[Singing] Marcella White Campbell: I am so often now in rooms with young Jews of Color. I love a Jewish future that I can't imagine. I love them building something that maybe we can't even see, but that's relevant to them. And that reflects who they are. [singing] Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman. And I'm so happy to welcome you to Hashivenu, a podcast about Jewish teachings on resilience, and I am so delighted to be joined by my cohost Rabbi Sandra Lawson. Hi Sandra, how are you? Rabbi Sandra Lawson: I'm doing pretty good. How are you? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Good. Always happy to be with you. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah. Since I started working at Reconstructing Judaism, having conversations with you seriously is the highlight. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: For me too. And today we are joined by Marcella White Campbell. Marcella is the executive director of Be'chol Lashon, which is an amazing organization. Be'chol Lashon strengthens Jewish identity by affirming the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the Jewish people through education, outreach, events and trainings. Welcome Marcella. Marcella White Campbell: Hello. Thank you for having me today. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: We're so glad you're with us. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah, we are glad. And one of the things that I always try to do is I want to check in with our guest, and -- how are you doing? Marcella White Campbell: I'm doing pretty well, I would say. I think the world is opening up a little bit and I'm tentatively poking my head out. As an introvert, I'm pushing myself to go see the sun and it's paying off. I'm doing very well. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah. I feel you. That sort of a re-emerging back into society. I'm also an introvert and it does feel a little weird, at least from my end. Having conversations with old friends in person has for me been a little challenging. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah. And I'll join in just as the extrovert. I'm loving it and I'm exhausted. I lost a lot of stamina and a lot of capacity for it, so that like I'm all jazzed up and so excited. And then I come home and I just have to lie on the couch for a while to recharge. And so, I, as an extrovert, I'm used to getting energy from people and I am indeed getting it, but I have to recalibrate. Marcella White Campbell: My cave is very safe the past year. Again, I know a lot of extroverts who had their faces pressed against the glass desperate to go out there and touch one other person. And I understood that but last summer, honestly, when people were in the streets and we were really thinking about America and the foundations of America -- my son is 16 years old. We have a multiracial Jewish household. My husband is a white Ashkenazi Jew. My kids identify as Black, as African-American -- and I was really glad he was here. I was glad that he was stuck in here with his face pressed against the glass, because I knew where he was. And I had never connected so much with that fear until last year. There's something about him turning 15 and coming towards 16, that really, he's taller than me now, significantly. Marcella White Campbell: He still has to do what I tell him, but he is taller than me and looking down and I saw him walking into manhood and it really made me wonder what I could do about the world that he was walking into. We talked a lot about microaggressions, my kids and I last year. And I had to at some point just separate myself from them and go and just cry my eyes out because I realized that I was conditioned to believe that microaggressions were just part of being Black in America, just a regular part of being Black. They came to me with some things and I would say "Wow, yep. That's what it's like." And just keep going. Instead of challenging each individual experience or act. Small things like the kids coming home and saying, people are touching my hair and me saying, tell them you don't like it. Marcella White Campbell: But not really sitting with that and asking them, do you feel uncomfortable? Why do you think that is? What can we do about this? Where does this come from? I did none of those things. I mean, even though this is, these are ideas that I think about for a living, I don't think I quite connected with them in terms of our everyday experience or the everyday experience that I was shepherding my kids along. And that is why I began thinking about leadership. I just became the executive director of Be'chol Lashon in January. We were talking about the leadership transition as recently as last summer. I had always had a behind-the-scene role in Be'chol Lashon. I was working on marketing, working on storytelling. These are the things that I love. I always wanted to be a writer. Marcella White Campbell: And last summer, I really thought, I have a responsibility to my children. And I am part of an organization that is working to change this experience for young Jews of Color. And I want to be part of that. I want to be active in that. I want to be out there talking to people about this and really being hands-on with change. So many things changed last year so rapidly. It really showed us that there were so many things that we thought could not possibly be changed and just took for granted that changed overnight because when there is enough will, when there is enough attention, changes can be made. And I really thought what changes can we be making? Rabbi Sandra Lawson: I mean, what's really interesting -- thank you so much for sharing that -- I've mentioned this to Deborah a few times. And one of the things I really appreciate is one, in this role, I get to connect with other Jewish leaders of color who are in senior positions in Jewish organizations. And thankfully that's a growing number, it's still small but growing and one of things I have gotten language around, is I was socialized to move through the world in similar way that you just described. That's just the experience of being Black in America and not really knowing it was wrong and doing the best that I can to try to make it better. But I'm socialized as a Black woman from a particular generation. And I now have been in spaces with young Jews of Color who are awesome and use much stronger language than I would have ever used. And I'm like, I'm the old person now. [laughter] Rabbi Sandra Lawson: But one thing I want to just sort of bring up is for those of you that don't know, I converted into Judaism. And for me, one thing that sort of helped me to grapple with racism, is that racism in Jewish community plus its values was not jiving. It does not mix. And there was, for me, a huge disconnect between how I was treated when I walked into Jewish spaces, how I'm treated when I apply for Jewish positions, with our Jewish values. And I'm working to try to get the Jewish community to recognize these values and recognize, or at least own it's values. And say that the way we treat Jews of Color is not correct, not right, but I'm just sort of curious about your own experiences and your kids' experiences in Jewish spaces and how you deal with that as a family. Marcella White Campbell: Well, I will say that early on... So I also converted into Judaism 22 years ago, I think it is now, like right along with my daughter being born. And my experience in the Jewish community is completely tied up with my experience as a parent, like raising a Jewish family is how I came into my Jewishness. So those early experiences with my family really, really colored everything else that came after it. And one thing I noticed was that when my kids were very young, they were not very brown. And when they went into Jewish spaces with my husband, they were under what I call his white privilege umbrella. Sometimes I ask him, can I borrow your white privilege umbrella for a minute, please return this item to this [inaudible] but I'm very much covered under that. And he was just, they were experienced as Ashkenazi Jews. Marcella White Campbell: And then when I was added to the party, it changed our experience. Then there were questions, if I was even a few feet away, kind of, "Hey, what's your Jewish story?" Which is such a well-meaning way of trying to get me to explain myself and explain why I am there. I had one particular experience that really underscored that, which was that it was Hanukkah, it was very, very dark, very cold. And my husband and I were going to a Hanukkah event at what was then our synagogue many years ago. And my husband had already gone in, we're both coming from work. I have my toddler on my hip, she's about two, I'm with my sister, who at the time was starting her Jewish journey. And we came up to a side door, which was where we went into the event and there was a guard in front of the door. Marcella White Campbell: So it was a glass door, we could see behind the guard, all the little kids running around, all the tables set up with candles. I could see my husband and we're full of smiles. We're breathless. We wave. "Can we come in?" And the guard is standing behind the glass and he just waved us away. That was his response and I'm standing there in the dark with my baby and I didn't know what to do. I actually didn't know what to do. I think it may be that if I had been by myself, I might've just left and gone somewhere and cried, but I was sort of gently pointing at the glass saying like I'm going into this event, my husband is in there. And once he started to hear me qualifying why I was permitted to come in, then he stepped back and opened the door and justifying it, justifying why we were coming to this event for children at the synagogue where we are members. Marcella White Campbell: And the thing about being a parent in these moments is I just immediately had to suck it up. I definitely could not stop and have that conversation with him when my daughter is sliding off my hip to run and play with her friends and we're going to set up with our candles. And so I really was never able to talk about that. And I would say that honestly at the time, once I got to a space where I could think about it, I was too ashamed to say anything to anyone. I didn't want to say that I had had that experience, but one thing that it really made me realize, there's something that I think about and that I've been trying to work on with Be'chol Lashon, that I called the first touch. And what that means is that so often for Jews of Color who are either converting into Judaism or reconnecting with Judaism as adults, just like other Jews, their first attempt to reconnect with the Jewish community is lifecycle events. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: See Sandra and me nodding vigorously. Marcella White Campbell: No, absolutely. Bar/bat mitzvah. A bris. And when you show up with your kids and you have a negative experience, most people never come back. It's very different as a parent who is a person of color raising their child of color. We go out of our way to build innocence around our children. Our children are viewed as adult far earlier than white children. Black girls as young as five, people attribute adult characteristics to them, believe they're responsible for their own actions. That they are more mature than other children. And so we really go out of our way to make sure that our children can stay innocent to protect them and to help them to have the same experience. Marcella White Campbell: If you talk to any Black mother, you'd be amazed at the lengths that they go to to stand ahead in front of them when they see something coming down the pike, whether it's at school or they know how they're going to be perceived as an event, to go ahead and pave the way so they don't know what's going on. Marcella White Campbell: So if you bring your child to a Hanukkah event and you're not me or maybe this isn't your synagogue or this is your first time and you have that one negative experience, you pack up your baby and go and you're not coming back. So, so often when we talk about why are there no Jews of Color here? It's quite possible that they showed up at the door, they weren't let in, they weren't allowed in or they could sense that they were not welcomed and they didn't come back. So how do we change that first touch? Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I think it's so true with the racial equity lens and it's as you said, it's just true for folks who are seeking, folks who feel insecure across the board that there's just so much that we need to do to invite people in rather than the way the guard pushed you away. I just want to say that I want to share that for me, one of the earliest awakenings I had about the role that I could play in helping the Jewish community do much better for Jews of Color, making it more welcoming, had to do with kids, had to do with kids who had felt totally embraced by their home communities but as soon as they exited them, they were suspect, they were stripped of their Jewish legitimacy. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And just hearing story after story of kids who were in most instances, the ones when I first encountered them, they were adopted and they might've been adopted from China or from Guatemala or they were African-American and trying to make it so that it wasn't just a bubble, but that it was an entire community and that they could transfer from one Jewish community to another, without having... So it wasn't the first touch for them, but it was the first on their own. The first without the protection and that for me, that was the first urgent, before I met adults, I was meeting kids and watching them get battered. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: You know this, I have to share a story with you. This story, it's a good story about Be'chol Lashon because this parent, a white parent, has a Black adopted child, who's now an adult and a beautiful adult. And the parent was calling me because she was in pain and we talked -- this is a Reconstructionist member of a synagogue and the parent was like, "I thought that she did everything right." There were no Jews of Color in her area. So every year she sent her daughter to Be'chol Lashon for summer camp or there's like summer camp is like a camp that happens around Sukkot time and probably others I'm not aware of, but she would send her daughter there and her daughter loved it. The parent called me because the daughter was converting to Christianity and she was really hurt by that. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: And the daughter said that she loved her time at Be'chol Lashon, but she didn't want to have to fly 2000 miles or whatever to spend time with other Jews of Color. And [in] the Christian community, she was around other Black people and her mother's really grappling with that and what does that mean? And wondering if she could do more and pastorally we talked for a long time, but that's really relevant, that Be'chol Lashon is offering something that is totally needed. I know that I have advised parents in past to send their children to Be'chol Lashon's camp but this child had this experience, wonderful experience once or twice a year, and then would go home to an incredibly white community. And I also imagine, even though if her parent didn't say that, that she might've had some racist experiences, there were some not so great experiences. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah. So I just wanted to just add that, that like that we need to do better. And we need to... I love that language of the first touch. And I paused for a moment because I just had a conversation with a colleague around when white folks, white Jews ask, where are the Jews of Color and his response is they're in your day school, they're in your Hebrew school. These people are still waiting for these adult Jews of Color to come to the door and not paying attention to who's actually in their Hebrew schools. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And that we have so much work to do so that they rise up and don't have the repeat of the experience that Marcella had. Marcella White Campbell: Oh yeah. I don't know if you'd heard about the Pew study that was just released that showed that 15% of Jews under 30 identify as Jews of Color and that nails it. They're already here and they are here and they are the future of the Jewish community. I was sitting with my son the other day who is around more again because of COVID. And I was looking at him and I said to him, you're going to be a Jewish elder. You. You are going to be a Jewish elder, which he did not like [crosstalk, laughter]. He is. These young people are the future of the Jewish community. And if they don't feel that it's a community that reflects their values and that makes them feel that they belong, they will take all those amazing talents and energy someplace else. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Exactly. Yeah. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah. Marcella White Campbell: And that's a frightening thought and it's a devastating thought. Like you're saying, they're already here, they're in the Jewish community. It's not about bringing people from outside the Jewish community. They're here. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And this is so exciting. For people to shift over from anxiety about the Jewish future to excitement about this Jewish future, that's part of it is awakening curiosity, awakening relationship-building, awakening excitement. It's going to look really different than it did in the past and that's only great. That's only good for us all. Marcella White Campbell: Oh, it's so great. And just like you were saying earlier, Sandra, I am so often now in rooms with young Jews of Color and in a household with young Jews of Color. And last year I had to learn about humility. It's not something that culturally I was raised with as a parent, but to really listen to them because their perspective on what was happening was so different from mine. They taught me about language that I thought I already understood. They showed me perspectives that I would not have had and don't we want that in the Jewish community? Don't we want their lens trained on everything that we do? I love a Jewish future that I can't imagine. I love them building something that maybe we can't even see, but that's relevant to them. And that reflects who they are. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: I worked on a college campus and I learned so much in that time from the young people that I worked with. And there was a young Black woman who had a strong Jewish identity. Her parents contacted me about all this stuff that she was doing in school. She was biracial kid, dad's Black, mom's white. And I talked to this young lady and she never came to Hillel. I was fine with that because we had a relationship. I had coffee with her, lunch and all that but her mom was like, "She's not engaged like she was at home and she's not doing this." And I said, "Your daughter is engaged. She knows who I am. She has my cell number. We meet and we have coffee." She's like, "Really?" I said, "Yeah, your daughter is very proud to be Jewish." Rabbi Sandra Lawson: What I said, there are a lot of competing interests on campus for young people. And your daughter has that Jewish box checked. The reason I'm bringing this up -- and I told the parent, I wasn't in the habit of sharing information, but sometimes I wanted parents to know certain things. So this particular young person, when no one was really speaking up for Black Lives Matter, I mean, students were speaking up, but she organized a whole protest after a Trump rally came through campus, organized faculty staff, had senior administration speaking. And I said that's her Jewish values, whether she'll admit it or not, that's her Jewish values. Marcella White Campbell: Oh, I love that. Yeah, because that's coming through. That's part of her and we have to all be true to that and true to our responsibility as Jews to uphold those values and to recognize that they're there for all of us. We all have the right to demand that. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Absolutely. So I'm going to shift us a tiny bit, I think we should talk a little bit about Be'chol Lashon and then I want a little talk about how it was especially exciting because I knew you were a member of a Reconstructionist congregation, so that's where I want to go eventually. But before we get there, let's just spend a little bit more time talking about Be'chol Lashon. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah. I mean, I love Be'chol Lashon and as I shared before hand, Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder who's their rabbi for Be'chol Lashon was an early supporter of mine before people knew my name and has been in my corner and invited me to be the rabbi -- I was in rabbinical school for a few months and [she] invited me to be the rabbi of the camp during Sukkot. And so I want our listeners to know more about Be'chol Lashon because I think it's an amazing organization that existed before other organizations were like it and also you are the second executive director, the first one was the founder. And if you want to say whatever you want to say about being a Black woman heading an organization that was headed by white Jews that serves Jews of Color and their families. Marcella White Campbell: Well, yeah, we have been part of the Be'chol Lashon community since my daughter was about 10 years old, that's, I guess, almost 12 years ago. And the way I got connected was through Camp Be'chol Lashon. And so Camp Be'chol Lashon is the only overnight camp for Jews of Color that addresses Jewish diversity and the Jewish history in that way. And I had never had the camp experience. Marcella White Campbell: And so I was so thrilled to think, oh, is there a camp where I could send her that covers the intersection of these identities? Yeah, I felt that I was very good at raising a Jewish child and very good at raising a Black child but this is something that combines both of those things and gets her the Jewish camp experience that I had not grown up with. And I sent her to camp. She immediately got strep throat. So I went up to camp and brought her back home. And the minute she was cleared, she said, "I want to go back to camp." So I drove her back to camp. I got a call from her two days later and she said, "I have dislocated my thumb and I am not coming home." Marcella White Campbell: And so this is the first time I've sent anybody to camp. And I'm just at home thinking, I want to go and scoop you up, but she's not coming back. And it's because she feels she belongs there. She feels this is something, she knows this is something she can't get anywhere else. And she's going to get as much of it as she can possibly get. And since that time, she has become part of a cohort of young Jews of Color who came up through camp Be'chol Lashon. Who came up through the Be'chol Lashon community and they are these vibrant Jews of Color who are so strong in their identity and so connected to one another, they're able to address that shared experience they have as young Jews of Color of their generation. And it's what Be'chol Lashon is for. We were founded 20 years ago by Diane Tobin who had adopted a Black child and it immediately changed how she viewed the Jewish community. Marcella White Campbell: She began to think about that first touch of bringing her baby to events and immediately realizing that the Jewish community could do a lot better. It started by getting together support groups and discussion groups for parents who are raising young Jews of Color. And from there began to expand outward. Today we do diversity trainings in a variety of Jewish organizations around the world. We have events, Kabbalat Shabbats that incorporate many different Jewish identities. We continue to have groups for mentors and leadership and all of that is based on the idea that young Jews of Color need the resources to feel that they belong in the Jewish community and that it's our responsibility to go ahead of them and prepare the Jewish community for them. And I'm so proud to be part of this organization and to be leading this organization as a Jew of Color. Marcella White Campbell: When I look at these young people who are coming up through this program and through this community, I really realized that in terms of Jewish elders, I am stepping into being a Jewish elder and we need more Jewish elders and being in a position of leadership helps me to fill that role. I have young Jews of Color reach out to me all the time. Just I almost feel like, just to say hi, or just to say, wow, you exist. And it's so special to me, it's so special to me to know that I can be there, I can represent and they can know that that possibility exists within the Jewish community. Marcella White Campbell: Sandra, I can't imagine how many young Jews of Color see you and see your face and say, my face can be a rabbi. That's something that I can do. That could be part of my experience. I feel that is the point for me. That is the point of stepping into this role is to be able to provide that perspective and to be able to use my own perspective as a Jew of Color when we are making decisions, when we're creating events, when we were reaching out to other people. When I reach out, I want to build relationships with other Jews of Color in leadership roles, for example, and isn't that incredible that we can work together, that we can be in these positions of power and be in these rooms where things happen and make change and be change. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: It's so interesting that you said that, Marcella, because before Sandra came to work at Reconstructing Judaism, she was one of the alumni reps, one of the rabbinic reps to our strategic planning committee that met, convened over the last year. And we adopted a goal as one of the core goals about advancing racial justice, both in participating and helping to shape those efforts in the wider world and also doing that work within the Reconstructionist movement. And then so when Sandra shifted into coming on to staff, that was one and only one of several steps that we're trying to take to really bring that to life. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And one of the things that we're really bringing to it is like the work that we need to do to transform majority white spaces, and also the work that we want to do to create spaces for Jews of Color, to be together on their own, on your own. That both are necessary, that it's not only about integration, that there's energy that is unleashed when you come together. And that's true. I mean, I know that from women's spaces, I know that from queer spaces that we want to be able to move... It need not be either/or and we want to foster both. Marcella White Campbell: Yeah, absolutely. Like we're a multiracial Jewish organization -- that's really important to what we do. And one of our great challenges we have is navigating that within our organization because not all of us are Jews of Color and how do we create those spaces? And yet also create spaces where we are all connecting and we are all collaborating. And we really hope that we can serve as an example whenever possible, of the idea that we can do both. That both can be happening within a functional organization. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I so want to learn with you and from you because that's what I hope for, for the organization that is Reconstructing Judaism, for the collection of people that we want to... I think that's essential. Marcella White Campbell: Absolutely. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: I think that one of the things I'm learning is helping or having conversations with Jews who benefit from white privilege understand that that Black and Brown people are having very, very different experiences in Jewish spaces and I'm just often surprised that... I mean not surprised, but that white people in this country, even white Jews in this country, have this idea that "That's how I experience it. That must be how everybody else experiences it," and not recognizing that people have different experiences and Black and Brown people understand very well, the diversity of experiences that people have in this country. But I am just really excited that you are the executive director of Be'chol Lashon. And I love working with you guys and want to continue doing that and anything that I can do to support Be'chol Lashon please, please reach out. Marcella White Campbell: Thank you, Sandra. That's incredible. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: Yeah. And I want to echo the same, both as a... I'm very proud that Reconstructing Judaism and Be'chol Lashon are both members of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. And I think that that kind of exemplifies some of the shared commitments that we have. And I just want to say how personally thrilling it was to me when you were announced, when it was announced that you were the new executive director. It was so exciting when your name was announced that you were rising up to leadership because we know that you are a member of Or Shalom, which is our wonderful Reconstructionist congregation in San Francisco. So that was just, I often think about like, there are these things that are expressive of Reconstructionist commitments and it is so obvious and it is so joyful that they get made manifest in the world. And so I'm just thrilled that we have, in addition to the shared organizational commitments and the shared personal commitments, that there's that Reconstructionist connection as well. Marcella White Campbell: Yeah, absolutely. We've been part of the Or Shalom community for many years. I mean, my daughter was bat mitzvahed, my son's bar mitzvah happened three years ago and I've just loved being part of that community. And in particular, recently I had the opportunity to be supported by the community when my grandfather passed away, who I was very close to. And I worked with my rabbi to try to think about how to mourn him Jewishly because my grandfather's family are not Jewish, they're Baptist Christians, who have been very supportive by the way of me and of my Jewish journey and of my family and of our life cycle events. That's the thing about Or Shalom is that my entire family was there, like extended family, for all of these wonderful events, for my daughter's bat mitzvah, and explaining to the congregation and to the community what was going on and welcoming them and allowing them to feel that they were participating. Marcella White Campbell: I had this row of uncles in church hats because they knew that they needed to cover their heads instead of taking their hats off in this Jewish space. And just thinking how amazing it was that my family could be there together and feel that they were in a welcoming space together, whether or not they were Jewish, whether or not they were white. It's been so fulfilling to me. But so my grandfather was always the center of these events, despite not being Jewish, the elder sitting there and being respected. So I knew that he would never have had a problem with me mourning him Jewishly, but at the same time I wanted to think about it from his perspective and what he would have felt honored him from his tradition. Marcella White Campbell: The thing about death and about mourning is that the Christian clock and the Jewish clock are very different. The Jewish clock begins the moment someone is buried, and that's when we kick off all of our mourning practices. Whereas it's very different with Baptists and with non-Jews. It may take, as it did with my grandfather, a week, 10 days before you get to that point. And so for me, this was the first time that I'd been the primary mourner, one of the primary mourners, with someone who I cared about. And I was pretty antsy thinking about I want to be doing this. I want to be saying Kaddish. I want to be connected to that while also supporting my family and doing all of the American business of death at the same time, caskets and all kinds of things. And with my rabbi, I discovered a way that I could connect to Jewish mourning, which is that I cast on a shawl. Marcella White Campbell: I had not knit during the pandemic. I thought I would, I did not knit. I did not bake bread. That was not what I was connected to at that time. But I cast on, triple [inaudible] and I just started knitting and sitting there going to the cemetery and all of the mundane tasks around letting somebody go, I was knitting a shawl and I didn't even know where I was going with it. I was just knitting the triple [inaudible] row by row by row. And when I was done, I realized I had a prayer shawl. And the next day I was able to start saying Kaddish. And that bridge really saved me. It really allowed me to feel that I was connected to something, that I was doing something Jewish. I just wasn't saying Kaddish. And that so much exemplifies how I feel about Reconstructionist Judaism, building my ritual to build a Jewishness that matters to me and that I can pass on to my children with my stamp on it and then they can make their own choices and build on that. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I mean, it's so gorgeous, Marcella. So gorgeous. And when I talk about Reconstructionism, I talk about how we had the opportunity and even the obligation to create the Jewish future that we want to live in, that we want to pass on to our children. So I feel like you've just, we're kind of at time and you've just knitted it all together to keep up with the fiber theme of where we started with your children, with raising your children and an integration of their Jewish and their Black identities, the work that you're doing with Be'chol Lashon. And then this absolutely gorgeous meaning-filled way that you were able to navigate this huge loss for you. I'm so sorry for your loss. And I'm so moved by the ways that you honored your grandfather and took care of yourself across your families, across your background and your present. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Yeah. I just want to take a little rabbi prerogative and just say some Torah. This week is the Torah portion of Chukat and next week is Balak. And they're usually, well not usually but often put together, but this time they're separated. So this week's Torah portion, there's a lot of death. Miriam dies, Aaron dies, or he's about to die. And Moses is all alone and he's trying to figure out what to do with his grief. He strikes a rock out of anger after God says, talk to the rock and Moses is in his grief, I think rightfully so strikes the rock because he's in mourning and then next week we get this odd story of this guy Balak and Baalam. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: Balaam, who was sent to curse the Israelites, to curse the Jews and then on his journey meets Israelites. And from there, we get the blessing Mah Tovu, and Balaam winds up falling in love with us and says, "How awesome are your tents? How beautiful are your sacred spaces?" So I'm bringing all this up to honor your mourning and grief and out of that, you found this blessing to knit this prayer shawl. And I just wanted to offer that. And may you also continue to find blessings in everything. And that, as we know, grief is not a linear process. It's a weird process and so thank you so much for offering that and sharing your story. Marcella White Campbell: Thank you. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: I think we're going to wind down. Marcella White Campbell, thank you so much for this really, really rich conversation. Marcella White Campbell: Thank you. It was so great to be in conversation with you. Rabbi Sandra Lawson: For more information and links, you can look on Hashivenu's website, which is Hashivenu.fireside.fm. You can also find more resources on ReconstructingJudaism.org and on Ritualwell and to learn more about Be'chol Lashon you can also check out globaljews.org and globaljews.org/camp. And please subscribe and rate and review us on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Rabbi Sandra Lawson. Rabbi Deborah Waxman: And I'm Rabbi Deborah Waxman. And you've been listening to Hashivenu, Jewish teachings on resilience.