Sermon: Never Again? Will we ever learn the lessons about genocide? (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 21 March 2015

The defining feature of the Twentieth Century was surely the Holocaust. Yet, rather than being a singular event, it was a particularly extreme episode. From the extermination of the Herero people of Namibia in 1905, the slaughter of the Armenians, the kulaks of Ukraine, the Holocaust, Cambodia, East Timor, genocide and ethnic cleansing has continued to more recent horrors in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan.

 

The 1948 Genocide Act defines genocide as an attempt to destroy a people, as a whole or in part, on the basis of their ethnicity, faith or other forms of identity. Yet regimes continue to act with impunity, slaughtering their own citizens, and enlisting civilians to participate in massive human rights abuses against their neighbours.

 

Unfortunately, the international response to genocide rarely rises above rhetoric, signalling to would-be tyrants everywhere that they can ethnically cleanse their nations without fear of facing justice. The familiar stages of diplomatic denial range from, “We didn’t know it was happening” to moral equivalency and doubting the genocidal ideology driving the atrocities. The world offers humanitarian band aids when political solutions are required. Meanwhile, society seems numb in the face of the suffering and destruction caused.

 

This month marks ten years since the Government of Sudan began a genocidal campaign against civilians in Darfur, killing over 300,000 and displacing over three million Darfuris. Darfur has been out of the news recently, but despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping force the violence and suffering continues, leaving civilians vulnerable to extreme human rights violations.

 

Since 2010, the UN has reported over 200 attacks against civilians by the Sudanese Armed Forces and their proxies in Darfur. Since January alone, 500 have been killed and more than 100,000 have fled their homes. In the last year conditions in this vast but remote corner of Sudan have deteriorated: there is little security in the camps, few humanitarian groups are allowed to operate in Darfur, and refugees cannot return home to devastated villages where they risk attack. Civilians continue to be targeted by aerial bombardment and ground troops and militia. Women in particular are targeted for sexual violence by a regime intent on destroying Darfur society.

 

The joint UN/African Union peacekeeping mission is ill-prepared and unable to guarantee security. The Sudanese government is the main perpetrator of violence against civilians in Darfur. The government obstructs UN peacekeeping forces, refuses to prosecute individuals responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, constantly blocks international aid, and has extended the conflict to other regions.

 

The continuing displacement of more than 2 million refugees has created a long-standing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The UN estimates that more than 4.7 million people in Darfur are affected by the conflict today. Meanwhile, the international response has been timid because it fears the regime may jeopardise South Sudan’s independence, or strengthen its allegiance with Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran.

 

A Decade of Darfur brings together faith groups, humanitarian aid agencies, artists, academics, journalists, public figures, survivors of genocide, and human rights campaigners. The project aims to reach out to the public, decision-makers, parliamentarians, NGOs and journalists, informing them of the current situation in Darfur and asking them to act where possible to stop the human rights abuses and to bring about peace.

 

There will be a series of events, the first to be hosted by Alyth North Western Reform Synagogue and Waging Peace, an NGO that campaigns against genocide and human rights abuses, on April 11th 2013 at Alyth.  The panel will include survivors of the Holocaust and the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan and will explore the pattern of genocide, its causes and the inadequate international responses, drawing on personal experience as survivors and witnesses. The keynote for the evening will be by Mukesh Kapila, former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan and the whistle blower for Darfur.

 

On display will be drawings by Darfuri children in refugee camps, depicting their experiences of the ethnic cleansing that continues in a virtual media vacuum to this day. The pictures have been accepted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague as contextual evidence of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan.

Other events include a coming together of the Jewish and Darfuri communities at Moishe House London on April 21st for a Darfur cultural and awareness day led by Nikki Levitan, Alyth’s Rosh Tzedek, Head of Social Action, and on April 28th a rally sponsored by JHub culminating in a petition delivered to the Prime Minister by members of the Darfuri community accompanied by Faith leaders.

Sermon: Shabbat Shoftim

 

It’s just about a year since I formally retired for the second time.  Some of you will know that I had a first career in industry before studying at Leo Baeck College for the rabbinate.  As a retirement gift, my son edited a festschrift, a series of essays written by colleagues on themes with which I had been associated during my time as a lay and then rabbinic leader of the Reform Movement.  Unusually, he included an essay that I had written a few months earlier while I was on sabbatical.  This too was on a subject close to my heart in both of my careers: leadership.   I’ve engaged in it in a variety of ways in the private sector, the public sector and the voluntary sector.  And I’ve similarly trained people in all three sectors in leadership skills, including final year students at Leo Baeck College for the past thirteen years.

So I watch and listen to what all sorts of leaders say and do, whether they’re politicians or business people, academics or running schools or health organisations, etc.  One of the biggest problems facing most leaders today is that they’re often expected to be all things to all people and little attention seems to be paid to the fact that different leaders have skills and talents in certain aspects of their job, but not necessarily others.  We all of us have our strengths and weaknesses, but somehow we expect our leaders to be good at everything.  And we take a great deal of enjoyment when they fail to live up to our expectations.  The essay that I had written analysed a selection of the judges of ancient Israel, looking at their leadership styles, their achievements and the circumstances in which they operated.  What I was trying to resolve is whether leaders are able to adapt to circumstances or do they approach any given situation in their natural style.

The basis behind this question is what we learn from Torah.  Moses had been chosen to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and to lead them for forty years through the wilderness.  Yet when it was time for them to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land, God appointed Joshua as the new leader.  What was required at that stage was a warrior, a military leader, to fight against the inhabitants of Canaan, rather than the paternal leadership of Moses.  God, it would appear, believed that there were horses for courses.  And, no doubt in consequence of that, God split up the leadership tasks.

This week’s סדרה refers to four major categories of leader within ancient Israel.  It begins with Judges and Officers, who were to be appointed in tandem, presumably the judges to decide in the case and the officers to implement the decision. We are commanded to use proper criteria in selecting judges. Judges are commanded not to be afraid to render a verdict. They are warned against taking bribes, showing favoritism, perverting justice. There are precise rules of testimony to maximize the chances that justice is properly served.  The Torah text then, seemingly inexplicably, goes on to command that a tree musn’t be planted near the Altar. However, the Talmud states that “appointing inappropriate judges is tantamount to planting a tree near the Altar”. Planting a tree in an attempt to beautify the Temple, is a completely misguided act. The beauty of the Temple flows from itself and its spiritual nature.  To think that external decoration can contribute to the beauty is to lack understanding of what the Temple is. So too, to appoint a judge because of personal appearance, wealth, stature, etc. and not because of  scholarship and worthiness to judge is equally missing the point.

Next the text refers to the potential selection of a king.  A king is needed to focus and direct the state, particularly during wartime.  But there was a recognition that the reason why the people might insist on a king was to be like all the other nations around them. These kings were supreme rulers, all-powerful.  That could not be the case for Israel. Only God had such a role for the Israelites and so the king’s powers had to be limited by the scroll of the teaching. He is commanded to make a copy of the Torah scroll for himself and keep it with him always.  The teaching serves as a general constitutional framework, but there are three explicit rules that apply specifically to the king. He must not have many wives (actually he was limited to 18), many horses, or much gold and silver. The political, military and economic power of the king is thus limited functionally and symbolically.

The third class of leaders were the priests and levites.  Their position is hereditary and their task is to manage the Temple, conduct its sacrifices, instruct the people in the details of worship and ritual purity, provide musical accompaniment, and organize the festivals. They are the preservers of sacred memory, but their power too is limited. They are not to receive a portion when the land is divided between the tribes. They are to eat of contributions, tithes and special offerings of the people. Their special role means that they cannot be burdened with the toil of making a living from the land. But they are also deprived of the access to power that the land entails.

Finally, our סדרה talks about the Prophets.  Of all the leaders, the prophets are solely appointed by God.  They are Moses’ spiritual descendants and they speak God’s word. They may come from any background; some were high officials in the royal court, others shepherds.  The prophet was not like the soothsayers or fortune tellers of the other nations, rather a teacher and religious guide.  Often the prophets became society’s conscience, reminding the people of their obligations to the vulnerable in the community.  The prophet was God’s messenger and spokesman, the only true channel of communication between God and His people.

Judges and Officers, Kings, Priests and Levites, Prophets; the outstanding significance of Moses is only enhanced when we consider that at one time he was responsible for each of these different aspects of leadership within the Israelite people. The break up of the roles as he is approaching his death is essential to their future well-being.  The tasks and the functions, the authority and the limitations, the character and the nature; these are all set out by God, so as to ensure that at the end of the day there is no change in the basic relationship between the people and their God.  Perhaps there are lessons for our time, especially within the Jewish community.  If only we could rely on each category of Jewish leadership sticking to its allotted tasks, staying within the framework of their authority and being selected for having the appropriate expertise, then perhaps we could begin to experience the sort of vibrancy, development and good fortune that British Jewry deserves.  Amen.