Recently, I joined a group of Australian born Muslim high
school boys in watching a moving film called Before 1770, produced by Shaykh
Wesam Charkawi. The film shows deep connections between Muslims and the land of
Australia. We learned that “for hundreds
of years, Aboriginal Yolngu and Muslim Macassans interacted. They married,
traded, exchanged, [and] learnt from one another... The
Aboriginal Yolngu have, to this day, preserved words, which were taught during
the stay of the Macassans, [including the words] Allah and Muhammad”
(1).
This outstanding film helps address the alienation that some
young people feel from the place where they live. One of the issues that Muslims
tell me is important to them is the degree to which young Muslims in Australia
feel or don’t feel a sense of belonging in this country. There is a narrative
out there that equates being Australian to being white, being of Christian and
Anglo heritage and adopting a set of secular, cultural norms relating to
modesty and drinking for example. If a young person accepts that narrative then
the choice to identify with Australia can also seem like a betrayal of his or
her religious identity. This film appears to separate the choices young people
need to make between: connecting with the place of Australia and its long
history on the one hand; and identifying with contemporary Australian society
on the other.
Let us put aside the broader question of how people with
diverse beliefs and cultures relate to each other in the present and continue
with the idea of feeling connected to a place and its history. Are places
significant or merely a meaningless platform on which the real drama consisting
exclusively of people plays out?
In my tradition the relationship between a people and a land
comes up in the reading this week. The Jewish people had an obligation to allow
the land to rest for one of every seven years. In this week’s reading the Torah
describes the consequences for the Jews of their failure to meet this
responsibility, among other sins. “I will scatter you among the
nations...Then, the land will be appeased regarding
its sabbaticals. During all the days that it remains desolate while you are in
the land of your enemies, the Land will rest and thus appease its sabbaticals (2).
The imagery of this verse is of a land that is resentful
toward “its people”. The land is appeased only when the debt to it/her has been
paid (3). It fits with a contemporary perspective about an exhausted, polluted
planet earth-mother whose patience with her wayward human children is running
out and her wrath is soon to be unleashed. This idea resonates for me when I
walk in nature near my home, in the shade of nature’s abundant trees and the combination
of its quiet and birdsong. The earth deserves care and respect rather than
being exploited carelessly.
It was disappointing to me to read the most popular Torah commentator,
Rashi’s, interpretation of the verse above as referring to appeasing God rather
than the earth (4). While that might make sense from a literal perspective it removes
the opportunity to engage our imagination with the image of an aggrieved living
land. However, I was pleased to find a supra-commentary that insisted that Rashi
actually did embrace the idea of the land being appeased (5). (5). I was
delighted when I found further proof about Rashi’s view in his own commentary
on another verse in Chronicles where he is explicit about the appeasement of
the land itself (6). The view that the earth itself is appeased is also
supported by other commentators (7).
More controversially the relationship between the holy land
and the Jewish people is interpreted as being expressed in profound loyalty
between the land and “its people”. The Torah states that as part of the process
of the Jews being exiled, God “will
make the Land desolate” and “your enemies will “desolate [as a verb] upon it”
(8). This is interpreted to mean that no other nation that occupies this land
will ever truly thrive on it (9). “They will not manage to build walls or
towers on it… as the land will not receive any nation or tongue… the land will
not welcome anyone until her chicks return to her” (10). (Of course, these
types of teachings can make it harder for religious Jews to truly listen to
Palestinian narratives of loss of a thriving life on the land. This important and
painful discussion is beyond the scope of this blog post.)
Returning to the group of boys at the beginning of this blog
post, I can appreciate various ways that connections form between people and
places. We are embodied spirits and our bodies exist in places. Our wellbeing
is enhanced when we feel connected to where we live and care for those places.
Having spent a few more sessions with the boys since we watched the film I
trust that they will develop the connections between themselves, their place
and accurate understanding of and positive connections with their
multicultural, multi-faith diverse fellow inhabitants of this blessed country.
Notes:
- https://www.before1770.com
- Leviticus 26:33 and 34
- Chizkuni on this verse
- Rashi on 26:34
- Mizrahi, on Rashi 26:34, he explains
that Rashi’s intention in shifting toward appeasing God is that ultimately,
once the land itself has been appeased, the land, now reconciled to her people,
seeks to appease God’s anger about how the land was worked during the
Sabbatical year
- Rashi on 2 Chronicles, 36:20
- Chizkuni and Abrabanel, on Leviticus
26:33, Metzudat David and Metzudat Tzion on 2 Chronicles, 36:21
- Leviticus 26:32
- Rashi on Leviticus 26:32 based on Torat Cohanim/Sifra Bechukotai 6:8,
- Bchaya, on Leviticus 26:32
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