Sermon: Shabbat Mishpatim (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 21 March 2015

Earlier this week I was interviewed by a final year undergradute student at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is currently writing his dissertation on the development of the Israelite religion in the Biblical era, specifically focusing on the historical formative process of the concept of monotheism.  He wanted to discuss the theological concepts regarding monotheism, and the importance of the belief in one God to contemporary Judaism, as well as its importance during the formative years.  During our conversation I mentioned that this week’s sidrah ofMishpatim is chock-full of Mitzvot and so we considered the mitzvot from the perspective of whether they are observed because they were commanded by God or whether we would observe them even without a God.  This led to a need to differentiate between mitzvot.

There is a fallacy that Torah is all about ritual and law, but in fact morality and ethics plays a very large part in it.  The big questions arise when these two aspects appear to be in conflict with each other.  For most of the past two thousand years it wasn’t really a problem.  As Professor David Biale, of the University of California, explained in his 1986 seminal work Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, the Jewish people could be as ethical and moral as could be, because they didn’t have any power to put into operation their views and policies.  However, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 changed everything.  The theoretical had to become reality and in the process ethics and morality suffered.  For many years there was an unspoken acceptance that a country at war with its neighbours couldn’t be expected to show the same commitment to the so-called ‘enemy within’, that is, its Arab population.  And so despite its own Declaration of Independence that refers to the equality of all its citizens, and despite its ancient moral code that teaches the rights of the stranger, Israeli Arabs were regarded as second-class and they were consistently denied an equal share of services and provisions.  This despite the fact that no less that 36 times in Torah – far more than any ritual or legal Mitzvah, we are commanded to remember the stranger, the Ger.

Indeed, two such examples are included in this sidrah Mishpatim.  Rabbi Hertz, in his commentary, defines ger as a resident alien and adds, ‘He was not required to adopt the Jewish Faith, as little as the Israelites, with whose position he is compared, were worshippers of Isis or Apis in Egypt.’  The German Jewish philosopher, Hermann Cohen, expounded on this verse.  ‘This law of shielding the alien from all wrong is of vital significance in the history of religion.  With it alone true Religion begins.  The alien was to be protected, not because he was a member of one’s family, clan, religious community, or people; but because he was a human being.  In the alien, therefore, man discovered the idea of humanity.’

With a pedigree like that, it is strange that the orthodox Rabbis in Israel have not been berating their secular partners in Government about this continued debasing of a Torah mitzvah.  Rather it has been the secularists and progressive Jews who have for many years – and especially in the recent past – been responsible for highlighting this – not necessarily from a Torah perspective, but as a failure of normal human rights.  Indeed, ultra-orthodoxy seems to have gone out of its way to attempt to utilise Torah law, Halachah, to justify poor treatment of Israel’s Arab minority.  In a statement  a few months ago, signed by about 150 Rabbis, the sale or rental of residences to non-Jews – meaning Arabs – was forbidden.  Of course, other halachists have declared the statement to be ‘legally flawed, morally reckless, and a desecration of God’s name.’ But that some can make such a statement is a measure of how ethics is so undervalued in that community.  Would that be the same if the ability to do otherwise, like in past centuries, was not there?  In other words it’s easy to be ethical if you have no power, but once the power is there …

You’re all probably familiar with the proverb ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’  It was written in the nineteenth century by Lord Acton, who actually wrote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”  In fact its origins are a century earlier.  In a speech to the House of Lords in 1770, William Pitt the Elder said “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”  While we may have some problems with the strength of the terminology, the reality is that there is a great deal of truth in the sentiment.  The Israeli Government, like all other democracies, has the responsibility to strike a balance between the ideal in ethical terms and what is possible in real terms. From outside government we can only insist that the ideal not be lost in the realpolitikthat exists.  We have to ensure that a government that speaks not just for the State of Israel but on behalf of Jews worldwide in its dealings in human rights issues has Torah morality as its foundation.  But we also have to remember that as Reform Jews we subscribe to the view that halachah has a vote, but not a veto.  We cannot use that as amotif only when it applies to ritual.

I’m grateful to my friend and colleague, Rabbi David Meyer, who some of you will remember from his time at Alyth, for the following story and lesson.  I apologise if I don’t get it quite accurate, but he sent it to me in French.  It comes from a book ‘A Land of Two People’, by Martin Buber and this is a passage from a speech he delivered in either 1927 or ‘29.  “One recalls Max Nordau, one of the leaders of the Zionist movement, that one day he heard in some detail about the existence of the Arabs in Palestine.  Horrified he went to find Theodore Herzl and said to him, ‘But I didn’t know that they were there.  In these circumstances we are causing them harm.’  Incidentally, the French word used, tort, can mean harm, injury or injustice.  Buber then continues.  ‘I believe it is possible to say the same.  It is certain that we are causing harm.  Exactly as a person who lives causes harm.  To live; that is to cause harm.  To breathe, to feed oneself, to grow.  All these vital organic functions imply that one causes harm.  And so all the senses of human life, in every place and at all times have a responsibility.  I don’t want to cause any more harm than is necessary in order to live.  But that is much more difficult than wanting to be innocent.  It is much more difficult than refraining from causing harm.’

Buber reminds us that ideals are not always attainable.  That they have to be mixed with reality.  But more importantly, he reminds us that that is the Jewish way. Christianity has very high moral ideals at the spiritual level but very often fails to come to terms with the practical inability to achieve them.  Judaism accepts ab initio that ethics has to be tempered with what is feasible.  That, as Buber tells us, is far more difficult.  When we criticise the Israeli Government for their alleged lack of morality regarding the Arab minority population of the Land, we have to be aware that there is a grey area in the middle of the black and white at either end of the spectrum.  The debate is about the actual shade of grey that is appropriate.  We can have a difference of opinion on that but we cannot, especially from a distance, insist that they are wrong. And so we are left with the need to put forward our point of view, to remind those making the decisions to not forget the ethical mitzvot, and to continue to pray for a peaceful conclusion to the Middle East conflict, so that there are no reasons to treat any citizens of the State differently.   May that time come speedily.