At the climax of the book –
which is also the climax of all the prophetic literature gathered in the Hebrew
Bible – the author-poet says that Elijah’s messianic role is not played out on
the world historical stage, it is neither political nor economic, it is
personal, it’s about family: ‘He will reconcile parents with children and
children with parents’ (Malachi 3:24). Intergenerational reconciliation is seen
by Malachi as at the heart of messianic hopefulness.
If destruction is to be
averted, says the prophet - ‘so I do not strike the whole land with utter
destruction’ - there has to be a change of heart: hayshev lev avot al banim – Elijah will ‘turn the heart of parents
towards their children’. And then ‘the
heart of the next generation will turn towards their parents.’ Where there is
conflict and argument, hostility and lack of understanding, there will be a new
openness, new bonds of affection and care and understanding. This, says
Malachi, is what the messianic age looks like - or rather, this is what needs
to happen if anything else is to be transformed on a societal level. It begins
with family life. It’s close to home, sometimes in the home. It’s a very Jewish
vision, a down-to-earth, pragmatic vision. A change of heart at the centre of
everything else.
That message was powerfully
evoked during by Barack Obama, in his remarkable address to young people when
he arrived recently in Israel. His talk embraced Jewish history and Jewish
destiny and Jewish purpose. (He would have made a good rabbi – if he wasn’t a
Muslim (joke)).
“Over the last 65 years, when Israel has been
at its best”, he said, “Israelis
have demonstrated that responsibility does not end when you reach the promised
land, it only begins....Israel has the wisdom to see the world as it is [this
is Jewish pragmatism], but -- this is in
your nature -- Israel also the courage to see the world as it should be [Jewish
purpose/destiny/vision]. Ben-Gurion once said in Israel, in order to
be a realist, you must believe in miracles. Sometimes the greatest miracle is
recognizing that the world can change. That’s a lesson that the world learned
from the Jewish people” [Jewish ‘chosenness’].
He spoke of the story of Passover - “a story of centuries of slavery and years of
wandering in the desert; a story of perseverance amidst persecution and faith
in God and the Torah. It’s a story about finding freedom in your own land. And
for the Jewish people, this story is central to who you’ve become” – and acknowledged
that its themes had a resonance wider than the specific ‘Jewish’ story: “But it’s also a story that holds within it
the universal human experience, with all of its suffering but also all of its
salvation. ..it’s a story that’s inspired communities across the globe ...To
African-Americans, the story of the exodus was perhaps the central story, the
most powerful image, about emerging from the grip of bondage to reach for
liberty and human dignity -- a tale that was carried from slavery through the
civil rights movement into today. For generations, this promise helped people
weather poverty and persecution while holding on to the hope that a better day
was on the horizon. For me personally, growing up in far-flung parts of the
world and without firm roots, the story spoke to a yearning within every human
being for a home.”
And thus he was
able to make the case for a Palestinian state and an end of occupation, he was
able to make it in the name of Israel’s long term security, and of the need for
peace - and justice. And in doing so he did something that politicians rarely
do. He asked people to imaginatively inhabit the lives of others different from
themselves. Speaking of the Palestinian people he said: “put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes”
- have you ever heard a politician ask people to imagine the world
empathetically through the eyes of others? it’s usually naked self-interest
that they are appealing to, even if it is dressed up differently - “it is
not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own living
their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the
movements, not just of those young people but their parents, their
grandparents, every single day. It’s not just when settler violence against
Palestinians goes unpunished. It’s not right to prevent Palestinians from
farming their lands or restricting a student’s ability to move around the West
Bank or displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor
expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland,
Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land”
All of this was punctuated by cheers and
applause from his audience. Some have criticized Obama for demonstrating in his
speech such unfeigned admiration for the State of Israel, and for insisting on
it as a ‘Jewish state’ (and thus calling into question the status of the 20% of
the population who are not Jewish) but it seemed to me that this was still a brave
speech. And it was one delivered by a politician attuned to holiness, to the
need to translate holy living, Jewish holy living, into the realm of everyday
life. It was about a change of heart - turning the hearts of the Israelis to
the Palestinians, and the hearts of the Palestinians to the Israelis.
Sometime it is ‘outsiders’
who see most clearly what is that we have that is so special as we tell our collective
story, our great mythic narrative of liberation from slavery.
The story contained in the
Haggadah tells of the survival of a tribe, a people – the ‘miraculous’ survival
of a people, through the generations, through history, a people who choose to
gather each year to tell of their miraculous survival as a people. One of my
favourite passages in the Haggadah is the one that tells of a group of rabbis
in Bnei Brack – five of them - gathering in secret to tell the story two
thousand years ago. So far away in time - and yet already the need to tell the
story, the miraculous story of liberation and survival. And we join with them
on Seder night – telling the story of
their telling the story – passing on to the next generation this story
about storytelling, and the role of storytelling in the survival of the people.
It is a night when we are
grateful to be able to gather together, as a people – in families, with
friends, as a community – and when we allow our questions to emerge. And one
question that it feels incumbent on us to ask is what is this survival for? Is
it survival for its own sake - are we akin to the Armenians, or the Aborigines,
with a collective identity and history and set of cultural traditions? - or
does Jewish survival have a further purpose?
The story we tell suggests that the answer, perhaps disquietingly, is
yes: survival in and of itself is fine, we can appreciate what it means, but it
is not the end of the story. The story of our liberation from past oppression
points towards a task, a responsibility. On this night we remember that we have
a destiny as well as a history. And that destiny, as Obama reminded his
audience, at the end of his bravura speech/sermon/vision , is timeless:
“as a man who’s been inspired
in my own life by that timeless calling within the Jewish experience -- “tikkun
olam” -- I am hopeful that we can draw upon what’s best in ourselves to meet
the challenges that will come, to win the battles for peace in the wake of so
much war and to do the work of repairing this world. That’s your job. That’s my
job. That’s the task of all of us”.
He
didn’t end with ‘Amen’ – he’s not, after all, a rabbi - but he could have done.
The
cynical dismiss Obama’s speech as rhetoric, lacking in practical suggestions,
making all the right noises to seduce his hosts. But at least he articulated
the vision, spoke of the moral need to transform ‘what is’ into what ‘could
be’, what ‘should be’. On seder night we recall the journey our people have
made from ‘what was’ to ‘what is’ – let us find ways to move the conversation
on from ‘what is’ to what should be.
[loosely based on a sermon
given at Finchley Reform Synagogue, March 23rd, 2013]
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