The setting was a
cottage in the Blue Mountains, complete with a wood fireplace in the lounge
room. The cast of characters included; a 21 year old female African American, a
student of criminal justice; a 26 year old Australian, a Muslim man of Lebanese
heritage; myself, a Jewish man more than twice their age; three women with
young children including a Catholic teacher, of Croatian heritage; an atheist
social worker of Hungarian heritage; and a Hijab wearing Muslim of Cocos Island
and Anglo heritage; as well as another male teacher, of German and Peruvian
heritage. This was the Interfaith, Intercultural Together for Humanity retreat.
Instead of talking about
our work, we lived and played our message of building inclusive diverse
community. Not only are there foods that the Muslim participants and I are
forbidden to eat; for me, even the cooking utensils need to be Kosher. So I
used a sandwich-maker to cook Kosher and Halal pumpkin and eggplant, lentil
burgers and scrambled eggs. The three males cooked dinner one night, with the
youngest, a newly married man, cooking a delicious pumpkin soup. As is so often
the case, despite the men’s efforts to clean up during and after cooking, the women
unfortunately ended up with the lion’s share of the cleaning up.
Prayers were done
quietly in another room, with people disappearing at various times. Otherwise,
religion came up informally. We played a game together called ‘Apples to Apples
-Jewish Children’s edition’ that I sometimes play with my kids on a Saturday
afternoon. Each participant got 5 red cards that had a word on them that is
part of the world of a Jewish child. The play involved selecting one of these
cards to match with a green card that contained an adjective. I wondered if the
unfamiliar cultural references would make the game fail or provide a glimpse
into my world and spark cross-cultural conversation. Fortunately, it certainly
turned out to be the latter.
In our game, one of the
red cards referred to the festival of Shavuot. The card sparked a conversation
about how my family celebrates Shavuot, with a dairy meal with blintzes with
mushrooms and cheese, and lots of ice cream. Often, Shavuot afternoon is spent
in front of a live wood fire, just as we did in our mountain cottage. Another
card referred to queen Vashti, who refused to appear naked before her husband’s
drunken friends to show off her beauty. This led to sharing perspectives on
women standing up to unreasonable men. Perspectives on gender politics were
exchanged, along with personal and family stories, late into the night. We
learned a lot about each other’s’ families. Some of it was funny, some of it
was sad. While I sensibly went to bed at 11, others talked till 1 am.
Names were the topic of
another conversation. One man’s migrant German father was insistent on
assimilating his family into Australian culture. Rosario became Sharon or
Shazza. And a ‘fat lot of good’ it did for the high school aged son, who was
emphatically told he was a ‘wog’, and not Australian. Worse still, despite his
grandfather having been a partisan who fought Hitler, the bullying of the
grandson included giving him the nickname Nazi! It was even printed on the back
of his year 12 jersey.
We had a great bushwalk
in the mountains together. But I also went back into the forest alone. My heart
was filled with a feeling of connectedness, and my mind was mulling over a
disturbing story from the weekly Torah reading, about a man who was put to
death for collecting firewood on the Sabbath (1). Like the altruistic bunch in
the cottage, according to the sages, this man was an idealist (2). The context
of his collecting these sticks was that he was 'in the desert' (3). His people
had failed to have faith in God’s Promised Land, so they were condemned to
never leave the bleak desert and see the realization of their dreams (4). In
that case, they reasoned, there was little point in continuing the practices
that lead to a better world. Just throw in the towel and forget about the
Sabbath. One man, our wood collector, wanted to be test case for the Sabbath,
to show that the practices must continue and he was prepared to die to
demonstrate that the Sabbath was still to be taken seriously. He is praised for
his effort (5).
There are reasons to be
pessimistic about the degree to which the human family is ever going to achieve
the “Promised land”, of true acceptance and affirmation of all people, in all
our diversity. It often feels more like a long term stay in the desert than an
imminent arrival in the lush forests of the Blue Mountains. However, regardless
of where we are right now, or what the short term prospects are for achieving
our dreams, we can and indeed we must continue to live and play this
vision.
Notes
1) Numbers 15:32-36.
2) Midrash, cited in
Tosafot, on Bava Basra 119b, Dibbur Hamaschil Afilu.
3) Numbers 15:32.The
fact that the text mentions their presence explicitly despite this being
obvious is pointed out by the Chida in Torat Hachida, 66, p. 91.
4) Numbers
13:1-14:35.
5) This
interpretation is based on the Midrash above and the Chida in Torat Hachida,
66, 71, 72 p. 91-93.
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