One and One equals One
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 1 November 2018
It’s a very special aspect of Golders Green, where we are located, that we live in a place where the relationships between the many faiths represented here are almost always positive and harmonious. Yes this area has on of the highest concentration of Jews in the country, according to the 2011 census Golders Green is 37.1% Jewish. But it is also 26.1% Christian, 12.2% Muslim, 9.9% people who profess no religion and 3.8% Hindu.
Apart from the odd blip, such as when some Jews and others protested against the opening of an Islamic Centre in the old Hippodrome theatre, we get on well and certainly our faith leaders get on well together and make strong efforts to meet up regularly.
It can lead to some funny situations. A few years ago a good part of the Hindu community here were served by a beautiful Mandir, or Temple, built inside a disused church. This Mandir has now been rebuilt in Indian style as the elaborate and amazing Shree Swaminarayan Gadi Mandir in Kingsbury. While they were here this Hindu community was very outward looking, opening the Mandir to blood donation drives, joining us with enthusiasm in Mitzvah Day and livening up Golders Green with their drum and bagpipe bands. It got a little bit more difficult when it came to the theology of the Mandir. Of course as a Hindu temple within it there were large idols, representing in realistic human form the gods who were worshipped. I remember being in the Mandir with our local vicar who was deeply uncomfortable being photographed anywhere near these fifteen-foot-high manifestations of polytheism.
Our local interfaith co-operations can bring some beautiful encounters. A few weeks ago, during Sukkot Alyth hosted twenty young people from the Leo Baeck High School in Haifa and the Mar Elias High School in the Galilee Arab village of Ibilin. Together they formed a brilliant steel drums orchestra who performed for us here at the Synagogue. In the afternoon of their visit we went on a multi faith tour of Golders Green. We visited our local Catholic Church where Father James, recently arrived Irish priest of the the church was able to draw connections between his church and the church in Iblin to which the Christian Arab teenagers in the group belonged. We then walked to the Hussainiyat Islamic Centre in the Hippodrome Theatre.
This group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian Israelis were welcomed there with open arms, food and drink and by Muslim youth leaders who were delighted to wish us Chag Sameach for Sukkot. They chatted with our visitors in Arabic and English, explaining the Husainyat tradition of Iraqi and Iranian Islam. At the end of our visit one of the Mosque youth leaders said to me, “Before today I never knew that a Muslim could be a citizen of Israel – the Iranian radio tells us such rubbish.”
Tomorrow will see another local interfaith encounter when members of Alyth will join members of our local Ismaili Muslim Jamat Khana, which also acts a mosque, for a symposium on sacrifice in the Abrahamic tradition. We know that we will find both points of contact and points of difference. My suspicion is that there will be more points of difference than we expect. We share Abraham as a founding patriarch and we share monotheism, the belief in there being one God, but our ways of understanding the narrative and meaning and ways of putting into action of these fundamentals have many shades of colour.
For example, how many gods are there in Judaism? When Saphira stood in front of us before she read her Torah portion and declared proudly “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Echad”, that last word Echad gave us the answer – One. Yet the phrase itself, declared twice a day by all observant Jews contains two names for God – Adonai and Eloheynu –translated today as “the Eternal” and “our God”. Are they the same thing?
Two names for God is only the start of it in Judaism. A Rabbi teaching at Jews College in the 1920’s, Arthur Marmorstein, published a book called the “Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God” where he listed no fewer than 101 names for God which he had scoured from the Talmud, the Tanach and other Rabbinic Literature (Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One of Blessing, HaRachaman, the Merciful, HaGibor, the Valliant, Shaddai, the Almighty).
You get the feeling that he was trying to beat the Muslims at their own game. The rosaries, called Subha or Misbacha which, many Muslims own, are made up of 99 beads – each representing a name of God to contemplate – Allah corresponding to our Elohim, AlRahman, the Merciful, Al Bari, the Creator, even AlAchad, despite counting 98 other names it means: the One.
The two names for God which we encounter most often in Judaism are of course Elohim and Adonai. As I said, to aid understanding in translation we use God and the Eternal in English for these two names. Elohim is read as it is written but Adonai is a substitution of sound for the mysterious combination of letters yod heh vav heh. Because it is based on the Hebrew word adoni, my lord, we used to translate this word Lord, but now we translate it in a way closer to the intention of the actual written letters which imply “was, is and will be,” hence the Eternal.
It is impossible to clear the mists of time which obscure why two words are used throughout the Torah to, as it were, name the Divine. Biblical scholars in the late 19th Century suggest that this may be because the Torah that we have in front of us was a melding or redaction of several Israelite and Judahite traditions. This they explain is why the Genesis Chapter 1 telling of creation is done by Elohim whilst the Genesis Chapter 2 telling of creation is done by Adonai. But these scholars were not the first of course to ask questions about these two names for God.
Our Rabbis of the past came up with a theory as to what the use of Adonai or Elohim might mean. The story of the binding of Isaac (the Akedah) which is a couple of chapters on from the part of Vayera that Saphira read gives a clue. God, Elohim, tests Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac on a hill that he will be taken to (Genesis 22:1). The Eternal, Adonai, stops Abraham from carrying it out and assures Abraham that the sacrifice of his children will never be required, rather Adonai is with him to guarantee Abraham and Sarah a future (Genesis 22:11). It is the same in the passage that we heard from Genesis chapter 18 – it is the Eternal, Adonai, who promises Abraham and Sarah that they will have a child after years of infertility together.
From this and many other passages our Rabbis built a picture of God existing not as a point, a single place, as an idol might, but rather as a spectrum. The spectrum begins with Elohim, God of justice, of Din or law. Indeed the word elohim is used in the Torah for a human judge. The spectrum then extends along to, Adonai, the Eternal One of mercy, of rachmanut or compassion. It is Adonai Roi – the Eternal God who is our shepherd in Psalm 23. All of the chatimot in our service, where we appeal to God at the end of each of our prayers for what our world needs begin Baruch Atah Adonai, we praise you Eternal God, such as Baruch Atah Adonai Magen Avraham u’Pokeid Sarah, we praise you God shield of Abraham and protector of Sarah.
When we say a blessing though for something we are about to enjoy or for a Mitzvah we are about to perform we refer to God in both ways – as the compassionate Adonai who enabled us to be here now and the organizing Elohim who aims for there to be balance in the world, enough food, enough learning, enough beauty. Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheynu Melech HaOlam.
This sense of a healthy spectrum is central to Judaism. If there is too much justice we cannot thrive and be free, if there is only compassion then there is no security or organisation. I love that Reform Judaism sits right in the middle of this spectrum, respecting Jewish law for the sake of our peoplehood but always applying it with compassion for the sake of the individual.
Little wonder that our picture of God, and it is only a picture, requires us to address both. When we say that God is one, Adonai Echad, we say that the Eternal is God, Adonai Eloheynu – both ends of the spectrum are one God to relate to. Yes we live among many other religions here in Golders Green and we celebrate our harmony, our oneness together but we also celebrate and learn our differences and God can cope with both and still care about us all.