Category Archives: environment

Va’era – signs and wonders are warnings: ignoring them may cost more than we can bear

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When Pharaoh instructed the Hebrew midwives Shifra and Puah to kill every new-born Hebrew baby boy (Exodus 1:15,16) he clearly thought he was responding  appropriately to the Egyptian nationalist fear that the population of Hebrews living amongst his people was increasing at an alarming rate and might become what we would now call a “fifth column”.  The murdering of the male children would ensure they could never grow into a military force, the keeping alive of the female children would ultimately provide both labour and more Egyptian children.

Besides the fact that, like all practitioners of the Great Replacement Theory, the fearers  were inventing a conspiracy against themselves that simply did not exist, and using it to try to control and oppress others – Pharaoh’s move acted against the promise of God to Abraham, a promise of many descendants and great fruitfulness.

For a while the actions of Shifra and Puah mitigated any effect of his decree – but they could not do so forever. In the biblical understanding of the world and the covenantal promise with God, something was seriously awry with decree of murder against new-born Hebrew boys, and the equilibrium had to be restored.

The conversations between Moses and God  begin with God noticing the pain and sorrow of the Hebrew slaves (3:6ff) and entering history  in order to address the problem of their oppression. God tells Moses to introduce himself and his experience to the Israelite people, and then go with the elders of that community to Pharaoh to request a three day ceremonial to God in the wilderness. At this point God notes that Pharaoh will not accede to the request, except with a “yad hazakah – a mighty hand”, and that God will smite Egypt with God’s “nifla’ot   נִפְלְאֹתַי” – wondrous events, and after that Pharaoh will let them go (Exodus 3:16-20)

When Moses objects that he will not be believed by the Israelites, God gives him two “signs אֹתוֹת” , and then offers a third – prefiguring the Nile being turned into blood, but on a much smaller scale (Exodus 4:1-9)

These two words – “signs” and “wonders” are the words used for most of what we today tend to describe as “plagues”. And in fact the word מגפה – translated as plague – does not occur until very much later in the narrative – in Exodus 9:14. Six events happen before the word is used – the Nile water is turned to blood, many frogs appear, followed by lice or gnats, then flies appear everywhere, the cattle and other animals become diseased, then everyone – human and beast – breaks out in boils. Only after Pharaoh is unmoved by the distress of everyone including his own magicians, does God say “For I will this time send all My plagues on your person (heart), and on your servants, and on your people; that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth.”(9:14)

There follows the extraordinary thunderstorm of hail and of intermittent fire that struck and devastated everywhere in the land of Egypt  – except the land of Goshen where Joseph had first settled his family:   “there was hail, and fire flashing up amidst the hail, very grievous, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.  And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both human and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.  Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail. (9:24-26). This is where our sidra ends. Next week’s reading continues the narrative with its climax: locusts which destroy all the remaining vegetation, the thick and tangible darkness that lasts for three days (except in Goshen) and finally and most terribly of all, resonating with Pharaoh’s original decree and even more extensive – the death of the first born child of every person from Pharaoh to the slave women and the cattle.

We tend when we read this narrative to fix on the battle between Pharaoh and God – and ask ourselves just why God allows so many to suffer in order to get Pharaoh to understand and the slaves to be able to leave.  We look at the patterning – the warnings and the lack of warnings; the Pharaonic response to allow the Hebrews to go -which he then revokes. The “hardening of the heart” – what it means, who does it and why…. But this year I noticed the very simple words “nifla’ot” and “ot” – the wonders and the signs – all of which describe nothing very magical but a logical sequence of consequences – stagnant polluted water leading to dead fish and escaping frogs; lice, flies, diseased animals and human beings as the biting insects and disease vectors grow in the surroundings – only with the odd mix of ice and fire does the nature of the “message” change – now something is deeply deeply unnatural, the world is in chaos, the normal expectation of weather systems is destroyed –and so it goes on.

In this narrative we see God “speaking” to human beings in a series of signs, of odd and unexpected activity. Only when these signs have been comprehensively and frequently ignored, do we move on to the real plagues – the all-consuming locusts who leave neither food nor seed, the darkness and the deaths within every family.

The world we live in is also experiencing the signs of work of creation being dismantled. We have chosen to challenge God or science – take your pick – and assumed that we can continue to create and consume energy, continue to pump rubbish into our waterways and seas, continue to behave as if we are not the care-takers of the world but the owners and rightful plunderers of it.

The signs have been with us for some time – strange weather systems, hotter summers, droughts, famines, torrential floods, tsunamis…… These are not plagues but they are warnings that all is not well, that our choices are disturbing the equilibrium of our world, that if we continue to behave as we have, there will be tragic consequences.

Va’era – segni e prodigi sono avvertimenti: ignorarli può costare più di quanto possiamo sopportare

Quando il Faraone diede istruzioni alle levatrici ebree Shifra e Pu’à di uccidere ogni neonato maschio ebreo (Esodo 1: 15,16), pensò chiaramente di rispondere in maniera appropriata ai timori nazionalisti egiziani che la popolazione di Ebrei, che viveva in mezzo al suo popolo, fosse in aumento con un tasso allarmante e che sarebbe potuta diventare quella che oggi chiameremmo una “quinta colonna”. L’assassinio di bambini maschi avrebbe garantito che essi non sarebbero mai diventati una forza militare, il mantenimento in vita delle bambine alla fine avrebbe fornito sia manodopera che più bambini egiziani.

Oltre al fatto che, come tutti i praticanti della Grande Teoria della Sostituzione, stava inventando una cospirazione inesistente contro se stesso e la usava per cercare di controllare e opprimere gli altri, la mossa del Faraone agiva contro la promessa di Dio ad Abramo, una promessa di molti discendenti e grande fecondità.

Per un po’ le azioni di Shifra e Pu’à mitigarono qualsiasi effetto del suo decreto, ma non poterono farlo per sempre. Secondo la visione biblica del mondo e nella promessa dell’alleanza con Dio, il decreto di uccidere tutti i neonati maschi ebrei era qualcosa di fortemente sbagliato, e l’equilibrio doveva essere ripristinato.

Le conversazioni tra Mosè e Dio iniziano con Dio che nota il dolore e la disperazione degli schiavi ebrei (3: 6 sgg) ed interviene nella storia per affrontare il problema della loro oppressione. Dio dice a Mosè di presentare se stesso e la sua esperienza al popolo israelita, e poi andare con gli anziani di quella comunità dal Faraone per richiedere un cerimoniale di tre giorni a Dio nel deserto. A questo punto Dio nota che il Faraone non acconsentirà alla richiesta, se non per mezzo di una “yad hazakà – una mano potente”, e quindi Dio colpisce l’Egitto con le sue “nifla’ot נִפְלְאֹתַי”, eventi meravigliosi, dopo di ciò il Faraone li lascerà andare. (Esodo 3: 16-20)

Quando Mosè obietta che non verrà creduto dagli israeliti, Dio gli dà due “segni אֹתוֹת”,  quindi ne offre un terzo, prefigurando il Nilo trasformato in sangue, ma su scala molto più piccola (Esodo 4: 1-9)

Queste due parole: “segni” e “meraviglie”, sono le parole usate per la maggior parte di ciò che oggi tendiamo a descrivere come “piaghe”. E in effetti la parola מגפה , tradotta come peste, non compare che molto più tardi nella narrazione, in Esodo 9:14. Sei eventi accadono prima che la parola venga usata: l’acqua del Nilo viene trasformata in sangue, compaiono molte rane, seguite da pidocchi o moscerini, quindi compaiono mosche ovunque, il bestiame e altri animali si ammalano, quindi tutti, umani e animali, si riempiono di bubboni. Solo dopo che il Faraone è indifferente all’angoscia di tutti, compresa quella dei suoi maghi, Dio dice: “Questa volta manderò tutte le mie piaghe sulla tua persona (cuore), sui tuoi servi e sul tuo popolo; che tu possa sapere che non c’è nessuno come Me in tutta la terra” (9:14).

Segue lo straordinario temporale della grandine e del fuoco intermittente che colpì e devastò ovunque il paese d’Egitto, tranne la terra di Goshen dove Giuseppe aveva inizialmente insediato la sua famiglia: “c’era grandine e il fuoco si accese in mezzo alla grandine, molto intensa, come non era stato in tutto il paese d’Egitto da quando era diventato una nazione. E la grandine colpì in tutto i paese d’Egitto tutto ciò che era nel campo, sia umano che bestia; e la grandine colpì ogni erba del campo e spezzò ogni albero del campo. Solo nella terra di Goshen, dove erano i figli d’Israele, non c’era grandine” (9: 24-26). Qui è dove termina la nostra sidrà. La lettura della prossima settimana continua la narrazione con il suo apice narrativo: locuste che distruggono tutta la vegetazione rimanente, l’oscurità densa e tangibile che dura tre giorni (tranne a Goshen) e, infine, e più terribile di tutto, in risonanza con il decreto originale del Faraone e ancora più ampio, la morte del primogenito di ogni persona, dal Faraone, alle donne schiave e al bestiame.

Si tende, nella lettura di questa narrazione, a concentrarsi sul conflitto tra il Faraone e Dio, ci si chiede perché Dio permetta a così tante persone di soffrire per far capire a Faraone e che gli schiavi possano andarsene. Osserviamo il modello: gli avvertimenti e la mancanza di avvertimenti; la risposta faraonica per consentire agli ebrei di andare, che viene poi revocata. L’ “indurimento del cuore”, cosa significa, chi lo fa e perché … Ma quest’anno ho notato le parole molto semplici “nifla’ot” e “ot”, le meraviglie e i segni, che non descrivono nulla di molto magico, ma una sequenza logica di conseguenze, acqua inquinata stagnante che porta alla morte dei pesci e alla fuga delle rane; pidocchi, mosche, animali ed esseri umani malati mentre gli insetti pungenti e i vettori di malattia crescono nei dintorni, soltanto con lo strano mix di ghiaccio e fuoco cambia la natura del “messaggio”: ora è qualcosa di profondamente innaturale, il mondo è nel caos, la normale aspettativa dei sistemi meteorologici viene distrutta, e così via.

In questa narrazione vediamo Dio “parlare” agli esseri umani in una serie di segni, di strane e inaspettate attività. Solo quando questi segni sono stati completamente e frequentemente ignorati, passiamo alle vere piaghe: le locuste che consumano tutto e che non lasciano né cibo né seme, l’oscurità e la morte all’interno di ogni famiglia.

Anche il mondo in cui viviamo sta vivendo i segnali dello smantellamento del  lavoro di creazione. Abbiamo scelto di sfidare Dio o la scienza, a voi la scelta, e abbiamo ipotizzato che possiamo continuare a creare e consumare energia, continuare a pompare immondizia nei nostri corsi d’acqua e nei nostri mari, continuare a comportarci come se non fossimo gli assistenti del mondo ma ne fossimo i proprietari e i legittimi saccheggiatori.

I segni ci accompagnano da un po’ di tempo: strani sistemi meteorologici, estati più calde, siccità, carestie, inondazioni torrenziali, tsunami …… Queste non sono piaghe ma sono avvertimenti che non tutto va bene, che le nostre scelte stanno disturbando l’equilibrio del nostro mondo, che se continuiamo a comportarci come abbiamo fatto finora, ci saranno conseguenze tragiche.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

 

The land we stand on is holy – turning, looking and paying attention….

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וּמֹשֶׁ֗ה הָיָ֥ה רֹעֶ֛ה אֶת־צֹ֛אן יִתְר֥וֹ חֹֽתְנ֖וֹ כֹּהֵ֣ן מִדְיָ֑ן וַיִּנְהַ֤ג אֶת־הַצֹּאן֙ אַחַ֣ר הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר וַיָּבֹ֛א אֶל־הַ֥ר הָֽאֱלֹהִ֖ים חֹרֵֽבָה: וַ֠יֵּרָ֠א מַלְאַ֨ךְ יְהוָֹ֥ה אֵלָ֛יו בְּלַבַּת־אֵ֖שׁ מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַסְּנֶ֑ה וַיַּ֗רְא וְהִנֵּ֤ה הַסְּנֶה֙ בֹּעֵ֣ר בָּאֵ֔שׁ וְהַסְּנֶ֖ה אֵינֶ֥נּוּ אֻכָּֽל:  וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה אָסֻֽרָה־נָּ֣א וְאֶרְאֶ֔ה אֶת־הַמַּרְאֶ֥ה הַגָּדֹ֖ל הַזֶּ֑ה מַדּ֖וּעַ לֹֽא־יִבְעַ֥ר הַסְּנֶֽה: וַיַּ֥רְא יְהוָֹ֖ה כִּ֣י סָ֣ר לִרְא֑וֹת וַיִּקְרָא֩ אֵלָ֨יו אֱלֹהִ֜ים מִתּ֣וֹךְ הַסְּנֶ֗ה וַיֹּ֛אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֥ה מֹשֶׁ֖ה וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הִנֵּֽנִי:

Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the angel of the Eternal appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.  And Moses said: ‘I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.’   And when the Eternal saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said: ‘Moses, Moses.’ And he said: ‘Here I am.’   (Exodus 3:1-4)

I cannot read this story this year without thinking of the fires burning without end, in California, Australia and the Amazon rainforests.

When Moses passed the bush that burned but was not consumed, he made the conscious choice to “turn aside and look at the great sight”, but more than that, he asked the question – how come this burns in such an extraordinary way?

There is at least one reading of this passage which asks why Moses? Why Moses, who had been born to Hebrew parents but brought up in the Egyptian palace; whose identity was fragile and dislocated and whose temper was hot, who had murdered in anger and then run away to the desert when discovered– why was Moses chosen for the role of leading the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and towards their promised ancestral land?  Why Moses? Why was the stutterer and outsider, belonging fully in neither Egyptian society nor Israelite community, the one to hear the words of God?

It is possible that many people passed that burning bush, and simply ignored it. It may be that God was waiting for someone to turn aside – that Moses wasn’t chosen per se, but his behaviour was unusual enough for him to become chosen. He paid attention.

How long does one watch a fire to notice that it is not consuming the material that is burning? If you have ever watched a bonfire you would know that it isn’t easy to watch a conflagration and see the clear diminishing of the contents. It takes quite some time to be obvious.

So Moses stopped his journey to turn and watch. He looked at what was presumably not an uncommon sight, and watched it for a long time. Moses was “chosen” because he was curious enough and open enough to stop his usual activity and to pay attention to what was happening.

We cannot be unaware of the devastation of the burning earth in different parts of the globe, caused in part by our own lifestyle choices. Yet we are passing by without looking, and allowing our policy makers to pass by too, ignoring what is happening – or worse denying it.

The burning forests and fields will not be ignored. Every year that passes as our world becomes warmer and more polluted, as the climate see-saws and changes, is a year that we are wasting if we want to act on the warnings.   Agriculture, factories, cars, power stations – are all contributing to the increasing temperature. The “greenhouse gasses” are increasing at an alarming rate – there is more C02 around in the atmosphere now than at any time in human history.

Moses heard the voice that told him what to do. We actually know what we have to do –we have no need of a supernatural voice.  As David Attenborough commented: “This is an urgent problem that has to be solved and, what’s more, we know how to do it – that’s the paradoxical thing, that we’re refusing to take steps that we know have to be taken.”

Moses was told to take off his shoes; the land he stood on was holy ground. All our ground is holy ground, all our earth is sacred. It is beyond time now to stop, to notice, to recognise what we are doing to our earth, and to take the steps to demand from the powerful governments and organisations that are refusing to act for our world to do so, and fast.

 

La terra su cui siamo è sacra, girati, osserva e presta attenzione

                Mosè pascolava il gregge di Ithrò, suo suocero, sacerdote di Midian e guidando le pecore di là del deserto arrivò al Monte del Signore, al Chorev. Un inviato del Signore gli apparve attraverso una fiamma di fuoco di mezzo ad un roveto e osservando si avvide che il roveto ardeva per il fuoco ma non si consumava. E Mosè disse fra sé: voglio avvicinarmi a vedere questo grande  fenomeno, come mai questo roveto non si consuma.’   Quando il Signore vide che egli si avvicinava per osservare il fenomeno, gridò dinnanzi a lui di mezzo al roveto: ‘Mosè, Mosè.’ Ed egli rispose: ‘Eccomi.’   (Esodo 3:1-4)

Quest’anno non posso leggere questa storia senza pensare ai fuochi che bruciano senza fine, in California, in Australia e nelle foreste pluviali amazzoniche.

Quando Mosè arrivò al roveto ardente che bruciava e non si consumava, fece la scelta consapevole di avvicinarsi e guardare il grande fenomeno ma, soprattutto, pose la domanda: come può esso bruciare in maniera così straordinaria?

C’è almeno una lettura di questo passaggio che chiede: perché Mosè? Perché Mosè, che era nato da genitori ebrei ma cresciuto nel palazzo egiziano, che aveva identità fragile e dislocata e temperamento caldo, che aveva ucciso con rabbia e poi era fuggito nel deserto quando venne scoperto, perché Mosè fu scelto per il ruolo di condurre gli schiavi ebrei fuori dall’Egitto e verso la loro ancestrale terra promessa? Perché Mosè? Perché un balbuziente e straniero, quello che  non apparteneva pienamente alla società egiziana né alla comunità israelita, era quello che ascoltava le parole di Dio?

È possibile che molte persone abbiano superato quel roveto ardente e lo abbiano semplicemente ignorato. Può darsi che Dio stesse aspettando qualcuno che si girasse, che Mosè non fosse stato scelto di per sé, ma che il suo comportamento fosse abbastanza insolito da essere scelto. Ha prestato attenzione.

Per quanto tempo si deve guardare un fuoco per notare che non sta consumando il materiale che sta bruciando? Se avete mai visto un falò, sapete che non è facile osservare una combustione e vedere la chiara diminuzione di ciò che sta bruciando. Ovviamente ci vuole un po’ di tempo.

Quindi Mosè fermò il suo viaggio per avvicinarsi e guardare. Guardò ciò che presumibilmente non era uno spettacolo insolito, e lo osservò a lungo. Mosè fu “scelto” perché era abbastanza curioso e abbastanza aperto da interrompere la sua solita attività e prestare attenzione a ciò che stava accadendo.

Non possiamo ignorare la devastazione della terra in fiamme in diverse parti del globo, causata in parte dalle nostre scelte di vita. Eppure stiamo passando senza guardare, e permettendo anche ai nostri responsabili politici di passare, ignorando ciò che sta accadendo, o peggio negandolo.

Le foreste e i campi in fiamme non saranno ignorati. Ogni anno che passa mentre il nostro mondo diventa più caldo e più inquinato, mentre il clima si fa altalenante e cambia, è un anno che stiamo sprecando se vogliamo agire in base agli avvertimenti. Agricoltura, fabbriche, automobili, centrali elettriche, tutto ciò sta contribuendo all’aumento della temperatura. I “gas serra” stanno aumentando a un ritmo allarmante, c’è più C02 nell’atmosfera ora che in qualsiasi momento della storia umana.

Mosè udì la voce che gli diceva cosa fare. In realtà sappiamo cosa dobbiamo fare: non abbiamo bisogno di una voce soprannaturale. Come ha commentato David Attenborough: “Questo è un problema urgente che deve essere risolto e, per di più, sappiamo come farlo; questa è la cosa paradossale, che ci stiamo rifiutando di prendere misure che sappiamo devono essere prese”.

A Mosè fu detto di togliersi le scarpe; la terra su cui si trovava era terra santa. Tutta la nostra terra è terra santa, tutta la nostra terra è sacra. È ormai il tempo di fermarsi, notare, riconoscere ciò che stiamo facendo sulla nostra terra e fare i passi per chiedere ai governi potenti e alle organizzazioni che si rifiutano di agire per il nostro mondo, di farlo e velocemente.

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

Vayigash: when our relationships with land and with each other are damaged, we have to look at our own role before we can heal the breach.

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“There was no bread in all the land;  the famine was very sore so Egypt and Canaan languished… Joseph gathered all the money found in Egypt and Canaan for the corn they bought; and brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. .all the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying: ‘Give us bread; why should we die because our money fails?’ And Joseph said: ‘Give your cattle, and I will give you [bread] for your cattle’. And they brought their cattle.. Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the asses; and  fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year.  When that year ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him: ‘We will not hide .. that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are yours, there is nothing left.. but our bodies, and our lands. Why should we die…both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be bondmen to Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.’  So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; every Egyptian sold his field, because the famine was sore; and the land became Pharaoh’s.  And as for the people, he removed them city by city, from one end of the border of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh… Joseph said to the people: ‘Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh.  Here is seed, sow the land. And at harvest, you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for your households..’ And they said: ‘you have saved our lives.. we will be Pharaoh’s bondmen.’  (Genesis 47:13-26)

The bible recounts the fruit of Jacob’s having stored away supplies in the seven years of good harvests, to use in the following seven years of famine foretold in Pharaoh’s dream.  Within a few years he is in control of every resource – money, land, animals, even the people belong to the State. And more than that, he has changed the very nature of relationship between people and land. He transfers the people from the land that they had owned and farmed, and moves them to distant cities.

The Hizkuni (Hezekiah ben Manoach  13thC France) teaches that Joseph does this because he was afraid that the sale of the fields would be forgotten in time, and ancestral claims resurface. So  in order to protect Pharaoh’s ownership Joseph moved the people away from the fields they had sold. Yet the Hebrew says rather more – Joseph transfers the people from the land to the cities, undermining the relationship set at the beginning of the book of Genesis, where people are created to serve and to guard the land, and instead of being the stewards of nature, the people become the servants of the ruling power.

Population transfer, where people lose their relationship to their ancestral lands, where whole communities are forced to uproot themselves and their families and throw themselves on the mercy of the political powers, has been used to keep populations quiet and unable to rebel since time immemorial, becoming seen formally as a human rights violation only in the 20th century. We modern readers find it painful in the extreme, albeit it is small comfort that the people themselves ask to sell themselves to Pharaoh (v19), and that Joseph never agrees to buy them as slaves – as opposed to buying their labour.  Nachmanides comments “They said that they wished to be purchased as slaves to the king to be treated as he saw fit. But Joseph wanted to buy ONLY the land and stipulated that they would be perpetual leaseholders or tenants of Pharaoh. When Joseph told them (v.23) ‘I have this day acquired you and your land for Pharaoh’, he means NOT that he has acquired them as slaves but rather that through their farmland they will serve him. In truth the king should take 80% of the income and leave you only with 20%, but, says Joseph, I will be kind. You will take the (80%) share due to the landowner and Pharaoh will take the (20%) due to the tenant farmer”

The rabbinic tradition is deeply uncomfortable with the actions of Joseph, and one can argue that the bible is also uncomfortable with how he behaves in concentrating all resources and power into the hands of Pharaoh, diminishing the resource and particularly the relationship of the farmers with their land.  One can read this – and the apologetics which are a major component of the classical commentaries – as a textbook reading of how NOT to treat people trying to sustain themselves in areas of drought and famine. Sending supplies/ giving them enough to live from day to day – is of course an an important first step, and Joseph does what is necessary to keep the people alive by giving them bread, and later seeds to plant –  but exploiting the vulnerability of these desperate people is unacceptable, even if they themselves offer to put themselves in the position of being bought and sold.  The Egyptians become workers on the land of the Pharaoh, essentially they are slaves to the Pharaoh. And the whole narrative of the early chapters of Genesis – that humans would feed themselves by working the land, hard but dignified labour where the land would produce under the benign stewardship of the owner/farmer – is subverted in Joseph’s actions. The relationship between land and worker is disrupted deliberately as the original landowners are dispersed from their ancestral places.

The story does not begin at the famine – we see that in the good years that precede it,  food is not saved by those who produced it, but in the storehouses controlled by Joseph, and used to increase the power of the Pharaoh.

This story shows us how slavery becomes normalised, even welcomed as a way to stay fed and alive.  Even if the people themselves suggest selling themselves once they have no more money or other assets, Joseph’s act of population transfer hardens and fixes the reality of the rupture in the relationship between each family and their land. The move away from one’s land and from country to cities loosens the bonds of community, changing relationships further. Everyone becomes a little more vulnerable and a little more alone. The political class concentrates power in its own hands, the population are less able to resist.

So, when the Book of Exodus opens some 450 or so years later, and the memory of Joseph and his part in cementing the ruling powers is forgotten, we find that slavery is an obvious option for the Egyptians to use against the non-Egyptian people living among them.  The powerful are able to manipulate the ordinary citizens, and the stage is set for further misery.

When Joseph interprets the dreams of the Pharaoh and suggests a solution to ensure that the land and people do not perish in the long famine, he never suggests that this should be the lever to remove the agency and power of the grassroots of the people and allow the Pharaoh to become the owner of land and cattle stocks. The agreement was to ensure that people would be fed, that “the land would not perish during the famine”. In going well beyond his brief, in accepting the absolute power given to him by Pharaoh, in naming his children for “forgetting his father’s house” and for “becoming fruitful in Egypt” , Joseph isolates himself from the values of his own tribe and instead allies himself with the values of a society that does not care for the other.

There will be no tribe of Joseph, just the two half tribes of his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. His own dislocation from land is complete – it is the next generations who will begin the healing of both the human and tribal connection to land and the freedom of every person to live in peace upon it. A journey of healing we are all still making.

 

Vayigash: quando i nostri rapporti con la terra e tra di noi sono danneggiati dobbiamo guardare al nostro ruolo prima di poter curare la violazione.

Pubblicato da rav Sylvia Rothschild, il 1 gennaio 2020

 

“La  carestia era gravissima, tutto il paese mancava di viveri e l’Egitto così come Canaan ne erano stanchi. Giuseppe raccolse tutto il denaro che si trovava in Egitto e in Canaan per i viveri che compravano e lo fece entrare nelle casse del Faraone. Finito il denaro in Egitto e in Canaan tutti gli egiziani si presentarono da Giuseppe dicendo: ‘Dacci da mangiare; dobbiamo morire qui davanti a te se non abbiamo più denaro?’ E Giuseppe disse: ‘Date il vostro bestiame e io vi darò viveri in cambio di esso’. Portarono il  bestiame a Giuseppe ed egli quell’anno diede loro viveri in cambio di cavalli, bestiame ovino e bovino e asini; e così li sostentò con vettovaglie in cambio di tutto il loro bestiame. Finito quell’anno gli si presentarono l’anno seguente e gli dissero: ‘Non ti nascondiamo … che se il denaro è finito e se il bestiame è presso di te, o signore, non rimangono a tua disposizione che i nostri corpi e le nostre terre. Perché dovremmo perire … e con noi le nostre terre? Acquista noi e la nostra terra in cambio di viveri, e passeremo al servizio del Faraone; e dacci della semente, sì che possiamo vivere, e non morire, e i terreni non rimangano improduttivi’. Così Giuseppe acquistò al Faraone tutti i terreni d’Egitto poiché ognuno vendette il proprio campo, oppressi com’erano dalla fame e la terra divenne proprietà del Faraone. Trasferì la popolazione da una città all’altra, da una all’altra estremità del territorio egiziano. Solo non acquistò la terra dei sacerdoti, poiché essi ricevevano dal Faraone un assegno determinato … Giuseppe disse al popolo: ‘Ecco, io ho acquistato oggi voi e le vostre terre al Faraone. Eccovi la semente, seminate la terra. E al momento del raccolto, ne darete un quinto al Faraone, e quattro parti saranno le vostre, per seminare il campo, per il mantenimento vostro , di chi avete in casa e dei vostri figli…’ E dissero: ‘hai salvato le nostre vite … saremo i servi del faraone’”.  (Genesi 47: 13-26)

La Bibbia racconta gli esiti dell’atto di Giacobbe di immagazzinare scorte nei sette anni di buoni raccolti, da usarsi poi nei successivi sette anni di carestia predetti nel sogno del Faraone. Nel giro di pochi anni egli ha il controllo di ogni risorsa: denaro, terra, animali, anche il popolo appartiene allo Stato. E, oltre a ciò, ha cambiato la natura stessa del rapporto tra persone e terra. Toglie le persone dalla terra che avevano posseduto e coltivato e le trasferisce in città lontane.

Hizkuni (Hezekiah ben Manoach, Francia del XIII sec.) insegna che Giuseppe lo fa perché teme che col tempo la vendita dei campi sarà dimenticata e le rivendicazioni ancestrali riemergerebbero. Quindi, al fine di proteggere la proprietà del Faraone, Giuseppe allontana le persone dai campi che avevano venduto. Eppure l’ebraico dice qualcosa di più: Giuseppe trasferisce la gente dalla terra alle città, minando la relazione stabilita all’inizio del libro di Genesi, in cui le persone sono create per servire e proteggere la terra, e invece di essere l’amministratore della natura, il popolo diventa il servitore del potere dominante.

Da tempo immemorabile il trasferimento della popolazione, con cui le persone perdono il rapporto con le proprie terre ancestrali e intere comunità sono costrette a sradicare se stesse e le loro famiglie e a gettarsi in balia dei poteri politici, è stato utilizzato per mantenere le popolazioni tranquille e incapaci di ribellarsi e, solo nel XX° secolo, viene considerato formalmente come una violazione dei diritti umani. Noi lettori moderni lo troviamo estremamente doloroso, sebbene sia un po’ di conforto che la gente stessa chieda di vendersi al Faraone (v19) e che Giuseppe non accetti mai di comprarli come schiavi ma, al contrario, di comprare il loro lavoro. Nachmanide commenta: “Dissero che desideravano essere acquistati come schiavi dal re per essere trattati come lui riteneva opportuno. Ma Giuseppe voleva comprare SOLO la terra e stabilì che sarebbero stati perpetui locatari o inquilini del Faraone. Quando Giuseppe disse loro (v.23) ‘Oggi ho acquisito voi e la vostra terra per il Faraone’, significa che NON li ha acquisiti come schiavi, ma piuttosto che attraverso i loro terreni agricoli essi lo serviranno. In verità il re dovrebbe prendere l’80% delle entrate e lasciar loro solo il 20%, ma, dice Giuseppe, sarò gentile. Prenderai la parte dovuta al proprietario terriero (l’80%) e il Faraone prenderà (il 20%) la parte dovuta al contadino locatario“.

La tradizione rabbinica è profondamente a disagio con le azioni di Giuseppe, e si può anche sostenere che la Bibbia sia a disagio proprio con il modo in cui si comporta, cioè concentrando tutte le risorse e il potere nelle mani del Faraone, diminuendo le risorse e in particolare il rapporto degli agricoltori con la loro terra. Si può leggere questo, e le scuse che sono una componente importante dei commenti classici, come una lettura da manuale di come NON trattare le persone che cercano di sostenersi in aree di siccità e carestia. Inviare rifornimenti/dare loro abbastanza per vivere di giorno in giorno è ovviamente un primo passo importante, e Giuseppe fa ciò che è necessario per mantenere in vita le persone dando loro il pane e poi i semi da piantare, ma sfruttare la vulnerabilità di queste persone disperate è inaccettabile, anche se loro stessi si offrono e si mettono nella condizione di essere acquistati e venduti. Gli egiziani diventano lavoratori nella terra del Faraone, essenzialmente sono schiavi del Faraone. E l’intera narrazione dei primi capitoli della Genesi, che gli umani si nutrano lavorando la terra, lavoro duro ma dignitoso in cui la terra produce sotto la benigna gestione del proprietario/agricoltore, è sovvertita dalle azioni di Giuseppe. Il rapporto tra terra e lavoratore viene interrotto deliberatamente quando i proprietari terrieri originali vengono dispersi dai loro luoghi ancestrali.

La storia non inizia dalla carestia: vediamo che nei buoni anni che la precedono il cibo non viene salvato da chi lo ha prodotto, ma nei magazzini controllati da Giuseppe, e utilizzato per aumentare il potere del Faraone.

Questa storia ci mostra come la schiavitù venga normalizzata, persino accolta come modo per rimanere nutriti e in vita. Anche se le persone stesse suggeriscono di vendersi quando non hanno più denaro o altri beni, l’atto di trasferimento della popolazione di Giuseppe indurisce e fissa la realtà della rottura nel rapporto tra ogni famiglia e la loro terra. L’allontanamento dalla propria terra e dal paese alle città allenta i legami della comunità, cambiando ulteriormente le relazioni. Tutti diventano un po’ più vulnerabili e un po’ più soli. La classe politica concentra il potere nelle proprie mani, la popolazione è meno in grado di resistere.

Quindi, quando il Libro dell’Esodo si apre circa 450 anni dopo e si perde il ricordo di Giuseppe e il suo ruolo nel cementare i poteri al comando, scopriamo che la schiavitù è un’opzione scontata che gli egiziani possono usare contro il popolo non egiziano che vive in mezzo a loro. I potenti sono in grado di manipolare i cittadini comuni e il palcoscenico è pronto per ulteriori sofferenze.

Quando Giuseppe interpreta i sogni del Faraone e suggerisce una soluzione per garantire che la terra e le persone non muoiano nella lunga carestia, non suggerisce mai che questa debba essere la leva per eliminare il potere della gente comune e consentire al Faraone di diventare proprietario delle terre e del bestiame. L’accordo era di assicurare che le persone fossero nutrite, che “la terra non sarebbe perita durante la carestia”. Andando ben oltre le direttive, accettando il potere assoluto conferitogli dal Faraone, dicendo ai propri figli di “aver dimenticato la casa del padre” e di “diventare fecondo in Egitto”, Giuseppe si isola dai valori della sua stessa tribù e si allea invece con i valori di una società a cui non importa del prossimo.

Non ci sarà una tribù di Giuseppe, solo le due mezze tribù dei suoi figli Efraim e Manasse. La sua alienazione dalla terra è completa: sono le generazioni successive che inizieranno la guarigione della connessione umana e tribale con la terra e la libertà di ogni persona di vivere in pace su di essa. Un viaggio di guarigione che stiamo ancora facendo.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

 

 

 

Mikketz: how knowledge and understanding still requires wisdom if we are to avert environmental disaster

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Pharaoh dreams of seven fat healthy cows feeding by the river, which are devoured by seven sickly cows; then of seven full and healthy ears of corn devoured by seven thin ears of corn, in each case the devourers looked no fuller or healthier for what they had consumed.  Joseph, the interpreter of dreams, is summoned from prison in order to explain the Pharaoh’s dreams.

They are, he announces, dreams of warning of what God is about to bring to Egypt; seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine. There are two dreams because of the speed in which events will begin.

Joseph then goes further than his brief. He is brought to interpret the dreams, but having done so he adds to the narrative- a chutzpah that could have had terrible consequence

“Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discerning and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven years of plenty. And let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be for a store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.”

But luckily Pharaoh is impressed. Having asked (rhetorically) if such a man can be found to fulfil this plan, he turns to Joseph and says:  As God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and according to your word shall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than you.’  And Pharaoh said to Joseph: ‘See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.’

The three qualities –da’at (knowledge), binah (discernment) and chochmah (wisdom) come together in this verse indicating that Joseph doesn’t just know what the dream is saying, but that he can imagine the devastation indicated and can formulate and carry out a plan to mitigate it.

The dreams tell the very worst scenario – not only will extended famine come after the good years, but it will consume every aspect of those good years, they will not be remembered or even be able to be imagined – so say the classical commentators noting that when the sickly cows/corn absorb the healthy ones, there is no increase in well-being, no noticeable change at all. The desolation will be so complete it will be as if there was never anything else.

But the intervention of Joseph, with his combined knowledge, discernment and wisdom, was enough to keep Egypt, and even the surrounding areas, fed in the years of famine. The all-consuming famine was survived by the people – albeit they lost control of their land to Pharaoh as the price they paid for their food.

The Maharal of Prague teaches that the solution to the problem of famine in the dream was itself provided in the dream. The fact that the sickly cows and corn absorbed their healthy counterparts was a key to resolving the oncoming disaster – because it taught that there must be work done in the first seven years that would enable the next seven to be survivable. For him preparation in the face of oncoming devastation would enable the people to survive. His teaching primarily addresses the lacunae in the text – why would Joseph overstep his position and offer a solution? How does Pharaoh know that his interpretation was correct, and recognise both the importance of his plan  and the scale of his abilities? But the teaching gives us hope. We can prepare, we can begin to imagine and to mitigate the oncoming changes in our world. We can ensure that people have the resources to survive and sustain ourselves come what may.

In today’s world we once again face droughts and famines, as the global climate changes and watercourses dry up or rain washes away fertile soil. This is something we know, and we are beginning to understand the longer term consequences of much of our activity of the last century. We have both da’at and binah – knowledge and understanding. But is seems to me we have not yet taken on board the need for wisdom.  Joseph had a plan that did not stop the famine, but did mean that no one went hungry – he was proactive rather than reactive. He could imagine the worst case and worked to avert it. It is a lesson – an a quality – we need to acquire quickly if we are not to be overwhelmed by our own environment.

 

Vayeshev:a reminder that we cannot occupy the same space as previous generations,we create the world anew.

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L’italiano segue l’inglese

Rabbi Yocḥanan says: Everywhere that it is stated: And he dwelt, [וישב] it is nothing other than an expression of pain, of an impending calamity, as it is stated: “And Israel dwelt in Shittim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moab” (Numbers 25:1). It is stated: “And Jacob dwelt in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 37:1), and it is stated thereafter: “And Joseph brought evil report of them to his father” (Genesis 37:2), which led to the sale of Joseph. And it is stated: “And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the land of Goshen” (Genesis 47:27), and it is stated thereafter: “And the time drew near that Israel was to die” (Genesis 47:29). It is stated: “And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (I Kings 5:5), and it is stated thereafter: “And the Eternal raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the king’s seed in Edom” (I Kings 11:14). (Sanhedrin 106a)

Rabbi Yochanan bar Nafcha, was a great aggadist and also a leading Talmudic scholar. His words should be taken seriously. Essentially his comment is that whenever someone settles down too comfortably on the land, it is the prelude to uncomfortable – or worse – happenings.  The verse that names this sidra reads “And Jacob dwelt [וישב]  in the land where his father had stayed, in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 37:1)

What is the tragedy that is being signalled?

Rashi comments at length on this verse and links it with the next verse which reads rather abruptly “These are the generations of Jacob, Joseph being seventeen years old……” Rashi observes: “Another comment on this verse is: וישב AND HE ABODE — Jacob wished to live at ease, but this trouble in connection with Joseph suddenly came upon him. When the righteous wish to live at ease, the Holy one, blessed be He), says to them: “Are not the righteous satisfied with what is stored up for them in the world to come that they wish to live at ease in this world too! (Genesis Rabbah 84:3)

We find ourselves in this text rather uncomfortably sandwiched between Jacob’s father who lived in Canaan, and his son, Joseph who is about to be sold into slavery in Egypt, and who will never return to the land as a living man, but whose bones will be brought back after the exodus.

The tragedy is Jacob’s. His older sons do not like the two sons of Rachel, who has died giving birth to Benjamin. The sibling hatred will play out and change the lives of many. But I think if we are to follow Rabbi Yochanan closely, we will see that the tragedy that unfolds is less to do with the sons of Jacob repeating and intensifying the sibling rivalry between him Jacob and his twin brother Esau, and more to do with Jacob’s repeating his own father Isaac’s actions.

Jacob settles not just in the Land of Canaan, he settles “b’eretz migurei aviv” – in the land where his father had been a visiting stranger. The phrase is apparently extraneous – once we know he is in Canaan we have the information we need, so this rather odd extra must be able to tell us something. And of course, it does.

Jacob is repeating the actions of his father Isaac – at least in part. Isaac had moved to the Philistine city of Gerar during famine and had deceived the king Abimelech saying his wife was his sister – as his father had done. He went to dig and reclaim the wells his father had dug, but was chased away each time and ended up in Beersheva having finally dug a well he could keep – which he called Rechovot (Genesis 26:23ff) and then in Beersheva he met God, accepted the Covenant in his own right, and pitched his tent and dug a well there. It took him a while, but he eventually stopped replaying his father’s life and created his own space and used his own agency.

Jacob however encamped where his father had camped. It seems he was looking for a quiet life without actually doing the work to enable it. And in his doing so, his unquestioning repeating of his father’s actions without making the necessary changes to either make the space his own, or to bring up to date his relationship with the land, he precipitates the tragedy.

What do we learn from this? It is that we cannot live the same life as our parents; we cannot simply step into their shoes and claim their experience. The world moves on and we must move on with it. We may inherit artefacts from them – even houses or land – but we cannot just use them or live in them without change. For that way brings stagnation and ultimately our lives would narrow and dry up. As LP Hartley wisely wrote “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”

The joy of the Jewish tradition is not that we do things exactly as our forebears did – we innovate, we decorate, we edit, we create a new thing from the old. (see Isaiah 43) If we really did things in exactly the same way, we would not be living Judaism, we would be living in a museum.

The same is true of Jacob here in sidra vayeshev. He is encamped on the land as if he is his father. But land changes, its needs are dynamic; one cannot treat it the same way year in and year out.

Rashi quotes Genesis Rabbah on this verse and it is an uncomfortable – or rather it is a challenging read. “Are not the righteous satisfied with what is stored up for them in the world to come that they wish to live at ease in this world too! (Genesis Rabbah 84:3)

We are not to expect to live an easy life in this world – not that we need expect difficulty, but we must expect to work at it, to be challenged by our surroundings, however familiar they are to us. We cannot sit back and just do what our forebears did, we live in a different world, and our children will live in a different one again. It is up to us to live in our world, to face modernity in our time, to deal with the realities of now. If we just try to conserve or preserve the past our existence will be futile and pointless. We have to use the past as our guide, but not allow it to bind us too tightly, because our reality is not the reality of our forebears.

This is true also in how we live in and treat our world. For many years the sea became a dumping ground, taking pollution away from our awareness – only now are we truly seeing the effects of those years. For many years oil and petroleum based products were freely created and wasted. It seemed to earlier generations that the resources of the earth were infinite – we now know they are finite. For many years we were happy to pump emissions into the air and assumed they dispersed and became safe – we now know differently…..

We live not in the more innocent world of the past, but in a world where we can measure the pollution and the climate change, where we see the floods and the droughts, the famines and the devastations, and where we can see our part in their creation.

We live in our time, but we keep an eye for the next generations, just as the second verse of this chapter reminds us Jacob did. What will we do to enable the next generations to have a cleaner, safer world? Or will we also encamp on the land that does not truly belong to us, and use it without real responsibility, until tragedy becomes inevitable?

 

Vayeshev: ricordiamoci che non possiamo occupare lo stesso spazio delle generazioni precedenti, ma possiamo creare di nuovo il mondo.

Pubblicato da rav Sylvia Rothschild, il 17 dicembre 2019

 

 

            Il rabbino Yochanan dice: Ovunque sia affermato: E dimorava, [וישב] non è altro che un’espressione di dolore, di una calamità incombente, come si afferma: “E Israele dimorò a Shittim, e il popolo cominciò a  fornicare con le figlie di Moav ”(Numeri 25: 1). Si dice: “E Giacobbe si stabilì nella terra in cui suo padre aveva soggiornato, nella terra di Canaan” (Genesi 37: 1), e in seguito si affermò: “E Giuseppe portò loro del male a suo padre” (Genesi 37 : 2), che ha portato alla vendita di Giuseppe. E si afferma: “E Israele dimorò nella terra d’Egitto nel paese di Goshen” (Genesi 47:27), e in seguito si afferma: “E fu vicino per Israele il giorno della morte” (Genesi 47:29 ). Si dice: “E Giuda e Israele dimorarono sani e salvi, ogni uomo sotto la sua vite e sotto il suo fico” (I Re 5: 5), e in seguito si afferma: “E l’Eterno fece levare un avversario contro Salomone, Hadad l’idumeo; che era della stirpe reale di Edom” (I Re 11:14). (Sanhedrin 106a)

 

Il rabbino Yochanan bar Nafcha era un grande aggadista, nonché un importante studioso talmudico. Le sue parole dovrebbero essere prese sul serio. In sostanza, egli nota nel suo commento come ogni volta che qualcuno si stabilisce troppo comodamente sulla terra, è il preludio a eventi scomodi, o peggio. Il verso che da il nome a questa sidrà recita: “E Giacobbe dimorò [וישב] nella terra in cui era stato suo padre, nella terra di Canaan”. (Genesi 37: 1)

 

Qual è la tragedia che viene segnalata?

 

Rashi commenta a lungo su questo versetto e lo collega al versetto successivo, che recita in modo piuttosto brusco: “Queste sono le generazioni di Giacobbe, Giuseppe che ha diciassette anni …”, egli osserva: “Un altro commento su questo versetto è: וישב E DIMORÒ: Giacobbe desiderava vivere a proprio agio, ma improvvisamente  ebbe questo problema collegato a Giuseppe. Quando il giusto desidera vivere a proprio agio, il Santo, (benedetto sia Lui), gli dice: ‘I giusti non sono soddisfatti di ciò che è conservato per loro nel mondo a venire, che desiderano vivere a proprio agio pure in questo mondo!’” (Genesi Rabbà 84: 3)

 

Ci troviamo, in questo testo piuttosto scomodo, tra il padre di Giacobbe che viveva a Canaan e suo figlio Giuseppe, che sta per essere venduto come schiavo in Egitto e che non tornerà mai più da vivo nella terra, ma le cui spoglie saranno riportate dopo l’esodo.

 

La tragedia è di Giacobbe. Ai suoi figli più grandi non piacciono i due figli di Rachele, che è morta dando alla luce Beniamino. L’odio tra fratelli si svilupperà e cambierà la vita di molti. Ma penso che, seguendo da vicino il rabbino Yochanan, vedremo che la tragedia in divenire riguarda meno i figli di Giacobbe, che ripetono e intensificano la rivalità fraterna tra lui e il fratello gemello Esaù, e ha più a che fare con lui stesso e la sua ripetizione delle azioni del padre Isacco.

 

Non solo Giacobbe si stabilisce nella Terra di Canaan, ma si stabilisce “b’eretz migurei aviv“, nella terra in cui suo padre era stato straniero in visita. Apparentemente la frase non è rilevante, una volta che sappiamo che egli è a Canaan abbiamo le informazioni di cui abbiamo bisogno, questa aggiunta piuttosto strana deve quindi servire a dirci qualcosa. E ovviamente così è.

 

Giacobbe sta ripetendo le azioni di suo padre Isacco, almeno in parte. Isacco si era trasferito nella città filistea di Gerar durante la carestia e aveva ingannato il re Abimelech presentando sua moglie come propria sorella, così come aveva già fatto suo padre. Era andato a scavare e recuperare i pozzi che già suo padre aveva scavato, ma ogni volta ne fu cacciato e, dopo aver scavato finalmente un pozzo che poteva tenere, che chiamò Rechovot, finì poi a Beersheva (Genesi 26: 23ff). A Beersheva successivamente incontrò Dio, accettò l’Alleanza a pieno titolo,  piantò la sua tenda e scavò un altro pozzo. Gli ci volle un po’, ma alla fine smise di ripetere la vita di suo padre, creando il proprio spazio e il proprio agire.

 

Giacobbe, tuttavia, si accampò dove si era accampato suo padre. Sembra che stesse cercando una vita tranquilla senza realmente operare per potersela consentire. E nel fare ciò, nel ripetere automaticamente le azioni di suo padre senza apportarvi le modifiche necessarie per personalizzare lo spazio o per aggiornare il proprio rapporto con la terra, fa accelerare la tragedia.

 

Cosa impariamo da questo? Che non possiamo vivere la stessa vita dei nostri genitori; non possiamo semplicemente metterci nei loro panni e rivendicare la loro esperienza. Il mondo va avanti e dobbiamo procedere con esso. Potremmo ereditare da loro dei manufatti, persino delle case o dei terreni, ma non possiamo usarli o viverci senza apportarvi dei cambiamenti. Perché altrimenti ci sarebbe stagnazione e, alla fine, la nostra vita si restringerebbe e si prosciugherebbe. Come scrisse saggiamente L.P. Hartley: “Il passato è una terra straniera, lì fanno le cose diversamente”.

 

La gioia della tradizione ebraica non è fare le cose esattamente come le facevano i nostri antenati: innoviamo, abbelliamo, modifichiamo, creiamo una cosa nuova dalla vecchia (vedi Isaia 43). Se facessimo davvero le cose esattamente allo stesso modo, non vivremmo l’ebraismo, vivremmo in un museo.

 

Lo stesso vale per Giacobbe, qui nella Sidrà Vayeshev. È accampato sulla terra come se fosse suo padre. Ma la terra nel suo cambiare presenta bisogni dinamici: non la si può trattare allo stesso modo anno dopo anno.

 

Rashi cita Genesi Rabbà su questo versetto, ed è scomodo, o meglio, presenta una lettura stimolante: “I giusti non sono soddisfatti di ciò che è in serbo per loro nel mondo a venire, che desiderano vivere a proprio agio anche in questo mondo!” (Genesi Rabbà 84: 3)

 

Non dobbiamo aspettarci di vivere una vita facile in questo mondo, non che dobbiamo aspettarci difficoltà, ma dobbiamo aspettarci di lavorare, di essere sfidati da ciò che ci circonda, per quanto familiare sia. Non possiamo sederci e fare semplicemente ciò che i nostri antenati hanno già fatto, viviamo in un mondo diverso e i nostri figli a loro volta vivranno in un mondo diverso ancora. Sta a noi vivere nel nostro mondo, affrontare la modernità dei nostri tempi, affrontare le realtà di oggi. Se proviamo semplicemente a conservare o preservare il passato, la nostra esistenza sarà vana e inutile. Dobbiamo usare il passato come nostra guida, ma non permettere che esso ci leghi troppo strettamente, perché la nostra realtà non è la realtà dei nostri antenati.

 

Questo vale anche per il modo in cui viviamo e per come trattiamo il nostro mondo. Tenendo lontano per molti anni l’inquinamento dalla nostra consapevolezza il mare è diventato una discarica e solo ora stiamo ne stiamo davvero vedendo gli effetti. Per molti anni i prodotti a base di petrolio sono stati creati e sprecati liberamente. Alle generazioni precedenti sembrava che le risorse della terra fossero infinite: ora sappiamo che sono limitate. Per molti anni siamo stati felici di liberare emissioni nell’aria e abbiamo pensato che si disperdessero e diventassero innocue, ora sappiamo che è diverso …

 

Non viviamo più nel mondo innocente del passato, bensì in un mondo in cui possiamo misurare l’inquinamento e i cambiamenti climatici, dove vediamo inondazioni e siccità, carestie e devastazioni, e dove possiamo riconoscere la nostra responsabilità nell’averli prodotti.

 

Viviamo nel nostro tempo, ma teniamo gli occhi aperti per le generazioni future, proprio come fece Giacobbe, come il secondo verso di questo capitolo ci ricorda. Faremo qualcosa per consentire alle prossime generazioni di avere un mondo più pulito e sicuro? O ci accamperemo sulla terra che non ci appartiene veramente e la useremo senza una reale responsabilità, fino a quando la tragedia diventerà inevitabile?

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

 

 

Vayishlach – the death of Deborah whose wisdom is mourned

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L’italiano segue l’inglese

וַתָּ֤מָת דְּבֹרָה֙ מֵינֶ֣קֶת רִבְקָ֔ה וַתִּקָּבֵ֛ר מִתַּ֥חַת לְבֵית־אֵ֖ל תַּ֣חַת הָֽאַלּ֑וֹן וַיִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ אַלּ֥וֹן בָּכֽוּת:

And Deborah the nurse of Rebecca died, and she was buried below Beit El, under the oak tree. And its name was called “Oak Tree of Weeping” – Allon Bacut  (Genesis 35:8)

This is the first – and last – we will hear of this particular Deborah, although of course the story – and song – of a more famous Deborah will appear in the Book of Judges.

But this Deborah is more of a puzzle. Rashi tries to solve the mystery by saying “How came Deborah to be in Jacob’s house? But the explanation is: because Rebekah had promised Jacob (Gen. 27:45) “then I will send and fetch thee from thence”, she sent Deborah to him to Padan Aram to tell him to leave that place, and she died on the return journey. I learned this from a comment of R. Moses HaDarshan (the exegete and Rosh Yeshiva of Narbonne)

What does the bible tell us? That a woman named Deborah had been the nursemaid of our matriarch Rebecca. That she died on the journey back to the land, shortly before Rachel died giving birth on the road from Beit El, and that her grave was marked not by a pillar of stone as Rachel’s was, but by a well-known oak tree, whose name refers to mourning.

Eleven verses separate the deaths of the two women. One cannot but wonder if there was a connection – whether the loss of Deborah, “meineket Rivka”– meant a loss of the wisdom she held around childbirth and nurturing.  One cannot help comparing the two graves – one under a “tree of weeping”, the other by the roadside with a stone pillar “that is there till this day” (v20) .

When we read the text, we generally focus on the terrible experience of Rachel, who in her agony calls the child whose birth is killing her “son of my pain/sorrow” before she dies – and the fact that his father breaks the convention and renames the child “Benjamin”. We see this complex and traumatic death and birth, and our minds leap ahead to the problems of the sons of Rachel. Poor Deborah, the nursemaid of Rebecca, is left to her grave under the mysteriously named tree.

The Book of Jubilees also tells the story of the death of Deborah, nursemaid to Rebecca, and it adds a few details

“And in the night, on the twenty-third of this month, Deborah Rebecca’s nurse died, and they buried her beneath the city under the oak of the river, and he called the name of this place, “The river of Deborah,” and the oak, “The oak of the mourning of Deborah.”” (Jubilees 32:25ff)

So Deborah dies on what is now Simchat Torah, and there is not only an oak tree but also a river to mark her resting place. Simchat Torah is the date when we both end and begin the yearly Torah reading. There is a moment of death and of rebirth; a cliff-edge experience  as we see the land in front of Moses’ eyes and hear of his death but do not enter the land of Israel, immediately followed by a retelling of the creation of the world.  What can we make of a death that takes place on this date, marked by the flowing river water and the weeping tree?

The title of Deborah, “meineket Rivka” means that she literally fed Rebecca as her nursemaid. Given that Rebecca’s own children had children by now, one must ask what that role would have been, what Deborah would be “feeding” Rebecca for her to still be known by this title? It is generally understood that she was the transmitter of an important wisdom to enable Rebecca to function fully as the matriarch she was. This understanding is embodied in “Meineket Rivka” which is the title of the first known Yiddish book written by a woman – Rivka bat Meir Tiktiner of Prague – a book of ethical wisdom and piety which included stories from Talmud and midrash, and in which the writer differentiates between the wisdom of the body (guf) and the wisdom of the soul (nefesh)

The wisdom of Deborah was surely also both practical and spiritual, dealing with both material matters (body) and “beyond material” matters. The name Rebecca means “to join” or “to connect” or even to “tie firmly”.  The wisdom Deborah passes on to Rebecca must then be to help her to join heaven to earth, to use both the aspects of body and of soul to create a more fulfilled world.  The markers by her grave reflect her wisdom – the tree, planted in the ground, slow growing oak, represents the “guf” – the body or earthly realm. The river, fast moving and ever changing represents the “nefesh” and the flow of life.

The wisdom that Deborah brings – even if it is never explicit in biblical text – is alluded to at her death.  To get a fuller understanding of this almost disappeared woman, we must turn to the natural world and its symbolism.  The oak tree weeps. Someone who understood the relationship between the natural environment and the purpose of the human being in the world, has gone. The wisdom she held is partly transmitted and partly has to be learned again by another generation.

We have many texts in bible and in rabbinic literature which allude to the relationship between humanity and the earth, and how that relationship informs our relationship with God and our ability to fulfil our purpose. We learn from previous generations and we absorb from them much wisdom. But inevitably some is lost, some is deemed irrelevant, some is inconvenient and quietly forgotten. And then we have to relearn what once was understood.

The weeping tree standing guard over Deborah’s grave beneath Beit El is a living reminder of our role and responsibility in the world. The demonstrable loss of wisdom after her death, as well as the flow of life relentlessly moving onward, remind us that there is no once and for all event, but that we are part of a dynamic process, learning and relearning how to live in the world while expressing the ethics and values of what we now call the Jewish tradition. One might say that we are still called by natural objects  and events  to bring us back to our purpose in the world–  the rain forests being destroyed, polluted waters around the world, climatic events never before seen etc call to us to learn and relearn the wisdom of our tradition, so as to bring forth a world we can live in well, and pass on respectfully to the next generations.

image of the grave of Rivka bat Meir Tiktiner, author of meineket Rivka in Prague

Vayishlach – la morte di Debora, la cui saggezza è rimpianta

 :בָּכֽוּת אַלּ֥וֹן  שְׁמ֖וֹ  וַיִּקְרָ֥א  הָֽאַלּ֑וֹן  תַּ֣חַת  לְבֵית־אֵ֖ל מִתַּ֥חַת  וַתִּקָּבֵ֛ר רִבְקָ֔ה מֵינֶ֣קֶת דְּבֹרָה֙ וַתָּ֤מָת

E Debora, la nutrice di Rebecca, morì e fu sepolta sotto Beit El, ai piedi della quercia. E il suo nome divenne “Quercia del pianto” – “Allon Bacut” (Genesi 35: 8)

Questa è la prima, e ultima, volta che sentiremo parlare di questa particolare Debora, anche se, ovviamente, la storia, e la canzone, di una Debora più famosa appariranno nel Libro dei Giudici.

Ma questa Debora è più di un enigma. Rashi cerca di risolvere il mistero dicendo: “Come è arrivata Debora nella casa di Giacobbe? E la spiegazione è: poiché Rebecca aveva promesso a Giacobbe (Gen. 27:45) ‘allora ti manderò a prendere da lì’, mandò Debora da lui a Padan Aram per dirgli di lasciare quel posto, e lei morì nel viaggio di ritorno”. L’ho appreso da un commento di R. Moses HaDarshan (esegeta e Rosh Yeshivà di Narbonne)

Cosa ci dice la Bibbia? Che una donna di nome Debora è stata la balia della nostra matriarca Rebecca. Che morì sulla strada di Beit El durante il viaggio di ritorno verso la terra poco prima che Rachele stessa morisse di parto, e che la sua tomba non fu contrassegnata da una colonna di pietra come quella di Rachele, ma da una ben conosciuta quercia,  il cui nome si riferisce al lutto.

Undici versi separano la morte delle due donne. Non si può non chiedersi se ci sia una connessione, se la perdita di Debora, “meineket Rivka“, non significhi una perdita della saggezza custodita sui temi del parto e della cura. E non si può fare a meno di confrontare le due tombe: una sotto un “albero del pianto”, l’altra sul ciglio della strada con un pilastro di pietra “che è lì fino ai nostri giorni” (verso 20).

Quando leggiamo il testo, ci concentriamo generalmente sulla terribile esperienza di Rachele, che nella sua agonia chiama il bambino la cui nascita la sta uccidendo “figlio del mio dolore/dolore” prima di morire, e il fatto che suo padre rompa la convenzione e rinomini il bambino “Beniamino”. Vediamo questa morte complessa e traumatica e la nascita, e le nostre menti vanno in avanti verso i problemi dei figli di Rachele. La povera Debora, la balia di Rebecca, viene lasciata nella sua tomba sotto l’albero misteriosamente chiamato.

Anche il Libro dei Giubilei racconta la storia della morte di Debora, nutrice di Rebecca, e aggiunge alcuni dettagli:

“E nella notte, il ventitreesimo mese di questo mese, Debora la nutrice di Rebecca morì e la seppellirono dietro la città sotto la quercia del fiume, e chiamarono questo luogo ‘Il fiume di Debora’, e la quercia ‘La quercia del compianto di Debora’”. (Giubilei 32: 25 ss)

Quindi Debora muore nel giorno dell’odierna Simchat Torà, e non solo c’è una quercia, ma anche un fiume a segnare il luogo del suo riposo. Simchat Torà è la data in cui sia finiamo che iniziamo la lettura annuale della Torà. C’è un momento di morte e rinascita, un’esperienza di netta cesura in cui vediamo la terra davanti agli occhi di Mosè e sentiamo parlare della sua morte senza poter entrare nella terra di Israele, immediatamente seguiti dalla ripetizione della creazione del mondo. Cosa possiamo farne di una morte che avviene in questa data, segnata dall’acqua fluente del fiume e dall’albero piangente?

Il titolo di Debora, “meineket Rivka“, significa letteralmente che ha dato da mangiare a Rebecca in quanto sua nutrice. Dato che ormai gli stessi figli di Rebecca avevano figli, c’è da chiedersi cosa abbia comportato quel ruolo, cosa avrà “dato da mangiare” Debora a Rebecca per essere conosciuta con questo titolo? Resta generalmente inteso che fu la trasmettitrice di un’importante saggezza, che consentì a Rebecca di fungere pienamente  da matriarca. Questo significato è rappresentato in “Meineket Rivka”, che è il titolo del primo libro yiddish noto che sia stato scritto da una donna, Rivka bat Meir Tiktiner di Praga: un libro di saggezza etica e pietà che includeva storie di Talmud e midrash, e in cui il la scrittrice distingue tra la saggezza del corpo (guf) e la saggezza dell’anima (nefesh)

La saggezza di Debora era sicuramente sia pratica che spirituale, trattando sia le questioni materiali (il corpo) sia quelle “al di là dei materiali”. Il nome Rebecca significa “unire” o “connettere” o anche “legare saldamente”. La saggezza che Debora trasmette a Rebecca deve quindi essere quella di aiutarla a unire il cielo alla terra, a usare sia gli aspetti del corpo che dell’anima per creare un mondo più compiuto. Gli indicatori della sua tomba rispecchiano la sua saggezza: l’albero, piantato nel terreno, una quercia a crescita lenta, rappresenta il “guf” (il corpo o il regno terrestre), il fiume, in rapido movimento e continua evoluzione, rappresenta il “nefesh” e il flusso della vita.

La saggezza di cui Debora è portatrice, anche se mai esplicitata nel testo biblico, è menzionata alla sua morte. Per comprendere appieno questa donna quasi scomparsa, dobbiamo rivolgerci al mondo naturale e al suo simbolismo. La quercia piange. Qualcuno che ha capito la relazione tra l’ambiente naturale e gli obiettivi dell’essere umano nel mondo è scomparso. La saggezza che possedeva in parte è trasmessa, in parte deve essere riappresa da un’altra generazione.

Abbiamo molti brani nella Bibbia e nella letteratura rabbinica che alludono al rapporto tra l’umanità e la terra, e come quella relazione informi la nostra relazione con Dio e la nostra capacità di realizzare i nostri scopi. Impariamo dalle generazioni precedenti e assorbiamo da loro molta saggezza. Ma qualcosa inevitabilmente si perde, qualcosa viene considerato irrilevante, qualcos’altro è scomodo e silenziosamente dimenticato. Così poi dobbiamo riapprendere ciò che una volta fu compreso.

L’albero piangente che fa la guardia alla tomba di Debora dietro Beit El è un promemoria vivente del nostro ruolo e responsabilità nel mondo. La dimostrabile perdita di saggezza seguita alla sua morte, così come il flusso della vita che si muove incessantemente in avanti, ci ricordano che non esistono eventi definitivi, ma che siamo parte di un processo dinamico, imparando e riapprendendo come vivere nel mondo mentre esprimiamo l’etica e i valori di ciò che ora chiamiamo tradizione ebraica. Si potrebbe dire che siamo ancora chiamati da oggetti ed eventi naturali che ci riportano al nostro scopo nel mondo: le foreste pluviali vengono distrutte, le acque inquinate in tutto il mondo, eventi climatici mai visti prima ecc. Ci chiamano per imparare e reimparare la saggezza della nostra tradizione, in modo da far nascere un mondo in cui possiamo vivere bene, da trasmettere rispettosamente alle prossime generazioni.

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

vayetzei – the mandrakes in the narrative have something to tell us

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And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah: ‘Give me, I pray, from your son’s mandrakes.’   And she said unto her: ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? and would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’ And Rachel said: ‘Therefore he shall lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.’  And Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said: ‘You must come in to me; for I have surely hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’ And he lay with her that night. And God heard Leah, and she conceived, and bore Jacob a fifth son. (Genesis 30:14-17)

The vignette is usually passed off as part of the rivalry and dysfunction between the two sister wives of Jacob, the older one less beautiful and unloved, the younger one loved but barren. Leah has possession of some mandrakes which, in the ancient world appeared to have a number of useful properties- they were prophylactic against disease, the fragrance of them was thought to be an aphrodisiac (see Song of Songs 7:13 where the word play between “duda’im” (mandrakes) and “dodim” (lovemaking) makes this point eloquently (and is presumably why Leah has them).  They were thought to be an aid to fertility –which is presumably why Rachel wants them.

But it raises many questions, as well as giving us an insight into the relationship between human beings and the natural world.

Reuben brings the mandrakes to his mother, having found them in the field during the harvest. But why does he do this? It is unlikely that he is intervening in the marital problems of his parents. But the value of the plant is clear – Rachel is prepared to give Jacob up for the night to sleep with her sister and rival, in order to take possession of the mandrakes. The transaction is immortalised in the name of the child conceived that night – Issachar – “man of hire”

Humanity has used plants for our own benefit from the very beginning of biblical time.  The human being is placed in a garden where almost every piece of vegetation is for their delight or use. Only two trees have fruit which must not be tasted, and interestingly the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which midrash thinks of as a pomegranate and which since the vulgate translation is often thought of as an apple – is, according to one Christian myth (physiologos) a mandrake – for its associations of sexual desire.

The mandrake has a special place in myth, helped no doubt today by its appearance in the Harry Potter books where its somewhat magical –even occult – nature is explored. A member of the nightshade family, its fruit, leaves and large root have medicinal and narcotic properties. Because the root often divides and bears a likeness to torso, legs and arms, the plant is anthropomorphised, with a belief that it screams when taken from the ground and whoever hears the scream will soon die. (And so a technique was developed where it was tied to a dog who was then tempted with meat at a distance. The dog would run, the plant would be uprooted, and the human gatherer would remove their ear plugs and come to collect it from the safe distance they had been standing). It is associated with evil spirits and demons, believed to be created by the semen of hanged men.

The history of the mandrake is a paradigm from which we can learn much. It is a plant that can be both toxic and healing, is treated as being both prophylactic and promoter of fertility, has been anthropomorphosed with tales of its quasi human, quasi demonic being.  While it has now pretty much disappeared from medicinal use, its legend lives on. And it is this that reminds us that we didn’t always treat vegetation as mindless and passive, to be used by us without any thought except how we could continue to use it.  But bible is clear repeatedly that the vegetation of our world is to be respected and honoured. The garden of Eden was to be guarded and cared for, not ravished and run into the ground. Deuteronomy asks if fruit trees are human that we might cut them down in wartime for siege weapons, and reminds us that the tree must be protected as it cannot escape the hostilities. The book of Judges has Jotham’s parable of the trees who want to choose a king over them – and the reasons why the trees sensibly choose not to become that figure but instead allow the lowly – and treacherous bramble to take the role. The candlestick in the tent of meeting is described using botanical language, the book of Kings tells of Naboth’s vineyard which he vainly tries to protect as the inheritance of his ancestors that cannot be sold or uprooted, the rules of the sabbatical year to let the land rest…. The thread of the importance of living and sustainable vegetation that must be respected and indeed honoured, winds through Jewish texts and Jewish customs. How we care for our environment, how we think of the vegetation as well as the animals – is a powerful imperative and lesson for today.

We no longer believe mandrakes are the chosen home of demons so must be treated with care, but we do know that treating the plants  – from the lowliest grasses to the loftiest trees – is an obligation for us to take seriously. Why did Reuben collect the mandrakes during the wheat harvest, and give them to his mother – we shall never know, but it is a powerful reminder that plants play a part in our narrative too, even if we barely notice them at first glance.

 

Drawing of mandrakes based on Codex ex Vindobonensis Graecus 1. Dioscurides Neapolitanus XC. Bibliotecca Nazionale de Napoli. Sixth/seventh century.

 

 

Toledot – sometimes we can dig wells, sometimes we have to find other ways

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And [Isaac] had possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and a great household; and the Philistines envied him.  Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac: ‘Go from us; for you are much mightier than we.’  And Isaac departed thence, and encamped in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.  And Isaac dug again the wells of water, which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham; and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.  And Isaac’s servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of living water. And the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying: ‘The water is ours.’ And he called the name of the well Esek; because they contended with him.  And they dug another well, and they strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitnah. And he removed from thence, and dug another well; and for that they strove not. And he called the name of it Rechovot; and he said: ‘For now the Eternal has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.’  And he went up from thence to Beersheva. (Gen26:14ff)

The story is one of Isaac finding his role both in the Land of Israel and as Patriarch of the family tribe– after a problematic childhood with two parents who each had powerful and somewhat overwhelming personalities. Isaac is clearly a different character, often described as the son of a strong father and the father of strong sons, he seems gentler, less “alpha”, less willing to take what he wants, although admiring of those who can.  But the story is also of the problem of how – and even if – to share resources, in particular the water which has always been a fragile and essential resource for life.

Water stress is a constant problem in Israel, the land which is watered only by the rainfall and should the rains not come, or not come at the right time, there will be drought and famine, and death.

We read in Deuteronomy 10ff “But the land…is a land of hills and valleys and drinks water as the rain of heaven…the eyes of God are always upon it….and if you obey my commandments…I will give the rain of your land in its season, both early and late rains, so you may gather your corn, wine and oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied… Take care less you …turn aside and serve other gods, for the anger of God will be against you and God will shut up the heavens and there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield her fruit and you will perish quickly from off the good land which God gives you”

The Land of Israel has always known water stress; The people Israel have built a theology around it, a routine of mitzvot in order to avert punishment by water, a choreography of teshuvah and fasting when the rains are delayed. It is in the DNA of rabbinic Judaism following the biblical exhortations – lack of rain follows the disruption of our relationship with God

But water stress is also a problem – and a growing one – in the rest of the world, and we know that there the causes and solutions are quite different.

New data reveals that 17 countries – home to one-quarter of the world’s population—face “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress, where irrigated agriculture, industries and municipalities withdraw more than 80% of their available supply on average every year.

Twelve out of these 17 most water-stressed countries are in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region is hot and dry, so water supply is low to begin with, but growing demands have pushed countries further into extreme stress. Climate change is set to complicate matters further: The World Bank found that this region has the greatest expected economic losses from climate-related water scarcity, estimated at 6-14% of GDP by 2050.

44 countries – one third of the world’s population, already face high levels of water stress. On average in these countries, more than 40 percent of the available supply is withdrawn every year. The World Bank also estimates that by 2025 about 1.8 billion people will live in regions or countries without enough water. Many other factors contribute to water scarcity – such as weak political will, climate variability and groundwater pollution – but climate change makes all of these challenges worse. When threats combine to lead to rapid water stress, the poorest suffer the worst consequences. (https://www.wri.org/news/2019/08/release-updated-global-water-risk-atlas-reveals-top-water-stressed-countries-and-states)

In the past decade floods, storms and fires, heatwaves and droughts have been increasing in frequency and in intensity. It is clear that this is a consequence of climate change.  The top 20 warmest years on record have occurred in the last 25 years, with 2017 the hottest without the contribution of El Nino.  The effect of this warming climate is an increasing impact on the water resources available to populations, and the effect of that drought will of course be famine, mass movement of desperate populations, potentially even war.

Isaac tried to reclaim the resources his father had used and presumably owned, but was no match for the resident population and each time moved on. It is a story of tribal struggle, of becoming a resource migrant, of learning that one cannot behave as we have been doing earlier, we must find new solutions to the problem of managing our resources alongside all who need to share them.

Abraham was insistent Isaac should never leave the land, but we know his descendants were forced by famine to go into Egypt where ultimately their fate was that of oppression and slavery. Returning to their own land after so many years away was a journey fraught with danger, but also requiring them to acknowledge that they would not take any of the resources of the land through which they were passing. (see Moses’ appeal to the King of Edom Numbers 20:17): “Let us pass I beg through your land, we will not pass through field or vineyard, nor will we drink of the water of the wells, we will go along the King’s Highway and will not turn right or left till we have passed your border” But Edom said to him “you will not pass through me, I will come out with a sword against you. And the children of Israel said: ‘We will go up by the highway; and if we drink of your water, I and my cattle, then will I give its price;  only let me only pass through on my feet; there is no hurt.’ And he said: ‘Thou shalt not pass through.’ And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand.”

This is the reality to this day. “Economic migrants” has become a term of abuse – how much more so when thousands of people fleeing water shortages, drought and famine will beg to come through or to our land? And what will our fate be when the floods wash away soil and crops, damage or destroy our houses?  We are already seeing the effects of what rabbinic Judaism terms “judgement by water”.

We could go the route of ancient Israel and make teshuvah. Not by fasting and praying necessarily but by changing our behaviour, becoming more mindful of the wastage of water in our own lives. Whether it be use of water in our homes – leaving taps running, long showers etc., or awareness of the way the products we buy are using water )it was a shock for me to discover that the making of one small chocolate bar is takes 21 litres), whether it be smarter plumbing (or simply a brick in the toilet cistern) , we all need to learn how to conserve our water supplies.  It may seem an odd thing to read in rainy and flooded England currently (other countries too), but the floods here are the other side of the coin of drought there, and they wash away infrastructure, soil and crops leaving agriculture and transport vulnerable.

Isaac moved to Rechovot – the broad place where there was space for him and his family to live and to thrive. We don’t have that option. Climate change and water stress is a global phenomenon, a global emergency. We are all responsible for each other, we are all responsible for the earth and her resources. It is time for the tikkun, to help heal the world and to treat her with the respect she deserves.  As the psalmist writes:

The earth is the Eternal’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.  For God has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.  (Psalm 24)

If you want to read more about water stress and ways to help:

 

https://blog.ucsusa.org/pablo-ortiz/the-world-is-in-a-water-crisis-and-climate-change-is-making-it-worse

https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/state-of-the-climate/

https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/08/17-countries-home-one-quarter-world-population-face-extremely-high-water-stress

https://www.watercalculator.org/water-use/climate-change-water-resources/

https://washmatters.wateraid.org/climate-change

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/07/it-takes-21-litres-of-water-to-produce-a-small-chocolate-bar-how-water-wise-is-your-diet

https://friendsoftheearth.uk/natural-resources/13-best-ways-save-water-stop-climate-breakdown

Vayera: arrogance and economic egoism destroy the world. Plus ca change plus c’est le meme chose

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After the stories of Creation of the world at the beginning of the book of Genesis, we experience a number of cataclysmic events. After the flood that destroys almost everything that had been created, with only Noah, his family and representatives of each species saved to begin again we once again have a terrible destruction wreaked on the earth by a despairing God – this time of the cities of Sodom and Gemorah, and according to the Book of Deuteronomy also Admah and Zeboiim, four of the five Cities of the Plain in the Vale of Siddim in the lower Jordan valley/ southern Dead Sea area.. . Only Zoar escaped the terrible fate of sulphurous fire that rained down and destroyed those prosperous cities and everyone in them, so that “the smoke of the land rose like the smoke of a kiln” (19:28)

What really happened in this area known for its vineyards and crops, its prosperous and fertile soil?  We cannot know whether this was a volcanic eruption or an earthquake, but the bible and our later rabbinic traditions are very clear why the cities were destroyed so thoroughly, and without any warning.

Ezekiel is very clear when he warns the kingdom of Judah of the consequences of their behaviour, in the sixth century BCE:  “    Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquillity; yet she did not support the poor and the needy”. (Ezekiel 16:49)

The Midrash develops this idea, speaking of the citizens of Sodom caring only for the wealthy, and saying that they expelled the poor from their midst, or even killed them.   Midrash Pirkei Eliezer teaches that the denizens of the cities were forbidden by law to aid the poor with food or anything else they might need – on penalty of death. Indeed it says that Lot’s daughter – who had grown up with Abram and Sarai and who therefore had a different set of values – was convicted of giving food to the poor and was executed. Before she died she cried out to God, and this was the sound that prompted God to send the messengers to find out what was happening there.

The sin of Sodom was not that of perverse sexual activities, it was the cold hearted arrogance of ignoring the needs of the other. More than that, it was the active greed for more and more, that meant that anything or anyone in the way of acquiring more was to be got rid of. As the citizens of these cities treated each other, so they would have treated the land. It was to be worked ceaselessly, it had to produce more and more, it was given no respect or honour or care.

That greed, that narrow focus on gain and ever greater productivity, led in the end to the rebellion of the land. One thinks of the earthquakes caused in Lancashire by the fracking for shale gas. Of the dust bowls in America and Canada in the 1930’s when the mechanisation and deep level ploughing of the grasslands destroyed the ecology till the top soil simply blew away in the drought.  The parallels are endless.

Meir Tamari, the economist and business ethicist, calls the sin of the cities of the plain “economic egoism”. We are seeing such behaviour again. The way richer and developed countries feel entitled to plunder those less developed. The destruction and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. The exploitation of the oceans and the pollution of waste matter we have allowed to build up in the seas. The list goes on. We have more than enough and yet still we want more. We know that whole populations are displaced, that the age old climate patterns are changing, that drought and floods are increasingly common, but our arrogance continues and our world will pay the price.

Like Lot, we are living amongst the arrogance and greed, benefitting from it, but still a nagging voice sits in our head. Lot offered the messengers of God hospitality in a city where this was frowned upon – there was enough of a voice from his past with his uncle Abram to remind him of the importance of hospitality, yet he also gave in to the clamour of the people outside, offering his daughters to them in a horrific show of appeasement or of identification with them. We too often vacillate between the values we espouse and the behaviour we show. And all the time the world gets closer to the cataclysm.

What will it take for us to stop assuming the world belongs to us to do what we like with it, and instead to recognise and nurture the personhood of the land itself? As the extinction rebellion movement, the Fridays for future movement, the environmental personhood movement all grow in power, let’s hope it’s not too late, and that the righteous are not swept away with the wicked in one huge event of fire and brimstone.

Vayera: l’arroganza e l’egoismo economico distruggono il mondo. Più cambia, più è la stessa cosa

Di rav Sylvia Rothschild, pubblicato il 13 novembre 2019

Dopo le storie di Creazione del mondo all’inizio del libro della Genesi, viviamo una serie di eventi catastrofici. Dopo il diluvio che distrugge quasi tutto ciò che era stato creato, salvando solo Noè, la sua famiglia e i rappresentanti di ogni specie per ricominciare, abbiamo nuovamente una terribile distruzione provocata sulla terra da un Dio disperato: questa volta delle città di Sodoma e Gomorra, e, secondo il Libro del Deuteronomio, anche di Admà e Zeboiim, quattro delle cinque Città della Pianura nella Valle di Siddim nella bassa valle della Giordania, la zona del Mar Morto meridionale. Solo Zoar sfuggì al terribile destino del fuoco sulfureo che piovve distruggendo quelle città prospere e tutti quelli che vi abitavano, in modo che “il fumo della terra saliva come il fumo di un forno”. (19:28)

 

Cosa è realmente accaduto in questa zona conosciuta per i suoi vigneti e colture, il suo terreno fertile e fiorente? Non possiamo sapere se si sia verificata un’eruzione vulcanica o un terremoto, ma la Bibbia e le nostre successive tradizioni rabbiniche sono molto chiare sul perché le città siano state distrutte così a fondo e senza alcun preavviso.

 

Ezechiele è molto chiaro quando avverte il regno di Giuda delle conseguenze del loro comportamento, nel sesto secolo a.e.v.: “Questo fu il peccato di Sodoma, tua sorella: l’arroganza, lei e le sue sorelle avevano abbondanza di pane e un tranquillo benessere si impadronì di lei, sì che non posero mano al povero e al misero”. (Ezechiele 16:49)

 

Il Midrash sviluppa questa idea, parlando dei cittadini di Sodoma che si prendono cura solo dei ricchi e dicendo che hanno espulso i poveri da loro, o addirittura li hanno uccisi. Midrash Pirkei Eliezer insegna che agli abitanti delle città era proibito per legge di aiutare i poveri con cibo o qualsiasi altra cosa di cui potessero avere bisogno, pena la morte. In effetti, dice che la figlia di Lot, che era cresciuta con Abram e Sarai e che quindi aveva un diverso insieme di valori, fu condannata per aver dato cibo ai poveri e venne giustiziata. Prima di morire gridò a Dio, e questo fu il suono che spinse Dio a mandare i messaggeri a scoprire cosa stava succedendo lì.

 

Il peccato di Sodoma non era quello delle attività sessuali perverse, era l’arroganza dal cuore freddo di ignorare i bisogni dell’altro. E ancor di più, era l’avidità attiva per cercare di possedere sempre di più, ciò significava che qualsiasi cosa o chiunque potesse ottenere di più doveva essere eliminato. Poiché i cittadini di queste città si trattavano a vicenda in questo modo, così avrebbero trattato la terra. Si doveva lavorare incessantemente, si doveva produrre sempre di più, non veniva dato alcun rispetto, onore o cura.

 

Quell’avidità, quella spasmodica attenzione al guadagno e a una produttività sempre maggiore, portarono infine alla ribellione della terra. Si pensi ai terremoti causati nel Lancashire dal “fracking” per il gas di scisto, alle tempeste di polvere in America e in Canada negli anni ’30, quando la meccanizzazione e l’aratura profonda delle praterie distrussero l’ecosistema fino a che il suolo superficiale fu semplicemente spazzato via nella siccità. I paralleli sono infiniti.

 

Meir Tamari, economista ed esperto di etica aziendale, chiama il peccato delle città della pianura “egoismo economico”. Stiamo vedendo un simile comportamento ancora oggi. Il modo in cui i paesi più ricchi e sviluppati si sentono in diritto di saccheggiare quelli meno sviluppati. La distruzione e la deforestazione della foresta pluviale amazzonica. Lo sfruttamento degli oceani e l’inquinamento da rifiuti che abbiamo permesso si verificasse nei mari. L’elenco continua. Abbiamo più che abbastanza e tuttavia vogliamo ancora di più. Sappiamo che intere popolazioni sono sfollate, che i vecchi schemi climatici stanno cambiando, che la siccità e le alluvioni sono sempre più comuni, ma la nostra arroganza continua e il nostro mondo ne pagherà il prezzo.

 

Come Lot, viviamo tra l’arroganza e l’avidità, beneficiandone, ma nella nostra testa c’è ancora una voce assillante. Lot offrì ai messaggeri di Dio l’ospitalità in una città in cui ciò era malvisto, aveva ancora la voce dei suoi trascorsi con suo zio Abramo a ricordargli l’importanza dell’ospitalità, eppure cedette anche al clamore della gente fuori, offrendo a essa le sue figlie in uno spettacolo orribile di appagamento o di identificazione con lei. Troppo spesso vacilliamo tra i valori che sposiamo e il comportamento che mostriamo. E il mondo si avvicina sempre più al cataclisma.

 

Cosa ci vorrà per smettere di supporre che il mondo ci appartenga per fare ciò che ci piace e invece riconoscere e coltivare la personalità della terra stessa? Mentre il movimento Extinction Rebellion, il movimento dei Friday for Future, il movimento per la personalità giuridica dell’ambiente aumentano il loro potere, speriamo che non sia troppo tardi, e che i giusti non vengano spazzati via con i malvagi in un enorme evento di fuoco e zolfo.

 

 

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lech Lecha – the story of a famine which displaces vulnerable people needs to be heard

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When Abram and Sarai, his nephew Lot and the souls they had made in Haran travelled on God’s instruction to the Land of Canaan, they arrived and stopped at Shechem, where Abram built an altar and where God promised that land to his descendants. Abram journeyed on, via the mountain near Beit El, where he built another altar, and continued southwards travelling the length of the land of Israel until they exited the Land on its southern border with Egypt.

It reads rather as an anti-climax to that famous imperative in the first recorded encounter between God and Abram:

 וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָֹה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵֽאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ:

God said to Abram “Go for yourself from your land and your birthplace, and from the house of our father, to the land which I will show you”

No introduction, no explanation, no conversation – just a command to go elsewhere, the trust that the journey will have an end is implicit, God will show Abram the place when he gets there.

But it isn’t exactly what happens. Because there is famine in the land – very heavy famine.  Abram and Sarai will die if they stay there, so, prefiguring the Joseph narratives, they travel into Egypt for refuge.

Famine appears with grim frequency in bible. Each of the patriarchs will suffer serious famine – Abram goes to Egypt, Isaac goes to the Philistine King in Gerar rather than go to Egypt(Gen 26:1). Jacob and his sons go down into Egypt to buy food when the famine takes hold. The book of Ruth describes the famine that led Ruth and Elimelech to flee to Moab (Ruth 1:1). In David’s time there was a famine lasting three years (2Sam 21:1). The story of Elijah records the famine in the land (1Kings 17:1) and in Elisha fed the famine starved people of Gilgal (2Kings 4:38). Famines are also recorded in Jerusalem in the time of Tzedekiah (2Kings 25:3) (see also Jeremiah’s painful description of the drought 14:1-6) and in Canaan in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 5:3)

The Land of Israel was dependent on the rainfall for its crops and trees, so drought and therefore famine were always to be feared. There was also fear of pests or diseases that would destroy the crops (Joel 1:4ff)and which we see most dramatically in the plague in Egypt just before the Hebrew slaves were able to leave.

War and sieges would also bring famines – again described in biblical texts with painful clarity. Famine, along with Pestilence and the sword (war) (Dever v’Herev v’Ra’av) appears regularly in a triumvirate in the Hebrew bible (cf. Jer. 14:12; 21:7, 9; 24:10; Ezek. 6:11,) and has entered the liturgy in both Avinu Malkeinu and in the Hashkiveinu prayer  (second blessing following shema)

הָסֵר מֵעָלֵינוּ אוֹיֵב דֶבֶר וְחֶרֶב וְרָעָב וְיָגוֹן

 

Talmud also discusses the problems of famine. We read in Ta’anit 5a “Rav Nachman said to Rabbi Yitzḥak: What is the meaning of that which is written: “For the Eternal has called upon a famine and it shall also come upon the land seven years” (II Kings 8:1)? Specifically, in those seven years, what did they eat?

Rabbi Yitzḥak said to Rabbi Nachman that Rabbi Yoḥanan said as follows: In the first year they ate that which was in their houses; in the second year they ate that which was in their fields; in the third year they ate the meat of their remaining kosher animals; in the fourth year they ate the meat of their remaining non-kosher animals; in the fifth year they ate the meat of repugnant creatures and creeping animals, i.e., any insects they found; in the sixth year they ate the flesh of their sons and their daughters; and in the seventh year they ate the flesh of their own arms, to fulfil that which is stated: “Each man shall eat the flesh of his own arm” (Isaiah 9:19).”

The starvation and breakdown of social norms that famine brought can be seen across the literature.  In the Talmud we read the pitiful story of one of the wealthiest women in Jerusalem, Marta bat Baitos who could not buy food with all her silver and gold, and who died after picking out the grain from the animal dung she stepped on (Gittin 56a;  Josephus mentions the eating of children in Jerusalem during the Roman War (Wars 6:201–13). There are at least three historical references to famine caused by the observance of the Sabbatical year, one during the siege of Jerusalem by the forces of Antiochus IV (Ant. 12:378), one in the war of Herod against Antigonus (Ant. 14:476) and one during Herod’s reign (Ant. 15:7).

Drought, with the rains withheld, has generally been theologised into punishment for transgressions, a tool wielded by God when we do not follow the rules that acknowledge God’s ownership of the land by bringing tithes both to thank God and to feed those who cannot grow food for themselves,  and when we fail in our our obligations to the Land to treat it well and allow it to rest.

Rabbinic responsa are also very sensitive to drought and famine, with a growing list of actions to pray for rain with special prayers added into the liturgy, fasting etc. So seriously did the rabbis take the realities of famine that they permitted emigration from the land of Israel in the case of famine, albeit only when survival would become extremely difficult(BB 91b; Gen. R. 25).

Rabba bar bar Ḥana says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: They taught that it is prohibited to leave Eretz Yisrael only if money is cheap, i.e., not excessively difficult to obtain, and produce is expensive, similar to the case in the baraita where two se’a of wheat are sold for a sela. But when money is expensive, i.e., it is difficult to earn money for sustenance, even if the price of four se’a of grain stood at a sela, one may leave Eretz Yisrael in order to survive.(BB91b)

Basing themselves on Genesis 41:50 the rabbis (Ta’anit 11a) also forbade procreation during the years of famine.

Our tradition knows about the difficulties of living and thriving in a world where the rains may not come, where crops may fail and people may starve. It understood that while famine may come as a result of war, it is more likely to be because we, the human stewards of the world, do not treat the world as it must be treated, and the consequences of this lack of care will come to haunt us.

Abram and Sarai left their home to reach the land God had promised, but having reached it they immediately became environment migrants. The land would not let them stay and thrive, they had to put themselves at greater risk and depend on a foreign power to survive.   This part of their story is not often emphasised – the great journey to the promised land is a far more palatable thread to take from this sidra, but the short verses that tell of the famine that would have killed them should they have stayed are maybe more instructive in these times of climate change happening across the globe as a direct result of human carelessness and greed.

Lech Lecha is the call to activism – Get up and go, make something happen! We Jews are called as our ur-ancestors were called. We should pay heed to the increasingly serious warnings our planet is giving us, and return to the work of stewarding, protecting and  supporting a healthy and diverse world.