כִּי כְּשִׁמְךָ כֵּן תְּהִלָּתֶךָ, קָשֶׁה לִכְעוֹס וְנוֹחַ לִרְצוֹת, כִּי לֹא תַחְפֹּץ בְּמוֹת הַמֵּת, כִּי אִם בְּשׁוּבוֹ מִדַּרְכּוֹ וְחָיָה…
For your reputation speaks your praises: slow to anger, easy to appease; you do not seek the death of the condemned, but that they should return from their untowardness and live…
-Unetaneh Tokef
On a sweltering morning in July, a small group of women clustered at the entrance to the ICE headquarters in Massachusetts. We’d been gathered by Families for Justice as Healing (FJAH), a local T’ruah partner building a community of change advocates among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. Moments before, we’d prayed together briefly before a young woman and her lawyer had walked into the building, and we were holding our breath to see if she would come out.
The woman, a refugee who had arrived in the U.S. as a child, had completed a prison sentence recently and — per the Department of Corrections’ contract with the federal government — had been immediately handed over to ICE. Despite her refugee status, at each mandated appearance at the immigration court she had no idea if she would be released with another appointment date, or detained or deported instead.
About fifteen minutes later the woman appeared at the double glass doors, practically dancing past the ICE officers and down the steps.
“Say freedom!” she cried as someone snapped a group photo.
Over a celebratory breakfast, the women got to telling stories. Several of the community members who had joined for support had personal experience with the carceral system. I was struck by the sheer arbitrariness threaded through these women’s stories. They described outlandish charges brought by the DA dismissed quickly by a reasonable judge or long sentences upheld by judges who insisted that “their hands were tied.”
“It’s a lie to say their hands are tied,” said one of the FJAH staffers. “The DA decides what charges to bring, and a judge can dismiss whatever charges they want. They can decide to give the bare minimum sentence. They can look at a situation and say, you’ve been incarcerated for five years awaiting trial, you have already served your time.”
With their and their loved ones’ lives and freedom in the balance, the women expressed outrage at how much could depend on the whim of a particular judge — whether they stood before someone willing to exercise discernment and — perhaps more radically — compassion, or before a rigid executor of unbending, lifeless laws.
In Jewish time, we are standing on the threshold of Elul, taking our first steps toward the Divine courtroom, preparing our appeal to God, the ultimate judge. What kind of judge — and what kind of justice system — do we imagine we are facing in this season?
The Rosh Hashanah piyyut Melekh Elyon (The King Exalted) powerfully captures the distinction between Divine justice and the human perversion of power:
| The King Exalted Who speaks righteousness, is cloaked in righteousness, who hears anguished cries: May He rule forever! The King of Oppression Seeks out evil, does evil, is fashioned for sin How long will he rule? | מֶלֶךְ עֶלְיוֹן הַמְדַבֵּר בִּצְדָקָה הַלּוֹבֵשׁ צְדָקָה הַמַּאֲזִין צְעָקָה לַעֲדֵי עַד יִמְלֹךְ מֶלֶךְ אֶבְיוֹן וְחָפֵץ בְּרֶשַׁע וְעוֹשֶׂה רֶשַׁע וּמוּכָן לְפֶשַׁע עַד מָתַי יִמְלֹךְ |
The King of Kings, the Judge of Judges, is characterized not by arbitrary application of rigid rules, but as “ma’azin tz’akah”: as the ultimate listener, sensitive to the cries and needs of humanity.
This image of God appears countless times in our literature. In the midrash (Gen Rabbah 39:6), Abraham demands that God act from compassion in the moment of sentencing Sedom. The Gemara (b. Avodah Zara 3b) imagines on a daily, routine basis, God first sits in judgment of the world, and then — seeing the destruction strict judgment can wreak — “gets up from the Throne of Judgment and sits upon the Throne of Mercy.”
On Tisha B’Av, Mallory Hanora, the co-director of Families for Justice as Healing, offered a powerful speech at a T’ruah community rally:
“I want to express my grief and anger about those Massachusetts elected officials who are using fear-mongering rhetoric…endorsing an effort to round up so-called ‘criminals.’ But who is a criminal? Mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles who have served their time. Black and Brown people who have been criminalized for poverty, for survival, for addiction, for mental illness. People who made mistakes years or even decades ago…We must not give into the attempts to divide our communities into those who are deserving and those who are not; we must not allow anyone in power to demonize our neighbors. What is faith, if not our prayers for grace, mercy, and redemption? What is a community, if not a place to heal and repair? If we can support and protect those among us who have been criminalized and demonized, we can protect all of us.”
Families for Justice as Healing is working to challenge a system reflective of the melekh evyon—a container “fashioned for sin,” which, in limiting its scope to seeking and punishing crime, leaves too little room for healing and change. They are looking, instead, toward models of a world ruled by the melekh elyon, policies and communities characterized by compassion, sensitive to suffering.
As Elul begins, as appeals to E-l maleh rahamim begin to echo daily in our ears, let us recommit to building a world where justice is rooted in compassion. As we ask for forgiveness for our shortcomings, let’s work to extend Divine mercy throughout and beyond our communities, manifesting on earth the Divine ideal we cry out for in prayer:
“כִּי לֹא תַחְפֹּץ בְּמוֹת הַמֵּת, כִּי אִם בְּשׁוּבוֹ מִדַּרְכּוֹ וְחָיָה…”
No one’s mistakes should be the end of their lives; we all deserve the chance to change, to grow, and to live.
You can learn more about Families for Justice as Healing and support their work here.
Rabbi Shani Rosenbaum serves on the faculty of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, where she teaches Talmud and Halakha.