Sermon: Terrorism in Belgium, Haman Walks Again
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 26 March 2016
Our Purim service and Megillah reading this year on Wednesday night was crowded out. Somewhere between 200 and 300 adults and children filled this sanctuary with joy and excitement. Entering through the star-gate which had been created artfully from silver foil they took their seats to experience a Megillah reading like no other and Mike Mendoza’s wonderful film production of Megillah Wars.
Mike proved that George Lucas overspent on the original by at least $200m dollars, and that his budget of £175 was sufficient to create a gripping film set in outer space with incredible special effects. Perhaps Mike’s savings on actors and actresses by replacing Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and the like by Alyth’s senior club, his fellow staff team membrs, our youth singers, kindergarten children, Sunday Morning Galim and the Shul Executive, as the council of War on the death star, may have been financially prudent. The result was a great evening for hundreds which carried on into the day ending with the Talmud Class on Thursday afternoon where we learned the truth about Vashti’s costume for Ahasuerus’s feast – trust me this is not to be shared at a Shabbat service for all generations!
My costume? For the Megillah Wars evening I got to be, in my opinion the coolest character in the film – a Jewish mercenary fighter pilot called Han Shlomo – all leather jacket and a loud gregger as an offensive weapon. Poor Rabbi Josh was I hope not typecast as Darth Haman! Great fun. Purim brings release from the tensions which the consciousness of persecution experienced or remembered sets up within us. It is meant to be fun and this year as pretty much every year at Alyth it certainly was.
Yet Purim this year in 5776 had a deadly serious aspect. It cannot have been lost on any adult or perceptive child who heard us reading in the Megilla the story of a tyrant, commanding public veneration, who had those who did not bow down to him executed, who was willing to kill a large part of the citizens of his own territory because their existence was an affront to him. The serous aspect of Purim cannot have been lost on any adult or perceptive child who heard the words last Shabbat in our Shabbat Zachor Torah portion “at Purim time we remember that evil is real, and that it is not yet defeated. Remember what Amalek did to you… don not forget. Amalek has disappeared from under heaven, but his spirit still walks the earth.” (Siddur Lev Chadash, 1995, p408 quoting Deuteronomy 25:17,19)
As we booed and jeered on Purim, who were we booing and jeering? Was it Haman, the baddie of the story, just as we might have shout he’s behind you at a pantomime of good and evil? Or were we booing and jeering the heritage of Amalek, the first people recorded in the Torah who attacked the Jews? Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite was meant to be descended from the Amalekites, the classic enemy of the Jews, convinced of the need to destroy us, an infamous heritage which has stretched to Hitler in the past century? Or were we booing and jeering the Daeesh terrorists who killed indiscriminately at Brussels airport and Maalebeek Metro Station on Tuesday (22nd March 2016) and also were we booing and jeering the tyrants who kill their own people for the sake of their own lust for power such as Bashar Al-Assad, brutal President of Syria.
As Rabbi Hadassah Davis has written, “I know that bullies will continue and increase their bullying unless confronted and firmly stopped . This applies to school bullies, office bullies and head of state bullies in equal measure.” If the Book of Esther unites us as at Purim by showing us that through clever manipulation, as Esther displays, the bully can be defeated – should not a Jewish value be that we do not tolerate the bully. We confront them till their power is removed. Rabbi Davis continues (Progress TVPJC, March 2003, p11) “Schools now have anti-bullying measures in which the bully is stopped and confronted and a child who is bullied is taught that they have the right not to live in fear. Office bullies can find themselves falling foul of legislation and are stopped by the law or by the responsible employer, and I myself know of the case of a hospital chief executive who lost his job due to his intimidatory way of dealing with staff. But who stops state bullies.” Rabbi Davis’s piece was written before the widespread terrorism of Da-eesh, ISL and so we should add the question of who stops terrorist bullies.
I feel that anyone who has lived with the Jewish experience cannot put aside the thought that had the other nations of the world not confronted Hitler even as late as they did in 1939 an entire people, our people would have been removed from the whole of Europe, a terrible feat which he almost managed. Perhaps the motives of all the nations of the world were not as pure as we might have liked them to be in the Second World War but only the resolve of certain nations to stop Hitler saved our lives and reduced the scope of the tragedy.
I am aware that I take this position from the standpoint of my understanding of my Jewish heritage. We Jews know the heart of the oppressed and our religion has had to eschew the luxury of pacifist values.
The first war reported in the Torah is just fourteen chapters or three Torah portions from its beginning – in Genesis 14 , the strange war of the four and five kings in which Abraham is embroiled as his nephew Lot becomes one among the vanquished. The episode is roundly condemned in Midrash Tanhuma where these Kings are cursed for having brought the sword into the world. The Midrash uses the words of Psalm 37 “Their sword will enter their own heart.” Essentially those who live by the sword have a very good chance of dying the sword.
Why though is a war recorded so early in the Torah – should not our document of good record only good, only the idyllic, only the hopeful? Perfection, in the Torah lasts barely three chapters – the early parts of the Eden story. Humanity will always have to confront aggression, it is our nature that some among us will turn to oppression, whether with the formal army and police of a state such as Syria or with the informal guerrilla tactics and terrorist cells of outfits such as Daeesh. So Judaism has accepted that the countering of aggression is permissible when the circumstances demand it.
The Torah sets forth rules for the conduct of War, subsequently refined by the Rabbis. An army must be formed of the willing – Deuteronomy Chapter 20 sets out who is exempt from military service. An enemy must be offered terms of peace before an attack can be contemplated. They must be given the opportunity to avoid war. The war must be fought according to rules of engagement – protecting the environment at least in that memorable rule not to cut down the fruit trees in a siege (Duet 20). Under almost all circumstances a declaration of war must be approved by the Sanhedrin, the national consultative body and the religious chief – in the Talmud seen as the priest wearing the Urim and Thumin, mystical objects mentioned later in our Torah portion Tzav as part of the priest’s costume (Leviticus 8:8) . More than that, we must pray three times a day for peace, saying the Oseh Shalom, Sim Shalom and Shalom Rav, inculcating into ourselves and into our community that peace is the highest value and war an aberration which must be avoided as far as possible if we are not distance ourselves totally from God.
War should not be glorified. Conflict is the sign of the failure of humanity to reach our ideals and especially God’s ideals. Yet I could not face living in a world where the ultimate expression of the heart of a bully – the Haman of our age can hold sway just as long as he only murders and oppresses his own people. It means that I see the fight against Assad as necessary. I don’t think that Judaism would ever ask us to accept his murderous regime, v al col ha’olam inserted into the Reform Oseh Shalom means that we care for all humanity.
And also we have to join the struggle against Daeesh terrorism. “Our starting point should be that an awareness that terrorists set out to provoke and overreaction. They exult when politicians like Donald Trump vow to exclude Muslims from the United States, when leaders from Eastern Europe say they will accept migrants from Syria only if they are Christian.” (Economist 26/3/16 p13) Overreaction is the terrorists recruiting agent.
Terrorists are also delighted when we forget about the hundreds of Muslims being killed by them in Turkey and Lebanon because thirty people in Western Europe have so tragically died.
Also underreacting cannot be right. It is true that in the past decade in an average year 30 people in the UK have died in by falling in a bathtub whilst 5 have died from a terrorist attack. The comparison is even starker in the US – bathtub falls kill around 300 each year and terrorism fewer than 30. But “the fear that terrorism provokes is different. It is not just a statistical delusion but also real concern that people who know no limits are organising a conspiracy against us.” The best protection iss peace in the Middle East but that is a long long journey ahead.
So for now, for us this is going to be about very strong intelligence investment by our states and also very strong inclusion into society of people who live in economic and cultural isolation. This we can help with. Yes we boo and jeer Haman – but we also live like Esther and Mordechai – fully engaged with the society around us and people of 127 provinces who live amongst us. Separating society, rejecting Muslims, living away from the poor and disadvantaged will only fuel the terrorist bullies. We have got to get to know and work with all who live in our city.
May the Most High source of perfect peace inspire us to be part of the struggle to bring peace to us, to all Israel and all humankind.