MANNA 85 Editorial: A Beacon To Guide Us
Written by Rabbi Tony Bayfield Tuesday, 19 April 2005
Some forty years ago academic lawyers were stirred by a debate as to whether international law is actually law or not. International law was considered so woolly and so unenforceable that it did not fall within the ‘proper’ definition of the word law.
The issue was settled by an argument from outside the legal world. Words, it was pointed out, are only labels. We have grown beyond the old idea that words are part of the essence of the thing – rub the magic lamp, name the genie and he would be forced to appear.
Words are just labels. Labels are used in different ways, though the various usages will tend to cluster round a particular point. So, is international law, law? Yes. It is a label that lots of people use for a particular phenomenon with some resemblance to other kinds of law.
International lawyers breathed a sigh of relief.
Today we are playing out the same argument with much higher stakes in the sphere of religion. A Christian is someone who behaves in a Christian manner. We define Christianity as a religion of love and peace. So anyone behaving, even in the name of Christianity, in an unloving and un-peaceful manner is not a Christian.
Those brave two Muslims who flew to Iraq in a significantly religious act to negotiate the release of British hostage Kenneth Bigley fell into the same trap.
They did not go so far as to claim that the hostage takers were not Muslims. But they labelled their behaviour un-Islamic because they said that Islam is only about peace and humane behaviour.
And that will not do.
First of all, because if a group of people grow up as Christians or Muslims, label themselves as Christians or Muslims and other people label them as Christians or Muslims – it is not intellectually honest to move the goal posts by restricting or removing the label.
Second, over the last thousand years or more, all sorts of magnificent and wonderful things, big and small, have been done in the name of Christianity and Islam. So, too, have terrible deeds. The Crusades are one example. Violent conquest is another. To declare the good things Christian or Islamic and the bad things un-Christian or un-Islamic is another convenient rearranging of the goal posts.
If it were only an issue of amour propre, it would not greatly matter. But it is not just an issue of how much truth we can take about our faiths and ourselves. It is a crucial issue of responsibility. Christian responsibility for Christians and Christianity. Muslim responsibility for Muslims and Islam.
So far and for good reason, we have not mentioned Jews and Judaism. This is one of those areas in which Judaism has something worthwhile to teach.
A startling statement is embedded in an ancient Jewish legal commentary called Sifrei. The text says: “Col Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh”. “Every Jew is a surety for every other Jew”. It expresses a sense of responsibility which has become deeply embedded in Judaism and the Jewish psyche.
We switch on the news and hear that Israeli tanks have gone into
Gaza following a rocket attack on Israeli settlements. And we accept instinctively that those are ‘Jewish tanks’.
Some of us groan and are appalled. Some of us punch the air in support. Many of us do not know what to think. But we do at least know that we are involved, that this is our concern. For every Jew is a surety for every other Jew.
There is a clear message ‘out there’ to all the faiths, a message which comes from Government and society at large. The world can only exist if the faiths understand that they have to live in relation to each other. They have to take responsibility for what we might delicately describe as the full range of their own faith’s cultural expression. They have to be self-critical. They have to recognise that there are elements – scriptural, historical and theological – which can be taken in hideous as well as blissful directions.
We all have to take responsibility for the totality of our adherents, followers, people – the saints and the crazies. And for the totality of our scriptures and doctrines. It may be comforting to write both the sins and the sinners out of our respective faiths. But that is the ultimate betrayal of our responsibilities in the world today.
It was an enormously important gesture for those two British Muslims to go and negotiate with other Muslims and to insist that, in their understanding of their tradition, kidnapping is not permitted. And they did this for the sake of a non-Muslim. There was no need to try to absolve Islam by selective labelling or chronic historical amnesia. All faiths have their flaws exposed time and time again.
A good deed in a naughty world? Certainly. And a humbling example to us Jews and Christians
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