It is one of the most memorable quotes in a film brimmed with them.
Having sung
the mournful ‘Anatevka’ the villagers look at each other.
Golde says,
“Eh, it’s just a place.”
Mendel, the
Rabbi’s son adds, “And our forefathers have been forced out of many, many places
at a moment’s notice.”
At which point,
Tevye shrugs his shoulders and says philosophically, “Maybe that’s why we always
wear our hats.”
I have always
felt a deep level of sympathy for Jacob.
It seems to be that whenever he thinks he’s managed to find contentment,
it evades him.
In Parashat
Toldot, he was given no option by his mother but to deceive his father in order
to receive the blessings that had been promised by Gd to both his grandfather Abraham
and his son Isaac. In doing so, he incurred
the murderous wrath of his brother.
He finds true
love in Rachel and is himself deceived by his uncle when poor Leah is substituted
under the veil. Last week, we learned how
his beloved Rachel died in childbirth (our Rabbis tell us that she was only 36). If this was not tragic enough, his daughter was
violated by Shechem and the subsequent massacre of the male population of the town
of Shechem was carried out by two of his sons.
The family, who had spent ten years travelling from Charan, were forced to
flee. Can’t the poor man settle down and
enjoy life? Will he ever be able to lay his
hat down in his tent and call this abode ‘home’? (I’m paraphrasing the popular song).
The first
verse in this week’s Parasha seems to indicate that this is the case.
Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had lived
as a stranger, in the land of Canaan.
Chizkuni,
a 13th Century French Commentator writes that this verse follows the description
of Eisav and his descendants' settlement of Edom and Mount Seir, an area which lies
in Southwestern Jordan between the Dead Sea and Aqaba and includes the ancient city
of Petra. He says that, in the same way that
Eisav had settled the land, although he had initially entered it as an alien to
the area, Jacob was also able to claim Canaan as his birth right. This is contrasted with his father and grandfather's
existence as 'strangers' when they inhabited the country.
For all intents
and purposes, the Torah is telling us that Jacob was finally home and his nomadic
existence had come to an end. He could take
his hat off and place it safely on the biblical version of a hatstand. If we work out the arithmetic, we can see that
he was 108 years old when Joseph was sold into slavery (He died at 147 and lived
his last 17 years in Egypt having been reunited with his son after an absence of
22 years).
Seder Olam Rabba, a 2nd Century CE Jewish chronology, tells us that Jacob and his entourage
finally arrived in Canaan nine years before the events that are about to be described
took place, when Joseph was 17. His life
too had been tumultuous, having left his grandfather Lavan's house two years previously
and then losing his mother Rachel at the young age of 36, six months earlier in
Bethlehem inside the border of the land.
He'd lived in Hebron for less than a decade. He was too young to wear a hat, so he might have
used the 'hatstand' for his expensive new coat!
We know what
happened next and how the family was splintered as a result of the nefarious selling
of Joseph by his brothers (excluding Benjamin) and his transportation to Egypt. This episode is followed by the sad tale of Judah
who, after the sale, was rightfully blamed by his brothers for their actions and
as we are told 'left his brothers' (see Chapter 38). He doesn't reappear as part of the family until
Chapter 43, after they have returned from Egypt having met Joseph for the first
time in over a decade.
If we consider
the impact all of this has had on a very elderly man and his offspring, we have
a pretty sad state of affairs. We began reading
the Parasha with such a sense of hope. Didn't
we say that Jacob was settled in the land? Didn't we emphasise the fact that he had finally
started to see that the promise given to his grandfather and then passed on to his
father, was coming to fruition? By the time
we reach Chapter 43, our history is anything but settled. As for Joseph's coat, the hatstand may still be
in place, but the once beautiful garment now lies tattered. Lord knows where Jacob’s hat can be located.
'England has
been all she could be to the Jews - The Jews will be all they can be to England.'
Thus was writ the banner outside the offices of the Jewish Chronicle at the start
of World War 1. By the end of the war, no
less than 2,425 Jewish servicemen had been killed, along with 6,500 wounded. Another 700 were killed fighting for this country
during the Second World War. Over 3000 Jewish
citizens died protecting the United Kingdom over the span of both wars.
I know that
many of us saw the recent David Baddiel documentary 'Jews Don't Count' on Channel
4. Some of us also read the book. The programme made for depressing viewing, didn’t
it? Baddiel stated that it wasn't aimed at
us but at our non-Jewish fellow citizens.
How many viewers asked the question that occupied my mind, both when reading
the book and watching the programme?
It went along
the lines of:
We were readmitted
to this country over 350 years ago. We fought
to be recognised metaphorically and physically.
To be represented in Parliament. To
be able to attend university, followed by our children. To take up any profession or skill that we could. We strove to be treated as equals in the eyes
of our countrymen and women. Why, after more
than three centuries, have we come to the conclusion, according to Mr Baddiel and
many others that 'we don't count'?
Do you
feel settled?
Do you
feel as important as anyone else?
Did you or
your father or grandfather risk his life to protect the entire nation, irrespective
of their religious background?
In short,
are we settled? Can we truly feel secure
in being able to place our hats and coats onto the hooks or coat stands that greet
us as we open our front doors? Are we able
to send our children to school in Stamford Hill truly safe in the knowledge that
they will come home without being attacked?
Must we really
spend thousands of pounds of money that we don't have, to pay for security guards
and CCTV systems and the exorbitant costs that go hand-in-hand with maintaining
these?
Tonight, we
will start celebrating the festival of Chanukah, where we commemorate the miracle
of the Menorah that should have provided enough light for one day but miraculously
lit up the Beit Hamikdash for a further seven.
People tend
to forget that the victory of Yehudah HaMacabee, and his four brothers, in ending
the Seleucid rule over Israel was fought on two fronts. The first, against the Syrian Greeks themselves
and the second, against the Hellenized Jews who controlled the Temple. In both cases, a culture that was alien to our
nation had infected the deepest foundations of our faith. Our Holy Beit Hamikdash had been defiled. Where we thought we had settled, having returned
from the Babylonian Exile, we had instead settled, in a different way - by allowing
ourselves to lose our national soul. The
Maccabees returned our people to the land of Israel physically, by fighting against
the prevailing army, and spiritually, by reinstating and repairing the Beit Hamikdash
to the point that the Hasmonean brothers smashed up the defiled altar and built
a new, pure one.
The victory
of the Maccabees was all the more significant as it showed that, when we put our
minds to it, we can prove that Jews DO count.
In spite of the desire of others to question our legitimacy as rightful citizens
of the land (as sadly, do many in the world today, when it comes to recognising
the State of Israel), we stood firm and we prevailed.
Tragically,
in ancient Israel, our residency was cut-short just over a century later but we
didn't lose hope and forever considered ourselves 'permanent settlers' for nearly
two millennia.
Jacob's desire
to settle is pitted against the events that transpired to change his plans. This is our story - the history of the Jewish
people. Where we sought to lay down roots
and remove our hats and coats, we were frustrated in our efforts. Yet, we have never given up hope of achieving
this. Jacob’s journey to Egypt eventually
led us into centuries of slavery, but didn't quell our desire to maintain our faith,
despite the hardships his descendants faced.
Although our
presence in the United Kingdom over the last three and a half centuries is not analogous
to the bitter and cruel conditions that faced our ancestors, there is the sad fact
that some of our fellow citizens question our legitimacy as equals living in the
same country.
Jewish history
is a chronicle of how we settled and were unsettled. How we donned our hats and coats in the belief
that they would remain for a while in situ and how we found ourselves having to
wear them sooner than we had envisaged, as we faced a hostile climate. How we were, in the words of Mendel, 'forced out
of many, many places at a moment's notice' and how we, like the Maccabees, didn't
give in when given a chance, to fight for our legitimacy as equal citizens of the
countries in which we resided.
Jacob eventually
settled in Egypt and didn't live to see his descendants returning to Israel, many,
many times, leading to the miraculous events that rocked the world in 1948.
Our ancestors
settled in England and look what we have achieved, despite the challenges we have
faced. We might wear our hats and don our coats, but these days, it's to help protect
us from the cold weather - just like everyone else.
Perhaps, we
can gain some comfort from the lyrics of the famous song:
‘Grab your coat
Grab your hat, (baby)
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
On the sunny side of the street’
When it comes
to being settled in this country, history has shown us that, despite the will of
others, we aren't leaving any time soon.
As always, we hope and pray that sunnier days lie ahead. May Moshiach bring them speedily!
Shavuah Tov and Chanukah Sameach!
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