Sermon: Shabbat Shofetim – the Bottom Billion
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 25 August 2017
Before Nicola and I headed home from our holiday in Scotland last week we did something I have wanted to do ever since it opened. We went on the tour of the retired Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh’s Leith dockyards. It was a delightful couple of hours walking among the restrained elegance of a British monarch’s 400 foot yacht. Queen Elizabeth does not seem to have done what the Torah portion Shofetim warns us about Kings and Queens, obtaining excessive numbers of horses, or excessive numbers of husbands, one has been enough, or excessive and showy wealth. Much about the way that Britannia was designed by Sir Hugh Casson, was deliberately meant to emulate a modest country house.
I have met the queen only once in my life and as one of her nearly 24,000 days as monarch I cannot imagine that it was an occasion that she recalls particularly – and I didn’t do it very well. I was at a multi faith event a few years ago for the International Interfaith Investment Group, the Faith Consistent Investment foundation for which I volunteer. The event was a celebration of ideas of responsibility for creation in Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hindu, Islam, Shinto and Buddhism etc. At the end of the event a number of us who had been involved were stood in small circles to meet the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.
We stood and waited patiently – nuns, Catholic priests, me a Progressive Rabbi and an Israeli Orthodox Rabbi, Sikh educators and more. In walked the Queen to our little circle and my big chance came to say something meaningful – but I can’t even remember what I said or what she said. I just remember the experience.
Not so the Orthodox Rabbi a few on from me in the circle. Rabbi Daniel Sperber was ready with what he wanted to say to the Queen. He asked her if she might be able to say a blessing that he has never in his life been able to say before – her Majesty agreed and he began Baruch Atah Adonai Eloyheynu Melech Ha’olam she’natan michvodo l’basar v’dam – we praise you God, sovereign of the universe who has given a measure of your glory to people of flesh and blood – the official blessing listed in the Talmud (Berachot 58a) upon seeing a King or Queen. One up for the Orthodox Rabbi that’s for sure! Her Majesty’s response? “Very nice, thank you.”
As we hear the Torah portion Shofetim, Judaism has an uncertain relationship with the whole idea of flesh and blood monarchy. For a Jew, God is the king. As Isaiah said in our Haftarah portion (51:12) even the most oppressive King will die, whilst God is Eternal.
In the Torah portion Shofetim the Children of Israel were warned that the worst of monarchs will take away their liberty, property and labour and give them little in return. This message is then repeated by the Prophet Samuel, when the people ask him to appoint a King over them “like all the other nations around us” (1 Samuel 8). It was all very well having God as King but when it came to military strategy it didn’t seem as sure a bet as a flesh and blood King despite all of the risks which Samuel warned them of. King Saul, who was the first appointed ended up as a disaster of instability, and King Solomon – one of the best of Kings did indeed create forced labour for his projects, appropriation of land and liberty – just as they had been warned.
Still the blessing in Berachot and indeed the person of Queen Elizabeth II shows that a good monarch can indeed help, as all of us can, to do God’s work on earth.
What Judaism really admires is a scholar. Consider the Jewish folklore of Fiddler on the Roof – after all when the Rabbi in that play in film is asked what the blessing should be for the Tzar he does not use the blessing from the Talmud but rather “God bless the Tzar and keep him far away from us.” But think of Tevye’s dream of what it would mean to be a rich man – to spend seven hours every day studying the holy books “that would be the sweetest thing of all”. There is a blessing in Talmud Berachot too on seeing a scholar of great distinction Baruch Atah Adonai eloyenu melech ha’olam, she halak mechochmato liyreav – we praise you God for your impart of your wisdom to those who revere you (Ber 58a).
Since the destruction of the Temple and the Hasmonean dynasty, the royalty of Judaism have really been the scholars – their names passing down through their works – Rabbi Judah Ha Nasi, the editor of the Mishnah, Rav and Shmuel and the hundreds of other well known Rabbis who compiled the Talmud, the Geonim, Hai, Amram, Sherira who were the Jewish legal authorities of Babylonian Jewry and whose responsa to questions held sway throughout the Jewish world. The great interpreters, Rashi and Abraham Ibn Ezra and the philosophers, Maimonides, Nachmanides and Saadiah Gaon. We are all their spiritual descendants – their names travel through the ages.
This Shabbat though we can bring one of those great scholars to life. Rabbi Joseph Caro. His great achievement was to authoritatively codify the whole of Jewish law and life code building on hundreds of years of achievement before him. He did so in the mid sixteenth in the northern Israel town of Sefat. He did so so comprehensively that only short glosses by Moses Isserles in Cracow were needed to ensure that his Shulchan Aruch (literally meaning the set table) could be applied to Ashkenazi Jews just as effectively as it already had to Sephardim.
Today I would like to pick up one particular codification from the Shulchan Aruch because it applies very directly to our portion. It is in the middle of the laws of Tzedakeh – the Jewish mission to create social justice. Joseph Caro in the Shulchan Aruch rules that “A person should not contribute to a tzedakah fund unless he knows that its management is reliable and knows how to conduct the fund properly.”
Makes sense on the first reading – but note that what it is not telling us to refuse to contribute to tzedaka – it is telling that when we contribute – which is our Jewish duty, a Mitzvah – it is our responsibility to ensure that the fund is conducted properly.
Joseph Caro’s codification is very much reflected in the writings of Professor Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University in his influential book – the Bottom Billion. This book is an analysis of why on earth one billion of the world’s poorest people should be no better off now than they were forty years ago despite the fact that for the rest of us things have improved hugely, still as hungry, still as destitute.
Aid flows from rich to poor countries have been over $50bn dollars since 1978, last year close to $150bn – that should have got something started cumulatively over forty years. (Source: http://www.oecd.org/dac/development-aid-rises-again-in-2016-but-flows-to-poorest-countries-dip.htm) Last year for example £25 billion pounds worth of oil was exported from Angola, one of the countries whose citizens are among the bottom billion. With rising commodity prices the bottom billion countries which are rich in mineral resources should be doing great. So why are the bottom billion still where they were fifty years ago?
Paul Collier tells us that the reason why is that we in the richer countries have not been in his words “serious about development”. He points out that the last time that they were and succeeded to the most incredible extent was in the late 1940’s when the USA became serious about development in Europe and East Asia, including, of course, the countries which had been Axis powers. The Marshall plan, as it was called was so successful that Japan, South Korea and Western Europe are now on an equal par with the USA economically. Paul Collier says that the principles which made this so effective were straightforward: 1) A basis of simple biblical compassion for the poor and needy 2) Tearing down barriers to trade (just as we encourage in a small way in our Synagogues with our use of Fair Trade produce) – with at that time the foundation of GATT 3) The USA not being Isolationist – having the global perspective that the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam requires and 4) Reversing a previous policy of putting national sovereignty above mutual government support (hence the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD, organisation for Economic Co-operation and development)
In the end making development – the highest level of Tzedakah, work requires good governance which makes it less likely and much more difficult for just a few people to benefit hugely from the compassion and trade from others – which is basically what is happing in the countries of the Bottom Billion. The money is there says Professor Paul Collier – but it is getting only into the hands of a rich elite.
It is just what the Torah says about the King – that without him reading in the Torah day and night under the tuition of the Levites – meaning learning to govern well and fairly – he will simply abrogate all of the wealth of the country to himself. It is just what Joseph Caro wrote – that giving Tzedekah makes us responsible for knowing that it is being applied and governed properly – whether that tzedakah be charitable aid or investment in trade for the for poorest.
Paul Collier’s answer is straightforward – we in the rich countries need to campaign for good governance in the poorest countries, as well as being compassionate. We need to be demanding international rules for the trade of oil and commodities for example which make corruption much more difficult to gain from. We need to be supportive of things that may seem terribly dull – rules, checks and balances which are applied internationally so that a deal with a minister in a bottom billion country for a licence to extract zinc or bauxite benefits the whole population around the mine – not just the minister and his family.
Collier says that in the end Western citizens have become easy to fool by aid gestures to developing countries – we need to do as the Shulchan Aruch says and contribute to a tzedakah fund when we know that its management is reliable and that the fund is conducted properly. We need, as the Torah tells us to be suspicious of ruling powers and demand of them good and decent standards of doing business.
In last week’s Parasha there are the shameful words “there will never cease to be the poor and needy in your land” Deut 15:11 – Now at a time when for the top billion we are in a time of unparalleled prosperity – it is not shameful that the bottom billion have hardly moved in the past 50 years?