No-one ever believed me, even
then, when I kept telling them that the Jewish story depended on me. That had I
not been there that day, wandering, confused, trudging the fields, looking for
God knows what – meaning, purpose, the right words (you know, the old
questions, the eternal questions) – if I hadn’t been there that day, if I hadn’t
bumped into him just by chance - I suppose it was by chance, but how are we supposed
to know? - if I hadn’t come across him, who was also wandering in the fields -
by Shechem it was, but it could have been anywhere, it could have been in
Finchley, or Berlin, it’s that kind of a story - if I hadn’t met him that day when he was
lost and confused (he knew his brothers should be there but they weren’t, I
knew they weren’t), if I hadn’t come
across him that day (though maybe he felt he’d come across me), if that meeting
hadn’t happened, this is what I mean to say, if this encounter had not occurred
– the rest of the Jewish story could not have unfolded as it did.
No-one thinks about that,
wants to think about that: the chance encounters, the random events, the
serendipitous happenings, how much is down to luck, how randomness rules, how
two pedestrians were knocked down by cars in 1931, either, or both, could
easily have been killed, Winston Churchill in New York, Adolf Hitler in Munich.
It was just my luck – and yours , for good or ill – that I was there that day and
made the first move, though it was out of character for me, but I did it,
approached this stranger and opened up a conversation, and opened it up with
such an inviting metaphor of a question: “What are you looking for?” And his
response, well, it warmed my heart, because it seemed to come from his heart
“I’m looking for my brothers”. It seemed to take him by surprise, to hear
himself say it, there was a quizzical look for a moment, as if he heard himself
speak a truth he’d been hiding from: he was searching for connection to his
brothers, it was as if he’d been missing something all those years, privileged
child that he was.
Perhaps it was a turning
point, of sorts, that conversation. It set him on the right path, or at least a
new path. And I was left to reflect on what it meant for me, that I was the one
upon whom the whole story seems to hinge.
For Joseph met his brothers, because of me, because of that strange
meeting. Whereupon – and maybe he cursed me for it at the time - he was thrown
into the pit, sold into slavery, taken
to Egypt, he had his adventures and misadventures, thrown into the prison,
raised up again – it’s a great story,
all about money and sex and power – and
I was the link in the chain, though no doubt by then he’d forgotten all about
me, but without me he would never have been in Egypt, never have become
Pharoah’s right-hand man, never have brought his father and his brothers to
Egypt, there would have been none of that subsequent collective drama, none of
that slavery and freedom and desert wanderings, none of that revelation and
journeying to a Promised Land, none of that conquest and grim and joyous
adventure of Jewish living, century after century, millennium after millennium,
no People of the Book, no chosen people, no Marx or Freud, no Kafka or Woody
Allen, none of it would have happened,
no Nobel prizes, no Hollywood, no Holocaust, if that day, that particular day,
we had missed each other in the fields: he wandering, searching after his brothers, me
wandering too, just a humble man, a nobody, no distinguishing features, no
history, no story, no depth of character, just doing my own thing on that day,
like you do your stuff every day, nothing special, except on that day I told him
what I had heard. I was always a good listener, I just reported what I had
heard, overheard – it wasn’t snooping, just curiosity, just being open to hear
what was going on around me, I just said to him, when he asked about his
brothers, I guessed who he meant – how did I know who those shepherds were? how did I know they were his brothers? –
but I knew, I just knew, call it intuition, call it fate, call it the
unconscious, call it ‘God’ if you want to, if you need to, but I knew when he
asked about his brothers, I knew where they were pasturing, I knew I had seen them and I knew where they had gone, I heard them say it: Dothan.
And that’s what I told him and
that’s where he went and that’s where he found them. And the rest, as they say,
is history, or saga, or myth: the story of the Jewish people, with me the link
in the chain, an anonymous link to be sure, but I’m there – ‘vayimza’ehu ish, a man found him’ (Genesis 37: 15) - my
claim to fame, just a small actor in a larger drama, but I played my part, I
listened to what was going on, I reported it truthfully, straightforwardly, and
the story passed on, the larger story in which I played my role, humbly,
simply, it’s what anyone would have done, helping a wandering Jew, a person in
distress, a person who didn’t know what to do next, you would have done it too,
wouldn’t you? you would have taken your
part, your role, in the unfolding drama of everyday life, of sacred life, you
would have been able to be the lynchpin of history – though you didn’t know it
at the time – you would have seen that this is not grandiosity, this is not an
inflated sense of your own importance,
this is not thinking the world revolves around you, it’s just seeing that
actions count, that giving directions to someone who is lost, any day of any
week, is taking part in a drama, a story, much bigger than we can ever know. (The
texts of our lives mirror, intersect with, the texts of old). It’s the smallest
things we do, that history never records in our name, that make a difference.
Life turns on these moments.
It’s staggering, this story, this way of seeing the world. When we think we
don’t matter, when we think the individual doesn’t count, that the tides of
history sweep on regardless of the individual, regardless of each of us, then suddenly
we see: no, it’s not like that, it’s all about us, you and me, in our anonymity
and our everyday lives where each action can tip the scales, can shift the
balance, can alter the unfolding narrative of life on earth. What a
responsibility. What grandeur.
I learnt it in Shechem, I
learnt it in that place, where I shouldered responsibility – you know of course
that Shechem means 'shoulder' – on that day when Joseph approached me ( and I
knew who he was of course, everyone knew him with his fancy coat and his dreamy
looks, he was unmistakable, unmissable, no wonder the stories they told
revolved around him), on that day I suppose I was chosen to play my part in the
sacred drama. I didn’t know, of course, just how much was at stake. We never
do.
But there I am – inscribed in
the good book, the book of life. And you don’t need my name, and I don’t need
you to know my name. It is enough that you think of me each year, when you read
this tale, this fable, this story of our lives, your lives. It’s enough you
think of me. Think kindly of me. And think kindly of yourselves. My time has
gone. It’s you now. Your turn to be in Shechem , to shoulder responsibility, to
take your place in the unfolding drama, the sacred drama. It’s your turn now.
[Sermon given at Finchley Reform Synagogue, December 8th 2012]midrash
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