{"id":26521,"date":"2022-09-30T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T14:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=26521"},"modified":"2022-09-29T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T17:54:11","slug":"feeling-rbgs-loss-in-the-days-of-awe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/2022\/09\/feeling-rbgs-loss-in-the-days-of-awe\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling RBG&#8217;s Loss in the Days of Awe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rosh Hashanah sermon delivered&nbsp;Sunday, September 26th at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in DC<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shanah Tovah! I\u2019m Steph, I use she\/her pronouns,&nbsp; and I&#8217;m an abortion activist and a writer. I love nothing more than to be able to tie my pro-abortion values to my Jewish identity. So when I was asked to share a few words tonight on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I was ready. I have plenty of strong, very strong, opinions. And, it turns out, I have some strong feelings, too. But when it came time to write, I found it almost impossible to tap into the emotional side of my work. I can write down my thoughts, my opinions, my beliefs. But I struggled to write down how I felt about all of that.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see, part of being able to survive as a repro worker is to be able to compartmentalize. I take the violence, the regressive laws, the evil politicians, the lies, the chaos, and I put those things in a box. I allow myself to intellectualize my feelings, in part, because it\u2019s not really about me. I don\u2019t need an abortion. I\u2019m not the person who will be the most impacted by Roe being overturned. I\u2019ve spent so long learning to decenter myself in this movement that I haven\u2019t really felt, deeply felt, how tired I am. And how sad. Angry, yes, I feel angry all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0But coupled with the fact that this is also the anniversary of the death of a personal hero of mine and so many Jews, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg\u2014 and the fact that this event catalyzed the final step of the fall of Roe\u2014I don\u2019t feel equipped to hold so much grief.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can hide behind the calls to action that I know this community is already so familiar with. But the truth is, I feel really powerless in this moment. It\u2019s painful to surrender myself to something so colossal as the abortion access movement. But in writing this, I\u2019ve realized I don\u2019t really have a choice.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this season of the Jewish calendar, this is precisely what we are being asked to do. Not only must we stand before the enormity of what it means to be human, in front of the Book of Life, but we are asked to confront it, to wrestle with it. And sometimes even allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the one hand, I\u2019m sorry that this isn\u2019t a feel-good, rah-rah motivational sermon, which is what I had originally written. But I\u2019m not sorry that this is an opportunity to feel, and feel so deeply, the enormity of what it means to be a complex human in a complex world. I\u2019m so grateful for a Jewish community that reminds me I\u2019m not alone in this, and together we can help each other feel this moment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve spent so long learning to decenter myself in this movement that I haven\u2019t really felt, deeply felt, how tired I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":14751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[469,466,1584,669,291],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/RBG.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdW3k2-6TL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26521"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26537,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26521\/revisions\/26537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phpstack-562680-2277615.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}