Why Don't They Like the Jews? - On Passover and Refugees by Brian Bilston

I was invited to share the ‘Story of Passover’ at a local school. It had been fun; we’d done the frogs, the Matzah on the back and, ‘Let my people go,’ and I was taking questions as I was handing out the Matzah. First question, ‘Why did the Egyptians not like the Israelites?’ It was one of those kinds of schools. I pondered the question into the evening when I was honoured to play a part in the Taste of Refuge Seder, hosted at New London in partnership with the Separated Child Foundation. In a room full of New London members, volunteers from the foundation and refugees from the broadest range of battle-beaten countries we hid the Matzah and hit one another over the head with spring onions. I want to thank all the volunteers who made the evening such a success and acknowledge, pre-eminent among us, Angela Gluck. And then there was this exception piece of poetry from Brian Bilston;

Refugees

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way
(now read from bottom to top)

Perhaps that’s the thing about our experience of otherness - both our own and that of others. We can read it top to bottom and bottom to top. The messages of Pesach are perhaps ultimately twofold. Firstly that freedom is possible, potential exists, no matter how dark our experience of the present. Secondly no human should be enslaved, treated as a slave or even treated as any less worthy than any other human. We are not there yet.

Chad Gadya - Don't Mess With the Goat

There was once a goat, a kid goat, that my father bought for two silver coins, just one goat, just one goat. Or in the Aramaic - chad gadya, chad gadya.

And then a cat came and ate the goat

And the dog came and bit the cat.

So the stick came and hit the dog

And the fire came and burnt the stick

And the water came and put out the fire,

And the ox came and drunk the water

And the slaughterer came and slew the ox

And the angel of Death came and slew the slaughterer

Until finally the Holy Blessed One and slew the Angel of Death.

Just one goat, just one goat.

And thus ends the Passover Seder.

All the storytelling and celebrating and food, it all ends up in this a version of There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly.

I’ve been thinking about this goat for the past couple of weeks. A friend and colleague - the Rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue, has just bought out a Haggadah, and a very lovely thing it is too. It’s clear, has an excellent contemporary translation, it looks beautiful, it even has a full transliteration ... but no goat.

You get to the end of the formal part of the seder and there’s a note that some people sing songs at this point, but he’s not going to include them all. And he doesn’t include the goat.

Now I used to be the Rabbi of St Albans Masorti Synagogue myself, and one of the things you have to get used to, when you used to be the Rabbi somewhere and then someone else comes along, is that they are going to do things differently from the way you did things. In general, I’m OK with that. But not the goat!

My memories of Seder are intimately tied up in memories of my grandfather of blessed memory - of course, right?, that’s entirely how memories of Seder should be tied up for all of us. And I remember my grandfather taking on the ever-lengthening verses determined to deliver even the very longest in a single breath, despite the bronchitis and the pleurisy and the pneumonia and everything that eventually caught up with him. And I remember the juddering intake of breath as he finally arrived at the ‘Dzabin Aba Bitrei Zuzei’ and I remember feeling that all was going to be alright in the world. And at that moment I would feel as if I had truly completed the Seder in all its prescriptions and proscriptions, and in that moment I would feel as if I had personally gone forth from Egypt.

Ah, dear Rabbi Adam, I wrote to him, I love the Haggadah, but what happened to the goat?

“You like the goat?” he responded as if I had taken leave of my senses. “Hardly educational, if fun. Perhaps it will make the next edition.”

Hmmm - you mess with the goat, you mess with my treasured memories of Pesach. He’s getting a copy of this sermon tomorrow.

It turns out we can date the arrival of the goat in the Haggadah with some specificity. These are a couple of pages from the famous Prague Haggadah of 1527. I went for the page where you start drinking the wine and dipping the Marror and breaking the Matzah - it’s always the dirtiest page in my Haggadot - and I’m delighted to see nothing has changed in some 500 years.[1] So the Haggadah finishes - and then there’s an extra page. And there, in a different script are the lyrics of the Chad Gadya, both in Hebrew-Aramaic and Yiddish.

By 1590 it’s appearing in the properly printed pages of Haggadot in Prague and elsewhere.[2] So it’s definitely older than that. Rabbi Yedidya Weil wrote in 1790 that he had “heard that they found this song… safeguarded and written on a parchment at the Beit Midrash Rokeah in Worms [dated to 1406]  and it was decided that it will be sung on the eve of Passover for all generations to come.” 

And there’s a C15 version of the song, in the back of a Jewish prayerbook belonging to a Jew from Provence. In that siddur, there is a rope used to tie up a cow - and the mouse eats the rope, and a cat eats the mouse and so on.

Some think that an even earlier inspiration is a famous Rabbinic text[3] which imagines Abraham being dragged before the local potentate, Nimrod, and commanded to bow down to Nimrod’s god - fire. But rain puts out the fire, teases Abraham, fine, says Nimrod, so bow down to rain, but the wind blows the rain away says Abraham, fine, says Nimrod, so bow down to the wind. And on that story goes. And that story goes right back to the Book of Jubilees[4] which is some 2,200 years old.

So we’ve been chasing down the Chad Gadya machine for really quite some time. Maybe it’s not just a kids’ ditty.

The Vilna Gaon, the greatest Rabbi of the C18, taught that the song was the story of the people of Israel. The goat is the promise of a special relationship with God, the birthright of the Children of Israel bought by Jacob from his twin brother Esau with bread - one silver coin, and soup - two silver coins. The cat is the envy of Jacob’s sons towards Joseph, the dog is Egypt, the stick - the staff of Moses used to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, the fire - the lust for idolatry, the water its extinguishing and so on until the Messiah comes.

I grew up with the interpretation that we - the people of Israel - are the goat, the two silver coins are the two tablets of the Torah, and each of the characters was an oppressing nation - the cat - Assyria, the dog - Babylon, the stick Persia and so on.

Yacov Emden, another of the greats of two hundred years ago, taught the song as the story of the soul, placed in our bodies and buffeted by the challenges of existence until ...

Until And then came the Holy Blessed One.

That’s the key line.

At the end of the chain of earthly destruction, God arrives.

That’s the difference between the song of the goat and the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Life, we know, is nasty brutish and short, and it doesn’t matter if you have faith or if you don’t; if you are a cat the dog is coming for you and if you are a dog the stick is coming for you and the chance of a happily ever after is vanishingly small.

And it’s easy to get beaten down by the relentlessness of the Chad Gadya machine. It’s easy to feel that nothing is worth fighting for, it’s easy to feel that the powers of entropy, decay and violence will conquer our best attempts at life and joy and hope. And the message of the There Was an Old Lady is indeed that that is the case.

But the message of this glorious song about the goat is that goodness is not defeated by, even, all the brutality of the world. The message of the song about the goat is that in the end even the Angel of Death is defeated by a God rachum v’hanun - merciful and graceful. God is stronger than Death. The force of goodness in the universe is more powerful than the force of destruction.

For me - now - long since my child memories stopped sustaining my adult engagement with my faith, the real lesson of Chad Gadya is neither that everything tends to ruin, nor that everything will turn out just fine. I know neither is true. The message of the Chad Gadya is that there is a possibility for a different way that is not about relentless violence, death and murder. The message of the Chad Gadya is that hope for mercy and grace is possible in this world.

I think that’s the same understanding of the great Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion

And on the opposite mountain, I am searching

For my little boy.

And Arab shepherd and a Jewish father

Both in their temporary failure.

Our voices meet above the Sultans Pool

In the valley between us. Neither of us wants

the child or the goat to get caught in the wheels

of the terrible Had Gaya machine.

Afterwards we found them among the bushes

And our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or a son

Has always been the beginning

Of a new religion in these mountains.

The song Chad Gadya is about the possibility of escaping the Chad Gadya machine.

It’s about the possibility of there being meaning in this world beyond the experiences of biting cats, whacking sticks and the rest of it.

And I need that reminder. I need that as a reminder in a week when I will retell the suffering and the enslavement of my own people.

I need that reminder in a week where, God help us, there will be more pointless, gun-related killing in the United States, more needless deaths of refugees trying to escape their contemporary experiences of slavery and the rest of it.

I need the reminder of the Chag Gadya, Chad Gadya - I think we all do.

And I really hope it makes it into the second edition of my colleague’s Haggadah, and that this glorious millennia-old idea gets its moment to shine just before we all keel over with exhaustion at the end of a Seder, gloriously enjoyed by us all.

Chag Sameach, a wonderful Pesach

And Shabbat Shalom

---

[1] http://primo.nli.org.il/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=NLI&docId=NNL_ALEPH001162278

[2] http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/had-gadya

[3] Genesis Rabba 38:11

[4] 12:12-14

Do We Have to Feed Everyone Who is Hungry?

I'm seeing more beggars on the streets, sitting outside supermarkets on scraps of cardboard, waving paper cups at me as I walk by. And the situation here is nothing compared to the influx of strangers in elsewhere in Europe. We are struggling - us liberal Westerners. We are struggling to live up to the demands of our souls, the demands of every articulation of human rights. We are struggling to know how to make this situation improve. We are struggling to protect our own interests as strangers make their own calls on resources we perceived as 'ours.' And we are struggling to understand the security implications of so many arrivals from Muslim countries. That goes for the entire British community. As Jews, in addition, we are struggling to work out whether we side principally with the indigenous who can advocate for self-protection or the outsider for whom a welcome for other outsiders is a necessary part of what makes this a society in which we wish to live.

The Talmud (Gittin 61) states there is an obligation to assist the non-Jewish poor along with the Jewish poor because of 'darkei shalom - the ways of peace,' but, tantalisingly, it's very difficult to penetrate the inner meaning of this term. On the one hand darkei shalom could be a moral charge, a command to lift all humanity from the grip of suffering and poverty. On the other hand darkei shalom could be a utilitarian piece of advice, be nice to the non-Jews so they won't hate you back. If the obligation to act for the sake of darkei shalom is moral then whether we like or trust these new hungry strangers we are obligated to open our wallets and our hearts. But if the obligation is utilitarian, if this is just political advice, then we can weigh up the pros and cons of today's challenges with cool calculation.

Sifting through the great Rabbinic commentators of our tradition it's hard to understand which stance is more normative. Maimonides in Hilchot Melachim suggests two Biblical prooftexts for the obligation to take care of the non-Jewish poor for reasons of darkei shalom, 'God is good to all in God's mercy,' and 'Her ways are of gentleness and all her paths are of peace.' This seems to be a vote in favour of a universal Jewish morality. But elsewhere in his great legal code (Hilchot Avodah Zarah), we read that darkei shalom obligations only apply 'when Israel is exiled among the nations,' and when Israel has 'the upper hand over the nations' not only do these obligations not apply, but one doesn't even tolerate an idolater to walk the streets. That suggests the driving force behind the principle of darkei shalom is solely the avoidance of enmity. Elsewhere - in commenting on the obligation to stand in honour of the funeral procession of a non-Jew (another obligation imposed, in the Talmud, because of darkei shalom) it seems that Joseph Caro sides with the universalists and the Bach sides with the utilitarians. It is complex.

Ultimately, I side with the moralists, partly because of my deepest conviction that the image of God resides in all of humanity, and partly because of the deep belief that our redemption from slavery has to stand for more than our narrowest sense of self-interest. Our journey from bondage to freedom cannot be secured when others are left in darkness.

These are mighty - and eminently Seder-night-suitable - questions. They are questions about how we understand ourselves as Jews living in twenty-first century Britain. I hope their discussion can enrich your engagement with this most special part of our journey through the Jewish year. I hope you will side with me, with the moralists. And I hope that your intellectual engagement will drive a practical, and equally a financial, commitment to be involved in the bettering of the lives of today's strangers. In particular I am delighted to commend the work of World Jewish Relief supporting both impoverished Jewish communities and non-Jewish refugee communities in our name, and for the sake of darkei shalom. Please look at their web site and consider supporting their important work.

Our actions and charitable gifts won't solve the problems of the hungry, but it will allow us to utter the words, 'may all who are hungry come and eat,' with a degree of honesty and the sense of pride we should feel at the Seder night.

Israeli Illustrations of the 4 Sons

Some fun for Pesach

I’ve pulled together some C20 Israeli illustrations of the Four Sons.

All Israeli life is here, Hilonim, Haredim, politics, satire, spirit ...

Enjoy.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/132070110/Israeli-Illustrations-of-the-Four-Sons-Passover-Haggadah

 

Pesach, Freedom and the Living Wage

A friend and NNLS member, Micah Gold, met with the Prime Minister on Friday. On the agenda was the Citizens UK campaign for a Living Wage. It’s a campaign predicated on the notion that it is possible to pay a full time worker, especially in London, a minimum wage and for them still to be in poverty, reliant on further government support, unable to properly provide for their own health, nutrition and improvement. It’s the eve of Pesach, some 3000 years after the Moses led the Children of Israel from Egypt and we are still telling stories of slavery – an eliding of backbreaking work for piteous reward.

 

Labour rights have a long tradition in Biblical and Rabbinic thought, “Do not  oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether they be of your brethren or one of the strangers in your land” (Deut 24) The Talmud makes a particular point of ensuring piece workers are paid promptly, claiming “he who withholds an employee’s wages is as though he deprived him of his life.” (BM 112a)

 

There are two ways to imagine as if we, ourselves, came forth from Egypt. One is to imagine that we are our own ancestors and travel through time. The other is to imagine we are our own neighbours, the hidden workforce who clean our streets and offices and care for our sick and our elderly. It’s strange that we find it easier to become over-preoccupied with the enslavement of ancient history than engage bravely with enslavements in our own communities.

 

New London is an employer committed to ensuring all who work to support the community, including our sub-contracted staff receive a living wage for their efforts. I commend the many organisations who have taken similar steps. And commend to all members able to make a difference to the lives of those the companies they work with employ to give this precious gift of freedom, at this time of the year especially.

 

May this truly be a time of Liberation for all.

 

More information on the Living Wage Campaign at

http://www.livingwage.org.uk

 

On the Difference Between Adult Freedom and Childish Freedom - A Sermon for Shabbat HaGadol with added quesitons.

Shabbat HaGadol

Freedom is celebrated in an oddly sedate manner.

No wild parties on the streets.

Very opposite of Bacchanalian celebration.

4 measured cups.

Bitter herbs, salt water.

Freedom comes dipped in the suffering.

Freedom hurts.

 

Empathy as so central.

Hayav Adam Lirot Et Atzmo keilu hu yatzah miMitzrayim

 

Heart of Passover is the ability to see beyond the self.

Put oneself in the position of another human being.

Test of humanity.

 

From perspective of child development,

Tiny baby knows only own needs. And if these needs are not immediately met scream.

Then there comes a moment when a small child becomes aware of the other – that the world become aware of otherness.

That’s the beginning of emotional growth.

Hopefully later on there comes a moment when a growing child accepts obligations to the rest of the world, accepts constraints and limitations on their own choices and freedoms because they know that their lives are enrichened by their taking care of others.

We call that moment the Bar Mitzvah – adult freedom.

 

So there is such a thing as a child’s freedom. Oblivious to anyone else’s experience of my own potential, focussed only on what I want and what I get.

And there is an adult freedom. A freedom make more real by partaking in the notion that our freedom can be measured by our willingness to take care of others, feel their concerns, needs and dreams.

 

Two moments around the Seder

Fast of the Firstborn – feel the losses of the Egyptians – marked Monday after Shacharit. All welcome.

And then, the most perfect ritual in the whole seder.

The pouring out of wine when get to the plagues.

16 times with the 16 mentions of the plagues

 

15^th Century, Don Isaac Abarvanel

Proverbs – rejoice not when your enemy falls, let your heart not be glad when he stumbles.

 

This is the custom that makes our celebration of our own freedom adult.

 

Magnificent 20^th Century Jewish theologian and philosopher, Immanuel Levinas

My being in the world, or my place in the sun, my being at home, have these not also been the usurpation of spaces belonging to the other man whom I have already oppressed or starved or driven out into a third world.

The sensitivity to this dynamic is the root of ethics

This is the root of adult freedom.

 

To come right up to date

 

Obama – in Israel & Palestine this week.

Spoke beautifully and movingly about the coming Passover, the Jewish people’s relationship with freedom and the overthrow of slavery.

Spoke beautifully about the establishment of the Israeli state and powerfully about the right of this State to defend itself and its people from terrorists and military attach.

But also said this.

 

The Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and justice must also be recognized. Put yourself in their shoes [Obama told his audience of Israeli students] – look at the world through their eyes [he continued]. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished... Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.

 

Obama’s talking about an adult kind of Freedom. The one that comes with the recognition of cost and the fear of what my freedom does to my neighbour.

 

Religion gets a bad press.

Those opposed to religion like to blame religion for the closed mindedness of those who only understand a child’s version of freedom, no matter what their age.

But it’s a terrible mischaracterisation of religion – of Judaism certainly.

 

Central of Jewish thought is the notion of plurality of humanity.

Mishnah

When King of flesh and blood

When the King of Kings, Holy Blessed One – everyone comes out different.

 

There is even a blessing to be said when see a great number of human beings, recognition of the difference between us can only be owned by God, can’t be subsumed by any human.

Levinas diagnosed a totalitarianising tendency to force all humanity into a conformity that can never be. A tendency that needs to be fought back as we learn to accept we cannot subsume all humanity to our own needs – like a tiny child.

 

Leading American Orthodox Rabbi, Brad Hirschfield, new book

You Don't Have To Be Wrong for Me To Be Right

Reads verses from Isaiah, in fact reading the entire Biblical and Rabbinic canon.

We don't all need to be the same. I don't need everyone in the world to be Jewish. I don't need every Jew to choose the form of Judaism I myself have chosen, even though I love and am enlivened by this version of my tradition!

Why [should] being right depend on everyone else being wrong? Do other women need to be ugly in order for my wife to be beautiful? 

Wanting to make everyone else just like me is narcissism. Learning to interact with, to respect, and even to love people who are different from me [is the heart of truly] spiritual work.

Not only that religion is not the cause of blinkered self obsession and totalitarianising tendencies, rather that religion is the pathway which opens our eyes to the suffering of others,

Religion reminds us, even at the highest moments of our own celebration of our own freedom, that we cannot be free when another Divine creation is suffering.

Religion reminds us to be pluralists, aware that the other doesn’t need to be wrong for me to be right.

Religion, and specifically the religious notion that all humans are created in the image of the Divine is secret to the enormous possibility of plurality.

 

So at this time of questioning.

At this time of celebrating Freedom, perhaps only the childish freedom, but if we are so blessed, a celebration of an adult freedom.

Some of my questions for the upcoming Festival of Freedom.

 

What breaks us out of the self-obsession a childish sense of Freedom and allows us to feel the broader perspective of adult freedom?

What do we need to do to acknowledge that ‘You don’t have to be wrong for me to be right?’

How can we cultivate more space in our hearts.

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Chag Pesach Sameach, A wonderful Pesach celebration to all

 

Rav Kook on Biur Hametz

Rav Kook, C20, Olat Rayah – On Freedom and Biur Hametz

 

These years symbolise to us the essence of the Festival of Redemption – the Festival of Pesach, the time of our Freedom.

What can we learn from the generations from these two subjects, so dependent each on the other?

The essential answer is that there are two conditions for redemption.

Personal freedom – freedom of the body from all foreign subjugation and from all subjugation that breaks the image of the Divine which is in each human to be working for all the power which is their particular portion, their great glory and their holy beauty.

But this freedom is only acquired by means of spiritual freedom. Freedom of the soul from everything that pulls it off its straight course and its cast-iron foundation - the essential essence of the person.

 

However these two kinds of Freedom can only come … by means of the biur – annihilation of every border and every thing which holds back that freedom. For that is its hametz, the bitterness in the dough, which harms the search for what is better, the spark of the light of redemption within them.

 

We need to educate ourselves how to treasure this great spirit of freedom which shines upon us, especially in these illuminating times, a spirit which burst forth like lightening. It has the appearance of the first redemption, the redemption from Sinai, when the King, King of Kings, the Holy Blessed One was revealed to us in God’s great might, and God brought us close [karavnu] to worship God, and that is complete freedom, and God lifted us up from the depredations of foreign slavery which is useless as a form of Divine service.

 

And the difference between the slave and the free person is only a difference of internal state of mind… One can find a wise slave whose soul is full of freedom, and the reverse, a free-person whose soul is the soul of a slave. The vibrancy of freedom is an elevated soul, for a person and also a nation, through all their elevated efforts can become inheritors of their inner independence, the spiritual preparation of the image of God within them, and by means of this intention one can feel life in amongst the fragility of existence, for this is the measure of their worth, as is not the case for someone whose soul is defined by their labour. For their life and their energy  will never illuminate the purpose of the independent soul, unless it is through something good and beautiful done for them by another who has some kind of control over them, whether this be officially or spiritually.

 

And we get the inner light of personal freedom [herut], ‘carved [harut] on the tablets’ – don’t read harut, rather herut. Come, come, let us stress more and more our bright inner independence, which is gained through the revelation of the shechinah, that same freedom that is gained by means of the great unique miracle of the world that was done for us when the Blessed God brought our ancestors out of Egypt to freedom forevermore. Come my brothers, all of us, to the Seder, and know that we are all the children of Kings, and if freedom is the eternal portion, Israel shall never be enslaved …Protect freedom and protect the annihilation of hametz and bring speedily full redemption.

 

Best (New) Passover Song I Know - To the Tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

Hallelujah for Matzah

(to be sung to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah Chorus)

Lyrics by Joshua March

 

There was a time, when we weren’t free

Trapped in bonded slavery

But the Lord and Moses came, to save us

Had the Lord not saved us

From Egypt

All our people would still be slaves

And so tonight we eat, Matzah

Matzah (x4)

 

Once God had sent the ten plagues

With nothing left of the Pharaoh’s rage

We finally had our moment, to leave

But we didn’t want to take a chance

And risk the Pharaoh saying we can’t

So we grabbed our dough and turned it into Matzah

Matzah (x4)

 

Now we’re free, to roam to world

With the story of Israel still to unfold

But billions still enslaved in war and poverty

So Hashem our Lord

Told us this day

Remember then, and think of now

Because the day of freeing the world is yet to come

Matzah (x4)

 

 

Heschel & The Price of Freedom

Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Price of Freedom

 

Who Is Man?, Lectures Given at Stanford 1963

The first thought a child becomes aware of is his being called, his being asked to respond or to act in a certain way. It is in acts of responding to demands made upon him that the child begins to find himself as part of both society and nature. This is the most important experience in the life of every human being: something is asked of me. Meaning is found in responding to the demand.

Indebtedness is given with our being human because our being is not simply being, our being is being created. Being created means that the ‘ought’ precedes the ‘is.’ Religion begins with the certainty that something is asked of us, that there are ends which are in need of us. It is in man’s being challenged that he discovers himself as a human being. Do I exist as a human being? My answer is: I am commanded therefore I am. There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, of being called upon at certain moments to answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.

 

Speech to conference on, “Religion and Race” (14 January 1963)

At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. Moses’ words were: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me.” While Pharaoh retorted: “Who is the Lord, that I should heed this voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses.

Religion and race. How can the two be uttered together? To act in the spirit of religion is to unite what lies apart, to remember that humanity as a whole is God’s beloved child. To act in the spirit of race is to sunder, to slash, to dismember the flesh of living humanity. Is this the way to honor a father: to torture his child? How can we hear the word “race” and feel no self reproach? Few of us seem to realize how insidious, how radical, how universal an evil racism is. Few of us realize that racism is man’s gravest threat to man, the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason, the maximum of cruelty for a minimum of thinking. Perhaps this Conference should have been called “Religion or Race.” You cannot worship God and at the same time look at man as if he were a horse.

 

Telex To JFK in Moral Grandeur, 1963

A telex to President Kennedy

TO PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE WHITE HOUSE, JUNE 16 1963

I LOOK FORWARD TO PRIVELEGE OF BEING PRESENT AT MEETING TOMORROW AT 4 P.M. LIKLIHOOD EXISTS THAT NEGRO PROBLEM WILL BE LIKE THE WEATHER. EVEERYBODY TALKS ABOUT IT BUT NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT. PLEASE DEMAND OF RELIGIONS LEADERS PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT NOT JUST SOLEMN DECLARATION. WE FORFEIT THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP GOD AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO HUMILIATE NEGROES. CHURCH SYNAGOGUES HAVE FAILED. THEY MUST REPENT. ASK OF RELGIOUS LEADERS TO CALL FOR NATIONAL REPENTENCE AND PERSONAL SACRIFICE. LET RELIGIOUS LEADERS DONATE ONE MONTH’S SALARY TOWARD FUND FOR NEGRO HOUSING AND EDUCATION. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MR. PRESIDENT DECLARE STATE OF MORAL EMERGENCY. A MARSHALL PLAN FOR AID TO NEGROES IS BECOMING A NECESSITY. THE HOUR CALLS FOR HIGH MORAL GRANDEUR AND SPIRITUAL AUDACITY.

 

ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL

 

The Reasons for my Involvements in the Peace Movement, Moral Grandeur

For many years I lived by the conviction that my destiny is to serve in the realm of privacy, to be concerned with the ultimate issues and involved in attempting to clarify them in thought and in word. Loneliness was both a burden and a blessing and above all indispensible for achieving a kind of stillness in which perplexities could be faced. Three events changed my attitude.

One was the countless onslaughts upon my inner life, depriving me of the ability to sustain inner stillness.

The second was the discovery that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself. The most wicked men must be regarded as great teachers, for they set forth precisely an example of that which is unqualifiedly evil. Cain’s questions ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ and his implied negative response must be regarded among the great fundamental evil maxims of the world. The third event that changed my attitude was my study of the prophets. From them I learned the niggardliness of our moral comprehension, the incapacity to sense the depth of misery caused by our own failures. It became quite clear to me that while our eyes are witness to the callousness and cruelty of man, our heart tries to obliterate the memories, to calm the nerves and to silence our conscience.

 

Death As Homecoming, Moral Grandeur

Our greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The cry for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future, but perpetual presence. The world is not only a here-after, but also a here now.

This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the treads of temporality into the fabric of eternity.

 

Less Chametz More Heavy Metal

 

Par-Jorgen Parson (and if I knew how to type umlauts I would have needed three just now) is an investor who sits on the board of Spotify. He’s co-author of a new book which suggests that business schools and corporate-management could learn a thing from great Heavy Metal bands like AC/DC. I don’t much care for loud rock and I don’t spend much of time worrying about MBA programmes, but an article on the book did catch my eye.

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/03/ideas-bank/turn-your-management-skills-up-to-eleven

 

‘Why settle for satisfied customers when you could have fans going ****?’ He asks, having pointed out the vast crowds, adoration and vast sums that have accrued to the masters of metal over decades. It’s a good question. He suggests five elements make up a ‘Heavy Metal Management Pentagram’

·         Be epic – tell a great story.

·         Be a master – semi-skilled is not good enough.

·         Be instinctive – appeal to the basic instincts of humanity.

·         Be sensory – involve as many senses as possible.

·         Be forever – stay the course.

 

It occurred to me he could have been talking about Seder night. Is the Seder epic? Oh Yes. Not only is our own tale; from tiny babe cast adrift to the angel of death and the parting of the sea bursting with energy, its adoption into the freedom narrative of every oppressed people since makes the story we tell, I would argue, the greatest epic of all time. Even Cecil B. De Milne thought so.

 

Are we masters in telling this tale? Less obviously so. Of course we all have our particular family favourites, but is our Seder a great performance? Mastery takes preparation. Flipping open the Haggadah to try and remember half-forgotten tunes while everyone is sat around is not good enough. If mastering the whole evening feels daunting (and even if it doesn’t) share the load, with notice, give other attendees parts to master themselves.

 

Be instinctive. I was going to write, for this magazine, on a tiny element in the Seder, but that’s not the point. The point is freedom. Talk about it, celebrate it. One of the most special memories I have of a Seder came several years ago when my father-in-law read the climax of William Hague’s biography of William Wilberforce – the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in this country. There wasn’t a dry eye around the table. The horrors of slavery and the challenges and glories of freedom go to the heart of our fears and hopes.  Focus on what really matters.

 

Be sensory. Food, music, debate, games? Tick, tick, tick, tick. As a model of what pedagogues call ‘multiple intelligence theory’ the Seder is truly remarkable. We should allow each of these different approaches to have their moment and ensure those, of whatever age, most likely to become bored or disillusioned are brought in and engaged with according to their needs.

 

Be forever. Actually maybe even AC/DC could learn a thing or two from the Seder – 3,000 years and counting. But the longevity Parson is talking about isn’t to do with focussing on the length of our past. It’s about focussing on the length and strength of our future. As we sit round the table; sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, remembering those who have gone before we should take a moment to ensure the future of our telling of this great tale, and the message of freedom it carries at its heart is developed and vouchsafed.

 

There, five Heavy Metal inspired guides for our Pesach celebrations. May they serve us well.

 

Chag Kasher V’Sameach,

Josephine, Carmi, Harry, Eli and I wish one and all a wonderful Pesach,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

New London Synagogue Pesach 5773 Guide

Kashrut for Pesach - 5773

 

This paper sets out a guide to kashrut that, if followed, can leave members of NLS confident in their own kashrut standard over Pesach and comfortable in inviting to their homes any Jew, from any denomination. It is a wonderful mitzvah to fulfil the wish of the Haggadah - ‘let all who are hungry come and eat’ – by meeting these standards. It is a mitzvah I hope you will enjoy.

 

The guide comes in three parts: Why, Food, Cleaning and Making Kosher the Kitchen and Vessels

 

Should you have any questions about anything in this standard, please do let me know on rabbi@newlondon.org.uk 

 

Section I: Why

In typical Jewish style, there are many answers to the ‘Why’ question. None excludes the others. Here are three:

Payback time. The obligation to keep kosher at Pesach is just that, an obligation. It is our due in deference to the incredible miracle of our existence, our liberation from slavery and our receiving of Torah. It is the closest we, as Rabbinic Jews, can get to acknowledging the reality of the gift of our free life, a gift beyond price.

Spring cleaning. Leaven is fermented; it is part of last year’s harvest. At Pesach we forgo leaven; we use only the new harvest. Pesach is a time to clear out old stock. We check the inventory not just of our cupboards, but also of ourselves and through our cleaning and observance of kashrut we become renewed.

The Hametz Inside. We are made up of a holy spark, pure and perfect. For much of the year we are involved in the mucky business of the ‘real world,’ but for the days of Pesach we get back in touch with that simplicity, with who we really are, and what we really stand for.

 

For more thoughts on why we should observe these and other mitzvot please see:

http://www.responsafortoday.com/about/conserv_halakhah.pdf

 

Section II: Food

Hametz

The Bible prohibits not only eating hametz on Pesach, but also owning it. The prohibition is so strong that any hametz owned by a Jew during the days of Pesach is forbidden, even after Pesach has long gone. Furthermore it is also forbidden to eat the mixture of hametz with any other normal food.

 

Hametz is ‘any food prepared from five species of grain – wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye – which has been allowed to leaven’.

 

Things to note:

• If it is not food, it can’t count as hametz. Make-up, PVA glue, washing up liquid, etc. are not hametz. The test of whether something is or is not food is ‘whether a dog would eat it’. This may depend on your dog’s personal dietary habits, but despite the best intentions of some NLS’ canines, shoes and trouser legs do not count as food.
• The prohibition of owning hametz over Pesach does not apply to things that are not hametz. You do not have to throw out tea, toothbrushes, etc. in order to meet this standard, even if you wouldn’t wish to use them during Pesach.

Getting Rid of Hametz

The Rabbis offer a belt, buckle and braces approach.

• First you should remove any hametz. A good spring clean is a lovely thing to do, but to meet the standard of the Rabbis it is necessary only to remove bits of hametz that are larger than the size of an olive.
• Next you should perform a bittul – nullification. This is done twice, once during the search for hametz (the night before Seder night) and once on the morning of Seder night (before around 10 a.m.). The formula can be recited in English as follows:

 

All hametz in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, shall be nullified and be ownerless as the dust of the earth.

This is a key part of the preparation process. Even if you have cleaned perfectly, it should be said.

 

• Finally, you should authorize me, or another Rabbi, to perform a mehirah – or sale to a non-Jew –of any hametz you do not wish to nullify or throw away. This is an extraordinary leniency from the Rabbis, bending over to make Pesach less onerous and less costly. It is designed to allow us to hang on to bottles of whiskey, save slices from our wedding cakes, etc. It has been mocked, but I always delight in the flexibility and sensitivity this notion allows. I would recommend it even if you think you have cleaned perfectly and you don’t think you have anything physical to sell. To sell hametz you must contact me to let me know that you wish me to sell your hametz. Please do this in writing (e-mail is best). You should then put the hametz in a sealed container or room and leave it until after 10pm the night that Passover goes out.

 

Certification

Prepared foodstuffs need certification. For a couple of years I used to eat lots of kosher l’pesach specially prepared foods, but came to feel that they are somehow not right. Pesach is a wonderful time to go more natural, using more fresh ingredients and fewer processed foods.

 

There is no need for certification for any non-food products. For things like toothpaste I would buy a new tube before Pesach and use that. There is no need for certification for fruit, vegetables, fish or meat.

 

Mixtures of Hametz and Non-Hametz

The Rabbis make a clear distinction between mixtures of foods that were owned before Pesach and mixtures that were purchased only during Pesach. A tiny amount of hametz mixed with a massive quantity of normal food bought ON Pesach renders the whole amount of food not kosher. But if the mixing took place BEFORE Pesach and you perform a bittul (see above) on the eve of Pesach then a tiny amount of mixed-in hametz (less than 1/60^th) is nullified and the food can be used on Pesach.

 

Note:

This has a huge implication in terms of the foods that need certification as kosher l’pesach. Simple foodstuffs, subjected to an absolute minimum of processing, do not require certification IF bought before Pesach. On this list I would include foods such as unflavoured coffees, fruit juices, spices, ground nuts, etc. If you wish to make use of this leniency these foods should be bought before Pesach, left unopened until after the house has been made kosher. All these foods, however, need certification if bought during Pesach.

 

Kitniyot – Often translated as ‘Legumes’

I can understand how kitniyot might have come to be prohibited. In a world where one could walk into a market and buy identical sacks containing either corn-flour or wheat-flour, it made sense to stay away from anything that could be confused for hametz at Pesach time. There has never, however, been a definitive definition or even a definitive list as to what would be covered and over time things seem to have gone a little out of control.

• Firstly, kitniyot are not hametz; owning them is no problem and using them cannot treif a house.
• Secondly, only Ashkenazi Jews abstain from eating them.
• Thirdly, I am inclined to keep the list narrow. I would include pulses, rice and corn, but not peanuts or garlic, and not oil products.
• Fourthly, for families who keep vegetarian or for other reasons worry about their diet over a kitniyot-free Pesach I would rely upon a legal ruling of my teacher Rabbi David Golinkin, who takes a very hostile approach to what he understands to be ‘a mistaken or foolish custom’. More information on this ruling can be found at: http://www.responsafortoday.com/eng_index.html (English summaries Vol. 3).

 

Section III: Cleaning and making kosher the kitchen and vessels

Many people have entire sections of kitchenware that can be switched over for Pesach. If you do not it is possible to make many items of kitchenware kosher for Pesach, and even if you have entirely separate pots and pans there is still work to be done on surfaces, ovens, etc.

 

To kosher a vessel all three of the following procedures need to be followed:

• The vessel must be clean of any markings of its previous use.

All marks must be removed. In the case of well-used saucepans, etc. it may not be possible to remove deeply cooked-in stains. These pans cannot be koshered. I would consider it impossible to remove schmutz from joins in a vessel, or between the vessel and its handle. These vessels cannot                be koshered.

 

• The vessel must be left unused for 24 hours after its last use with the ingredient that is to be purged before being koshered [ben yomo].

 

• Ingredients that are absorbed into a vessel are secreted and can be purged from the vessel in the same way in which they were originally absorbed [k’volo, kach polto].

 

The key issues in understanding how an ingredient has been absorbed are the level of heat the vessel has been subjected to and the material of manufacture. Again these processes only apply once the vessel has been cleaned and left for 24 hours.

 

• A pot that has been used on a stove top, metal kitchen utensils and metal cutlery used for eating hot food can be koshered by being dunked in boiling water [hagalah]. Big pots (as opposed to pans) can be koshered if filled to overflowing with boiling water (so both inside and outside of the vessel are covered by the water); this is usually done by filling a pot with water then dropping a stone in the water causing a small amount of water to flow over the top and down the sides. Fragile vessels of this type that cannot be dunked cannot be koshered.
• It is very difficult to render plastic ware spotlessly clean and free of any markings of use, but this is necessary if it is to be made kosher by hagalah.
• Metal pans used in the oven are very difficult to clean thoroughly. I would consider it impossible to clean these pans properly; if, however, this can be done a metal pan can be rendered kosher by libun – heating the pan to an extreme heat for thirty minutes. Ceramic pans cannot be made kosher.
• Ovens, stovetops and grills also need libun. Self-cleaning ovens can be cleaned using the self-cleaning function. Other ovens and stoves should be turned on and up to the highest heat and left for 30 minutes. Grills that can be rendered spotlessly clean can be made kosher in a self-cleaning oven or cleaned with high heat for a similar length of time. Again, where it is not possible to clean a grill so it appears clean to the eye, it cannot be made kosher. In these circumstances foil should be used to wrap either the grill or food before it is cooked. Gas hobs can be made kosher by libun but are very difficult to get spotlessly clean and can be covered with foil for the week of Pesach.
• Sinks, worktops and tables that come into contact with hot foods or liquids but are not actually used for cooking can be koshered by pouring hot water over a clean surface [irui]. A draining rack or large bowl should be used in sinks in which dishes or pots are left to soak. A table that is used for hot foods during the year, but cannot withstand irui, should be cleaned and covered at Pesach.
• Ceramics are held by the Rabbis to be so porous that what they have previously absorbed can never be fully purged. Ceramic vessels including plates, mugs, etc. cannot be koshered.
• Glass is held by the Rabbis to be impervious to absorbing food and, theoretically, does not need to be koshered. In practice it is traditional to soak glassware in water for 24 hours (usually a bath is the best way to do this). Pyrex is a modern material, most authorities consider that it cannot be treated like glass, but I am inclined to treat it as glass when there is no evidence of baked-in colouration on, for example, a baking dish.
• A microwave oven can be made kosher if cleaned and then put on high for 2 minutes with a bowl of water inside. (Ensure the water does not run out or the oven may be damaged.)
• Dishwashers should be put through an entire cycle on the hottest setting before being used to clean vessels for use at Pesach.
• Other items of kitchen machinery present a range of challenges - please contact me with any specific queries.

 

One-time-use vessels can be an easy way-out of making a kitchen kosher at Pesach, but they come at an increasingly untenable cost for our planet. Baal tashchit is the halachic principle that prohibits wasting natural resources. Please take whatever steps you can to reduce wastage caused by one-time-use-vessels and in particular please avoid the most ecologically damaging one-time-use-vessels such as those made of polystyrene.

 

If you are living in a kitchen that is not yours to kosher and those you are living with are unwilling to see it made kosher, please contact me and we can discuss which of various options might work best for you and your situation.

 

Again, should you have any questions, please do let me know.

Very best wishes for a kosher and joyful Pesach,

Rabbi Jeremy Gordon

New London Synagogue

 

Of Law and Stories

For the past five months I’ve been making my way through the Talmudic tractate Shabbat as part of a commitment to learn a page of Talmud a day.

Please God, I’ll be completing this Tractate in the coming week and making a Siyum on the eve of Passover.

The tractate opens with a discussion of the laws of carrying. The discussion is illustrated by discussing what a beggar may and may not take from the hand of a willing charitable donor. Some 150 pages later the topic is the areas of conversation and planning for the week to come which it is forbidden to engage with on Shabbat. And again the subject is illustrated through a discussion of whether it is permissible to work out distributions from charitable funds for the relief of poverty on Shabbat (it is).

The point is that the laws are not just laws, they define and make tangible our values.

Shabbat law is bound up in narrative realities that shape our approach to life. As Robert Carver, the American legal theorist put it; there is no law without a narrative framework.

There is no ‘logos’ without ‘nomos.’

It’s a profoundly Jewish insight.

 

The laws of Passover, from the cleaning to the ritual of the Seder are ultimately predicated on a narrative – the redemption from Egypt, the redemption from slavery.

This is the great challenge and the great secret of Jewish life. The stories become rituals. The rituals hold the stories. Stories without rituals wither into literary curios devoid of life. Rituals without stories risk pointlessness. Together rituals and stories become a chain that connects us to our past, to our contemporaries and to God.

 

As we enter the week of the New Moon of Nissan, this is the challenge, the same as it is every year – to make the narrative infuse the practice and make the practice the way we keep the narrative alive.

 

Shabbat shalom,

 

Two weeks and counting – Pesach is coming.