rabbidavidmason's posterous

Apr 2

The Pesach Story and how we remember it

In last week’s sermon, I talked about memory and Pesach. In essence, memory and how we remember the Exodus is what Pesach is all about. There are actually two relevant commandments which connect to memory. First, we are told that we should ‘remember the exodus from Egypt all the days of your life’. And so we need to mention each day the Exodus in order to remember it –and this should be done each day. A more elaborate telling of the story of the Exodus is left for one day of the year – the anniversary of the event itself. But since we cannot spend each day telling this elaborate story, the mere daily mention is enough.

What we see however, is that we are constantly remembering the Exodus. But how do we remember this event – or since we were not physically there, how do we memorialise it? I explained how when I spent some time studying Systemic Therapy ideas, I had heard how when a couple have a child with disability, research had been done which showed that the way the news was broken to them that their new born baby had some congenital disability was crucial. If they were not together and the news was broken separately, this could affect the longevity of their relationship. In other words, they both would be going through the same experience, the same crisis – but they would each react differently. They would each remember it differently.

And if this is what happens with a couple, how much more potential is there for a nation to have multiple memories when it goes through national crises. It is this point that I stress when taking groups to Poland. It is for this reason that I worry about going for one day to Auschwitz death camp since it may well fuel one narrative of memory for those who go there. Is a visit to Poland all about seeing where communities were destroyed and how in the face of it all we survived? Is going to Poland only to reinforce a view that Poles are congenitally anti Semitic – or maybe not congenitally, but they absorb it through the milk of their mother? So what about other ways of memorialising the Holocaust as a human catastrophe that propels us on to work with and encourage deeply the positive moral forces in any society in which we as Jews live? Will we meet righteous gentiles in Poland who were recognised as having saved lives of those who suffered? Will we learn about Polish suffering in the war, Gypsy suffering and other communities? We learned in our Muswell Hill trip to Poland that it was the phenomenon of one memory blocking out another that lead Poles after the war under communism to reject the idea of specific Jewish suffering. 3 million Jews did not die after the war – rather 6 million Poles. Only when communism fell did it become recognised openly that there was a specific and targeted Jewish final solution which was partly played out on Polish soil.

And so to our Pesach Hagada. We have explained that we were slaves in Egypt to Pharaoh (Avadim Hayinu) and He brought us out of there. We have explained the importance of telling this story extensively by relating the story of the Rabbis at Bnei Brak. We explain the four sons, and then relate how we originated from those who were idol worshippers to be brought close by God to worshipping Him. We are about to enter the middle section of the Hagada where we expound a series of verses which tell of the exodus – but before this we bless God for keeping his promise to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.

But at this point, we sing a paragraph which while it was clearly a part of the Hagada a thousand years ago, was not part of the original hagadah text. It reads:

“It is this promise that has stood by our father and us. For it was not one man alone who stood up against us, but in every generation they stood up against us to destroy us – and the Holy one Blessed be He saved us from their hand” (Chief Rabbi’s Hagada).

This is quite strong language and if it had been written in our generation we may well have understood it – modernity has bred the potential for genocide. We have experienced persecution of different types. We have suffered in our long history. But is it clear that in every generation there were attempts to destroy us. This therefore is one narrative, one way of memorialising the Exodus from Egypt – we draw a connecting line between the Exodus and all persecutions in our History. And we praise God that he has not allowed this genocidal tendency to come to fruition by saving us from their hand.

But I think there is another way of memorialising the Exodus which we find in the Torah, in Exodus 22, 20 –

“You shall not oppress or pressure a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt”

Here God is drawing a straight line for us between our experience as the oppressed and our commandment not to oppress those who are strangers. We must not fall in to the same temptation that Pharaoh succumbed to when he placed the children of Israel, a foreign group, into a slave caste within Egyptian society. It is possible that this responsibility for the stranger is encapsulated early in the Hagadah when we refer to the ‘bread of affliction’ and immediately say ‘all who are hungry, should come in and eat’.

So we were clearly victims in the Exodus story, but we survived to continue and rebuild according to God’s plan. When we remember it we can see that there are different strands of memory. Here we have referred to one strand which focuses on our continued precarious situation at the hands of the other nations. But this alone will lead to paranoia. There is another strand that says that we have a role to play in encouraging society to treat the stranger well. And now that we have a State, we are even more responsible for ensuring that the stranger is not oppressed and pressured.

So when you read your Hagadah and experience your Seder, look out for these two strands of memory. And may we soon cease to be victims of hatred towards us, and shine a light towards a world of peace and justice.

Mar 29

Muswell Hill's first trip to Poland!

Click here to download:

Muswell Hill Poland Trip 2012.docx (15 KB)

Feb 22

Diary from the Negev - Days 2 and 3

I talked to you two days ago about our first day in the Bedouin communities, where we learned about the tension between the Bedouin community and the government of Israel centred on opposing claims to the land. In a sense, the government has looked to concentrate the Bedouin in recognised urban and semi-urban areas so that they can keep more of the northern Negev for forest building and other development. The Bedouins are angered - until 1948 they were basically left alone however since the State began, they have been constantly interfered with by the State. We learned that the Bedouins are an extremely independent people and that land ownership is a strong part of their identity. Both these have been stripped back.

But over the last two days, we got to peak more deeply into the Bedouin culture. It is extremely patriarchal. Polygamy is rife - 25% of Bedouin men are polygamous. Women generally are not encouraged to develop, go to high school and go to University. In fact 3% of Bedouin actually go to University, There are a large number of consanguineous marriages. We learned from health professionals that this creates a higher rate of congenital diseases than in the rest of Israeli society. There are also myths relating to genetic testing and fetal testing - for instance many Bedouin women think that an amniocentesis takes water from the fetal brain. And the birth rate is high - an average of 7 children per wife. Added to which men will often marry a second wife and then abandon their first wife and kids without any continued financial support. We visited a kitchen in the village of Hura which was run by 'single mothers' - not divorced by their husbands, but rejected by them and in limbo. if they divorce, they will lose their children to the husband.

We saw a number of projects today that are empowering both teenagers to learn academic skills that will get them to University - and empowering women to become leaders. We met some amazing women - feisty, strong minded dreamers who push things forward and open the way for others, We met Bedouin professors, Bedouins who have PhD's, Bedouin human rights lawyers - and all women. In fact in the village of Lakia, women are developing so well that they are outstripping the men in intelligence and literacy, which is of course culturally difficult for the men.

What I must mention is that we had a wonderful dinner in Beersheva with Professor Amoz Oz who is now 72. He speaks so well. He talked about how so many different Jewish groups had dreams when we returned to Zion - but different dreams. And these dreams would always be dreams - difficult to properly attain. But he reframed the argumentative nature of Israeli society and explained that this is a positive and important part of our culture and that it rarely leads to violence. Our people has always argued - we have even argued with God. I followed Professor Oz out after and asked him if the problem with this in bred argumentativeness is that our government cannot make clear decisions - he concurred and said that this would lead to 'sin' if we left sectors of our society behind because of indecision.

I visited my sister in law and her family tonight in Jerusalem - I love Jerusalem. On the way up on the bus I sat beside a Chasid - I mentioned that I had been visiting the Bedouin communities. He asked me 'were you scared' - and I understood how difficult it was for the Bedouins. They are just Arabs to the rest of Israel - and therefore one wonders how much of a political priority they are for the present government. Well we can ask tomorrow - we will be meeting the minister responsible for implementing new laws relating to the Bedouin - Benny Begin, so of the Likud PM Menachem Begin.

So the Bedouin community is modernising step by step - but all modernising takes time and cannot happen over night. I just hope that they can keep there traditions as well.

Feb 21

Diary from the Negev - Uk Task Force trip to Bedouin Communities

Day 1 - UK Task Force fact finding mission to the Negev

I am writing from Beersheva, the heart of the Negev. This is not the Israel I was used to – Jerusalem and Gush Etzion. Today I entered the world of the Bedouin, and originally nomadic group of Arab people, 200,000 of whom now live in the northern Negev. And since 1948, the government of Israel have not really known what to do with them. Today we looked at the issue of land ownership. The Bedouin do not really have much proof of their ownership, and if they have some proof it may not meet the conditions of Israel’s legal systems. But they claim over 1 million dunams is their land. Either because private families owned the land; or because Bedouin tribes have traditions that they owned specific land. But what complicates this point is that a Bedouin family can be living somewhere, and yet claim a piece of land somewhere else.

But the State of Israel has been clear since the 1950’s – the claims of the Bedouin are simply not legal. In other words – Israel owns the land. So since the 1950’s policies of the government have involved attempts to concentrate the Bedouin in recognised urban areas such as the town Rahat and to attempt to compensate the Bedouin for their claims for the land. But there are still 33 unrecognised Bedouin settlements totalling 30,000 which do not have basic services such as electricity and waste disposal and which are being threatened with eviction. The government position is that if these communities move, they will be given land in and around the recognised urban areas. The government is also looking to compensate the Bedouin for their land claims. The Bedouin feel that these compensations are not enough and they want a solution which means they can stay where they presently are.

So the land issue is a very complicated one, touching on legal issues as well as those of public policy. We visited some unrecognised settlements today – we were given some beautiful tea in a Bedouin tent and met some wonderful people. We also were lectured by academic experts in the field of Bedouin issues and history.

I’ll write more tomorrow – we will be looking at the lack of proper services and infrastructure in the Bedouin sector.

Oct 25

Cane, Murder; Humanity and Destruction

So many of us feel they are clear about the story of Cain and Able, or as I will call by their Torah names, Kayin and Hevel. Kayin is jealous of his brother Hevel and so he kills him. The lesson is of course, don’t be jealous and realise what it may lead to. Ok, there is something to that, but at this stage of existence, the generation of Adam’s children, it surely was a bit extreme for one brother to kill the other.

So in my sermon on Shabbat Bereishit, I searched further and deeper for some insight behind Kayin’s murder of his brother, Hevel. Much has been written of the story up until the murder – but why the murder take place is much less clear

Let us quickly review what happened. Adam and Chava had two sons; the oldest was Kayin who is named for a given reason. Then Hevel is born and interestingly no reason is given for his naming. We are told that Kayin works the land whereas Hevel is a shepherd of flocks. One day Kayin decides to bring an offering to God from his produce. This is followed by Hevel who brings of his animals. One commentator explains that since there is no command referred to in the Torah for each of the brothers to brings an offering, these were simply out of thanks to God for what they had received. So Kayin and Hevel are both having a successful time and want to thank God for this. So far very good!

The problem arises as we read that God accepts or turns to Hevel’s offering and not to Kayin’s. One understanding is that Kayin was a lot more miserly in what he gave up as an offering. So in Chapter 4, verses 3 and 4 we read that Kayin gives ‘from his fruit of the ground’ whereas Hevel gives of his ‘first born flock and from their choicest bits’. God was simply reacting to the way in which they offered their respective offering. But this answer is one possibility. It is equally possible to say that from a religious perspective, in terms of their relationship with God, Kayin simply had a bad day. God was not willing to at that point accept his offering. Maybe tomorrow or the next day would be better. This was no permanent judgement on Kayin and his character; it was a reflection of God’s reaction at that specific time.

But Kayin becomes seriously depressed and angry by God’s reaction, an understandable reaction when he sees that his brother has religiously succeeded. And at this point, God intervenes and gives Kayin important advice. In its literal translation the advice is:

“If you become better, you will lift up; but if not, sin will crouch at your door, its desire will be for you and you will conquer it”.

Whatever the advice is, we are immediately told that Kayin speaks to Hevel – although we do not know what he says. He could be asking him to come to a field where he will then kill his brother. He could be relaying to him what God’s advice was to him. The Midrash understands from this, three possibilities. One is that since Kayin provided land on which Hevel could graze his flocks and Hevel provided Kayin with clothes, they were both arguing for total control over nature. This argument leads to Kayin killing Hevel. Alternatively, the brothers were arguing over in whose land portion the Temple would be built in the future. The argument was not over livelihood, it was religious in nature. The third suggestion of the Midrash is that the brothers were fighting over the mother. What is interesting about the midrashic understandings is that they involve the brothers fighting each other rather than simply Kayin picking on his little brother. It may just have been that the strongest succeeded in killing his brother.

But I want to suggest another approach which relates to Kayin’s state of mind before he heard God’s advice and before he murdered and to do this I want to briefly describe an interesting model.

In Chapter 2, verse 7 we are told that God “created man from the ground and He blew into him the soul of life”. The word “created” actually has in it two letter yud, as opposed to the more expected one yud. The Talmud takes this as an opportunity to say the following:

“Woe to me because of the One who formed me (yotzri) and Woe to me from my destructive desires (yitzri)”

In other words, the two letter yud’s relate to two forces, our Creator and our inner destruct button. We are caught in between. If we move to far away from our earthly existence we feel greater pressure from our earthly desires pulling us back down to earth. If we become too entrapped by our ‘yetzer’, our destructive desire, then we will feel pressure from God and His commands on us. Aviva Zornberg discusses this in her book ‘Beginnings of Desire’ and quotes Kafka:

“He is a free and secure citizen of the world for he is fettered to a chain that is long enough to give him the freedom of all earthly space, and only so long that nothing can drag him past the frontiers of the world. But simultaneously he is a free and secure citizen of Heaven as well, for he is also fettered by a similarly designed Heavenly chain. So that if he heads say to earth, his heavenly coil throttles him and if he heads for Heaven, his earthly one does the same”

And so I would like to suggest that God wants to let Kayin know that he is now vulnerable to the excesses of his ‘yetzer’. His dark depression, his anger, his suffering at not succeeding in his relationship with God at that point could lead to something worse, could send Kayin through the trap door into the clutches of the yetzer. But God communicates to him that it is in Kayin’s power to reverse this movement downwards.

Murder in society may have many reasons, but whatever the reason behind a specific act, we are always left shocked by the taking of someone’s life. Life is so dear to us. But what we see with Kayin is that there is a chain of feelings, emotions, suffering that can lead a small number of people to contemplate such a destructive act. That this urge actually exists in humanity and at many junctures it can be seem in its depraved and base existence. This was the killing of the Nazis. It may have had reasoning, but it somehow satisfied a base and destructive desire to kill.

And so when we look at the phenomena of murder, as well as ensuring that justice is carried out, we also need to look at the situation of those who commit such a crime. Can more be done to support them so that they will not end up slipping through the trap door to repeating Kayin’s act of murder?

Filed under // Sermons