The Jewish tradition includes a book of learning called Pirkei Avot, translated as Ethics of the Ancestors. Compiled almost two thousand years ago, it’s filled with advice. Some of the principles feel archaic, while others remain strikingly relevant.
As our country wrestles (yet again) with its history of white supremacy, I am co-leading a study group at our little synagogue in Vermont. We are investigating racism and anti-racism from a Jewish perspective. The process has been challenging, revealing, inspiring, and uncomfortable.
Throughout this course, I’ve been reminded of a famous phrase from the Pirkei Avot:
“You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you permitted to put it aside.”
The important stuff never ends
I was raised to value accomplishment, which meant getting things done. Complete your chores, do your homework, take on a project and finish it. Set a goal and hit it. Create a deadline and meet it.
I’m not obsessive, but I definitely feel a sense of satisfaction when I can check something off my to-do list. Perhaps you feel the same way. Which makes me wonder: Am I more likely to take on work that has a beginning, a middle, and (most importantly) an end? What about the stuff that requires endless attention? Do I embrace it or avoid it?
Lately, I’ve been considering how that maxim from Pirkei Avot – keep doing the work, especially when it never ends – serves as a counterbalance to the “get ‘er done” mentality.
Here are a few examples applied to real life.
Fundraising is endless – and that’s OK
This fall, I celebrate 40 years in fundraising. This still surprises me. To borrow an old joke from Kim Klein, no five-year-old ever said, “Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be fundraiser!” To steal a book title from Stephanie Roth and Mimi Ho, I am an “accidental fundraiser” – as so many of us are.
If you’re a lifer like me, here’s one thing we both understand: fundraising is perpetual. Yes, it’s possible to complete a capital campaign or reach your annual goal – yay! – but then the fundraising begins again. Building and maintaining donor relationships never ends.
It takes a certain mentality to accept this fact, embrace it, and experience fundraising as a productive tool for building our organizations and our communities, rather than an endless chore. If you don’t master this mindset, you won’t last long.
“You are not required to complete the work…”
Empowering groups, making decisions – again and again
Throughout my career, I’ve facilitated a variety of group activities: board retreats, strategic plans, focus groups, staff meetings, fundraising plans, community engagement processes, and lots of workshops.
Some of these gigs are one-offs; others stretch on for months. Like fundraising, they come in cycles. When you complete a five-year plan, it’s time to celebrate – and start working on the next one. As you recruit new board members, you organize the next board training.
Depending on your perspective, this can be inspiring or exhausting – maybe both.
Furthermore, effective group engagement is a social justice practice, because it helps to equalize power within the group. That requires ongoing attention and focus.
“…neither are you permitted to put it aside.”
Creating change is a lifetime commitment
More than 20 years ago, I attended my first workshop devoted to diversity, equity, and dismantling racism. Toward the end of the workshop, the running joke went like this: Well, we can check this topic off the list.
Today, we are experiencing a kind of dismantling racism workshop on a national and international scale, with everything from study groups to street protests, moving money toward Black-owned businesses, and changing public policy. Plus lots of personal reflection. This is all good and necessary, but not nearly sufficient.
At some point, people with privilege will lose energy and interest; some folks call this “ally fatigue.” Frankly, that’s a great way to measure one’s privilege: when you have the luxury to stop thinking about oppression because you’re not being oppressed.
The cultural norm of deadlines and checklists – in other words, linear thinking and linear behavior – is a benchmark of white-dominant culture. Rejecting these norms, and accepting the endlessness of change work, is a radical act. So is committing yourself for the long haul.
May the long haul provide you with energy and purpose – even when it doesn’t offer a sense of completion.
I love the challenge of your paragraph that starts with, “At some point . . .”. How true. As a “privileged” senior citizen, I know i have much to learn and know it will take me the rest of my life to not only learn what I can but more importantly put those lessons into practice with my biracial family, friends, colleagues, community.
Thanks, Cynthany. The most necessary work is often the hardest work. Let’s keep doing it.
Thank you Andy Robinson – you nailed it! I have been an “accidental fundraiser” for 20+ years and have needed to hear this message the entire time. Every accomplishment seems to set the bar higher and increase expectations. Well stated – celebrating but immediately resetting even higher, over and over again, is indeed both inspiring and exhausting. In the end, perhaps it is simple acceptance that relieves the stress for goal oriented fundraisers like me. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, thank you.
You are welcome, welcome, and very welcome. It’s so important to be given permission to NOT complete perpetual tasks. Thanks, Kathryn!
Continued education is so important, we are never done learning and growing. Thanks for this important reminder that we should keep striving to do better.
Thanks, Jamie. It feels like the older I get, the less I know. Presumably, that’s a good thing.
Inspiring! My life presents much that I can’t complete, neither can I put it aside. I now have a way to ponder it…and continue. Thank you.
Glad you found it useful, Ruth. Thanks for reading and following the blog.
“Frankly, that’s a great way to measure one’s privilege: when you have the luxury to stop thinking about oppression because you’re not being oppressed.”
What a great way to summarize the necessary gauging of privilege.
Thanks Andy!
Thanks, Paul. I have every conceivable form of privilege, which makes me pretty clueless about oppression. So a lot of the work — for me, anyway — is owning my ignorance, showing up humble, and listening longer and more deeply.
A wise and funny woman, Cathy Mann, on the topic of the work never ending tells a story that she and her fundraising colleagues would jokingly ask each other the question “How do we know when to go home?” Now that many of us work at home, that question means something new. Fundraisers, take care of yourselves. The work will ever be ahead of us.
“Fundraisers, take care of yourselves.” YES.
Thanks, Nadia. You and Cathy are both wise!
You sent this, and I read it, at just the right time. I’ve been putting off setting up another meeting with that DEI committee I started because the work is so hard, so nebulous, and with no end in sight. But how privileged of me to procrastinate on that important mission! You set me straight…or rather…back to the meandering path that you just gave me permission to be okay with. Thank you! 🙂
Wow. Thank you for reading this post with an open mind and an open heart. Yes, the work of ending oppression is a lifetime’s work — let us muddle through the struggle together.