Jewish Reflections on War and Peace

This is something I wrote in, I think  2018. A long time ago. Long before these most recent trials. It's in my book, Spiritual Vagabondry but I haven't posted it before here.

 

Judaism believes in peace, loves peace and prays and works towards peace. The greatest visions of the Bible are of the wolf lying down with lamb (Isaiah 11) and of swords being beaten into ploughshares (Isaiah 2). Beyond the Bible the Rabbis, in their codification of Jewish life, infused every major prayer experience of the Jew with the yearning for peace. The second century sage Rav Shimon son of Halafta, says ‘a blessing is useless unless it comes with peace.’[1] The great Medieval commentator Rabbi Yom Tov Isbili, known as the Ritba (Spain d. 1330) collated a list of codified Jewish prayers that have as their conclusion the plea for peace; it includes the grace after meals, the principle doxology (Kaddish), the central prayer of evening, morning and afternoon services (Amidah), the priestly blessing (Numbers 6) and others.[2] Judaism believes in peace.

 

But the Hebrew Bible also knows violence. The commandment lo tirzah (Exodus 20:13) is inaccurately translated in the King James Bible as ‘thou shall not kill.’ The correct rendition of the original Hebrew is ‘thou shall not murder.’ The Bible justifies and even demands violence, even unto killing, on too many occasions to list. That said there is a noteworthy attitude towards violence that suffuses not only the Bible, but also the project of Rabbinic Judaism. Time and time again in the Bible and Rabbinic texts one can see the impulse to violence and war subjected to controls designed to ameliorate the destructive potential of military brutality.

 

The Bible mandates (Deut 20 & 21) that an invading army should offer peace to a city before waging war against it. It demands that fruit trees, around an ancient city, are not destroyed by siege warfare, asking rhetorically ‘is a tree a person, to be besieged by you?’ It insists that any beautiful women captured in combat is not to be treated as chattel to be ‘used’ and/or abandoned at will … and the list goes on.

 

One can see the same tendency in Rabbinic texts.  Maimonides, (d. 1204) the greatest of medieval Jewish sages, set out precise Laws of War in his code the Mishneh Torah. One mandate demands that ‘when besieging a city in order to capture it, you should not surround it on all four sides, but only on three sides, allowing an escape path for anyone who wishes to save his life.’[3] Aside from noting the seeming military lunacy of a three-sided siege there are two other points to note when considering the significance of this kind of religious engagement with war. Firstly, while Maimonides is able to produce a Biblical verse to justify his codification (Numbers 31:7), on the face of it the verse mandates no such behaviour; Maimonides need not have included this mandate, he’s willing the mandate into existence driven by a greater sense and understanding of what Judaism must stand for. Secondly this militarily self-defeating mandate has had practical impact for the contemporary Israeli army, as will be discussed below.

 

The messy business of Israel’s contemporary engagement will be treated more extensively later in this paper, but it’s important to understand that for close to two thousand years Maimonides’ demands were of no practical import whatsoever. The dominant norm governing Judaism’s engagement with violence was not that of a military power, squaring military necessity and morality, but that of a wandering, stateless, army-less people subject to the attitudes to violence of other nations and nationally enshrined faiths. In 70CE the Romans destroyed the Israelite State based around Jerusalem, in the years before and after this all the other vestiges of Jewish national and military presence were also erased. Judaism became a people with no physical border to protect, no army and no possibility of waging war. From Selucids to Romans to Christians to Muslims, across time and place Jews have been persecuted, beaten, burnt, and, in a period as dark as humanity has experienced, been subject to a level of genocidal brutality beyond decent humans’ ability to imagine. Throughout almost two millennia of Diaspora existence Jews were forbidden from bearing arms and, by and large, accepted this and other externally imposed regulations as the cost of survival, of ‘doing business,’ in a world governed by foreign might. Jews became pacifists by circumstance. Any drive to conquer territory was sublimated into mercantile endeavour or the exegetical engagement characteristic of Rabbinic Judaism. In place of soldiers Judaism valorised scholars. The Rabbis even turned the soldiers of the Bible into intellectuals. The Book of Samuel refers to David, slayer of Goliath, as ‘a brave fighter and man of war.’  The Talmud explains this means he knew how argue his point in ‘the war of Torah.’[4] Offered only the opportunity of military surrender Judaism waged war on the entire notion of military bravado and, playing by rules they themselves constructed, declared themselves victorious without recourse to sword or bullet.

 

But by the beginning of the twentieth century Jews were growing weary of this purely exegetical triumph. The pacifism was being beaten out of them. By the dark years of the ’30s and ’40s the suggestion that Jews could respond to antisemitic violence with words alone seemed more than vapid, it bordered on the offensive. The great pacifist, Mahatma Ghandi wrote, in 1938, that the Jews of Germany should protest against Hitler only using non-violent means. “I am as certain as I am dictating these words that the stoniest German heart will melt [if only the Jews], adopt active nonviolence… I do not despair of his [Hitler's] responding to human suffering even though caused by him.”[5] The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (hardly known as a militarist!) took Ghandi to task. The Jews of Germany, as Buber knew from personal experience, were dealing with a genocidal mania that would not respond to non-violence. Non-violent resistance in the face of utter brutality was capitulation. Of course said Buber, the violent response was one that could only be employed with ‘fear and trembling’ but “[I]f there is no other way of preventing the evil destroying the good, I trust I shall use force and give myself up into God's hands.”[6] Alongside its abnegation of violence and love of peace Judaism began to place increasing weight on the value of self-defence.

 

Then the wheels of history turned and Israel found itself with an army, a state and, arrayed around and even inside its borders, armed aggressors. Now what? Certainly ethical and religious factors have always been central to the vision of the defence of the Israeli State. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have an ethics code, drafted by religious leaders, professors, lawyers and generals and drummed into soldiers during training. The code articulates the values of ‘Human Dignity,’ ‘Responsibility,’ and ‘Purity of Arms’ – ‘IDF servicemen and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.’ [7] When soldiers fail to live up to values espoused in the code they can expect investigation and reprimand. But the challenges faced by the Israeli State do not fit easily into categories outlined in a document written in ivory towers. Terrorist aggressors usually dressed as civilians tend to launch attacks from and/or into densely populated areas full of civilians, both Arabs and Jews are liable to suffer the consequences of terrorist actions. Writing in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, December 2008, philosopher and member of the team who drafted the IDF Code, Moshe Halbertal has empathy for Israeli soldiers confronted by recognisable military violence, but no recognisable army, ‘By disguising themselves as civilians and by attacking civilians with no uniforms and with no front’ writes Halbertal ‘paramilitary terrorist organizations attempt nothing less than to erase the distinction between combatants and noncombatants on both sides of the struggle.’[8] Israel faces what Halbertal calls acts of ‘assymetrical warfare.’ It’s hard to balance out risks of loss and risks of collateral damage even in moments of security, let alone in the heat of incoming mortars and katyusha rockets.

 

The aftermath of an incident now fifty years old will serve as a test case from which to consider more contemporary religious responses. In 1953 Palestinian terrorists launched attacks on Israel from Kibiya, a village on the, then, Jordanian controlled, West Bank. The Israeli military responded ferociously. The village was all-but destroyed, many villagers were killed. It was an action with uncanny echoes for our times. Some religious leaders expressed no compunction in accepting the validity of violence in the face of terrorist attack on Jewish lives. Rav Shaul Yisraeli, who went on to become one of the heads of Yeshivat Mercaz Harav Kook justified the use of force as follows, ‘There is a place for acts of retribution and revenge against the oppressors of Israel. … They are responsible for any damage that comes to them, their sympathizers, or their children. They must bear their sin.  There is no obligation to refrain from reprisal for fear that it might harm innocent people, for we did not cause it.  They are the cause and we are innocent.’[9] This is the tough uncompromising perspective of a hawkish politician, but Yisraeli justified the attack on Kibiya with reference to a classic Rabbinic concept. The community of nations, Yisraeli claimed, believed these kinds of military actions were permissible, therefore Israel could avail herself of this international consensus in an application of a classic Rabbinic principle dina d’malkhuta dina – the law of the land is the law.[10] ‘The foundation of dina d’malkhutah dina relates not only to what transpires within a state, but also to international matters as is the accepted custom,’ claimed Yisraeli. Putting aside the issue of whether the international community would have accepted the legality of actions taken in Kibiyah, Yisraeli’s claim is that Israel should be judged by the standard of the ethics of nations at large. If the British bomb Dresden and the Americans lay waste to Hiroshima (both examples cited in support of his position), the Israelis can lay waste to Kibiya not only as a matter of military expediency, but also without religious qualm.

 

More critical positions also crystallised in the aftermath of the attack on Kibiyah. The philosopher and commentator Yeshayhu Leibowitz acknowledged the attack could be defended with reference to Rabbinic tradition or the standards of other nations, ‘but let us not try to do so. Let us rather recognize its distressing nature.’ Leibowitz compared Kibiya’s destruction to the Biblical tale of Dinah.[11] Dinah, daughter of Jacob, was kidnapped, taken to Shechem and raped, an action that resulted in her brothers destroying the town and its male inhabitants. Leibowitz claimed the brothers ‘had a decisive justification [for launching the all-out raid]. Nevertheless, because of this action, their father Jacob cursed the two tribes for generations…Let us not establish [the modern State of Israel] on the foundation of the curse of our father Jacob!’[12]

 

Both these responses – the hawkish and the cursing – can be observed in contemporary Jewish and Israeli discourse responding to contemporary acts of Israeli military violence, but there is a third way which, I argue is truer to Jewish discourse and analysis. Rav Shlomo Goren (d. 1994) founded the Israel Defence Forces Rabbinate and served as its first Chief Rabbi for about two decades, subsequently serving as Chief Rabbi of Israel. Much of his vast scholarly output concerned military matters. His formally collected Responsa on Matters of the Military, War, and Security[13] alone run to four volumes and cover a vast range of issues, theoretical and practical, as applies to Generals and to Privates. Goren was no apologist. In a radical and broad application of principles learnt from an obscure law in Deuteronomy[14] he deems Israelis responsible for any death that occurs anywhere in the occupied territories.[15] In 1982 Goren was Chief Rabbi of Israel and used his position to insist that an escape path be left open during the siege of Beirut, (in accordance with Maimonides’ demand as discussed above).[16] Responsa literature is technical, there are many competing factors to be balanced as religious aspiration and ugly brutality come into conflict, it is also requires deep scholarship understanding of religious sensitivity and of military necessity. Goren’s approach is untidy, often unpopular and even occasionally unsafe. But it is, I argue, the truest reflection of a Jewish tradition torn between dreams of peace and harsh political and historical realities. Those who wish to speak on the validity, or otherwise, of various acts of military violence need to study much, speak carefully and know that the safety of certainty is not given to human beings. ‘Who knows if your blood is redder,’ asks the Talmud, ‘perhaps their blood is redder.’[17]

 

Ethics and war make for uncomfortable bed-fellows. Military ethicists, particularly those who speak in the name of a religious tradition, should be troubled sleepers, uneasy and unsure, afraid that their pronouncements could condone the spillage of a single drop of blood. No matter whose blood may be shed, every drop is sacred, ‘for the soul of all flesh is in its blood.’[18] At the heart of Judaism lies an extraordinary articulation of the value of human life. All humans, the book of Genesis tells us, are created from one original template – Adam. This is so, state the Rabbis, in order to teach us that ‘whoever destroys a single soul, is considered as though they had destroyed an entire world; and whoever saves a single soul is considered as though they had saved an entire world.’[19] It is, of course, an articulation that Muslim scholars will recognise from their own scriptures.[20] The demand of the One God shared by both Jews and Muslims is that this message be taught and taught again and again until the day when swords can indeed be turned into ploughshares, nations and individuals will cease lifting up swords against one another and none shall learn war any more. And then every person, Jew and Palestinian, shall be able to sit under their vine and under their fig tree and none shall make them afraid.[21]

 

Rabbi Jeremy Gordon is Rabbi of New London Synagogue. He studied at Cambridge University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and is associated with the British Masorti, and American Conservative denominations. His blog can be found at http://www.rabbionanarrowbridge.blogspot.com/

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[1] BMidbar Rabba 11.

[2] Ritba Megilla 18a d.v. U-Mah C14.

[3] Hil Melakhim 6:11. See Sifrei Bmidbar Mattot 157 beshem Rebbi Natan.

[4] Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 93b.

[5] The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India) v. 68, p. 189, Cf loc cit, pp. 191-92 & 205. 

[6] Published in The Letters of Martin Buber: A Life of Dialogue By Martin Buber, Nahum N. Glatzer, Paul Mendes-Flohr (Syracuse University Press, 1996). The full exchange may be found in A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs ed. P. Mendes-Flohr (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983) pp. 106-126.

[7] Available at http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/about/doctrine/ethics.htm.

[8] Writing in the New Republic November 6^th, 2009, available at http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-goldstone-illusion.

[9] See Edrei, Arye (2006) "Divine Spirit and Physical Power: Rabbi Shlomo Goren and the Military Ethic of the Israel Defense Forces," Theoretical Inquiries in Law: Vol. 7 : No. 1, Article 11.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/til/default/vol7/iss1/art11 at p. 70. I am indebted to Prof Edrei for his original research.

[10] Talmud Bavli, Ned. 28a; Git. 10b; BK 113a; BB 54b and 55a. There is an irony, of course, in the notion that dina d’malkhuta, by its very nation a diasporic invention, is turned here into a staging post for bullish nationalism.

[11] Genesis 34.

[12] Y. Leibowitz, “After Kibiyeh,” in Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State (Eliezer

Goldman ed., Eliezer Goldman et al. trans., 1992).

[13] Meshiv Milhama: She’elot U-teshuvot Be-inyene Tsava Milhamah U-vitahon (1983-1992).

[14] Deuteronomy 21:1-9, if a dead body is found between two Israelite towns the Priests of the town nearest must accept responsibility for the blood shed and seek forgiveness.

[15] See Edrie A. loc cit at p. 286.

[16] Rav Goren’s letter on the subject appeared in Hatzofeh 6th August 1982.

[17] Sanhedrin 74a.

[18] Leviticus 17:14.

[19] Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5, dated to the second century. The text has been cited according to the Kauffman manuscript, acknowledged as bearing the correct original version of this text. See Eprhaim Elimelech Urbach, "Kol Hamekayem Nefesh Achat ..." Gilgulav Shel Nusach [Whoever Saves One Soul ... The Evolution of a Text], 40 Tarbitz 268 (1971).

[20] Kuran 5:32.

[21] Micah 4:4.

Learning from Bad Bunny ... And Hen Mazzig

 

Learning from a Puerto Rican Rapper

I caught the Superbowl Half-Time Show on Monday morning. My, American, rabbinic colleagues were already posting about it. The Israeli writer, Hen Mazzig, suggested ‘Bad Bunny’ offered a “masterclass in a lesson every minority community needs to learn”. I think his analysis might be the most interesting take on antisemitism and how to defeat it I’ve encountered in several years.

 

It’s not been an easy time to be a Latin American immigrant in the United States and when the NFL invited a politically active rapper from Puerto Rico to perform before 100million American Football fans, many expected a combative attack on ICE and the like. What happened was a celebration of love, Puerto Rican culture and an ending that took my breath away in its audacious reclaiming of the phrase, “God bless America,” chanted before listing every country in the entire northern and southern continent in front of a massive advertising billboard which proclaimed, in capital letters, “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”

 

Mazzig’s point was that ‘Bad Bunny,’ “didn’t ask for a seat at the table and then protest when it wasn’t offered.” He just, “took up space.” His suggestion to those who wish to end antisemitism is that, “Rather than asking the world to be afraid on our behalf,” we should celebrate our culture and contribution with the all the vibrancy we can muster. We should focus on showing “true humanity and [proclaiming a] love that is universal in any race, religion, or ethnicity.”

 

I certainly have and will continue to expend time, effort, breath and ink opposing antisemitism. It’s vital to confront antisemitism. But antisemitism will not be ended ONLY by opposing it. Mazzig argues the mere act of opposing antisemitism highlights our fragility. My fear is that if the only way we seek to end antisemitism is through opposition, we will be outnumbered by those forces which are more powerful than we are. We cannot place our faith in our ability to overwhelm our opponents. We have to seek to transform them into our allies. I know that is not easy. It’s just that I don’t think we have another option.

 

Antisemitism, racism and other examples of what Abraham Joshua Heschel called, “the maximum of hatred for the minimum of reason,” can only be ended by all peoples finding points of commonality. We need to share why others should be proud of us, find delight in us and open ourselves to be proud of others in their differences and find delight in them.

It is through pride and celebration that we have a chance to create a less antisemtic world and a better world for us all. So be proud and celebrate.

When the Bar Mitzvah Has Prepared the Wrong Haftarah

 I wrote this several years ago and have held off posting until this year.

It's not about any current young member of the Synagogue I serve

On the Shabbat before Purim, the Mesorah states we should read the regular Torah reading (almost always Parshat Tetzaveh) then the special Maftir Zachor “Remember what Amalek did to you,” (Deut 25:17) from a second scroll. The obligation to remember Amalek is significant – Rambam considering it one of the 613 literally specified Torah mandates (Taaseh 189). And then one should continue with the Haftarah connected to this special Shabbat, ‘Pekaditi Et Asher Asah Amalek’ (I Sam 15).

The former is attested in the Mishnah (Megillah 3:4) and the latter is already attested in the Tosefta (3:1), cited in the Bavli 30a. Interestingly, there is a dispute about whether these readings are to be pushed off until the Shabbat AFTER Purim when Purim falls on a Friday. But the Halachah is entirely clear; Mishneh Torah Hil Tefillah 13:20, SA OH 685:2.

The question is – what to do when a BM has prepared the weekly portion Maftir and the weekly portion connected Haftarah and there isn’t time for them to prepare the (34 verse) Haftarah in the time between this being realised and the BM.

One piece is clear. We should, as a community, read Maftir Zachor, from a scroll. And we will. That can be done after the BM has read the last verses of Tetzaveh which can be done as an Acharon Aliyah. It needn’t be read by the BM.

Various options as to what to do at that point include, cancelling the learning the BM has done and have someone else read the Haftarah or have the BM read the Haftarah they have prepared.

It’s not really something discussed in classical sources, not merely because the practice of a BM reading Maftir and Haftarah as their BM is far more recent, but because the entire way in which Torah was read has gone through a complete inversion since the classical period. In the time of the Mishnah there was no ‘vicarious’ Torah reading for anyone at all. Everyone was expected to read their own Aliyah (Tosefta Megillah 3:12) and even Joseph Caro (d. 1575) protests against ‘vicarious’ Torah reading, “One who doesn’t know how to read, one needs to protest against them so they do not go up to read from the sefer torah.” (OH 139:2) That said there is clear shift in Jewish practice already evident from the time of one of Caro’s great guiding inspirations – R. Asher Ben Yehiel, the Rosh, who says, “The thing we do now, where the shaliach tzibbur reads, that is so as not to embarrass people who can’t read.” (on Megillah 21a 3:2).

 

There is a clear introduction, into traditional Jewish practice, even in ultra-orthodoxy – of a desire not to embarrass a person who is not capable of producing perfect leyning, “at the drop of a hat.” The key word is “Cavod” – honour or more literally “appropriate weight.” That word “Cavod” makes numerous appearances in Halahic discourse around Torah reading; around the issue of calling a Cohen, or a second Cohen if there is no Levi, or calling minors and, in orthodox environments, women. This is behind my sense that an appropriate response to this challenge would need to recognize of ‘Cavod HaOleh’ or ‘Cavod HaBar Mitzvah.’ It’s worth noting, in this case, that BM has worked hard and well on material they have already prepared and is not at fault.

 

More generally, the decent treatment of humans is an absolutely central part of Jewish practice. Onaat Devarim – mistreating people with words, is considered equivalent to Shifchut Damim, drawing blood (Baba Metzia 58b). I think this is especially applicable to a young person, on the edge of adulthood where there is a possibility, both, of drawing a person into a welcoming adult engagement with Judaism, or presenting Judaism as a Tirchah – un-necessary burden.

 

I’m grateful to my colleague, Rabbi Anthony Lazarus Margill who shared this story about one of the great Poskim of 20^th world-Jewry, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. In that situation, the BM prepared the Haftarah connected to the weekly Parasha instead of the Machar Chodesh Haftarah which should have been prepared. This was in Israel where one could assume an increased fluency in Hebrew, but there is a similarity to this case in that, for this particular BM learning difficulties meant they could not prepare the correct Haftarah afresh in the time available between spotting the problem and the BM. Rav Auerbach permitted the wrong Haftarah and movingly ensured there would be no issue during the service. The popular Orthodox magazine, Mishpacha, reported;

“The [father] escorted a proud and nervous [son] to shul. He prayed and hoped that the other [congregants] would have compassion for his son, and not jump on him angrily when he began reading a haftarah that was not Machar Chodesh.

As he entered, he stopped in shock. There, in his Givat Shaul shul, sat Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. The venerated sage had braved the summer heat and trekked from his Shaarei Chesed home all the way to Givat Shaul — to serve as a bulwark of security and support for a little boy who’d poured his last grain of effort into the wrong haftarah.” https://mishpacha.com/finding-a-finale/

The sefer Divrei Mordechai p.262 deals with the situation where a BM had prepared the regular-week Haftarah for what should have been Shabbat Shekalim. He suggests that the, “In order not to cause the child soul-pain – Agmat Nefesh – the boy could read the blessing before the haftarah, an adult could read the Haftarah for Shekalim, then the boy could read the material ‘which he had prepared’, then the boy could read the blessings after the Haftarah. The Rabbi wisely adds, “there is from this case a warning to Gabbais to inform BMs ahead of time, which parasha and haftarah is upon them to prepare.” Amen to that.[1]

I’m also grateful to another colleague who suggested that, in this circumstance, a BM could read the first and last verse from the correct Haftarah and read the material prepared in the middle. I’m minded to suggest something a little different. The first verse of the correct Haftarah is cited in all the major sources – but the last verse isn’t. I think it would be appropriate for the BM to read the blessings before the Haftarah, the first verse of the correct Haftarah, then switch to Haftarah Tetzaveh, read that to its conclusion and then share the blessings after the Haftarah.

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[1] I’m grateful to David Chaim Wallach for this source, and also a source from Harerei Moshe about a situation where someone starts the wrong Haftarah and only realises their error mid-Haftarah (or perhaps more likely was made aware of the error!)

On Archbishops, Queens and Chassidic Rebbes

I’ve had an unusually ‘Church-intensive’ couple of weeks. On 28^th January, I was St Paul’s to watch as Archbishop Sarah Mullaly was ‘elected and confirmed’ as Archbishop of Canterbury. I got to know the, then, Bishop of London during her time in this diocese and, in particular, at the exceptional evening on the Terminally Ill (Adults) Bill she spoke at, hosted here at New London.

Then, I spent two days this week as part of the Senior Faith Leadership Programme hosted at Windsor Castle. Aside from the formal programme, participants were treated to a late-night private tour of St George’s Chapel, the last resting place of, among a long list of monarchs, Queen Elizabeth II.

No need to worry, my theology and practice remain entirely Jewish, but I was interested in the overlap between one of my favourite Chasidic teachings, the election of an Archbishop and the grave of a Queen.

The tone of the archbishop’s election pulled in two directions at the same time. On the one hand, there was might and glory, pomp, gold and words designed to bolster a mortal human being into fulfilling a role with, at least according to the Church of England, cosmic significance. On the other hand, there was a driving charge; the role is to be a servant, responsible, charged with taking care of the vulnerable and on and on the list went. The gold, the archbishop was reminded in one reading, “is as little as sand.”

I felt something similar underneath the dramatic soaring architecture of St George’s Chapel. One could feel the history, the power, the Empire and the might. But the small nave where the former Queen lies is unadorned and lined only with bare stone. The gravestone itself is carved with the name “Elizabeth II” and dates of birth and death, but there is no mention of her being “Queen” and no highfalutin’ terms of praise.

It all reminded me of the saying of Reb Simchah Bunim of Peshischa. A person should have, in each of two pockets, a slip of paper. On one is to be written, “For my sake was the Universe created.” On the other hand, “I am but dust and ashes.” The idea is that when a person feels a little beaten down, they/we/I can pull out the slip which reminds them/us/myself of my absolute value and unique spiritual role in this world. But if we get a little carried away with the pursuit of material gain or a little arrogant in our claims to ultimate significance, they/we/I should pull out the slip which reminds them/us/myself we are all destined to become dust.

It’s wise advice for Archbishops, monarchs, rabbis and all of us.

Shabbat Shalom

How to Defeat Tyrants - Parashat Bo

 I want to pick up, as it were, from the sermon I gave a couple of weeks ago.

Way back then – who can remember such a time – I suggested that there is something prototypically Jewish about getting up the nose of Pharaoh and wannabe autocrats ever since.

I cited the work of Jose Faur, who suggested that, at the heart of the discomfort felt towards Jews of Pharoah after Pharoah and Furer after Junta-leader after despot after tyrant is the fact that we Jews simply aren’t that impressed by physical might, bullying aggression. Ain Lanu Melekh Ele Atah we say – we have no other God than you. I wanted to make the point that we, Jews, know – at least we ought to have a finely tuned sense of – how despots and tyrants fall, their bravado crumbling like the walls of the Tower of Babel, and Jerico and … well every other so-called impregnable fortress built since.

What I want to do this week, is try and share how that can happen.

I get, I know, after all the Seder night Haggadah, that there is a way of telling this story – the Story of Exodus – which involves God, and nothing other than God. “I and not a seraph, I and not a messenger,” a version of the story in which human agency, human efforts are worthless – in the grand scheme of things. And, for sure, this particular despot is only toppled as a result of miracles out of the reach of humanity.

But even in the story of Exodus, both in the tale we’ve been reading these past three weeks, and certainly in the Rabbinic understanding of this tale, there are clear signposts for us, humans, seeking to act to better our own lives and that of the society in which we live.

The first is not to become habituated to that which is unconscionable. Nothing good happens in the story of Exodus until the Children of Israel cry out. We have to remember to keep crying out. There’s so much talk, these days, about the Overton Window. There’s an idea in Halachah that Ein Atah Tamod Gezerah Al HaTzibur Ele Im Ken HaTzibur Yachol Laamod Ba – that you can issue a ruling onto the community unless the community can stand it – it’s the sort of thing that led some Rabbis in the American Conservative Movement forty years ago to hold off saying you couldn’t drive to Shul on Shabbat because they felt that the community wouldn’t be able to withstand such a ruling. It’s a kind of societal tolerance test as to what Jewish law should and shouldn’t be used to say and do.

It’s an interesting idea, but it can’t shift our sense of morality. We have to be able to respond to that which is wrong as wrong, even if everyone else is prepared to go along with shifting values and mores. Or at least, until we do, until we call actions unacceptable, unsufferable-in-silence, nothing will change.

The refusal to accept the things societies can fall into as acceptable is the pre-eminent marker of the Jewish prophet. It doesn’t matter if everyone is happy running around after other gods, the prophet will call that out. It doesn’t matter if everyone else is prepared to the look the other way – to one example – of King David sending Uriah off to die at war so David can marry Uriah’s beautiful wife-now-widow. A prophet, a prophet like Natan, will call that out.

Don’t become habituated.

 

Secondly, don’t forget before whom we really stand.

There is a wonderful Midrash – one of my all-time favourites[1] – the reimagines the moment Moses and Aaron first went before Pharoah to call for the release of the Children of Israel. Pharoah lets the dusty shepherds into his great hall and mocks them for appearing without a gift to give to the most mighty man of his day.

Moses and Aaron call for the release of the Children of Israel in the name of God and Pharoah responds, “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. [This God of yours] is he young or old? How many cities has he captured? How many states has he humbled? How long has he been in power?

Moses and Aaron reply, “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. God 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.’

It’s important to acknowledge human might and human efforts. I had the opportunity to meet with our local MP this week, I’ve had the opportunity to meet Ministers, Prime Ministers, Heads of State, millionaires and Lords and Ladies. It’s good to be polite, it’s good to be gracious. But it’s good to remember that all these cloud-capp'd towers, gorgeous palaces, the great globe itself,
shall dissolve Leaving not a rack behind. 

Canadian Premier, Mark Carney, spoke of something similar in his speech at Davos this week, citing the great Czech over-thrower-of-despotism Vaclav Havel. He shared that despots thrive in a space where everyone is afraid of pointing out that their despotism. But if one person can affirm in themselves, and find a way to share to the outside world, the paucity of these claims, the nakedness of the King’s new clothes – even the less powerful can find their allies and this pulls the veil from the pretentions of the despot.[4]

Moses was right about the downfall of Pharoah. And Havel was right about the downfall of the Soviet Empire.

And third, remember this saying from the anthropologist Margaret Mead, I’ve cited it before, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

It’s the saying that concluded the excellent Reith  lecture series on Radio 4 in December. The philosopher and activist Rutger Bregman gave a series about how tough it is now – and it is tough now – but also how to get beyond where we are now. The best of the lectures was the second where he told the story of the abolition of slavery in this country.[5]

It did, indeed, take a small group of thoughtful committed citizens to overthrow our own, and I speak as a British citizen, our own enslaving tendencies.

He also charted how much slower other societies were in the move towards abolition. How little the issue played out in America, Spain, Portgual, France and the like. It was the leadership of the band of as Breman called them, ‘renegades, Quakers and evangelicals,’, William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson.

The thing that, I think, many of us lack, I lack too, is a certain courage and faith. That’s the thing we need to re-instill.

This is Bregman’s take, in his Reith lectures, I recommend them

As Theodore Roosevelt, the historian and president, once said, It is not the critic who counts. History isn't changed by those without skin in the game, not by the cynics who explain why things will never work, or by the clever voices pointing out every flaw, something I've seen especially often among journalists. Change comes from the people who risk embarrassment, who make mistakes, who get knocked down and stand up again. They are the ones who dare to commit themselves to a cause bigger than their own comfort. Sometimes they win. Often, they fail. But as Roosevelt reminded us, even in failure, they achieve more than those who never tried, who played it safe, who preferred irony over courage, and who never knew the taste of victory or the shame of defeat.

To change the world, to overthrow despotism, both on a large and a small scale, we need to call out that which is unacceptable, but that’s not enough – critics don’t change the world – it’s not enough to sit there, criticising, scrolling, doom scrolling. We need to remember to be outraged, to never forget the locus of true power and be prepared to organise.

Slavery can be abolished.

Despots can be toppled.

Freedom can reign.

May it come to us all.

Shabbat Shalom

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[1] Midrash Tanhumah, V’era 5

[2] (Psalms 29:7)

[3] (I Kings 19:11)

[4] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-carney-speech-davos-rules-based-order-9.7053350

[5] https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2025/Reith_2_R4_2025_Transcript.pdf

Reflections on Mental Health in Jewish Community - In Honour of JAMI Mental Health Shabbat

We are delighted to partner with JAMI, the mental health service for the Jewish Community on this Shabbat on which we read the plague of darkness. JAMI are also running a Parent Café this Sunday, 11am focussed on supporting parents managing children's anxiety, especially around the online world.

 

The biblical plague of darkness is referred to with an extra word Aphela, alongside the standard term for darkness Choshech. It is a darkness, the Torah says, that is tangible in its consuming quality. In Midrash Tanhuma, Rav Abdimi understands the plague as paralysing, “An Egyptian who was standing was unable to sit, while one who was sitting was unable to stand, and one lying down could not rise.” The verses and their commentators feel as if they describe not so much a physical phenomenon, but a psychological one.

 

The paralysing, tangible quality of depression is, awfully, one I’ve seen and heard sufferers share. It is a lethal disease.

 

Peer-reviewed, government-supported actions include normalisation of depression as a medical condition, not a personal failure. As a medical condition, it can and will respond to professional, medically trained intervention. “Lots of people experience these feelings. They can be addressed, speaking with a GP or medical health professional can help.” For many the combination of both medication and therapeutic support will be more effective than either in isolation.

 

Social connection and reducing isolation are also attested as a protective factor. This isn’t the same as telling someone who is experiencing depression that they should ‘cheer up.’ There will be many social spaces that a person experiencing depression will feel they need to avoid. I hope the Synagogue, however can be helpful. It won’t work for everyone every time. But if coming to Shul, sitting together or even sitting apart is ever helpful, I couldn’t be more proud to make it clear that this is, among so many other things, what we are here for. No need to schmooze, no need to come to kiddush. But part of the idea of a community is to know we are never truly alone. And if physically being the space doesn’t work, there’s the stream. And also … me. I’m not a medical professional, but I have resources I can share and would both want to be know and show a sense of care that we all deserve.

 

As Rebbe Nachman shared, and it does seem that the great founder of Bretzlav Chasidism experienced both mania and depression, the world is a narrow bridge, but the most important thing is never to give into fear.

 

May we all know only brightness.

 

Rabbi Jeremy

Annoying Pharoahs Since ...

 

https://truah.org/welcome-to-our-store/

I read, over my winter break, the new book by my friend and successor as Rabbi at St Albans Masorti Synagogue, A Spark of Total Darkness.

There’s a Chapter on Hierarchy or Authority which focuses on a line from the Nishmat prayer, we recited this morning – Ain Lanu Melekh Ele Atah – there is no Sovereign other than You - God.

It is, claims Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet, the very foundation of the Torah’s political principles. That is to say that in Judaism, there is one conception of true Authority, and then there is nothing else in the human or corporeal realm that has true power. Sure, there are social contracts and apparatus to allow for the need of humans to feel led, to appoint a King or President or Prime Minister, but as for true sovereignty? Ain Lanu Melekh Ele Atah.

Nothing counts when compared to a God with whom we have a relationship but who has no physicality, no corporeality.

This relationship with authority, Rabbi Adam suggests, riles those who have come to hate Jews, from Pharaoh’s time, from the time of Haman and … well, until today.

This fundamental, and fundamentally Jewish, refusal to accept human-born power as impressive, the refusal to consider that right can ever be demonstrated by exercising physical might, this might be the thing at the heart of so much of the antisemitism we, as Jews, have encountered and continue to encounter.

“Antisemitism is,” says Rabbi Adam (p. 92) “driven by the fact that Jewish thought is fundamentally threatening to all those who claim power for themselves and attempt to use it to coerce others.”

There’s a remarkable commentary in the Etz Chayim Chumash, way back on the opening chapter in Genesis, that expresses the same idea, as it were, the other way round. It’s on the verse that states that the model for all humanity was created in the image and likeness of the divine.

“In the Ancient Near East,” wrote Chaim Potok, “the ruling king was often described as the image or the likeness of a god, which served to elevate the monarch above ordinary mortals. In the Bible, this idea became democratised. Every human being is created “in the image of God;” each bears the stamp of royalty.”

There’s God, who has no likeness, and then there are each and every human being created ever since Adam HaRishon. And we are all in the same boat, equally neither God nor untouched by godliness. We are powerful, we are limited, and those two things cohere quite beautifully.

Rabbi Adam’s analysis is built on the teaching of the Argentinian-born, Rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community, Jose Faur.

“How [asks Faur] “can a Rex or a pontifical ruler be expected to exercise absolute sovereignty over his subjects when a high-profile minority refuses to subject itself to the absolute sovereignty of anyone?!” 

This question, Faur suggests, leads to the idea that “antisemitism [should be] the preferred strategy of political and religious systems claiming unlimited sovereignty.”

Rabbi Adam suggests that this analysis can explain the way that antisemitism is and has been equally cherished as a political tool by the extreme left and the extreme right, by the Nazis and the Stalinists and a response that has come from both Christians and Muslims.

 

And it’s not that the nature of the kind of sovereignty that we, as Jews, do accept can be compared to the sovereignty of a King of Basar V’Dam – flesh and blood. Faur notes that the image of God that emerges from Judaism is a God who has to entice our acceptance, welcome us into a covenantal relationship. Torah cannot be compelled. It has to be received as an act of free will; kimu vKiblu is the rabbinic term.

The ideal of the only sovereignty to be acknowledged in the Universe is non-coercive, just, and capable of withstanding criticism.

And put like that, it’s no wonder two things apply.

One is that it’s not just Pharaoh and Haman and the like who have struggled to cope with Jews; it’s no wonder that every other jumped-up wannabe dictator, fascist, demagogue through time and across space has struggled with Jews.

 And here’s the second thing, the really interesting thing. It’s no wonder that Jews have got good at standing up to jumped-up wannabe dictators, fascists, demagogue through time and across space.

One of my favourite Jewish social action organisations, T’ruah, has a T-shirt that reads, ‘Been standing up to oppression since the time of Pharaoh.’

Let me do one important piece before going too far.

I don’t think it’s just Jews, who have suffered as a result of the same false claims to power made by those who want us to believe that true power comes in a human form. It’s been those on the left and the right and Jews and Muslims and everyone else. And, again, more importantly, it’s not just the Jews who have learnt and excelled and performed mighty deeds in overthrowing demagoguery.

I like, in particular, a comment from Tikvah Frymer-Kensky who observed that the heroic Meyaldot HaIvriot – midwives who saved the boys from drowning and faced down Pharaoh with exactly the level of disdain his genocidal hatred deserved – can be understood either to be Egyptian women serving the Hebrews, or Hebrew midwives. It’s perhaps exactly correct that there is the sort of ambiguity that should lead us to consider it’s really up to us all.

But this, this ability to model a relationship with power that is above the selfish self-serving claims of illegitimate political leadership, is the very role for us, Jews. It’s what we, at the very heart of everything we believe, stand for. And the models of how to stand up in opposition to oppression and the abuse of power permeate our texts at every level, again and again and again; from Abraham willingness to stand up to even God, to … the Hebrew midwives standing up to Pharoah and the daughters of Tzelophachad standing up to Moses and Natan standing up to King David and … it’s the very essence of who we are.

The best collection I know of of what all this means – all these lessons in how to oppose wrongdoing and stand up for the good – is in David M. Blumenthal’s book, The Banality of Good and Evil. As I wrote in my weekly words, it’s a survey of how inculcating prosocial behaviour has worked and also has failed – has worked and failed during the time of the Holocaust.

I’ve been aware of a kind of malaise creeping into our contemporary discourse, a sort of Yeiush – despair at how complex these times are, with the ecology thing and the economic thing and the AI thing and all the other things. And it won’t do, it certainly won’t make anything better.

It’s not the case that it’s never been darker. It’s been much darker. And it’s not the case that, from the previous darkness, we, as Jews and as members of the human race, have been unable to emerge. We’ve emerged. And it’s still the case, it will never not be the case that at the heart of the re-emergence from dark times, there will always be a need for courage and faith and the sort of disregard of the necessity of might always winning out. We should remember what has happened time and time again in our history and human history when fools have made the case that might will win out. Might never wins out unless it is accompanied by a commitment to decency and justice and the respect for all humanity. The question, the challenge is, how quickly can we organise, motivate ourselves and find the courage to stand strong in the face of demagogy.

The Sikh peace activist, Valerie Kaur, shared an analysis of the darkness she was experiencing, particularly as a mother raising, as she put it, “a brown boy in America, [in] a world that is more dangerous than the one I was given.”[1]

And she said this

“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our [country] is not dead but a country that is waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor? What if all of our grandfathers and grandmothers are standing behind now, those who survived occupation and genocide, slavery and detentions and political assault? What if they are whispering in our ears, “You are brave”?

And then she takes as her inspiration the verses we read just today, the verses about those Hebrew midwives.

“What [she said] does the midwife tell us to do? Breathe. And then? Push. Because if we don’t push, we will die. If we don’t pus,h our nation will die. Tonight we will breathe. Tomorrow we will labor in love through love and your revolutionary love is the magic we will show our children.”

It’s a terrific speech.

The moral of the story, our story, the story of Exodus, the story of our continued existence as Jews is that there is something more powerful than the power wielded by human Pharaohs and wannabe Pharaohs. There is the One and Only Sovereign who rules without coercion and the threats and actualisation of violence. And then there are us – created in the image of the Divine and called upon to oppose demagoguery and cruelty, to stand up for what is right, even in the face of that which is more superficially mighty than we are. We shouldn’t be despairing. After all, we’ve got the greatest story ever told on our side.

 

Shabbat Shalom

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[1] https://speakola.com/ideas/valerie-kaur-interfaith-watch-night-2016