Sermon: Shabbat Chanukah and Mikketz – ‘Is Greed Good?’
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 3 January 2017
As a Jewish child growing up in the multicultural but essentially Christian dominated society of Britain you do have one great advantage where Chanukkah is concerned. It always starts before Christmas. Even if this year that was only by one day! That means that whilst you may feel rather left out of all the Christmas Tree, twinkly lights, acquisitive madness that is the commercial rather than the religious version of Christmas – at least you are diving into your presents earlier than your non-Jewish friends.
Because of the length of time and degree of assimilation of Jews into Christian societies Chanukkah has become the copycat festival. As a post Torah and even post-Biblical festival it does not have anything like the status of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach or Shavuot. There are no days in Chanukkah when we are commanded to leave off from our everyday work, there are a minimum of special readings in the Synagogue just a few verses from the Book of Numbers commemorating the dedication, the Chanukkah, of the original Mishcan Altar. There is none of the grand ritual of building the Succah nor of the Seder Meal. But Chanukkah has a very deep hold on the Jewish imagination in our day.
Presents have grown from a couple of pieces of Chanukkah gelt to the Jewish version of Christmas giving, parties are thrown, giant Chanukkiot are erected in Golders Green and Trafalgar Square and all corners of the globe by the Lubavitch. Even the dreidel it seems was invented to give a Jewish spin on a toy of German Christian children (if you’ll excuse the pun). The spin was this – the original German toy was a three winged top with letters written on the top which told you what to do. The Jewish version has four sides so as to avoid the link with trinity and so that the Yiddish Nisht Ganz Halb and Shtell could also conveniently be interpreted to spell out Nes Gadol Hayah Sham – not get none, get all, put in half and put in one but a great miracle happened there.
My children when they were growing up were very lucky children and were blessed with a crazy number of presents each Chanukkah from relatives and friends all over. When they reached the ages of ten and seven Nicola and I decided to make each mean more by not putting them all on display for them to see throughout the festival but rather making a couple appear each night.
It was not helping them to make Chanukkah meaningful by having all of these objects around. As my Grandmother was happy to tell us, when she was a little girl not long after the turn of the twentieth century, a new dress and enough nuts to be able to play the dreidel game were enough to delight her and her six sisters.
In this season of conspicuous consumption does it help us to have more?
This week we hear the Torah portion of Joseph the prototypical ambitious Jewish boy who rises from being a slave consigned to Pharaoh’s dungeon to becoming the wealthy powerful viceroy of Egypt. His brothers meanwhile have to become beggars off the Egyptian state when famine overcomes the land of Canaan.
The Rabbis in Exodus Rabbah said that (Exodus Rabbah 31:12 and 14) Nothing in this world is more grievous than poverty… if all the sufferings and pain in the world were gathered [on one side of a scale] and poverty was on the other side, poverty would outweigh them all.” They meant that poverty dehumanises – turning us into creatures which can focus only on their physical needs.
The inequalities of wealth in our society can be extraordinary. The average salary in the UK is £27,600, the state pension is £8092 per year, well below the poverty line of 60% of household income. Meanwhile Paul Pogba, Manchester United Footballer makes do with £290,000 per week, whist Wayne Rooney manages on £260,000 per week.
As you may know one of the areas which I work in beyond my Rabbinate at Alyth is in the development of Faith Consistent Investment. We try to do this in a way that unites faiths asking how Jews, Christians and Muslims should invest as we suspect that we will often come to the same conclusions of what it means to care about the triple bottom line of social, environmental and financial good. But one thing that often divides Jewish and Christian ethical investors is the extent to which we feel we should act on high corporate executive salaries. If you are one of the top ten highest paid CEO’s of FTSE 100 companies this year – you will have earnt well over £10m this year.
These would be companies that a Christian ethical fund might decline from investing in. A Jewish ethical fund, if such a thing existed, would not I think share the reservation.
Judaism would not, in my opinion, go as far as the fictional character Gordon Gecko in Wall Street and say “Greed is Good” but we have a classic text on the issue which seems to go somewhere near to this – it is based on understanding why God, in the first chapter of Genesis, says that everything is very good when we know that the word contains both good and evil. The reason why, the Rabbis said was (Genesis Rabbah 9:7) to help us to understand that each person needs to respond both to the good inclination within them and to the evil inclination. Were it not for the evil inclination the Rabbis said, no man would build a house, or bring new life into the world, or engage in business. Then Rabbi Nachman Ben Samuel quoted the book of Kohelet or Ecclesiates: All labour and skilful work comes out of a man’s rivalry with his neighbour” (Ecclesiastes 4:4) – Such good things come out of our desire to do more and to have more.
Yet the last of the Ten commandments would seem to say the opposite – the commandment which does not ask us to do or not do something but rather to think or not think something – you shall not covet, you shall not be envious.
Judaism is not a black and white faith. It is always and forever about balance. In Judaism there are no independent forces of good and evil. Rather each one of us holds these parts of the reality of the world in balance more or less successfully. The more successfully we balance our inclinations and abilities the better a Jew we are.
That means that Judaism does not oppose the system that creates wealth. Rather it asks that the results of that system be in balance. We know that unless we renew our television once in a while there will be less wealth in Korea or China or wherever it is made. We know that unless there is a good incentive to strive we will not be able to enjoy the fruits of each other’s best labours.
But there is an absolute imperative upon those who benefit materially from this system to be among those who relieve the poverty of others, and help other’s needs to be met by their philanthropy. The Rabbis put a minimum quantity upon this – since it is said that you should leave the corners of your fields for the poor and stranger to glean they reasoned that you should establish a minimum quantity that constitutes a corner – they put this at at least one sixtieth of your income.
The recent report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research on the funding of Jewish welfare bodies (Charitable Giving among Britain’s Jews, IJPR 2016) concluded that most middle income Jews are not doing this and that they may as a result find Jewish Care, the Jewish Blind and Physically Disabled Society, Etc unable to cope in the years ahead because their current over dependence on the wealthiest of donors will not see them through to coping with the needs of the future.
A bit of greed, a wish to make the best of yourself in a culture where achievement in most fields of work is rewarded financially, is no bad thing in Judaism. Nor is making the wheels of commerce go round by being a consumer. To keep the whole system in balance in a way that is authentically Jewish though requires that you analyse your own wealth and be sure that you do your part to directly aid the needs of the poor.
If you are lucky enough to enjoy prosperity in these days – may you be among those who share your good fortune with others. Will you find many ways in the year ahead to share at least 1/60th of your income with the poor?