Asking for mercy

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 25 January 2025

I don’t imagine that there are many of us who missed that this week was the inauguration of Donald Trump, the beginning of his second term as President of the United States. And there were a number of things that have been controversial that have surrounded his inauguration, including Elon Musk’s Nazi Salute towards a crowd of supporters. But this morning, I would like to focus on a particular figure I did not know about until she suddenly became part of the news this week: Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, who gave the sermon at a service in the National Cathedral the morning after Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.

During her sermon, the Bishop spoke directly to the President, saying: ‘In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.’ She referred to ‘gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families’, across the country ‘who fear for their lives’, and to immigrant workers, including those who may not ‘have the proper documentation’, the vast majority of whom are ‘not criminals’ but rather ‘good neighbours’, doing jobs that need doing.

This part of the service lasted for only a couple of minutes, but there is no doubt that it was stand out in the memories not only of those who were present, but now it has entered into a global consciousness. And that is partly because of the way in which Trump responded to the Bishop’s petition for mercy.

Following the service, the new president took time out of his day to post on Truth social, demanding that Bishop Budde apologise for having brought her church into the world of politics. He disparaged the ‘so-called Bishop’ who he described as ‘a Radical Left hard line Trump hater’ – as though asking for mercy from the most powerful person in the world is radical. Another Republican politician called for Budde to be deported.

The question of the role that politics should play in religion (and the role of religion in politics) is a much bigger one than I can cover today. But, I think we are safe ground if we say that the question of leadership is a religious theme. Many times I have stood at this desk and spoken to you about leadership. Robin spoke about it in his Dvar Torah, when he spoke of Moses’ lack of faith in his own ability to lead – his own ability to stand up to Pharaoh.

Our Torah – the foundation on which Judaism is built – is not a non-political document. It contains moral principles by which political life should operate. It follows the lives of the leaders of the people. Throughout the books of Kings, in the case of each ruler we are told whether what they did was seen as good in the eyes of God.

In the words of writer and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel: ‘We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’ Indeed, by one reading, had Biship Budde not decided to say anything and to remain silent, she would have been siding with the force of oppression.

That is what we encounter in this week’s parashah, in which God tells Moses to go and ask Pharaoh to have mercy on the Israelites, and to release them from the burdens of slavery. And then later in the portion – ironically, perhaps – Pharaoh ends up making the same plea to Moses when his people are beset by the plague of frogs.

Our religious leaders are not only allowed to, but required, to speak truth to power. And in Jewish tradition, the prophetic voice is one that speaks truth to power on behalf of the most vulnerable in society: namely, the widow, the orphan, the stranger in our midst. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezeziel – these were all prophets who spoke up in such a way, speaking up to powerful human beings in the name of God. And they did not do this out of political ambition – more often than not, the consequences to them were negative.

So, on one reading, the Bishop was intervening in politics. But on another, she was simply articulating two facts. Firstly: the power of the presidency is huge – whoever holds it takes with it the power over the life and death of millions of people. Not only their actions but their words carry an immense weight. That is simply a fact. Secondly: One need only speak to those groups Bishop Budde mentioned in her sermon to know that there are many in the US who are scared for their lives and their livelihoods. It doesn’t matter how much that fear is grounded in reality – people are scared, and that in itself is enough justification to ask for mercy.

Mercy, compassion, acknowledgement of the vulnerability of those who look up to us in society. These are Jewish values. And they are qualities that we hope for not only in human beings, but in the Divine.

El malei rachimim – God full of compassion, full of mercy.

Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun – The Eternal, the Eternal, a God merciful and gracious.

If not from Bishop Budde, perhaps President Trump can learn from God. If God can bear for us to ask for mercy without critique. Perhaps he can too.

To call our rulers merciful – and to ask for mercy – is an acknowledgement of their power. It might carry with it critique. But, by its very nature, when someone asks for mercy, it is an act of self-abasement. It is an acknowledgement of weakness and limitation. But it is a humble request, a humble petition – in recognition of power of the person we are speaking to. A good leader needs to be able to hear that vulnerability, to recognise that weakness and limitation. And, we hope, to seek to bring up rather than put down.

When we are the ones who hold power, it can be hard to hear critique.

The rabbis of our own Jewish tradition were not always exemplars in how to hear it. There are a number of stories in our Talmud that I have studied and taught a number of times, in which rabbis who are criticised turn their eyes upon their critics and deduce them to a pile of bones. But this is to be understood (I would argue) as a failure; that our response to detractors – or to those with whom we disagree – should not be to want to reduce them or put them down, but to engage with what they are saying to us. To understand why people might be worried or scared, and not simply to dismiss their worries as partisanship and radical desire.

And this is not just a lesson for presidents and rabbis – power is something we all experience in one way or another. We all have moments in which we are the ones with power over others, or with the power to influence or change a situation.

And so, I want to end this sermon by taking inspiration from Bishop Budde, and asking you all for mercy. We are not in America. None of us have been entrusted with the power of the presidency. But we do all have some limited power. And, at the same time, there are many of us who are scared right now – for a whole plethora of reasons, not solely because of what is happening in the US.  And so, I ask us all today: have mercy on one another. Have compassion to each other. Treat each other with the respect deserved by those who are made in the image of God.