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Teapots in Babylon

“This is what travelers discover: that when you sever the links of normality and its claims, when you break off from the quotidian, it is the teapots that truly shock. Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.” This week, I’ve been hearing Psalm 137 among these lines from Cynthia Osick’s “The Shock of Teapots” (Metaphor & Memory. NY: Knopf, 1989). The result sounds like this:

How is that we have a teapot,
symbol of normalcy, and even comfort,
amidst all this confusion and fear?
Are we to enjoy and share
cups of tea here
in this strange, oppressive land?

The opening lines of Psalm 137 are primarily about the challenge of expressing joy, and making music in particular, distant from Zion, mocked and alienated from oppressors. But I think we also hear something like the “shock of teapots” — normalcy, even comfort, or celebration here!?

By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down,
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
There, upon the willows, we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked of us words of song,
and our tormentors asked of us mirth:
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’
How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?
–Ps. 137:1-4, translation sort of a mishmash based on Old JPS
Complete Old JPS and Hebrew here

Of course, many people, in the US and elsewhere, have long been conscious of living in Babylon. So the puzzlement and shock expressed by so many in this past week is a little surreal to some.**

My personal connection to the language of “Babylon” has been growing for some time as the central liberation story of Judaism — being freed from Egypt — seems unsuited to circumstances where Jews, as individuals often profiting from White privilege, and as a people are too often Pharaoh. See, e.g., “April 22: 1968 and 2016” (Who can say we’ve actually left Egypt?). The “Trouble to See” series from which graphic at right is taken, was published over the summer. And a few years back, “A Mountain Called Zion,” offered thoughts on “Zion” and how close/distant it is, as well as a nice link to Jimmy Cliff’s “Waters of Babylon.”

Most importantly for further exploration, this blog welcomes comments and guest blogs from Jews and non-Jews.

Normalcy on Good Hope Road

Yesterday I posted the following on Facebook:

OK, so I’m walking down Good Hope Road in Southeast DC and there’s this guy standing on the sidewalk with his car doors open blaring that song “FDT” — the one which goes, “…I like white folks, but I don’t like you…” with a chorus of “[expletive deleted] [president elect].” Cheered me right up.
#AnacostiaUnmapped #LoveDC #NotmyPresident

One friend, not a DC resident, asked “why?” and it took me some time to come up with a response other than “maybe you had to be there.” What warmed my heart, I now think, was the normalcy of the scene for Good Hope Road, although the place is undergoing gentrification. Moreover, the song was not something written in a flurry on election night. Folks had been playing the piece, from the rapper/writer YG, for some time:

“You gave us your reason to be President, but we hate yours.”

They were playing it on November 7 and they were playing it on November 10. The sentiments — which are to the point, if crude (“FDT“) — hadn’t changed with election results. It was a little like discovering a teapot at the end of a journey.

Time to Go!

In one common cycle of Torah readings, this is the week of Lekh Lekha [“Go!” or “Go (to/for yourself),” often transliterated Lech Lecha]. And so, whether this week was a shock to, or a confirmation of, your reality, events are calling us to embark on a new journey, toward better individual and collective selves…maybe even out of Babylon.

**NOTE

Many posts on this blog are “political” in plenty of ways, but direct attention to electoral politics is a rarity. There is no getting around it this week, though. And, here is a powerful and cogent exploration of what was meant by “surreal” above:

For a lot of people of color, this election was really about trying to find the lesser of two evils. America asked us: “How do you prefer your racism — blatant or systemic?”

— “On ‘Woke’ White People advertising their shock that racism just won a presidency“

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Foreign and Familiar

In this week’s Torah portion, two of the central characters receive new names: Abram becomes Abraham (Gen 17:4), and Sarai, Sarah (17:15). God announces this to Abraham as part of a statement of the covenant between them. Both Abraham אַבְרָהָם and Sarah שָׂרָה now have a “ה” (hey) in their names. Thus, each now carries a letter from God’s four-letter name yud-hey-vav-hey, which is fodder for much commentary.

Rabbi Michal Shekel notes, in addition, that Hagar’s name was always spelled with a hey: “There was no reason to change her name, because she already had a measure of the Divine presence.” Shekel adds:

One can read the tradition as saying that Hagar is an outsider, the other, alien to God, by interpreting her name as Hey gar, “Adonai is foreign.” Yet all her actions in chapter 16 prove that this is not so….Hagar is no stranger to God; she is comfortable with God’s presence in a way that is less formal than God’s relationship with Abraham or Sarah….Hagar fulfills the destiny of her name, hey gar, “Adonai dwells” with her.
— from “What’s in a Name?” Lech Lecha
The Women’s Torah Commentary. Jewish Lights, 2000

Might both — the foreignness and the familiarity of God — be true, for us if not for Hagar?

message to the Hebrew

Sandwiched in a Torah portion packed with narrative is “the war of the kings” with Lot’s capture and rescue (Gen. 14). It begins, really, with Abraham and his nephew Lot separating to avoid quarrel over land for cattle herding (Gen. 13). YHVH spoke to Abraham “after Lot had parted from him,” promising “descendants like dust of the earth,” and Abraham dwelt by the oaks of Mamre and built an altar to YHVH.

He is still living by the oaks of Mamre when the fugitive arrives to tell him that his nephew is in trouble, and Abraham sets off to rescue Lot:

And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew [ha Ivri]…”

Does Abraham’s being an “ivri” — a “crosser-over” or “one from the outside” — have anything to do with expectations about him and his response to Lot’s trouble? Why is this the first time Abraham is called by this name? Does being a Hebrew mean retainining sympathy — and a willingness to help — those on the other side?

NOTE

Lech Lecha (Gen. 12:1-17:27) includes the first “say you’re my sister” incident with Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 12:10-20), the weird episode of the Abraham and the covenant of the pieces (Gen. 15:1ff), and the first installments in the tales of Hagar and Ishmael (Gen. 16, 17:17-27).

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“…I can be wrong”

sometimes I’m right, but I can be wrong

…we got to live together

— Sly and the Family Stone

Everyday People

Two messages from Playing for Change “Songs Around the World” seem in order. If you don’t know this organization, learn and support them — or at least give them a listen….

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow

— Bill Withers

Lean on Me

Whence have you come?

An angel encounters Hagar in the wilderness (Gen. 16:7). At this point, she has been introduced to us as maid to Sarah, who has been married to Abraham for ten years without producing a child (16:1). We are told that she was given by Sarah “as wife” to Abraham, that she became pregnant, and subsequently, scorned her mistress (“saw her as lightweight”). Sarah then afflicted Hagar, and Hagar ran away. Out in the wilderness, at the spring on the road, the angel speaks to Hagar.

No one in the story has addressed Hagar before this point. And only after the angel’s inquiry does Hagar speak. These obvious, but easily overlooked points are highlighted in Susan Niditch’s notes in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and led me to marvel at the power of a few words.

With the fall holidays a few weeks behind us at this point, it’s not a bad idea to pause and (re-)consider* the angel’s query ourselves:

Whence have you come and
where are you going?

But we might also ask: How often have we needed someone to simply inquire and listen? How often do we stop to address someone encountered along the way?

*NOTE

For those observing two days of Rosh Hashanah, the story of Hagar is part of the first morning’s Torah reading.

Courageous Thoughts

Let’s return briefly to the questions which plagued author Sebastian Junger, in his suburban Boston youth, and set him a path that eventually led him to write Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging:

How do you become an adult in a society that doesn’t ask for sacrifice? How do you become a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?
— Tribe, p.xiv
(See “Covenant and Liturgy” for full citation and more)

Previous posts explored the concept of “sacrifice” and how it translates into Judaism. Here are a few notes on “courage.”

Ometz Lev

Like “sacrifice,” the word “courage” comes into English from Old French (corage) based on Latin (cor = heart). In Hebrew, the expression is “ometz lev [אַמִּיץ לֵב]” — “to strengthen or reinforce [ometz]” one’s “heart [lev].”

One Jewish high school offers some useful remarks on how this value [middah] in Judaism might operate at different points in our lives:

Ometz Lev is the courage that allows us to accomplish goals in face of opposition. Often enough, that opposition comes from within us. The need for Ometz Lev (courage/ bravery) is not limited to outward challenges, but also to challenges from within. For example, neurological studies seem to suggest that in comparison to adult brains, adolescent brains have a tougher time maintaining long term focus. Conversely, the middle-aged brain is slower than the adolescent brain in starting a new task. It might take a bit of ometz lev to deal with pushing past natural inclinations.
— from “The Middah of Ometz Lev“

“Moving Traditions,” another teen-focused program, offers four texts for four types of courage people of all age could profitably consider:

Text #1 The Courage to Be Yourself

When the daughters of Yitro mistakenly called Moses an “Egyptian” Moses kept quiet. This is one of the reasons why he was not allowed into the Promised Land.

Moses cried out to the Holy One: Please, if I cannot enter the land in my life at least let my bones be buried there beside the bones of Joseph.

The Holy One said: Even when Joseph was captured, he said that he was a Hebrew.?But you pretended to be something you are not.

—Tanhuma Buber, 134

Text #2 The Courage to Control Impulses

Ben Zoma taught: Who is mighty? Those who conquer their evil impulse. As it is written: “Those who are slow to anger are better than the mighty, and those who rule over their spirit better than those who conquer a city.”

—Pirkey Avot 4:1

Text #3 The Courage to Question Authority

The finest quality of a student is the ability to ask questions that challenge the teacher.

—Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Text #4 The Courage to Rescue Others

Why do you boast yourself of evil, mighty fellow? (Psalms 52:3). David asked Doeg: “Is this really might, for one who sees another at the edge of a pit to push the other into it? Or, seeing someone on top of a roof, to push the person off? Is this might? When can someone truly be called a ‘mighty person’? When there’s an individual who is about to fall into a pit, and that someone seizes the individual’s hand so that he/she does not fall in. Or, when that someone sees another fallen into a pit and lifts the other out of it.”

—Midrash Tehillim 52:6

More Sacrifice

In the list of general obligations that closed the previous post, the concept of “sacrifice” per se does not appear. This raised the question for me: Is “sacrificing” for the community or for a greater goal a Jewish notion?

A few notes from a brief further exploration:

The substantial entry on “sacrifice” in the Jewish Encyclopedia, as a central example, focuses on the ancient system of ritual and interpretations, through the ages, of that system. Only three paragraphs in the 15,000-word article speak of non-ritual understandings of “sacrifice.” These are based on ancient ideas that study, prayer, and good deeds replace the Temple sacrifices.

“Sacrifices are alive and well” in My Jewish Learning begins with the origin of the term :

The term “sacrifice” comes from a Latin word meaning “to make something holy.” The most common Hebrew equivalent is korban, “something brought near,” i.e., to the altar. (The Torah: A Modern Commentary, edited by W. Gunther Plaut, UAHC Press, 1981, p. 750)in terms of “making something holy,” saying that the “most common Hebrew equivalent is korban, “something brought near,” i.e., to the altar. (The Torah: A Modern Commentary, edited by W. Gunther Plaut, UAHC Press, 1981, p. 750)

In this piece, originally published by the Union for Reform Judaism, Deborah Gettes concludes:

Whether we have sinned or not, whether we have done so intentionally or unintentionally, we still have the desire to move closer to God, to offer our own korbanot. To do so, we must put forth the effort to show kindness, compassion, generosity, and goodwill even if that is not easy. At the same time, we must put forth the effort to study Torah and attend worship services. As Pirkei Avot states, Mitzvah goreret mitzvah: The more good we do, the more good we do. This is really a model for life. Sacrifices are alive and well: They just have to be slightly redefined.

heart
“Prayer is the heart…of significant living,” Gettes notes, quoting Rabbi Morris Adler.

This brings me back to the “heart map” and prayer as an avenue to making Judaism’s “counter-cultural” message and covenant a part of our being. In particular, it puts me in mind of one comment incorporated into the map:

“Why fixed prayer? To learn what we should value…” (a teaching from Rabbi Chaim Stern included in the 1975 Gates of Prayer and in newer Reform prayerbooks.)

Sacrificial Notes

“Sacrifice” has been an important concept in baseball since the 1880s and a Christian concept for far longer. The term came into English from Latin, via Old French, and is generally defined as giving up one thing to obtain another.

“Sacrifice” in Hebrew

The word “sacrifice” is sometimes used by English translators of the Hebrew bible, as when Noah performs a ritual action right after leaving the ark:

וַיִּבֶן נֹחַ מִזְבֵּחַ, לַיהוָה; וַיִּקַּח מִכֹּל הַבְּהֵמָה הַטְּהֹרָה, וּמִכֹּל הָעוֹף הַטָּהוֹר, וַיַּעַל עֹלֹת, בַּמִּזְבֵּחַ.
And Noah built an altar [מִזְבֵּחַ] to the LORD and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered [sometimes: “sacrificed”] burnt offerings [וַיַּעַל עֹלֹת] on the altar.
–Genesis 8:20

The Hebrew word for “altar” “mizbeach מִזְבֵּחַ” is linked with “zevach זְבֵּחַ,” one word for biblical sacrifice. But the Torah also uses other words, depending on the purpose and disposition of the offering:

“minchah מִנְחָה” — “gift”
“olah עֱלָה” — burnt offering, from “going up,”
“sh’lamim שלמים” — “complete (or peace)” offering,
“chatat חטאת” — “sin” offering, and
“asham אשם” — “guilt” offering.

There are also offerings known by their content: “first fruits (bikkurim)” or “wave/sheaf (omer),” for example. Probably the most general term is “korban קָרְבָּן,” from the root for “becoming near.”

“Sacrifice” in Judaism?

A Jew’s obligations to oneself, to other individuals, and to the community are myriad. Here are a few of the most general:

We are warned to be for ourselves as well as for others (Avot 1:14)
We are told that “All Israel is responsible, one for the other [Kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh]” (Shavuot 39a), and
We are reminded that caring for the poor and practicing lovingkindness are among the obligations without limit (Peah 1:1).

Is “sacrificing” for the community or for a greater goal a Jewish notion?

Stay tuned and/or share your thoughts.

Covenant and Liturgy

A pair of questions disturbed journalist Sebastian Junger as a young suburban Boston resident, living “in a time and a place where nothing dangerous ever happened,” he tells us in Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging:

How do you become an adult in a society that doesn’t ask for sacrifice? How do you become a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?
— Tribe, p.xiv

I found these oft-quoted lines baffling, and I was not alone in this reaction:

I am tempted to remind Junger that sacrifice and courage are necessary in many fields of life, from parenting to volunteering in refugee camps. He could also join a solidarity movement. That is what he claims he is seeking, after all.
—Joanna Bourke in The Guardian

His analysis of life in Boston and its suburbs, for example, totally overlooks the sacrifices made by teachers, nurses, or those fighting for social justice, workers’ rights, against racism or other social ills in his own or other communities as well as the dangers experienced by African Americans or the poor in nearby Somerville or Boston itself.
—Suzanne Gordon in Washington Monthly

But Rabbi Danny Zemel, in his Rosh Hashanah sermon at Temple Micah (DC), explained that he finds these questions “paramount,” understanding them somewhat differently in Jewish terms:

How do we become counter cultural? How do we become breakers of idols?”

Zemel points out that “[the Jewish] covenant commands us to love the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt,” and argues that the synagogue should be a “place where we can learn and absorb” a “counter-cultural” message in a world that can seem to applaud self-interest over group interest. He asks:

How do we learn this call – actually more than just learn it, but feel it in our being? How does it become “us?”

How does it become “us”?

For me, one clear answer is the liturgy, which I tried to express in the “heart map” below. Another is ensuring that we recognize, and regularly celebrate, the many opportunities to prove one’s worth to the community highlighted by Bourke and Gordon above. I remain confused by Junger’s youthful state of mind and join critics of Tribe who find that his “danger” focus led him to glorify war and miss abundant examples of courage.

As it happens, this year’s National Blog Posting Month theme is “Type your heart out.” Look for more daily posts on courage, heart, Judaism, and covenant as November unfolds.

NOTES:
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging NY. Sebastian Junger. Hatchette Book Group, 2016

Heart map inspired by Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking by Jill K. Berry.

Noah, Covenant, and “Cursed be Canaan”

Curse and Covenant

The “curse of Ham” — with related ideas about slavery and race, unsupported by the the text itself — emerged over the centuries from the biblical story of Noah. Regardless of our particular faith community’s approach to this curse concept, there is no denying the damage done by what one author calls “the single greatest justification for Black slavery for more than a thousand years” (Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham). Racism and oppression have become inextricably linked with the Noah story.

This moment in U.S. history seems to demand that we acknowledge the damaging legacy of our collective textual heritage. Some readers might find it worthwhile to examine the complex religious career of the “Cursed be Canaan” text, its development in Abrahamic teaching and its role in Western history and culture. A few references are shared here toward that purpose. But we need not pursue an academic route in order to answer the ethical call of this week’s Torah portion.

Immediately after the Flood, God’s introduces a covenant, symbolized by the rainbow (Gen. 9:17): God promises never again to destroy everything by flood, and humans are expected to obey basic laws. The prohibition against shedding human blood and some of the other “Noahide Laws” are specified in this week’s portion; others, according to Jewish tradition, are found in or derived from other passages in Genesis.

Seeing a rainbow, we are to be reminded of the covenant, of God’s mercy and of our own obligations. Some teachers see the rainbow as a reminder to repent and spur repentance among others. With this in mind, watching Ava DuVarney’s documentary, 13th — about mass incarceration of black people as an extension of slavery — seems a useful step in beginning to respond to the long legacy of “cursed be Canaan.”

Fateful conjunction of slavery and race

Upon realizing “what Ham had done to him,” Noah responded: “Cursed is Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” Noah goes on to specify that Canaan, son of Ham, will be a slave to his uncles, Shem and Japheth (Genesis 9:25-27). Only Canaan is mentioned, but the curse is often understood to apply to generations of descendants of all four of Ham’s children. And, while there is no biblical reference to skin color at all, the curse of slavery became associated with black skin.

…it is not clear when to date the fateful conjunction of slavery and race in the Western readings of Noah’s prophecy….the application of the curse to racial slavery was the product of centuries of development in ethnic and racial stereotyping, biblical interpretation, and the history of servitude.

Nevertheless, by the early colonial period, a racialized version of Noah’s curse had arrived in America.
— Stephen R. Haynes. Noah’s Curse, pp.7-8 (citation below)

DuVarney’s 13th looks at slavery — outlawed by the 13th Amendment, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted — and its re-incarnation through mass incarceration. 13th does not explore biblical text or religious teaching. It looks at the U.S. criminal justice system today and its relation to the broader history of racism, oppression and subjugation of black people.

“We take you from 1865 and the abolition of slavery and the enactment of the 13th Amendment all the way to now and this Black Lives Matter movement,” DuVernay told Democracy Now. “And we trace, decade by decade, generation by generation, politician by politician, president by president, each decision and how it has led to this moment.” (more on the movie)

Three of the key Noahide laws are

prohibition on murder, with the reminder that every human is created in God’s image;
prohibition on stealing, understood broadly to include kidnapping and other forms of theft; and
establishment of a courts and a system of law.

What is the rainbow saying with regard to our record on murder, stealing, and courts?

NOTES:

1) The story of the Noah is found in this week’s Torah reading (Genesis 6:9-11:22). The verses discussed here (9:20ff) cryptically describe a post-Flood incident involving drunkenness on Noah’s part and Ham’s witnessing “his father’s nakedness.”

וַיִּיקֶץ נֹחַ, מִיֵּינוֹ; וַיֵּדַע, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה לוֹ בְּנוֹ הַקָּטָן.
וַיֹּאמֶר, אָרוּר כְּנָעַן: עֶבֶד עֲבָדִים, יִהְיֶה לְאֶחָיו.
Noah awoke from his wine and realized what his small son [Ham], had done to him. And he said, “Cursed is Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”

Various explanations have been suggested for why Canaan was cursed rather than Ham. Genesis Rabbah, for example, says that Noah couldn’t curse Ham, because God had already blessed him (Gen 9:1). Another possibility put forth was that Canaan was really the instigator. While the text speaks of individuals and not whole communities, many commentators over the centuries focused on moral factors which they believed might result in one people being subjugated to another.
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2) Race and Slavery in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. David M. Goldenberg. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

[Goldenberg] concludes that in biblical and post-biblical Judaism there are no anti-black or racist sentiments, a finding that some scholars dispute. He also contends that the notion of black inferiority developed later, as blacks were enslaved across cultures. His findings, he said, dovetail with those of other scholars who have not found anti-black sentiment in ancient Greece, Rome or Arabia.

”The main methodological point of the book is to see the nexus between history and biblical interpretation,” Mr. Goldenberg said. ”Biblical interpretation is not static.”
— “From Noah’s Curse to Slavery” in New York Times

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3) Stephen R. Haynes. Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery. Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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13th: A Documentary

“13th strikes at the heart of America’s tangled racial history, offering observations as incendiary as they are calmly controlled,” writes Rotten Tomatoes, where the film gets a 98% positive rating from critics and a 94% positive audience score.

“A damning but cogent argument for wholesale reconsideration of the so-called prison industrial complex,” is how the Chicago Tribune characterizes 13th.

See also The Guardian, Black Youth Project’s review, with more at DuVernay’s website. The National Review‘s response is also fascinating in its way.

The New York Times calls it “powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming.” Many people, this blogger included, report needing to watch the movie in installments.

In addition to some local screenings, 13th streams on Netflix. Sign up for a free month, if you don’t already subscribe or have a friend who does.
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