I can’t escape those two minutes and 53 seconds, which speak louder than the loudest blast of the shofar. Image by Getty Images

Two Minutes 53 Seconds that Scream: Black Lives Matter Rabbi Sharon Brous

The divine revelation at Sinai came amidst thunder, lightning and blasts of the shofar. But our Rabbis imagined that just before the Holy One spoke, there was a great, unifying, collective silence throughout all the world. No bird chirped, the angels did not fly, the sea did not roar, the universe was, for a moment, silent. And then God spoke. (Shemot Rabbah 29:9).

It’s noisy out there. The mountain is engulfed in flames. The thunder of grief, rage and trauma roars through our city streets. We are in the midst of a rebellion. An uprising against centuries of injustice. But this moment calls us to hear not only what is emerging from the noise, but also what is revealed in the silence.

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In the silence, I hear two minutes and 53 seconds. That’s how long it was from the time George Floyd stopped breathing until the officer removed his knee from his neck, when his limp body was unceremoniously thrown onto a stretcher and he was declared dead.

For two minutes and 53 seconds, his body lay still. This was after he stopped saying, repeatedly, I can’t breathe. After he called out for his mama. Two minutes and 53 seconds of breathlessness beneath the knee of a cop, who blithely looked on as the crowd begged him to stop.

It’s been a week now, and I can’t stop thinking about those nearly three minutes. Why keep George Floyd pinned to the ground?

Those two minutes and 53 seconds reveal so much of what we need to understand about race in America today. The banality of evil. The normalization of excessive force, that only comes with deeply entrenched power. The willingness to stomp out a black man’s life like one would swat away a fruit fly in your kitchen. All of this points to the depth, the fullness of hatred and fear of the black body. A white officer saw George Floyd as a continued threat to his safety, his authority, even when the last breath of life had left him.

In a very quiet two minutes and 53 seconds, the deepest truth is revealed: this was no aberration. The system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as it was intended to. Aggressive policing, racist policies, and a pervasive and unchallenged ideology of white supremacy have a choke hold on our country. They have for centuries. And now, for a moment, it is clear: those same forces that birthed America might also destroy America.

Lest we sit too long with that truth, our country, true to form, returns to its playbook. Non-violent protests are coopted by some violent instigators, buildings are burned and glass shatters. Stuff is stolen. And it gets noisy again. Law and order! F* the police! Which team are you on?

But I can’t escape those two minutes and 53 seconds, which speak louder than the loudest blast of the shofar. What does it mean to live in a social reality built on, steeped in and in many ways defined by the deadly virus of racism? Ibram x Kendi has been shouting from the rooftops: There is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” This means contending with the reality that the problem is not only out there, it’s also in here. Not only in them, but also in all of us.

If we’re not actively working to dismantle racism, we are giving it oxygen. Breathing new life and legitimacy into the very attitudes and systems that are choking our nation.

So let’s not get distracted. With the crowds and thunder, with the TV crews, military police and the fires, we must not lose what has been revealed in the quiet horror of two minutes and 53 seconds. If we listen deeply, and if we do the work that the moment demands, we’ll transform this hour of cacophony and catastrophe into the opening chords of a beautiful, just, multi-racial society.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of Ikar in Los Angeles.

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