Shabbat Tol'dot
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
“Lo alecha ham'lacha ligmor, V'lo ata ben chorim l'hibatil mimena”
It’s not up to you to finish the work but neither are you free to abstain from it.
I, like many of you, have been singing these words since I was little, in school, in shul, on camp and understood this quote from pirkei avot as a simple rule for life, do what you can, don’t be put off by the magnitude of the task, just get started.
We know we can put its message into many aspects of the modern world whether it’s lessening our own carbon footprint despite big companies having a drastically more devastating impact on the environment than any of us individuals make or being the warm, accepting, tolerant people in society and therefore playing our parts in changing the cultural norms.
So why am I saying all of this? Because last night as we ate Friday night dinner we did so whilst watching the 2nd half of the World Cup England V USA game and it wasn’t our first game of the tournament, we are watching in the same way as we have done in previous years. Yet I say these words not because I am ignoring the huge controversy around the games and their host nation but because I have made an active decision not to boycott the event. I wanted to explain why, and it comes back to this text from pirkei avot.
In 2010 when Qatar was awarded the accolades of being host nation I did not speak out. At that point with 12 years ahead of us I wonder if I could have made a difference. Could me, one loan voice, a rabbi in Finchley have changed the minds of those FIFA officials? I never think of myself as one loan voice and neither should any of you. The very fact that you are sitting in shul today makes you part of something bigger. Whether a member of FRS, a member of a family or a person with a small but understanding group of friends, your voice should never feel itself to be quiet or alone, we surround ourselves with people who have the power to amplify our voices. Over 12 years we could have galvanised support from around the world. How many degrees of separation can there possibly be between the 970 FRS households and senior officials at the FA, at FIFA and to governing football bodies around the world? If we had strategized and mobilised, what stories could we have presented them with?
What work could have been done over these 12 years if we had come together with a specific campaign strategy to make FIFA reallocate the hosting of this World Cup? We would have thought about our own capacity and where we could build the power of numbers. What if we had brought on board the supporters clubs of every premier league football club? What if we had reached out to synagogues, churches, mosques, universities, businesses and unions around the world? What if every supporters’ club for every top class football club in every competing nation was brought into the campaign and together approached their countries’ football governing body? What if rainbow armbands had been worn by every player in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and in the 2018 World Cup in Russia making a firm commitment that none of those teams would agree to play in a country where it was illegal to be gay? What if the stories of workers had been elevated as the human rights abuses were taking place during construction on the stadiums used during these games? How would this week have felt different if those stories had been part of our national consciousness for these last 12 years? Not hidden column inches but talked about as much as Brexit! What if we could recite the names of each person who lost their lives? We would struggle to as back in early 2021 The Guardian was reporting more than 6500 South Asian workers had died in Qatar over the last decade, many of whom were working on World Cup construction sites, yet I don’t remember the queues of mourners wanting to pay their respects or protest the injustice.
I’m not suggesting people weren’t trying to make a concerted effort to bring global scrutiny to the horrific human rights abuses but what I am suggesting is that there needed to be world-wide community organising from the bottom up, bringing in the masses to a conversation to make it impossible for FIFA to choose money, corruption and that which is morally objectionable over the voice of the masses. Not one player, not one team, but allyships which means no lone voices are shouting into the void but together we can make real change.
We could have, and we didn’t. Do I regret that? Well, when I think about what we have done over the last 12 years and what issues we have highlighted and made a difference on I know we as a community didn’t have a huge capacity for this particular campaign. Perhaps also because it isn’t the closest issue to our own mission. When I think of the work we have done I don’t think we have been sitting idly by but this tournament has made me think about what I do when I have stood on the side-lines for too long, when the issues were raised but I stayed silent and the lives have been lost, the abuses perpetrated, when I did nothing to stop them, can I then get on my moral high horse and say it should have never happened, or by that time am I culpable?
I watch in the knowledge that lives were being lost, human rights abuses committed, and I did not raise my voice to see who would join me. If I boycott and don’t allow myself to watch, then again, I’m taking myself out of the issue and not placing myself firmly in it. If I don’t watch no one else notices or cares. Instead, my family have made a commitment that for each game we watch we will be making a donation to both an LGBTQI+ inclusion and education charity, and a human rights charity. The more we watch the more lives we benefit and the more we are reminded that in future I must not stand idly by.
In the words of Elana Arian, “I have a voice, my voice is powerful, my voice can change the world”, but what Elana doesn’t remind us is that statement is predicated on two factors. My voice is only powerful when it is joined by yours, and our voices need to be heard before the lives are lost, before the abuses of power are perpetrated, as soon as the injustice is visible. We cannot be the virtuous ones if we only choose to step up too late.
For many the World Cup being in the winter is travesty enough (we know no one likes change). Yet maybe that in itself should be a reminder to act now. We are heading on our own doorsteps into a period of severe austerity, a cost-of-living crisis. People will die. Not in a far-off country but here in Barnet. As we prepare to fling open the doors to our shelter for the homeless, we need to remember to do more. Through Eighth Rung and Barnet Citizens we need to do more than support the homeless, we need to tackle the causes of homelessness. We need to be furthering the campaign for a London Living Wage, we need to be demanding more from our mental health services, we need to be supporting the lonely and vulnerable. In years to come I don’t want to be boycotting or protesting the injustices which have led to lives being lost and a break down in society, I want to be celebrating the wins we played our part in, I want to know that it would have been worse, but we did all we could. Qatar was not our campaign this last decade but with every game watched and donation made it is my reminder to act now, and not wait until the injustices have been done.
It’s up to us to set the ball rolling, start raising up the voices of those whose stories will make a difference. We may not be able to finish the work because important work is rarely achieved alone but we have to remember both: “Lo alecha ham'lacha ligmor”. It’s not up to us to finish the work but be in conversation with, in relationship with others that gives us the power for you and I to change the world: “Ani ve'ata neshaneh et ha'olam”.
