eleanor roosevelt
Image via FDR Presidential Library & Museum / Flickr
"Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."
To celebrate Purim and International Women's Day, we give you the latest instsallment from one of our favorite storytellers — Rabbi Allen Secher (aka The Naked Rabbi) — and his tale of chauffeuring former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for five days in 1955 when he was a student at Brandeis University.
Mrs. Roosevelt was no Miss Daisy.
The world is stubborn. It changes its thinking at a glacial pace. People fear change, and they come to hate what they fear. Powerful interests do not want to lose or to share power. The work of social justice, of affecting positive change requires persistent commitment and radical love that gives one the energy to continue the work across decades.