them
safely and successfully into Canaan. But the people refuse to listen. Understandably,
G-d is disappointed in the majority’s despair, “How long will this people
provoke me? How long will they not believe in Me, for all the signs which I
have performed among them?” Ultimately Moses convinces G-d to have pity on the
people, which he does, but as punishment, the 10 scouts and their progeny
cannot enter Canaan; instead they must wander in the desert for 40 years. Only
Caleb’s and Joshua’s descendants get to enter the Promised Land.
The rabbis suggest that this week’s parsha teaches us about the
importance of self-esteem, of maintaining faith in times of adversity, and of believing
in ourselves, the strength of our community, and our capabilities in the wake
of the unknown. Perhaps Caleb and Joshua feel empowered because they knew they
had the support and strength of their community waiting for them. Had the scouts
returned and believed they could and would survive, rather than falling victim
to their fears, they would have been granted access to the Promised Land.
I believe that how we perceive or approach a challenge can
influence whether and how we overcome it. If we channel feelings of strength
and optimism, even in the wake of something unknown and difficult, we often can
move through a difficult experience knowing that we’ve done something similarly
challenging before, and our community is supporting us.
Like the scouts heading from the desert into the unknown and
fear-inducing Land of Canaan, formerly incarcerated individuals like Willard need
faith and courage, in spite of tremendous odds against them. Of the more than
600,000 people who will leave federal or state prison this year, more than
two-thirds will return to prison within three years. The likelihood of their
succeeding is slim. They face many barriers, including challenges in finding
employment, safe and affordable housing, and effective substance abuse and
mental health treatment. They also face the uncertainty of how their loved
ones, their neighbors, their fellow congregants will – or won’t - accept them. And
being stripped of all decision-making during their confinement can make simple
acts like choosing cereal at the supermarket or selecting an entrée from a menu
very overwhelming. For those like Willard, who have been incarcerated for a
long time, the reliance on technology in our everyday lives is nothing short of
overwhelming. They remember using rotary phones, not iWatches.
Like the spies heading into the Land of Canaan, formerly
incarcerated people need opportunities to feel empowered and to feel the
strength of their community waiting for them. They need opportunities to
restore the dignity lost during their confinement. They need opportunities to
find a job that pays a living wage so they can be self-sufficient. They need healing
opportunities to reunify with their family members and to mourn those who have
passed while they were away. They need restorative justice opportunities that
allow them to take responsibility – not just punishment – for the crimes they
have committed. In short, they need opportunities to become whole again.
As Executive Director of the Stanford Criminal Justice
Center at Stanford Law School, I oversee two initiatives, one very local and
one statewide, whose missions are to provide critical self esteem and dignity
to those returning home from prison and jail. Project ReMADE is a 4-month
entrepreneurship program that teaches 50 hours of business planning classes to
budding entrepreneurs. Born on the premise that individuals who have been to
prison or jail are the same as those who have not: they are dreamers, they have
goals and aspirations, they are capable of achieving those goals and they
deserve the dignity of earning a living wage and having a real opportunity of
becoming a productive member of society. It also recognizes that the path to
traditional employment is often blocked to people with criminal records and
self-employment – for some - might be more viable. Each Project ReMADE
entrepreneur is paired with a Stanford Law School student, a Stanford Graduate
School of Business student, and a Silicon Valley business executive who work
with him or her to develop out a business plan. Those relationships propel the
entrepreneur’s business, but also help re-build his or her self-esteem and
expand his or her social capital. Coming to the Stanford campus each week helps
our entrepreneurs begin the process of shedding their identities of “felon” and
“ex-con” and assuming more positive labels like “business owner” and
“graduate.” By graduation – which gives each entrepreneur the chance to pitch
his or her business to microenterprise development organizations, most of our
entrepreneurs are donning Stanford garb, and have formed relationships with
their mentors and teachers of Project ReMADE that will survive beyond the
duration of the program. Our graduates share that the knowledge, networking,
and confidence they acquire is invaluable. As one said, “When I began thinking
of my business plan, I was locked down in administrative segregation. Project
ReMADE helped me bring that idea from the back of a San Quentin prison cell to
the classrooms of Stanford University, and eventually on paper, as a formal
business.” It is through Project ReMADE that I met Willard, and many other
deserving people.
Similarly, though a collaborative initiative with colleagues
at The Opportunity Institute and with the support of several foundations, we
are working to increase access to college opportunities for currently and
formerly incarcerated Californians. I don’t know about you, but college was the
time in my life when my mind was blown open with new ideas and perspective and
when I gained the tools to think more critically. Prisoners and formerly
incarcerated people are no different. A college education can open up new and
better employment opportunities, it can provide the tools to be a community
leader and role model, and it it can neutralize the stigma of a criminal
record. Having a college education also significantly lowers the likelihood of
someone recidivating and returning to prison. But up until a year or two ago,
California only had one in-person college program across all 35 of our state
prisons. That is finally changing. We are piloting programs throughout the
state, aimed at creating and strengthening partnerships between our 113
community colleges and 33 public four-year colleges and universities and our
jails, prisons, and probation and parole departments. Our goal is that any
prisoner who has earned a GED or high school diploma who wants to enroll in
college should be able to do so, and that formerly incarcerated people can find
support on college campuses if they seek to become students [Consider adding
direct quote from student about power of education here].
What can our community do to help prisoners returning home? In
their process of reclaiming their dignity? Of becoming whole again? How can we
make sure prisoners know they have a community waiting to embrace them,
believing in their capacity to change and be so much more than the worst
mistake they have ever made?
What if we sent our gently used books to prison libraries or
brought our no-longer needed business clothes to the Santa Clara Reentry
Resource Center in San Jose? And what if we volunteered as a mentor or tutor in
an education program at San Quentin prison or the San Mateo jail or at a
community-based organization like Rubicon and Goodwill working to teach
formerly incarcerated people how to use Microsoft Word or apply for a job
online? How about supporting a piece of state legislation that increases
funding for community resources to help formerly incarcerated people access
substance abuse and mental health treatment? What if we helped children like
Willard’s daughter be able to visit their parents in prison or jail by helping
them get to the corners of the state where those prisons are located? Or asking
your pro bono legal department to take on the cases of applicants who have been
denied occupational solely because of decades old convictions? And think about
what it would mean if our help was more spiritual: we could bench gomeil, just
as we do for those who have survived other catastrophic events, for those who
have returned from captivity so they know they are being welcomed home in the
embrace of their community. The opportunities are vast.
Each of us has the power to decide how we are going to
perceive the other, how we’re going to address the unknown. We can do it from a
place of hope and optimism, as Caleb and Joshua did. Or we can be paralyzed by
fear, as the other 10 scouts did. But where does that leave us? Let us as a
community consider ways we can help those returning home from incarceration embrace
their freedom with faith, humanity and dignity, and let us see how the Promised
Land can lead us to greater possibility, greater justice,
greater good.
Shabbat Shalom.
