2nd Day Rosh Hashanah Morning 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Robyn's sermon here or read it below.
This morning, all of us, along with the inhabitants of the camp of Sarah and Abraham, will watch Hagar and her baby son, Ishmael, be banished into the wilderness. We become bystanders to their pain. We will not read of anyone, including Abraham, defying Sarah’s orders. We can imagine Hagar weeping, Ishmael we know was crying. The cries resound and the only person to respond was an angel who tells Hagar that God is listening and helps her to see the well and take the next step forward. If you were in that camp would you have stood up to Sarah and her cruelty for the non-Israelite Hagar? Would it have made a difference if she was an Israelite - would you have been more likely to intervene?
I am sure, most of us, sitting here, as we commit to the days of Teshuvah (return and repentance), would say - ‘of course I’d help!’ But many studies have shown that it is not so straightforward.
In the early 2000s researchers recruited male fans of Manchester United to take part in a social experiment. The participants did not know the real focus of the study and unknown to them, the real experiment took place as they walked between buildings. A nearby jogger fell, hurt their ankle and cried out in pain. In this experiment, as told by the psychologist Catherine Sanderson, ‘the man was wearing either a Manchester United jersey, a jersey of a rival team (Liverpool), or a plain shirt with no team identity.
Can you guess who they were more likely to help?’ She asks.[1]
Yes, that’s right, the Manchester United fans were much more likely to help if the injured person was wearing their team’s top. 90% stopped to help if the top was Manchester United, 33% if the top was plain, and just 30% stopped if the person was in a Liverpool top.[2]
These findings are extremely uncomfortable as they demonstrate, in Sanderson’s words, that we are more likely to help someone we feel connected to.[3] It is unlikely that any of us would have helped Hagar, but if she was Israelite we may have stepped forward.
We may also want to ask ourselves what circumstances led to a camp, that of Abraham and Sarah, to allow someone to suffer so. Abraham, we know, was a man on a mission. He heard a call from God - lech lecha - go for yourself. And he answered that call without question. Just yesterday we heard that Abraham again, through his blind faith, followed a cruel order by God and held a blade over his son, ready to sacrifice him for his mission. Abraham’s world was an authoritarian one - a world of binaries - of rights and wrongs - of allies and enemies - of idolaters and idol-breakers. In this world, in the words of the writer Peter Block, ‘dissent is seen as a form of disloyalty’ (2009: 51). No one in this camp would dared to have spoken up - the price would have been too high. We know all too well how figures of authority get away with committing so much harm – Al Fayed, Winestein and so on.
In this camp Hagar’s otherness would have been noticeable and unwelcome. Indeed, as Rabbi Daniel Lichman pointed out to me, her name marks her strangeness as if you change just one vowel, the name Hagar ‘the forsaken one’, becomes - ha-ger - ‘the stranger’.
In Abraham’s world, as he attempted to build a group of people into a tribe with a shared identity, distinct from others, it is inevitable that eventually Hagar and her son, born across tribal lines, would have been expelled. Of course no one stood up.
Many of us will have read stories about how ‘no-one helped’ in a moment of crisis or ‘stood up’ when someone was attacked or in need of help. And this year, maybe, we have heard ourselves say, why is no one doing anything? Why is no one stepping up or saying anything? It takes a certain moral courage to break this pattern and become an up-stander.
We are the people who have been commanded, at Leviticus 19:16, to not stand idly by at our neighbour’s blood. We are told to pursue justice always, Deuteronomy 16:20. Surely having these religious ideals and teachings means that we would act when another is harmed regardless of whether we are connected to them or not.
Sanderson says, not, as she writes, ‘highly religious people are no more likely to intervene in the face of bad behaviour’ as our ‘commitment to our political party, our religious group, our sport, our college or a prominent member of our community causes us to choose to disbelieve or to turn away from the victim.’[4]
It turns out ‘it is far more comfortable to fit in than to stand out.’[5]
As we reflect on the year that has been, we certainly have witnessed much pain on our screens and in our communities. We have absorbed stories of immense violence and injustice here on our streets in Britain during the riots as many, including children, have since been sentenced and jailed.
We have seen stories and footage of those dancing at the Nova festival on 7th October and those living their lives in kibbutzim who were violently and cruelly murdered, attacked and kidnapped. We have witnessed countless images and news reports of the devastation of Gaza and the immense suffering of the Palestinians. We continue to see the cost of war from across the globe. We have seen images of children starving in Afghanistan and women veiled and silenced on its streets, to barbaric attacks in Sudan and so much more.
How are we affected by witnessing so much harm and pain? How can we possibly be up-standers when we are either paralysed by pain and grief, or fearful of the consequences of standing up? How can we break the reality of the bystander effect? How can we speak when we would pay the price of our belonging?
The American scholar and writer, Brené Brown, warns us that experiencing moral outrage, as we witness the horrors of our time, can lead to self-righteousness, rather than to us being up-standers. She writes that in so doing, ‘we become the monster we wanted to kill.’[6] A few months ago, I saw a small example of this as I was waiting my turn, in my car, to turn right.
A driver who had been blocked was incensed and shouted to the other driver, ‘you are a terrible human being.’ He was now the one disrupting the peace and he was so full of righteous indignation that he would have been unable to see how his behaviour was now the problem. Just so with Abraham who became so attached to his mission that he lost sight of the harm he was causing to his sons.
In these complex times I have found hope, not with Abraham and his self- righteousness, but with Moses. I think that Moses may be able help us be up-standers. Moses is raised by a group of women who defy both ethnic and class divisions to protect and raise a child. They put life before loyalty. From the midwives Shifrah and Puah (it is not clear whether they are Hebrews or not), to Batya (Pharoah’s daughter), Yocheved (Moses, Miriam and Aaron’s mother), and Miriam (Moses’ sister) – they raise this child together, in defiance of the demagogue Pharoah. In that authoritarian system, they, together, take a stand.
Moses becomes the leader he is due to this upbringing. In the extraordinary novel re-telling of the story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston writes that Moses crosses over, again and again.[7] He is Egyptian and Hebrew. He is royalty and a shepherd. He finds loves with Zipporah, a non-Israelite. He crosses over time and again. Moses is gender fluid – in some passages he is addressed in the feminine. His masculinity, as the work of Rhiannon Graybill explores, challenges the usual biblical framing of masculinity. He is unsure, unsteady - he stutters, he doubts.[8]
Moses, in his early years, is nothing like Abraham and he, and the women who raised him, are exactly what we need in this world. Through all of their crossings they prioritise and privilege the humanity before them. They are up-standers again and again and I would put money on the fact each of them would have protected Hagar and her crying son.
The philosopher and writer, Jean-Christophe Attias, writes that he can only see one option for us today – ‘the Judaism of Moses, the only one that can speak to Jews and non-Jews alike…A Judaism of the spirit, of wandering and incompletion; virtually, a Judaism of failure’.[9]
Let’s return to the football fans. In a follow up study, the same conditions were set but this time, before they witnessed the fall, they were asked to write a short essay about how much they had in common with other soccer fans. Whilst some of the statistics stayed the same (80% helped the person when wearing a Manchester United top and just 22% in a plain shirt), now 70% of the participants helped the person in the rival Liverpool top as opposed to 30% in the previous study.[10] Remarkable.
Catherine Sanderson teaches that it is possible to create a world of moral rebels and the crucial first step is cultivating empathy. [11] It takes small tweaks in our environment.[12] Change, teshuvah, is possible. We can become up-standers in a world of bystanders. Hearing from and spending time with people from different backgrounds is vital to fostering the courage we need to stand up – modelled by the women of the Exodus and Moses.
This is why hearing Hagar’s voice and Ishmael’s cry this Rosh Hashanah, and every Rosh Hashanah is vital and a first step towards cultivating our empathy across tribal lines so that we never ignore the cries of another. Conversely we must also hear the story of the Akedah to warn us from a world that demands such violence. Hearing these stories is our small tweak to our environment.
On the eve of this year, after a long five thousand, seven hundred and eighty four years, may we continue to commit to hearing the sound of another’s cry and to showing up. May we realise how the witnessing of such immense pain can seek to silence us or awaken us to the plight of another. May we recognise the cost of our silence and the factors that drive us to be bystanders. May we sit with Hagar and Ishmael and be the angel that is needed. May we understand that being part of a tribe of people may keep us from being up-standers. May we reject a Judaism of authoritarianism and embrace one of failure and crossing over. May we, through our community, find trusted partners and question the worlds and narratives around us.
Ken Yehi Ratzon - May be it so. Amen.
References
Attias, J-C. 2020. A Woman Called Moses: A Prophet for Our Times. London: Verso.
Block, P. 2009. Community: The Structure of Belonging. Oakland: Berrett-
Koehler Publishers.
Graybill, R. 2015. Masculinity, Materiality, and the Body of Moses.
Biblical Interpretation. 23, pp.1-23.
Hurston, Z. N. [1939] 2009. Moses, Man of the Mountain. Harper
Perennial.
Sanderson, C. A. 2020. The Bystander Effect: The Psychology of Courage and How to be Brave. London: William Collins.
