www.reformjudaism.org.uk

Sorry, But I’m Not Just A Liberal Universalist

Written by Movement for Reform Judaism Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Rabbi Bayfield's sermon for First Day Rosh Hashanah 5770, Saturday 19th September 2009 at Finchley Reform Synagogue.

So here I am again, the proud guest of my daughter.  I’m not sure quite what Miriam is up to at the moment.  I don’t want to put a n’hora on it but for the last three months Miriam has been working very hard at persuading her grandparents, my parents, who are both eighty-five, to immigrate from Ilford to Temple Fortune.  She says that if they do move, they will have both FRS and Alyth to choose from but if they don’t come regularly to FRS she won’t speak to them again.  I was wondering why she is so set on inflicting the decrepit and ultra-decrepit members of her family on FRS.

And then I thought: my relationship with you is not dependent on my daughter.  I’ve been guest preaching here since she was telling the staff at Henrietta Barnet that she had a loud voice because she came from a large Jewish family and needed to make herself heard.  I’m here in my own right.  I used to tell you about my summer holidays.

I still remember the biggest put down I’ve ever received from anyone – except one of my children.  A member of FRS phoned me and said: “I so enjoyed your sermon, Rabbi Bayfield. May I ask you a question about it?” “Yes, of course,” I said smugly. “Who was your travel agent?”

Well, the travel agent left a bit to be desired this year, but the holiday was fantastic. Lucy (Miriam’s elder sister), Matthew (my other son-in-law), Francesca, Oliver and I went off to Israel. I’ve been to Israel perhaps twenty-five times, maybe more, in the last thirty years but it’s the best part of thirty years since I’ve been as a tourist. It was a total joy.  Can you imagine the privilege of introducing your grandchildren (eight and a half and five and a half) to Israel?

We started off in Tsfat. I entertained SDRS last night with tales of Matthew’s somewhat negative reaction to a once lovely town now reminiscent of late-eighteenth century Poland with sunshine.

We moved on to Ramot on the Jordanian side of Kinneret and went to a Bat Mitzvah that was held in the ruins of a 4th century synagogue at Korazim in the hills overlooking the sea, one of three ancient communities cursed by Jesus, according to the Gospel of St Matthew, for not being receptive to his teachings.

Then we drove down Road 90, past Deganya Aleph – the very first kibbutz – through Samaria, parallel with the river Jordan. The hills of Samaria gave way to the hills of Judea. The mountains of Moab appeared on our left, mei-ever haYarden on the other side of the Jordan. On our right, signs to Nablus (the biblical Shechem), and then Jericho, ir ha’temarim, the city of date palms.  We went on to the Dead Sea, and stayed loyally at the Isrotel, owned by a member of West London Synagogue (I didn’t ask for a discount, I’m not a schnorrer).  We spent a simply fantastic morning at Ein Gedi. Just up the road the following day my football fanatic grandson was much taken with Masada. We decided that the result of the match between the Romans and the Jews had been a goalless draw, which had been no good to either side.

Then on to Jerusalem, where Francesca was horrified by the treatment of women at the Wall but we were all much taken with the new Mamilla shopping mall – which quite restored the faith of my son-in-law, the property developer, after the shock of the Haredim in Tsfat.

On the way from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem we stopped off near a settlement called Alon. An enterprising Jewish family were offering a ninety minute ‘Genesis Land’ experience. Greeted by Abraham’s servant Eliezer, we rode camel’s to Abraham’s tent, enjoyed the patriarch’s hospitality – on which the mitzvah of hakhnasat orchim is based – and made pitta bread. At one point we looked out from in front of the tent over the Judean hills to the Dead Sea and beyond to the hills of Moab. Abraham pointed out the peak identified with the biblical Mount Nebo from which Moses glimpsed the Promised Land before he died.

For a moment I was taken back to my first experience of Israel forty years ago on my honeymoon. Once again those goose-bump feelings. The stories, our stories, had come alive. For a moment I could empathise with those who don’t want to surrender the hills of Judah and Samaria because of a deep sense of them being ours, the very fabric of our history.

Lest you think this is becoming a very un-Finchley sermon, don’t worry. It was only for a moment that I sympathised with the Settlers. I know very well – even if they refuse to accept it – that the highest value in Judaism is to do those things mipnei darkhei shalom that lead to peace.

The last thing that I did – work-wise – before I went off on holiday, was to drop into my secretary the much revised chapter of a book that I’m also co-editing. The book is the culmination of the work of a Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue group that I’ve co-convened for more than a decade. The book is about how Judaism, Christianity and Islam need to change and how Government and British society need to change if the mainstream, the moderates, the progressives of all three faiths are to recover their position as influential members of society, a position we have abdicated to the fundamentalists and extremists in all three faiths over the last two decades. The book is being written in a unique way. Section One consists of three chapters – by a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim. All the contributors to the book have engaged in dialogue with the three authors over what they’ve had to say and their chapters have been through several revisions as a result. The second section of the book flows out of the first and has been through the same process. My chapter is part of Section Three and is currently in its fourth draft.

Draft four acknowledges for the first time the following: everyone in the group seems pretty positive about Tony the liberal universalist. Whether it be my inclusive, non-absolutist theology or my positive understanding of the role of faith communities in British society, I’m OK. But Tony the Zionist, the particularist – that’s much harder to swallow.

I’ve known Alan, my Christian co-editor for twenty-five years. I’d trust him with my life. There isn’t an anti-Semitic bone in his body.  But for some years he’s been giving me a really hard time about Israel’s relationship with America and the strong Jewish contribution to the Neocon ideology which so influenced the Bush administration. We got as far as me accepting that an awful lot of the Neocon theorists are Jews; and him acknowledging the fact that since more than 80% of world Jewry live in either Israel or America, the alliance between the two countries is hardly surprising – and militarily essential. But he continued to confront me with the fact that it’s also a millstone round our neck as far as the Arab world is concerned.

After the third draft Alan emailed me. Isn’t your commitment to Israel political rather than theological? I sent him an essay I wrote eighteen months ago for an obscure German Journal of Church History indicating that I saw the foundation of Israel as representing a paradigm shift not only for Judaism but for Christianity and Islam as well.

After a while, he emailed me back and said that surely Zionism was political in its origins. I acknowledged 19th century nationalism and European persecution but also referred him to Jewish liturgy – the Amidah, the 14th blessing, 3 times daily, boneh Yerushalayim.

Ataullah, my Muslim co-editor was brought up in the Himalayas where he was accustomed to being part of a small minority. He now lives and works just outside Leicester where he is still part of a minority. Ataullah finds my commitment to Israel profoundly puzzling. He emailed me saying explicitly that he prefers being a minority Muslim citizen of Europe and why don’t I? He doesn’t enjoy looking at the Islamic dictatorships or the doctrine of the Caliphate which promotes a worldwide Islamic Empire.

Suddenly it clicked. I realised that they both think that religion and land is a phase that they would rather put behind them. That it is religious immaturity or religion infected by irreligious notions of imperialism. That I as a liberal and a progressive should agree with them. My insistence that Judaism still has a geography as well as a history rests on a theology that they have rejected and they find it completely out of character in their friend Tony.

For a few minutes I wobbled. Typical of me. I blame it on all that liberal, open-minded Cambridge education I received last century. Yes, I can see that it would be so much better if religions functioned as spiritual and cultural groups working together all over the world for the glory of God and the building of just societies. Maybe we should abandon the pursuit of power, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and concentrate on the advancement of ethical monotheism.

But then the memory of one of those experiences that are the real privilege of my job popped into my head.

A few months ago I got an invitation to go to a dinner party from the Dean of Westminster Abbey. I wasn’t overwhelmed at the prospect and I wasn’t any more enthusiastic when I discovered that the Dean regularly holds dinner parties for eclectic groups of individuals and couples. But I went along and quickly discovered that there were a dozen of us and we were dining in a room in Dean’s yard – “Turn left by the Canaletto and through that door”, he said in greeting.

One of the guests was Robert Hardy. Some of you will know him as Siegfried Farnon from All Creatures Great and Small but I remember him as one of the greatest Shakespearian actors of my youth and the most memorable Henry V I’ve ever seen. Dinner was pleasant. The Dean reminded us that he was not answerable to the Archbishop but only to the Queen because Westminster Abbey is a royal peculiar and proceeded to talk about his plans for developing Westminster Abbey including giving it a dome. But then we went on a tour.

First we went to the Jerusalem chamber. Here Henry IV was taken ill and was laid dying in front of that very fireplace. Henry V, thinking he was dead removed his crown and the dying man revived sufficiently to say …  “I can’t remember the precise words” said the Dean.  Robert Hardy repeated Shakespeare’s version of them.

Then on to a private tour of the Abbey – the tombs of almost every English King and Queen, the poets, the unknown soldier, the coronation throne. Here in this great church a thousand years of British history is told. And outside, the Houses of Parliament and the new Supreme Court – the Church, the Government and the Judiciary.  Who says this isn’t a Christian country?  Who says that Christians in Britain are just another minority in a secular, democratic state?

Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and, yes, even Israel.  These conflicts are part of a major confrontation between the Christian ‘west’ or, let me say grudgingly, post-Christian ‘west’ and a Muslim world which has been humiliated, exploited and ravaged by the Christian ‘west’ over the last 300 years, ever since the failure of their siege of Vienna in 1683.

It may be extremely inconvenient that Jews have got caught up in that struggle by reoccupying a piece of land with the help of one side that the other side regards as its land. It is undoubtedly true that in that conflict Palestinians, Christian as well as Muslim, have suffered terribly and must be fully compensated. It is without question that the Christian and Muslim worlds have been deeply influenced by Greco-Roman models of imperialism, conquest and abuse of power. But none of that in any way negates the right of Jews to have one country where the collective culture and rhythm of life reflects Judaism and Jewish history. Like Ataullah, by virtue of my personal history I’m completely content living my life as a minority citizen of Europe. I know the risks both political and genealogical.  I see no reason to deny who I am or what makes me and my family fulfilled and happy. But there isn’t just one model for the relationship between faith groups and the secular state. Nor is it plausible or desirable that secular states should deny their cultural heritage, the cultural heritage of the majority of their population, Christianity in Britain, Islam in Saudi Arabia and Judaism in Israel.

So, my friends Alan and Ataullah, you really are good friends and I value enormously the liberal universalism that we share. But our particularism is also part of who we are.  Westminster Abbey and the Kaaba are not unfortunate realities but integral parts of the cultural fabric of Britain and Saudi Arabia, of the Christian west and the Muslim middle east – and of the world.  As is Israel.

Miriam is doing a fine job in rooting her family ever more securely in North West London.  We’re here by choice and content with that choice.  But I still hope and pray that one day we can stand again in the Judean hills, looking wistfully across to the hills of Moab and Mount Nebo, in a Palestinian state at peace with its neighbour.  And I hope one day we’ll go back to Jerusalem and find that the city of peace, the city of Jerusalem is universally accepted as embodying not just the history but the future of the oldest of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism.