Rabbis (This Rabbi) And Politics

 This was written in, I think, mid-2022, something like that. I'm posting it here as Great Britain enters a General Election cycle.

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We lost some long-standing members this week. The problem, it seems, was me and my politics. Under my leadership, New London stands accused of being “increasingly politicised” when it came to “domestic issues around identity politics,” “national issues such as immigration” and “issues concerning Israel’s democratic government.” The couple left in search of a synagogue “that does not engage in such agendas and where we can both come and go as members without feeling that our personal views are constantly being questioned and challenged.”

 

Putting aside the question of the value of a religious approach that disdains constant question and challenge, I do have some sympathy. I understand – and deeply value – my faith as a refuge from the febrile world ‘out there.’ I deeply value the range of positions and views that will be taken by any collection of thinking human beings – and we have a lot of thinking human beings at New London. In my mind, I’ve never attempted to muzzle or limit debate on these important issues, if you feel otherwise, please accept my apology. But, but, but, but …

 

It’s another one of those weeks where the news ‘here’ is of the Illegal Immigration Bill and the news ‘there’ is of proposed judicial reforms. I find this week’s Torah portion (containing as it does the tale of the Golden Calf) fascinating, and for what it’s worth deeply political, but I can’t sit down to express a thought for this coming Shabbat without engaging with issues that, while definitely, ‘of the polis’ – political, are profoundly religious.

 

I want to share here how I – as your Rabbi – approach this tightrope walk. I also want to share a brief word about the relationship, as I understand it, of Judaism and matters of the democratic polis.

 

I allow this space, my weekly written messages, to be political than my sermons. If you want to experience New London-style Judaism experientially, as an escape from the pressures of the world, come to Shul; log on to our daily Shacharit services, enjoy our phenomenal new cantorial leadership and prepare to enjoy a newly redecorated and much beautified sanctuary. If you don’t like the message of my weekly-mailing, feel free to delete or scroll down. I don’t mind, really I don’t. If you come to Shul there’s less politics from Bimah – I think that’s correct.

 

I police my own language with great care. In fifteen years as Rabbi of New London, I have used the name of a specific British political party to make a religious point on one occasion only, and only as the result of deep reflection and (for what it’s worth) extensive consultation with the lay leadership. I am deeply committed to keeping my political-party-specific opinions to myself. I have never and can’t see how I would ever, tell anyone who to vote for. I am committed to treating any elected official with the respect due their mandate and their position. “Pray for the government,” taught Rabbi Chanina, “without its due respect a person would eat their fellow alive.” Amen to that. I have never and would never condone use of inflammatory epithets directed against anyone, member, stranger or political leader alike. I’m particularly opposed to epithets of precise historical meaning being used to tar contemporary political positions. If we disagree with a person or their position, I believe we should say so and explain why. But I am wary in the extreme of calling any person or position racist / sexist / homophobic / Apartheid / Nazi / fascist. Certainly, I am far more restrained in how I speak about political leadership today than Chazal – the Rabbis of Talmudic fame – were in the language used in the great tomes of our faith to attack political leaders of eras past.

 

But Judaism can never, in the words of our founder rabbi, Rabbi Louis Jacobs of blessed memory, be allowed to be “insipid” or “remote from the day-to-day concerns” of Jews. Judaism is not wholly or even primarily a spiritual/theological commitment. Judaism is a commitment to be part of a covenant of action. Its real-world commitment is evinced in verse after verse of the Torah and Sugya after Sugya of the Talmud. As I reflect on my own interest in matters of the polis, it’s to the Torah and the Talmud that I go, and from the Torah and the Talmud that I draw the inspiration that drives my teaching. If I’m interested in gender politics, it’s that verse in Genesis that insists the image of divinity is expressed through both male and female forms that underlies my interest. If I advocate for the dispossessed and unvoiced in society, it’s the repeated Biblical insistence to love, care for and not oppress the stranger that inspire me. If I have the temerity to speak against the political leadership of Israel – insignificant as I am - I have Samuel, Isaiah and an entire prophetic tradition to serve as models. That was the piece in the resignation note of our, now, former-members that, forgive me, annoyed me. It was suggested I function like a “see-saw,” “dashing to take up the mantle of causes that are transitory.” That’s certainly not how I experience my 25 years of rabbinic study and commitment. Ho-hum.

 

The point about democracy is this. Democracy is NOT the government by will of the majority. The majority don’t need a constitution to impose their will on the minority. Technically, the name for rule by the masses is ‘ochlocracy.’ And it’s not something I, as a Jew, have ever been excited about.  Democracy IS the CONTROL of the will of the majority. A good democrat reflects not on their own dictatorial power, but on the edges, the limits, the term-times, the checks and balances. Democracies always annoy those who think a mandate should be equated with their ability to do whatever they want. And that’s where religion comes in. Religion is and has always been a voice outside of a human-coming-together to do ‘what is right in their own eyes’ (a phrase used repeatedly in the Bible to demonstrate error is being made). Religion will, of course, make mistakes, and I, when I have the temerity to speak on behalf of our faith and how-much-the-more-so the Divine must model temerity and humility in looking to intervene in the public sphere. But the notion that religion doesn’t insist on an engagement in the political realm is absurd. I’ve shared more about this idea in a sermon here https://rabbionanarrowbridge.blogspot.com/2022/12/why-be-religious-archbishop-rowan.html. And the great lesson of the last century, and indeed the entirety of Rabbinic Jewish history, is that we should be deeply grateful to live in carefully checked and balanced democracy. ‘Ad Kan,’ as the Rabbis of the Talmud were won’t to say, ‘That will have to do for now.’

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

To See Others, To Change Others - A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Day One 5784

Here’s a cute thing little kids do. They’ll cover their eyes and assume that just because they can’t see you, you can’t see them. “Peekabo.” For a tiny child, the idea that anyone else sees the world differently from the way they see the world is so absurd you can get peals of laughter from playing along.

Adorable isn’t it. From a small child.

My concern, my fear and the driving force of my sermon, on this most holy of days, is that not enough of us have grown far enough beyond this development stage. Not enough of us care deeply enough about nurturing and loving and committing ourselves to understand the different ways the not-me-s of the world see the world. We are all so stressed and tired and so in fear of this divisive and fractured society, that we think the only way forward is to muster every resource we can to protect the way we see the world right now. And while we think this helps - while at a certain level we think that if I can’t see you then you can’t see me – we do know, don’t we, that peekaboo doesn’t really work.

But, despite its obvious flaws, this pre-occupation with allowing into our awareness only our own way of seeing the world, is compelling.

Lee Ross, the recently deceased sociologist, studied and engaged in conflict negotiation in, among other realms, Israel-Palestine. Not once, he wrote, in forty years’ experience, did anyone arrive at a conflict resolution seminar he was running eager to learn how the other side saw the matter at hand. When we call for empathy or gentleness in society, what we tend to mean is, “I deserve more empathy than you –  you better treat me gently,” and we forget that thing Hillel once said, “That which is hateful for you, do not do to others.”

When it comes to the way we engage with the great political challenges of this day; in this country, in Israel, in the States, we are quick to write off that vast part of society that doesn’t hold the same views as me as either a bunch of out-of-touch liberal elites or racist bullies. We consider our own position one of careful nuance and compassion, and the positions of those with whom we disagree as blunt and wilfully cruel. We’re all so busy being concerned about being unfairly cancelled by those with whom we disagree, that we end up cancelling them first. That helps, of course, at a certain basic level. If we get our cancelling in first, then we really don’t need to pay any attention to the way they see the world.

Somewhere between Kant telling us that the self is categorically important, and the algorithms that sensationalise and fracture the information we let into our brains, we’ve convinced ourselves that our version of truth is the ultimate destination of all ethics, good behaviour and value. And, as an approach, that will guide us towards an ever more divisive, angry and nasty society, a society that, given a moment’s true and deeper consideration, none of us would wish to inhabit.

We know it’s better to try a different way from our most intimate social spaces, from our families. Just suppose that I vote Tory and my brother votes Labour, or vice versa, it’s not the point. We’re going to hang on in there, fighting not to demonise each other in our differences, disagreeing, sure, but not barricading ourselves in and them out, because it’s my brother.

This isn’t, for what it’s worth, a call to meekly accept every position of every person who disagrees with me as equally acceptable. I’m definitely in favour of some positions, and definitely opposed to others, and I’m up for debate and up for changing minds. But the question is, how do we engage with others when we want to make change and we don’t want to add to the fractured, nasty culture of what sometimes passes for debate in this country?

How do I try and get my brother to change his opinion – and full disclosure, I’m not sure I’ve ever successfully persuaded my brother of anything – I take time, share love, listen hard, ask honest and open questions. That’s the way to change the world, with love and humility, not with shouts and barricades.

I like psychologist John Walen’s image, “You can’t move a string by pushing it, you have to pull it.” When it comes to families, we know, I think, most of us, of the need to pull together. We know, I think, most of us, that pushing apart doesn’t get us to where we want to be. We just need to carry that attitude with us when we encounter everyone else.

So, how do we pull strings in, how can we engage compassionately and pro-actively with each other?

I’ve been hugely moved by the tale of Megan Phelps-Roper and David Abitol, a Jew she met via Twitter. Phelps-Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church, you might have heard of them; a particularly nasty organisation committed to demonising those who have different theological understandings – and among the long list of people they demonise are Jews. In one of those 10-million-people-have-viewed-this-presentation Ted Talks, Phelps-Roper explains why she left Westboro.[1] She was on Twitter, busy demonising, when this Jew, David Abitol, the founder of the blog Jewlicious, started to take her seriously and engaging with her reasonably. He seems a remarkable person. And at one point, Abitol heads to meet with Megan in New Orleans in person. As Phelps-Roper retells the story;

after several months of heated but friendly arguments online, he came out to see me at a picket. He brought me a Middle Eastern dessert from Jerusalem, and I brought him kosher chocolate and held a "God hates Jews" sign. There was no confusion about our positions, but the line between friend and foe was becoming blurred. We'd started to see each other as human beings, and it changed the way we spoke to one another.

And eventually Phelps-Roper left Westboro, and the most important thing that shifted her was the humanity she found in David. She shares later in her Ted Talk

David, my "Jewlicious" friend from Twitter, invited me to spend time among a Jewish community in Los Angeles. We slept on couches in the home of a Hasidic rabbi and his wife and their four kids -- the same rabbi that I'd protested three years earlier with a sign that said, "Your rabbi is a whore." We spent long hours talking about theology and Judaism and life while we washed dishes in their kosher kitchen and chopped vegetables for dinner. I was astonished.

The thing that changed Phelps-Roper wasn’t the intellectual arguments, or the abuse directed at her, but the humanity of the human prepared to stand vulnerable before her.

It turns out the thing that changes other people is, to a great extent, the same thing as holds us together when we disagree with one another. If we treat other people, even people with whom we disagree as real human beings, not caricatures, if we hang on in there, even when conversations get difficult, if we pull in on the strings that bind us, rather than push away, we can achieve both. We can be part of a less divisive world and fight for the change we want to see in the world.

That’s a tall order, I know. I struggle with it too. But let me try and offer two gentle steps, as we set out in this new year to better ourselves and the society in which we find ourselves. Two steps that are, and forgive me, I’m a rabbi and it’s Rosh Hashanah, very Jewish.

The first is – stop digging; as in, if you are in a pit, stop digging. It’s monetised, you know, all those media groups who draw us in to watch one human being fighting another human being in a digital pit. They are making money, you know, off our inability to just say no. The real question is how do we allow ourselves to be shaped by our encounters with others? I send out a feedback form every year after Yom Kippur and every year I say something about God in my sermons and every year someone complains that they didn’t come to Shul on Rosh Hashanah to hear the Rabbi bang on about God. Sorry. But God is at the heart of this. Not the vindictive, bogus theology taught in places like the Westboro Church, but the kind of God we believe in here.

The kind of God we’ve spent this morning praying to; a God who is powerful at a level beyond human power, mysterious and unknowable beyond human knowledge, certainly, but, we believe merciful, slow to anger and willing to bear the weight of our transgressions if we can only find it in our hearts to change our ways. I’ll take that God above any of the social media influencers out there. It’s worth turning off the phones and re-centring our sense of what is important away from the bear pits that pass for debate, and towards El Rahum v’Hanun, a God of mercy and grace. It’s worth our prayers.

 

And the second is this - for a human being to change, we need to encounter other human beings. We need to be vulnerable human beings encountering other humans to change them, and ourselves. I think that’s part of why it’s worth being here, in a Synagogue, a Bet Kenesset – literally, a place for people to come together. There are different human beings here. Some older, some younger, some distracting because they pray too loudly, or chat too loudly, or snore too loudly.

But we need to be jostled up against different people with different levels of … well everything to grow and learn and heal. We’re a better community and a stronger community by being egalitarian, by having more members of colour, or of different sexualities or who are well … everything.

By the time we are done with the service today, I suspect we are all going to be too interested in lunch to want to have particularly deep conversations about the great matters of our time with our fellow Synagogue-attendees. We’re not even offering a proper Kiddush.

But we could take a moment now to look around this incredible room of incredible human beings, all of whom are created in the image of God, none of whom, despite the ways in which they might disagree with me, are worthy of being demonised or stereotyped or abnegated, all of whom, if I can just connect with them, human-to-human could teach me so much I could never understand just by myself.

We could take a second moment to embed that attitude into our heart, fixing this sense of the vital important of treating other people as valuable fellow wanderers, even if we disagree – perhaps most especially if we disagree.

And dare I request a third moment; to appreciate what it is to be part of a community, this special community, where there are so many different people to learn from?

With our prayers and with this remarkable assembly of human beings there might be everything we need to heal this world here, in this special space, on this special day. As Hillel said, that’s the very essence of the Torah, the rest is commentary, now go complete it.

May we go on to do just that, tomorrow, and beyond, and onwards into the year of sweetness, health and peace we wish for ourselves,

Shannah Tovah

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[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_phelps_roper_i_grew_up_in_the_westboro_baptist_church_here_s_why_i_left/transcript?language=en

Brexit and Exodus - A Sermon Given on the Day of Departure

Last night Great Britain left the European Union.

And this morning we read the story of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt.

So it’s one of those days when the subject of the sermon is crystalline. But the guts of the sermon are tricky.

When the orthodox Chief Rabbi of this country spoke out publicly in the weeks before the last general election, I got a slew of emails from congregants and others. Literally, half the emails thought it was wonderful that a religious leader should speak out on such an important political matter, and warmly encouraged me to do the same.

And the other half of emails warned and worried about the consequences for Rabbi Mirvis and wanted me to keep away from the issue.

On the one hand … and on the other hand.

But there are similarities between the Exodus narrative and the Brexit narrative that go beyond the letters ‘e’ and ‘x’.

For one thing, not everyone wanted to leave. When Moses first went to the Children of Israel, in events we read a couple of weeks ago, they weren’t interested at all.

Shortly after Moses goes to Pharaoh to instruct the King of Egypt that the Hebrew should be freed, and the foreman of the Israelites comes to him and curses him out, ‘May God look at you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh.’ And we’ve had a bunch of name-calling and bitterness in this journey also.

But eventually the people leave.

Actually, maybe not all the people. There is Rabbinic commentary to the effect that there were some who stayed behind – maybe in today’s situation, they would be the people – the tens of thousands of people who have rushed out to get an EU passport at some point in the last three years.

But let me leave the politics at this point. I’m going to make some points about leaving Egypt, and I’m not trying to make a point about Brexit; whether it’s good or bad. I suspect I’m firmly with the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai who, when asked in the 1970s what he thought about the French revolution of 1798; "It's too early to tell." Let me instead think a little more deeply about the Israelites who stayed behind, and what the Israelites who left were doing.

Next week we’ll read a line that says the Children of Israel, as they left Egypt, were hamushim. That’s a word that clearly has something to do with the Hebrew word for 5 or maybe 50, but it’s unclear. Our most important commentator, Rashi thinks it has something to do with learning military techniques from their oppressors - now the Children of Israel march fifty abreast in military formation. But Rashi also says this – there is a Midrash (and it’s in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael) that records an argument about how many Israelites left Egpyt. Perhaps when the verse says they left Hamushim – it really means that it was only one in five of the Israelites left, or maybe even one in fifty of the Israelites who left.

What happened to the rest?

Shmeitu Harbeh MYisrael BMitzrayim

Many Israelites died in Egypt. They just couldn’t bring themselves to be ready to leave. So rather than be left behind, the idea seems to be, they fell dead. When did they die? The Midrash continues, in the three-day plague of darkness. And while the Egyptians couldn’t see, the Israelites who were to leave buried the ones who were not to leave - so the Egyptians would know what had happened.

Because, it seems, that leaving is hard.

Crazily, it seems, there were Israelites who opposed to leaving Egypt even when they were abused, beaten, and genocidally murdered. Actually, that’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again in history and across the globe. In the face of oppression and slavery, there are always those who protest against any attempt to overthrow the status quo and leave. They worry about what they might lose, they can’t see what they might gain.

And this is the point about leaving Egypt.

When Moses turns to the people of Israel and calls on them to follow him into the desert he promises them something they cannot see. At the heart of the Jewish faith, there is a god who cannot be seen. That’s in radical contradistinction to life in Egypt where the gods can be seen. Now it might be that the Egyptians gods and magicians and the like are all pretty useless, but at least they are there. The same goes for the foodstuff of Egpyt. Slaves don’t get much to eat, but there’s nothing to eat in the desert – and you can understand an Israelite feeling, you know, I’ll stay right here.

You can look at the entire battle between Moses and Pharaoh, the entire point of Exodus as the battle between the attraction of the material and tangible, as little and as fallible as it may be, and the promise of a future that cannot yet be seen, and might never be seen. 

Here’s another Midrash, a rabbinic commentary on a verse we read last week on the moment when Moses first turns up at Pharaoh’s palace to request the release of his people.

[1]Rabbi Hiyya son of Abba said, ‘This was coronation day, when all the Kings came to crown Pharaoh because he was the Emperor. While they were placing crowns on Pharaoh’s head, Moses and Aaron stood at the entrance to the hallway. Pharaoh’s guards told him, ‘Two elders are standing at the doorway’

Pharaoh asked ‘Have they got a crown?’ The guard replied ‘no.’ ‘Then let them enter last.’ When Moses and Aaron finally stood before Pharaoh he said, ‘What do you want?’ Moses replied ‘The God of the Hebrews has sent be to you to say, “Let my people go so they will serve me.”’ (Ex 7:16).

Pharaoh replied angrily, ‘Who is this GOD that I should listen to His voice. Doesn’t He know enough to send me a crown, rather you come with words.’

Rabbi Levi said, ‘Pharaoh then took the list of gods and began to read, ‘The god of Edom, the god of Moab, the god of Sidon, yada yada yada,’ and he said to them, ‘There, I have finished all my records and your god’s not on the list.’

So Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, ‘Fool, the gods you mentioned are all dead. But the LORD is a living God, Ruler of the Universe.’

Pharaoh asked, ‘Is he young or old? How many cities has he captured? How many states has he humbled? How long has he been in power?

They replied, the strength and power of our God fills the world. God was before the world was created and God will be at the end of the worlds. He fashioned you and placed within you the breath of life.’

What else has he done? Pharaoh asked.

They replied, ‘God stretched out the heavens and the earth and God’s voice carved out flames of fire,[2] God rips open the mountains and smashed the rocks.[3] God’s bow is of fire, God’s arrows are flames, God’s spear is a torch, God’s shield is the clouds, God’s sword is lightening,  God forms the mountains and the hills; covers the mounts with grass, the heavens with clouds, God brings down the rain and the dew and gets the plants to grow and the fruits to ripen. God afflicts the beasts and forms the embryo in the womb of the mother and brings it forth into the light of the world.’

Moses is trying to explain a God that cannot be seen, that is more important than all things that can be seen. And Pharaoh, blinded by the idolatrous world he lives in doesn’t get it. It’s a difficult thing to persuade someone; that the things you can’t see are more important than the things you can.

We even have, in English, the idiom – ‘do see what I mean?’ which is absolutely understood to refer to understanding. So tempting to think that if you can’t see something that it’s not going to be important. Tempting to place all our faith, our hope and our work into those things we can see.

And put like that you can understand why there were Israelites who weren’t ready to leave, you weren’t able to get it.

It was a problem back then and over there, and it remains a problem over here and today.

We live in a world that loves the things that can be seen.  And we all spend our lives chasing around after the things that can be seen, and collected and stored up, or maybe not collected, just admired from afar.

And here’s the thing. None of the things we chase after last forever. None of the things we chase after make us a better person. None of the things we chase after unlock, for us, the reason for our existence. Why are we here. What should we do with this extraordinary thing called our life?

To work that stuff out you have to head off into the wilderness, with no-thing. You have to believe that the things that can’t be seen will support us in our wandering.

Ben – you’ve done brilliantly today. I hope you get a whole bunch of presents and things – stuff. But in 20 years time, I guarantee you, you won’t remember the presents and things. If you remember anything about today, you’ll remember things that can’t be seen – how you feel. How you feel connected to your place in this world, as a son – a firstborn, as a Jew.

The word spiritual is much overused, and little understood. To be spiritual means to value the things that can’t be seen more highly than the things that can be seen. It means to value the invisible truths of faith, of love, of feeling, more than the material things, the idols, the gold and the silver. It’s a tough challenge, to be spiritual.

It’s what Moses demanded Pharaoh understand when he attended Pharaoh’s coronation. And Pharaoh didn’t get it.

It’s what Moses tried to inspire in the Hebrews as they were so weary as slaves in Egypt. And only one in five, or one in fifty got it.

And it’s my call today.

Believe in the things that can’t be seen.

Don’t be misled by the things that can be seen.

The story of Exodus survives as a marker of the power of the unseeable. We’ve been telling it and celebrating it for three millennia at this point and it’s going strong, still inspiring generations yet to make their mark on this planet. 

And if I am to venture a view on Brexit it would be this - Brexit will boil down to a bunch of complex trading agreements about … things. And we won’t be reading about it three thousand years.

Shabbat Shalom

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[1] Midrash Tanhumah, V’era 5

[2] (Psalms 29:7)

[3] (I Kings 19:11)

How To Break Out of Impasse

The story is told that the rabbis were arguing. Nothing unusual about that, of course, but this argument spirals out of control. Rabbi Eliezer is on one side, producing claim after claim while everyone else opposes him.

Rabbi Eliezer calls forth miraculous demonstrations of his positions, but these too fail to persuade. Eventually, Rabbi Eliezer calls for the walls of the very Bet Midrash to cave in to prove his point. And the walls begin to cave in.

And Rabbi Yehoshua rises to rebuke the very walls. ‘If scholars are arguing, mah tivchem, what’s in it for you to get involved?’ So the walls fall no further, out of respect for Rabbi Yehoshua, and refuse to rise, out of respect for Rabbi Eliezer - ועדיין מטין ועומדין  - and they still lean and stand to this day.

The last time I taught this famous Talmudic text was at the House of Lords at a reception for parliamentarians at the height of the impasse on Brexit. His excellency, the Israeli Ambassador, was there. Mr Ambassador, a pleasure to welcome you here tonight. We share our deepest wishes for a year of sweetness and peace to the country you represent on these shores.

For you, and for anyone else who wasn’t here on the first day of RH, I spoke then, of the danger of arguments in these strange times. I spoke about how easy it is for arguments to spiral to places where they damage the very structures of the society that we would most wish to protect. A look at either Brexit or indeed this Talmudic passage serves to illustrate how quickly society can be damaged if we can’t learn better how to disagree. Let me take the case of the Talmudic passage. I’m not sure you came here to listen to me profess expertise about Brexit.

In the aftermath of this stalemate of the walls, the majority take their frustration out on Rabbi Eliezer.

His legal decisions are deemed void – things he thought useful were burnt. And he is excommunicated. And Rabbi Eliezer cries and as his tears hit the ground a third of the harvests of the world are destroyed. Even dough in the hands of the bakers, we are told, becomes spoiled. The world spirals to the brink of collapse.

On Rosh Hashanah I suggested a new way of testing the quality of our arguments. I suggested that instead of focussing on whether we won or lost any particular debate we should, instead, focus on the quality of the relationship that emerges on the other side of disagreement. Any disagreement, even one in which we lost, which resulted in us feeling closer to our fellow disputant, we should count a success. And any dispute, even one we won – or at least thought we won – which resulted in us feeling further away from our disputants – we should count as a failure.

Go with me here. Let’s suppose that somehow that sermon touched some deep nerve within out broken society and right across every spectrum in our land, arguments began to shift, and we all started to take more care over relationships than winning arguments

(And, you know, I would take that. As a rabbi, that would make for a pretty good outcome for a sermon.)

Even if all of that happened, there would still be a problem.

Even supposing the Rabbis who so disagreed with Rabbi Eliezer did so gently and carefully, the walls would ועדיין מטין ועומדין – still be leaning and standing.

Even, and forgive me for sliding back onto the front pages, if the Brexiters and the Remainers and the Prime Minister and the EU and everyone else started listening to one another carefully and responding with decency and humanity, we would still be stuck with this problem of how to get a non-border border across the island of Ireland. And there’s another impasse in the aftermath of this second election in Israel. And it’s not just the front pages.

We are all living with impasses in our lives. There are certain blockages I can’t shift interpersonally – in my relationship with other people, and even impasses I can’t shift intra-personally – inside my own self. We are stuck, a lot.

And my first day Rosh Hashanah sermon isn’t going to solve any that. So tonight, I want to think about how we get beyond these points of impasse.

Let me start with the greatest impasse threatening the planet …. the very fabric of our planet.

Gus Speth is a veteran ecological activist. As an appointee of US President Jimmy Carter in the late 70s, he served as Chairman of the American Council on Environmental Quality. And this is his reading of the impasse facing us when it comes to the future of our very planet.

“I used to think,” Speth wrote, “the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought,” he continued, “that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy and to deal with those we need a spiritual and a cultural transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.”[1]

Speth’s point is that the things that prevent our moving forwards when we get bogged down aren’t really factual disagreements. I know there are factual disagreements about exactly how well or how badly we are doing, or might be doing if we pursued one path or another. But the thing that bogs us down isn’t that. I don’t think the reason we are not taking more action to save our planet is that we can’t agree about the science. I think the same probably goes for any other area of our lives when we are at impasse. The problem is, to use Speth’s terminology, ‘spiritual and cultural.’

Our impasses have more to do with our faith than our scientific prowess or powers of logic.

I wonder if a little spiritual cultural history might help. For three hundred years or so, since the time of Immanuel Kant, we have become increasingly interested in the importance of human beings. Kant’s demanded, ‘that every human being should be considered an end in themselves, never to be treated as a means to another end.’ And as the Enlightenment went on we began to invest ultimate value in human beings. Simultaneously, we began to down-grade our fascination in God. Spinoza died less than 50 years before Kant as born. And that literal kind of theology that Spinoza attacked, has been on the wane ever since.

Certainly, treating every human being as deeply worthy is a good thing. But there’s a problem in trusting too completely in the wonderful thing that is the human being.

As romanticism has died away we’ve learnt, from Freud and others, of our unconscious predilections towards violence. In the last century, we’ve narrowly survived the genocidal destruction of our people. And right now, we might be living through human-caused destruction of our planet. It’s hard to champion human beings as the ultimate locus of ethical value when we are proving ourselves so unworthy of this crown. Maybe, rather than placing all our efforts in the inalienable rights of individuals, it would be wiser to develop critical concern regarding the human – particularly the human with any kind of power.

Actually, that’s exactly what we are doing. Jonathan Boyd, of the Jewish Policy Research Institute, recently surveyed[2] how trust in more or less every authority figure is in decline. We don’t trust politicians, doctors, teachers, police officers, academics, journalists … on the list goes.

No wonder we tend to get stuck in impasses. “We stopped believing in God long ago.” Boyd writes, “But now we’re struggling to believe in the one thing with which we replaced God. Ourselves. Modernity compelled us to throw God out. But now” he continues, “we find ourselves adrift, unable to rely on ourselves, unable to turn [anywhere else.]” I think that’s right. As a society, we gave up on faith in the Divine and now find ourselves without faith in humanity. No wonder we don’t trust one another very much. No wonder we are wary of the sorts of concessions that offer a way out of impasses.

If we are going to find ways to move forward, we are going to have to find something in which to believe. Let me suggest this – religion.

I know religion has picked up its fair share of knocks in this don’t-trust-anyone-in-power world. But I don’t mean that kind of religion. Go with me. There is a notion of religion, let me take the case of Judaism, that is deeply concerned with revelation – Sinai; Kashrut and Tefilin and the like.

I don’t mean that side of religion. I love Kashrut and Tefilin and the like, but that’s not what I am talking about today. I’m almost talking about a very different kind of religion; the kind of religion we talk about on Yom Kippur; “who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water.” In our greatest prayer of this season, the Unataneh Tokef we acknowledge ourselves;

“Forged from dust and destined to dust, like a shard of pottery, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing cloud, a fleeting dream.”

I know that religion, even Judaism, has overplayed its hand in the past. But somewhere in our great faith, somewhere, I think, in every great faith, are these these central conceptions of who we are and how we come to be. To religion teaches that there is a power that is above us, that we exist as a result of an unjustified gift of creation, that our wisdom and power aren’t something to rely upon, but rather a mystery. Great religions teach humility, not hubris, they teach us to doubt our own inerrancy.

Great religions teach that our own point of view isn’t going to be the most important thing in the universe.

This kind of view on the world creates a space in which creativity, in the face of an impasse, can grow. It creates a possibility for finding in the opposite view something which could indeed improve our own self-centred sense of what right must be. In its deepest place, faith is the opening which can free us from the prisons of the present to encounter different futures.

It’s the thing that I think can break an impasse – the humility that comes with knowing that we are not the most important thing in our own worlds. If we think we are each the masters of our own worlds we’ll back ourselves into intransigence at every opportunity. On the other hand accepting that we don’t know everything, that there is knowledge beyond our reach might just open up the possibility of finding new ways to encounter old problems. You can’t learn anything new if you think you already know everything there is to know.

And the spiritual approach of a great religion is a great immunisation against the notion that I, or you, or any of us can know all there is to know.

So that’s my message to any political leaders out there, trying to work a way out of an impasse – the less you claim for your own inerrancy, the greater the chance you have of finding new solutions unseen and unknowable when we are committed only to our own power. What about the rest of us? What about our personal impasses? Here’s a way to access the sort of spiritual solution to the impasses of the world personally. Pray.

Prayer is the experience of standing before something greater than yourself. It’s a training in absolutely the kind of humility I’m describing. To pray is to open up in one’s self the possibility of a path towards the future that reason cannot find.

Again, when I’m talking about faith or prayer, tonight, I don’t mean the specifics of the words of our Machzor, as much as I love the specifics of the words of our Machzor.

I mean the kind of prayer that involves standing before one’s sense of how we come to be here; aware of how little we know, and seeking to become worthy of the gift of our existence. How do we become the people we dare dream we might become? The night is still young.

We’ve a long way to go.

So try this, with me, with Chazan Stephen.

Try prayer, try faith. Let your mind settle on a problem, an impasse, and turn towards something greater than yourself with humility. Just in case it’s not completely clear, I’ve no interest in whether you say you believe, or you don’t believe in God as you do this.

Try to stand this way, sensitize the heart and allow yourself to reach for something new. Yom Kippur is a great day to turn towards the new. This service began with a prayer Kol Nidrei that allows us to take a risk with our promises about tomorrow. Take that risk.

I mean, if you feel you’ve got all the possibilities for your life ready to go, if you feel you need to assistance turning your today into the tomorrow you would wish for yourself, go for it.

But if you are feeling trapped or stuck. And I know I am, try having a little faith. Try, even, prayer.

For there is something beyond our reach. And I have faith that it can help. And I hope it can help us all.

May this year come with new possibility, health and happiness for us all.

Chatimah Tovah

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[1] It’s hard to trace the origin of this quote. It’s on this Wikipedia page, but the link no longer functions. This says the quote came in a ‘BBC Radio interview in 2013’

[2] https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/taking-back-control-from-god-has-not-worked-1.489704

Building the Good Place - Rosh Hashanah 5780

You might have seen the TV show, The Good Place. It’s a sitcom set in the afterlife – I recommend it.

The premise of the show is that our heroes have died and, as good people in life, they wake up, in death, in The Good Place -  a place where everything is really very, very good. Actually, that’s not what the show is about at all, but the premise is good enough to get me thinking. What would The Good Place really be like? What makes a society ‘good’? What I want to do today is sketch out a rabbinic vision of a good place, I want to ask some questions about how we get from here, to there. And I want to suggest some answers.

Let’s start at the top – who should be in charge? As Jews we’ve a bunch of models to draw on. The Torah features God trying out a singular human – but neither Adam or Noah cope. The model of a family too frequently descends into fraternal bickering, if not fratricide. We have prophets, a hereditary priesthood and a monarchy. But the prophets are too unpopular and priests and Kings become corrupted. Eventually, Judaism settles on … rabbis. Now, don’t worry, I’m not planning world-domination myself. The real clue is in the last letter of the word – rabbis. All the greatest rabbinic leaders of the classical rabbinic period come in pairs; you get Hillel and Shammai, Rav and Shmuel, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael. And these pairs – or Zugim – argue. They argue about everything from Kashrut to theology to what it means to be kind and compassionate. Chavrtuta o Metuta the Rabbis teach – passionate argument or death. In our Good Place there will be passionate argument.

Here’s the other thing about Rabbis – their leadership isn’t purely dependent on what they know, rather they – we – are expected to be decent, ethical and compassionate. I mean, I know I mess up all over the place, but you can’t be a good rabbi and a bad person.

There’s a famous story about the renowned professor of ethics in some secular university, who was an utterly appalling person. And one day a student finally plucked up the courage to ask their teacher how it was possible for them to be such an expert on ethics and such a vile human being. ‘What’ the professor responds, ‘if I taught geometry, would you want me to be a triangle?’ It doesn’t work for teachers of religion.

On the other hand, here’s one of the greatest Rabbinic leaders, Maimonides;

Assur leadam lehiyot achzari - We are forbidden to be cruel, forbidden to be slow to forgive. Rather we should be gentle, willing and slow to anger. And when one who has sinned against us requests our forgiveness, we should forgive with a levav shalem – a full heart a willing spirit. And even if the person has distressed us greatly, or many times, don’t be vengeful, don’t bear a grudge.

Rabbis are supposed to listen hard to even those with whom they disagree and treat everyone with courtesy and dignity. In our Good Place, leaders – and we would need a plurality of leaders – would be wise, and decent and they would argue out the best way to run society.

It won’t just be the leaders arguing. My vision of a Good Place rejects the seductive appeal of mono-culture at every level. Certainly, a Jewish Good Place will have what the Bible calls gerim, outsiders, refugees, resident aliens – you can pick your contemporary term for the people who are different; probably less privileged, possibly less eloquent in our language, less sure of our customs. Loving the stranger is the most frequently repeated idea in the Bible not, I think, just because it’s a nice thing to do, but because Good Places value difference and diversity as a source of creativity and productivity.

And what kind of society would emerge from all this plurality and wisdom and decency?

Here are three laws which appear in a run of seven verses in the three-thousand-year-old book of Deuteronomy.[1]

1.       If you loan someone some money, and they pledge their millstone to secure the loan, and they default, you can’t take the mill-stone away from them ki nefesh hu choveil – it’s their life-blood – you take the millstone, they won’t be able to mill their flour and they will slide into destitution, and that can’t be good.

2.       If you loan them some money with a pledge to repay and they default, you don’t go into their house to take their pledge – you wait outside for them to bring it to you. It’s better to be sensitive to their sense of security in their own home.

3.       And if they pledged their coat – don’t take their coat overnight – they’ll need it to sleep in. If a person pledges a coat, it’s the only thing they’ve got.

There’s a vision of a Good Place in these ancient verses. I don’t suppose anyone here is reliant on a mill-stone today, and I know we’ve learnt a whole lot about astral physics and evolution and the rest of it in the last 3,000 years, but the values of our sacred texts, the checks and balances and the approach to a good place are, surely, exactly what we need in contemporary society. Is credit necessary for economic advancement? Of course it is. Do lenders and their capital need to be protected by the rule of law? Of course they do.

But not all the time, not to take all pledges from all debtors and not in any way creditors might deem suitable.

The vision of society that emerges, time and time again through the Bible and Talmud is a society that demonstrates compassion alongside a commitment to justice. I’ll take that balance of compassion and justice as a model for my Good Place

And then there will be Shabbat. We’ll have the chance, in our Good Place, for six days of the week, to get on, to make, to create, to seek for more and better. And then we’ll all pause, turn off the phones and the emails and turn our attention towards celebrating what we have. We’ll eat meals with friends and family. We’ll converse without the distractions of screens or headphones. Shabbat, in The Good Place, will help us realise that ‘better’ doesn’t always mean ‘more.’ That should help us find better ways to protect the environment in our Good Place. In my little thought experiment, basic rules of physics will still apply, as God said to first human beings as they guided around the Garden of Eden, “Look at my works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake, I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.”[2] That one will still apply, but we’ll be ready for it and we’ll take due care.

Well, that’s the vision. Do you like it? It could do with a tweak, here or there, I’m sure. But it would do, no? Creativity, decency, a space to celebrate the gift of our humanity?

Here’s the question. How far away are we? How impossible, how fairy-tale, how beyond the reach of possibility is this Good Place?

I mean, working out how we get the right kind of political leadership is a tricky one, but the really radical thing about this vision of a Good Place is how simple it is.

We could all get on with creating this Good Places even if without the political leadership problem entirely sorted – in fact it’s probably much better if don’t wait on the politicians – they seem to have their hands full for the time being. Certainly, those of us who lend, could lend with the sort of empathy and humanity that the Bible calls for. Many of you, I know, do exactly that. The rest of us can get on with, I don’t know; making sure that the blind aren’t confronted with stumbling blocks, or that if, even our enemy is stumbling we don’t gloat. We could get on with not coveting things that belong to others and we could all benefit from taking Shabbat more seriously and we don’t really need anyone’s permission to do that.

Two other verses from Deuteronomy;

It’s not in heavens that have to ask, who will go up to the heavens and bring it down for us. It’s not beyond the sea that you have to ask, who will cross the sea to bring it back for us.

We all have the possibility of creating better places, for ourselves, for our loved ones, for all of society. In fact, we had better get on with it sooner rather than later.

It will some gumption and well, there’s really no other words I can use, it will take religion and it will take faith.

Here’s the thing that puzzles me. If, I could get a bum-on-a-seat for every time someone told me this past year that they weren’t really into Judaism as a religion, this place would be rammed full. And I wold love to see this place rammed-full on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, but that’s not really the point. The point is, if you want to live in a Good Place, in a better place – where do you find the pointers towards the way that society will function? How do you puzzle your way towards making that vision a reality when your desires come up against the desires of others? How do you protect yourself and your society from the forces that will weaken us and strip our values from us. I’ve an answer – be more Jewish. Do more Jewish stuff, read more about Jewish stuff. Speak up and take more pride in the Jewish stuff. I’ve nothing against other religions, I’m sure other religions can help, and if you’ve another faith tradition that speaks more clearly to you – gei gezunte heit – go for it. But if you are here today, do more of this. Be prouder of this. If you find yourselves in environments where self-declared atheists or lapsed-Jews or any of the like are taking opportunities to explain how much smarter they are now they don’t do Judaism, raise the eyebrow. Ask how they intend to get to a Good Place, suggest that they could do with paying more attention to some very old, very holy and, frankly, very Good suggestions in the pages of the Good Book. Creating the Good Place will take religion. Do more religion.

And it will take faith. Faith is the thing that allows a person to do something they know is right even if the rest of the world thinks you are crazy. Faith is the thing the justifies the sorts of actions that we know are good, even if society doesn’t value their performance – things like being nice or charitable or gentle. These tend to be things society doesn’t seem set up to value, sometimes they are even things society seems ready to mock. But have faith. They will make the world a better place. We know that; we have faith in that. Faith is good. Faith doesn’t require us to use the ‘God word.’ It just requires us to believe there is justification for goodness, even if it’s not immediately apparent. We’ll need some faith to build this Good Place.

We are, quite remarkably blessed to have this heritage. It’s an astounding gift in a world that desperately needs our active, faithful and religious engagement, if it is to become a better place, let alone a Good Place.

Don’t give up on this journey.

It’s the best shot we have at turning this world into a Good Place

It could even come in this new year.

May it come to us all in health, peace and joy, Shannah Tovah

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[1] 24:6-13

[2] Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, 1 on Ecclesiastes 7:13

What's the Point of a Democracy

It’s sometimes hard to value being in a democracy.

Suppose you live in a country that had an election and a referendum and the results didn’t come out the way you wanted. Or maybe the decision in the referendum came out the way you wanted, but not enough MPs were prepared to vote your preferred option through.

Suppose you living in a country where the democratically elected Parliament is stuck. And the democratically elected leaders of society were struggling to … lead.

It’s sometimes hard to value being in a democracy. The political theorist David Runciman coined the phrase, ‘dictator envy.’ It’s very easy to want to have a dictator who can simply get things done without all the messing around having to have a complicated constitution balance of powers.

I think it’s OK to be wary of the importance of living in democracy. After all, to be Jew has to mean not caring too much about being in the majority. I mean, I know there are more Christians than Jews, and more Muslims and Jews and more … well just about everything. But being a Jew means that doesn’t worry me too much. Actually being a Jew means I feel something else about the exercise of the power of the many. You say to me, ‘exercise of the power of the many’ and I start to get a little nervous. My mind’s eye flickers with images of mass-gatherings of fascists all chanting together and murdering my ancestors.

Rabbinic Judaism has a different way of thinking about how society should be run. To the mind of the Rabbis society should be run by wise, compassionate, caring and learned leaders who dedicate their life to leading their community. Yup, Rabbis thought that society should be run by … rabbis. But here’s the problem with this Greek idea of having wise, compassionate, caring and learned leaders running a society – it may well be that they are wise and compassionate when you appoint them, but give ‘em a couple of years in power and there’s a pretty good chance they will become corrupted and despotic and … well we’ve all seen that happen. It can even happen to rabbis. At least, and this is the remarkable thing, the Rabbis were smart enough to mistrust their own belief that rabbis should be in power.

One of the remarkable things about the great Rabbinic collection of law, the Talmud, is how often it records great Rabbinic leaders getting things wrong. There’s a story about the great Rabbinic leader Rabban Gamliel who used his position of power to embarrass Rabbi Yehoshua. He gets deposed. And that story gets carefully recorded and then passed down through almost two thousand years, so we don’t forget how easily power corrupts. The Talmud is much more interested in the control of power, and the prevention of the abuse of power than it is in ensuring that the majority get their way.

Just one other example; elsewhere in the Talmud again recorded 1500 years ago and faithfully handed down through the years is an extended debate on exactly what might count as a bribe, the sort of thing that should make a Rabbi recuse themselves from hearing a legal case. Abba Arika, we learn, refused to hear a case involving the innkeeper of an inn in which he stayed. Mar Shmuel refused to hear a case involving someone who once gave him a hand getting off a ship. The Talmud records Raba asking, "Why is it forbidden to take a bribe to free the innocent?" and he answers the question himself, "As soon as one accepts a bribe, he inclines to favour the donor and considers himself 'one with him'; and no one will find themselves guilty."[1]

I want to suggest this as a way of thinking about democracies; democracies exist to control the reach of those with power, not to ensure that those in the majority get their way.

For me, to care about being part of a democracy means to care about the exercise of power. I want to live in a society where once every so many years you have a chance to vote and kick out people who haven’t delivered on their promises. I want to live in a society where there is a balance of power between the executive and the legislature and the judiciary. So no-one can over-reach, so despotism and fascism can be controlled. I care more about the rule of law than the rule of the majority – just because they are the majority.

And part of the reason I care about the control and the limitations that democracies place on the exercise of power is that I worry about the people who can get crushed underfoot if the powerful get their way just because they are a majority. As the Bible says time and time again, watch out for the orphan, the widow and the stranger – just because they don’t have power, you should not mistreat them. But it’s not just about my being soft-hearted. I care about control the power of the majority because I believe the contributions of the minority are vitally important in our society. I don’t hear enough people saying this. We need minorities in our society if we want to grow and discover.

If the most important thing in a society is being part of the majority, then everyone will tend towards one position. If the most important thing is being part of the majority everyone will wear the same clothes, read the same books, think the same ideas and we’ll stop growing. It takes people to be different to find out new things. It takes different opinions to learn. It takes outsiders to come up with ideas that insiders are never going to find. That, of course, has been the great contribution of the Jewish people to thousands of years of cultures across the world. Like Mordechai who sat at the gates of the city, we’ve specialised in seeing things not everyone else could see and doing things not everyone else could do. We’ve specialised in being different. And we’ve helped. Not that we’ve been the only people doing things differently everyone who has ever done things differently has helped, precisely by their being different.

Because the choice about the kind of society we want to live in comes down to a choice set out by the philosopher Theodore Zeldin in his book The Hidden Pleasures of Life, and it’s something I’ve spoken about before from this pulpit. Do we want to live in a fort or a port.

In a fort we build the tallest walls we can to keep out the outsiders who are a threat, and any breach of these walls is a threat we need to repulse. But in a port we need maximum movement across our borders to bring in what is new, and to send forth that which needs to be shared. And for those of us who want to live in port – and I certainly do – that means having to shoulder the frustrations of not being able to hide big thick walls. And for those of us who care about protecting and celebrating the different insights and different natures of all human beings, that means fighting hard for the values of a democracy, even one that occasionally gets things wrong, and always takes more time than a fascist.

Because the truth about those societies that are built like forts and led by fascists is that despite their surface appeal, those walls will come tumbling down causing more wreckage that anyone could imagine. Meanwhile the open, careful, flexible societies have a chance, just a chance mind you – of surviving and thriving.

Jeremiah’s prophecy was true;

Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to the whole community which I exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. … And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.[2]

Or as Rabbi Hananya the Deputy High Priest taught in our oldest Rabbinic collection of teachings, Pirkei Avot, ‘Pray for the welfare of the Kingdom, for were it not for the fear of it, a man would swallow his neighbour alive.’[3]

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[1] Ketubot 105b

[2] Jeremiah 29:4-7

[3] 3.2