"One Law for You and the Resident who Lives Among You": Throwing Spikes in the Wheels of Power with Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein

Bad Rabbi Media

I really, really needed to speak with my old pal Aryeh Bernstein about how to participate LOCALLY in effective activism--both as a general practice, and specifically in this urgent moment organizing to oppose the concentration camps at the border and other insidious ICE actions around the country. What I loved about our conversation was that Aryeh both had tons of accumulated wisdom and practical advice to pass on, and offered both a) compelling Big Picture framing of the issues at stake and b) deeply moving Jewish teachings to support his argument for the obligation to act for, within, on behalf of and in solidarity with, our local communities. We get into his background as the single American Jew who had a positive Holocaust education, the importance of remembering our people's "good years" in Egypt, and the need to "build a fence around Trump's Nazi machine." "It sure seems like the main anxiety and concern of God in the Torah is that once we get power we'll act like the worst of our oppressors," he noted. Pretty hard to find the lie.