Scapegoats and the Erev Rav

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 13 March 2023

Tomorrow we read from the Torah about the incident of the Golden Calf – the idol that the Israelites build in the wilderness as they are waiting for Moses to descend down from the mountain, where he is in deep conversation with God.

The incident of the Golden Calf becomes the ultimate sin that the Israelites commit during their time in the desert, and because it has such an iconic status in the biblical narrative, the incident of the Golden Calf is the focus of many midrashim – many attempts by the rabbis to make sense of what happened. One such midrash seems to want to push the responsibility for the conception and construction of the idol away from the Israelites themselves, and on to the Erev Rav that accompanied them out of Egyptian slavery.

The Erev Rav was the ‘mixed multitude’ that accompanied the Israelites as they left Egypt. There is much discussion about who this mixed multitude was: converts, mercenaries, lepers and diseased people, members of mixed marriages with the Israelites, or simply other oppressed peoples taking the opportunity to escape Egypt when they could.

The modern translator and commentator of the Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter, suggests that ‘mixed multitude’, which is a translation first introduced by the King James Bible, is not the best, and suggests that we translate it instead as ‘motley throng’. Similarly, the Aramaic translation of the 8^th century uses a word similar to ‘riffraff’ – which we might think is rather Basil Fawlty-esque.

Either way, the midrash attempts to put all the blame for the Golden Calf on this group of people – those who are not Israelites. They are made the scapegoats for something for which all their society was responsible.

According to the Encyclopaedia: ‘Scapegoating serves the need of the dominant social group to feel better about themselves. It relieves the group’s responsibility for their own problems. The scapegoated person or group becomes the focus and the reason for the difficult life condition. It was easier for Hitler to blame the problems of German society on the Jews than it would have been for him to truly understand the complex socio-political changes that were happening at the time. Scapegoating also allows people to feel united when they join together to blame someone else. And when action is taken against the scapegoat, the dominant group can feel that they have accomplished something.’

The same happens when public figures speak of ‘swarms’ of refugees and asylum seekers intending to ‘descend’ upon the UK and ‘abuse’ our generosity. The same happens when politicians stand in front of big photos of endless lines of brown-skinned people, apparently queuing to enter. The same happens when political hopefuls stand up and accuse immigrants of being rapists and terrorists. When it is done simply for political gain; to trigger a knee-jerk response of suspicion that may lead to hatred.

The rabbis of the midrash, so often with incisive observations that are right on the money, appear here to be falling into the trap of scapegoating an outsider group in order to avoid the harder truth, which is that the Israelites as a whole were responsible for what happened, and for the consequences of building and worshiping the Golden Calf.

Since its founding nearly ninety years ago, Alyth is a community that became a home for many refugees fleeing persecution – Jews who, like many today, saw the UK as a place in which they could find safety and freedom.

But, as Jews we are no strangers to the way in which British governments have treated refugees seeking a place of safety. Between 1933 and 1948, the prisoner camp in Atlit (on the coast of Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa) was used to detain thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe, seeking safety in Mandatory Palestine.

These refugees did not even come on small boats. They would often get out of their boats a number of miles off the coast, then swim to land. How many managed to slip into Palestine without being caught by the British authorities will never be known. 3,000 refugees died trying to enter Palestine when it was under British rule – a few in skirmishes with the colonial authorities, but most drowning at sea in the attempt to come safely to land.

You’d have thought that the threat of being detained in a prisoner of war camp (ironically, alongside Nazi-sympathising Germans who had established colonies in Palestine) might have caused those who were fleeing to reconsider the wisdom of making the journey. But when you have oppression at your back, and if you are able, you will try anything if there is even a chance that you will find a better life for yourself and your family.

It is a perennial lesson that politicians of all stripes have neglected to learn: that criminalisation will not deter immigration – not when questions of safety are at stake. For why would anyone risk crossing the English Channel, or the Mediterranean Sea, or the Sea of Reeds, if they had any other choice?

I quote from the poem ‘Home’ by Warsan Shire:

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

As we leave Purim behind and start preparing for Pesach – that time of year in which we remind ourselves and each other of when we were the scapegoats, when we were victims of trafficking and enslavement – let us recommit to being a place of safety; a place where not only Jews, but all those in the Erev Rav might find a sense, not of recrimination, but of home.

Shabbat Shalom