Tag Archives: environment

A Tree of Life – and life giving trees: Tu b’Shevat

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“One day Choni the circle maker was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree; he asked him, How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit? The man replied: Seventy years. He then further asked him: Are you certain that you will live another seventy years? The man replied: I found [ready-grown] carob trees in the world; as my ancestors planted these for me so I too plant these for my children”.            ( Talmud Bavli: Taanit 23a)

Trees are deeply important in our tradition, and also have their own relationship with God. They are prominent in our texts – mentioned at the Creation, vital to the narrative in the Garden of Eden; the Hebrew word for tree appears in the bible over 150 times and more than 100 different kinds of trees, shrubs and plants are named. The Mishnah follows suit, naming hundreds more plants in its legal codification. In all more than 500 different plants are named in our traditional texts.  Trees are a signifier of the connection the Jews have with the land, and reflect the relationship that we have with the Land of Israel – Moses repeatedly reminds us that we must care for the land and treat it well, and not only land but people – otherwise we will be driven out from there as other nations apparently were before us.  

Trees have a special place in how we create awareness of God. For they are not only part of the natural world, they are also used repeatedly in our texts as a metaphor for humanity, for life, for reaching upwards to God and rooting the self in the world.  Trees symbolise so much, they have a quasi-divine element, a quasi-human element. They feed us, they provide shelter, they bridge the generations, and they act as a bellwether for our moral state.

We read in Deuteronomy “ When you will besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees by wielding an axe against them; you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? (20:19)

This image, comparing the fruit tree to human beings, powerfully reminds us of the damage that can be inflicted in a war between people, and in obliging us to protect the trees reminds us of what we have in common with them. If we should not cut down the fruit bearing tree, how much more so should we consider the safety of the people being besieged?

We are about to celebrate the festival of Tu b’Shevat – the fifteenth day of the month Shevat. Originally Tu b’Shevat was simply the way by which the age of trees was measured for purpose of tithing and of orlah (the first three years when the fruit was considered strictly God’s property and not to be eaten by anyone). In effect it marks the boundary of a tax year.

After the destruction of the second Temple in the year 70CE the taking of tithes from fruit trees fell into disuse, but the date remained special in our calendars. The Mishnah recorded four new years  and their dates: – Rosh Hashanah le’ilanot (Tu b’Shevat) for trees, Rosh Hashanah for years, Rosh Hashanah lema’aser behemah for tithing animals, and Rosh Hashanah le’mel’achim for counting the years of a king’s reign.

The date of Tu b’Shevat has stayed in our calendar throughout the time we were without our land, celebrated and noted by communities all over the world. The Kabbalists of Sfat in the 16th and 17th century developed a ritual – the Tu b’Shevat Seder – to represent our connection to the land of Israel and also to reflect the mystical concept of God’s relationship with our world being like a tree.  The Seder consisted of eating the different types of traditional fruits grown in Israel and connecting the different types of these fruit with each the Four Worlds of Kabbalistic theology, drinking four cups of wine that were each mixed with different proportions of wine with each cup of wine symbolizing one of the four seasons, and reading texts about trees.

The mystics understand Tu B’Shevat as being the day when the Tree of Life renews the flow of life to the universe.  And they taught that by offering blessings on Tu B’Shevat, a person can help in the healing of the world. From this came the belief that since on Tu B’Shevat we offer a blessing for each fruit before we consume it, the more fruits we eat, the more blessings we can offer to help heal the world.

In more modern times Tu b’Shevat has been a gift to the Zionist movement and the return to the Land. They have used it as an opportunity to plant trees in Israel as a way of transforming  the land, as well as re-attaching ourselves to the physical Land of Israel. And most recently the Jewish ecological movements have adopted the day to remind us in  powerful messages of our obligation to care for the environment.

All these themes bound up in Tu b’Shevat are important and helpful to our own Jewish identity and spirituality. There is an overarching theme of healing the world through our connections with nature, of the importance and symbiosis of our relationship with the natural world. And in our relationship with nature, we express our relationship with God. Caring for our world is a sacred task. As we read in Proverbs (3:18)

עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר׃ 

[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.

Our tradition asks: “How can a person of flesh and blood follow God? … God, from the very beginning of creation, was occupied before all else with planting.  Therefore … occupy yourselves first and foremost with planting.  – Midrash: Leviticus Rabbah 25:3

It reminds us that  “If you have a sapling in your hand and people tell you that the Messiah has come, plant the sapling and then go and greet him” (Avot de Rabbi Natan)

Lech Lecha: the land cannot continue to sustain us and something has to change

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Now Avram was very rich in cattle, silver, and gold. And he proceeded by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been formerly, between Bethel and Ai, the site of the altar that he had built there at first; and there Avram invoked the ETERNAL by name. Lot, who went with Avram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support them staying together; for their possessions were so great that they could not remain together. And there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Avram’s cattle and those of Lot’s cattle.—The Canaanites and Perizzites were then dwelling in the land.—  Avram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, between my herdsmen and yours, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Let us separate:a (Lit. “Please separate from me.”) if you go north, I will go south; and if you go south, I will go north.” Lot looked about him and saw how well watered was the whole plain of the Jordan, all of it—this was before the ETERNAL had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—all the way to Zoar, like the garden of the ETERNAL, like the land of Egypt. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they parted from each other; Avram remained in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled in the cities of the Plain, pitching his tents near Sodom. (Genesis 13:5ff)

Avram and his nephew (and heir presumptive)  Lot had travelled from their homeland of Haran and, finding famine in the land of Canaan had journeyed on to Egypt. There, the encounter with Pharaoh who took Sarai into his harem, believing her to be not Avram’s wife but his sister, led to the family acquiring great wealth before leaving Egypt and returning to Canaan (Gen 12:16). Travelling north through the Negev desert, they reached Beit El (North of Jerusalem), where they had struck camp on their original journey from Haran, and settled there.

But this time their herds and flocks were numerous, the land could not sustain so many animals – theirs as well as those of the Canaanites and Perizzites – and -as ever when a resource becomes scarce, tempers flare and cooperation ends as each group tried to take as much of the resource as possible to sustain their own before thinking of the needs other.

“The land could not support them staying together for their livestock [possessions] were so many…..”

Abusing the land by overgrazing or by planting too intensively is a phenomenon as old as settled human habitation. The bible not only understands it, but legislates. So for example in Exodus 22:4 we read “When a man lets his livestock loose to graze in another’s land, and so allows a field or a vineyard to be grazed bare, he must make restitution for the impairment Lit. “excellence.” of that field or vineyard.” And Rashi comments here (quoting Talmud Baba Kama 2b) “this describes when  he takes his cattle into the field or the vineyard of his fellow and causes damage to him by one of these two ways: either by the mere fact that he lets his cattle go (tread) there, or by letting it graze there .”  The rabbis of the Talmud were well aware that overgrazing by animals damages the land in two different ways – by eating the vegetation which can then cause soil degradation and later erosion,  and by treading down the land so vegetation cannot thrive there.  

Bible is threaded through with the idea that the land itself has value and agency, quite separately from the fact it acts as home to humanity. From the moment the first human beings are created in the narrative in the first chapter of Genesis, they are given a blessing to “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and control it;” – this last verb is the focus of much commentary – one being that of Sforno (died Bologna 1550)  “It means that the human is to use their intelligence to prevent predators from invading their habitats”, and certainly both biblical and midrashic texts make clear that humanity can only keep control of the land if they take care of the land and act righteously in the way that God requires.  In the words of Rabbi Dovid Sears “the blessing to “control comprises a form of stewardship for which humanity is answerable to God”

The second creation story links humanity to the land even more intimately – Adam, the human being, is created from the Adamah – the ground. We are made of the same stuff, and while the life force is within us we have choices, afterwards we return to the dust we were formed from.

In the story of Avram and Lot there are a number of issues we can recognise in our modern problems with how we deal with our environment.

First of course is the sheer number of animals that they own between them – and the animals of the other peoples in the area. Quite simply the pshat (plain reading of the text) is that there is not enough grazing for them all.

Then there is the fact of individual desires that may mitigate against the needs of others. Ibn Ezra (died 1167 Spain) comments on the word “yachdav” (v6) thus “Yachdav (together) can refer to two (as in our verse) or to many, as in And all the people answered together (yachdav) (Ex. 19:8)….. Yachdav is not synonymous with yachad (together). Yachdav means acting like one person.”. Ibn Ezra is building on the interpretation of Targum Onkelos (early 2nd century translation of the Torah into Aramaic)  which translates yachdav to mean “as one person,” and makes clear that there must be shared values and deep relationship if human beings are to live in full harmony with the land. The uncle and nephew simply can’t create a strategy where they can share the resource that is there, they are each apparently calculating based on their own interests and values  – Lot for wealth, Avram one assumes, for the fulfilment of the covenant by staying on the land.That is, their individuality is blended, as in And all the people answered together (yachdav) (Ex. 19:8), which means that all the people answered as if they were one person. Yachad implies two people acting at the same time, but each one by himself (Weiser).

Thirdly, Avram gives Lot the choice of where he will take his animals. And Lot takes full advantage – “Lot looked about him and saw how well watered was the whole plain of the Jordan, all of it—this was before the Eternal had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—all the way to Zoar, like the garden of the Eternal, like the land of Egypt. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they parted from each other;” (13:10,11)

Lot chooses what he believes to be the best and most richly resourced land for himself. Off he goes to the wealthiest part of the land to further his own material ambitions. We know of course that the cities of the plain – Sodom and Gomorrah – are materially rich but ethically lacking, a compromise that Lot appears prepared to make. His accompanying Avram on the great adventure of Lech Lecha, his role as heir presumptive – all of these are about feeding his own ambitions, and there is apparently no moral imperative in the choices he makes. We cannot but read this text in the light of what happens to Lot and his family, to the point where the descendants of Lot, the Moabites and the Ammonites are forbidden to intermarry with the descendants of Abraham.

Shortage of resource – be it land, water, grain, – the bible is constantly dealing with this problem – so much of the narrative is set against the backdrop of famine or struggles over the right to land. plus ça change plus c’est la meme chose.  We too are dealing with that same shortage of resource in the world – and unlike Avram and Lot we cannot simply spread out to find a place with enough resource to sustain us.

We have to address the overwhelming need to work together as one humanity on one planet. In a way that is truly “yachdav”. We are interconnected in so many ways across the globe: as our climate changes we will have an ever increasing number of refugees. As we compete for resources – be they metals for computer chips or construction, or for water, land and gran – we have to find a way to share equitably and openly. As the coronavirus circulates the globe we must share vaccines and medications if we are to prevent its repeated mutations and iterations. We are living in a world – as shown by recently leaked documents – where the rich are getting richer and hiding their wealth from the rest of the world, while the poor are not only getting poorer but are actively unable to sustain themselves from day to day.

The earth will not continue to sustain us as she is abused and ignored, as soil erosion and flooding, tidal changes and hurricanes increasingly demonstrate. The parasha Lech Lecha comes immediately after the cataclysmic floods and the dispersal following the tower of Babel in Parashat Noach. It is reminding us of our responsibility to each other and to our world. There is, as they say, no Planet B.

By Wenceslaus Hollar – Artwork from University of Toronto Wenceslaus Hollar Digital CollectionScanned by University of TorontoHigh-resolution version extracted using custom tool by User:Dcoetzee, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6233909

Parashat Noach: We will not be silent: renewing the work of creation

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Parashat Noach

Ten generations from the Creation of the first human beings the earth is corrupted, violent and vile.

וַתִּשָּׁחֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לִפְנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס׃

וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִנֵּ֣ה נִשְׁחָ֑תָה כִּֽי־הִשְׁחִ֧ית כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֛ר אֶת־דַּרְכּ֖וֹ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ 

וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֜ים לְנֹ֗חַ קֵ֤ץ כׇּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֣א לְפָנַ֔י כִּֽי־מָלְאָ֥ה הָאָ֛רֶץ חָמָ֖ס מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם וְהִנְנִ֥י מַשְׁחִיתָ֖ם אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃  {ס} 

The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.  When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth, God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.

In three verses (Genesis 6:11-13) the narrative drives home the problem – human beings have damaged their environment irredeemably. Ha’aretz “the earth” is mentioned six times, each time with the connection that it is corrupted  – from the root שָׁחַת  meaning spoiled, destroyed, corrupted, decayed….

God doesn’t directly reference the corruption of the people – it is the earth which is expressing the consequences of human action and inaction, the earth which is acting out the full horror of what humanity has become. And it is on the earth that the full punishment will be felt, as the floods rise and the rain falls, the waters that surround the land which were divided above and below at the time of creation return to their place, and no land will be seen for 150 days and nights.

The intertwining of people and land is complete. What one does affects the other, yet we also know that the land is used again and again in bible to be the metric against which ethical behaviour is measured – and should we not follow God’s requirements we will be unceremoniously evicted from the land for which we have stewardship.

When God decides to end the corruption on the earth God speaks to Noach. God tells him – all flesh will be ended because it is the action of humanity that has brought this unspeakable destruction about, and God is about to end creation – both people and land must be ended.

And Noach says – well, interesting Noach says nothing. Indeed, we have no record in any of the narrative of Noach speaking. Not to God, not to his family, not to humankind. His silence is a cold core at the heart of the story.  Noach doesn’t react, doesn’t warn, doesn’t plead or beg or educate or protest….

Instead Noach builds the boat, collects the animals and their food as God has commanded him, floats in a sea of destruction as everything around him drowns. And when eventually the dry land appears and they are all able to disembark, still Noach doesn’t speak. He builds and altar and sacrifices to God. He plants a vineyard and makes wine and gets drunk, and only then does Noach speak – he speaks to curse his son who had shamed him while he slept off his drunkenness. (Oddly while it was his son Ham who had seen him in this state, Noach actually curses Canaan, the son of Ham.)

He breaks this long long silence for what? To curse so that one group of society will be oppressed by another. He has essentially learned nothing.

We read the story every year. Every year Torah is reminding us – it just took ten generations to completely spoil the creation of our world. We read it and yet we don’t notice it. Instead we focus on the rainbow, the promise from God not to destroy us again by flood. We have turned it into a children’s story decorated with colourful pictures of rainbows and cheerful animals on an artfully dilapidated boat.

We don’t pay attention to the silence of Noach, which mirrors our own silence. We too don’t protest or change our behaviours or warn or educate, we too just doggedly get on with our lives. We don’t pay attention to the way that nature rises up to right itself, the planet ridding itself of the dirt and destruction humanity has visited upon it. We don’t pay attention to the drunkenness of the man who cannot cope with what he has seen, nor the warnings which echo when he finally speaks – to curse the future.

Noach is the quintessential antihero. There is nothing much we can see in him to learn from or to emulate. Yet his story can teach us a great deal. First and foremost it teaches us that abusing the earth will bring devastating consequences to all who live on this planet, and to the planet itself. We learn that the earth is fragile and complex interdependent system, that it does not take long – ten generations – to corrupt and seriously damage it. We learn that the way to avert this is not only to change our behaviour but also to engage with each other and support each other in changing how we treat our world, silence and focus only on self-preservation will not bring a good outcome for anyone. We learn that the trauma of survival in such circumstances will mark the generations to come.

Bible tells us that God repents having made human beings on the earth. (Genesis 6:6) and so brings about the flood. It tells us that God wearily understands that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21) after Noach has made his sacrifice having survived and returned to dry land. Much is made of God’s covenant not to bring total destruction by flood ever again – the symbol for the promise being the rainbow that appears in the sky – but this is not an open promise to the world that we will not bring about our own destruction, merely a divine understanding that perfection will never be part of the human project.

A perfect world is beyond our grasp, but that should not stop us grasping for a world which is healthy and healing, nurtured and nurturing, diverse and complex and continuing to evolve.

In the yotzer prayer, one of the two blessings before the shema in the shacharit (morning) service, is the phrase    “uvtuvo me’chadesh bechol yom tamid ma’aseh bereishit”

In [God’s] goodness God renews the work of creation every day.

Creation is not static, it is a constantly emerging phenomenon. Our tradition makes us partners with God in nurturing the environment we live in. If  God is said to give us a new possibility each day to make our world a better place, then unlike Noach we must grasp the challenge and work hard to clean up our world, and so avoid the inevitable consequences of just looking after ourselves and keeping silent.

Mishpatim – following God’s time and learning the lessons of God’s world

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In amongst the diverse laws of Mishpatim, laws about slaves and murder, about kidnap and assault, about how to treat parents, damage to livestock, theft, seduction, damage to crops, sorcery, bestiality, idolatry, loans, treatment of the enemy in war, bribery etc. we have the statement

“Six years you shall sow your land, and gather in the abundance of it; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beast of the field shall eat. Similarly you shall deal with your vineyard, and with your olive grove. (Ex 23:10-11)

 This instruction is repeated and expanded in Leviticus chapter 25, verses 1-7:

And the Eternal spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath for the Eternal. Six years shall you sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its produce. But the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath for the Eternal; you shall not sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. That which grows by itself from your harvest, you shall not reap, and the grapes of your untended vine, you shall not gather [in quantity, as if to sell]; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. And the sabbath-produce of the land shall be for food for you: for you, and for your servant and for your maid, and for your hired servant and for the traveller who sojourns with you; and for your cattle, and for the wild beasts that are in your land, shall all the abundance be for food.”

And even more so in Deuteronomy:

At the end of every seven years you shall make a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he lent to his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because God’s release has been proclaimed…..If there be among you a needy person, one of your brethren, within any of your gates, in your land which the Eternal your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your needy fellow;) but you shall surely open your hand to them, and shall surely lend them sufficient for their need. Beware that there be not a base thought in your heart, saying: ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand’; and your eye be evil against your needy fellow, and you do not give to they; and they cry out to the Eternal against you, and it be sin in you. You shall surely give to them, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give; because for this thing the Eternal your God will bless you in all your work, and in all of the works of your hands. For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, saying: ‘You shall surely open your hand unto your poor and needy fellows, in your land. If your fellow, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold to you, they shall serve you six years; and in the seventh year you shalt let them go free. And when you let them go free, you shall not let them go empty; you shall furnish them liberally out from your flock, and your threshing-floor, and your winepress; of that which the Eternal your God has blessed you, shall you give to them. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Eternal your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing to-day.’ (15:1-2, 7-15)

 The concept of a sabbatical year, a year when the land is not worked, planted or harvested, but instead allowed to lie fallow, and any produce that grows despite the lack of planting or maintenance is available to anyone, is a biblical innovation that promotes three different social “goods” – allowing the land to lie fallow and recuperate, setting free the Jew who had sold themselves into bonded labour, and the annulment of debts which, if allowed to grow unfettered, would prevent a family ever  leaving poverty.

(The Jubilee, after every seven cycles of sabbatical years, had the added feature of returning any hereditary land and property to their original ownership or their descendants).

The rest for the land is not only about recuperation and restoration – the bible tells us that the consequence for not observing the sabbatical year is exile.  So clearly this is more than an agricultural technique co-opted into a ritual observance – there is further learning to be gained from this mitzvah. What does the enforced rest from working the land do to make our failure to comply mean we are punished so severely?

When we added to the other factors specific to the sabbatical year – those of freeing slaves and annulling debts – it seems that the common theme is to remind us that “ownership” is a fragile phenomenon; that we cannot presume to do what we like with what we own because the ultimate owners are not us. We are simply the stewards, the possessors of the usufruct, holding it on temporary loan and required to return it in good condition.

In the shemittah year, the landowner and the landless are made equal. Both must search for their food – and this mitzvah is not a brief event. For a full year the rights of the landowner and the rights of the landless are the same. For a full year the land is allowed to rest. All people and all animals are able to eat from the produce that grows without help – fruits from the trees, any crop that had self-seeded, any perennial vegetable.

Living like this for a year must reset so many societal assumptions.  Not only is private ownership suddenly not a given, the land cannot in this year be locked away from others – they must have access to glean what food they can. The land itself is expected to rest – something we rarely ask today of our earth, instead we fertilize and spray and burn and rotate in order to get something more from the land. But in the biblical shemittah year the land is like a person, getting its own Shabbat.  In the cycle required by God, six days of labour followed by a day of rest; six years of the landowner sowing and harvesting followed by a full year of “hefker”, of the produce of the land being available to all – we are reminded that we live to a different expectation, we live to a divine expectation.

 

 

Bo: We may not be at the end of days, but the locusts are swarming now.

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L’italiano segue l’inglese

And the Eternal said to Moses: ‘Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left.’ And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Eternal brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.  For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 10:12-15)

The eighth of the disasters to come upon the Egyptians was that of the swarms of locusts, completing the devastation of the crops begun by the hail.

I remember the locust cage in the biology lab at school. The bright lights keeping the box warm and the locusts absolutely quiet and still: and the sudden and quite terrifyingly loud jumping and swarming when I put my hand into the box to feed them. The banging and whirring and jumping made my heart pound, even though I knew they were safely contained and anyway would not bite or sting.

That memory stayed with me – I can still feel the sudden violence of the movements, hear the bodies crashing against their confinement and my heart rate echoing their rapid thumping.

Reading the story of the swarming locusts in parashat Bo I can return to that memory and its accompanying visceral anxiety in a heartbeat. And now another layer of understanding is added as I read the reports of the locusts swarming in East Africa. Just like those in the biblical text they are consuming every last bit of vegetation needed for the people and for the animals to survive.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture organisation (FAO) this is the worst swarming in Kenya for a biblical sounding 70 years. It estimated one swarm there to be around 2,400 square kilometres (about 930 square miles); it could contain up to 200 billion locusts, each of which consumes its own weight in food every day. They can move up to 150 kilometres (90 miles) in one day. If unchecked, the numbers could grow 500 times by June, spreading to Uganda and South Sudan, becoming a plague that will devastate crops and pasture in a region which is already one of the poorest and most vulnerable in the world.

These locusts are not a phenomenon designed to show the power of God against those who do not recognise it – they are a natural and obvious consequence of the extreme weather events suffered in Africa in the last few years – drought, wildfires, floods, landslides, extreme temperature, fog and storms.

According to data maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, Africa recorded 56 extreme weather events in 2019 and 45 extreme events in 2018. Nearly 16.6 million people were affected due to natural disasters in 29 African countries last year.

The locusts came this year after a year of extremes which included eight cyclones off East Africa, the most in a single year since 1976.  The cyclones themselves are linked to higher-than-usual temperature differences between the two sides of the Indian Ocean – something meteorologists refer to as the Indian Ocean Dipole (or the “Indian Niño”) warmer sea temperatures in the western Indian Ocean region, with the opposite in the east. This unusually strong positive dipole this year has meant higher-than-average rainfall and floods in eastern Africa and droughts in south-east Asia and Australia. We have seen the resulting overwhelming bush fires in Australia, but maybe the news of the heavy downpours devastating parts of East Africa has been less prominent. In the Horn of Africa there was up to 300% above average rainfall between October and mid-November, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.  The resultant floods and washing away of villages, soil and people, has also been horrific.

We have a Famine Early Warning Systems Network. We have a Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. We have a Food and Agriculture organisation which is part of the UN.  We know what the changes in climate and environment mean, not only for the people currently facing devastation, but for our interconnected and fragile earth. What it means for us all.

I never read the story of the plague of locusts with the same dispassion as that of the frogs. Frogs always seemed dear and sweet beings, who may be found in a cool cellar, or around a garden pond – they are generally seen as symbolising life or harmony, they are beneficial to the garden, they squat patiently in damp corners or sit on lily pads…

But the plague of locusts is fraught with all the visceral and atavistic responses to the harsh rattling of their wings, and the sudden jumping, flying, swarming – let alone the ability to consume their own weight in vegetation every day.

The bible tells us that the locusts would

וְכִסָּה֙ אֶת־עֵ֣ין הָאָ֔רֶץ וְלֹ֥א יוּכַ֖ל לִרְאֹ֣ת אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ

“Cover the eye of the earth, and one would not be able to see the earth” (10:5)

The eye of the earth will be covered, and he will be unable to see or understand the land – this is the message Moses will give to Pharaoh before the locusts will come, followed by the deep tangible darkness and finally the death of the first born.

There is a connecting theme of darkness, of blindness, of inability to discern in these final three plagues. It is a theme that resonates for us today – even with all the monitoring and the early warning systems, we are unable – or rather we are unwilling – to discern what the earth is telling us.   We are unwilling to really understand and to see that the disasters unfolding in different parts of our world are connected to each other and to us. Like the Pharaoh we stubbornly continue along our path in the face of the increasingly terrible events, until forced to wake up and cede to reality. This is plague number 8, there are two more steps in the biblical narrative until the final and most horrific event of all. There is – just – time for our politicians to wake up and cede to the reality of environmental disasters as a consequence of the change in our climate.  Like Moses and Aaron, we must communicate loud and clear to the prevailing powers, if we are to avoid the final devastation.

Parashà Bo:

Potremmo non essere alla fine dei giorni, ma le locuste stanno brulicando.

di rav Sylvia Rothschild, pubblicato il 27 gennaio 2020 

  Il Signore disse a Mosè: “Stendi la tua mano sulla terra d’Egitto per l’invasione delle locuste in modo che invadano il paese e distruggano ogni erbaggio della terra, tutto quanto ha risparmiato la grandine”. E Mosè stese la sua verga sulla terra d’Egitto, e il Signore fece soffiare un vento orientale sul paese tutto quel giorno e la notte seguente; al sorgere del mattino, il vento dell’est trasportò le locuste che si elevarono su tutta la terra egiziana e si andarono a posare in tutto il territorio egiziano in modo straordinario; mai prima di ciò si era visto un fenomeno tale né, dopo, nulla di simile accadrà. E le locuste ricoprirono la faccia di tutto il paese, cosicché tutto si  oscurò; e le locuste divorarono ogni erba, ogni frutto d’albero che era stato risparmiato dalla grandine; e non rimase alcunché di verde degli alberi, né alcun erbaggio della campagna in tutto il paese d’Egitto. (Esodo 10: 12-15)

L’ottavo dei disastri che colpirono gli egiziani fu quello degli sciami di locuste, che completarono la devastazione delle colture iniziata con la grandine.

Ricordo la gabbia delle locuste nel laboratorio di biologia a scuola. Le luci intense che mantenevano il contenitore caldo e le locuste assolutamente silenziose e immobili: l’improvviso e terrificante rumoroso saltare e sciamare al momento di mettere la mano nella scatola per dar loro da mangiare. I colpi, i ronzii e i salti mi facevano battere forte il cuore, anche se sapevo che erano tenute in sicurezza e che non mi avrebbero in nessun modo morso o punto.

Quel ricordo è rimasto con me: sento ancora l’improvvisa violenza dei movimenti, sento i corpi schiantarsi contro il loro confinamento e sento il mio battito cardiaco far eco ai loro rapidi tonfi.

Leggendo la storia delle brulicanti locuste nella parashà Bo, in un battito di ciglia torno a quel ricordo e alla sua compresente ansia viscerale. E ora si aggiunge un altro livello di comprensione mentre leggo i resoconti delle locuste che brulicano nell’Africa orientale. Stanno consumando ogni ultimo pezzetto di vegetazione necessario alle persone e alla sopravvivenza degli animali, proprio come quelle del testo biblico.

Secondo l’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l’Alimentazione e l’Agricoltura (FAO), questo è il peggior sciame in Kenya da settant’anni, che risuonano biblici. Si stima che lo sciame sia di circa duemila-quattrocento chilometri quadrati e potrebbe contenere fino a duecento miliardi di locuste, ognuna delle quali consuma ogni giorno cibo pari al proprio peso. Possono spostarsi fino a centocinquanta chilometri in un giorno. Se non controllato, il numero potrebbe aumentare di cinquecento volte entro giugno, diffondendosi in Uganda e nel Sud Sudan, diventando una piaga che devasterà i raccolti e i pascoli in una regione che è già una delle più povere e vulnerabili del mondo.

Queste locuste non sono un fenomeno progettato per mostrare il potere di Dio contro coloro che non lo riconoscono: sono una conseguenza naturale e ovvia degli eventi meteorologici estremi subiti in Africa negli ultimi anni: siccità, incendi, alluvioni, frane, temperature altissime, nebbia e tempeste.

Secondo i dati conservati dal Centro di ricerca sull’epidemiologia delle catastrofi a Bruxelles, l’Africa ha registrato cinquantasei eventi meteorologici estremi nel 2019 e quarantacinque nel 2018. Quasi 16,6 milioni di persone sono state colpite da catastrofi naturali in ventinove paesi africani lo scorso anno.

Le locuste sono arrivate quest’anno dopo un anno di fenomeni estremi che ha incluso otto cicloni al largo dell’Africa orientale, il maggior  numero in un solo anno dal 1976. I cicloni stessi sono collegati a differenze di temperatura più alte del solito tra le due sponde dell’Oceano Indiano: qualcosa che i meteorologi chiamano “Dipolo dell’Oceano Indiano” (o “Niño indiano”), ovvero temperature del mare più calde nella regione dell’Oceano Indiano occidentale e il contrario ad est. Il dipolo positivo insolitamente forte di quest’anno ha significato precipitazioni e inondazioni superiori alla media nell’Africa orientale e siccità nel sud-est asiatico e in Australia. Abbiamo visto gli incendi boschivi che ne derivano in Australia, ma forse la notizia dei forti acquazzoni che devastano parti dell’Africa orientale è stata meno importante. Nel Corno d’Africa ci sono state piogge fino al 300% superiori alla media tra ottobre e metà novembre, secondo la Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Anche le conseguenti inondazioni e il loro spazzar via villaggi, suolo e persone sono stati raccapriccianti.

Abbiamo una rete di rapidi sistemi di allarme per le carestie. Abbiamo un centro di ricerca sull’epidemiologia delle catastrofi. Abbiamo un’organizzazione alimentare e agricola che fa parte delle Nazioni Unite. Sappiamo cosa comportino i cambiamenti nel clima e nell’ambiente, non solo per le persone che attualmente affrontano devastazioni, ma per la nostra terra interconnessa e fragile. Sappiamo cosa ciò significa per tutti noi.

Non ho mai letto la storia della piaga delle locuste con la stesso distacco di quella delle rane. Le rane sembrano sempre esseri cari e dolci, che possono essere trovati in una fresca cantina o intorno a uno stagno del giardino: sono generalmente viste come simboli della vita o dell’armonia, sono benefiche per il giardino, si accovacciano delicatamente in angoli umidi o si siedono su un giglio …

Ma la piaga delle locuste è irta di tutte le risposte viscerali e ataviche al duro tintinnio delle loro ali e all’improvviso saltare, volare, sciamare, per non parlare della loro capacità di consumare ogni giorno vegetazione pari al proprio peso.

La Bibbia ci dice ciò che le locuste possono fare:

וְכִסָּה֙ אֶת־עֵ֣ין הָאָ֔רֶץ וְלֹ֥א יוּכַ֖ל לִרְאֹ֣ת אֶת־הָאָ֑רֶץ

“Ricopriranno la faccia della terra così da non essere in grado vedere la terra” (10: 5)

La faccia della terra sarà coperta e non si sarà in grado di vedere o comprendere la terra: questo è il messaggio che Mosè trasmetterà al faraone prima che arrivino le locuste, seguite dalla profonda e tangibile oscurità e infine dalla morte dei primogeniti.

C’è un tema di collegamento tra oscurità, cecità, incapacità di discernere in queste ultime tre piaghe. È un tema che risuona per noi oggi: anche con tutti i sistemi di monitoraggio e di allarme rapido, non siamo in grado, o piuttosto non siamo disposti, di discernere ciò che la Terra ci sta dicendo. Non siamo propensi a capire veramente e a vedere che i disastri che si verificano in diverse parti del nostro mondo sono collegati tra loro e con noi. Come il faraone, continuiamo testardamente lungo il nostro cammino di fronte a eventi sempre più terribili, fino a quando non siamo costretti a svegliarci e cedere alla realtà. Questa è la piaga numero otto, ci sono altri due passi nella narrazione biblica fino all’evento finale e più orribile di tutti. I nostri politici hanno appena il tempo di svegliarsi e cedere alla realtà delle catastrofi ambientali a seguito del cambiamento del nostro clima. Come Mosè e Aronne, dobbiamo comunicare forte e chiaro con le potenze prevalenti, se vogliamo evitare la devastazione finale.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

Vayechi: He lived. What was the purpose of his life?

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“And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were a hundred forty and seven years. (Genesis 47:28)

The report of the death of Jacob has superficial resonance with that of Sarah in how his age is given, but the wealth of detail around the future he conjures in his deathbed blessings gives us a focus that is missing in the flat account of Sarah’s age and death.

We are told first that he has spent the last seventeen years in Egypt – well past the end of the great famine that brought him there. Bible makes no comment on this fact, but draws our attention to it. Seventeen is a number made up of two significant digits – 7 being the number of the perfected whole, 10 being the number of completeness. It seems as if it is saying that the era is entirely over, it is time for a new thing to happen.

And then we are given the totality of the years of Jacob’s lives – he is 147 years old.

He knows he is soon to die. He makes his preparations, both with Joseph alone and then with his whole family. And so we see the life of Jacob through the prism of his active shaping of the future– through the arrangements for his burial and through the blessings he bestows on each son.

Just as our attention is drawn to his years spent away from his homeland, he draws the attention of his sons – and of we readers of the text – to the land they must also understand to be their homeland.

First he makes Joseph swear that he will not bury his father in Egypt. He is repudiating the adopted land of his son with surprising vehemence – “don’t bury me in Egypt…carry my body out of Egypt and bury me in my ancestral place” (vv29, 30)

Then (48:3) he reminds Joseph that “El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me there (with fruitfulness)…and gave this land to my descendants after me for an everlasting possession. He claims the boys -whom he acknowledges were born in Egypt  (48:5) – for himself, giving them the inheritance of the blessing from Luz, the blessing of being attached to the land of Canaan. Then a few verses later (v21) tells Joseph “Behold, I die; but God will be with you, and bring you back to the land of your ancestors.” Then he tells Joseph he will give him an extra portion of the land – Shechem Echad – a puzzling phrase that is variously translated as the city of Shechem, as a topographical feature (a shoulder or mountain ridge), or as simply an extra piece of land – but however one understands this phrase the attention is focussed on the Land of Canaan, the ancestral and promised land.

Jacobs’s total focus on the connection of his descendants to his ancestral land is unmissable. He is powerfully aware of his approaching death, and on the legacy he must ensure is embedded in the next generations of his family. We are no longer quite so fixed on who is to receive the covenantal blessing that Abraham and Sarah ensured went to their son Isaac, and that Rebecca went to such lengths to ensure it went to Jacob himself, deceiving Isaac in the process. Now the covenantal blessing is to go down to each of the sons – so Jacob is thinking further and with more practicality. He wants to pass on land and resources as well as covenant and commitment to God. These are inextricably linked at this point, but his focus is the land and how his descendants will relate to it.

When we think of our own lives, and what we want to pass on to our own descendants, Jacob’s dying activity is instructive. He strips away the unimportant, he faces each person and their reality unflinchingly, he builds on the characteristics of each son, and he gives them responsibility for the land which is both symbolic (the covenantal relationship with God) and real. Treat the land well and you will live in comfort and ease. Treat the land badly and such comfort and ease will not be yours, but instead hunger and rootlessness.

There are many things we want for our descendants. We want them to be ethical human beings. We want them to behave with kindness to others. We want them to live in comfort and ease, not afraid or homeless or having to live a transient anxious existence. We want them to have family of their own –be they families of choice (as Jacob chooses Ephraim and Manasseh) or of relationship. And we want them to live on a land that provides for their needs, that provides food, water and shelter, space to live, landscape to give pleasure – be it the spiritual uplift of mountains or sunsets or the physical enjoyment of walking or swimming in a clean and beautiful environment.

Ours is a generation that has had to learn again to understand the impact on the land of how we choose to live. And we have had to become clearer about our own responsibility for how the land has been abused on our watch. As we distanced ourselves from traditional ways of working the land, found ways to extract resources from the earth in greater amounts, resources we used as if they were limitless, we have created deserts, polluted seas, contaminated soil, tainted air, created huge waste tips and dug enormous pits for landfill – Humankind currently produces two billion tonnes of waste per year between 7.6 billion people. (Figure from sensoneo.com)…..

Slowly – too slowly – we are changing our waste management. Recycling, using less disposable plastics, composting etc. Slowly we are considering our impact on the environment, as people choose to find different ways to travel – or to travel less; as people choose to eat different foods, to plant consciously to enable wildlife habitats. But as we see the Amazonian rainforest disappearing and burning, as we see the Australian bush burning out of control and its wildlife decimated, as we see the effects of climate change in our own back gardens – we know we are too slow to recognise our relationship to the land, our responsibility for its wellbeing, which will impact ultimately on our own wellbeing and that of our descendants.

Jacob speaks to his children, transmitting his ethical will, and we are also forced to ask: what is the legacy and the land that we will pass on to our children and grandchildren? Do we want to pass on a world where the environment no longer supports living diversity? Do we want to hand over a world where natural resources are treated with arrogant disdain and not valued or maintained?

We do not want our children to be forced to migrate because of drought or famine, to be in a world where species are forced into competition for survival; where the air is so toxic that the very breath in their bodies could damage their wellbeing. Jacob’s focus on relationship with the land is a bellwether. We need to be alert to the relationship we have with our world, the impact of our own behaviour and choices. We need to be working so that our own legacy is global sustainability, a world that will be nurtured by our descendants and nurture them in its turn.

 

 

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

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

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

What is the tragedy that is being signalled?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Pubblicato da rav Sylvia Rothschild, il 17 dicembre 2019

 

 

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

 

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

 

Qual è la tragedia che viene segnalata?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

 

 

Vayishlach – the death of Deborah whose wisdom is mourned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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