Hannah Story | Qian Julie Wang | Rosh Hashanah 5782/2021

over the years it's become our custom here at central synagogue to have congregants share a story from their own lives that brings a timely meaning to the hana story and so we're so grateful this morning that our member jim julie wong who is a founder of our jews of color group here at central will offer us a teaching you so much rabbi shanatova when did you first learn to pray for me it happened in the bathroom it was a tiny bathroom in brooklyn in 1995. i was eight years old and had just started the third grade the year before i had gone from being just another kid in china to being an illiterate undocumented immigrant in new york city who went to school hungry every single day after school i sat next to my educated mother in the sweatshop and watched as she slaved over the sewing machine earning pennies per article of clothing new to the idea of race i got so used to being called a that i figured it was just the english word for chinese new to the idea of being illegal i learned to turn and run every time i saw someone in uniform my parents and i made our home in a single room full of love laughter and furniture from the sidewalk trash on the day i found prayer or really prayer found me i had locked myself in the bathroom we shared with our many roommates it was the only place i could find real privacy at least when i ignored the angry knocks on the door and on that day i sat as i always did on top of the toilet lid usually i had a book with me but that day i was completely alone my hands cupped my face bloated from tears my parents the only two people i trusted in the entire western hemisphere were fighting again it was a new ritual in america where it seemed no matter how fast we moved we could never outrun the cloud of poverty the fear of deportation in our waning hopes at this point i did not know religion i had never been introduced to god i knew only that i felt so very alone but as i sat there with my stomach turning over itself i heard a new kind of call without even registering it i slid off the toilet lid and kneeled in front of it i raised my clasp hands before me and found five words please let everything be okay i was hooked from there every day i went and found my sanctuary i did it even as things got worse even when i barely had the energy to mutter the word please in a chain for minutes on end rocking back and forth as my loneliness dissolved against the force field of my words my husband will tell you that i still lock myself in our bathroom today he might say only god knows why or as rabbi book doll suggests he might even say how adorable in today's haftarah an infertile hannah exemplifies the life-giving force of true prayer the courageous kind of prayer that heirs to light our deepest vulnerabilities this kind of prayer is so rare in adulthood that eli mistakes it for drunkenness in my childhood i engaged in daily prayer not because it changed anything outside of me as i as we have seen in this pandemic in that cave of survival it's not really external change that matters no in our darkest moments what matters is that prayer changes us on that first day i found something to believe in a faith to keep company with the words of joseph rabbi joseph albo from 15th century spain still ring resoundingly true prayer does not change god it changes we who pray for me as for so many jews of color praying in synagogue demands vulnerability in the extreme it hurts to wear our skin here at every synagogue i've tried and i've tried many i am assumed to know nothing about my own religion recently a study conducted by stanford university found that 80 percent of american jews of color have experienced discrimination in jewish settings 80 percent that's higher than our country's vaccination rate and i thought i would get used to it but i never have and that might be the most jewish part about me i can never seem to get used to injustice so i will let you in on a new ritual before i enter any jewish space i pause i breathe and i gird myself for the dehumanizing interrogations the mirthless stares the questions about the kind of asian i am and the list of asians that people have known or have dated but i have to admit this ritual is not so effective because each time the comments materialize again i dissolve back into that loneliness of my childhood i long again for my bathroom sanctuary i even regret being jewish why i ask are white gentiles treated better than i am in my own house of worship was this what hannah felt when her prayers were misunderstood but there is also the healing power of judaism i am never more at home than when i am with my fellow jews of color my extended family and all of the magical moments of my life have happened during the days of awe in fact during my first yom kippur fast i found myself attending services in a public school cafeteria and it was there in front of the serving station where i would have received my first meal of the day that free lunch that i finally reclaimed my power from hunger that little undocumented girl has somehow found her way home the days of awe are a time of teshuva of return and as we return to praying together in services i pray that we return to to our roots ours is the religion of the displaced the marginalized the enslaved there is a reason rabbi heschel marched alongside dr king and selma remarking my legs were praying so at the threshold of this great year 5782 i ask each and every member of this powerful congregation when did you first learn to pray might it have been a time when you too felt lonely lost hungry may this rosh hashanah recall us all back to that time and may the wisdom of that pure vulnerability light our way into the new year thank you [Applause] you

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Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021