thinking jewish

Fiddler on the Roof

Amidst the dew
And soup-thick humidity,
The sounds of roosters and people waking.
The muezin calls his people to prayer,
In a land devoid of color.

There, in the distance, is a yellow house;
The only color among miles of brown.

A woman comes out.
She cleans a mat and tends to her chores,
In poverty,
In filth.
She is so unlike me.

But there!
On the roof
Of the small yellow house.
Is a fiddler.

A man and his fiddle, sitting on the roof.

He fiddles away the morning,
With the tune of donkeys and cattle, goats and hens,
As the people come and go,
Doing their things,
Waiting for a better life.

He fiddles, she cleans.
The rooster welcomes the morning.

In an instant,
The fiddler dissapears.
But she is still there.

And so is her yellow house,
Surrounded by dirt,
In a land devoid of color.

A Week Ago, In Africa

Standing on a rooftop, I looked around, and felt anywhere but home. As far as the eye could see was a morass of concrete and dirt. The thick humid air smelt of smoke. The sounds of donkeys, and horses, and a muezzin filled the air.

I was surrounded by twenty four colleagues - fellow rabbinical students from throughout the United States - as we prayed the morning service from atop a building in downtown Dakar, the capital of the West African nation of Senegal.

For two weeks, our delegation joined the American Jewish Service to work with its grantee, Tostan, aiding in community-led development in rural villages facing extreme poverty throughout Africa.

No prior experience could have prepared me for what I saw in Senegal: children with flies in their eyes; distended bellies; open sores; bare feet; hunger; sickness; a land parched by drought. At first glance, the place seemed like hell. How could God allow such a place to exist?

For ten days we worked with locals in the villages of Darou Mouride and Keur Songo, building latrines and helping them in their daily chores. I swept, I tilled soil, I brought forth water from wells. All the while, I built bonds with people so different from me, and yet so similar. They love, they cry, they laugh, they play.

I played with many kids. Two in particular I will never forget, Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop showed me firsthand the power of the AJWS and its grantees to bring positive change to the world.

As I butchered their names time and time again, the two kids laughed in a way that any would at a blubbering foreigner standing before them. "Tubob" they called me - white man.

Finally, Tidiane Geye crouched down and spelled out his name in the sand below him. In a country with almost no literacy, this defiant act writing was nothing short of miraculous.

But my new friends need far more than an education. They need food. They need mosquito nets. They need basic health services and access to a world which has left them behind. They need shoes.

They need an American Jewish community that remembers them, and does all we can to help the billions of people like them who live in abject poverty, trying to make ends meet on as little as a dollar a day in conditions more horrific than most of us could imagine.

I returned from Africa inspired by the work of the AJWS. I returned motivated by my new cadre of rabbinical students dedicated to bringing our message of social justice to our home communities. I returned ready for the hard work ahead.

The Wolof word used in response to a greeting is "mangifee," which translates literally as "I am here." The Hebrew equivalent is "hineini", the response by Abraham when God first calls out to him in service.

To all my brothers and sisters in this world stricken by the disease of poverty - to Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop - to all of the communities where AJWS works and those yet to be helped, I cry out Mangifee. I am ready to help you. I am here to work on your behalf. Hineini.

We Pause for These Messages

In a few days I'll head with a delegation of rabbinical students and the American Jewish World Service to the West African nation of Senegal. We will spend two weeks building latrines in villages outside the regional capital Thies, and learn about the work of the NGO Tostan. The trip will conclude with a visit to Goree Island.

From there, I travel back to the States and, then, four days later, to Israel. Come July 1 I will have the time and the commitment to return to my writing.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you then.

-David