Between Ken Livingstone and the Mishnah
One would love to deliver a sermon on anything else other than the last extravaganza by Ken Livingstone. But what can I do, it just jumps out of the page, as the Satmar Rebbe used to say when his congregants criticised him for preaching only about Zionism. What can I do, the whole Torah is about Zionism, every Torah portion is about Zionism, and I have to preach about the Torah portion, don’t I? So, I cannot help it, this week’s Torah portion makes me think to the last boutades by Ken Livingstone. It just jumps out of the page.
In case you have missed it, the former Mayor of London had come back to the scene with his favourite piece of historical fantasy: that is the alleged cooperation between the German Nazis and the Zionist movement. Ken Livingstone is persuaded that in the 1930s there was a “working relationship” between Hitler and the Zionist groups. He had repeated this grotesque falsehood during an interview broadcasted a few days ago.
It is of course a plain lie. There has never been any working relationship, let alone cooperation, between the Nazi Regime and the Zionist movement. The often-quoted Haavara Agreement is nothing comparable to cooperation. The Haavara Agreement in 1933 allowed the German Jews to recover, in then Palestine, part of the goods they were forced to leave in Germany when they were expelled. It has been nothing close to ‘cooperation’, unless you consider “cooperation” to similar situations, such as rape. Yes, the woman who is raped “cooperates” with the rapist rather than been killed. There has never been any cooperation, or working relationship of any kind, between Nazis and Zionists. To suggest otherwise is simply outrageous and distorted.
Fine, you may say, everybody agrees with that, at least in this synagogue. But what does this have to do with the Torah portion? How does this week’s Torah portion make us think of the boutades by Ken Livingstone? You see, the Torah portion of this week is called “Shofetim”, Judges. It deals mainly with matters of justice. Here are there the elements for a constitution, and for the judicial system. Here we find the job description, if you like, of judges, kings, priests, and prophets. We have the rules regarding witnesses, justice in time of war, and unsolved murder victims.
This is particularly interesting. The rules are that if the body of a murder victim is found lying in the open, and despite many investigations, it is impossible to determine the killer, then the elders of the nearest town had to perform an enigmatic ritual: the sacrifice of a heifer. Just before the sacrifice, the eldest of the town, the public authorities, had to state aloud: “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it” [Deut 21:7] They were innocent; and yet they had to confess they have been guilty because they had not been able to prevent the murder, they had to ask God to be merciful.
In Biblical times, in the Land of Israel, an unsolved murder was so shocking that the whole community had to take responsibility. The Mishnah, a text written several centuries after the Torah, explains that such a ritual lapsed “when the number of murders increased” [Sotah 9:9]. That is particularly interesting. This ritual is meaningful in a society in which murder is an exceptional recurrence. In the current society, it is hypocritical to pretend that every citizen must feel the responsibility for an unsolved murder. Only when murder is an abnormal occurrence, there are reasons to expiate if we are not able to punish the murderer.
You may ask what this discussion about an ancient ritual has to do with the grotesque historical boutades of the former Mayor of London. And I invite you to compare the tales by radical demagogues like Ken Livingstone to the wisdom of the ancient Rabbis.
On one side we have someone who plays with symbols. Radical demagogues do not deal with real people. Real people, real individuals, are complicated. Ken Livingstone and his followers believe that Nazism is evil, that Zionism is equally evil. Therefore, so the ideology dictates, there should be some kind of working relationship between the two evils. It does not cross their minds that Zionism, namely emigrating to then Palestine, was the only way for hundreds of thousands of Jews to remain alive.
Radicals don’t deal with real-life situations, with real-life tragedies: they want to affirm principles. So they turn people, individuals, and human beings, into symbols of some ideology. Is Ken Livingstone trying to put himself in the shoes of any of the 1930s German Jews? Of course not. In his world, there is no such thing as a German Jew, as a human being. In his world, there is Zionism, which is evil like Nazism (with which they must have, indeed, some kind of working relationship). He takes into consideration the individuals, real people, only as symbols of ideologies.
How different is Judaism, how much more profound is the wisdom of the ancient Rabbis. Because they dealt with real people, they acknowledged that a ritual, which was instituted by God nonetheless, was not to be observed anymore.
On one side you have a crazy demagogue who turns human beings into symbols: a man who thinks ideology always comes first. On the other side, you have religious leaders who know the reality of human life, which is tragic and complicated. Even if they are religious leaders, they boldly ignore God’s expectations, because they know that, in the world we live in, the Divine expectations are too extreme, impossible to match for the human beings of their generation.
Now, that is Judaism. Learning how to deal with the complexities of human nature. Trying to put noble and high moral values into practice, in this society, which like every human society, is a complicated society. And acknowledging that is difficult, sometimes very difficult, and maybe impossible.
It is well known that we Jews are not popular among radicals and demagogues. Because they like to say that things are simple, that everywhere there is black and white, good versus evil (Judaism and Zionism needless to say, are on the evil side). While we Jews know very well, and our Tradition teaches that things are very, very complicated.
Brighton and Hove Reform Synagogue, 10 Sept 2016