Shabbat Hanukkah 5784
Numbers 7: 87-9
You can listen to Rabbi Tony's sermon here or read it below
As you’ll discover in about three and a half minutes, this second Torah reading for Shabbat Hanukkah is short but particularly obscure. Which is why Jo Ozin invited me to read it with a broad grin on her face. Miriam added that I should feel gratefully compensated by being allowed this one opportunity, as a no longer current rabbi, of saying something about the situation in Israel/Gaza – providing I don’t exceed 300 words or three minutes. I’ll endeavour to do so but I won’t include these words of introduction in my allotted three minutes!
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Being Jewish has always demanded that we embrace paradox and hold both ends of the rope at the same time. Today is no different; it’s just that the paradox is much more painfully clear.
The Magen David has six points:
- As a European Jew of Dutch, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish and Russian ancestry, I strongly identify with the founders of Israel and its leaders of a generation ago. But I recognise the dismissive arrogance and material discrimination we heaped on our Mizrahi sisters and brothers from Arab lands – those now the majority party in Israel.
- As a diaspora Jew, I supported and worked for Refuseniks and for Jews throughout the Soviet Empire. I’ve no doubt I was right to do so. But I recognise the malign part some extreme nationalists play in the exercise of power in Israel today.
- As a Jew who chose not to settle in Israel when offered the opportunity, I’m convinced I wouldn’t have voted for the present Government. But we did, we did – we elected them.
- As a passionate advocate of balance and moderation as core Jewish values, I abhor all religious fanaticism. Hamas is the embodiment of evil. But I’m compelled to acknowledge our own fringe embodiment of evil on the West Bank.
- As a religious Zionist, my vision is of Israel not as a state like all other states but as the realisation and implementation of Jewish values. However, I deeply resent the British media, the Red Cross, the United Nations holding Israel to higher standards than Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Iran.
- Rabbinic tradition teaches “Col Yisrael areivim zeh ba’zeh”, each Jew stands surety for every other Jew – our family, our People. Regardless. But I’m also “involved in mankind”; the deaths and suffering inflicted by those for whom I stand surety “diminishes me”, diminishes all of us.
I’m shaken, shocked, ashamed as never before. But I’m equally unshakeable in my commitment to the Jewish people, the Land of Israel and our Torah.
Rabbi Professor Tony Bayfield CBE
