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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