Confronting the Oppression of Our Hands: A Social Justice Reflection for Yom Kippur

Shouldn't it be a given that we are not supposed to be oppressors? Given the hundreds of commandments that structure a just society and require just actions, the Jewish story of a nation born in slavery, the Jewish historical reality over the last few thousand years, it seems pretty clear that one should not oppress. Another question we could ask: Why is this seemingly self-controlled category -- the use of our own hands -- framed as a request from God? We normally ask God for things out of our control -- health, safety, divine inspiration. What does God have to do with using our own hands for oppression? The desire to not oppress others would seem to lend itself better to personal resolutions: I will not abuse my workers this year, I pledge to curb my bigotry, etc. And finally, why do we say this prayer in the communal? Most of us would look around at the families, friends and communities gathered and think, "They may have some faults, but these are good people. They are certainly not oppressors!" Yet, suddenly our collective hands are oppressing others? The painful truth? Your hands, my hands and the hands of everyone else we know are tools of oppression. They directly and indirectly cause suffering in the lives of God's creation -- human, animal and more. This is the reality of today's globalized world. We may not personally enslave children, but the money that we exchange for a shirt does support a system that enslaves children in Thailand who made that shirt. We may not personally exploit workers, but the tomato sauce we eat is very possibly made by someone who was cheated out of his/her wages, or was grown using chemicals that poisoned a local water supply, or was subsidized by a government at a rate that put the farmers in another country out of work. But even deeper than the realities of today's global economy, this has always been the reality of human existence. As much as we don't want to see it, the choices we make to secure our communities almost always exclude and harm others. The food that we eat comes at the expense of the animals we eat or exploit. The traps and poisons we set to rid ourselves of pests kill and maim millions of God's creatures. And of course, the words we utter have the potential to inflict tremendous suffering and pain. Who among us does not harm loved ones, friends or strangers regularly through speech? Or the hurt and pain we cause our selves? The Neilah prayer leaves us with no middle ground. On Yom Kippur we must confront this reality. Oppression does not exist only in the hearts of serial killers and slave drivers; it exists in your hands and mine. We are the oppressors we've been looking for. Now, reflecting on this Neilah prayer in this way might lead one to feel defensive, guilty, apathetic or hopeless. But it does not have to. Once we realize this basic fact of our existence, new options become possible.