Creating Community To Fight For Our Rights — Sarah Garza Resnick

At our services on November 22nd, we were honored to hear a guest drash from Sarah Garza Resnick, Mishkan Board Member and CEO of Personal PAC, an organization dedicated to advocating for women's rights and abortion access. How can we meet this difficult political moment without getting overwhelmed with dread and defeatism? The answer lies in our tradition and in our community.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

0:00  
Uh, so sometimes I am reminded of the profound wisdom that exists with our in our own community. And over these past few weeks and really truly in the months leading up to the election, I looked at so many people in our community who were working incredibly hard to make a positive change in this country and in the world. And in fact, we have some people who do that as their full time job, who've devoted their lives to making this world a better place, and whose work continues even now, if perhaps not more critically and importantly, so I'm so honored to introduce Sarah Garza Resnick, who is an amazing Mishkan Knight and also Mishkan parent, and also one of our phenomenal board members, and also the president and CEO of personal pack. And she'll tell you more about personal pack, but it has for the past four and a half decades, been fierce advocates protecting women's health and reproductive rights and through electoral politics, holding our officials accountable, and they are the only statewide political action committee dedicated solely to protecting freedom of choice, which is all the more vital in this moment. So I'm gonna invite you up to share some words of wisdom and Torah for all of us here, and what an honor it is to have you here in this space.

1:37  
Well, Shabbat, shalom, everybody. So I already was introduced, so I won't say my name, but I am a Mishkan board member, and I love this community very much, and so thank you for having me here tonight. Personal PAC is the only non partisan organization in Illinois solely focused on keeping abortion safe, legal and accessible. We restarted in 1978 but then founded formally in 1989 and we've been instrumental in transforming Illinois from one of the most anti choice states in the country to a leader in reproductive freedom. The culture and politics of abortion rights in Illinois didn't change on its own, we changed the culture and politics of abortion rights in Illinois. We modeled for the rest of the country what it could look like to create a fair and safe and more just state. And thank God we did, because when the worst case scenario actually happened, Illinois was ready standing here as a sanctuary, but because of Trump's election, all of that work is now in peril, and if I cry tonight, I apologize, I'm still in a lot of pain. The grief I felt on the morning of November 6, just a short 16 days ago, was unimaginable. After I told my beloved children, Abraham and Ezekiel, still exhausted from spending five days in Michigan with me knocking on doors to elect the Vice President, that we lost. We all sobbed. We got back in bed and the weight on my chest that heavy, heavy pressure didn't subside for many days, I couldn't eat, I couldn't stop crying, and my head was swirling. I couldn't even get my kids to school. Good friend of mine, Julie, who's here today, came over. We made a minion of two. She helped me get in the shower and drink some water and sit in the sun and get me to focus on the future. How do we all get through this moment? What do we do in the face of a measurable loss, grief and uncertainty, as is our custom, we turn every week to the Torah for lessons on how to navigate our current lives. And even though the Torah couldn't imagine a world where our social fabric has been torn apart by technology, social media and our addiction to the content being curated for us on a minute by minute basis on our phones, there are still lessons that help us all to navigate these perilous times. So this week, we read about Abraham grappling with Sarah's death. When we experience a tragedy like a loved one's death, it stops us in our tracks, our rituals and traditions for mourning, like sitting Shiva and gathering with family, wearing a torn ribbon that symbolizes our broken hearts. All of these rituals give us comfort and direction so we don't become unmoored by our grief. Our faith tells us what to do and how to cope. Our community wraps its arm. Around the ones in need, we help each other honor the loved ones memory during those seven days and gather again annually to recite the mourners. Kash, we help each other rebuild and reimagine a new existence. Importantly, Abraham took time to grieve the Torah says, Abraham mourned for his wife and cried for her, and when he had finished, he rose up from beside her. He then takes that first step, finding a burial place for her, and when she is buried, he begins to look to the future. Abraham now enters his Yenta era. He connects his oldest son, Isaac, with Rebecca, and this love connection brings solace to the family and builds the future of Abraham's dreams. I don't think it's an accident that the story becomes future focused while grief is a reality of death, it is our obligation to figure out how to keep going, because the future depends on our ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other. We are now in that deep grief that Abraham found himself in where even taking a shower, seems daunting. I can't get out of a hoodie, so hence why I'm wearing one tonight. We need everyone to put one foot in front of the other and to keep going. Abraham's story and my friend encouraging me to get moving reminds me that a little push or connecting to strangers are steps to fixing something that seems irreparable. I know for so many of us that kamala's loss brings us right into the feelings of deep and profound grief. For some of us, it is grappling with the notion that America is failing to live up to the ideals that we were always taught made us uniquely American, that we were striving for a multicultural democracy, that while imperfect, was always upheld as a light for the free people across this globe, for others like myself, who spend our Professional days trying to create a more just world. We have first hand knowledge of what the incoming administration means and the visceral level of fear for the most vulnerable people in our country. Now, to bring it back to the issue, I spend all day, every day, thinking about abortion. We are extremely fortunate to live in Illinois. We are one of the most pro choice states in the country, and it's because of our laws and protections that more than 40,000 people fled to Illinois just last year for abortions. And why the providers who I work with and stand next to every single day, feel safe providing care here, each one of those medical refugees lives depended on all of us to get the life saving and essential health care they needed. I'm extremely proud of what we've accomplished here through coalition and collaboration and creativity, Illinois didn't become the reproductive freedom land of the good and plenty overnight, even in this last election, where the national headwinds were strong against incumbents, all of our pro choice champions running as incumbents have kept their seats in Illinois. We also had a major win in the Illinois third Appellate District where Clarence Thomas protege was running for judge, and we helped to ensure that he was handily defeated. This is where the fairy tale turns into a horror story. If the federal government enacts an enacts a national abortion ban, the abortion access we fought so hard to build, is gone. There are a lot of ways that this could happen, and I have been spending the last two weeks catastrophe planning. I don't want to overwhelm you all, so I'm just going to give you a few examples. Trump could direct the FDA to revoke mifepristone approval, one of the two pills used for medication abortions. MiFi is what we call it for short, is used in over 60% of abortions nationwide. Withdrawal of the FDA approval of MiFi would cause catastrophic consequences. There is simply not enough providers to fill the gap with procedural abortions. Also, many people in banned states are not able to travel to us, to a doctor and rely on mailed medication abortion pills to self manage their abortions at home. It is also important to note that the medication is used not only for. Care, but also for miscarriage management, Trump could direct the Department of Justice to enforce the Comstock Act, a zombie law from the 1800s that bans the mailing of lewd materials that includes medication abortion, birth control, medical supplies used to provide abortions. And those supplies are also needed for non abortion procedures. We could face the weaponization of federal dollars in Illinois State Medicaid funds abortion services to Medicaid recipients. Title 10 provides birth control for low income people. Those are just some of the services that the federal government controls and that they can try to starve us into capitulation. None of this is about saving lives. All of it is about controlling our bodies. So what do we do? I've been thinking about how my daily and weekly rituals are going to allow me to do this work sustainably. So here are the guideposts that I have devised so far. Now I'm going to talk about happiness and joy and community care, and I'm not saying these things that are just nice to haves. I truly believe that we are on the brink of authoritarian rule, because we have a crisis of happiness in this country, studies have shown that unhappiness is a very strong predictor of voting behavior. Being extremely unhappy, more than doubled a person's likelihood of voting for Trump in 2016

and the unhappiest counties in this country were the trumpiest. Unhappiness predicted the Trump vote better than race, income levels, unemployment, how many immigrants have moved into the country, or how old or religious the citizens were. Unhappiness also predicted that Trump, the Trump election, better than any other subjective variables, like how people thought the economy was going or would be going in the future. Importantly, authoritarianism does not depend on solving people's problems to succeed politically. Indeed, it's the genius that it harnesses and feasts on unhappiness without trying to reduce it. So now to our survival rituals. Let me state that while we face some very scary and serious consequences, that our joy still matters, if we stop really fully living our lives, then we have allowed the extreme right to win. So first rule, still have fun every day, even when you don't feel like it. Today, I jumped in the snow with a three year old when I dropped off my kids for school. That did the trick. It was fun. We must let ourselves find those glimmers of joy and light. Meditate, dance, cook, play with your beloved pets, have safe sex, invite friends over for home cooked meals and go spend time in nature. Second, invest and cultivate in real community building. Invest in your people and in new people. Love them unabashedly, be there for each other in the most authentic way you possibly can. Love is contagious, and our world is desperately need in need of it. So go strengthen and expand your community. Go make friends with strangers, go to a coffee shop outside your neighborhood and strike up a conversation. One idea that works for me is that I wear our buttons that say, ask me about abortion. I have had so many great conversations because of this button, and we brought some for all of you. So just come see me and Julie after services. Third, find your issue. What do you want to let your hair on fire. About be it, protecting access to abortions, protecting our trans community, defending immigrants, fighting for racial justice, defending Mother Earth, but pick one. Rabbi Tarfon taught it is not incumbent on you to finish the work, but neither are you at the liberty to desist from it. None of us have to do everything, but all of us must do something. I refuse to give myself over to the chaos that Trump wants us to live in. I care deeply about many issues, but if we inundate ourselves with all the news, then we deplete our energy, our creativity and our love, but that doesn't mean we don't show up when needed to protect people or help our community. My plan is simple. I will be dogged and obsessive about protecting abortion, and I will take my cues from my allies who are singularly focused on the myriad of other issues and. And they call me and say, Sarah, I need your abortion squad to help us. We will show up and join forces, but I will not spend my precious time drowning in the chaos. Fourth, and this, I think, is the most important, make time to dream about the more beautiful future we will create, there will be inevitable destruction caused over the next four years. And I'm not trying to sugar coat the pain that will happen to individuals, but when things are destroyed, there is an opportunity to build a better future, a more equitable future. As Jews, we're trained in this work we're doing it right now. It's why we all observe Shabbat in our own ways. Shabbat is about creating the world that we want to live in, a world of celebration, of creating community, of comforting and supporting one another, of abundance and of peace. Tonight, what we're doing together can be a reminder of that dream as it has been for our people for 1000s of years. Thank you. Shabbat. Shalom. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai