Shabbat T'tzavveh 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
There are many aspects of my job which I completely love but a particular one is something many of you will have experienced about me but most wouldn’t know to be a thing. As the rabbi of a community of 1000 households I take an inordinate amount of pride in members doing extraordinary things. From politics to the media, from the arts to the sciences, you never fail to give me reasons to kvell. So this week, full of pride for BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Jonathan Glazer, I went off to see “Zone of Interest”.
What an incredible premiss, to such an incredibly clever film. For those that have not yet seen or read about it, it is set in the home of Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, who built the most gorgeous home for him and his family nestled up against the wall of the concentration camp. The whole film takes place on their side of the wall, never do we get a glimpse of what we know is taking place there but crematorium flames, the sound of trains and gunshots are enough not only to remind the viewers of the atrocities that were happening the other side of the wall but we also see the range of ways the different members of the family ignore, are influenced or disturbed by what they know to be right there beyond their idyllic garden.
It would be easy to see it as a Holocaust film. An exposing of the callous atrocities that people turned a blind eye to in the 1940s but it is impossible not to feel disturbed by it, to ask ourselves how different we are from Hedwig Hoss, the commandant’s wife, the so called “Queen of Auschwitz”. We see her so thrilled by her life, by the gifts received each time another victim arrived with jewellery sown into their mink coats and by the life that was afforded to her by a steady supply of slaves to work for her, to satisfy her husband and to make her home and garden the idyllic contrast to the hell the other side of the wall.
We all build the walls. It’s our way of turning a blind eye because it makes our lives more comfortable to do so. I love the cheap, unseasonal food available in our shops and I build a wall to block out the voices of the farmers. It’s so much quicker, easier and more comfortable to jump in my car for short journeys but it involves me building a wall to ignore climate change. It’s how we manage modern living. We build walls otherwise the noise would be overwhelming.
On the 24th February 2022, exactly two years ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. With technology, 24-hour news and social media at moments like
that, the walls that we may have chosen to build around our comfortable lives or walls that ignorance builds around most people’s lives, were blown apart. Huge windows onto the lives of innocent Ukrainians caught up in a seemingly never-ending conflict were opened up in a way no one could ignore, and ignore we most certainly did not. The whole country seemed to unite in a commitment to action. As a synagogue we opened our doors and our hearts to those who were able to flee and the work of those at the World Union for Progressive Judaism, (the umbrella organisation which connects us to Jewish communities worldwide) in Ukraine and the surrounding countries was immense.
I am so aware of the control we are under of the media who facilitate the dialling up or down of the noise that penetrates our walls. When Ukraine is in the news daily, we hear the needs from the other side of the walls built to contain our own lives but when interest wanes, when the news turns to other stories, it’s so easy to forget the echoes of the sounds which used to drive us to action and penetrate our hearts. The physical proximity to the horrors of Auschwitz may lead us to think it could never be us, but I realise one of the most frightening observations to the film is we all do it routinely; it is modern life.
The family emerge with an unchallenged narrative as to the rights and wrongs of what is going on. They are working to the commands of Hitler himself and the camaraderie and support of the Nazi party around them gives them a complete confidence in their beliefs. It is only when Hedwig’s mum comes to stay, with the image of the Jewish family she used to work for being potentially on the other side of the wall, for her to feel its proximity completely indefensible and her need to leave. One family, one life, one connection is all it takes for her to feel the walls her family have built to block it all out are too thin.
It’s those moments where we hear of one life, one story, one real human which is the kryptonite to human nature’s ability to build the walls which block out the tragedies and have us all wearing headphones piping in only the single narrative that is around us, the one narrative on our side of the wall. The narrative the media feed us. It just takes one person’s reality to give our walls at least windows, if not doors.
It takes anniversaries to remind ourselves we have built walls when we distanced ourselves from ongoing atrocities but as our hostages in Gaza remind us, one name, one story is all it takes to find no walls will ever be strong enough to protection from the heartache. Many of us have too many stories to feel we have any luxury of walls, separating us from the atrocities of Israel and Gaza.
Guy reminds me of all those on active duty in Gaza, and Neta all those wives and families trying to keep life going with some semblance of normalcy in Tel Aviv.
Petronela’s sister and her paediatrician husband, terrified in Raffa, their eight children trying to rebuild their lives having fled to Romania gives me a window into the suffering in Gaza.
Benji represents the tragedy of the lives lost on October 7th and Liz, those left forever broken by the loss.
One narrative is lighting up the Houses of Parliament. One message threatening genocide purporting to prevent an alleged one they say is taking place. How can we ensure the noise of slogans and sides are not the things which cause us to build even higher walls? How can we share the stories and experiences of individuals around the world?
What will happen to families like the Haivans who fled from Ukraine and have set up life here in the UK? Both adults working, all three children doing well in school, can London remain their home for as long as they choose to stay? Who is reminding the world of their parents left terrified in Ukraine? Their brothers-in-law still on the front line?
Our walls only have windows when we know the names of the people on the other side. Only then does the indistinct sound of gunshots and trains turn into the pleas for help from those who know how close we really are if only we could find ways of reaching out. Only then can we hear more narratives than the singular one society sets to be the one we hear. We have a narrative echoing all the time. How do we make sure we peer over the wall see what’s really going on? By holding names, identities, stories of individuals and taking those people into our hearts.
Two years is too long for the people of Ukraine, 141 days is too long for the people in Israel and Gaza. Yet it seems that it is easier to build walls than it is to hold the individual names and stories in our hearts, but all it took was for Hedwig Hoss’s mum to know one individual before the walls were no longer there for her. We have to hold onto the identities of individuals to truly understand their plight. Walls may protect us from the heartache but they leave us culpable.
לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ
Do not stand by the blood of your neighbour.
It is too easy to stand idly by, to let other people’s narratives influence us and not to make our voices heard. It’s too easy to run out of steam. So today I urge you to hold an individual in your heart, to make this one where you share someone’s story in order to make windows in people’s walls. It’s much harder to ignore a real person’s life than it is to switch over from yet another news bulletin.
