I was supposed to have left for a conference in Maryland yesterday morning, really early. The flight was scheduled to take off at 540am ... which means I needed to leave home really, really early. But there was a blizzard on the east coast, which meant that all the airports were closing (or already closed). And that meant that all the Christmas traffic was becoming more and more backed up.
I was on my way to a Jewish conference on social justice, sponsored by American Jewish World Service (www.ajws.org). The conference is specifically for the alumni of what are called "Rabbinical Student Delegations" and I was a part of RSD 4, a trip to El Salvador for 25 rabbinical students ... our job was to study texts and do hands-on work during our winter break. This was truly a life-changing trip for me three years ago.
And now we are reunited at the first "Alumni Institute" ... 57 rabbis and rabbinical students out of the 150 who have been on the trips so far. I was the last to arrive (a day late), but am happy to be here. Tonight we heard from Leoni, who works for an AJWS grantee in Haiti. Her organization does the hands-on work focusing on organizing and empowering peasants to be come self-sustaining. Listening to her tell stories about people building themselves fish farms, learning about sustainable agriculture, and the need for simple things like water pumps reminds me how lucky I am ... and how powerless I am over some things, like weather, and how powerful I can be to help change the world, one water pump at a time. : )
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