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Guest Post by Jay Stanton: A Piyut to End Police Violence this Rosh Hashanah

This piece was written and read yesterday by Tzedek Chicago rabbinical intern Jay Stanton for our 2nd Day Rosh Hashanah action at Chicago City Hall (above). It is a re-imagining of a well-known medieval Sephardic piyut (liturgical poem) traditionally chanted on Rosh Hashanah. In this new version, Jay connects the theme of the Binding of Issac to police violence in Chicago.

Our ritual at City Hall was a call to action in support of the recently launched #NoCopAcademy campaign. (Read here for more information). 

Jay’s commentary follows.

In the season of open gates

In the season of open gates
When you blow the shofar
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

Abraham got up early that day
picked up his partner
packed the tear gas and riot gear in the trunk
loaded his gun and gassed up the squad car.
He felt good about his mission
to serve and protect our city
driving west, looking for some kid to call son
before putting in the ground
Bear in mind how we got here,
The binder, the bound, and the altar

Abe drove past a church with a sign on the lawn
A list of shot children, already gone
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

Unfazed, Officer Abraham began to recount
how his wife got so mad at him
he had to send his first son and his baby mama clear across town
“To a neighborhood like this?” gasped his partner, astounded.
I wouldn’t know, haven’t talked to Hagar since.
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

The dash cam caught Abe joking around
Gun already cocked while driving through town
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

He pulled to a corner not unlike many others
BK, McDonald’s, and Family Dollar
Where his partner saw a drug deal take place
With a boy who doesn’t yet shave his zit-covered dark face.
Seeing the squad car, the boy started to run
Abe thought, “What’s he holding?” and lifted his gun
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

Abe shouted, “Stop!  Hold it right there.
Drop your weapon; son, and please come with me.”
The boy thought of his mother
The tears she would cry
He wished her solace
As his life passed before his eyes.
“Abraham!  Abraham!  Put down your gun!
It’s just some pot; I’m unarmed.”
Knees on the ground, hands in the air
Young Isaac pleaded, “Officer Abe,
don’t shoot me, please.”

While the Biblical Abraham took this chance to relent
Officer Abraham hardly noticed till his cartridge was spent
Later he’d say he feared for his life
He felt for the family but
Our safety needed this kid sacrificed
And the chief and the mayor would join in assent
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

In Chicago, we have
Too many Isaacs
And the list starts with
Cedric Chatman, 14
Laquan McDonald, 17
Roshad McIntosh, 19

In Chicago, we have
Too many Officer Abes still being paid.
And way too many modern-day Sarahs.
We still cry “Abraham!  Abraham!”
with every blast of the ram’s horn

Stop. Killing. Isaacs.
Beat your pistols into shofars, your AR-15s into trumpets, your M-16s into trombones.
Use your riot shields as drums.
Use the $95 million to turn
The FOP into a city-funded brass band
playing fanfares declaring #blacklivesmatter

Abraham!  Abraham!  Put down your gun!
Will this be the year the mayor listens to the shofar’s call?
When will Rahm repent?
When will he say “Hineni – Here I am.”

In the season of open gates
when you blow the shofar
Bear in mind how we got here
The binder, the bound, and the altar

Author Commentary:

The penitential poem עת שערי רצון was written by the medieval poet Yehuda Ibn Abbas, who was born in Fez, spent time in Baghdad, and died in Aleppo.  It connects the story of the sacrifice of Isaac with the blowing of shofar.  The sacrifice of the ram in place of Isaac is regarded as the origin of the shofar, not only by Ibn Abbas, but starting with our early rabbis, who explain in the midrashic work Pesikta deRav Kahana that the shofar blown during revelation at Mount Sinai was one horn of the ram Abraham sacrificed instead of his son and that the other horn will be used as the shofar when the Messiah comes.

Ibn Abbas’ version of the binding of Isaac doesn’t attempt to shield the reader from the gruesome nature of sacrificing one’s son.  It includes a verse of Isaac, bound and ready to be sacrificed, envisioning his mother’s grief.  Other poets were so inspired by Ibn Abbas’ poem that it started a genre of ‘aqedot, poetic retellings of the binding of Isaac, including one purportedly by Maimonides.  In pan-Sepharadi communities, from Morocco to Baghdad, from Curaçao to London, עת שערי רצון is sung on Rosh Hashanah before the blowing of the shofar.

I wrote the below poem for Tzedek Chicago’s Rosh Hashanah action at City Hall.  At our action, the shofar was blown to wake the city and its mayor up to social justice.  This year, we sought to highlight the injustice of spending $95 million on a luxury building for police training in West Garfield Park, which saw six of its schools close in 2013 because the city supposedly did not have money to run them.

At Tzedek, we endorse the #nocopacademy campaign, which seeks to have those $95 million reinvested in schools and social service agencies in disinvested neighborhoods including West Garfield Park.  I was thinking about all the Black and Brown “Isaac”s living in our city whose lives are viewed, especially by the police, as needed sacrifice to keep our city safe.

This is my ‘aqeda for 5778, dedicated to those working on the #nocopacademy campaign and dedicated to Cynthia Lane, mother of Roshad McIntosh, a sister-in-grief with the Biblical Sarah.  Lane recently succeeded in getting further review of her son’s murder by CPD Officer Robert Slechter.  Though the original investigation did not interview any civilian eyewitnesses (but did interview officers who didn’t see the shooting) and did not include a forensic investigation, eyewitnesses say that contrary to original police testimony, McIntosh was unarmed, and, in fact, was in surrender posture when Officer Slechter shot him.

Many of the lines allude to specific incidents of murder by police in the city of Chicago, though they are taken from far too many murders. Structurally, I attempted to maintain similarity, where possible, with the original piyyut.  The refrain “the binder, the bound, and the altar” comes from Ibn Abbas, and there are several other allusions to the original poem.  I did not  Every line Ibn Abbas wrote rhymes.  That is a poetic feat I have not achieved, though I have used many end rhymes and approximate rhymes, as well as internal rhyme and alliteration to attempt to create the type of connections through lines Ibn Abbas creates.

In this new year, may the shofar be heard in our city as the call to end police shootings.




This post first appeared on Shalom Rav | A Blog By Rabbi Brant Rosen, please read the originial post: here

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Guest Post by Jay Stanton: A Piyut to End Police Violence this Rosh Hashanah

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