Torah 2101: Built-in Protest?
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Copyright (c) 2025 by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Dear Chevra,
1. A number of national groups have been urging that as many people as possible not buy anything on February 28 as a protest against the Trump-Musk sweeping attack on diversity-inclusivity officers In the Federal government, businesses, and non-profit organizations that receive money from the Feds.
2. I have written some rabbinical list-serves suggesting that pulpit rabbis carry this idea to their congregants, with or without endorsing it.
3. I thought some more about giving a stronger moral and Jewish imprint to the no-spending aspect of the protest, and what came to me was this:
4. Until everyone who lives in a given national community has free high-quality medical care (physical and mental), Torah will require the Jews of that society will adhere to the practice of not-buying anything during the Four Days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
Since Yom Kippur and the first two days of Sukkot are traditionally taught as days not to make purchases, that would mean seven days in the seventh month would be exempt from “normal” capitalist commerce. Other religious and spiritual communities might well join. The Seven-Day Rest from buying might well become a strong protest movement for universal health care. The world Jewish community might get much of the credit for this nonviolent advance.
5. Why these days out of the whole Jewish calendar? Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z’’l, used to teach that in mystical Hassidic circles, the Four Days were known as the four days to cleanse, polish, and replenish the four letters, Yod-Hei-Waw-Hei, in the Name of the Breath of life.
What better way than insisting on universal health care for polishing the Breath of life? And what better way of doing this than restraint from buying? And what better than when Jewish bodies, hearts, minds, and souls were already inspired by the High Holy Days?
I welcome your comments, critical and supportive. You can write me at awaskow@theshalomcenter.org. Also, as we build my new Substack, you will be able to comment at RebArthurWaskow.substack.com.
With blessings of shalom,
Arthur