Sermon: Shabbat D’varim/Chazon (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 13 August 2016

This shabbat has the special name Chazon, taken from the first word of our haftarah, Chazon Y’shiyahu, the Vision of Isaiah. This haftarah is traditionally read on the shabbat before Tish’a b’Av, which is this evening and tomorrow. In the first chapter of the book, Isaiah foretells the destruction of the land of Israel and its virtual desolation following the people’s forsaking of God. “Your land is a waste, your cities burned down. Before your eyes, the yield of your soil is consumed by strangers; a wasteland overthrown by strangers.” The prophet also refers to God’s consideration of their consequent meaningless sacrifices. “I am sated with burnt offerings of rams” and further, “bringing oblations is futile” and perhaps the ultimate, “your new moons and fixed seasons fill me with loathing, they are become a burden to Me. I cannot endure them.”

All in all, an appropriate choice to read prior to the fast day commemorating the destruction of the Temples and a host of other catastrophes, actually or symbolically associated with this date; including the Spanish Inquisition, expulsion from and pogroms in various European countries.

But what has all this got to do with us, reform Jews living in another time and space, remote historically and geographically from the actual events? The early reformers dropped Tish’a b’Av from their calendar and it remained an outcast for many years, until fairly recently, when a number of congregations reintroduced some form of service or activity to mark the day. But why? It certainly isn’t to be in sympathy with the ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel who wish to rebuild the Temple; firstly we are quite happy with the synagogue, which became the replacement, the substitute, for the Temple and secondly, we’d rather not see the Jewish people get embroiled in the subsequent issues of reintroducing animal sacrifices. Also it’s not as though we need a day to remember more recent horrors. Yom ha-Shoah, Holocaust Day, is now well-established in the calendar of almost every progressive congregation while Yom ha-Zikaron, Remembrance Day for those who fell in the wars of the modern state of Israel, is usually observed by the inclusion of prayers during the Yom ha-Atzma’ut celebrations, the following day. There is even now an international Holocaust Memorial Day.

Some have suggested that as we haven’t scrapped any of the festive occasions, we similarly should keep the less happy one. But I wonder how many of us recall the last fast day, the 17th of Tammuz, three weeks ago, or will remember Tzom G’dalyah, the next fast, on the third of Tishri, after Rosh ha-Shanah.

I believe that Tish’a b’Av is, in a sense, a religious barometer. Its restoration in reform circles epitomises a trend towards tradition, which has been evolving now for a number of years. But this is not something to be accepted without question. Tradition or ritual for its own sake tends to have little meaning and will not develop us spiritually. However a real return to tradition allied to a greater understanding and awareness of our heritage through study and education is to be welcomed. But it must not be at the expense of the prophetic ideals on which Reform Judaism was founded. We must be careful not to upset the balance between adherence to Halachah and our commitment to, for example, social action.

The process of redefining our religious stance has been going on now within the Reform Movement for many years and will no doubt continue for some time yet. However for me what is happening is very exciting because I now hear people speaking about their Jewishness in positive and absolute terms rather than the negative and relative way of the past. Much less frequently now do our members talk about what we don’t do as compared to our more orthodox friends. Now I expect to hear congregants say what aspects of Judaism they are doing, and why, and how their approach is developing.

The importance of this new attitude is particularly significant when we realise the range of choice that is available to us Jews in this country. The chart on the back page of the Jewish Chronicle this week gives an indication of some of the Synagogual Bodies that exist and when we consider also the various independent congregations, the choice appears endless. We can select from a wider range in the UK than in any other country the congregation or Movement to which we wish to affiliate. And so it becomes all the more necessary for us as a community to say what we stand for, what our Jewish standards and ideals are, even if we know these are aspiration and not necessarily always achieved.

I know that this sounds rather like setting out our stall in the religious marketplace and it might well be that some are unhappy with the commercial connotations. Well, perhaps the idea of marketing our Jewish wares is a bit over the top, although every group takes the opportunity of picking up publicity for whatever it might be doing, but it seems to me only fair that prospective members know what it is we are offering, and I suppose that’s also true for existing members.

However, we must remember that today’s reform view of Judaism is not permanent – that’s what makes us reform! Ours is not an unchanging understanding of our religion, our approach is not immutable. The task for both the Reform Movement and its members is to continue to explore their religious values and beliefs, for it is only in that exploration that we can fulfil our religious potential.

Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jew who developed his philosophy in the years between the two world wars, was almost certainly the theologian least able to be religiously categorised. He is reported to have responded to someone who asked him whether he carried out a certain observance, ‘not yet’. I feel that such a response indicates the ongoing search that I am suggesting, but I would take it a stage further in saying that another authentic response is ‘no longer’. It has to be as equally valid for us reform Jews to omit or eliminate as it is to add or increase. If the only changes we consider are to take us closer to traditional halachah, then we are in danger of losing our particularity. We become more and more a pale version of orthodoxy, effectively accepting their authenticity as unique and also of our inability to meet their standards. On the other hand, however, we should not be looking to throw away all our traditions and customs in an attempt to follow each new fad and fancy that modernity brings.

Rather we should be looking at how best to make Judaism a combination of the first century and the 21st-century. It is important to remember that Rabbinic Judaism was forged in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and the consequent exile, two cataclysmic events in our history unparalleled until the Shoah and the establishment of the state of Israel some 70 years ago. Thus the circumstances for us in our exploration are no less compelling than those facing the early Rabbis. They had to come to terms with a Judaism without the Temple and the sacrifices, without the land and their independence. We must contend with the re-emergence of a state which removes 2000 years of powerlessness from the Jewish people, the reconciliation of that new power with the ethical and moral teachings, so easy when viewed in a theoretical situation, and the reality of a diaspora that does not consider itself to be in exile. We have to concern ourselves with a world, that in the last hundred years has seen the greatest technological achievements in its history, but that also has been the bloodiest. A world that entered a new millennia carrying with it the dichotomy of great wealth and unmitigated poverty; educational opportunity and the perpetuation of ignorance; complete freedom for the inhabitants of some countries and total repression in others; and, looming over all that, the prospect of continuing warfare with its consequent misery and destruction.

This, then, is the background to our quest for a Judaism of relevance to the present and the future while, of necessity, still retaining links with our heritage and our history. A search to find the optimum way to serve God and humanity. An exploration, within the world but also within ourselves, to create a desire to learn and understand the past in order to take from it that which is best and lends itself to modernity. So that, for example, while the restoration of the Temple is not on our agenda, the recognition of its role in the history and development of our people is worthy of commemorating on Tisha b’Av. But always as part of the balance between adherence to Halachah and social action. As Isaiah puts it, “Learn to do good; devote yourself to justice; aid the oppressed; uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow.” If we can combine these aspects of ethical values with an increasingly informed approach towards tradition, then we can indeed look forward to a flowering of reform Judaism in our time. Amen.