Two Israelites being attacked by a racist on Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) 2022
HMD theme this year is One Day.
HMD is one day each year that remembers Dead Jews. Even with just one day of commemoration of dead Jews, I would prefer that we were better at caring for live ones. Lighting a candle to acknowledge the past is not enough as if that has solved the problem that is still with us.
There seems to be an idea, totally lacking in evidence, that the Sacrifice of Jews will somehow make things better. I look at the countries that felt that way during WW2 and wonder how they thought that and how much good that has done them. Even now these same countries have a huge rise in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Lessons not learnt.
Jews seem to have been the sacrificial lambs to appease some strange gods since the Romans sacrificed that Jew, Jesus, and then blamed the Jews. Blaming the victim for the crime is not new.
Among the anti-Semites, Jews have been the people to blame for everything: The weather is too sunny- it’s the Jews. The rain is too heavy- it’s the Jews. I do not have a well-paid job- it’s the Jews. The rich are getting richer- it’s the Jews. The C19 virus has spread- it’s the Jews.
For such a tiny number of people we are told we have immense power. Jews control the media, the money, the property, the world; they are successful, rich and famous; educated and smart: I always think : if that is all true, why didn’t you all convert?
Stupidity can be defined as repeating the same action again and again but expecting different results. With this stupid and continual rise in anti-Semitism, Jews are still being sacrificed to some ineffectual gods. Perhaps this is the One Day that should awaken the stupid to start to be grown up and reflect on their own personal contribution to their own lives instead of finding blame elsewhere.
On this HMD we remember the sacrifice of 6 million of Jews, not on one day but on many days, sacrificed for the huge and stupid ego of a vain little man for a plan that relied, yet again, on blaming the ‘other’, and yet again that ‘other’ was the Jew, rather than being grown up and fixing the problem.
The sacrifice of 6 million Jews has not made the world better or made you happier. Only you can do that. So instead of thinking sacrifices will save you doing the work, do the work. Begin that work by ending anti-Semitism.
In Judaism, sacrifice does not mean giving something up. It is from the word Korban- to come closer- to come closer to the Divine, to share your table with the Divine, not try to obliterate an entire nation.
Instead of the slaughter and sacrifice of Jews, start the work. The Divine rested on the 7th day from the work of creation and left the rest to us. So start the work, the work of completing creation, of repairing the world, Tikkun Olam, of making this place as glorious as it was before our huge egos, our vanity and dull, repetitive stupidity got in the way.
Let us all realise that each and every one of us is in the likeness to the Divine and stop trying to diminish the other or looking for another excuse to blame others for your lives. Let our sacrifices be toil, care for ourselves, care of each other and making the world as healthy as possible. Let this be the real sacrifice so that One Day, we will not know what anti-Semitism is and we will not need any more memorials or mausoleums to dead Jews. Let our own work and repair be our true remembrance to honour murdered people.
For two thousand years the Israelite Nation has been in a diaspora. Even those still living in their homeland, and there have always been some, have been a diaspora in their own land.
Christian Europe and Muslim Middle East
The problem has always been geographical. Israel, a tiny country the size of Wales lies between the Middle Eastern Empires and the Western European Empires. Lying on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean has made it a bit strategic for trade. The Western Colonisers, mainly the Romans, destroyed a lot of the significant cultural places, a bit like ISIS, such as the Israelite Temple in Jerusalem. There were no churches or mosques at the time as Jesus had only just died when the Temple was destroyed and Mohammed was not born for another 500 years.
Western Rome and the Middle East Empires
The land of Israel was in between two opposing Empires and still is today. The Romans took Christianity, a version of Jesus’ Israelite teachings, as a propaganda machine against the Israelite faith. They tried to expand their Empire eastwards. They have succeeded in expanding their Empire westwards (America). The Middle Eastern Empires came together under Mohammed and struck out westwards. They prevented the Colonisation of the entire Middle East by Christianity, but, again Israel was caught in the middle between the West and the Middle East.
Many peoples who have been Colonised take on the culture and beliefs of the invaders as witnessed by the number of Christians and Muslims in invaded countries such as many African countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan (formally part of the Hindu country of India). They also have their names changed, such as Mumbai becoming Bombay, Sri Lanka becoming Ceylon as well as personal names being changed by the invaders. This happened to Israel too. The Romans called it Palestine to spite the historical link of the name Israel. Israel, the name, links to Abraham, Isaac and their son/grandson Jacob who G!d renames Israel. Israel is a personal name of Jacob and the Israelites are his descendants. Unlike many invaded peoples, the Israelites maintained their faith and desire for their homeland. They resisted Colonisation and erasure. They still are resisting.
Around 2000 years ago, with the Romans in force and the Temple destroyed, the Rabbis made the religion of the Israelite portable. As the people moved Eastwards, Northwards and Southwards trying to survive, their beliefs went with them and still do. Also around that time they started to be called Jews. This term is derived from one of the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve tribes are from the twelve sons of Jacob-Israel, hence they are Israelites. Also, and far worse the emerging non- Israelite Christians had started to blame the Israelites for the death of Jesus, who was, in fact, killed by the Romans. The Romans had become Christian and wanted to shift the blame for killing their new G!d to somebody else and the Israelites, the non-converters, were blamed for not ceding to this cultural Imperialism. One of the 12 disciples of Jesus (strange coincidence it was 12?) was singled out for this story and betrayal, Judas. And Judah was one of the 12 tribes of the Israelites. So ‘Jew’ became the term for the Israelites by those trying to destroy the Israelites.
What is even stranger is the Jew, Jude, Juden etc term, a term seen as an insult term just like the N- word for people of colour, is still used by the Israelites themselves. I guess there is merit in taking an insult and throwing it back in the face of the oppressor. These insults have not stopped, we are still seeing the use of the Latin term Palestine to lay claim to Israel. And the term ‘Old Testament’ to show the super-cessionary, supremist term ‘New Testament’ when the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures would be more appropriate. We have seen it with many oppressed groups. But I think it time to reclaim the term Israelite, people that are from the Nation of Israel, from the Twelve Tribes especially in the face of Empires that take the Israelite identity, books and culture and Colonise them further for their own Imperial ends.
I keep being told that Jews and Christians share a common heritage. I am very unsure that is true.
I think there are some ethnic commonalities among a very few number of Jews who became Christians, but the number of them is so small to be insignificant among the numbers of Christians.
Culturally, there are very few similarities too. Most cultures derive from geographical locations rather than religous beliefs. Christians in the UK have a different culture to Christians in Nigeria or Peru, for example. Some of their religious practices also differ. Has nobody noticed this? Among Jews who have been expelled from their homeland and lived all over the planet, there is still a lot of commonality and we have been praying to return to our homeland for 2000 years. If you think of us as Native Americans or Aborigines, you would understand us better.
In terms of belief, the difference between Christians and Jews are immense. Jews are not Christians who don’t believe in Jesus. Christianity comes out of Imperialism and the Roman Empire. However, among most people, and I include highly academic ones, there is little understanding of this fact. Most people seem to think Judaism is a precursor religion to Christianity, just without Jesus, and, on top of that, the Jewish God is the same as the Christian one and that the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, has hints of Jesus in it, a bit like a crystal ball or predictions.
So let us summarise:
Judaism does not believe in Original Sin. Adam and Eve had to eat from the Tree of Knowledge or they would not have free will and be able to be grown ups, leave Eden and attempt to finish creation. The creation story shows a God who allows humans to interact in creation.
Judaism does not believe that you can die for another’s sins. You die for your own sins. Occasionally, the children have to die too as they are so amoral/immoral, but usually, you die for your own sins. Nobody can die or sacrifice themselves for another’s sins.
Judaism does not believe in a human God. End of.
Judaism defines what a messiach may be and as the term messiach /messiah is a Hebrew term from Judaism, it seems best to let Judaism and Jews decide rather than appropriate the term.
The term ‘virgin’ that is thought to be hinted at in later books of the Tanakh is, in fact, ‘young woman’ (almah). A different word is used for virgin. So there is no foreshadowing of a virgin birth in the Tanakh. In Judaism, sexual intercourse is not frowned upon and the physical body is also important. There is a prayer for everything, even going to the toilet. The idea is to raise everything into holiness/praise, not avoid eating, drinking, fornicating etc. Just to do it appropriately, healthily.
The God that the Jews believe in is one of Compassion. There are 13 attributes that God uses to describe God in a way humans could understand and Compassion ranks high amongst them. These 13 attributes are called the Attributes of Mercy. Mercy trumps Justice. The God of the Old Testament is not the God of the Tanakh.
Adam and Eve are not Christian. They are not Jewish or Muslim either. They are the first humans. No rules, morals or beliefs have been given at this stage apart from not to eat from a certain tree. But you need to eat from the Tree to move onto the choice stage, to be able to choose, to be adult. God learns that too. God learns about humans in the Torah!
Chosen because they chose God. It is a two way street.
There is no foreshadowing of Jesus or Mohammad in the Torah or in the entire Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). They are not there because the Tanakh was written BEFORE they were born, by about 1000 years. The prophets are not predictors of the future. They are speaking to their now, what is happening. They are there to remind us of the Torah, not to invent some saviour. We are meant to save ourselves (be adult) by following the Torah, a blueprint for how to live in societies, a guidebook and self-help book.
The word for ‘Sacrifice’ in Hebrew is Korbanot. It means ‘to draw closer’ and does not mean ‘to give up’. The sacrifice is shared with God. We share the table. It is about hospitality. God creates a place for humans and in return we make the place we were given by God as beautiful and hospitable (holy) as possible in return in the hope that God will visit. We have not, so far, done a great job at our side of the agreement given the amount of our filth and trash and pollution on the planet. Shame on all of us.
Judaism forbids human sacrifice. So sacrificing your child for others is unthinkable and forbidden. ‘Do not give your child over to the Molech’. No human sacrifice and certainly not to atone for somebody else’s sins (see point 2 above).
The God of the Jews forbids eating blood, any blood of any animal. So the flesh and blood of a human are repulsive ideas. The blood libel is ludicrous. Matzos are made of flour and water. Christians and Muslims did not exist for 1000 years after the exile so what were we making Matzos from all that time? We don’t eat human flesh or any blood. Get over it.
Christians eat the flesh and drink the blood of their God each week. This is a Roman practice. The Romans used Christianity to push back against Israel, which they renamed Palestine in an act of Colonialism and enslavement. To be a Palestinian you had to be a Jew. That you have colonised the ancient homeland, Israel and renamed it is the same act as the Romans.
Shabbat is not a punishment. It is a holiday and celebrates creation every week by stopping creating. We are commemorating creation every week in appreciation and gratitude for being her.
Things get separated into kosher (useful/appropriate) and not kosher (inappropriate for humans). That’s it. It is to do with sparks (energy) that can be used by humans and sparks that can’t.
Judaism has practice as central (living a kosher/appropriate life) but it has a huge spiritual exploration to explain the practices. It is not a fundamental religion and has used a system of exegesis and hermeneutics for 2000 years at least, before others existed, which is called by an acronym: PARDES. Judaism has spent the last 3000 years interpreting these words, making them relevant and useful to human life. You have not understood it and have read it through a distorted, colonialist lens.
Victimhood as a culture is not part of Judaism even if Jews have been victims and are preferred when they are victims and lose (are dead)! How very cruel. The idea of the victim as being deserving is very useful from a Roman Imperial perspective. How to tame a rebellious population? Delay reward until death. Judaism thinks the reward is being alive, here, now on the planet and that this is such a wonderful gift that we should make our homes and lives as good as possible so as to welcome God as a visitor into them as thanks for being here, now. Judaism works to avoid poverty and oppression and to celebrate this planet as a home for all.
Jesus seems to have been a Jew living in Israel under Roman occupation. The Romans killed him.
I have just given a paper at a conference on Ecotheology.
Not a term many people have heard of, perhaps. The premise was: what does religion, by which they actually, it turned out, meant Christianity, say about caring for the planet. Well, folks, Christianity itself says absolutely nothing.
I put in an abstract and then presented a paper on what the Bible says about ecology and our role on the planet. They had a keynote speaker doing the same thing. All of her quotes were from the Bible. I went to other sessions where the Christian speakers explained John the Baptists idea of immersing in water (I asked where he got that idea from) and appreciation of nature. And I heard some young women talk eloquently about Black Lives Matter (BLM) and being activists for change. But none of them addressed the elephant in the room: Christianity. So I did. I think that maybe is our role; to talk truth to power. Against the colonialization by the Romans on one side and the Ottomans and their predecessors on another side, my tiny place has not given in. We did not convert. We could not stand up against the medias of the days and their lies, fake news, conspiracy theories and insults because the Christian and Muslim colonialists owned everything, but still we persisted. We were dispersed from our homeland and still we persisted. How annoying.
And then our texts are taken, plagiarised (and this was a supposedly academic conference) and used to give legitimacy and to de-legitimise us. They are renamed, something you do to slaves. Supercessionists and supremacists call them theirs. They take them and misread them and misappropriate their contents and call them by new names: The Christian Bible (I kid not) and The Old Testament (akin to Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe) some quaint writings which have been superseded by Romans and Arabs. Thanks boys.
There is nothing in the Christian texts about ecology or care for the planet. All of it is in the Hebrew texts, the TaNaKh (Torah, the Five Books of Moses; Nevim, the Prophets and Khetuvim, the writings such as Psalms and Proverbs). Do take a look!
Used and abused
So my talk swung it round, but of course I am not sure they were ready to hear it; really hear it rather than merely listen in that polite White Western Supremacist way. How they loved the People of Colour (about 5 of them in the 225 attendees) at the conference. Look how inclusive we are, seemed to be on their lips. But the angry Jew, insulted and abused for 2000 years and still here was a definite no no. The angry Jew who stood up and said get off my culture, get off my texts, get off my land and get off my neck was a real no no.
And in their talks about how Christianity is aligned with nature they quote Psalms, written by that shepherd David. They take my culture and texts and exclude me by their supremacy. It is not White Western Supremacy that is the problem folks. It is Roman-Christianity.
So here is the problem and the solution to our ecotheological crisis because you cannot make the planet better without a belief that the planet deserves better.
The Problem
Colonialisation. It has been an ecological disaster. You have grown your needs (foods, energy) on other peoples lands. Some of those crops should not have been there anyway. You are looking all the time for Growth rather than Enough. You are seeking Surplus. Treating all land as if it is there just for your needs with a total disregard for the environment.
Imperialism: Forcing your ideas onto others. Proselytising and forcing conversions to your beliefs and having no regard for others opinions and beliefs. Mission and ministry.
All of this results in pollution, deforestation, destruction through this culture of colonial claims. Much of this is Christian culture, but unfortunately it is seeping into Islamic culture too, perhaps merely as a reaction to Christian Imperialism, but still, not good.
The claim that this is Judeo-Christianity is total bunk. It is Roman-Christianity.
Over 50 years ago (!) in 1967 Lynn White Jnr wrote a paper in the eminent journal Science (155; 1203-7) on ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’. The ecological crisis is based on “the orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature”. The Christian doctrine of creation sets the human apart from nature, advocates human control of nature and implies that the natural world was created solely for our use (Gen 1:28). In the Christian Middle Ages, according to White, we already encounter evidence of attempts at the technological mastery of nature and incipient exploitative tendencies that come to full flower in scientific and technological revolutions of later eras. Christianity, White concludes, “bears a huge burden of guilt for environmental deterioration”
It starts with the Greeks, continues with the Romans, with a pushback by the Ottomans.
The Empires of Old
And it continues to this day :
The predominant cultures on the lands
Now I have seen the Monty Python Film ‘The Life of Brian’ so I know what the Romans did for us, underfloor heating, roads and transport etc. I am a scientist so I appreciate the Academy to a limited extent. The Sciences have improved the lives of many. I am grateful for clean water and aseptic techniques. My Desert Island luxury would be a flush lavatory. But this has come at a price. We are alienated from each other and from nature. We think everything can be man made (even the weather) and everything has to be subject to man-made evidence. The Humanities have gone down that route too, measuring the unmeasurable. Due to this, Arrogance prevails. Christianity has arisen in the midst of the Roman Empire. Indeed it is a Roman Religion. It has Romans gods and Roman sacrifices of a human and has that human elevated to a god (just like the Emperors) and then his flesh is eaten and his blood drank each week in a re-enaction of human sacrifice. This is all totally abhorrent to Judaism.
Death and the Afterlife have become more important than life. Meekness, which is easier to rule over than a stiff-necked Israelite, is promoted. A disregard of the material world which is reduced to one of Sin and Shame results in this ecological disaster. How can you care for the planet if you have these attitudes?
There seems to be a love of suffering, especially other peoples in Christianity. A victim culture. This is not the view from the Bible. Poverty does not make you virtuous, it makes you poor. There is nothing noble is poverty or suffering. We are not trying to hold you there, so why should anybody think it fine to hold other people in this bad place? Suffering and poverty are not where we are meant to be. The Divine does not want that even if humans force it on others. We vote for Joy, please.
The Romans were a clever bunch. They were very worried about Judaism and the possibility of it infiltrating the West. So they took some bits of it (Jesus) and changed it, making the Jews the butt of the joke. And that is how it has remained.
Our books have been claimed, misread, misappropriated and merely used to give authenticity to a supremacist reading (no longer the Israelites, now Jesus and now Mohammed). The people whose book is it have been oppressed, insulted, lied about, fake news items told, conspiracy theories invented, racially stereotyped and their land claimed by all and sundry. The people we share this with are other indigenous peoples, not the West or the East. And yet we persist. Unlike many invaded peoples we kept telling our story, the real story of creation, why the world is , why we humans are here and how to heal the planet. Listen and hear this small voice in the desert.
So I am at a conference where none of them have actually read the Torah but keep quoting from it. A bit like reading Romeo and Juliet and thinking the story is about Verona.
In Judaism, before the world/universe was created Wisdom and Repentance were created. Now if you are completely righteous you are already wise and do not need repentance. But we are not completely righteous (although there seems to be a lot of smug self-righteousness around) so we need wisdom and repentance to exist otherwise we cannot stand. The Divine then looks into the Torah (Chumash; Five Books of Moses) and creates the world. We are meant to be in a relation with the Divine; a partnership, not a domination. Ecology is Holy. We are meant to be completing creation. Of course, we never succeed in this work, but we are still meant to do it.
The Solution
So let’s start at the very beginning (apparently, it is a very good place to start). Beresheit bara – In a beginning created— Yes, A beginning not The beginning. Perhaps the Divine had a few attempts at this experiment. In some sources it is about 974 attempts (or some other very specific number which is rather wonderful). In some, I imagine, Adam and Eve did not eat from the forbidden tree and so there was a perfect Shabbat, Shalom, completion. But completion goes nowhere, or as the poet says, a completed garden is a dead garden. If you have Shalom, which means completion, you have perfection and that is that. In some versions perhaps Adam and Eve ate from the tree and in that day they did die. Do you want a Midrash that may help here (and you can look up Midrash, there is Prof Google on the planet now- do the work).
An example: Circumcision. Males are born spermless. They are not fully developed and have to complete this during maturity. Females are born with eggs. Males also have foreskins, a bit like webbed feet I suppose. Some people do not lose the webbing between their toes in utero and have to have it cut at birth. Well, we see the foreskin in that way. Get it? Removing it is part of the act of being in partnership with the Divine; pledging your child to that covenant. Covenants are partnerships. Each gets something from it otherwise it is merely domination or forced conversions. Think about it.
Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi and the Dalai Lama
Asks Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi ‘Why did the Divine make such a botch of things that he had to destroy most of creation and start again with Noah?’ Sideways Midrash reply:
In a phrase of Abrahams: ‘The Divine of my youth’ Can also be read : ‘The Divine in His youth’ . The Divine used to be younger and made mistakes. ‘When the Divine was younger’. The Divine learns from us, the Divine evolves, is evolving, creating. The Divine is the creator, the creating.
We are always beginning. All the time the Creator is Creating. We are meant to try to complete it (and fail) but at least try.
‘We are not obliged to finish the work, nor are we allowed to shirk from doing it’ (Pirkei Avot -Ethics of the Ancestors)
Having a Creator gives authenticity and authority to creation. Having a Righteous Creator where Justice and Mercy play equal parts gives morality compared to the Roman and Greek gods who are whimsical and cruel. But you have pretended that we have a different Divine to the one we have and that our Divine is cruel because bad things happen. We do not know the mind of the Divine (My ways are not your ways….) so we make up stupid things to fill the gaps. But most of us could not find our way round the Periodic Table of the Elements, yet we use the internal combustion engine and watch television and read from computers. Make the connection, please.
Our place in creation: we were created last. Why? Well says Tosefta Shanedrin 8:4 written around 189 CE (Before Darwin) so that you don’t get haughty (great word). A gnat preceded you in the act of creation and no, I do not really know the role of the gnat in the scheme of things. Also, of course, so that humans could eat. No trees and plants, no food. No Sunshine, no trees and plants.
All flesh is grass
(Isaiah 40. 8th Century BCE)
The Divine has created a place for us with everything we need as a gracious host. We need to be better behaved guests.
What is our role in the creative process? This is where colonial Roman-Christianity gets it all wrong.
Beresheit/Genesis 1: 26-28
Firstly, in Genesis 1, they are created together, male and female. Sort of back to back like a Janus figure, unaware of each other. The word Adam comes from Adamah, which means Earth. We are Earthlings. Our bodies come from the earth and our bodies shall return to it.
But it is the word Dominion that is a real problem for us on the receiving end of colonialism. It has been used to make the fittest into the meanest, cruelest, bullyish, scared nasty little boys.
This is what has been done with the word Dominion
There has been great progress in moving some social, political and economic areas forward recently with Black Lives Matter (BLM) and #metoo as leading examples. Unfortunately, most of them have been given impetus by appalling events such as the murder of George Floyd. Bullies, scared nasty boys, part of the Dominant culture.
Dominion
What have we done with the word, dominion? Well In Genesis Rabah 8:12, a commentary on Genesis written 2000 years ago, Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Ya’akov of K’far Chanin discuss having dominion over the fish in the sea etc. Rashi, the brilliant explainer of text, writing in the Middle Ages makes this clear (Pashat) for the rest of us. The Hebrew ְיִרְדּוּ
This can be read (from right to left as in carving) as RDOO meaning to have dominion over, or it can be read YRD, to go down. If we merit we rule, if we do not merit we are ruled over by the beasts and cattle.
Our role becomes a Moral Code from a Moral Divine. The Divine looked into the Torah and creates from Wisdom.
Partnership
There is a second version of creation (no we did not miss it when we included it). It sums up the first days and then does a little explanation:
The second version that the Name (Ha Shem) speaks
Although everything has been created here in this version it is not growing or being. Rashi again: Creation is in a state of Terem (Not Yet). There is Not Yet life, because there has not yet been rain and there is no humanity to work the ground, to CARE for the plants etc. The plants and animals want humans to intercede between the vertical and the horizontal. The first prayer is for Rain. Only Humans Pray. Our prayers take creation from potential (terem) to actual.
Rab Judah said : To enjoy anything of this world without a blessing is like making personal use of things consecrated to heaven, since it says: ‘The earth belongs to HaShem and the fullness there of.’ Psalm 24
Rab Levi contrasted two texts. It is written: ‘The earth belongs to HaShem and the fullness thereof’, and it is also written, ‘The heavens are the heavens of HaShem, but the earth hath He given to the children of men!’
There is no contradiction: in the one case it is before a blessing has been said. •Berakhot 35a:21 Talmud (90BCE Mishnah redacted c 189CE, Gemera c 500 CE)
Our prays move the use of the material world from the Divines to us. Thank you.
This is a very different reading. We are needed to allow creation to proceed down here, in this universe. Not domination. Partnership with the living earth and with the Creator. Not sin, but creativity.
And while I am here I might as well go into the other contentious issue, Israel, on which everyone has an opinion.
The Land
Firstly, it is the other name of Jacob (Ya’akov) the grandson of Abraham (Avraham), the child of Isaac (Yitzak). After Jacob wrestles with the Divine he is given an additional name. This happens a lot in Genesis. The name is Israel- man who struggles with the Divine. Not meek and mild and full of fundamentalism, a mere distortion, but a human that is in partnership on that ladder. A name, a person, a place, a space.
Secondly, we have our prayers sited in Israel for 3000 years, before the exile. Everyday
The Shema is said twice a day including this part
The land of Israel, promised by the Divine to the children of Jacob is not like the surrounding lands. No big rivers like the Nile, Euphrates or Tigris. Just the tiny Jordan, more a stream than a river. The entire land of Israel is the size of Wales, which is why you can’t find it easily among those Red and Green blocks of colour on the map above. The land of Israel relies on rain and dew. So for 3000 years we pray for it. For the last 2000 years we have a prayer the Amidah, said three times a day which in summer says : Causes the dew to descend and in winter says: Causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Our spiritual practice is, like most indigenous peoples, connected to a land, a place and our place in creation. Of course the colonialists don’t know that, which is why the Chinese can throw the Buddhist Tibetans from their sacred land and the Western Christians can throw the Aborigines from their sacred lands and the Native Peoples of the Americas from their sacred lands. The Muslims tend not to throw people from their lands, but force conversion on them instead, removing the sacredness of a specific place to make it a universal adherence.
How can you care for the planet and for life if you do not appreciate your very small role in it and have disdain for the material world? You need to see the sacred in it.
‘Know that when a person prays in a field, every blade of grass enters into their prayer and helps them, giving strength to their prayer’ Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) Likutei MohaRan 2:11
All festivals are tied to the land, to agriculture and to place. The section of Deuteronomy above ends with a very important Mitzvah (commandment) you shall eat and be satisfied and praise the Divine.
We make a prayer for everything, for waking up, for washing, for going to the lavatory, for food, for water, for bathing, for clothing, for praying!
Our festivals celebrate moments in our history, such as the Exodus from Egypt, our acceptance of the Torah, the first fruits from the land each year, the act of creation each week (Shabbat) the fragility of our lives, our gratitude for them and our attempt to improve ourselves each year. The Torah is a guidebook/self-improvement manual when read correctly. There are more than 10 commandments. There are 613 and about 26 of them apply only to the land of Israel. We have adapted to diaspora, but we cannot fully be ourselves on a foreign land. It is not about colonialism. Our colonialism is a field, two trees and a donkey, rather than Kashmir (huge), Tibet, chunks of India (Pakistan and Bangladesh) etc. And the West Bank is the size of the county of Dorset.
Palestine is the Roman (and later Christian) name for Israel. The Romans have acted as slave masters renaming places (and later the British Empire, Ceylon, for example) just as colonialists rename slaves. All Palestinians were Jews. There were no Christians at the time and no Muslims either. Nor does Jesus or Mohammed appear in the Bible- really, I have been asked that! Colonialism knows no bounds.
While many People of Colour (POC) have taken on the religions of their oppressor/invaders/ colonisers, we haven’t. How very annoying. But on this tiny land is the place where our seasons run with our prayers. It is not random.
Partnerships– what is all of our role here on Earth, all of our roles? You may not have realised this: Adam and Eve are not Jewish. They are not Christian or Muslim even if our creation story has been taken and distorted. Adam and Eve and ‘merely’ Human. They are created this way so that every one of us can say the universe was created for us, us human beings, each one of us human beings. It is why we think life, especially human life, is so precious. We can break most of the rules of Torah to save life, any life. Which is why you see Israelis going in to disaster areas. That, of course, gets distorted in a wicked evil way by colonial bullies who pretend we are going to harvest organs (three day old rotted organs, really? How stupid and cruel ) or that we are doing it for show. The media pretend that we are murderers, the people that brought you all these holy commandments. I see the IG and Tweets. But it is the trolls and conspiratorial greedy people out there, the bullies and cowards that are the problem. The colonialists, not us. All humans are from Adam and Eve and therefore have the same role.
The Role
Our role is to bring Holiness down here onto Earth. The heavens, by default, are holy. We, all of us, are meant to be in the Image and Likeness, to make holiness here. The Divine is Hosting us here and not only should we be good guests, caring for the place that has been created for us to enjoy, to live in, to eat in, to sleep in, but we should reciprocate. We should invite the Divine to our place. Host a dinner at the least. Stop being a Schnorer – a terrible thing to be. The Shnorer is the person who, if you are each paying for what you ate in the restaurant, eats meagerly, but if you are splitting the bill eats and drinks the most expensive and the most amount and then complains about the bill. You spend you life subsiding the schnorer. Don’t be one; be generous, there is enough for all of us. It is a good thing to be generous; it is righteous. I should add that there is a huge difference between being righteous and being self-righteous (holier than thou). Don’t fall into the latter smugness!
Ha Makom– this means the place, but it is also another word for the Divine. In fact, the whole Torah is the name of the Divine. We are meant to create a place for the Divine to visit. The Israelites did this in the desert of Sinai. They built the Mishkan (Tabernacles). The Mishkan is from the word Shekhinah, the in-dwelling presence of the Divine that is in all people, a presence that Jewish mystical tradition also imagine as the feminine aspect of the Divine. She came into exile with us when we left the Garden. Clean your homes. Clean your streets. Wash yourselves. Prepare for the visit. Put your own food on your own table, but please, stop putting my food on your table, or even on my table and then claiming the place as yours and throwing me out of my home.
The Mishkan
Ecology and Holiness
You cannot have this unless you appreciate the planet as holy, not sinful, just to be endured. Did you really think the Divine created it for suffering? You have a very cruel G-d if that is the case. That is not the one we have. Treat this place with respect. Gratitude and appreciation. If you do not know your way around the Periodic Table of the Elements and have a grasp of atomic theory, then try prayer. We have written many you can use if you need. We have a prayer for everything. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. I do not like hearing about John the Baptist and his amazing idea of Baptism- wow where did he get that idea from? We have mikvehs. We still do. We still use them. We still celebrate the festivals. We still have a Sabbatical Year (yes, that is where that idea comes from) when we rest the land (Exodus 23). Do look.
Our particular role seems to be to tell you this and hope you will hear. We are all, every one of us, to do holy.
We are all meant to be stewards on the planet in partnership with creation, not in domination over each other. As we say in Mussar, which is a guide to developing good character (and yes, psychotherapy comes from it) “No less than my place; No more than my space.” Acknowledge mine and keep to yours.
Addendum- further help if interested
1 Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary- this is split into the weekly portions that are read along with their companion Haftorah (from Nivim or Khetuvim) published by JPS originally but now by the Rabbinical Assembly. It is in Hebrew and English with essays in English. Really worth a read
2 Before you say that the God of the Old Testament in fierce or whatever and tell me about original sin, which we don’t believe in, perhaps you should read Exodus 32:10 (just after the sin of the Golden Calf!).
We recite this quite a few times a year and we call this:
The 13 Attributes of Mercy:
– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful before a person sins! Even though aware that future evil lies dormant within him.
– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful after the sinner has gone astray.
– God (El)–a name that denotes power as ruler over nature and humankind, indicating that God’s mercy sometimes surpasses even the degree indicated by this name.
– Compassionate (rahum)–God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty does not put people into situations of extreme temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty.
– Gracious (v’hanun)–God shows mercy even to those who do not deserve it consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed.
– Slow to anger (ereh apayim)–God gives the sinner ample time to reflect, improve, and repent.
– Abundant in Kindness (v’rav hesed)–God is kind toward those who lack personal merits, providing more gifts and blessings than they deserve; if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of justice toward the good.
– Truth (v’emet)–God never reneges on His word to reward those who serve Him.
– Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations (notzeir hesed la-alafim)–God remembers the deeds of the righteous for thebenefit of their less virtuous generations of offspring (thus we constantly invoke the merit of the Patriarchs).
– Forgiver of iniquity (nosei avon)–God forgives intentional sin resulting from an evil disposition, as long as the sinner repents.
– Forgiver of willful sin (pesha)–God allows even those who commit a sin with the malicious intent of rebelling against and angering Him the opportunity to repent.
– Forgiver of error (v’hata’ah)–God forgives a sin committed out of carelessness, thoughtlessness, or apathy.
– Who cleanses (v’nakeh)–God is merciful, gracious, and forgiving, wiping away the sins of those who truly repent; however, if one does not repent, God does not cleanse.
3 Our God is the same one Jesus prayed to, but I don’t think it is the one Christians pray to (God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost). We are monotheists and do not do idolatry or images of God. We also do not pray to our prophets and they cannot be blasphemed as they are not God.
4 Blood Libel. If you read the Torah (our foundational text) you will see that we do not make human sacrifices. It is absolutely abhorrent. We also do not drink blood, any blood, and have a way of sacrificing animals for food that drains all the blood. Jesus would have known that.
Matzos, unleavened bread, were made first in the Exodus story, about 2000 years before Christians existed and 2500 years before Muslims existed, so I doubt Moses was making Matzos with the blood of Christian or Muslim children (just for the deeply stupid out there).
None of us make Matzos using blood as we don’t eat blood, any blood (black pudding is the most non-kosher of foods).
Christians, on the other hand, eat the flesh and drink the blood of their God each week, an idea most of us think is really yucky on many counts. Perhaps a Roman way of being and certainly not a Jewish one.
5 There are other commentators on the Tanakh (Bible) such as Heschel, Buber, Sacks, Steinslatz, Soloveitchik, R Nahmun, Rav Kook, Arthur Green, . Do try reading some of these before saying what is in the Tanakh and what it means.
6 There are many good websites such as My Jewish Learning. Don’t go to Christian ones or others before reading the people that practice it otherwise you are doing colonialism and bad Western anthropology.
There is a BC (before Coronavirus) and a brief break I shall call PL1 (post lockdown 1). In that brief re-opening, when we all knew that Lockdown 2 was on its way, we ventured out. We ventured out twice, in fact. Both times to Tate Modern and both times we saw wonderful shows without the BC crowds.
Ashes- Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen without the crowds was phenomenal. We almost had the show to ourselves. And what a show. He has the ability to include the viewer into the work. It feels like you are in it; in the helicopter circling the Statue of Liberty (but without the worry or expense) or in the boat with Ashes (but without the splash). To see Ashes again was wonderful. I remembered it from the Venice Biennale. There was so much joy and life in this simple, visceral moment of being on a boat in a beautiful sea by a beautiful island. Then the flip side. So many wonderful works with real emotion dealt with raw, without lapsing into pity, but remaining true, allowing the people to own their story. The hotel room with a man just illuminated by the tv was also engrossing. I have loved his work since I saw the Turner Prize piece with the falling wooden building, sort of Buster Keaton without the slapstick. With the Ashes piece I have finally worked out why I have loved, since the age of 14, the Baptism of Christ by Piero della Francesco. The work makes space for me, the viewer, to be in it because of its angles and size and proportion and other artistic know-how. It creates a holy space, a sacred space, because it is not cynical or knowing. And seeing Steve McQueen’s work I realise is the same. He makes space for the viewer to share the work. Magnificent.
Disappearing acts – Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought it might be heavy on intellect rather than art. How wrong I was. The exhibition was not done chronologically (hurrah) but in themes. The room I loved first was using a film from his young self with his current self walking into it. This was so well done with shadows and size that you think a real person has just walked into the piece. It is beautiful, speaking across time and generations and artistic practice. There was plenty to see that just made you want to sit and be. Art for arts sake. Not about something, which seems to be the prevalent mood at the moment, a bit like some very weak sociological essay with lots of platitudes, but the thing itself. Just the thing. Fab.
A lot of stupid and misinformation has come out lately.
Covid 19 is a virus.
Viruses can live outside the body on stuff. They can live a while on cardboard/paper; but less time on metal/plastic. So you need to clean stuff transferred from outside to inside. Soap/ washing up liquid and water work well against viruses and bacteria (it’s to do with osmosis!).
Testing people is not the same as Treating people. So just assume everybody is Carrying the virus even if they are not Affected by it. Stay Home so all of us cannot infect you! They cannot test the entire population nor find everybody you have met in the last few days so just act as if we all have it and stay home to prevent speading it.
It’s a virus- like many other viruses. Think about it. Some people get severe flu and some don’t. We cannot predict who. Assume you could get it badly and act carefully (see 1 and 2 above)
It’s affects the respiratory system (lungs, trachea) and therefore it is probably spread by aerosol- sneezing, coughing. Masks are a good idea (clinicicans are wearing them!) to stop you sneezing/coughing droplets out of your moist lungs (gas exchange needs your lungs moist) containing virus. If you sneeze onto your hands the virus will live on your hands (see 1 above!) and you can then spread it onto other surfaces.
You probably are aware of ‘Likes’ on places such as Facebook,Twitter and Instagram. These ‘Likes’ are put into an algorithm and then advertisements come up due to what you apparently ‘Like’. I love to confuse and add in random ‘Likes’, bell-ringing, star-gazing, flower arranging, shoe repairing etc. My favourite response was from a computer scientist on an Open University programme about computers and statistics. He said that when he bought a book online a recommendation would come up telling him: ‘People like you like the following books…..’ To which he said to camera, ‘I don’t like people like me’!
My mother used to tell me that one day they will tell you that Salmonella is good for you. They will produce statistics to prove it. They will say that this is scientific proof. But statisticsare not scientific proof. Statistics aremathematical proofs.
Statistics measure the correlation between two events. How likely they are to occur together. Statistics tries to remove confounding variables; things that also happen at the same time, but are not really correlated. But they do not prove cause and effect.
Science is interested in cause and effect. It is not empirical, another mistake made by non-scientists. Empiricism does not measure cause and effect.
Science measures the link between cause and effect. It does this by experiment. That is why most other disciplines are not scientific. They call themselves scientific (Social Sciences, rather than Sociology, for example) but they cannot do the experiment to test the theory. They can only do the stats.
Example A: If you want to prove that ‘watching violent television makes children violent’, you would need to
take two groups of children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and
put those two groups of children in exactly the same environments (food, clothes, rooms, etc) and
let one group watch violent TV programmes and
not let other group watch violent TV programmes
for a number of days/weeks and
see if there is a difference in behaviour afterwards.
This experiment would never be allowed, it is unethical; so you cannot do the experiment to prove the link. You can do the stats on children that watch violent TV, but you cannot be sure other things have not had the effect.
Example B: If you want to say that the ‘killing of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo started the First World War‘ you would have to
travel back in time to Sarajevo 1914 and
‘un-shoot’ Archduke Ferdinand and
see if the First World War still happened.
Good luck getting the grant for that research!
A number of academic disciplines that say they are using scientific methodology are not doing so and a number that say they are using statistics are still not doing scientific methodology.
The example I give my students are two excellent papers by very good teams.
one paper says that feeding babies on breast milk makes them more intelligent and
one paper says that feeding babies on breast milk doesn’t make them more intelligent.
How do they find opposite results? By statistical analysis. There is no experimental proof to either claim. There are a lot of confounding variables which get in the way of the correlation between milk and intelligence.
All the scientific evidence points to Salmonella not being good for you, so whatever the stats say, please don’t try the Salmonella.
A bizarre place in Islington, part rotunda, part underground caves, not even suitable for garaging with restricted entrance. A large curve looking down onto a central arena. And from the sides emerge ‘Professional Mourners’ singing the chants of their homeland practices or playing the instruments or reciting the poems as they disperse to their allocated spot allowing us to walk around and down the spiral to stand before each group.
The conception and realisation of this piece was astounding. Immersive art/theatre/performance at is superb best. All of us coming out slightly overwhelmed by what we had been in.
Just come out of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the South Bank Centre, London having heard three world premiers of astonishing quality.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who was the only one we knew and like a lot, performing one of her works. Qasim Naqvi in the audience for his. And Tyondai Braxton performing his work.
Tyondai Braxton
All three works were astonishing, imaginative and beautiful; enveloping and spacious. So clever. If you get a chance, don’t miss it. Sheer luck that we heard all three only knowing one of them and witnessed such sound.
If you get a chance to go down to old Soho (the London version, not the Manhattan acronym) you can see the wonderful world of Laurie Simmons. These are historic photographs of museum quality that have not been seen in the UK before.
Fake Fashion alludes to feminism, capitalism, advertising and marketing and much more, but done beautifully. The subject/object of each shot is in ‘studio’ light while the backdrop is in darker tones. They remind you of much older landscape/portrait paintings and because they were shot on analogue film, they have a painterly quality to them. She is part of a wonderful group of artists that emerged in the USA at the same time, Cindy Sherman being among them.
In Soho, in among the old photo labs, the film processing plants, the film production, editing suites and post production suites, these gems.
dr cedar 