Dominance vs Acceptance and Lamekh’s Song

After a soul-replenishing walk the other day, I walked out of the bush onto a path where I saw a little dog ahead. From the dog’s perspective, a strange man was approaching and this was a problem. A few loud barks did not persuade the man to back off  ̶  he continued to approach. This required an escalation: first circling the stranger and barking even more menacingly and then a warning bite! The bite through my clothing didn’t pierce the skin, but the dog had asserted itself!  

Unlike that dog, humans have choices. Situations that at first may feel adversarial can be resolved through conversations that uncover misunderstandings or alternative solutions. I have been working on acceptance of how things are, and letting go of expectations about how others “should” be or behave. We have a choice about how we react to anxiety either by seeking to control others, or by letting go (1), with trust in God and respect for others’ right to choose what they wish to do or give.  

In Genesis, we read about Cain, whose name means “acquisition” (2). When his brother Abel’s offering was favoured by God, while his was rejected (3), Cain failed to “acquire” the approval he craved. His “face fell (4) ”. In his status anxiety, Cain failed to follow God’s guidance to improve himself and manage his drives or impulses (5). Instead, in an outburst of violence, he murdered his brother. The anger he felt was so overwhelming that he thought – in error – that he had no choice in the matter (6) .

Worse than crimes of passion are acts of violence and ways of unethical domination that are not impulsive but premeditated (7). When some people see the ways that intimidating others can allow them to take what they want, they either inflict violence or threaten to do so to get their way (8).

Cain’s descendant Lemekh embraced violence. He had contempt for the “respectable people” of his time, descendants of Adam and Eve’s other son Seth, who shunned the Cainites because of their murderous and condemned ancestor (9). Lemekh tried to revise history, creating myths to recast Cain as a hero. “Our father Cain did not wimpishly relinquish his status as the firstborn son of Adam and Eve. When he was insulted by Abel and God, Cain defended his honour (10)”. In this way, Lemekh thought that Cain had been rehabilitated, and the Cainites had restored their past glory.

Lemekh was wrong. Rather than him changing the past, the past was a strong influence on him and his family. Wicked ways that are deeply embedded in people’s hearts, such as Cain’s embrace of murder, anger and dominance, can be perpetuated in families (11), an example of “visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children… (12)”. Indeed, Tuval Cain, one of Lemekh’s sons, built on his ancestor’s murderous legacy (13) by being the first to create weapons (14).

Tuval Cain’s siblings were all pioneers, one in developing agri-business (15) and the accumulation of wealth (16), another in the arts, the “father” of all musicians (17), and their sister Naama was a talented singer (18). The siblings complemented Lemekh’s repair of the past by creating a glorious future (19).

After the description of Lemekh’s talented family in the Tanach, there is a plot twist. Lemekh tells his wives that he killed a man and a boy (20) in retaliation (21) for some kind of wound and a bruise. Lemekh’s story about these killings is in the form of a song (22), a war song, as Biblical songs tend to be (23). It is a dramatic warning to his wives that he is far tougher than Cain and if they dare defy his wishes, such defiance will be met with violent vengeance and him killing them. This was his way of dominating his wives as if they were slaves, or property, for him to do with as he pleased (24).

      
An alternative interpretation identifies the slain man and boy as Lemekh’s ancestor Cain and his own son Tuval Cain, killed in a series of accidents, rather than acts of vengeance (25). Lemekh’s song is seen as a bitter “last testament of a Cainite seer. (26)” Instead of the pride and joy in his family’s accomplishments, Lemekh sees the symbolism of his killing his ancestor and son as representing the failure of the Cainite approach. “Alas, I have not rehabilitated my ancestor, I killed him! I murdered the youth! And in doing so, I inflicted the deepest wound on myself! We have destroyed the past and the future and gained no present.” Lemekh recognised that he was morally damaged, “bruised and wounded (27) ” by the legacy of anger and murder that he inherited from Cain and that shaped him and his weapons-manufacturing son, Tuval-Cain (28).  Lemekh declared: “Cain-ism must be repudiated!”

Lemekh’s lament is a call for us to reject dominance in favour of humble acceptance of that which we cannot control.  His song is about the ultimate painful cost of coercion and threats that far exceed any short-term benefits.  Inflicting or threatening “punishments” can destroy family ties and friendships (29), often with great harm to the perpetrator. Instead, let us affirm the dignity and rights of all people, with assertiveness, forgiveness, patience, tolerance, curiosity and compassion.   

---

[1]Jeffers, S. (2012), Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway, Revised, Vermilion, London, p. 232-233

[2] Genesis 4:1

[3] Genesis 4:3-5

[4] Genesis 4:5-6

[5] Genesis 4:7

[6] Leiner, J, the son of the Ishbitzer, in Beis Yaakov al Hatora, Bereshit, 70, on Sefaria https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.4.23?lang=he&with=Beit%20Yaakov%20on%20Torah&lang2=he  

[7] Liebovitz, N, New Studies In Bereshit Genesis, 6, p. 46, I use the term unethical domination to exclude cases where legitimate authority is exercised eg. by the parent of a young child about to cause harm to themselves or others, or a police officer protecting a vulnerable person from someone seeking to harm them.  

[8] Genesis, 6:2, “the sons of the powerful saw the daughters of man, that they were good and they took women from all that they chose”

[9] R Ephrayim, based on a lost midrash, cited in Azulai, C. Y. D. Chidoh, in Torat Hachido, p. 38- 115 

[10] Medan, Y. The Song of Lemekh – The First Song in the Bible, https://etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/torah/sefer-bereishit/parashat-bereishit/bereishit-song-lemekh-%E2%80%93-first-song-bible

[11] Talmud, Berakhot 7a, as interpreted by Medan, Y. following the approach of Ralbag on the Torah, Shemot 20:1:3, and Leiner,

[12] Exodus 34:7

[13] Rashi, on Genesis 4:22

[14] Genesis 4:22

[15] Hirsch, S.R. on Genesis 4:21

[16] Malbim on Genesis 4:21

[17] Genesis 4:21

[18] Me’am Loez

[19] Hirsch, S.R. on Genesis 4:21

[20] Genesis 4:23

[21] Malbim’s commentary to 4:23, C. Y. D. Chidoh, in Torat Hachido, p. 38- 115, Medan, Y.

[22] Hirsch, S.R. on Genesis 4:23

[23] Medan, Y.

[24] Malbim

[25] Midrash Tanchuma

[26] Hirsch

[27] Genesis 4:23

[28] Leiner, Y, 71

[29] Perhaps there is a difference where relationships fail because people cannot bear to be in the presence of someone and continuing to be together will cause distress or emotional harm, and other situations where such differences can likely be tolerated but the effort is not made due to either a sense – perhaps sub-conscious - that the other person deserves to be punished or of righteous indignation. 

Violence and Resilience of the Aggrieved - Leader and Survivor Kathryn Jones (Pinchas)

The other day I felt embarrassed when I reflected on how I had performed in an important meeting. Unfortunately, I had talked too much and listened far too little. On reflection, as I went into that meeting I felt quite anxious about the anticipated outcomes of that meeting but I was too preoccupied with work to deal with the fear. Dealing with our fears and grievances ensures they don’t fester and explode into an avalanche of words, or even violence. In this blog I reflect on my encounter with Kathryn Jones, a tall woman of Muslim faith and Anglo-Saxon-Australian heritage, who is a survivor of sexual abuse as a child and years of crushing domestic violence (1). She is a passionate advocate for thinking based strategies to counter it. However, I also want to explore how violence and fury might arise not out of mere thoughts but rather out of deeply held beliefs and ideals. As an example of the latter, I examine the case of Pinchas (or Phineas) that opens the Torah reading of this week and appears to approve of the extrajudicial execution of a sinner (2). 

Thoughts are powerful. At a recent Islamic Schooling Conference, I heard from Professor Stephen Dobson about one common thread between the Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and the attacker of the Mosques in New Zealand. In both cases, there were long simmering grievances that we can assume were never adequately dealt with.

At the same conference I had the privilege of listening to Kathryn Jones talk about resilience. In her book,'Step Up, Embrace the Leader Within', Kathryn writes movingly of her profound pain: “My forehead rested heavily on the prayer mat soaked by the flood of tears…" She felt “worn down, beaten and empty”; (3) as her suffering in her abusive marriage became progressively more acute. Despite her childhood and her more recent pain, when I listened to Kathryn I felt a strong and positive energy emanating from her. In addition to her mentoring work with Muslim women, she is also engaged in interfaith outreach work in schools, with the Abraham Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.

Kathryn typically begins her talk by using a bubble machine that creates a continuous stream of soap bubbles that rapidly and continuously appear and disappear. The bubbles serve as a metaphor for thoughts. “Feelings come from thoughts in the moment...” (4) Kathryn told us. Jewish mysticism teaches that emotions are the offspring of our cognitive faculties (5). However, there is a difference between the traditional insight and Kathryn’s point, in that the cognitive faculties are not the same as the fleeting thoughts in the moment, instead they are our underlying processes of cognition, including understanding and knowing, and also encompass convictions.  

What Kathryn did next really struck a chord with me. She blew up a balloon and kept blowing until the balloon popped in a loud bang. The balloon was a metaphor for our minds, and holding on to all the air inside represents  ruminating and not letting go of painful, shameful and angry thoughts. The pressures that accumulate usually harm the person holding on to those thoughts, and, often enough, also cause harm to others.

I agree with Kathryn that violence often stems from the challenges of the human condition, and that it is wrong to intrinsically link it to any particular faith, as many do in  equating Islam with violence (6). However, religious as well as other ideals and ideas have often led to violence. One example of this is the way that the socialist dreams of the Soviet Union led to the purges, gulags and repression that have had a direct impact on members of my Chabad Jewish community including my own grandfather. The Torah reading this week has another example, in which a violent act, done for the love of God, appears to be condoned.

God rewarded Pinchas for his killing of a prominent Jewish man named Zimri and a non-Jewish woman named Kozbi, who had sex during a broader moral breakdown involving prostitution and idol worship among the Israelites (7). Thankfully, the Talmud tells us that Pinchas' act was disapproved of by the sages (8), which implies that this exceptional case should never be taken as license for anyone else to imitate his act (9). Still, this passage disturbs me. A surface reading of it seems to justify killing someone for what appears to be an inter-ethnic consensual sexual act. However, according to one traditional commentary this actually involved coercion. When Kozbi refused to sleep with Zimri, “Zimri grabbed Kozbi by her plaited hair...” (10). Be that as it may, it is still a confronting story.

Without irony, the Torah tells us that the killer is to be rewarded with a covenant of peace for his act of zealotry. His act of violence against a man who transgressed God’s expectations of the Israelites is said to have restored peace between God and the people (11). One commentary suggests that God’s gift of a covenant of peace was “a protection against an inner enemy, lurking inside the zealous perpetrator of the sudden deed, against the inner demoralization that such an act as the killing of a human being, without due process of law, is liable to cause” (12). We can say that while Pinchas acted out of zealous anger stemming from his deeply held beliefs, rather than from stewing in lingering unprocessed thoughts, he was nonetheless at risk of being haunted by the deed after the fact.

Violence can certainly be driven by outrage against a violation of a religious or secular ideal. In many cases there is a need for tolerance of divergent beliefs, in other cases there is a need to stand up to those who violate standards that are worthy of being upheld. On the other hand there are a myriad of grievances and hurts that cause harm to the people who continue to hold on to them; Kathryn’s example of letting it go is often worth emulating. Perhaps as people resolve lingering anger or resentment, it will be less likely to bubble out in violence, or even just expressions of unreasonable irritability with people, harsh words or sub-optimal ways of dealing with others.

Thank you very much to my son Aaron Menachem Mendel Kastel for his editing and assistance with this blog post. 

Notes

1)    Jones, K, (2018), Step Up, Embrace the Leader Within, Busybird Publishing, Victoria, Australia.

2)    Numbers 25:11-15.

3)    Jones, K. (2018), ibid, p. 7.

4)    Jones, K, (2019) Back to the Fitra Mentoring Program - Unbreakable Social Justice Through Emotional Resilience, presentation at the Islamic Schooling Conference, Melbourne Australian, 14.07.2019.

5)    Tanya chapter 6, et passim.

6)    Jones, K. (2018), ibid, p. 8.

7)    Numbers 25:1-15.

8)     Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 9:7.

9)    Torah Temimah to Numbers 25:13, note 31.

10)  Talmud Sanhedrin 82a.

11)  Ralbag, Be’er Basadeh, on 25:12.

12)  Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Berlin, in Ha’amek Davar, as quoted in Leibovitz, N., Studies in Bamidbar, Pub. Department for Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora, the Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education, Jerusalem, p.331. Cf. also Ohr HaChaim Deuteronomy 13:18 for a similar concept in another context.

Murder in Parramatta: Cain, shame and responsibility – Bereshit

One image has been playing on my mind since the murder of Curtis Cheng: the 15 year old killer waving his gun in the air and shouting. I see a link to the young murderer in Oregon who reportedly wrote that mass killings can get a person “known by no one” into the limelight.1

I do not have access to evidence about these murders. Instead I will tap traditional teachings for some possible insights. Escaping shame is a major factor in the first recorded murder I am aware of, that of Abel by his brother Cain. The vain, honor seeking2 younger brother Abel and his older brother Cain wanted God to settle the question which of them was greater, the shepherd Abel or the farmer Cain. They each brought offerings, but Cain and his offering were ignored while God turned to Abel and his offering3, by sending a miraculous fire4 and by blessing Abel with success while Cain’s crops failed. 5 Cain “was despising himself in his own eyes”6 feeling shamed by God,7 his face “blackened like a coal”.8 Cain’s shame then turned into rage, his face burning like fire.9 

One remedy for deep shame involves recognizing that one has a choice10 about the future as well as opportunity to take responsibility for past failure and come to terms with it rather than blaming others.11 God asked Cain why he was so angry and ashamed.12 God drew Cain’s attention to his ability to choose a path that would make him better than Abel.13 Unfortunately Cain chose not to avail himself of this option, instead allowing his anger to lead him to murder. Is there some similarity to Cain’s craving for status due to his shame,  in a 15 year old murderer holding his arm up as high as he can, waving a gun and shouting a religious slogan?  

A year ago another person, also drawn to Islamist extremism, and perhaps also seeking personal redemption though shedding the blood of others, had been dismissed by some as crazy. He was a criminal who victimized the women in his life. Was he viewed as being outside of human society and not quite human?  In some of our traditions Cain is seen in this way: his ‘breed’ “had two heads and four eyes”.14 We are told that his father was not Adam but the snake that impregnated Eve15, or the evil angel Samael.16 While there are reasons to isolate murderers, and to communicate a high level of disgust with their behaviour, the child’s face of the Parramatta killer reminds us of the chilling truth that killers are people like the rest of us.

We are now hearing incessant demands by some for Australian Muslims to “own this crime”. One Muslim writer expressed frustration that Muslims seem to be expected to prevent events like this, despite the obvious fact that this is not something they can guarantee. Italian people are not expected to prevent all “Italian crime”!

In fact, there are local Muslim community workers, including two amazing Sheiks I know, who are undertaking educational work that will hopefully make violent incidents like the Parramatta murder less likely. Some of these workers believe that, given the kind of public conversation we are having, highlighting their work in the media might be seen as conceding some guilt about or association with the crime.

There is always room for improvement, but I wish the degree of acceptance of responsibility for preventive education among Australian Muslims was better known. At the same time, I believe that non-Muslims have responsibility to do our part in ensuring we develop inclusive communities that preserve the dignity of all, thereby reducing the likelihood of school students feeling so alienated that they can be brain-washed to commit murder. 

Religion is sometimes a contributing factor to hostility; but it can also contribute to solutions. In Genesis we see God feeling aggrieved about the state of the world, and his response is to wipe out civilization.17 He is said to be saddened by the “humans on the earth”18, which one commentary interprets as being too much mixed up with matters of the earth, focused on the material and the body rather than the spiritual.19 In the Torah, God eventually promises never to destroy the world again, because he accepts the reality of human frailty. The symbol of this commitment is the rainbow.

As parents of all faiths do their best to raise good children, so do our multi-dimensional communities - via social institutions providing education, health, welfare and policing and in more personal ways in our everyday activities. , In the wake of another tragic murder, I reaffirm my commitment to continue my own efforts to affirm the dignity of all, to try to ensure that shame, when it appears, can be more successfully harnessed for good, rather than become a driver for rage and violence. As flawed humans, people of all ages need to learn how to pursue excellence and success with patience and resilience, and how to promote justice with courage and compassion in a flawed world

 Notes

1.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/essay-refusing-to-say-a-killers-name-is-no-more-than-symbolic-empowerment/2015/10/02/2cd2cf7c-6923-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html
2.    Abarbanel. The Hebrew name of Abel, Hevel, means air, which can be linked using modern slang to being ‘full of hot air’, the choice of shepherding sheep and “leading them” is seen as reflecting this pursuit of being important. In contrast to this view of Abarbanel, Ohr Hachayim (starting with the words Vateled et Kain) quotes the sages that Cain was of the aspect of evil and Abel was of the aspect of good. A synthesis of the two views might be found in the Ohr Hachayim’s assertion that Abel soul was also that of Moses, that means that Moses was a reincarnation of Abel and that in the wounds inflicted on Abel by Cain he removed the bad elements from Abel’s soul and the pure good was revealed. This is alluded to in the words in Genesis 4:1, “I have acquired a man, God” referring to Moses the man of God who only reached this level of being with God because of the suffering inflicted on him by Cain. This also links to story cited in Meiri about Moses having a flawed character that he overcame by his working on himself.
3.    Genesis 4:4-5
4.    Midrash Hagadol cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 312, 44, Rashi
5.    Pesikta Zuta cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 312, 45
6.    Midrash Hagadol cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 312, 44
7.    Seforno
8.    Minchat Yitzchak, cited and explained in Torah Shlaima, p. 312, footnote to 42
9.    Beresheet Rabba, 22
10.    Seforno on Genesis 4:6
11.    Abarbanel
12.    Genesis 4:6
13.    Abarbanel, this is based on his interpretation of the ambiguous word “Se-et” שאת in Genesis 4:7, which can be translated as forgiven, but also as uplifted as this word is used in Genesis 49:3
14.    Midrash cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 304, footnote 7
15.    Pirkey Drabi Eliezer, cited in Torah Shlaima, p. 304
16.    Pirush Yonatan citing the Midrash
17.    Genesis 6
18.    Genesis 6:5
19.    Radak

Brush Turkey “Battle” “Blessed Violence?” & prejudice - Vzot Habracha

Brush Turkey happily
back on his mound

The battle to banish the
Brush Turkey

Apart from reminding ourselves that perpetrators of violence should not be taken to represent everyone from any cultural or religious community, it is useful to explore the nature of violence. Not to condone it, but to remind ourselves that it is something that is done by people of many faiths and walks of life rather than being the domain of the poor or the Aboriginal as seems to be suggested by one journalist 1 this week, or intrinsic to Edom as suggested in Midrash relating to our reading this week of Vzot Habracha. 2

Let us define violence broadly as doing something that causes distress to another creature. I engaged in “violence” this week against a perceived threat, a male Brush Turkey who decided to create a mount for himself in my backyard. I believed, falsely, that they are very territorial creatures who might harm my two year old daughter. I began my battle to get rid of it. I got on the internet to gather intelligence against my “enemy” and learned that these are determined creatures that will not go quietly. I spent two hours under the cover of darkness, reclaiming my land. I covered his mound with a sack and other stuff. I cleared excess leaves and watched him pace the next day, as our battle of wills played out.

I was wrong about the Brush Turkey. A knowledgeable friend persuaded me that my next planned step, putting down chicken wire would be very cruel. He told me that they are not territorial. They will come for a few months, lay eggs in the mound then go away. He also suggested that I was the colonizer as “they were here before us”. So I removed the impediments to the mound making. Now I am getting a lot of pleasure watching this amazing natural process play out as this energetic creature builds his mount by flicking leaves backwards, for hours on end.

As I reflect on my battle with my new friend. I notice how quickly people can be moved to perceive a threat and seek to eliminate it. The thinking can be focused on how to conquer the enemy instead of exploring how we might be able to coexist. Yet, unfortunately, not all conflicts are so easily resolvable. There are real enemies. These are not monsters. They are people that are essentially like me who are up against something they think threatens them or something precious to them.

This is one way for me to think about an implied message in the Torah reading this week that killing even family members is virtuous. Moses says of Levi. “The one who says of his father and mother, I did not see them, and his brother he did not recognise and his children he did not know”. 3 This is taken to mean that he was willing to kill his relatives who worshiped the Golden Calf, including his grandchildren. 4

I  Find this particularly disturbing in light of the following. In the final moments of Moses’ life, he blesses all but one of the Jewish tribes, 5 the one tribe that is left out in Simeon. This is the second time that all are blessed except for Simeon. Jacob’s deathbed blessings to almost all his sons instead contained a curse of Simeon’s and his Brother Levi’s anger because of their massacre of the inhabitants of the city of Shchem. However when Moses does his blessings, Levi is blessed while only Simeon misses out. One way of explaining this is that both brothers were like “borrowers” when they massacred the people of Shchem. However Simeon did not redeem himself, 6 Levi did redeem themselves in their conduct during the golden calf, which might be about the fact that they showed their loyalty by not worshiping the calf, but of course they also demonstrated their loyalty by the very disturbing killing in the previous paragraph.

To fight is not glorious although sometimes a decision is made that to fight is necessary to protect that which one cherishes. I recently attended a ceremony, alongside an Australian Sheikh of Turkish descent at Australia’s War Memorial. We heard about the personal sacrifices by young men who gave away most of their lives and about families who lost multiple members. Dr. Brendan Nelson, who spoke to our group, told us that the miserable business of war was ultimately about; love of country, about loyalty to “mates” and that our ability to live our lives in freedom is a result of their sacrifice. I was moved by the speaker. Yet, I am also aware of the temptation to minimize the brutal consequences of war on the “enemy”, the non-combatants caught in the cross fire, the psychologically damaged soldiers who suffer for years after the war in addition to “our soldier-martyrs” who lost their lives.
Violence is a complex business. We must continue to strive against it. It is a fight worth getting into, with compassion and determination.

Notes
1.    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-demonising-men-wont-stop-domestic-violence/story-fni0cwl5-1227545469411
2.    The verse states “God came from Sinai, and shined from Seir” (Deuteronomy 33:2), which is linked in Me’am Loez to a Midrashic story that God offered the Torah to various nations including Edom but was turned down. In the case of Edom, they refused to accept the Torah because of the prohibition of killing which the Midrash sees as being very much part of the nature of Edom.  Essentialising is one key element of prejudice which sees the person not as an individual human being to be taken as they are.
3.    Deuteronomy 33:9
4.    Rashi based on earlier sources, more specifically it is relates to them being willing to kill their grandfathers, half-brothers and grandchildren who worshiped the golden calf. Klei Yakar interprets this as a reference to the dedication to Torah study at the expense of family as the sage Rabba states in the Talmud (Eruvin 44) that Torah is found in one who is cruel to his children like a Raven and Rav Ada Bar Matna dismissed his wife’s concern when she asked him question “what will be with our young children?” as he was preparing to leave to study at the academy of Rav. He replied “there are plenty of greens in the meadow" Talmud Eruvin 22a, a variation of the theme of acting harshly to protect something, in this case one’s learning
5.    Deuteronomy 33:6-25
6.    Sifre 33:8, Ibn Ezra relates this to their idol worship and sinning with the daughters of Moab. The sin in this case was not that of Simeon alone, however it was predominantly members of this tribe that were implicated. This can be seen by the dramatic decline in the number of people of the tribe of Simeon in the census at the end of the book of numbers (26:14), 22,200 in comparison to the number of members of this tribe in the earlier census at the beginning of the book of numbers (1:23) 59,300.

Responding to Violence - Joseph, Mandela, Muslims and Ukrainians Vayigash

I, wearing a black hat that marked me as Hasidic Jew, stood in middle of a large circle of Ukrainians this week. This image, if I thought of it a year ago, would have conjured in my mind associations of anti-Semitic violence, or Pogroms. Instead, it was a circle of solidarity that I had joined and was most warmly welcomed into. We stood together as freedom loving people of Ukrainian and Jewish heritage praying for an end to the violence being perpetrated against peaceful protestors in Ukraine. It was also a quiet step closer between two communities with a past that could keep us apart if we allow it to.

The death of Nelson Mandela today, a giant of forgiveness and reconciliation coincides with the Torah reading this week, Vayigash, about Joseph who like Mandela was locked away in prison and persecuted, like him triumphed and rose to power, and again like Mandela repaid his tormentors with kindness rather than revenge. 

A number of years after Joseph is thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his own brothers, he meets them again. This time Joseph is not a lone defenceless teenager, instead he is a national ruler in Egypt. In a remarkable act of forgiveness Joseph tells his brothers; “do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that G d sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land... So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God” (1).

It is Joseph’s faith that leads him to see the cause of his being sold into slavery being God’s plan to save lives during the famine, rather than it being simply the result of his brothers’ cruel choice to sell him (2).  This is surprising, as surely people must be held responsible for their own actions and intentions, rather than being let of the hook because of a positive end result (3). One suggestion is that there are exceptionally important circumstances such as the case of Joseph which had far reaching historical consequences in which God over-rides free choice and directs people to carry out his plan (4). A Chasidic approach sees much broader application of Joseph’s approach. It affirms absolute freedom of choice while also embracing full divine providence over every single object and every single occurrence with every object (5). This being the case there is no point in being angry or holding a grudge against anyone because everything that happens is the will of God (6). My discussions with a Sheikh last night showed me that some discussions in Islam on this issue were quite similar to those in Judaism.

The dignified prayer Vigil for Ukraine began with a reading that included a prayer to be “the one who forgives”. Yet, the violence this prayer vigil was addressing is continuing with students being brutally beaten in Kiev as we heard directly from people who witnessed it. It is not the time to think much about forgiveness. The priority now is that the violence stop and the rights of the people to protest are upheld. For some at the prayer vigil, the murder of 10 million Ukrainians by Stalin’s Russian government was seen as relevant to questions of the relationship with Russia today.

Last night I was deeply moved by another story about violence and dignity. We heard from the very eloquent, Hijab wearing, Najah Zoabi, a survivor of domestic violence. She talked about the first slap of an open hand against the skin of her face. About being devalued as a human being, constantly being told she was not good or beautiful enough until she believed it. She told how of the change in herself, from being raised with kindness and respect by her parents to feeling degraded by her husband. Eventually she sought and received help and healing from the Muslim Women Association and their support centre. It amazed me that the confident articulate woman speaking last night was able to triumph over the violence and abuse to be the person she is now and reclaim the dignity she enjoyed in her parent’s home.

I told the Ukrainian group of an experience I had in 1992 in the city of Kharkov, Ukraine. I danced outside the KGB headquarters around midnight on the Festival "Simchat Torah" when we celebrate the end of the yearly cycle of the Torah reading for the year. At that time it seemed that oppression by the state that my grandfather and his parents experience in Ukraine, was a thing of the past was a thing of the past. Sadly, it seems that dance was premature. However as we celebrated Chanukah this week, we hope and pray that once again freedom and dignity will triumph over violence.

Faith and grace can help us respond to violence in a variety of positive ways.


1.    Genesis 45: 5-8
2.    The classic Jewish concept that things that happen are ultimately part of God’s plan but wicked people will choose and have the opportunity to be instruments for the harsh components of the plan and good people will play the pleasant roles.
3.    Abarbanel Genesis Chapter 45, Vayigash p 415
4.    Abarbanel ibid.
5.    The Baal Shem Tov as discussed by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Likutei Sichos Vol 8
6.    Rabbi Schenur Zalman in Tanya, Iggeret HaKodesh, Epistle 25 

Christian Jewish Spiritual Connections and Barriers

Photo by Doug Sewell

I was inspired and spiritually nourished this weekend at an Anabaptist conference/retreat. This is not a sentiment I would have dreamed, just a few ago, that I would ever write. In this post I reflect on the possibility of deep Christian-Jewish spiritual connection and conversation, my experience at the conference and how this relates to my own traditions particularly in the reading this week which includes the Ten Commandments. One obvious question relates to Christians beliefs about God and Jesus. I deliberately start with other matters, before addressing this.

The non-negotiable worth of every human being

At the conference the Multi-Faith panel was asked a question about condoning sin.  Dave Andrews, a Christian Panelist, told a story about traveling to Cambodia and seeing sex tourists there for the purpose of exploiting young local girls and his anger about this. He felt like taking an AK47 and shooting them all. When he arrived back in Australia a woman asked him to counsel her husband who was one of these sex tourists. For Dave this was a terrible predicament, how could he empathize with someone toward whom he felt disgust and outrage. Yet as a Christian he felt he must be there for this man. After much prayer and internal struggle to be true to the teachings of his faith and the example of Jesus he was able to care about him and hear his story. In the end this man who seemed repulsive told Dave his own story about how he was abused as a child, hates himself for what he was doing in Cambodia and was very eager for therapy to help him stop, which he went on to pursue.

This story has many levels and it is beyond the scope of this “blog post” to explore the terrible problem of sexual abuse itself and the proper responses to it. I was simply moved by Dave’s living out his Christian faith in his compassion for a person he found it very hard to look at, never mind love.

The idea of the worth of every person is not unique to one faith.  if I were faced with a dilemma with a bad person, my response to it would not be thinking about tax collectors and lepers; I think I would  instead draw on Beruria’s principle that “it is written may sins be destroyed [i]- rather than the sinner[ii]”. The context of Beruria’s statement was a problem with a group of thugs in her neighborhood which caused her husband, Rabbi Meir, a great deal of trouble. Rabbi Meir prayed that they should die. His wife Beruria persuaded him to differentiate between sins and sinners and pray for the elimination of the former. Her husband did pray for them, and they repented.

In our reading this week there is  further inspiration to be drawn from the order of the Ten Commandments which is seen as significant. Five commandments were on each of the two tablets, this means that number 1, “I am Y-K-V-K[iii] your God…” appears next to commandment #6, thou shalt not murder, because these two commandments are linked, to suggest that “spilling blood” is an offense against God himself just as smashing the statutes of a king or destroying his coins might be[iv]. This can be seen in the language of the Torah “One who spills blood…because in the image of God, He made man[v]”. Applied more broadly it is about the intrinsic non-negotiable value of every human being. Dave’s showing love to this man resonated for me because it echoed compassionate teachings in my own tradition but I was also moved by the power of his own beliefs and stories playing out in his heroic struggle.  

A Farbrengen with Christians

After the formal session I sat down at an outdoor table next to Dave Andrews. He is a man with a medium length white beard and very long hair, big glasses and a giant spirit. Slowly, we were joined by one man, then another, and another; eventually first one woman then a second also joined our previously all-male circle. The dynamic was similar to when an elder Chasid would sit down with a few others to tell stories and reflect, they would attract younger Chasidim around them to drink in the words and the spirit. There was usually some vodka on the table, which would be sipped with the word “Lchaim” to life and good wishes. This kind of gathering is what Chasidim call a Farbrengen. The difference was that this time the elder Chasid was not Jewish -  he described himself as a follower of Jesus.

Do Not “Murder”, killing on the other hand…

Dave wanted to know what the biggest dividing element between us was. It was a stream of consciousness kind of discussion rather than a formal debate or lecture. I reflected that the insistence on non-violence was a sticking point for me. The sixth commandment is often translated as “thou shalt not kill”. Yet the Hebrew words לֹא תִּרְצָח lo tirtzaḥ, are more accurately translated as thou shalt not murder.  In my tradition, despite the great value placed on peace, violence is  sometimes justified in the pursuit of justice and its defense. While I appreciate the radical transformational potential of an insistence of the sacredness and dignity of all people, I struggle with the idea that the allied soldiers who defeated Hitler could be seen as sinful. Dave was particularly surprised by my answer. Was it not the idea of a man being God that would be the biggest problem?

Polytheism and the Jesus of Jarrod

Christian beliefs about the divinity of Jesus are a barrier for me. The idea of God incarnated as a human being does not sit well with my idea of what God is and I do not agree with it. Yet it is a known difference and one that for me is not a very important issue.

There is a Jewish authority that ruled that Christianity is not considered idol worship for a non-Jew because it recognises God. There are various teaching in Judaism that explore divine expression that go beyond the formula of the one invisible, indescribable, omnipresent, omnipotent creator God. We have Kabalistic teachings about divine expressions in human-like emotions such as  kindness or (the drive to) victory.  We are taught that the Shechinah spoke through the throat of Moses[vi]. The Soul that God blew into Adam is believed to be a part of God himself[vii]. For me the nature of God is mysterious. When I approach God in prayer, I am talking to the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” as they understood Him, but I am also talking to “the God of my Fathers[viii]”), which to me includes God as understood by my German-culture-loving great grandfather Dr. Armin, my Slovak-shopkeeper-great- great grandfather Aaron, my Torah- focused-scholar grandfather, Rabbi Moshe Yehuda, my devout American mother and my  father ; all these differ. Mostly I try to pray according to “the mind of the young child[ix]”, suspending all speculation. 

My greater problem with idol worship is when it leads us away from God and his demands of us, quite the opposite of what I witnessed at the conference. I see in people like Dave and my friend Jarrod McKenna a different Jesus, a Rebbe-like figure who calls them to compassion and struggle.

The second commandment states: There should not be for you, other gods[x]...” In Hebrew the words Lo Yi-hih-yeh, that mean there should not be, is a singular form, yet the instruction is about many Gods so it should really say Lo Yi-Hih-Yu, (plural). This suggests that Idol worship draws the worshipper in, even if at first the intention was to have one idol, in the end s/he will worship many[xi]. This reminds me of the comment by a psychiatrist, obviously not very impressed with self-help books, that you will never find just one self-help book on someone’s shelf, there will always be many, presumably because they all hold out the false promise of some great relief to life’s challenges but in the end don’t satisfy the reader who goes on to seek a fix elsewhere. I am sure this is not the case for all readers of these books, but I think there is a common thread about seeking escape from the anxiety caused by uncertainty in something concrete that we can hold or read and feel like we have something to hold on to. Similarly, idol worship is worst when it leads us away from the challenge to which God calls us.

Supersession vs Neighbourliness and Collegiality

I asked participants at the conference whether they believed that Judaism had been superseded by Christianity, in the way that a 386 computer is essentially obsolete because we now have faster, better machines. There was some thoughtful discussion about this. I think the key was that they were most interested in the teachings of Jesus as one prophetic teacher and inspiring figure alongside Moses or others rather than the founder of a new religion or brand to compete with “Brand Judaism”. While we are all interested in truth, the focus is more on how we live truthfully than how to assert truth claims over other claims. Quite different to the sorting approach of sifting through falsehood to find the Truth that is reflected in our Torah reading where we read about Jethro exploring all known forms of worship known in his time to reject them all and convert to Judaism[xii]. More like an argument between fellow Chasidim about whose Rebbe is the true Messiah and which teachings are most worth following. Whatever the case might be about supersessionism elsewhere, on Sunday I felt completely at home, accepted as a fellow seeker of God’s way to peace and neighbourliness. Lchaim, to life.

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[i] Psalm 104:35

[ii] Beruria was one of the great wise woman of Jewish tradition, she was the wife of Rabbi Meir, Talmud: Tractate Berachot, 10a

[iii] Because of the holiness of this name, the letter Hay, is pronounced as “K”. It is written properly in a Torah scroll or Chumash

[iv] Mechilta, cited in Torah Shlaima p.100

[v] Genesis 9:6

[vi] Tikunei Zohar 38

[vii] Tanya 1

[viii] The Amida prayer, blessing 1

[ix] Derech Mitzvosecha Mitzvat Tefilah

[x] Exodus 20:3

[xi] Ohr Hachayim

[xii] Mechilta