December 22, 2017 | 4 Tevet 5778
Photo by  Ron Smith  on  Unsplash
Simple Sanctuary
by Nina Kavin
 
Borders and bans. DACA and Dreamers. Immigrants and ICE. Fences and walls. Raids and refugees. These are just some of the endless barrage of Trump-era words that bombard us every day.
 
Then there’s sanctuary. That’s also a word we’ve heard more than ever this past year as states, cities, synagogues, and churches — around the country and in our own community — have organized against Trump’s tyranny to provide safe havens for undocumented people who are at risk of deportation and living with anxiety and fear.
 
I don’t know, and I can’t imagine, the kind of insecurity undocumented immigrants face. Sanctuary to them means protection from arrest, deportation, separation from their families. To me, these days, sanctuary can be as simple as silencing the sounds of the news notifications on my phone; the luxury to tune out, if just for an hour or a day, the political madness.
 
But for Evanston’s undocumented residents, sanctuary can’t be found in a silent phone. It can’t be found in a walk in the woods, a day off work, or a weekend away. It can’t be found in their own homes. And so many other Evanstonians live in the shadows as well. Hungry, homeless, or jobless, they don’t know how their next meal will materialize or where they’ll lay their head. To them, sanctuary may be Beth Emet’s Wednesday Soup Kitchen, the love and learning at Curt’s Cafe, the couch of a slightly more fortunate friend, or a room at Evanston’s Our House (founded by Beth Emet’s Sheryl Bartol).
 
In my work for my Dear Evanston Facebook page (or dearevanston.org) I’ve met many people who live in our midst who struggle to survive and thrive, often because of our shameful history of segregation and discrimination, and whose stories I’m so honored to hear and tell. I’m frequently astounded by the barriers they’ve broken, their resilience, and their strength. I’m also in awe of so many community members who work to improve people’s lives and for systemic change in our city.
 
A few months ago, I interviewed Maurice Wilkerson for Dear Evanston . Maurice is one of many Evanstonians who has overcome the most overwhelming obstacles. For most of his young life, Maurice’s only sanctuary was what he carried with him: his staunch faith and the hopes and dreams he dragged along from couch to couch to couch, all the way to college. Through his dogged determination and the help of a few good people, Maurice found security and love. Today he provides his young daughter with everything he lacked.
 
 
Maurice’s story (and so many others) keeps me honest. When I feel ungrateful, Maurice reminds me to keep an open heart and hand for people with less privilege than me, and to do what I can in small ways to get to know and work alongside people in Evanston whose safety, security, hopes and dreams are blocked by all kinds of personal, historical, and political borders and bans, fences and walls.
 
I’m lucky to live without fearing the cold knock of ICE at my front door or that my son may be stopped for being black or brown. But though I enjoy relative safety and security, and though I’m privileged enough to (too-often) confuse my wants with my needs, I still face personal challenges, struggles, and fears from which I crave relief. And the past year has had me fumbling through a fog of dis-ease that’s only increased my yearning for silence and escape.
 
But stories like Maurice’s are powerful reminders to notice when I open the door to my warm home on a freezing day, when I crash on my couch for an afternoon nap, when I spend time with people I love, or when I turn off my phone notifications for an hour or a day to shut out the national mayhem. I don’t often enough appreciate the value of these seemingly simple things: each is a gift so many don’t have; each, in itself, is a sanctuary. 

 
If you’d like to share your thoughts with the congregation on what sanctuary means to you - a time in which you felt like a sanctuary dwelled within you, or how we can extend sanctuary to those who need it, feel free to reach out to Ellen Blum Barish and David Barish . 
Nina Kavin is a 20-year Beth Emet member and a once-regular Kahal goer who is determined to return to its sanctuary in the coming year. She is a writer and public relations/community outreach professional who co-founded and runs Dear Evanston, a social media platform that seeks to engage the Evanston community in constructive dialogue and action around issues of racial equity and youth gun violence and to tell the stories of Evanstonians whose voices are less often heard. Nina has served on Beth Emet’s board and serves on Curt’s Café’s advisory board. She met her husband Kerry Miller when they worked at Jobs For Youth in Chicago. In a past life she was Associate Director of the ADL’s Midwest office. Nina is the proud mom of one college student, one almost-college student, and a dog, who, in dog-years, is in graduate school. Nina’s favorite quote is from Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem : “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in."
In Exodus 25:8, God says to Moses, “Create for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” These words set the building of the Tabernacle into motion. But the verse’s ending has an interesting grammatical anomaly. Instead of telling the Israelites to create a sanctuary so God can dwell within it, the wording suggests that the dwelling may be amon g the people, or within them, suggesting that God can live within us rather than exclusively in a physical sanctuary. This year at Beth Emet we’ll explore the multiples meanings of sanctuary—as physical space to gather as a community for prayer, as spiritual space where we feel safe and whole, and as an attitude that is welcoming and accepting of everyone.

This weekly e-mail project, curated by David and Ellen Barish, allows congregants to express themselves in any of a variety of media: speechmaking, poetry, essay, story, photography, film, paint, sculpture, printmaking, textile, sound or music. If you'd like to contribute, please email Ellen and/or David .

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Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
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 Evanston, IL 60202
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