Pussy Riot Abraham and Religous Revolution

 

I caught, this week, a few moments of the BBC Storyville on the Pussy Riot protesters who, following a protest in a Moscow Cathedral, were arrested and sentenced to prison terms. The show is available at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/p01hs5t8/

 

The programme had access to the court where, prior to the verdict being read out, the defendants were given a chance to have ‘the last word.’ Yekaterina Samutsevich read her statement in which she rejected the state’s accusation that she being anti-religious and instead claimed her protest was an attempt to take religion back from the cosy relationship between church and power that, she claimed, exists between Putin and the Orthodox Patriarchy. She attempted to lay claim to her religion as a religion of protest, even in the face of power. Samutsevich is now on probation. Two of the other members of the group are in prison. I don’t want enter into a conversation about the rights and wrongs of Putin or the Russian Criminal System, but there are two thoughts, and a plug, that this short piece – of a much longer and more complex story – drew me to share in this message.

 

This week’s Parasha contains what is, for me, the greatest moment in Abraham’s extraordinary Biblical journey. God tells Abraham that Sodom and Gemorah are to be destroyed for their iniquity, and Abraham protests. Abraham stands up in the face of power and rails against it. That’s very dangerous, it’s also very Jewish. ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth not do justly?’ demands Abraham. It is the origin of the prophetic voice in Judaism. It’s a response that drives every subsequent Jewish engagement with the inequitable abuse of power by any person, any government and even our deity. Any religion that claims the Hebrew Bible as a source must acknowledge this revolutionary aspect of religion, this refusal to accept that which is wrong.

 

I know this not only because of Abraham and this week’s Parasha, but also because I’ve read the Prophets. The willingness to stand before might and expose hypocrisy runs right through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and on the list goes. This is what makes the prophets so vital and necessary – again especially for anyone who wishes to claim these moral heroes as part of a spiritual and cultural heritage.

 

And here comes the plug. This Monday I’m going to try and share the entire Hebrew Bible as part of my series on ‘The Sources’ (8-9pm at New London). I want us to know what it means to be People of the Book, I want us to feel an ownership of this Prophetic language; we should know where it comes from and we should feel it’s part of who we are and how we engage with the iniquities of our own age. Feeling a part of our Torah-heritage should strengthen our willingness to engage and our insight into in the complex contemporary stories that populate our front pages, in-tray’s and attention. It should make us better Jews and better human beings. This is why it is worth coming to know more about our Sources.

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

Rabbi Jeremy