Sermon: Vayeira: Service and Citizenship

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 22 November 2014

Alyth’s Synagogue Council is made up of people who care deeply about what this Shuldoes and the values within which it does it.  They want to make Alyth effective at building Judaism in the lives of our members. They want to ensure that it thrives from generation to generation.  They want to build on the achievements of this Synagogue over the past eighty one years.  So on Tuesday evening we spent three hours speaking about the shul security rotas and the Synagogue accounts.

 

Now this may seem somewhat at odds with the high ideals which bring people to serve on our Council but it isn’t.  Security in this Synagogue is about the whole community volunteering to look after each other, to put some time every year into keeping this a safe and welcoming environment. And as it says in Pirke Avot 3:21 “Ein Kemach Ein Torah” – where there is nothing to live on you don’t get to pass on Torah and teach its wisdom to yourself or your future generations so the accounts and Shul budget matter deeply too.

 

So on Tuesday night, after three hours of discussing and arguing points for the sake of heaven on these two less than scintillating but nevertheless essential topics, at around quarter to eleven at night, as Alan the caretaker meaningfully paced outside the Council meeting indicating that it really was time to go home, we had around 90 seconds left to make what I think was the most significantly Jewish decision of that Council meeting, one that it deeply based in this Torah portion Vayera, the decision that is most likely to make a significant difference to how well this Synagogue fulfils its mission.    Alyth’s council voted to join the organisation London Citizens.

 

What does that mean?  This Shul is justly proud of the work that we do in Social Action – a very broad term derived for us from the Hebrew Gemilut Hasadim.   Every Monday night for the past forty years we run a club for people with learning disabilities providing a delightful night out and fellowship for people who struggle with the most basic choices in life.  Every few weeks our Shalom Supper, which took place last night, brings up to sixty people living with learning disabilities and mental illness challenges living in the local area together with many other members of our community together for a beautiful hamishce Shabbat dinner with music and fellowship.  Every month Alyth opens its doors to a large number of recent refugees to this country for an afternoon of hospitality, company, help with the challenges of dealing with British bureaucracy and the chance to be together in a truly welcoming atmosphere, just as many of our ancestors enjoyed in the 1930’s and 1940’s here in this synagogue when we were the refugees.  Every winter we join with our local parish church to host a night shelter which gives a warm place to sleep, good food and company for homeless people out of the rigours of the British winter.   Next Sunday our participation in Britain’s Mitzvah day will resource all of these efforts with new opportunities to volunteer and help to prepare for the hospitality Alyth offers and to collect the clothing and food that we can offer to clothe those who do not have enough warm clothing or supplies to eat from.   All of these projects are necessary, valuable and greatly welcomed in the lives of those we serve.

 

All of them are dedicated to ameliorating the difficulties that our fellow citizens live with.  What they are not able to do is make a difference to the root causes of those difficulties.  And that is where London Citizens and our membership of the organisation will give us the capacity to make change.   London Citizens says this about themselves:  London Citizens is the capital’s largest and most diverse alliance of active citizens and leaders from local institutions who are committed to working together for the common good.  It is a growing organisation. Currently, over 230 local institutions in London are paying members.

 

Community organising, the basis of London Citizens’ work, starts with the recognition that real change can only come when community-rooted organisations pool resources and learn the arts of public action – building enough power to oblige the State and the Market to consider and respond to the real needs of all kinds of people whilst also leading the way ourselves on the issues and good practices which are the responsibility of Civil Society.

 

What that will mean for Alyth is that we will work together with London’s Synagogues, Churches, Mosques, Mandirs and Gudwaras to identify challenges that we know make full and meangingful lives difficult or even impossible for people in our own community and well, well beyond and to work together to advocate for change and help bring it about.  We won’t be forced in any way to take on an issue, rather we will be able to train ourselves and form effective alliances with those who share our values and our concerns so that together we can make our society work better and get to the root causes which mean that the social action projects our Synagogue already supports are needed.

 

In this area our friends at Finchley Reform and Progressive Synagogues and Finchley United Synagogue, Kinloss are already part of London Citizens and we are likely to work with them.  Recently they have been using the muscle of London Citizens to campaign for the London living wage of £9.15 per hour to be paid to the lowest paid workers in the area so that those in work can support themselves from that work.  They banded together to help the Somali Bravanese Community to re-establish their congregation when their East Finchley Mosque was destroyed in an arson attack and also to address the problems of very low educational attainment among their children.

 

We don’t yet know what will move us as a community as part of London Citizens and it will be up to us as a community to decide and then act based on the issues that really matter to us, finding partners who feel as we do.  But I am greatly looking forward to the effective Jewish action that will result.

 

London Citizens was buried deep in a lengthy Council meeting.  So too is the Jewish motivation behind why we should be part of it buried deeply in this lengthy Torah portion of Vayera, which tells the story of Abraham – our first Jewish ancestor.   In this portion Abraham is confronted with the corruption and abusive behaviour of the cities of Sodom and Gommorah.  When God tells him that these cities will be destroyed in the original fire and brimstone attack of the Bible, Abraham says no to God.  Abraham is the first biblical character ever to say no to God.  Abraham say that surely “the true judge must be just himself” and spare the cities if there is just one decent person within them.  In this portion Abraham’s son Ishmael and concubine Hagar are thrown out of the camp through the anger of his wife Sarah and to protect his son Isaac.  Abraham again says no to God – this is not right, this is not fair.   In this portion Abraham takes the instruction to sacrifice Isaac literally and takes him up to a high place to give him up to God.  Again no – it does not happen.

 

Why does Abraham say no – why does he know that these things are not right?  Why does he protest against them and establish for Jews forever the responsibility to protest and to make change in society?  Rabbi Mike Feuer looks deep into the portion and find the answer buried in, so to speak, the small print.  There is an incident in the middle of the portion where a local chieftain Avimelech claims Sarah, Abraham’s wife as his own.  Abraham gets her released back into his family and God says to Avimelech that he must do this.  The reason God gives to Avimelch is the first appearance of two words in our Torah which are foundational to Judaism.  God says that Abraham is a Navi – a prophet, the first time this word is used in the Torah.  God also says that Abraham prays to him – the word used here is V’yitpalel (Genesis 20:7) – also the first time that this word is used in the Torah.

 

What is the meaning of these foundational words?  They do not mean, as perhaps we might imagine, that Abraham lives a contemplative life, a prophet because of some deep inscrutable spirituality. They do not mean that Abraham prays quietly to his God in inner meditation.  What they mean is that Abraham is a man who says no to injustice and works to make things right.

 

Prophecy and prayer in Judaism after the example of Abraham, the first Jewish prophet and prayer, are activism.  They are the means by which we try, even against what we fear may be God’s intentions, to make life better for ourselves, when on an unjust trajectory, for our families, when things go badly wrong, and for others when see them under threat.

 

Rashi, the tenth century Jewish scholar par excellence, asks how Abraham makes true the promise at the end of the last Torah portion that he and the Jews will be a blessing to all of the peoples of the earth.  He answers that this is true and real when we bring up righteous children.  In this way our values never die and always help the world, whether Jew or not.

 

May Alyth’s work with London Citizens, join the service that we do to our local community to make sure that we are truly the Children of Abraham, trying to right injustices, working at the level of root causes of the problems that we can se all around us, teach our children through our own example to carry on the struggles that need to happen to make our city better, and join with the other good people of all faiths and none who share our values.