Category Archives: parashat hashavua

Lech Lecha – the covenants of peoplehood and land

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After giving a talk at a Muslim interfaith forum, entitled “One God, one humanity, many religions” I was asked after it by a group of interested young Muslim men – What makes the Jews Jewish?  Christianity they understood, Islam they understood, but Judaism – what makes Jews Jewish?

What gives us our special identity and our difference is the way we see our relationship with God, the understanding we have of being in a relationship of Covenant. The contract/covenant we have with God is unbreakable, however many times we don’t keep to the rules, however many times we transgress. The covenant we have with God is always there, it is inescapable, it defines us and creates the parameters of our religious identity. We know of it, we live with it day in and day out, but I don’t think that any of us can say that we really understand it.

The bible contains within its narrative many different sorts of covenant. Already there has been a covenant with Noach, and one with all of humanity – defined through the sign of the rainbow. This sidra, Lech lecha, sets the scene for some of the specifically Jewish ones. Brit milah, the covenant of circumcision and more puzzlingly the “Brit bein habetarim” the covenant of the pieces.

God appeared to Abraham seven times in his career, and put him to the test, made demands, held our promises and endowed him with the blessings of land and of descendants. The fourth appearance, the middle one of the revelations, was different from those that came before and those that followed it – it came in the form of a vision.

This vision begins with God telling Avram not to fear, that God will be his shield, that he will ultimately have a great reward – but immediately we are into a problem – what is it that God thinks that Avram fears?

Only AFTER the divine reassurance does Avram speak, asking what of worth could God possibly give him, seeing that he has no child of his own to be his heir. His question is answered – his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of heaven. God is the redeeming God who has brought him out, who will give him a new land to inherit. But Avram has another question – “how will I KNOW that I will inherit it?”

Maybe this second question is too much for God – although that statement may itself be a heresy. Whatever the reason for it, we are suddenly plunged into a difficult and obscure text. We don’t even know if the vision is the framework, or if Avram is operating in the physical world when, under divine instruction, he takes a three year old heifer, a three year old she-goat and a three year old ram, and two birds – a turtle dove and a young pigeon, and apparently slaughters all the animals, dividing each of the three animals in half, laying each half over against the other, and when the birds of prey come as they naturally would, Avram drives them away. What is the symbolism of three? Three animals, each three years old?  And of the six parts as each of the three is halved? And what of the two, the birds who are untouched?

The vision deepens into a tardema– the kind of magical sleep that happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden during which Eve was created. And for a second time Avram hears the promise that he will be a father of a great nation, and also that the nation will know suffering, although not in his own lifetime. And then the covenant is ratified as a smoking furnace and a flaming torch, symbols we can only assume of the presence of God, passed between the pieces.

We don’t see Avram wake up as we saw Adam awake and meet his companion. We don’t know how Avram interpreted his vision, who he told, how it altered him. We are left only with a description, a sense of deep symbolism, an awareness that while the human side of the covenant is still unclear, God is obligated by the event. Just as with the covenant with Noah God is obligated but nothing is demanded of humankind. The later covenants don’t work like this – the Brit is generally dependent on Israel’s faithfulness to God, but here in the early covenants with humankind the remarkable fact is that they are unconditional, they demonstrate entirely selfless love given by a God who is prepared to be faithful and unchanging when responding to humankind.

The true symbolism of the covenant of the pieces is lost in the mists of the past, although we can intuit a reasonable amount of understanding. The three sets of three – a magical number long before the existence of Christianity, denoting a special kind of wholeness. The birds of prey driven off symbolising the nations who would try to pre-empt or even destroy the covenant, being defeated by Avram. The other birds, symbols of liberation, of perfections, of the divine presence, who become invisible in the text. And the cutting into two and then passing through the pieces denotes the parties to the contract guaranteeing the wholeness of it. Dividing as a way of symbolising completion has been around for a long time – even today we cut a deal. Or cut a ribbon or smash a bottle or a glass, and circumcision too requires the action of cutting.

We have a contract with God. Unlike any other formulation of any other religion, ours is based unequivocally on this idea of covenant of mutual obligation. God is our God because we are God’s people – that is the bottom line. But just how do we understand that contract and how do we honour it?

Traditional Judaism is clear about this –the system of mitzvot which provides a framework for all we do and all we are, this is the content of the contract. By observing the mitzvot the commandments, we are honouring the metzaveh, the commander. Whether we understand or not, whether we get a spiritual feeling or not, whether we feel good about it or not, this is the way of the relationship forged with our ancestor Abraham, this is the obligation to which we are signed up

Progressive Judaism has a slightly harder time of it, for the idea of covenant remains, and the framework of acting within a system of mitzvot remains, but quite what the content is and how one squares the unconditional acceptance of the obligation with more rational and libertarian thinking is, to say the least, problematic. And as soon as one begins the questioning there is the fear that the questioning will take over, that the precious essence of the covenant will in some way be lost to us.

What one might call the covenant par excellence, Brit Mila – has been the object of much questioning recently. It seems to be as obscure in its way as the covenant of the pieces, for there is the quality of unreality about it, of vision. There is the cutting of the flesh and the exposure of vulnerability, the division symbolizing the wholeness, Brit Milah perfecting the child on whom it is done.

Why do we circumcise our baby boys, and what symbolism does it hold for us? We do so at one level because it is a mitzvah, it is commanded of us by God, it symbolises brining that child into the covenant. Of course any Jewish boy remains Jewish even if Milah doesn’t take place, but somehow the ceremony is seen as essential in denoting the identity of the male Jew. Throughout history Jews have risked death to circumcise their sons, throughout history it has remained an act of pride, sometimes of defiance, always of inner if not outer freedom. We circumcise our sons to mark their bodies indelibly with this sign of our ancient covenant. Whatever we think it to be, deep down is that sense of unconditional obligation, of God being our God if we are God’s people.

The covenant is the framework for religious identity, forming the inner core and the outer parameter of Judaism. In an increasingly rational and libertarian world we need to understand the nature of covenant, to orient ourselves within it as best we can, and to teach its meaning to our children.

When God created two different covenants with Abraham, one to do with descendants the other with land, the model was set for all time – people and land, Jewish people and Jewish land. What each was to become was left unclear, but that both are necessary and each needs the other is certain to us.

So what is the meaning of the Jewish people and of a Jewish land? We are in a time of enormous uncertainty, of wildly differing opinions.  I offer my own thoughts now – the Jewish people are neither more special nor more talented than any other, what we have is an attachment to being God’s people, by which we mean we try to bring God more closely into the world through what we do. Listening to the different voices from different traditions earlier this week, that idea is not unique to us, but what is unique is our covenantal relationship that both binds us and frees us to relate in our own way to God, safe in our chutzpadik challenges towards God that God will not ever abandon us for good.

And our land is where we are supposed to bring God’s presence most potently, a place where God’s eyes are always watching, a place close to God’s heart.  I grieve for how little we are fulfilling our role there at the moment, I despair when I see the values and teachings of our religion traduced or ignored.

Abraham is told lech lecha, to go – but where? The Hebrew is obscure. Is it to go to a different physical place or to go into himself and draw from himself his essential humanity?  He is told to be a blessing. And this is our ultimate purpose, to understand that all humanity is under the special care of God, all humanity is equal in God’s eyes; to use this understanding to bring about blessing in the world.

Right now I fear that we are not doing our job well. The two contracts of peoplehood and land are both under threat from our own actions. But the imperative to go out and be a blessing, that still feels true and possible. And that must be our task – to speak out, to go that extra distance, and create blessing in our world.

Vayelech

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Parashat Vayelech is the shortest sidra in our torah cycle with just 30 verses. And even when paired, as it often is, with Parashat Nitzavim, the additional 40 verses still leave us with the shortest torah reading in the year.

And yet so much happens in these short verses. Moses concludes the speeches he has been making to the people since the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy;  speeches retelling their history, reminding them of particular values and responsibilities,  reflecting on their journey, reiterating the importance of their covenant with God and the responsibility to be faithful to this covenant relationship.  Three times in this chapter he exhorts them to be strong and resolute.  Twice he states that God will not fail or forsake them.   Having addressed first “all  Israel” and then Joshua in front of all the people telling him that he will lead the people into the land, Moses then writes down “et HaTorah hazot” – this teaching, and gives it to the Levites who carry the Ark of the covenant, and to all the elders of Israel, and then instructs them about Hakhel – that every seven years on the festival of Succot there was to be a full gathering of everyone in the community, men, women, children and strangers alike, to listen to this teaching and to learn and so to follow it faithfully.  He specifies that the children, who had not lived the experience of the exodus and desert journey, must listen and learn, so that they would understand their story, would revere God and follow God’s teaching in the land to which they were about to cross.

God reminds Moses that the time of his death is approaching and tells him to bring Joshua to the Tent of Meeting so that He may instruct him. As both Moses and Joshua enter the tent, God appears in the pillar of cloud and rather than instructing Joshua, God tells Moses that he will soon be dead, that afterwards the people will forsake God and follow the alien gods of the land, and that  the consequences of this will be terrible.  God’s anger will be unleashed and God will hide the divine face from them because of their evil deeds.  They will understand that their troubles have come because God is not with them, but God will hide the divine face from them. God instructs Moses to write a poem and teach it to the people of Israel” as a witness against them”, because, God tells him, God already knows what plans the people are devising that will take them from the path, even before they enter the Land that God promised them.

So Moses writes a second document, the poem we know as Ha’azinu, and teaches it to the Israelites.  An interpolation in the text then informs us that God commanded Joshua bin Nun, telling him to be strong and of good courage, because he will be the one to lead the Israelites into the promised land, and God will be with him.

Now the text returns –  we read that Moses concludes his writing “as Moses completed writing the words of this Torah in a book, until they were  finished” (v24) he gave it to the Levites and told them to put it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant “as a witness against the people”.  He speaks of the stubbornness and defiance of the people even while he is still lives – so how much more so will they be stiff-necked and self-centred once he is no longer around to correct them?  But who is he addressing at this point?  Only the Levites who will have a particular role in the ritual life of the people,  or the whole community? The text is ambiguous.

Then Moses tells the Levites to gather all the elders and officials of the tribes for him to speak to them and call heaven and earth as witness against them. He tells them he knows that once he is dead they will act wickedly and eventually the consequences of them failing to act according to God’s teachings will bring about catastrophe because God will lose patience with them. And then the chapter ends with the introduction to the poem, where we are told that Moses recited the words of the poem to the very end, in the hearing of the whole congregation of Israel.

The sidra is part of an ongoing narrative that comprises the whole of the Book of Deuteronomy, structured as the final exhortations of Moses to the people as they camp across the Jordan waiting to enter the promised land. But it is also one moment in time that explores the dying days of Moses’ leadership and of his life.  It is a liminal moment before the next stage, the change of generation as the old leader leaves the stage, and the people around him know that life will change, that they will move on from their nomadic existence into their committed promised land.

But it is also a literary gem, one short chapter that is tightly written, with repeated words and phrases forming triggers within the text.

Twice we read of Moses writing down words – torah – in a book which is then given to the Levites to care for alongside the Ark of the Covenant. Twice we are told that the people will forsake God and the consequences of this will be devastating. Twice Moses is told that he will shortly die.   Twice we are reminded that God made an oath to deliver the people to the Land promised to them. Twice people are told that God walks with them, will not forsake them, twice we are told that the people will forsake God and regret this bitterly.

Are the people to be strong and of good courage because God will be with them – as is asserted three times in this short text. Is there no possibility that they will not become weak and fail to live up to the covenant with God when they reach the land? How can these two assertions co-exist?  And yet they do.

And there are so many questions. Is Moses at 120 years too weak be mobile, in his words “I am not able to go out or to come in”, when we are told right at the start that Moses went out (Vayelech) to speak to the community – a word that appears unnecessary in every other instance of his declarations.  And what are we to make of this when later we are told that at his death his  was eye undimmed, his physical strength unabated.

The repeated use of a written text to “act as witness” against the people is also problematic. The hope is asserted that the people will hear and learn and act according to God’s teachings – so why should the text be a kind of hostile hostage to fortune?

The timeline of the text is odd  – narratives are fractured as well as repeated, there is an almost wandering quality in the story. What happens when is hard to pin down, there is a sense of the ambiguous, even among those repetitions of key words, phrases and themes. There is a dreamlike quality to this text, a sense of trying to make sense and transmit something of the utmost importance, but of occasionally losing the thread.

The repetitions form a kind of spiral in the text, but they also act as parentheses within it, and in the centre of it all are two individual stories  – the first is Hakhel – the commandment that every seven years the whole people are to  as one community and listen to the teachings in order to learn and to do. The second is the moment when the leadership passes from Moses to Joshua, when both are in the presence of God at the tent of meeting and Moses is told of his imminent death, that Joshua will take his place.

In my work as Spiritual Care Lead at a hospice I spend many hours with people in their final weeks and hours of life. And I recognise the way this text is written – the urgency alongside the ambiguity, the way a person reflects on the past and projects  themselves into a future they know they will not see – yet still see themselves in the continuity of experience.  The repetitions and the fractured narratives. The need to retell and record and to impress on others the learning they have acquired in their own lives. The story telling and the imperatives, the fears and the repeated reassurances – even while knowing those reassurances cannot be guaranteed.

And I see two big themes at the end of life for those who see themselves connected to others – Firstly,  that even though the individual is themselves leaving this life, there is a desire that the connection will continue, that the family or friendship group will continue to see each other, support each other, reiterate and reclaim all that they share that binds them to each other and to the dying person, so that the thread of relationship and shared understanding will both give meaning to the lived life of the dying person, but also take them forward  long after they are no longer physically present.  We write on gravestones the acronym taf nun tzadi beit heh – may the soul of the deceased be bound in the threads of life – an expectation that like a woven fabric in time, every soul and life is woven together, each one necessary for what will be woven after them.

The mitzvah of Hakhel creates regular future gatherings so that connectivity and meaning will not be lost. It weaves each person of the community together, binding everyone into the connecting threads of life

And the second is the need for someone to step up and into the roles of the dying person – for the next generation to take their place in holding it all together, so that the person can die with the reassurance that all is not lost, that their life built the sort of meaning which will outlive them and they will impact on the future because someone else takes up the link in the chain of eternity. Joshua, who has been at Moses’ side throughout the journey, is now invested in this role, and will indeed take them into the land.

How do these two themes find a way to express themselves? It is always with words. Written or spoken, whispered or in the notes section on the phone, in a diary or a poem or a song. We embody all that we are into Devarim – words that can transcend time and cross space, that will speak to generations we will never know and that can sit quietly for decades or even longer, until a reader comes to encounter them and invest them with new life.

The sidra is short but the message is eternal. We each walk along our own pathway in life, but we walk together – as the text tells us, God walks alongside and will not forsake us if we pay attention to our covenantal relationship.  Generations come and generations go, we mourn as we lose the people so precious to us to death, but we never lose their stories or memories, the way they impacted on us and shaped us in life, the way their voices speak in our souls. 

The relationships we nurture will nurture us – and more. They will create the continuity of meaning, create the bridge down the generations, and like the poem we will read in the next chapter, will mean that the meaning of our lives will never be forgotten.

Yitro – an abundance of learning

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Six sidrot in our torah reading calendar are named for people – they are the parashiot of Noah, Hayei Sarah, Yitro, Korach, Balak and Pinchas. It’s an odd list – the first is a man who was the part of the tenth generation after Adam, named by his father Lamech for much longed for rest and comfort after the expulsion of human beings from Eden and the requirement for them to work for everything they needed: “This one will provide us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil that GOD placed under a curse” but whose life is anything but respite from the hard work of survival, and who, having been the only one to survive the flood with his family, makes another covenant with God. Then there is Sarah, wife of Abraham and the woman through whom the divine covenant for Israel is fulfilled with the birth of Isaac, a woman whose life was multifaceted and whose death is recorded right at the beginning of the sidra which then details the arrangements for her burial. Then Yitro a priest of Midian – about whom more later, then two different members of the priestly tribe of Levi both of whom challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron, and finally a Moabite King who has heard about the Israelites and their travels in the wilderness, and in his fear of them he hires a prophet to curse them – unsuccessfully.

When we meet Yitro, we meet him first as a father and a priest, rather than learning his name: – “The priest of Midian had seven daughters” (Exodus 2:16). Later on he will be described as the father in law of Moses (who married his daughter Tzipporah) (Exodus 4:18). We see him take in the young Moses who is fleeing from Egypt, and bring him into his home. Later we will see him teach Moses about timely justice. We see him in many different roles and indeed our commentators suggest that the many names and descriptions of Yitro refer to the different periods of his life, his evolving relationships and facets of his identity. (see Nachmanides ad loc)

The midrash is particularly interested in his various names in bible “ Yitro had seven names: Yeter, Yitro, Chovav, Reuel, Chever, Putiel, Keni. Yeter — he added (yiter) a section in the Torah; Yitro — he was “abundant” (yiter) in good deeds. Chovav — he was beloved (chovev) by God. Reuel — he was a “friend” (rea) to God. Chever — he was a “companion” (chaver) to God. Putiel — he “weaned himself” (niftar) from idolatry. Keni — he was zealous (kinei) for Heaven and he acquired (kanah) Torah. (Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 3:12)
The same midrash teaches that he relationship between the Moses and Yitro undergoes a significant shift after the exodus – “In the beginning Moses was proud of being the son in law of Yitro. Afterwards, Yitro was proud of being the father in law of Moses.”
The midrash builds on the difference between the names Yeter and Yitro noting that there is an additional letter vav – a letter whose origin is a hook, and concluding that this change in name is in order to demonstrate that he linked his fate to that of the Jewish people – that is, he converted to Judaism.

The midrash converts Yitro to Judaism, suggesting that he tried every form of idolatry in order to find the true nature of the divine and meaning of existence, and only after a journey through the entire world of idolatry does he see what God does for the children of Israel, and recognise the One true God. He becomes a sort of icon for the personal spiritual journey in this way.
But for me this rather misses the point. For me, Yitro personifies the goodness of the outside world, taking a refugee into his home and family, giving him not only a place in the family but work and meaningful status. I like the idea that we learn from others, that Yitro (which can mean both that “abundance /more” and “remnant/left over”) can offer for us to become more of what we are, and can also show the power of what is “not us”. It can speak of the sense of “plenty”, and it can at the same time remind us that with even a small amount of our tradition and people surviving, there can always be new growth. How often do we learn in Jewish history of the power of a small remnant to pick ourselves up and build ourselves once more?

One of the nouns that derive from the same Hebrew verbal root as Yitro means a cord or a rope, something that ties together. By holding on together, by organising ourselves in relationship with each other, this biblical figure reminds us that we are able to build ourselves again, however great the opposition to us may be, however small a group of us is left.

So I would rather Yitro stays a Midianite – a supportive and critical friend, an outside eye who sees what we may not notice. One of the best biblical examples of this is his teaching to Moses of creating a responsive judicial system, rather than delaying justice for people. Yitro is a figure who challenges precisely because he isn’t part of Israel, someone who can ask difficult questions, challenge the group-think, make us rethink the norms. And as such he provides a great service, both in the biblical text and later. We are told (BT Sotah 11a) that his descendants the Kenites lived at Yabetz – and that they sat in the Sanhedrin in that the place, and the Jewish people went there for advice, in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. (See Sifrei Bemidbar 78)
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Yitro and his descendants model the dynamic and mutually beneficial relationship between the Jewish people and those outside the community. They are the “other” whom we respect and value, who bring their insights and understanding to our world, who remind us that while we have a particular covenantal relationship with God, God is the God of all peoples. They remind us to value other faith traditions, to understand that each of them has perception and awareness of God that we may not be party to, to know that God is much greater than the particular relationship with the Jewish people. As the prophet Amos reminds us
“To Me, O Israelites, you are Just like the Cushites —declares GOD.
True, I brought Israel up From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor
And the Arameans from Kir. (Amos 9:7)

The many names of Yitro remind us that people are made up of many experiences and identities. And they remind us too of the many names for God – the same God, the only God, who manifests in every tradition and faith.

There are six sidrot named for people and they can be seen as sets of pairs. Pinchas and Korach are Levites, both act zealously according to their own narrow world view, and challenge Moses and the leadership. Sarah and Noach are each critical to a covenant with God, each produce the child through which the covenant will continue. Balak and Yitro are also a pair – Balak sees the travelling Israelites on their way to their land, and is afraid of them coming through his kingdom. His response is to pay a freelance prophet of God to curse them and so destroy what he perceives to be a threat. Yitro hears of the splitting of the sea and the escape of the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians and recognises that God cares for this ragtag of ex-slaves travelling to freedom. His response is to help them to organise themselves for the future. He is a reminder that every outsider need not be an existential threat, but that people of faith can care for each other and lift each other.

Yitro walks away just before the giving of Torah at Sinai. I have always wondered about that decision – was it his way of retaining his own Midianite and priestly relationship with God, or was he sent away because his work was done? Either way, he remains the consummate critical friend, the figure we need to give us perspective, to remind us that difference is good and that there are many, many paths to the One God.

Vayetzei – transformational journeying. Also – Vatetzei if you look harder

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Parashat vayetzei begins with Jacob leaving home in fear for his life, having tricked his father and older brother in order to gain the birthright blessing of the firstborn. We follow him to the edge of his homeland, where he sleeps and dreams of a ladder, and meets God who promises him divine protection in his journeying, that he will return to the land and that he will have many descendants. We see him fall in love with Rachel, go to live with her father – his uncle Laban – and work for him as a shepherd for seven years as the price for her hand in marriage. We see him tricked by Laban (as he had tricked his own father), and the wrong sibling – Leah – married to him instead, with the fantastically ironic reasoning that here in Haran they don’t privilege the younger over the older sibling. For the price of another seven years of work Jacob marries Rachel too. We watch as the two sisters become rivals, Leah desperate for his love, producing six sons, with each birth expressing the hope that her husband might love and value her, Rachel desperate for a child of her own, her longing causing such friction in their relationship that she uses her maidservant as a surrogate to birth children she can adopt – a ploy that Leah copies – before finally producing Joseph.
We see Jacob negotiating again with Laban, wanting now to return home. Laban has become very wealthy on account of Jacob, but when Jacob responds to his enquiry about payment he cannot resist trying to trick him once again. Jacob outwits him and builds a substantial flock for himself from the animals he has been shepherding for Laban. Jacob attributes this successful selective breeding to the protection of God, and in speaking to his wives, he references a dream he had to this effect.
The three of them plan to leave Laban and journey to Jacob’s home land. The sisters join together in accusing their father of ill treatment, that he has sold them into marriage and used their brideprice for himself – so there will be no inheritance for them. They tell Jacob that wealth he has accrued at the expense of Laban belongs to them and their children and God has simply dispensed financial justice. Without informing Laban, the family begin their journey back to Canaan. Now it is the furious Laban who has a dream, in which God warns him against harming Jacob in any way. He pursues the family, there are some dynamics, then the two men make a pact of peace, with Laban belatedly adding protective clauses for his daughters’ future. Laban returns home and the sidra ends with Jacob once again encountering angels, once again recognising that the place he is in belongs to God.
So many dreams, so many repeated motifs of trickery and manipulation, of angels and encounters with the divine. So it is so easy to read the text and focus on the journey that Jacob makes, one which echoes the classic hero narrative – of a man who journeys into the unknown, overcomes difficulties, and returns home powerful and transformed.

But other lives and other transformations are detailed in the sidra. Two of our matriarchs, Leah and Rachel find themselves sold into marriage, their value – even in their own eyes – bound up in their bodies and in their fertility, yet each have a spiritual journey of their own.

After the heartbreaking births of her first three sons, Leah gives up naming her children for the unrequited hopes that Jacob will care about her, and begins to name them for her own feelings. She names her fourth son “Judah” because she thanks God for his birth. The fifth and sixth she names “Issachar” – “reward”, and Zebulun – “gift” or “honour”. These children are for her, not for Jacob and the children born by her surrogate Zilpah she names for her good fortune.

Rachel’s desperation for a child shows great mental anguish, and her husband’s angry response to her that it is God’s will that she does not have children must have been excruciating for her to hear. We see her behaviour change after that – she first uses a surrogate to achieve her aims, naming the first child Dan declaring that God has vindicated and heard her, and the second one Naftali – a contest with God and her sister that she has, in her own mind at least, won – though when she finally gives birth herself the name she chooses for her son “Joseph” shows that the words Jacob so cruelly flung at her still stung. In naming him almost as a challenge to God “he will add another son”, she shows that she is determined to write her own history, refusing to accept her infertility as any kind of divine decree. And she goes further, literally selling a night with Jacob to Leah in return for some mandrakes, a plant believed to increase fertility.
When Jacob proposes his plan to leave Laban and take wealth with him, it is Rachel whose response is recorded first. She reminds him that Laban has cheated the sisters from what should rightfully be theirs, she has no compunction about getting the wealth back.
And finally – her most extraordinary act of rebellion and initiative – she steals and hides Laban’s household gods and uses the condition of her female body to ensure they are not found.

What we see is both sisters responding to their situation by taking what matters to them most for themselves. Leah learns she has intrinsic value beyond what her husband and father give her, Rachel that she can resist the roles given her by her husband and her father, selling one and stealing from the other.

The root of the word “vayetzei” is yatza – to go forth. It has already appeared many times right from the beginning of creation when the earth puts forth vegetation and living animals, when Noah and his wife leave the ark, When Terach, Abram and Sarai leave Ur to go to Canaan, and later of course the exodus from Egypt that will set the family on the road to peoplehood is “yetziat mitzraim”. On multiple occasions this verbal root is used to denote important changes towards growth. So it is no surprise that this sidra is named for the beginning of Jacob’s growing up. Yet the verb is also used in the sidra for an action of Leah’s. Having borne four sons she is no longer having children – the implication is that Jacob is no longer sleeping with her. So when Rachel asks her for the mandrakes she has, she barters them for a night with Jacob. We read “When Jacob came home from the field in the evening, “va’tetzei Leah” -Leah went out to meet him and said, “You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.”” . Calmly and with purpose, she takes control of Jacob. It is the night Issachar is conceived.

And in next week’s sidra we will read of her daughter Dina, who also goes out “Va’tetzei Dina”, though her adventure with Shechem takes a dark turn when her brothers become involved. The plain biblical text shows both these women as confident and outgoing, no blame colours the text. Yet neither sister nor Dina become role models for women – instead their presumption and initiative-taking become something to be discouraged, they are judged for being too forward. So in liturgy we see Leah placed second to the more beloved Rachel, even though she is the ancestress of both the monarchical and the priestly tribes through Judah and Levi. While her pain and the rivalry with her sister is recorded in bible with some empathy, the development of her own relationship with God is never explored, even though she is the first person in bible to praise God. Instead, commentors focus on her name, which could mean “weary” or “bovine”, and focus on the ambiguous description of her having “soft eyes”. It is hard to get to know Leah, her reputation as a “yatzanit” – a woman who goes out from the home – by implication for nefarious sexual purposes, chills any searching for the woman behind the utilitarian producer of babies.

Her daughter Dina is silenced even more aggressively. Noting that she doesn’t appear in the story of Jacob meeting Esau on his way home, when Jacob is described as dividing his camp including eleven children, the midrash suggests this is because he has locked her in a box for her own protection. What a strange idea – it presents Dina as sexually available who cannot be seen in case the man cannot control himself. And then the worst happens Dina too goes out – in her case we are explicitly told that she does so in order to meet the women of the land. She is not going out to seduce as her mother had done, yet midrash tells us “like mother like daughter” – they are both “yatzanit” – women who wrongly leave the protection of home and menfolk in order to follow their own wishes.
And this is clearly unacceptable to our commentators.
Dina does have sexual relations with the prince of Shechem who we are told loves her and speaks tenderly to her, wishing to marry her. Her brothers response is that he has treated her like a whore. Vengeance is bloody. The whole family have to leave the area. And we don’t hear of her again beyond her name being listed in the seventy souls who moved to Egypt with Jacob.

Why is it such a heroic thing for a man to “go out”, but a terrible thing if a woman does so. Bible offers us matriarchs who are just as flawed as patriarchs, yet we rarely celebrate the transformative journeys of the women. We continue to focus instead on women’s bodies. Women’s fertility or sexual attractiveness or availability. The news overflows with stories of sexual abuse by wealthy men, of “banter” or inappropriate comments aimed at women’s physical appearance, of campaigns for abortion rights to be limited further, of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Look closer and the idea of the yatzanit emerges – the woman who “deserves all she gets” because she took something for herself, she left the house and went into public places, she is no better than she should be.
Maybe if we were to read “va’teitzei” as we read “vayetzei” – the story of a heroic narrative, where the individual goes on a journey to an unknown place, has adventures and returns transformed into something more than they were – maybe then the world would be a happier and a safer place.

Sermon Bereishit 2024

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Il testo italiano segue il testo inglese

Torah begins with a famous phrase “Bereishit bara Elohim”, which we usually mistranslate as  “In the beginning God created…” 

Why “mistranslate”? – Because the very first word is does not lend itself to being easily understood.

If Torah had wanted to begin at the very beginning, it would have used the Hebrew word “behat’chila  “ בהתחלה  -which we can translate as “in the beginning”.  Or maybe “בראשונה ברא

Which would at least keep within it the idea of “rosh” – a root more commonly understood as a “head” – both literally and figuratively – it can mean a leader, or something of importance in a hierarchy, the top of something, a direction upwards….

So it is not impossible to translate this opaque word to be – in the beginning – except-

Except we have to ask ourselves – the beginning of what?

God is already present, in existence beyond this “beginning”, already creating what is to become our world, and there is “tohu va’vo’hu” – another opaque phrase, but  one which implies not emptiness but its opposite – a chaos of disorganised matter.

Many commentators note that the Torah does not begin with the first letter of the alphabet as might be expected, but with the second letter.  The Hebrew letter Alef is used to denote the first number (one);  A letter without sound it is written in Torah as a combination of three Hebrew letters (the letter yud both above and below the letter vav written on a diagonal whereby the upper yud represents the unknowable aspects of God, and the lower one represents God’s presence in our world. The vav ( which means a “hook”) connects the two realms. It should be the perfect letter to begin a text about the creation of a new realm of existence.

A clue might come in the fact that the Hebrew letter “Beit” which does begin the text of Torah has the shape of a parenthesis, closing off whatever might have come before from view – not only to the side but above and below also. We can move only away and onwards from that shape; So a beginning of sorts, but with the definite implication that this is not in any way “THE beginning”.

Targum Yerushalmi doesn’t see a “beginning” at all, but reads this text using the idea of “reishit” as “Chochma” – wisdom “בראשית בחוכמא ברא יי:

The Zohar picks this us and tells us that Torah begins with the phrase “With Wisdom God created….” Whereas the Italian rabbi Ovadiah Sforno (died Bologna 1549) comments : “ [it refers to] the beginning of time; this is the first moment which is divisible into shorter periods. There had not been a concept “time” previous to this, there had only been unbroken continuity.”

               We are invited to ask ourselves, “What was created in this first sentence of Torah? And what was subsequently created?”      

We are invited to reflect upon the nature of Time, seeing not a linear progression but rather an “event”, a dislocation of continuity while at the same time a new pattern is forming which can create both time and space, the possibility of something new. 

               We are reminded that before one beginning lies another beginning – indeed rabbinic tradition speaks of God creating and destroying many worlds before this one.  [“Rabbi Judah bar Simon said: it does not say, ‘It was evening,’ but ‘And it was evening.’ Hence we derive that there was a time-system prior to this. Rabbi Abbahu said: This teaches us that God created worlds and destroyed them, saying, ‘This one pleases me; those did not please me.’ Rabbi Pinhas said, Rabbi Abbahu derives this from the verse, ‘And God saw all that God had made, and behold it was very good,’ as if to say, ‘This one pleases me, those others did not please me.’  (Ber Rabbbah 3:7)

               This is not a text bringing a scientific perspective to our understanding of creation, nor is it speaking literally. It’s value lies in the challenge to us to make sense of our living on this world.  Unlike the King in Alice in Wonderland, who advises the white rabbit to “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end. Then stop”, the text is saying to us – there is no fixed uni-directional pathway, our existence is complex, there are always possibilities, always choices to be made, always the possibility of starting again, always new ways for us to find as we live out our time on this world.

               While every act we choose to do will, of course, have consequences, there is no fixed or pre-ordained destiny. Every morning we thank God for the return of our soul after sleep, with a line that references the book of Lamentations (3:22-23) speaking of God’s mercy and compassion renewed every morning – from which the rabbis deduced that every morning God renews every person as a new creation – every morning we have the opportunity to start again.

               On the list the rabbis compiled of seven things that were made before the Creation, one of the items is “teshuvah” – turning or returning to God/ to the right way of being. (Pesachim 54a). It is a way of saying that foundational to the creation of human beings is the possibility of change, of reviewing and amending our behaviour, of learning and of applying that learning for the betterment of the world. It is, so to speak, built into our human-ness. We are created with the ability to make changes, to decide ourselves how we will live, to understand the effects and consequences of our behaviours and to act upon that understanding.

               In the liturgy of Kippur, that great day of teshuvah, of repentance and return we have just celebrated, we read the words of Isaiah:

(יז) כִּֽי־הִנְנִ֥י בוֹרֵ֛א שָׁמַ֥יִם חֲדָשִׁ֖ים וָאָ֣רֶץ חֲדָשָׁ֑ה וְלֹ֤א תִזָּכַ֙רְנָה֙ הָרִ֣אשֹׁנ֔וֹת וְלֹ֥א תַעֲלֶ֖ינָה עַל־לֵֽב׃

 For behold! I am creating A new heaven and a new earth; The former things shall not be remembered, They shall never come to mind. (6:17)   We remind each other that our mistakes may not be erased, but they can pass into history, we can do better going forward, we need not be hampered by our past actions if we truly repent them.

               The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote “History says, don’t hope /On this side of the grave/

But then, once in a lifetime/The longed-for tidal wave/Of justice can rise up/ And hope and history rhyme.”

               I love what Seamus Heaney describes as the moment “hope and history rhyme”, the moment where what has already happened is met by what we human beings choose to make of it. The pivotal time where our humanity can change the future, where we can hope for something different, and then make that hope real. Where, as he writes, “a tidal wave of justice can rise up” echoing the prophet Amos (5:24) But let justice well up like water / Righteousness like an unfailing stream.  ויגל כמים משפט וצדקה כנחל איתן

               The first words of Torah – whether referencing wisdom or new beginnings – points us to the existence of hope. Hope, not as an aspect of divinity, but of humanity. Hope not as some kind of future messianic expectation, but as here-and-now action. Hope – something we can use in order to create a better world. 

In this shabbat which comes immediately after the Tishri festivals, from the changing of a year to the changing of ourselves, when we have just marked Simchat Torah, with its powerful symbolism of the continuity of Torah at the same time as the new beginning of the reading of Torah, we are most definitely at the point where hope and history meet.  

The past year has felt to many to be one of especial hopelessness. And yet we know, in the words of Rav Nachman of Bratslav:  “Lo tit’ya-esh – Assur l’hit’ya-esh – ‘It is forbidden to despair”.

He also said :  “If you belief it is possible to destroy, then believe it is also possible to repair.”

תַּאַמִיןֹ שֶיְכוֹלִין לְתַּקֵן אִם אַתָּה מֲאַמִין שֶיְכוֹלִין לְקַלְקֵל   

Im Attah ma ’amin she-yekholin lekalkeil ta’amin she-yekholim letakein

He is speaking about hope. Not an abstract or theological hope, but a practical one. Not optimism or wishful thinking, not a fantasy that does not take into account our reality, but a very concrete behaviour.

               The Hebrew word for hope – Tikvah – comes from a root k’v’h kavah meaning to gather together (used in this sidra for the waters that are gathered together in order to reveal the dry land), to bind together by twisting or stretching – from which we also get the image of a cord made of many strands, to expect and to look for a thing which we can focus upon which is not yet here.   The word is designed to demonstrate a collective, who share meaning and who will share action for change.  

               We have been in situations of existential despair many times. In truth the history of the Jewish people is filled with tragedy and violence, fear and instability, bad leadership and a directionless people. The Jerusalem Talmud speaks of the hours after the exodus from Egypt, when Pharoah and his army were riding up behind the people and the waters of the reed sea lay in front of them. The people did not know what to do. They divided into four different groups. One said  “Let’s go into the sea!”  Another said, “Let’s return to Egypt!”  Another said, “Let’s make war on [the Egyptians],” and the fourth said, “Let’s cry out against them!”.  To the group that said, “Let’s go into the sea,” Moses said to them, “Stand and see the liberation that God will work for you today.”  To those who said, “Let’s return to Egypt,” he said, “The Egyptians you see today you will never see again…”  To those who said “Let’s make war with them,” Moses said, “God will fight for you,” and to those who said, “let’s cry out….” he said,  “Hold your peace (be quiet)”  (Jer Talmud on Ex 14:13-14). It is a reminder to us that not only have we experienced such times of terror and trauma before, but also that there are many responses to such times. In the biblical text the next verse has God say to Moses  “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you, lift up your rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it, so that the Israelites may march into the sea on dry ground.” . While the text appears to recount a miracle, look too at the instructions – Go forward, hold out your arm..  We cannot wait for God to act – it is our job to go forward in hope, to take action in hope, to make choices for a better future.

As the theologian Eugene Borowitz wrote, “To hope is to close the gap between our present condition and a more desirable one in the future.”  We come together as a people, bind ourselves to each other and offer each other a possible future that we can work towards creating. And in the words of Elie Wiesel: “Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.”             

               This shabbat is also the yahrzeit of Rabbi Regina Jonas, the first woman to be ordained a rabbi in modern times, who challenged the accepted worldview and opened doors into new worlds for the women (and men) who came after her.  I hope that you too will continue to challenge received wisdom, will follow your own heart and your own thoughts in order to best create a community and a world that is better for your being in it.  I have quoted Rav Nachman a lot in this sermon, and I want to end with one more of his sayings. ““The day you were born is the day God decided that the world could not exist without you.” It was a day where multiple new possibilities were born with you, and where each day of your life new possibilities emerge for you. I hope as you go forward in life you can celebrate those possibilities and choose for yourself things that bring you pleasure and meaning, that contribute to the world and make changes as yet undreamed of.

La Torah inizia con una famosa frase “Bereishit bara Elohim”, che di solito traduciamo erroneamente come “In principio Dio creò…”. 

Perché “traduciamo male”? – Perché la prima parola non si presta a essere facilmente compresa.

Se la Torah avesse voluto iniziare dal principio, avrebbe usato la parola ebraica “behat’chila” בהתחלה – che possiamo tradurre come “in principio”.  O forse “בראשונה ברא”.

Che almeno manterrebbe al suo interno l’idea di “rosh” – una radice più comunemente intesa come “testa” – sia in senso letterale che figurato – può significare un leader, o qualcosa di importante in una gerarchia, la cima di qualcosa, una direzione verso l’alto….

Quindi non è impossibile tradurre questa parola opaca con essere – all’inizio – eccetto-.

Ma dobbiamo chiederci: l’inizio di cosa?

Dio è già presente, in esistenza al di là di questo “inizio”, sta già creando quello che diventerà il nostro mondo, e c’è “tohu va’vo’hu” – un’altra frase opaca, ma che implica non il vuoto ma il suo opposto – un caos di materia disorganizzata.

Molti commentatori notano che la Torah non inizia con la prima lettera dell’alfabeto, come ci si potrebbe aspettare, ma con la seconda.  La lettera ebraica Alef è usata per indicare il primo numero (uno); una lettera senza suono che nella Torah è scritta come una combinazione di tre lettere ebraiche (la lettera yud sia sopra che sotto la lettera vav scritta in diagonale, dove la yud superiore rappresenta gli aspetti inconoscibili di Dio e quella inferiore la presenza di Dio nel nostro mondo. La vav (che significa “gancio”) collega i due regni. Dovrebbe essere la lettera perfetta per iniziare un testo sulla creazione di un nuovo regno di esistenza.

Un indizio potrebbe venire dal fatto che la lettera ebraica “Beit”, che inizia il testo della Torah, ha la forma di una parentesi, che chiude alla vista tutto ciò che è venuto prima, non solo di lato, ma anche sopra e sotto. Possiamo muoverci solo lontano e in avanti da quella forma; quindi una sorta di inizio, ma con la precisa implicazione che questo non è in alcun modo “L’inizio”.

Il Targum Yerushalmi non vede affatto un “inizio”, ma legge questo testo usando l’idea di “reishit” come “Chochma” – saggezza “בראשית בחוכמא ברא יי”:

Lo Zohar riprende questa frase e ci dice che la Torah inizia con la frase “Con saggezza Dio creò….”. Mentre il rabbino italiano Ovadiah Sforno (morto a Bologna nel 1549) commenta: “ [si riferisce] all’inizio del tempo; questo è il primo momento che è divisibile in periodi più brevi. Prima di questo non esisteva il concetto di “tempo”, ma solo una continuità ininterrotta”.

               Siamo invitati a chiederci: “Che cosa è stato creato in questa prima frase della Torah? E cosa è stato creato successivamente?”.     

Siamo invitati a riflettere sulla natura del tempo, vedendo non una progressione lineare ma piuttosto un “evento”, una dislocazione della continuità, mentre allo stesso tempo si sta formando un nuovo modello che può creare sia il tempo che lo spazio, la possibilità di qualcosa di nuovo. 

               Ci viene ricordato che prima di un inizio c’è un altro inizio – infatti la tradizione rabbinica parla di Dio che crea e distrugge molti mondi prima di questo.  [Rabbi Judah bar Simon disse: “Non si dice: ‘Era sera’, ma ‘E fu sera’. Da ciò si deduce che c’era un sistema temporale precedente a questo. Rabbi Abbahu disse: Questo ci insegna che Dio ha creato i mondi e li ha distrutti, dicendo: “Questo mi piace; quelli non mi sono piaciuti”. Rabbi Pinhas disse: “Rabbi Abbahu deriva questo dal versetto: ‘E Dio vide tutto ciò che Dio aveva fatto, ed ecco che era molto buono’, come a dire: ‘Questo mi piace, gli altri non mi sono piaciuti’” (Ber Rabbbah 3:7).

               Questo non è un testo che porta una prospettiva scientifica alla nostra comprensione della creazione, né parla in senso letterale. Il suo valore risiede nella sfida a dare un senso al nostro vivere su questo mondo.  A differenza del re di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie, che consiglia al coniglio bianco di “Cominciare dall’inizio e andare avanti finché non si arriva alla fine. Allora fermati”, il testo ci sta dicendo che non esiste un percorso fisso e unidirezionale, che la nostra esistenza è complessa, che ci sono sempre possibilità, sempre scelte da fare, sempre la possibilità di ricominciare, sempre nuove strade da trovare mentre viviamo il nostro tempo su questo mondo.

               Sebbene ogni atto che scegliamo di compiere avrà, ovviamente, delle conseguenze, non esiste un destino fisso o preordinato. Ogni mattina ringraziamo Dio per il ritorno della nostra anima dopo il sonno, con un verso che fa riferimento al libro delle Lamentazioni (3:22-23) che parla della misericordia e della compassione di Dio che si rinnovano ogni mattina – da cui i rabbini hanno dedotto che ogni mattina Dio rinnova ogni persona come una nuova creazione – ogni mattina abbiamo l’opportunità di ricominciare.

                              Nell’elenco che i rabbini hanno compilato delle sette cose che sono state fatte prima della Creazione, una delle voci è la “teshuvah”, cioè il ritorno a Dio/al giusto modo di essere. (Pesachim 54a). È un modo per dire che alla base della creazione degli esseri umani c’è la possibilità di cambiare, di rivedere e modificare il nostro comportamento, di imparare e di applicare tale apprendimento per migliorare il mondo. È, per così dire, incorporata nella nostra umanità. Siamo stati creati con la capacità di apportare cambiamenti, di decidere noi stessi come vivere, di comprendere gli effetti e le conseguenze dei nostri comportamenti e di agire in base a tale comprensione.

               Nella liturgia del Kippur, il grande giorno di teshuvah, di pentimento e di ritorno che abbiamo appena celebrato, leggiamo le parole di Isaia:

(יז) כִּֽי-הִנְנִ֥י בוֹרֵ֛א שָׁמַ֥יִם חֲדָשִׁ֖ים וָאָ֣רֶץ חֲדָשָׁ֑ה וְלֹ֤א תִזָּכַ֙רְנָה֙ הָרִ֣אשֹׁנ֔וֹת וְלֹ֥א תַעֲלֶ֖ינָה עַל-לֵֽב׃

 Perché ecco! Io creo un cielo nuovo e una terra nuova; le cose di prima non saranno ricordate, non torneranno mai più alla mente. (6:17) Ci ricordiamo l’un l’altro che i nostri errori non possono essere cancellati, ma possono passare alla storia, possiamo fare meglio in futuro, non dobbiamo essere ostacolati dalle nostre azioni passate se ci pentiamo veramente.

               Il poeta irlandese Seamus Heaney ha scritto: “La storia dice: non sperare, da questa parte della tomba…”.

Ma poi, una volta nella vita/ L’agognata onda anomala/ Della giustizia può sollevarsi/ E speranza e storia fanno rima”.

               Mi piace ciò che Seamus Heaney descrive come il momento in cui “speranza e storia fanno rima”, il momento in cui ciò che è già accaduto si incontra con ciò che noi esseri umani scegliamo di farne. Il momento cruciale in cui la nostra umanità può cambiare il futuro, in cui possiamo sperare in qualcosa di diverso e poi rendere reale quella speranza. Dove, come scrive l’autore, “può sorgere un’onda anomala di giustizia”, riecheggiando il profeta Amos (5,24) Ma la giustizia salga come l’acqua / la giustizia come un torrente ininterrotto.  ויגל כמים משפט וצדקה כנחל איתן

               Le prime parole della Torah – che si riferiscano alla saggezza o a nuovi inizi – ci indicano l’esistenza della speranza. La speranza, non come aspetto della divinità, ma dell’umanità. La speranza non come una sorta di aspettativa messianica futura, ma come azione qui e ora. La speranza – qualcosa che possiamo usare per creare un mondo migliore. 

In questo shabbat che viene subito dopo le feste di Tishri, dal cambiamento di un anno al cambiamento di noi stessi, quando abbiamo appena segnato Simchat Torah, con il suo potente simbolismo della continuità della Torah allo stesso tempo del nuovo inizio della lettura della Torah, siamo sicuramente al punto in cui speranza e storia si incontrano. 

L’anno passato è sembrato a molti particolarmente disperato. Eppure sappiamo, con le parole di Rav Nachman di Bratslav: “Lo tit’ya-esh – Assur l’hit’ya-esh – ‘È vietato disperare’”.

Egli disse anche: “Se credi che sia possibile distruggere, allora credi che sia anche possibile riparare”.    אִם אַתָּה מֲאַמִין שֶיְכוֹלִין לְקַלְקֵל תַּאַמִיןֹ שֶיְכוֹלִין לְתַּקֵן    Im Attah ma ‘amin she-yekholin lekalkeil ta’amin she-yekholim letakein

Parla di speranza. Non una speranza astratta o teologica, ma pratica. Non un ottimismo o un pio desiderio, non una fantasia che non tiene conto della nostra realtà, ma un comportamento molto concreto.

               La parola ebraica che indica la speranza – Tikvah – deriva da una radice k’v’h kavah che significa raccogliere (usata in questa sidra per le acque che si raccolgono per rivelare la terra asciutta), legare insieme attorcigliando o tendendo – da cui si ricava anche l’immagine di una corda fatta di molti fili -, aspettarsi e cercare una cosa su cui concentrarsi che ancora non c’è.   La parola è pensata per indicare un collettivo che condivide un significato e che condividerà l’azione per il cambiamento.  

               Ci siamo trovati molte volte in situazioni di disperazione esistenziale. In verità la storia del popolo ebraico è costellata di tragedie e violenze, paura e instabilità, leadership sbagliata e un popolo senza direzione. Il Talmud di Gerusalemme parla delle ore successive all’esodo dall’Egitto, quando il Faraone e il suo esercito cavalcavano alle spalle del popolo e le acque del canneto si stendevano davanti a loro. Il popolo non sapeva cosa fare. Si divisero in quattro gruppi diversi. Uno disse: “Andiamo in mare!”.  Un altro disse: “Torniamo in Egitto!”.  Un altro disse: “Facciamo guerra [agli Egiziani]”, e il quarto disse: “Gridiamo contro di loro!”.  Al gruppo che disse: “Andiamo nel mare”, Mosè disse: “Restate in piedi e vedrete la liberazione che Dio opererà per voi oggi”.  A quelli che dissero: “Torniamo in Egitto”, disse: “Gli egiziani che vedete oggi non li vedrete mai più…”.  A quelli che dicevano: “Facciamo la guerra con loro”, Mosè disse: “Dio combatterà per voi”, e a quelli che dicevano: “Gridiamo ….”, disse: “State tranquilli” (Jer Talmud su Es 14,13-14). Ci ricorda che non solo abbiamo già vissuto momenti di terrore e trauma, ma anche che ci sono molte risposte a questi momenti. Nel testo biblico, il versetto successivo dice a Mosè: “Perché gridi verso di me? Di’ agli Israeliti di andare avanti. E tu, alza la tua verga e stendi il tuo braccio sul mare e dividilo, così che gli Israeliti possano marciare nel mare su terra asciutta”. . Sebbene il testo sembri raccontare un miracolo, guardate anche le istruzioni: “Vai avanti, tendi il tuo braccio”.  Non possiamo aspettare che Dio agisca: è nostro compito andare avanti nella speranza, agire nella speranza, fare scelte per un futuro migliore.

Come ha scritto il teologo Eugene Borowitz, “sperare è colmare il divario tra la nostra condizione attuale e una più desiderabile in futuro”.  Ci riuniamo come popolo, ci leghiamo gli uni agli altri e ci offriamo un futuro possibile che possiamo lavorare per creare. Per dirla con le parole di Elie Wiesel: “La speranza è come la pace. Non è un dono di Dio. È un dono che solo noi possiamo farci l’un l’altro”.

                              Questo shabbat è anche lo yahrzeit di Rabbi Regina Jonas, la prima donna a essere ordinata rabbino nei tempi moderni, che ha sfidato la visione del mondo accettata e ha aperto le porte di nuovi mondi alle donne (e agli uomini) che sono venuti dopo di lei.  Spero che anche voi continuiate a sfidare la saggezza ricevuta, che seguiate il vostro cuore e i vostri pensieri per creare al meglio una comunità e un mondo migliori per il fatto di esserci.  Ho citato spesso Rav Nachman in questo sermone e voglio concludere con un altro dei suoi detti. “Il giorno in cui sei nato è il giorno in cui Dio ha deciso che il mondo non poteva esistere senza di te”. È stato un giorno in cui con voi sono nate molteplici nuove possibilità e in cui ogni giorno della vostra vita emergono nuove possibilità per voi. Spero che, andando avanti nella vita, possiate celebrare queste possibilità e scegliere per voi stessi cose che vi portino piacere e significato, che contribuiscano al mondo e apportino cambiamenti non ancora sognati.

Sermon Shofetim 2024

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On the first shabbat of the month of Elul – the month when we Jews traditionally focus on an examination of or lives in order to intensify the journey of teshuvah – of returning to God – in preparation for the Yamim Noraim – the Days of Awe, we always read Parashat Shofetim.  This parasha, which forms part of Moses’ last speeches to the people of Israel, his ethical legacy to accompany them into the land into which he cannot go, includes important guidance for future leadership of the people –  the creation of a justice system for the Israelites; the limits of material power for future kings, priests and Levites; and a review of the laws of warfare.

Probably its most  famous line is

צדק צדק תרדף למען תחיה וירשת את־הארץ אשר־יהוה אלהיך נתן לך {ס}         “

Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the ETERNAL your God is giving you”

And this commandment has been a cornerstone of Rabbinic Judaism, which created a wealth of detail on the pursuit and maintenance of a judicial system for everyone to use.

The rabbis were also focused on what appears to be an extra word in the text. Tzedek is usually paired in biblical text with Mishpat – Righteousness with Law or Justice, but here we have a repetition – within the context of establishing a legal system – not of a judicial term per se, but of an ethical one.  One explanation is that the repeated word emphasises that the  pursuit of righteousness is one that has to be carried out with righteousness – in English there is  a phrase that “the end justifies the means”, but here the exact opposite is the case – no matter the rightness of your cause, how you accomplish it matters. And Ibn Ezra (12th century Spain) clarified further – the duplication of “Tzedek” refers to Justice without reference to the circumstances – whether it is to your own profit or your own loss, whether it is in word or deed, for Jew or non-Jew, friend or enemy – Justice must be pursued for its own sake. 

Our tradition teaches that this repetition of “Tzedek” is also an oblique reference to compromise. When in moral philosophy there are two positions that each hold true, each are “good”, and yet these positions clash, there has to be a balancing of the “goods”. All true ethical decisions involve balancing and weighing competing needs and benefits – for the individual and for society for example, and so rabbinic teaching uses this verse to mandate a compromise that is just. When there are two competing “goods”, one must work to find an acceptable compromise between them.

The third word of this verse, the imperative verb “tirdof”, that we must pursue Justice, is also taken up by our tradition. Justice is never to be taken for granted, but must be actively and continually created. In a human world driven by self-interest, it is easy to give in to  the temptation to bend rules, to benefit from the disbenefit of others, to skew our actions. Whether it be buying an item priced so cheaply that in no way could the worker have been paid a fair amount for their labour, or using our position to privilege ourselves or our family, all of us can fall prey to temptation. The pursuit of justice is an ongoing struggle. Rav Yonatan Chipman wrote “no person is “righteous” as a fixed quality of their being as a person.  Justice, truth, righteousness, integrity, are all the results of a daily struggle to do good and not to be influenced or tempted to depart from the straight and narrow.” We live our lives in aspiration to be better people, an aspiration that can end only with our death.

               Parashat Shofetim, named for the establishment of a series of law courts and judges, is actually more widely concerned with the whole of Israelite society and in particular with its leadership.  Bible has a way of being relevant to every society and every epoch, and the issues Moses addresses in this portion remain pertinent and significant for us today. Indeed, the behaviour of those who are put in positions of leadership in our day concerns us all. As in the famous curse, we are “living in interesting times”, where the leaders of many countries seem to be choosing dangerous pathways, ratcheting up anger and fear and hatred of the other.

               Here in Shofetim we have the rules not only for a legal system, but for the political leader – the King.  We are told:   “ If, after you have entered the land that your God יהוה has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, and you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” then you shall be free to set a king over yourself” (vv14-15)

               The Hebrew is potentially ambiguous. Is it a commandment? or is it simply a recognition that people may want to have such a form of leadership even if it is not what God would prefer?

In part because of the histories recounted in the books of Samuel and Kings, and the weight of tradition that ties monarchy to messianism, many medieval commentators decided to include kingship into the 613 mitzvot of bible – a commandment to the Jewish people from God.

But there was one important medieval dissenter to this idea, one whose argument and whose writings on political theory have  become even more powerful in modernity. I refer of course, to Don Yitzchak Abravanel.

Maybe it was because he had held high-level positions in three different royal courts: Portugal, Spain, and the Kingdom of Naples, that his views on monarchy differed from many of his contemporaries. He saw at close quarters the dangers of unbridled power that was invested in monarchy. And as a grammarian he believed that any divine mandate for monarchy was at best a misunderstanding of the spirit of the texts.  For what it is worth, I agree with him on this.

Don Yitzchak insisted that the Israelites were not commanded by God to select a king and he made a linguistic as well as anthropological case for his point. And he took the idea further, from theological into political discourse.

He asked a question no-one was asking. Is a king (that is a leadership figure with absolute power) at all necessary for a State to run well?  He first offers, then disposes of the prevalent idea that the position of the Monarch is analogous to the position of God in the world, a figure who will unify the people, who provides continuity, whose role is to focus and underpin power, even if not to actually use that power.

He writes that a monarchy is unnecessary. While the biblical text shows God recognising that the people may want to have a monarch just like all the other people around them, God doesn’t seem particularly enamoured of the idea, instead it seems that God is allowing it to happen ONLY as a kind of bridge to a future society that would function quite differently, with every person responsible for the community. For Abravanel, the monarchy begins as a sop to public anxieties about leadership. And part of his argument is based right here in Parashat Shofetim. Because the text emphasises interesting limits set to the what the monarch will be able to do and to have. We read:  “[The King]  shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since יהוה has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess.  When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the Levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere his God יהוה, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel. (Deut. 17:16-20)

It is clear that Moses, in his final days trying to inculcate values to both build and hold the Israelite society together, also has a somewhat jaundiced view of monarchy. And he tries hard to limit the power and the hedonism and self-interest that may easily develop in the role.

Don Yitzchak Abravanel not only argues persuasively against any biblical mandate for a monarchy, he argues against any mandate for that type of life-time leadership, either inherited or acquired by other means. He maintains that not only is a monarch unnecessary, but that they are potentially a damaging form of leadership. And in his powerful commentary he offers another model of leadership that he believes would be much better – a government formed by a group of people, chosen for a brief period of time, who would come together to make the decisions required for the well-being of the society and the State. He wrote “It is not impossible that a nation should have many leaders who convene, unite, and reach a consensus and can thus govern and administer justice. . . . Reason suggests that . . . between the one and the many, the many should be heeded.”

               Now Don Yitzchak had seen absolute monarchy close up and understood its dangerous flaws. He also, on arriving in Italy, saw the republics of Florence and Venice, which operated outside the all-powerful Papal control, and which he saw had a series of checks and balances that allowed for good governance. So maybe it is no surprise that he had strong views on how leadership should be formed and how there needed to be an ongoing understanding of the needs of the community in order to provide appropriate governance.

               In the Nevi’im, the second section of the Hebrew Bible, there is developed a further model of leadership. There is, at the behest of the people, (and with a false start with the kingship of Saul), a hereditary monarchy that descends from David. From the time of Moses we already have an hereditary priesthood, of the tribe of Levi, with the High Priests descending from the line of Aaron. By the end of Deuteronomy, as we read today, there is a system that is not hereditary, but seems to be based on the knowledge, judgment and ethical reputation of its participants – the Judges. This system has roots right back to Moses’ father in law, Jethro, who advises Moses to set up a arrangement of courts so that Justice is never delayed. And of course we also have the individuals who challenge everything and everyone – the prophets – called to speak their truth to power. The prophets are each individuals, arising from no system or class or family, and who have no common background. Their role is to call for moral and ethical imperatives when these are being ignored; reminding the people of God’s continuing watchfulness for the people of Israel, even when God may seem to be very distant.

               From very early on Judaism teaches that good  leadership must come from all aspects of the society working together, each bringing their differing viewpoints and differing priorities.  There would be some stability and some interruption embedded in the model, some continuity and some evolution or even revolution. Leadership is not an absolute attribute – as even Moses found out –  there will always be people who challenge those in power.

The Talmud (Shevuot 39a) tells us that “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”, meaning “all of  Israel are responsible each for the other”. The idea of communal responsibility, and of each of us being in relationship with each other, is fundamental to our society.  The passage goes on to remind us that if we see another person about to commit a sin we must intervene to warn and if necessary to stop them. We are not permitted to keep silent when we see injustice. The point being always that responsibility for our society does not rest with a small number of officials -even if they have been elected or appointed to roles with the oversight or status to govern. Responsibility for our society rests with us all. Each of us must step up to leadership.

Shortly we will be celebrating the Yamim Noraim, the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, traditionally the great days of Judgement when we take the time to look into our souls and examine how we are living our lives, and hopefully return to the ways of righteousness – Tzedek.  The language of the liturgy reminds us that God notices us, notices how we live our lives, notices both the good and the bad that we do. The fact that we pray in community, confess together in the first person plural to a list of alphabetical misdeeds, helps us to face up to our own behaviour and encourages others to do the same. We are reminded – repeatedly – of the fragility of our lives, of our impermanence, of our own mortality. And we are reminded – repeatedly – that we are not alone.

It sometimes feels – indeed in these last weeks and months it has felt most dreadfully strongly – that God has not noticed our pain, that our leaderships have failed us, that there is no righteousness nor justice in the world.

               I write this sermon on the day that the bodies of six hostages – young people who were so recently alive in Gaza – have been brought back to Israel for burial. The day when the pain within the Jewish world is so extreme one can scarcely breathe. Where is God? Where are our leaders? Where is righteousness?

               And I am reminded by a colleague that God still sees, that God notices and holds firm to the values of life and of peace and of human beings living together. And that our role is to manifest those values and bring them into the world. “Tzedek Tzedek tirdof “– Never stop pursuing righteousness, whatever the circumstances, however difficult the context.

              

Il primo shabbat del mese di Elul – il mese in cui noi ebrei tradizionalmente ci concentriamo sull’esame della nostra vita per intensificare il cammino di teshuvah – il ritorno a Dio – in preparazione agli Yamim Noraim – i giorni di soggezione – leggiamo sempre la Parashat Shofetim.  Questa parashà, che fa parte degli ultimi discorsi di Mosè al popolo d’Israele, il suo lascito etico per accompagnarlo nella terra in cui non può andare, include importanti indicazioni per la futura guida del popolo – la creazione di un sistema di giustizia per gli israeliti; i limiti del potere materiale per i futuri re, sacerdoti e leviti; e una revisione delle leggi di guerra.

Probabilmente il suo verso più famoso è

צדק צדק תרדף למען תחיה וירשת-הארץ אשר-יהוה אלהיך נתן {ס}         ”

Giustizia, giustizia perseguirete, affinché possiate prosperare e occupare la terra che l’Eterno, il vostro Dio, vi sta dando”.

Questo comandamento è stato una pietra miliare dell’ebraismo rabbinico, che ha creato una ricchezza di dettagli sul perseguimento e il mantenimento di un sistema giudiziario a disposizione di tutti.

I rabbini si sono anche concentrati su quella che sembra essere una parola in più nel testo. Nel testo biblico, Tzedek è di solito abbinato a Mishpat – Rettitudine con Legge o Giustizia, ma qui abbiamo una ripetizione – nel contesto dell’istituzione di un sistema legale – non di un termine giudiziario in sé, ma di un termine etico.  Una spiegazione è che la parola ripetuta enfatizza il fatto che la ricerca della rettitudine è una ricerca che deve essere portata avanti con rettitudine – in inglese c’è una frase che dice “il fine giustifica i mezzi”, ma qui è l’esatto contrario – non importa la giustezza della vostra causa, conta il modo in cui la realizzate. E Ibn Ezra (Spagna, XII secolo) ha chiarito ulteriormente: la duplicazione di “Tzedek” si riferisce alla giustizia senza riferimento alle circostanze, sia che si tratti di un profitto o di una perdita, sia che si tratti di parole o di azioni, per un ebreo o un non ebreo, un amico o un nemico, la giustizia deve essere perseguita per se stessa. 

La nostra tradizione insegna che questa ripetizione di “Tzedek” è anche un riferimento obliquo al compromesso. Quando nella filosofia morale ci sono due posizioni che sono ciascuna vera, ciascuna “buona”, eppure queste posizioni si scontrano, ci deve essere un bilanciamento dei “beni”. Tutte le vere decisioni etiche implicano un bilanciamento e una ponderazione di bisogni e benefici in competizione, per esempio per l’individuo e per la società, e quindi l’insegnamento rabbinico usa questo versetto per imporre un compromesso che sia giusto. Quando ci sono due “beni” in competizione, bisogna lavorare per trovare un compromesso accettabile tra di essi.

La terza parola di questo versetto, il verbo imperativo “tirdof”, secondo cui dobbiamo perseguire la giustizia, è ripresa anche dalla nostra tradizione. La giustizia non va mai data per scontata, ma va creata attivamente e continuamente. In un mondo umano guidato dall’interesse personale, è facile cedere alla tentazione di piegare le regole, di trarre vantaggio dai disagi altrui, di distorcere le nostre azioni. Che si tratti di acquistare un articolo a un prezzo così basso che in nessun modo il lavoratore avrebbe potuto essere pagato in modo equo per il suo lavoro, o di usare la nostra posizione per privilegiare noi stessi o la nostra famiglia, tutti noi possiamo cadere in tentazione. La ricerca della giustizia è una lotta continua. Rav Yonatan Chipman ha scritto: “Nessuna persona è ‘giusta’ come qualità fissa del suo essere persona.  La giustizia, la verità, la rettitudine, l’integrità sono tutti risultati di una lotta quotidiana per fare il bene e non essere influenzati o tentati di allontanarsi dalla retta via”. Viviamo la nostra vita aspirando a essere persone migliori, un’aspirazione che può terminare solo con la nostra morte.

               Parashat Shofetim, che prende il nome dall’istituzione di una serie di tribunali e giudici, in realtà riguarda più ampiamente l’intera società israelita e in particolare la sua leadership.  La Bibbia ha un modo di essere rilevante per ogni società e ogni epoca, e le questioni che Mosè affronta in questa parte rimangono pertinenti e significative per noi oggi. Infatti, il comportamento di coloro che occupano posizioni di comando ai nostri giorni ci riguarda tutti. Come nella famosa maledizione, “viviamo in tempi interessanti”, dove i leader di molti Paesi sembrano scegliere strade pericolose, facendo crescere la rabbia, la paura e l’odio verso l’altro.

               Qui in Shofetim abbiamo le regole non solo per un sistema legale, ma anche per il leader politico – il re.  Ci viene detto:   “Se, dopo che sarai entrato nel paese che il tuo Dio ti ha assegnato, ne avrai preso possesso e ti sarai stabilito in esso, e deciderai: “Voglio mettere un re su di me, come fanno tutte le nazioni che mi circondano”, allora sarai libero di mettere un re su di te” (vv. 14-15).

               L’ebraico è potenzialmente ambiguo. Si tratta di un comandamento o semplicemente di un riconoscimento del fatto che le persone possono desiderare di avere una tale forma di leadership anche se non è ciò che Dio preferirebbe?

In parte a causa delle storie raccontate nei libri di Samuele e dei Re, e del peso della tradizione che lega la monarchia al messianismo, molti commentatori medievali decisero di includere la regalità nelle 613 mitzvot della Bibbia – un comandamento di Dio al popolo ebraico.

Ma c’era un importante dissenziente medievale a questa idea, le cui argomentazioni e i cui scritti di teoria politica sono diventati ancora più potenti nella modernità. Mi riferisco, ovviamente, a don Yitzchak Abravanel.

Forse perché aveva ricoperto posizioni di alto livello in tre diverse corti reali: Portogallo, Spagna e Regno di Napoli, il suo punto di vista sulla monarchia era diverso da quello di molti suoi contemporanei. Vide da vicino i pericoli del potere sfrenato di cui era investita la monarchia. E come grammatico riteneva che qualsiasi mandato divino per la monarchia fosse, nel migliore dei casi, un fraintendimento dello spirito dei testi.  Per quanto possa valere, sono d’accordo con lui su questo punto.

Don Yitzchak insisteva sul fatto che agli israeliti non era stato comandato da Dio di scegliere un re, e ne sosteneva la tesi sia dal punto di vista linguistico che antropologico. E ha portato l’idea oltre, dal discorso teologico a quello politico.

Ha posto una domanda che nessuno si poneva. Un re (cioè una figura di comando con potere assoluto) è necessario per il buon funzionamento di uno Stato?  Prima offre, poi elimina l’idea prevalente che la posizione del monarca sia analoga alla posizione di Dio nel mondo, una figura che unifica il popolo, che fornisce continuità, il cui ruolo è quello di concentrare e sostenere il potere, anche se non di usarlo effettivamente.

Scrive che la monarchia non è necessaria. Sebbene il testo biblico mostri che Dio riconosce che il popolo potrebbe desiderare di avere un monarca come tutte le altre persone che lo circondano, Dio non sembra particolarmente entusiasta dell’idea, anzi sembra che Dio permetta che ciò avvenga SOLO come una sorta di ponte verso una società futura che funzionerà in modo molto diverso, con ogni persona responsabile della comunità. Per Abravanel, la monarchia nasce come una risposta alle ansie dell’opinione pubblica riguardo alla leadership. E parte della sua argomentazione si basa proprio su Parashat Shofetim. Il testo, infatti, sottolinea gli interessanti limiti posti a ciò che il monarca potrà fare e avere. Leggiamo:  “[Il re] non terrà molti cavalli e non rimanderà gente in Egitto per aumentare i suoi cavalli, poiché יהוה ti ha avvertito: “Non devi più tornare per quella strada”. Non avrà molte mogli, perché il suo cuore non si smarrisca, e non accumulerà argento e oro a dismisura.  Quando sarà seduto sul suo trono reale, farà scrivere per lui una copia di questo Insegnamento su un rotolo dai sacerdoti levitici. Che rimanga con lui e che lo legga per tutta la vita, affinché impari a riverire il suo Dio יהוה, a osservare fedelmente ogni parola di questo Insegnamento e queste leggi. Così non si comporterà in modo altezzoso con i suoi simili e non devierà dall’Insegnamento a destra o a sinistra, affinché egli e la sua discendenza possano regnare a lungo in mezzo a Israele. (Deut. 17:16-20)

È chiaro che Mosè, nei suoi ultimi giorni di vita, nel tentativo di inculcare valori per costruire e tenere insieme la società israelita, ha anche una visione un po’ strana della monarchia. E cerca di limitare il potere, l’edonismo e l’interesse personale che possono facilmente svilupparsi in questo ruolo.

Don Yitzchak Abravanel non solo argomenta in modo persuasivo contro qualsiasi mandato biblico per una monarchia, ma anche contro qualsiasi mandato per questo tipo di leadership a vita, ereditata o acquisita con altri mezzi. Sostiene che non solo un monarca non è necessario, ma che è una forma di leadership potenzialmente dannosa. E nel suo potente commento offre un altro modello di leadership che, a suo avviso, sarebbe molto migliore: un governo formato da un gruppo di persone, scelte per un breve periodo di tempo, che si riuniscano per prendere le decisioni necessarie al benessere della società e dello Stato. Scrive: “Non è impossibile che una nazione abbia molti leader che si riuniscono, si uniscono e raggiungono un consenso e possono così governare e amministrare la giustizia. . . . La ragione suggerisce che … tra l’uno e i molti, i molti dovrebbero essere ascoltati”.

               Ora don Yitzchak aveva visto da vicino la monarchia assoluta e ne comprendeva i pericolosi difetti. Arrivando in Italia, vide anche le repubbliche di Firenze e Venezia, che operavano al di fuori dell’onnipotente controllo papale e che, secondo lui, avevano una serie di pesi e contrappesi che consentivano un buon governo. Non c’è quindi da stupirsi che egli avesse una forte opinione su come si dovesse formare la leadership e su come fosse necessario comprendere costantemente le esigenze della comunità per fornire un governo appropriato.

               Nei Nevi’im, la seconda sezione della Bibbia ebraica, viene sviluppato un ulteriore modello di leadership. C’è, per volere del popolo (e con una falsa partenza con la regalità di Saul), una monarchia ereditaria che discende da Davide. Già dai tempi di Mosè abbiamo un sacerdozio ereditario, della tribù di Levi, con i sommi sacerdoti che discendono dalla linea di Aronne. Alla fine del Deuteronomio, come leggiamo oggi, c’è un sistema che non è ereditario, ma sembra essere basato sulla conoscenza, sul giudizio e sulla reputazione etica dei suoi partecipanti – i Giudici. Questo sistema affonda le sue radici nel suocero di Mosè, Jethro, che consiglia a Mosè di istituire un sistema di tribunali in modo che la giustizia non venga mai ritardata. E naturalmente abbiamo anche gli individui che sfidano tutto e tutti – i profeti – chiamati a dire la loro verità al potere. I profeti sono individui che non provengono da nessun sistema, classe o famiglia e che non hanno un background comune. Il loro ruolo è quello di richiamare gli imperativi morali ed etici quando questi vengono ignorati, ricordando al popolo la continua vigilanza di Dio sul popolo d’Israele, anche quando Dio può sembrare molto distante.

               Fin dall’inizio l’ebraismo insegna che una buona leadership deve provenire da tutti gli aspetti della società che lavorano insieme, ciascuno portando i propri punti di vista e le proprie priorità.  Il modello prevede una certa stabilità e una certa interruzione, una certa continuità e un’evoluzione o addirittura una rivoluzione. La leadership non è un attributo assoluto – come scoprì anche Mosè – e ci saranno sempre persone che sfideranno la società.

Il Talmud (Shevuot 39a) ci dice che “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”, cioè “tutto Israele è responsabile l’uno dell’altro”. L’idea della responsabilità comunitaria e del fatto che ognuno di noi sia in relazione con gli altri è fondamentale per la nostra società.  Il brano prosegue ricordandoci che se vediamo un’altra persona che sta per commettere un peccato dobbiamo intervenire per avvertirla e, se necessario, per fermarla. Non ci è permesso tacere quando vediamo un’ingiustizia. Il punto è sempre che la responsabilità della nostra società non ricade su un piccolo numero di funzionari – anche se sono stati eletti o nominati per ricoprire ruoli con la supervisione o lo status di governare. La responsabilità della nostra società è di tutti noi. Ognuno di noi deve fare un passo avanti verso la leadership.

A breve celebreremo gli Yamim Noraim, le feste di Rosh Hashanah e Yom Kippur, tradizionalmente i grandi giorni del Giudizio in cui ci prendiamo il tempo per guardare nelle nostre anime ed esaminare come stiamo vivendo le nostre vite, e speriamo di tornare alle vie della rettitudine – Tzedek.  Il linguaggio della liturgia ci ricorda che Dio si accorge di noi, si accorge di come viviamo la nostra vita, si accorge del bene e del male che facciamo. Il fatto di pregare in comunità, di confessare insieme in prima persona plurale un elenco di misfatti in ordine alfabetico, ci aiuta ad affrontare il nostro comportamento e incoraggia gli altri a fare lo stesso. Ci viene ricordata – ripetutamente – la fragilità delle nostre vite, la nostra impermanenza, la nostra mortalità. E ci viene ricordato – ripetutamente – che non siamo soli.

A volte si ha l’impressione – e in queste ultime settimane e mesi l’impressione è stata fortissima – che Dio non si sia accorto del nostro dolore, che le nostre leadership ci abbiano deluso, che non ci sia rettitudine né giustizia nel mondo.

               Scrivo questo sermone nel giorno in cui i corpi di sei ostaggi – giovani che erano vivi a Gaza – sono stati riportati in Israele per la sepoltura. Il giorno in cui il dolore all’interno del mondo ebraico è così estremo che si riesce a malapena a respirare. Dov’è Dio? Dove sono i nostri leader? Dov’è la rettitudine?

               Un collega mi ricorda che Dio vede ancora, che Dio si accorge e mantiene saldi i valori della vita, della pace e della convivenza tra gli esseri umani. E che il nostro ruolo è quello di manifestare questi valori e di portarli nel mondo. “Tzedek Tzedek tirdof” – Non smettere mai di perseguire la rettitudine, qualunque siano le circostanze, qualunque sia il contesto difficile.

             

Parashat Noach – the terrible message behind the rainbow

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Noach  2022 Sermon for Lev Chadash

L’italiano segue l’inglese

The story of Noach begins at the end of last week’s sidra. His birth is recorded in a list of fathers and sons starting with Adam and his son Seth, and Noach is the tenth generation. His birth and naming stand out – We are told that “And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begot a son. And he called his name Noah, saying: ‘This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which comes from the ground which the Eternal God has cursed.’ And Lamech lived after he begot Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years; and he died. {S} And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (5:28-32)

 Unusually in this genealogy we are given a reason for Noach’s name – something not done since the creation of Adam. And we are also given the names of each of his sons – unlike earlier generations which gives the name only of the  person in the generational link.

Only Lamech speaks of the need for comfort, and only Lamech mentions the difficulty of life outside of Eden, of the curse borne by humanity who will have to work hard to survive on unforgiving land.

And still in last week’s reading we find the strange story of non-human beings interacting with humanity – “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,  that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. And the Eternal said: ‘My spirit shall not abide in human beings for ever, for he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.’  The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”{P} (6:1-4)

Ten generations since the creation of human beings, there seems to have been some kind of crisis – the interbreeding of humanity with divine or semi-divine beings. And this occurs in the generation of  Noach. Then things get even worse: 

“And the Eternal saw that the wickedness of humanity was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually.  And God repented having  made humanity on the earth, and was grieved to the heart. And the Eternal said: ‘I will blot out humanity whom I have created from the face of the earth; both human, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repents Me that I have made them.’  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Eternal.  (6:5-8).

God repents the decision to create human beings. The verb used “vayenachem” sounds suspiciously close to the verb at the root of the name Noach – are we being nudged into seeing Noach as part of the plan to act on – or even to act out -God’s despair?

Curiously, this is the moment the sidra Bereishit ended. We await the next verses in the next weekly reading.

Parashat Noach begins in an echo with the previous sidra, giving the genealogy of Noach and his three sons. But any sense of continuity or stability disappears with the words “And the earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noach, ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth – Make an ark of gopher wood etc etc…..”(11-14)

In the ten generations of human transmission on the earth, the earth is ruined, filled with violence, corrupted, disgusting. In God’s eyes there is nothing worth saving. Creation has failed. Instead there is only חָמָס – a root meaning violence, cruelty, malice, wronging, oppression  and injustice. (It appears 60 times in the Hebrew bible)

Now we all know the story of what happens next. Noach doesn’t debate with God, doesn’t warn his neighbours, doesn’t speak at all in our text, just gets on with the job of building the boat, collecting the animals, watching the floods that come from both above and below the earth…. His silence is one of the most difficult parts of the story for me.

The whole episode ends with the floods receding, Noach and his family back on dry land. As soon as he descends he builds an altar and sacrifices some of the rescued clean animals to God, who smells the smoke of the sacrifice and says – rather cryptically I always feel – “..  ‘I will not again curse the ground any more for human’s sake; for the imagination of humanity’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remains seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.’ (8:21-22)

God then blesses Noach and his family, giving them the blessing that was given to the first human beings – be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth “פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֖וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃”  Then God says something which feels in contemporary times to be particularly painfully relevant “
 
“ And  fear( u’mora’achem) of you and the dread (cheet’chem) of you shall be upon every living thing of the earth , and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moves on the ground , and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they given and every living thing that moves shall be food for you”

This is the moment when the eating of animals seems to be given Divine permission. When Judaism left vegetarianism behind. One commentator (Don Yitzchak Abravanel 1437–1508) suggested  that Noach and his family may well have had concerns about the possibility of being overrun by wild life, some of which could have potentially attacked and harmed them.  So God offers both a “blessing” – that of animals fearing human beings in order to keep such harm away from them, and also permission to eat animals – effectively giving great power to humans over animals. It is a nice gloss on what I read as a chilling verse –  there will be no shared relationship possible between the animals and human beings – animals living on this planet are at the mercy of human activities, and as we are seeing today, animal populations are being wiped out as climate change takes hold. A recent report by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) tells us that “The world’s populations of wild mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined by more than two-thirds on average since 1970” https://www.wwf.org.uk/our-reports/living-planet-report-2022

God makes a covenant with Noach and his descendants, and also with every living being on earth,  that never again will God destroy the earth by flood. The covenant is one sided – there is no obligation taken on by humanity or animals, only God establishes this covenant, only God is bound to it, and the sign of the covenant is not on earth but in the heavens – the rainbow.

We are used in modernity to seeing the rainbow as a benign if not actively beautiful symbol – a symbol of inclusion since all colours can be found in it. A symbol of comfort – in recent decades the idea of the “rainbow bridge” has taken root as a fantasy paradise for beloved pets to wait for their owners also to die and be reunited.  The rainbow is used to denote hope – particularly after a stormy and difficult time. The famous song from Wizard of Oz, “Somewhere over the rainbow” is seen by many as referring to the experience of Jews trapped by the Shoah – written by two Jewish immigrants to the USA it was published in 1939.

Earlier Jewish texts see the rainbow differently. The prophet Ezekiel, in Babylonian exile (6th Century BCE), had an ecstatic vision of God and compared the brightness of this vision to the appearance of a rainbow. (Ezekiel 1:28)  His vision led to the association of the rainbow with the divine glory, the immanence of God – that somehow the Shechinah dwelled within the rainbow. Because of this there is a tradition not to look at a rainbow for more than the glance necessary to say the blessing, not to tell others that a rainbow is in the sky. There is a belief that looking for too long at the rainbow will cause blindness (Chagigah 16a) because of God’s presence in it.

The rainbow in Jewish tradition is not unambiguously a happy sign. It is, as Rashi explains (9:14) a reminder of God’s anger, of God’s desire to destroy the world because of our behaviour in it. It is a sign more for God than for us – a reminder to God to control righteous anger, a sort of totem to hold on to for God to remember. And what is God remembering? Yes, the promise not to destroy the world through flood (though this is a particularly limited promise, nothing about fire/drought or pestilence), it is also God remembering that humanity is incapable of perfection, that God’s creation has a flaw within us that can never be erased – “the heart of humankind is evil from its youth” as the text puts it.

We have, as human beings, glossed the story of Noach and the rainbow covenant so that it has become unrecognisable. The story is told as a children’s story, every nursery has rainbows and toy figures or pictures of a charming colourful and unlikely ark with happy animals inside it. Many people still believe the idea that the rainbow contains 7 colours – seven, the symbol of perfection, a number with many different aspects – the seven Noachide Laws for example (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a),  seven sefirot of emotion in kabbalistic texts (the three others are of intellect), the seven days of the week, seven weeks between pesach and Shavuot, seventy years being a human lifespan. It just seems so right for the rainbow to have seven colours – yet even this is a gloss on reality. In fact there aren’t seven distinct bands, but multiple colours blending and shading into one another. The idea of seven comes from Isaac Newton in 1665. Until then it was accepted that there were 5 colours (Robert Boyle described them shortly before Newton – Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple), but because the number seven has a mystical meaning of perfection, Newton chose to define the rainbow as containing seven – adding the colour orange and splitting the colour purple into indigo and violet.

The story of Noach and of the Rainbow is a story that we have reworked away from its painful messages and instead made it as childlike and simplistic as possible, and the question for us is why has this story been so distorted in popular imagination?

The story begins with terrible violence and corruption, with a world that is not working, and a humanity barely worth saving. In just ten generations, creation has been traduced.

Then God creates an act of violence so terrible that creation is almost completely destroyed.

Then God realises that human beings are truly in the image of God – for where can we have got our destructive tendencies from if not from our divine creator? God sees that in creating humankind in the divine image God has created  complex and multivaried beings, they can be out of control, can make selfish and uncaring choices,  can exercise free will and choose to act against what is best for themselves or for others. God repents – though whether God repents for creating humanity or whether God repents for the flood caused in despair and anger is a moot point. God decides to let creation continue, and places in the sky a sign to remind God that this is the Creation God made.

The use of the rainbow as a sign of God responding to human beings is an extraordinary one. The text makes clear that this sign is a Keshet – the bow from a bow and arrow, an artefact for death and destruction, for hunting and for warfare. But this Keshet has two differences from the usual bow of an archer – it is pointed away from the earth so that any notional arrow would fly away into the heavens rather than damage the earth;  And it has no string – it has been “demilitarised”, an archer’s bow that cannot shoot, cannot cause any hurt. Nachmanides explains that orientation is like what happens when two nations who have been at war make overtures towards peace by pointing their bows away from each other. God is not only making peace after the violence of the flood, but commits to never acting so violently again while at the same time reminding us that this commitment comes from compassion towards us – that even though humanity has damaged the world God will show mercy towards us.

Far from being a cosy and comfortable image, the rainbow presents us with stunning clarity with the notion that an undeserving people yet has a compassionate God. The liturgical messages we have so recently spoken and heard in the Yamim Noraim have their roots in this story. We are deeply flawed, yet God is prepared to engage with us.

The blessing recited when we see a rainbow is an unusual one in that it has a triple phrasing – ““Blessed are You, Eternal, Sovereign of the universe, who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to Your covenant, and keeps to Your promise.” – the only time we find this structure among the blessings we make  (though there is a slight resonance with the blessing the priests were instructed to say to the people, the nesiat kapayim).

Why this threefold structure? We speak of God who remembers, who is faithful, who keeps the divine promise – it feels rather like desperate supplication – “please God, don’t just remember when you see the rainbow, but remember this is a commitment you made to us, a promise not to destroy us, as we know you could and as we fear we deserve”

The rainbow acts as a sign, a bridge in the heavens between us and God, a reminder to us of the fragility of our existence and a reminder to God of the divine commitment to a flawed creation. It tells us we live in a precarious world, that we are vulnerable and weak, that life and death are intimately connected. It tells us that we live in a complicated world, where the binary structures of good or bad, right or wrong, are not enough, but instead we must engage with the messiness and complexity of overlapping layers of colour within the pure lights of the universe. It tells us that God limits Godself for us to continue to live in the world, and that we need to step up and act as God’s agents in continuing the work of creation.

As Lamech names Noach he reminds us both of the hard labour we are destined to undertake to survive in this world, and he reminds us that there is comfort and rest in this world too. We live always on spectrums of experiences – between hard labour and relaxation, between doubt and certainty, between safety and danger –  nothing is ever either/or. The rainbow is a perfect expression of that complexity we all have to negotiate, created as the rain falls and the sun shines. Life isn’t ever simple, but we are here and we are obliged to get on and make our lives the best we can.

As we start the new cycle of reading Torah, that is the lesson to take forward. Life is messy and complicated but here we are, and here is God, and together we will continue the work of creation.

La storia di Noach inizia là dove finisce la sidrà della scorsa settimana. La sua nascita è registrata in un elenco di padri e figli, che inizia con Adamo e suo figlio Seth e di cui Noach rappresenta la decima generazione. La sua nascita e il suo nome spiccano, ci viene detto che: “Quando Lamech aveva centottantadue anni generò un figlio. Gli mise nome Noach (Noè), dicendo: ‘Questi ci consolerà nell nostro lavoro e nel travaglio delle nostre mani che ci vengono dalla terra che il Signore ha maledetto’. Lamech dopo aver generato Noè visse cinquecentonovantacinque anni e generò figli e figlie. Visse complessivamente settecentosettantasette anni; poi morì. Noè all’età di cinquecento anni generò Scem, Cham e Jèfeth”. (5:28-32)

          Insolitamente, in questa genealogia ci viene fornita una ragione per il nome di Noach, cosa in precedenza era avvenuta solo in occasione della creazione di Adamo. E abbiamo anche i nomi di ciascuno dei suoi figli, a differenza delle generazioni precedenti di cui abbiamo solo il nome della persona nel legame generazionale.

          Solo Lamech parla del bisogno di conforto, e solo Lamech menziona la difficoltà della vita al di fuori dell’Eden, la maledizione portata dall’umanità che dovrà lavorare sodo per sopravvivere su una terra spietata.

          E ancora, nella lettura della scorsa settimana troviamo la strana storia di esseri non umani che interagiscono con l’umanità: “Quando gli uomini iniziarono a moltiplicarsi sulla faccia della terra ed erano nate loro delle figlie, i figli di Dio videro le figlie dell’uomo che erano belle e si presero delle mogli, fra tutte quelle che scelsero. Il Signore disse: ‘Il mio spirito non rimanga sempre perplesso nei riguardi dell’uomo considerando che è di carne; gli darò tempo centoventi anni’. I Nephilim (Giganti) erano sulla terra in quel tempo e, anche dopo che i figli di Dio si furono congiunti con le figlie dell’uomo, ne ebbero figli. Sono gli eroi dell’antichità, uomini famosi”. (6:1-4)

          Dieci generazioni dopo la creazione degli esseri umani, sembra che ci sia stata una sorta di crisi: l’incrocio dell’umanità con esseri divini o semi-divini. E questo avviene nella generazione di Noach, in seguito le cose peggiorano ulteriormente:

          “L’Eterno vide che la malvagità dell’uomo nella terra era grande, e che ogni creazione del pensiero dell’animo di lui era costantemente solo male. L’Eterno si pentì di aver fatto l’uomo sulla terra, e se ne addolorò in cuore. L’Eterno disse: ‘Distruggerò dalla faccia della terra l’uomo che ho creato; dall’uomo ai quadrupedi, ai rettili, agli uccelli del cielo, perché mi sono pentito di averli fatti.’ Ma Noè trovò grazia agli occhi dell’Eterno”. (6:5-8).

          Dio si pente della decisione di creare esseri umani. Il verbo usato, “vayenachem”, suona sospettosamente vicino al verbo che è alla radice del nome Noach: siamo stati spinti a vedere Noach come parte del piano di azione, o anche solo come oggetto della manifestazione della disperazione di Dio?

          Curiosamente, questo è il momento in cui la sidrà Bereshit termina. Attendiamo i prossimi versetti nella prossima lettura settimanale.

          La parashà Noach inizia in risonanza con la precedente sidrà, dando la genealogia di Noach e dei suoi tre figli. Ma ogni senso di continuità o stabilità scompare con le parole: “La terra era corrotta davanti a Dio, era piena di violenza. Dio vide che la terra era corrotta, che ogni creatura seguiva una via di corruzione sulla terra. Dio disse a Noach: ‘Ho decretato la fine di tutte le creature perché per esse la terra è piena di violenza; ed io le distruggerò con la terra stessa. – Fatti un’arca di legno di gopher… etc etc…” (11-14)

          Nelle dieci generazioni di trasmissione umana sulla terra, la terra è rovinata, riempita di violenza, corrotta, disgustosa. Agli occhi di Dio non c’è niente che valga la pena salvare. La creazione è fallita. C’è solo חָמָס – una radice che significa violenza, crudeltà, malizia, torto, oppressione e ingiustizia (appare sessanta volte nella Bibbia ebraica).

          Ora conosciamo tutti la storia di ciò che accadrà dopo. Noach non discute con Dio, non avverte i suoi vicini, nel nostro testo non parla affatto, si limita a fare il lavoro di costruire l’imbarcazione, raccogliere gli animali, guardare le inondazioni che provengono sia sopra che sotto la terra…. Il suo silenzio, per me, è una delle parti più difficili della storia.

          L’intero episodio si conclude con le inondazioni che si ritirano, Noach e la sua famiglia tornano sulla terraferma. Appena discende costruisce un altare e sacrifica a Dio alcuni degli animali permessi tratti in salvo. Dio fiuta il fumo del sacrificio e dice, secondo me, in modo piuttosto criptico:  “… Non maledirò più la terra a causa dell’uomo; poiché il pensiero dell’animo dell’uomo tende al male fin dalla fanciullezza; né più colpirò tutti i viventi, come ho fatto. Finché la terra sussisterà, non cesseranno semina e raccolto, freddo e caldo, estate e inverno, giorno e notte”. (8:21-22)

          Dio poi benedice Noach e la sua famiglia, dando loro la benedizione che fu data ai primi esseri umani: siate fecondi e moltiplicatevi e riempite la terra.

פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֖וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

          Successivamente Dio dice qualcosa che nei tempi contemporanei suona particolarmente e dolorosamente attuale “Tutte le bestie della terra e tutti volatili del cielo avranno spavento e paura di voi (u’mora’achem e chit’chem); con tutti gli animali che strisciano sulla terra e con tutti i pesci del mare sono dati in mano vostra. Ogni essere che è vivo vi servirà di cibo; come le verdure io vi do tutto”.

          Questo è il momento in cui il nutrirsi di animali sembra ricevere il permesso divino. Il momento in cui l’ebraismo si è lasciato alle spalle il vegetarianismo. Un commentatore (Don Yitzchak Abravanel 1437–1508) ha suggerito che Noach e la sua famiglia potrebbero aver avuto preoccupazioni sulla possibilità di essere invasi dagli animali selvatici, alcuni dei quali avrebbero potuto potenzialmente attaccarli e danneggiarli. Quindi Dio offre sia una “benedizione”, quella degli animali che temono gli esseri umani per tenere lontano da loro tale danno, sia il permesso di mangiare animali, dando effettivamente un grande potere agli esseri umani sugli animali. È una bella patinatura su quello che leggo come un verso agghiacciante: non ci sarà alcuna relazione condivisa possibile tra gli animali e gli esseri umani, gli animali che vivono su questo pianeta saranno alla mercé delle attività umane e, come stiamo vedendo oggi, le popolazioni animali saranno spazzate via quando il cambiamento climatico prenderà piede. Un recente rapporto del WWF (World Wildlife Fund) ci dice che “Le popolazioni mondiali di mammiferi selvatici, uccelli, anfibi, rettili e pesci sono diminuite in media di oltre due terzi dal 1970”

https://www.wwf. org.uk/our-reports/living-planet-report-2022

            Dio fa un patto con Noach e i suoi discendenti, e anche con ogni essere vivente sulla terra: che mai più Dio distruggerà la terra con il diluvio. Il patto è unilaterale: non vi è alcun obbligo assunto dall’umanità o dagli animali, solo Dio stabilisce questo patto, solo Dio è vincolato ad esso, e il segno del patto non è sulla terra ma nei cieli, l’arcobaleno.

            Nella modernità siamo abituati a vedere l’arcobaleno come un simbolo benigno, se non decisamente di bellezza, un simbolo di inclusione poiché in esso si possono trovare tutti i colori. Un simbolo di consolazione: negli ultimi decenni l’idea del “ponte arcobaleno” ha preso piede come un paradiso fantastico per gli amati animali domestici che aspettano che anche i loro proprietari muoiano e si riuniscano. L’arcobaleno è usato per denotare la speranza, in particolare dopo un periodo tempestoso e difficile. La famosa canzone del Mago di Oz, “Somewhere over the rainbow”, è vista da molti come un riferimento all’esperienza degli ebrei intrappolati dalla Shoà: scritta da due ebrei immigrati negli Stati Uniti, (Harold Arlen e E.Y. Harburg. N.d.T.) è stata pubblicata nel 1939.

            I primi testi ebraici vedono l’arcobaleno in modo diverso. Il profeta Ezechiele, nell’esilio babilonese (VI secolo a.E.v), ebbe una visione estatica di Dio e paragonò la luminosità di questa visione all’apparizione di un arcobaleno (Ezechiele 1:28). La sua visione portò all’associazione dell’arcobaleno con la gloria divina, con l’immanenza di Dio: in qualche modo la Shechinà dimorava all’interno dell’arcobaleno. Per questo c’è una tradizione di non guardare un arcobaleno per più del tempo necessario per dire la benedizione, di non dire agli altri che un arcobaleno è nel cielo. C’è la convinzione che guardare troppo a lungo l’arcobaleno causerà cecità (Chagigà 16a) a causa della presenza di Dio in esso.

            L’arcobaleno nella tradizione ebraica non è inequivocabilmente un segno felice. È, come spiega Rashi (9:14), un promemoria della rabbia di Dio, del desiderio di Dio di distruggere il mondo a causa del nostro comportamento in esso. È un segno più per Dio che per noi: un promemoria a Dio per controllare la giusta rabbia, una sorta di totem a cui aggrapparsi perché Dio lo ricordi. E cosa sta ricordando Dio? Sì, la promessa di non distruggere il mondo attraverso l’alluvione (sebbene questa sia una promessa particolarmente limitata, non si parla di fuoco, siccità o pestilenza), e Dio ricorda anche che l’umanità è incapace di perfezione, che la creazione di Dio ha un difetto dentro di noi che non può mai essere cancellato: “il cuore dell’umanità è malvagio fin dalla sua fanciullezza”, come dice il testo.

            Come esseri umani, abbiamo imbellito la storia di Noach e del patto dell’arcobaleno in modo da farla diventare irriconoscibile. La storia è raccontata come una favola per bambini, ogni scuola materna ha arcobaleni e figure giocattolo o immagini di un’affascinante arca colorata e improbabile con animali felici al suo interno. Molte persone credono ancora all’idea che l’arcobaleno contenga sette colori. Sette, il simbolo della perfezione, un numero con molti aspetti diversi: per esempio le sette Leggi Noachidi (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a), le sette Sefirot legate alle emozioni nei testi cabalistici (le altre tre sono di intelletto), i sette giorni della settimana, le sette settimane tra Pesach e Shavuot, i settanta anni di una vita umana. Sembra giusto che l’arcobaleno abbia sette colori, eppure anche questo è come una patina sulla realtà. Non ci sono sette bande distinte, ma più colori che si fondono e sfumano l’uno nell’altro. L’idea del sette viene da Isaac Newton nel 1665. Fino ad allora era accettato che esistessero 5 colori (Robert Boyle li descrisse poco prima di Newton: rosso, giallo, verde, blu, viola), ma poiché il numero sette ha un significato mistico di perfezione, Newton scelse di definire che l’arcobaleno ne contenesse sette, aggiungendo il colore arancione e suddividendo il colore viola in indaco e viola.

            La storia di Noach e dell’Arcobaleno è una storia che abbiamo rielaborato allontanandola dai suoi messaggi dolorosi e rendendola invece il più infantile e semplicistica possibile, e la domanda per noi è: perché questa storia è stata così distorta nell’immaginazione popolare?

            La storia inizia con una terribile violenza e corruzione, con un mondo che non funziona e un’umanità che a malapena vale la pena salvare. In sole dieci generazioni, la creazione è stata tradita.

            Allora Dio crea un atto di violenza così terribile che la creazione viene quasi completamente distrutta.

            Dio si rende conto che gli esseri umani sono veramente a immagine di Dio, perché da dove possiamo aver avuto le nostre tendenze distruttive se non dal nostro divino creatore? Dio vede che nel creare l’umanità a immagine divina Dio ha creato esseri complessi e variati: possono andare fuori controllo, possono fare scelte egoistiche e indifferenti, possono esercitare il libero arbitrio e scegliere di agire contro ciò che è meglio per se stessi o per gli altri. Dio si pente, anche se, che Dio si penta per aver creato l’umanità o se Dio si penta per il diluvio causato dalla disperazione e dalla rabbia è un punto controverso. Dio decide di lasciare che la creazione continui e pone nel cielo un segno per ricordare a Dio che questa è la Creazione che Dio ha fatto.

            L’uso dell’arcobaleno come segno di Dio che risponde agli esseri umani è straordinario. Il testo chiarisce che questo segno è un Keshet: un arco, parte del binomio arco e freccia, manufatti per la morte e la distruzione, per la caccia e per la guerra. Ma questo Keshet ha due differenze rispetto al solito arco di un arciere: è puntato lontano dalla terra in modo che qualsiasi freccia immaginaria voli via nei cieli piuttosto che danneggiare la terra; E non ha corda: è stato “smilitarizzato”, un arco da arciere che non può scagliare, non può causare alcun male. Nachmanide spiega che l’orientamento è come quello che si verifica quando due nazioni che sono state in guerra fanno aperture verso la pace puntando l’arco lontano l’una dall’altra. Dio non sta solo facendo la pace dopo la violenza del diluvio, ma si impegna a non agire mai più così violentemente, ricordandoci allo stesso tempo che questo impegno viene dalla compassione verso di noi, che anche se l’umanità ha danneggiato il mondo, Dio mostrerà misericordia verso di noi.

            Lungi dall’essere un’immagine accogliente e confortevole, l’arcobaleno ci presenta con straordinaria chiarezza l’idea che un popolo immeritevole ha ancora un Dio compassionevole. I messaggi liturgici che abbiamo pronunciato e ascoltato di recente durante gli Yamim Noraim, i giorni solenni, hanno le loro radici in questa storia. Siamo profondamente imperfetti, eppure Dio è pronto a impegnarsi con noi.

            La benedizione recitata quando vediamo un arcobaleno è insolita in quanto ha una triplice frase: “Benedetto sei tu, Eterno, Sovrano dell’universo, che ricordi il patto, sei fedele al tuo patto e mantieni la tua promessa.” E’ l’unica volta che troviamo questa struttura tra le benedizioni che facciamo (sebbene vi sia una leggera risonanza con la benedizione che i sacerdoti sono stati istruiti a dire al popolo, nesiat kapayim).

            Perché questa triplice struttura? Parliamo di Dio che ricorda, che è fedele, che mantiene la promessa divina, sembra quasi una supplica disperata: “ti prego Dio, non solo ricorda quando vedi l’arcobaleno, ma ricorda che questo è un impegno che hai preso con noi, una promessa di non distruggerci, come sappiamo che potresti e come temiamo di meritare”.

            L’arcobaleno funge da segno, un ponte nei cieli tra noi e Dio, un promemoria per noi della fragilità della nostra esistenza e un promemoria a Dio dell’impegno divino per una creazione imperfetta. Ci dice che viviamo in un mondo precario, che siamo vulnerabili e deboli, che la vita e la morte sono intimamente connesse. Ci dice che viviamo in un mondo complicato, in cui le strutture binarie di buono o cattivo, giusto o sbagliato, non sono sufficienti, ma dobbiamo invece confrontarci con il disordine e la complessità degli strati di colore sovrapposti all’interno delle luci pure dell’universo. Ci dice che Dio limita Dio stesso affinché noi continuiamo a vivere nel mondo e che dobbiamo fare un passo avanti e agire come agenti di Dio nel continuare l’opera della creazione.

            Quando Lamech nomina Noach, ricorda anche a noi il duro lavoro che siamo destinati a intraprendere per sopravvivere in questo mondo, e ricorda a noi che ci sono anche conforto e riposo in questo mondo. Viviamo sempre una gamma di esperienze:  spaziando tra duro lavoro e relax, tra dubbio e certezza, tra sicurezza e pericolo, niente è mai solo una cosa o l’altra. L’arcobaleno è un’espressione perfetta di quella complessità che tutti dobbiamo negoziare, creata quando la pioggia cade e il sole splende. La vita non è mai semplice, ma noi ci siamo e siamo obbligati ad andare avanti e rendere la nostra vita il meglio che possiamo.

            Così iniziamo il nuovo ciclo di lettura della Torà, questa è la lezione da portare avanti. La vita è disordinata e complicata ma eccoci qui, ed ecco Dio, e insieme continueremo l’opera della creazione.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

Mishpatim: The Code of Law that structures Human Rights in its very bones, or Justice and Judges must uphold the moral imperative.

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Mishpatim 2022

Parashat Mishpatim continues the process begun at Sinai, explicating and evolving the laws that will govern this nascent Israelite society. It begins with the laws that govern the indentured Israelite servants, and then moves on to the laws of damages- beginning with the person who either intentionally or unintenionally causes damage, and then dealing with the damage that is caused indirectly or by the property of people. The parasha then continues into other areas.

On first reading, it seems as if the laws contain a jumble of different areas and contexts with little logical order. Rabbi Elchanan Samet however has a different view: “Our question about the organization of the parasha of damages is based on the assumption that the order should follow the categories of the agents which CAUSE damage. Such a categorization is appropriate from a legal perspective, since one’s level of responsibility for the damage determines whether and how much restitution he much pay.  Our questions, however, disappear when we realize that the Torah orders this section based on the categories of those who are DAMAGED, not those who CAUSE damage”.

(https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-shemot/parashat-mishpatim/mishpatim-laws-damages-declaration-human-rights)

In other words, the Torah has an organising principle here not just of legal categories, but of societal values. It begins with the value of human and then animal life, moves onto plant life and the sustaining ability of agriculture for society, and only then moves to general property or to money.  By using this principle, we are reminded powerfully that all human life and wellbeing, )closely followed by animal life and well being) is de facto more important to sustain and to protect than property or wealth.

On this organising principle, Judaism builds an edifice of understanding and provides a moral compass for us and for all of society. One cannot claim for example that the poor deserve less than the rich, that refugees have fewer rights to security than those comfortably living in the land, or that the rights of animals to life and welfare can be negotiated (or worse) for monetary profit.

Mishpatim has often been described as a foundational text for our society, a text which creates an environment built on laws that are applicable to everyone, that have authority, that addresses a broad variety of human experiences. The view that the organising principle is not only the legal sysem regulating human action but actually the moral imperative to be particularly concerned about supporting the wronged person and getting justice for them is mind blowing.  We generally focus on the idea that it is clearly built on earlier codes, such as that of Hammurabi, and examine the differences between the two codes of law, but to change focus and look at how the code is structured to prioritise people’s humanity and well being, the care for all living creatures and for nature BEFORE considering the care for material wealth and possessions is to understand the biblical imperative to care for the world and its inhabitants even at the cost of any accumulation of wealth or other material power.

We cannot of course ignore the fact that the legal code is critical to keeping the moral code properly focused and working. It is law – good law that is made to help people rather than to oppress or constrain people – that keeps society safe. The very word “mishpatim” means “laws”, and it requires people who apply wisdom and compassion to interpret and wield these laws.

I have been thinking a great deal recently about my grandfather, Walter Fritz Louis Rothschild, whose career as a judge faltered and ultimately came to an end with the rise of the Nazis in Germany. We have a newspaper where the following is reported on 21st January 1933 under the heading “A Public Scandal” :

“Offener Brief an den Reichsjustizminister.

Wir berichteten bereits in unsere gestrigen Ausgabe über den öffentlichen Skandal am hiesigen Amtsgericht.  Der Führer der SA-Obergruppe 2, Lutze, hat jetzt folgenden offenen Brief an den Reichsjustizminister gerichtet:

Ein Einzelfall, der in der Bevölkerung Hannovers berechtigte Entrüstung und Empörung ausgelöst hat, gibt mir Veranlassung, mich an Sie zu wenden und ein Problem zur Sprache zu bringen, das dringend und umgehend der Bereinigung bedarf.

               Der Vorgang ist folgender:           Das Amtsgericht Hannover hat es für zweckmäßig befunden, in einer politischen Strafsache, die am Mittwoch, dem 18. Januar 1933 vor dem hiesigen Amtsgericht anstand, in einem Verfahren gegen 2 SA-Männer den jüdischen Amtsgerichtsrat Dr. Rothschild als Vorsitzenden herauszustellen.

               Die Vernehmung der Beklagten erfolgte von Seiten des Dr. Rothschilds in überaus provokatorischer und unsachlicher Form.

   Der Verteidiger der Angeklagten bezweifelte daraufhin die Unbefangenheit des jüdischen Vorsitzenden und wird von diesem in einer Art und Weise behandelt, die weit über das Maß des Erträglichen und Erlaubten hinausgeht. Das Gericht zieht sich zur Beratung zurück und erklärt dann den Antrag des Verteidigers als gegenstandslos.

               Herr Reichsjustizminister! Es dürfte auch Ihnen nicht entgangen sein, daß das deutsche Volk, soweit es die nat.-soz. Weltanschauung vertritt – und das sind rund 40 Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung Deutschlands – die jüdischen Fesseln abzustreifen sich anschickt.

               Wir verbitten es uns, daß man Vollblut- und Halbblutjuden als Richter über deutsche Menschen einsetzt. Wir fordern, daß der verantwortliche Amtsgerichtsdirektor, der für den obengenannten Vorgang  die Verantwortung trägt, zur Rechenschaft gezogen wird.

               Ich hoffe, daß Sie diesem Appell in letzter Stunde die gebührende Beachtung schenken, ehe es an den Gerichten zu Auftritten kommt, die eine autoritäre Rechtspflege überhaupt in Frage stellen.

               Zu Ihrer Orientierung diene Ihnen, daß sich die hannoverschen Gerichte durch Herausstellung jüdischen Justizpersonals besonders hervortun. Ich nenne u.a. :

               1. den ersten Staatsanwalt Wolfssohn,

               2. die Richterin Alice Rosenfeld,

               3. den Amtsgerichtsrat Rothschild,

und empfehle Ihnen, die Genannten schnellstens in der Versenkung verschwinden zu lassen.

Der Führer der SA-Obergruppe II, gez. Lutze, M.d..R.”  [i.e. Mitglied des Reichstages.]

“Open letter to the Reich Minister of Justice.

We already reported in yesterday’s issue about the public scandal at the local district court.   The leader of SA-Obergruppe 2, Lutze, has now addressed the following open letter to the Reich Minister of Justice:

An individual case which has caused justified indignation and outrage among the people of Hanover has given me cause to address you and to raise a problem which urgently and immediately needs clearing up.

               The process is as follows:

               The District Court of Hanover has found it expedient to single out the Jewish District Court Councillor Dr. Rothschild as the presiding judge in a political criminal case which was pending before the District Court here on Wednesday, January 18, 1933, in proceedings against 2 SA men.

               The questioning of the defendants was carried out by Dr. Rothschild in an extremely provocative and unobjective manner.

   The defendants’ defence counsel then doubted the impartiality of the Jewish chairman and was treated by him in a manner that went far beyond what was tolerable and permissible. The court retires for deliberation and then declares the motion of the defence counsel to be without object.

               Mr. Minister of Justice! It should not have escaped your notice that the German people, in so far as they represent the National-Socialist worldview – and that is about 40 percent of the total population of Germany – are preparing to throw off the Jewish shackles.

               We forbid the use of full-blooded and half-blooded Jews as judges over German people. We demand that the director of the district court, who is responsible for the above-mentioned incident, be brought to justice.

               I hope that you will give this appeal the attention it deserves at the last hour, before there are any appearances in the courts that call the authoritarian administration of justice into question at all.

               For your orientation, please note that the Hanoverian courts are particularly prominent in singling out Jewish judicial personnel. I mention, among others:

               1. the first public prosecutor Wolfssohn,

               2. Judge Alice Rosenfeld,

               3. the district court judge Rothschild,

and I recommend that you let the aforementioned disappear as quickly as possible.

The leader of SA-Obergruppe II,

signed. Lutze, M.d..R.”     [i.e. member of the Reichstag.]

One can only imagine the arrogant confidence of the writers of the letter, who, unhappy that an incident where up to 30 SA (Sturmabteilung – Nazi paramilitary wing “Storm Detachment) men had set upon a man wearing a Reichsbanner badge in his hat (anti fascist/ liberal organisation of the Weimar republic) and beaten him up, were questioned robustly by a Jewish court judge and found to have a case to answer – felt able to demand that Jewish judges be removed from office.

One can only imagine the feelings of that judge  – my grandfather- writing his carefully worded and thoughtful 5 page response to the accusation, only to be removed from his role within a week of his rebuttal as the Nazis came to power and removed all Jews from their public roles.

My grandfather died as a result of the physical ill- treatment he received in Dachau shortly after the war. But my grandmother survived and on occasion she would reminisce with me. One day she told me of her overwhelming fear in the early thirties – I think it must have been around the time of this court case – as she tried to persuade her husband to leave the country. He told her “I can’t. If the judges leave then there will be no justice”.

By the time he realised that there would be no judges and no justice it was too late to leave. Countries had closed their borders to Jews, they and extended family were trapped.

Last week I lit a yahrzeit candle for him. This week we are mark the European Holocaust Memorial Day and we repeat the words “never again” and “Zachor – Remember” hopefully and desperately in the knowledge that since the Shoah we have seen people dehumanised because of their ethnicity or religion, we have seen people attempt to erase any memory and any learning from memory.

And this week we read parashat Mishpatim. We read a parasha where a society is created by laws. A parasha structured to remind us that every single human being is of value, every single human being is of equal value, and that value is paramount in how we organise our society.

If only our society followed the structure set out in parashat mishpatim. To value human life, animal life, the natural world. To care for them, to protect them, to nourish and sustain and honour them. And only after that to consider material wealth, profit, gains.  If only we had a system where the person damaged was the most important to consider, not the damage to property or wealth.

We are witnessing an assault by government on our codes of justice. We are witnessing legislation whereby if the government does not agree with the judiciary, they will overrule the judgments. We are witnessing long term underfunding of our system which is causing it to break down. We are witnessing a government that thinks the law is not for them to follow. We are living in dangerous times.

And I think of my brave and lonely grandfather saying to my fearful and anxious grandmother. “If the judges leave there will be no justice.”

Hannover Judges. My grandfather Landgerichtsrat Dr Walter Fritz Louis Rothschild third row from the front, fourth from the right

Va’Era: listening, hearing and acting in despondent and terrifying times

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“I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the ETERNAL. I will free you from the labours of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the ETERNAL, am your God who freed you from the labours of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I sworeto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I the ETERNAL.” But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” Exodus 6:5-9

Twice now we hear that God hears the groaning of the Israelites – At the burning bush God tells Moses “I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their sufferings……”  Now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me; moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them. (Exodus 3:7,9), yet at no point does the bible record the Israelites calling out to God for help to save them from their slavery in Egypt. Yet God hears them and decides to act to help them.

This contrasts painfully with the lack of listening that the Israelites themselves do. When Moses speaks to them of his encounter with God, and the re-entry of God into their narrative, they refuse to listen to him. They  are too fully absorbed in the misery of their existence to contemplate anything beyond it.

The text plays repeatedly with miscommunication, with what is said, or listened to, or heard or understood. God hears what is not cried out. Moses pleads his inability to speak well to others. Pharoah chooses not to understand the import of the signs and wonders being inflicted on his people and land. He too is fully absorbed in retaining and growing his own power to notice what else is happening around him. Again and again he is forced into accepting a version of the request of the Israelite people, to go and worship God in the wilderness, only to retract his agreements shortly afterwards.

What we come to understand is that listening and understanding are both active and committed behaviours. While one can communicate without intending to do so, it is also possible to be exposed to the communication of others without taking on board what it is that they are communicating. One can hear the silent pain of others and yet miss the explicit and direct words shared with us.

When Moses brings the message from God to the Israelites, the message of freedom from slavery, they do not hear him – and the bible explains that they are crushed by their conditions, have no ability to think beyond their misery.

Listening and understanding are active behaviours of commitment to the other. It is not enough to just skim the surface of communication, gleaning sufficient though scant information in order to continue one side of a conversation.  Listening is an act of will, paying attention takes effort, being present in communication is not the easy route.

The Israelites are consumed by their conditions, exhausted by the effort they must put in just to survive. They cannot hear the voice of freedom even when it speaks directly to them. God has to try another way to get their attention, as well as the attention of their oppressors.

We are living in a world undergoing pandemic, where almost everyone is giving their attention to negotiating the unknowable. After almost two years of this “new normal”, many of us are exhausted, many burned out, many in more fragile situations in work or in relationships, many contemplating a different way to live their lives going forward. The hard work of just keeping going means that for many of us all our attention is taken, we have no bandwidth for listening and really hearing the messages of others, no emotional capacity for even the directly spoken plea.

Yet it is important that we are able to turn our attention outside our immediate situation. Be it climate change or massively increased poverty, increasing political corruption or the desolation of the many bereaved people – we have to lift our heads and begin to pay attention. To listen to the pain of others even if not directed to us. To commit to understanding and engaging with the problems our world is facing, even if we would rather just keep our heads down and plough on.

When God sends the signs – seven of which appear in this sidra – they are signs not just to Pharaoh, but to everyone, from Hebrew slave to Egyptian courtiers. They are attention grabbing reminders that the world needs us to pay attention, that the vulnerable and the frightened need us to pay attention, that the people treated unjustly need us to pay attention.

In the beginning of this sidra God tells Moses” I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name”

Much is written about the names of God here, but I am minded to pay attention this year to the words of Saadia Gaon who said that the shin of Shaddai is a preposition, so the word is really She’ Dai – The One Who said to the world “Enough”

Standing up and being prepared to say “Enough” takes courage, presence, commitment and deep attention. And it is something we also need to be doing. Saying “enough” to the facts of extreme poverty in rich nations, of frightened refugees preferring to risk their lives because there are no proper secure or legal routes to safely. Saying “enough” to those who would grab resources for themselves at the expense of other peoples. Saying “enough” to corruption in government, to legislation designed to remove rights, to legislation designed to erase history

We are all tired and frightened and uncertain in this pandemic time, but if we don’t begin to pay attention to what else is happening while Covid 19 rampages through the globe, if we don’t stand up and say “enough” to human beings living in terrible conditions with little hope of change, then we are not paying attention to our texts. The ten signs God sends to Egypt increase in severity and terror. God has to find a way to be heard. And if we just stop and listen for the still small voice of our texts and traditions, we will hear and understand and gather the strength to be who we need to be.

Parashat Toledot – Fighting for the space to live in safety and for important resources to be accessible to all who need them has a long history

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“and [Isaac] grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: he acquired flocks and herds, and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him. And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled. Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them. But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek., “contention.” because they contended with him. And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.– harassment.” He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehovot, saying, “Now at last the Eternal has granted us ample space(breadth)” to increase in the land.”” (Genesis 26:13ff)

The stories in the life of Isaac often parallel those of his father Abraham. There is a famine in the early story of Abraham, and a famine in the early life of Isaac. In both cases they left the land of Israel – Abraham went down to Egypt, Isaac to Gerar in Philistine controlled territory, having been explicitly told by God NOT to go to Egypt. Isaac encounters an Abimelech, King of Gerar and lies about the relationship he has with Rebecca, calling her his sister rather than his wife, (something Abraham had also done, both in Egypt and in Gerar)

Abraham also has an encounter with an Abimelech, the king of Gerar, over the issue of the ownership of wells, just as Isaac does in the narrative here. The digging and ownership of wells is of importance in both their lives. Both father and son have issues with the large size of their flocks and herds and the resources needed to sustain them, and both father and son react most of the time by removing themselves from conflict – Abraham with his nephew Lot, Isaac with the herdsmen of Gerar. Both have two sons, and have what might be called fraught relationships with them and with the passing of the legacy of covenant. Abraham sends Ishmael away from him and involves Isaac in whatever the mysterious event of the akeidah, never seeing him again afterwards. Isaac is tricked by Jacob pretending to be Esau, passes on the covenant apparently unaware the recipient is not Esau (or at least there is ambiguity in his mind), and Jacob is sent away, never to see his father again.

Yet there is more to Isaac’s life than his simply repeating the leitmotif’s of his father, and echoing the experiences of that great Ivri, crosser of boundaries.

 Isaac – often seen as the least significant of the patriarchs, the son of a famous father and the father of a famous son. Yet his is a story with much to teach us. A man who never leaves the Land despite many trials. The only one to be described as being in love with his wife. A man who has to deal with complexity and ambiguity in navigating his life, and with fewer certainties. A man who has survived the terrible trauma of his father’s apparent attempt on his life – or at least a seeming willingness to do so.

The story told above – of the re-digging of the Abrahamic wells and the negotiations that ensue – resonated particularly for me this year as we watch the COP 26 conference and the postures and positions on display.

In the Abrahamic parallel we are told: “At that time Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do; now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but as I have dealt loyally with you, you will deal with me and with the land where you have resided as an alien.” And Abraham said, “I swear it.” When Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized, Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this; you did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.” So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock. And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” He said, “These seven ewe lambs you shall accept from my hand, in order that you may be a witness for me that I dug this well.” Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba; (well of seven or well of oath) because there both of them swore an oath. When they had made a covenant at Beer-sheba, Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines. [Abraham] planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Eternal, the Everlasting God. And Abraham resided as an alien many days in the land of the Philistines. (Gen 21:22-34)

In this narrative we are confronted with the need for trust between the various powers or participants to the agreement who are involved – without that trust nothing “agreed” can be said to really be agreed.  We are confronted too with the issues of ownership of resources, of the fair sharing of such resources, with the actions of the people who reside on the land and those of people who control resources but do not “belong” to the land on which they are situated. Abraham and Abimelech appear able to make a treaty with a reasonable level of success – though we are never told why the servants of Abimelech had seized Abraham’s well in the first place.

By the time of Isaac, the wells had not only been taken back but actively stopped up – a strange phenomenon given the preciousness of the resource. Does this somewhat aggressive action date from unresolved issues from the time of Abraham? Is it to prevent others coming in from outside to use the water improperly? We can only speculate. But the continuing quarrelling and harassment that Isaac faces when trying to reclaim his father’s property shows us that the matter has not only not been resolved, but that there is ongoing acrimony and anger ready to erupt into violence.

Isaac does not go to the King as his father had done, he simply moves away and tries to settle elsewhere near a “family well”, and eventually he digs and finds what may be a new watersource, one that is not contested, and understands that now he has found a place to settle down.

Yet strangely, the next verse tells us that he moves on the BeerSheba, where he encounters God and receives the covenant promise, then builds an altar and worships, then pitches his tent and only then digs a well…

Abimelech and the Philistines come to find him to make a treaty with him, and responding to his challenge about their hostility to him which has forced him to move on, tell him that they now see that God is with him. (26:28) They make their own treaty with him, and leave. Only then do Isaac’s servants come to tell him that they have found water, which he names “Sheba” (oath) and again we have a story about the naming of Beer Sheba.

What comes down to us from these narratives is how the trust and the treaties need to be ongoing, that having been made once is not enough – they must be kept in good repair. We see that was accepted once may not be acceptable going forward. We see that pressure on resources will not only not go away, but will engender resentment and anger if not addressed fairly and regularly. We see that the actions of one (or more) rich and powerful agent (s) can be hugely detrimental to others with less power but with a real stake in the issue. And this power differential cannot be allowed to continue.

If we want to have a fairer world, a world where there is access to resources by all who need them, a world where there is trust and where people work to keep that trust alive and responsive, then we need to ensure that we are part of the solution, able to see the realities and to ensure that our leadership both acknowledge and respond in a timely and appropriate manner to those realities.

Watching the COP26 and seeing the posturing, the lobbying, the arrogance of the more powerful countries and the despair of those less powerful, we can see we have a long way to go to make a fairer and more sustainable world. The time is short, but this is no reason not to continue to involve ourselves and our values. Isaac eventually finds a place where there is space for everyone to have their own needs met without treading on the needs of others. It is a goal worth aspiring to.