Make sure to check out Rachel’s original song at the bottom of this page! 

I live in the narrow place—or so I’m told.

We are all navigating narrow places. As Rebbe Nachman once said, “The world is a very narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid.”

And: I have been blessed to know people who make this narrow place feel as wide as the sea and the sky, facing the fear and moving through it together. Our queer and immigrant community. Our families. Our neighbors. For as long as even one of us exists in this place, just by our being here, we create more room for all of us to breathe a little more freely. We carve well-worn paths into the narrow bridge, chart the territory, and hand over the maps we’ve created from our own wanderings.

We know the narrow places aren’t places on a map at all, not really. The constriction comes from powers that seek to oppress, and from structures that divide us from one another and from our own power – cutting off our imaginations and confining us to small definitions of who belongs. As we pick our way down this narrow bridge, we will band together and hold each other up, guided by the boldness of both those who came before us and those who lead the way now with courage and care for all people.

I can’t predict what is to come, and it would be pretty chutzpadik to declare with certainty that I know what our future will look like. But what I do know with absolute certainty is that I have never been more committed to my mission: to take care of my community. As long as there is someone and something to fight for, I will be swinging. And if I’m the last one swinging, I will fight for myself and the ones who will inevitably come after me. The promised land, to me, exists in the promises I keep with those I fight alongside.

No matter how narrow it gets, there will always be hearts fighting to stay soft and doors open wide, and I hope you’ll keep yours soft—and open—too.

Listen to Rachel Gollay’s “the promised land”

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