Parashat Lech Lecha: Jewish Stars

On Sunday afternoon, I stood with my back to the National Gallery facing Nelson’s Column.  Trafalgar Square was bathed in a sea of blue and white flags fluttering in the light breeze.  The speakers, whose faces I could not make out, came onto the stage and one by one, fighting back tears, related their heartbreaking and shocking testimonies, describing their experiences on Shabbat 7^th October.  How they had lost loved ones, either through being murdered or seeing them dragged away into the hellhole that is Gaza.  Many of those who bravely tried to defend their families, friends and kibbutzim were massacred by an overwhelming and unbelievably cruel foe.

As one of the speakers was tearfully informing us that her brother and his family had been amongst the more than two hundred people kidnapped, I was handed a poster that just happened to display their details under a large bold white-on-red headline marked ‘Kidnapped’.  Reading the events in the news hadn’t hit me yet.  Standing alongside thousands of Jews, listening to both our Israeli and English brethren telling their stories and our chanting, “Bring them home” brought home to me the enormity of what had happened.

Whilst I was trying to process what was going on in terms of what had happened, what could be done to bring them home alive and how vulnerable I felt as a Jew in the United Kingdom, I had a thought.  All of us in Trafalgar Square, most of whom I assumed were Jewish, were descended either biologically or spiritually from one single couple, namely Avraham and Sarah (or Avram and Sarai is they are known for the majority of this week’s Parasha).

I believe that all of us standing, weeping, applauding and chanting recognised that something very special was taking place for a brief moment in our long, shared history together.  In this hour of darkness, we set aside our differences and spoke with one voice.

Avram knew what it meant to live in a hostile environment.  According to the Vilna Ga’on, he was forty-eight years old when the Tower of Bavel was built and the resultant dispersion that we read about at the end of last week’s Parasha occurred.  The Ramban tells us that Noach died ten years later, so it is very possible that Avram would have heard from him, about what it felt like to live amongst evil people.  To be different to them and of course, how he had been saved through building the Ark.

The Midrash tells us how Avram’s arch-enemy, Nimrod, who was incidentally the architect of the doomed tower project, tried to have him burned in a furnace.  Avram, despite everything, held firm to his revolutionary belief in the existence of a single Deity, much to the fury of Nimrod whose belief system was deeply entrenched in idolatry.

Avram was different and we are different.

Gd tested him ten times with the ultimate challenge of having to sacrifice his son.  He passed the test despite the odds.  We, his descendants, have had to face the most barbaric, sadistic nations in the history of the world who wished to destroy us and we too have survived these tests.

But what was it that made Avram (and of course his beloved wife) the archetypal role models that eventually led to the birth of our nation?

Rabbi Sacks tells us that the secret of what made Avram different lies in the very first verse of this week’s Parasha when Hashem told him to:

“Go from your land, your birthplace and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

He was instructing him to leave behind everything that had shaped him to that point.

“Why?” asks Rabbi Sacks.

“Because people do conform.  They adopt the standards and absorb the culture of the time and place in which they live – “your land”.  At a deeper level, they are influenced by friends and neighbours – “your birthplace”.  More deeply still, they are shaped by their parents and the family in which they grew up – “your father’s house.”

He continues by explaining that Gd wanted Avram to be different…for the sake of starting something new, namely a religion that eschewed power and the symbols of that power as represented by idolatry.

As Gd later tells him:

“I want you to teach your children and your household afterwards to follow the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.

Avram understood how important it was to stand up for justice, irrespective of how unpopular this would make him.  To throw away everything that you’ve been conditioned with, to accept in the name of seeking the path of truth, is a very Jewish thing to do.  Whilst there are many (in the media and in politics as well as our sworn enemies) who conveniently set aside the events that took place a few weeks ago to set their own agenda, we refuse to compromise on what we believe is to be right.

We have sadly learned to our great personal detriment the result of what transpires when we try to avoid fighting evil - if we accept the arguments of those who do not have our best interests in mind and compromise on what we know is the right thing to do.

There are those who wish us to quietly conform to their lifestyles.

They say that Shechita is barbaric and that it would be kinder to the animals to kill them in a more conventional manner.  It would also be less of a burden on our already stretched budgets.

In the same breath, they claim that brit milah, which we read about in this week’s Parasha, deprives a child of the right to choose as to whether they wish to be ‘mutilated’.  Why not just give it up so that our boys won’t be different to those of our friends.

It would be so much easier for us if we stayed in our metaphorical lands, birthplaces and fathers’ houses.

The German Jews tried to do that in the 19^th century by assimilating at a huge rate.  Yet, with regard to Nazi ideology and the Final Solution, it didn’t make a jot of difference when it came to who ended up in the gas chambers.

Stalin wasn’t too bothered by whether or not Jews identified as such when he exiled them to the Gulag and Hamas didn’t check out the religiosity of the people it either killed or kidnapped less than a month ago.The thread that links us back to the very first Jews (even if they weren’t called by this name at that time) is the same one which keeps us bound together.  A refusal to compromise on pursuing justice despite those who wish to put barriers in our way.

Many of us keep kosher to differing degrees and sometimes not at all.  There are those who choose not to circumcise their sons but when it comes to identifying as Jewish, in whichever format works for them, they are the first to stand up and be counted, because we, like Avram and Sarai before us, understand what it means to take the ‘right and just path’.  When it comes to giving charity, our hands dig deep.  When legitimate refugees need legal support, how often do we hear of their representatives bearing Jewish names?  Our hospitals and universities are filled with Jewish doctors and professors and don’t get me started on how many members of our nation have won Nobel prizes!

We went to Trafalgar Square because we knew we needed to be there.  For us.  Not for the world.  For those in Israel who were suffering, whether or not we knew them.  We travelled through the streets of London knowing that there was possible danger ahead because we knew that standing up and being counted as Jews was more important than cowering in the face of danger.

We are giving and giving and giving to charities inside and outside Israel because we know the fundamental role tzedaka plays in our national psyche.  We have an innate need to help the families of those who were killed, wounded or kidnapped irrespective of their political leanings or religious affiliation precisely because they are Jews, like us.

When a Gentile takes the bold move to convert to our religion, his Hebrew name becomes ‘ben Avraham’ and hers ‘bat Sarah’, which means, ‘The son of Avraham’ or the ‘daughter of Sarah’.  This is not by accident.  It is a testament to the extraordinary decision a single couple chose to take, when they stood out from the crowd and, despite the extreme hardships they endured (as described in three Parashiot that cover their lives), did not compromise on their mission to change humanity and draw them away from idol-worship to creating an environment that promoted chessed, kindness to all and one that recognised a single G-d.

In 15.4, Gd takes Avram outside and tells him:

“Look at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them…that is how your descendants will be.”

Looking at the blue stars on those white backgrounds and human stars in all their shapes and forms on Sunday afternoon helped me realise that we are the culmination of that prophecy - the progeny of Avram and Sarai in the very heart of London.  We are their children – we are different – In short, we are Jews.    

Shabbat Shalom.