In case anyone be under any doubt, I agree with you. Jeremy Corbyn has acted antisemitically.
Too many times.
Too many times.
And too many people in the Labour party have been acquiescent - or worse - in this antisemtism.
Here’s a phrasing I’ve appreciated, as these conversations seem, too often, seem based on the notion that there is something unalterably evil about Israel, a country whose right to exist, surely, should be a given.
This is the difference between a Zionist and a non-Zionist;
A Zionist is someone who agrees that every people have the right to self-determination.
An Anti-Zionist is someone who agrees that every people have the right to self-determination, apart from the Jews.
Those of you who are standing up to this blight in contemporary politics - I join you, I salute you. But I want to speak about something broader today something more religious; on this Rosh Hashanah day.
Aside from the disgust and the anger this story stirs in me - what is the most ancient of hatreds doing on the front pages day after day in the year 2018! - there’s a big part of me that is frustrated that our energies are getting sucked into this important fight when there are so many other important fights. So there will be more on this - I am interested in this - but I want to do something else also.
I want to talk about Alterity - a word made famous - well famous in my world - by the Jewish philosopher Immanuel Levinas.
Alterity is an approach to life built from valuing otherness, other people in particular. It’s the refusal to force other people into being just like me. To value alterity is to value the very opposite of the cosy, self-serving narcissism of so much of the world in which we live. Too often we surround ourselves with voices that agree with us and consider those different to us with disdain and distrust - if we consider them at all. That, Levinas would say, is the greatest human failing. He’s right.
Ve-ahavtah Le’Reacha Comacha - love your fellow as you love yourself says the Torah.
It’s the central organising principle in Judaism, taught Rabbi Akiva. Many of us will have heard that idea many times.
But here’s the thing.
Loving your fellow like yourself cannot be a big deal if it means loving people you like already. It can’t be a big deal if it means loving only those people who don’t do things we don’t understand, or disagree with.
Ve-ahavtah Le’Reacha can’t be a big deal if it were easy.
Loving others, valuing others, doesn’t mean agreeing with others. Rather it means caring for them even in disagreement, valuing their difference of opinion even if it feels wrong.
A commitment to alterity doesn’t mean we don’t try and persuade people of their errors. It doesn’t mean we accept the unacceptable.
It means that we make a space for the other’s otherness.
The great commentator on the Zohar, Rav Ashlag had a wonderful term for what I’m calling alterity. He called it - Ahavat Zulato[1] - the love of the one who is other. Ahavat Zulato, he says, “draws a person beyond their narrow world of pain and obstacle and into a world of timelessness and breadth.”
What he means is that focussing on loving people like us, sets up our lives to experience frustrations and pettiness whenever we encounter difference - which we are destined to do all the time. We might think life is easier in a clique where everyone behaves the same, dresses the same and values the same, but cliques are dull and too often more than a little bitchy - that’s no fun for anyone, even the people who find themselves momentarily in favour.
On the other hand when we commit to Ahavat Zulato, when we set up our lives to value people in their difference, we come to appreciate the splendour of humanity. We set ourselves up for joy.
Ashlag went further - the whole purpose of creation - the kabbalist wrote - was God’s desire to have an ‘other’ to be in a relationship with. God wanted something that was beyond God, God valued us - values us, because we are not like God.
God values alterity.
So should we.
Let me go back to the matters of politics - polis - the State.
I’m a democrat only in the sense that Churchill was a democrat - it’s the worst system of Government apart from all the others. I’m not interested in power wielded by majorities. I’m, frankly, nervous of the masses getting together and deciding what’s right for me - in my oddness and idiosyncrasy.
The thing I love about democracies is the way good democracies control the power of the majority; limiting how much power the majority gets to wield. Good democracies value as absolute NOT the majority, but the minority; the right of the opposition to be an opposition, the right to protest, to disagree and to be different. Good democracies need good oppositions. When I hear politicians, in this country or any other, suggesting that to disagree is somehow traitorous I get deeply nervous.
I believe in alterity because I want to live in a society that is as vibrant and multi-faceted as possible.
Valuing alterity is how we learn, how we develop economically, scientifically, artistically - in every way. I really believe in this alterity thing.
And here’s how to value alterity.
Don’t poke fun at people who disagree with you.
Don’t attack people for a supposed sin of disagreeing with you.
Don’t assume others are only disagreeing with you because they have it in for you.
There’s too much of all of that in the world, and none of it is helping.
Engage critically, seriously, even do other people the honour of imagining that it’s you, after all, who might be in the wrong. It’s good to be confident in what we believe, but make allowance for the doubts of others too.
So much for being a better person, what’s it got to do with being better Jews?
As a Rabbi, I struggle with this creeping sense that the melting pot is the way to go. I sometimes hear an argument that Jews should really just consider ourselves just like everyone else, universalist members of a universal society. And that view is wrong; it’s wrong ethically, politically, economically, emotionally. It’s wrong in every way I can count. Among the things we should value when we value alterity - difference - is our own difference; as Jews, as proud committed engaged Jews who understand our faith and our tradition and the contribution we can make to a society in our difference, in our alterity.
We fail to play our part when our Jewish identity - and the things we do to strengthen and preserve that identity - become ever more attenuated.
That’s not to say the antisemtism is the fault of the Jews. I’m not making that point at all. But the power to shift the debate is, in part, in our hands.
There’s this creeping sense many Jews have that the way for us to get on in the world is to request from our schools and our employers and our selves less and less time off work for Jewish sacred celebration. That view is wrong. When we create space in society for our own alterity we strengthen the respect for us in our difference and we strengthen the respect for the difference of others also. The Second Day of Rosh Hashanah is just about the most important day of the religious year. It’s worth a day off work.
I haven’t done the maths - I don’t know how you could do the maths - but in that extraordinary list of Jewish Nobel Prize winners and Jewish titans of creativity and industry I can’t imagine there is anyone who would have failed to make their impact on the world had they not worked on Second Day Rosh Hashanah. But I do believe many of them would have failed had they not relished their own otherness, had they not mined their own otherness for strength, inspiration and insight.
Take off Second Day Rosh Hashanah. If you really can’t, come back at 6:30 tonight for Maariv. Come for first day Succot. Come for Shabbat. Come to understand more, to feel more at home in our alterity. We shouldn’t be strangers to our self.
There’s this creeping sense that we are somehow better members of the human race when we abdicate a commitment to keeping Kosher when presented with a piece of treyf steak. And that view is wrong. Next time you see treyf steak offered on a menu, order something else. Next time you are invited to hosts who might not know, explain ahead of time. It’s not so hard. It might save Judaism, it might save the world.
We need more faith in our own alterity.
I know we get nervous when making claims for our alterity, but unless we confront that nervousness we can get locked into a cycle of embarrassment. We claim less and less until there is nothing left.
A tale lifted from Devorah Baum’s newly published book - The Jewish Joke.
Two people, who used to be proud of being Jews, meet on the street. They haven’t seen one another for some time.
“How are you?” says one.
“Fine” says the other.
End of joke.
(It’s not supposed to be funny).
There’s a muscle that is atrophying in our Jewish identity; it’s the muscle that knows how to explain, politely, but with self-confidence, that we don’t do the same thing as everyone else and that we would be grateful - but also that we expect - respect for our difference - a respect we open-heartedly offer to reciprocate for others in their differences also.
I know it’s tricky - but only at first. The first time we respectfully request a space for our own difference, the easier it is the second time, and more often than not it won’t take a second time.
And if it does go wrong, well, the person who takes umbrage at a polite request for the acceptance of my difference as a Jew is probably not the sort of person I want to spend too much time with.
That brings me back to Corbyn and the Labour party he leads.
When the Labour MP, Frank Field, resigned the parliamentary whip he said he did so for two reasons; because of the antisemtism, and because of the “culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation.” It’s the same issue. If you don’t like Jews because Jews are different, you betray your dislike of anyone who holds onto difference. No-one is intolerant just of Jews.
We don’t combat intolerance by effacing our own difference as Jews.
We don’t promote the value of alterity by effacing our own alterity.
No-one is fooled when we efface our alterity as Jews, not even ourselves.
Two Jews meet for the first time, ‘My name was Blum, what was yours?’[2]
I know it’s hard for many of us to feel confident enough in our relationship to Judaism to make the claims that our Jewish differences should be honoured. We are, too much of the time, too concerned that we might be seen as a hypocrite, or a fundamentalist, or maybe we just don’t have enough knowledge to understand why one thing or another is worth standing up for.
So here’s my top trip.
Worry less, do more.
Judaism is a bit like love. If we worry too much about whether we love someone and how exactly we should show our love, and whether we should call our possible lover back today, or tomorrow, or possibly the third day after we last spoke ... the whole thing will probably just dribble away.
But if you behave in a loving way there’s a chance of it working out.
And if you can get the words, ‘I love you,’ out of your mouth, there’s a chance your conversation partner might become your lover.
The same goes for Judaism. If we wait to understand enough about Shabbat, or prayer ... if we wait long enough to be sure it’s worth being a bit different - it will be too late. If someone asks if we are serious about our Judaism and we prevaricate and equivocate and obfuscate, we’ll persuade ourselves out of this glorious heritage.
So come, join us. Do things. Take opportunities. Speak up. Start now, start in this New Year, start tomorrow when I’ll have more to say about saving the world, and saving Judaism.
Do things. Take opportunities. Speak up. Start now, start in this New Year. May it come to us all for good, in health, and alterity.
Shannah Tovah
[1] I’m grateful to my colleague Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffat for putting me on to Rav Ashlag’s articulation, found in the Sulam, in the article on The Essence and Purpose of Religion. בביאת האדם אל אהבת זולתו, עובר האדם מתוך עולמו הצר המלא מכאובים ואבני נגף, אל עולם נצחי ורחב http://www.kab.co.il/heb/content/view/full/82715
[2] http://www.diacronia.ro/ro/indexing/details/V218/pdf. From T. Farkas, Jewish Surname Changes in Hungary (19th-20th Century).
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