January 27, 2026
“Two are better than one… for should they fall, one can lift the other.”
(Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
As I sat at the registration table welcoming over 650 clergy from across the country, including many of my fellow T’ruah rabbis and cantors, I was moved to tears.
Last week, with only days to plan, MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing), one of the many Minnesota multifaith coalitions, put out a call to clergy across the country to come to Minnesota, where I live, for a day of witness and resistance. Participants came to build relationships, gain skills, and make commitments to sustain action in and beyond Minnesota against the injustice and violence our immigrant neighbors are experiencing and after Renee Macklin Good (z”l) was killed.
All of them left their homes with great expense and effort to support us in our work in Minnesota. They came to learn so they can further our work and prepare themselves if/when cruel and inhumane actions are visited upon their neighbors as brutally as they have been upon ours. Whether we knew each other or not, we instantly felt connected because of our shared sense of purpose.
My local colleagues and I took a deep breath and knew: “We are not alone in this fight.”
L-R: Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Rabbi Sydney Mintz,
Cantor Tamar Havilio, Cantor Spilker.
L-R: Rabbi Matt Soffer, Cantor Tamar Havilio, Rabbi Jill Avrin, Tamara Upfal, Cantor Spilker. 2nd row: Sami Rahamim.
It was particularly meaningful to see classmates from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. The rabbis and cantors who began our studies together in Jerusalem nearly 34 years ago looked at each other more than once and said, “Could you ever have imagined we’d be here doing this together?”
And yet, this is exactly what we were taught to do, rooted in Torah – to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to seek justice and pursue it. And how much better to be doing it side by side.
My dear classmate and local colleague, Cantor Tamar Havilio (Bet Shalom, Minnetonka, MN) and I cried together as we heard the calls to action from the many faith leaders and organizers who rallied us to action. Rabbi Sydney Mintz (Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco) and I embraced, seeing each other for the first time in over 30 years but connected by shared experience and purpose. And Rabbi Jonah Pesner (The Religious Action Center, Washington, DC), my friend and my husband’s chevruta partner of nearly 34 years, and I caught up on each other’s personal families, even as we focused on the families in Minnesota who are suffering so deeply under the thumb of ICE.
After a full day of learning, many of us went to actions around the cities – walking the streets where residents may be actively pursued by ICE, sitting in at the headquarters of major Minnesota-based corporations who either don’t speak up against or directly support ICE operations, participating in sing-ins, and protesting, some even being arrested, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.
All of this culminated in a 50,000-strong march entitled ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom in downtown Minneapolis. I walked alongside my clergy colleagues in a thick stream of protesters, all of us wedged between skyscrapers on either side. One of the cantors I was with turned to me and said, “I wonder if this is what it felt like for the Israelites to march through the Red Sea.”
Many of the out-of-town clergy were set to fly home after the march on Friday, but when we learned the next day that ICE agents had killed Alex Pretti (z”l), a call went out for those who could stay longer to delay their flights and answer calls from Minnesotans in immediate danger.
On Sunday, I learned that a group of clergy was going to a mostly Hispanic church in Minneapolis to encircle the church and welcome worshippers. When I arrived, I found only a few local clergy but many out-of-towners who had extended their stays. This is what community looks like.
I am grateful to the clergy and other faith leaders who answered the call and came to Minnesota.
They lifted our spirits and bolstered our efforts while they were here, and the impact of their support will stay with us as we move forward in our work. They thanked us for the work we’re doing here (which feels so small relative to the needs), but really they are the ones to be thanked. They dropped everything on a moment’s notice to show up and say, “Hineni.”
I now feel connected with all who are doing this sacred work, many of whom continue to check in with each other. And, while I know we all learned a lot about how to resist the tyrants that are roaming our streets, stealing our neighbors, and killing people in broad daylight, I pray that what happened in Minnesota disrupts the administration’s plans for how they enforce immigration.
If and when we need to show up together in other states to protect our neighbors, I know we will.
In solidarity,
Cantor Rachel Stock Spilker
Rachel Stock Spilker has served as a cantor at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN, since 1997. She is a member of T’ruah’s chaverim network.