Three Wins Today: Sept 22, 2025

Have a good and meaningful New Year!

At sundown, the new Jewish year begins. It will be 5786. This is the start of our High Holidays. The new year in Judaism is complicated. It’s not about being excited for a new year, but rather teshuvah, repenting on the things we’ve done wrong, collectively and closing the last chapter so we can take what we learned to be better in the future. It’s about apologizing, to ourselves and others and starting over.

The real heavy repenting happens in 10 days, on Yom Kippur, but it begins now.

And this year, that feels like my focus. How can I be better in this new year? How can we be better?

Cause it’s hard to say Happy New Year. What is happy right now? But if the focus is on having a meaningful year, well, that I can do.

But really, L’shana Tova, doesn’t mean “Happy New Year.”

It literally means “for a good year” or “to a good year.”

That’s different. That I can do.

A good year, as in a year of fighting injustice, and creating change. A year of repairing the world (Tikkun Olam) and inviting others, who might not be yet, to repair the world too. A year of resistance and celebrating every little win.

So I wish you L’shana Tova. Make this the year you fight for good.

And here are some people already doing that as we close 5785.

Apples and honey for a sweet new year (Art by Yitzchok Schmukler)

Vatican City

Fri, Sept 5 - Pope Leo inaugurated the new Borgo Laudato Si, a sustainability community on the grounds of the Pope’s summer home.

There, anyone, of any faith can come and learn about the environment.

The community was first conceived by Pope Francis, and now it’s a reality.

Pope Leo said:

The Borgo Laudato Si, which we inaugurate today, is one of the church’s initiatives aimed at realizing this vocation of being guardians of the work of God: a demanding but beautiful and fascinating task, which constitutes a primary aspect of the Christian experience. It will allow anyone who wishes – including students, managers from companies around the world, and members of the religious community – to live a unique experience of faith that intertwines spirituality, education, and sustainability.

I feel like there’s a form of Christianity that I’m trained to associate with all Christianity, and this is decidedly not that. As a Jew, this feels so much like Tikkun Olam, “guardians of the work of God” and “repairing the world” are part of the same concept, I think.

I can’t wait to see what comes out of this.

TRIGGER WARNING: LYNCHING

Cleveland, MS

Fri, Sept 19 - Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp Autopsy Initiative will be covering the cost of a second autopsy for Trey Reed, the Black college student at Delta State University who was found hanging in a tree on campus that the police ruled a suicide.

Within hours of his body being found, the police had already said “no foul play suspected,” which seems suspect at best, and malicious at worst. The official autopsy confirmed those findings, but the family doesn’t trust it, so they announced they would be getting an independent autopsy.

Renowned civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, signed on to represent them, and now Kaepernick has gotten involved:

Trey’s death evoked the collective memory of a community that has suffered a historic wound over many, many years and many, many deaths. Peace will come only by getting to the truth. We thank Colin Kaepernick for supporting this grieving family and the cause of justice and truth.

The Autopsy Initiative provides “a second autopsy free-of-charge for families who have lost their loved ones due to an in-custody or suspicious death.”

And they promise a full report, no matter the findings.

I’m so glad this story is finally getting the attention it deserves, it took a few days. I hope that the state releases his body quickly and that his family gets real answers soon.

Online

YESTERDAY - Rachel, who goes by simonsaysvote across platforms, wanted to do something to “drown out” the rhetoric surrounding CK’s assassination. The focus was on retribution, rather than the gun violence and she wanted to change that, so she started an Instagram page called One Is Too Many, to highlight all the senseless deaths as a result of schools shootings.

Rachel told me:

Following CK’s shooting I was outraged at the attention and care and coverage it received when there is so much senseless gun violence every day that goes unreported. I was also thinking about the fact that this was a school shooting just like the ones we brush off weekly.

In the days following the shooting, friends were doxxed and the right dominated all media. I wanted to find a way to drown it out. I knew the funeral/memorial would be far enough in advance that we could plan ahead to control the narrative for at least a small amount of people.

45 accounts participated in the project yesterday to say that even one life lost is too many.

Here is just one of the many examples posted yesterday:

iluvmycupid

A post shared by @iluvmycupid

This is just the beginning. Rachel hopes to use this platform to create more impactful campaigns, like this one:

I would like to combine the wins from both and continue to make impactful campaigns that are direct but also digestible to a sometimes apathetic crowd.

I want to keep the momentum of flooding the feed and controlling the narrative going. Future campaigns could be around GVP or broader topics.

This is the kind of power of one stuff I talk about every single day. She saw something she didn’t like, she talked to a few friends, and she did something about it. I can’t wait to see what her platform becomes!

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So those are just some of today’s wins. Good things are still happening, people are still fighting back and so many people are using the power of one to create incredible things. I hope you will soon be one of them.

Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!