Shabbat Ki Tissa 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
Anecdotally, or at least according to the jokes people tell rabbis, it’s during the sermon that people fall asleep at shul but kids like Libby know it’s not in services that her parents sleep at the synagogue, but actually when hosting the winter shelter when this space becomes a bedroom to those who need it most. In my head I can play a weekly or annual time lapse of this space and the different ways it’s used; groups of people coming and going and thoughts and prayers shared in it, so the words of Naomi Levy have always had a beautiful resonance. She speaks of sitting in an empty synagogue long after the community have gone: “I like to imagine words that have passed from the congregants’ whispering lips to God’s ear. Prayers seem to hover in the air like the smell of a fire long after the flames have died out.” (from the book Talking to God)
How much more so the thoughts of our homeless guests as the lights are off and they try to find the respite of sleep. Many of them born on different continents, born into different faiths, searching for reassurance for their thoughts in this house of prayer. Finding spirituality in this space, with the comfort of strangers. So different to those of the carers accompanying their loved ones to “Singing for Memory”, so often finding a shared past in old time music hall songs, a British culture linking people and finding comfort in a shared nostalgia. The unspoken questions of inquisitive children who are here in so many different guises week in week out filling this space with possibility and hope. The building may still feel new but the hovering thoughts, prayers, hopes and sadnesses seep into the ether. At times like this I can feel like it’s dripping from the walls by the end of a busy week.
It’s why for anyone who takes leadership positions in community, it’s so hard to speak, to think, to navigate the needs, the hopes, the fears which we can hear echoing around space, bouncing off the walls, making our thoughts a combination of all of yours.
Though Torah seems to criticise Aaron for his facilitating the building of the Golden Calf, all subsequent literature tirelessly tries to get him off the hook, exonerate him, show that his tactics were simply to hold the people and facilitate as peaceful an outcome as possible at a time of terror. Was the Golden Calf Aaron’s desperate way of saying, “we will get through this, we just need to stick together.”? Rabbi Jonathan Sack Z’’L taught that:
“There are famous aggadic traditions about Aaron and how he was able to turn enemies into friends and sinners into observers of the law… Perhaps the most instructive passage is the Talmudic discussion (Sanhedrin 6b) as to whether arbitration, as opposed to litigation, is a good thing or a bad thing. The Talmud presents this as a conflict between two role models, Moses and Aaron: Moses’s motto was: Let the law pierce the mountain. Aaron, however, loved peace and pursued peace and made peace between man and man.
Moses was a man of law, Aaron of mediation. Moses was a man of truth, Aaron of peace. Moses sought justice, Aaron sought conflict resolution. There is a real difference between these two approaches. Truth, justice, law: these are zero-sum equations. If X is true, Y is false. If X is in the right, Y is in the wrong. Mediation, conflict resolution, compromise, the Aaron-type virtues, are all attempts at a non-zero outcome in which both sides feel that they have been heard and their claim has, at least in part, been honoured.
The Talmud puts it brilliantly by way of a comment on the phrase, “Judge truth and the justice of peace in your gates” (Zech. 8:16). On this the Talmud asks what the phrase “the justice of peace” can possibly mean. “If there is justice, there is no peace. If there is peace, there is no justice. What is the ‘justice of peace’? This means arbitration.”
Leadership is the capacity to hold together different temperaments, conflicting voices, and clashing values. Every leadership team needs both a Moses and an Aaron, a voice of truth and a force for peace.
I wonder what Rabbi Lord Sacks would be saying to our newest MP if he were still able to bump into him in the corridors of Parliament, were his wisdom not taken from us too early. George Galloway’s assertion that he’s won his seat “for Gaza” is the furthest from any kind of peace-filled protestation. How can you create peace from hatred, division and suspicion, not to mention how can you create peace in the Middle East from your Rochdale constituency seat? Yet he’s wanted and voted for because in the hearts of his constituency they found someone who heard their voices, something that neither the Israeli or Palestinian leadership can attest to doing at this point.
Yet truly listening leadership doesn’t just tell people want they want to hear but enables them to actually listen and as well, bringing a multiplicity of voices together in a way that they can hear and understand each other’s truths.
This week’s Torah reading is packed with painful reflections on what we are living today.
A Torah portion that shows people disenfranchised, fearful and alone, feeling an absence of leadership so soon after plagues, miracles and revelation might speak to a modern world so desperate to find leadership that can hear the collective voice.
A Torah portion that shows the devastating effects of a burst of anger and retaliation may speak to a world polarised by the question of who is wrong being defined by who has suffered the least atrocities at the hands of the other. Moses and God respond angrily and vengefully and not in a way that will bring healing to the people who need them.
A parasha when, according to Sanhedrin 7a, Aaron acted in the way he did because he was afraid for his life if he did not give the people what they wanted at a time when the Speaker of the House felt the need to go against protocol for the physical safety of his MPs.
A portion when we are given the military invitation to go into the land and take it with God driving out its inhabitants at a time when a two state solution, where two tribes who inhabit the land can live side by side, feels a more distant dream than it ever has in my life time.
And yet a portion that starts with a census, with each person putting their half shekel into society to be counted. A reminder that we may all have different ways of articulating our grief, sadness and pain at this time but that we have to keep putting our half shekel in and feeling like we count. We need to wrestle with the feelings of abandonment as we stand shivering at the foot of the mountain and rather than leaving behind all that’s important to us in the name of an uprising we need to remember, as our parasha also teaches us, the qualities we can put into the world, articulated by the Characteristics of God, merciful and gracious, kind and long suffering, good and truthful. Yet the warning comes, when these are not the characteristics, the middot that are put out into the world:
רִבֵּעִים-וְעַל שִׁלֵּשִׁים-עַל, בָנִים בְּנֵי-וְעַל בָּנִים-עַל אָבוֹת עֲוֺן פֹּקֵד
The sins of the parents are visited on the 3rd and 4th generations.
I’m worried about the divided, hate-filled, polarised society of today, both here in the UK and in Israel and Gaza, but today is the moment we can witness, our grandchildren and great grandchildren are the ones who will be left with the scars and clearing up the mess for generations to come because we know it only gets more entrenched with every generation. So if we can’t put our half shekel in for the sake of today because today nuance is too hard and we feel we need to stand at one end of a polarised spectrum with our tribe, we have to pay our half shekel for the future. How do we do it? How do count ourselves in? I can’t tell you how grateful I was for Rishi Sunak as the Prime Minister finally gave us the words for it only last night:
“The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison.
We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart…
…there must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.
When they tell their lies, we will tell the truth.
When they try and sap our confidence, we will redouble our efforts.
And when they try and make us doubt each other…
…we will dig deeper for that extra ounce of compassion and empathy…
…that they want us to believe doesn’t exist, but that I know does.
If we can do that, we will start building a society of
…kind, decent, tolerant people.”
May we pay our half shekel by planning our part in hearing all the voices, wading through the treacle of pain and distrust and finding a future we can all be part of.
May this be God’s will.
