Guest Sermon by Felix Mara 1 August / 18th Av 5786

Although this week’s parashah is from Devarim, I was urged to aim for a laconic sermon/svar Torah. I’ll also do my best to keep this sweet anyway.

Picking up on the passage I struggled through in my atrocious Hebrew, Deuteronomy 10: 1-22, there’s certainly a lot going on in the text. Deuteronomy means second law in Hebrew, and you might say this parashah contains the book’s locus classicus, or core text. YHVH tells Moses, who has destroyed the original stone tablets after the  golden calf incident, to bring a blank replacement on which he will replicate his decalogue.

We also learn how YHVH’s tentatively forgives the Israelites and mentions compensation for the Levites’ duties, which include Ark-carrying, you might say through annuities rather than lump sums or land inheritance. We also hear that Aaron will die in Moserah, and YHVH tells Moses to lead the Israelites onwards to the promised land.

The Deuteronomic language is polished and rich and, as I attempted to emphasise in the two clauses I quasi-leyned, has been the source for familiar passages in our siddur: the Sh’ma, as we also saw in last week’s parashah, and also the Amidah.

Perhaps because Deuteronomy contains the texts in the Pentateuch considered to have been written most recently, it’s prone to anachronisms which, in the case of this week’s parashah’s reference to the Ark, is discusse inPlaut. There are complications in the text, the way it jumps from first, to second and third person speech, and the reference to Aaron dying in Moserah doesn’t check with the account in Exodus. One of lessons I’ve learnt about Torah is that it’s full of mistakes and contradictions, and that it’s naïve to see it as a fully coordinated and monolithic composition. Like any text, Torah is open to post-modernist analysis. Its ambiguities and omissions have spawned myriad interpretations, fervent debates.

For me, two interrelated themes in our parashah stand out, both touching on the idea of universalism. The first, thouroughly drummed in in Deuteronomy, is YHVH’s selection of the Israelites for the B’rit Adonai referred to in our parashah. YHVH requires them to be receptive so they can fulfil this role. Rather than being stiff-necked, they should circumcise their hearts. The second theme is love of the sojourner, the ger. YHVH expects the Israelites to emulate his treatment of orphans and widows by feeding and clothing gerrim. Plaut notes that YHVH repeats this instruction 31 times in the Pentateuch, but he seems to consider it a uniquely Jewish phenomenon in the ancient world. Migration was actually commonplace throughout the ancient world and is well documented in Greek literature and artefacts.

Hospitality is spotlighted as a central theme of The Odyssey in Christopher Nolan’s eponymous film, released two weeks ago. Odysseus agonises over the Greeks’ betrayal of the Trojans’ hospitality in his Trojan Horse plot, and we see the suitors betraying the hospitality of the court in Ithaca. This touches on a topical concern today. What happens when gerrim, perhaps like the Trojan Paris, abuse the hospitality they enjoy? You could read political messages into Nolan’s film. There are frequent references to the mysterious Sea People, and within the framework our incessant culture wars, you could discuss the hypothesesis that the Sea People were Isreal’s arch-enemies the Philistines, and perhaps ultimately proto-Palestinians. Or you could say Nolan’s point is that Sea People raiding was actually what the Greeks got up to after they defeated the Trojans, perhaps on their way home to the Peloponnese.

But to return to that question, what happens when sojourners, immigrants, betray the hospitality they enjoy, perhaps by refusing to observe certain laws and ethical norms, or to accept other communities, such as our own. Well, of course, they aren’t always shown hospitality. I can think of  a few positions around this question. The first would say that anyone who asks this question must be far right, regardless of their overall political views.

Other positions give me cause for hope, call me naive. The first involves saying that you can’t demand like for like reciprocity in relations between hosts and guests, if those are the right words. It’s untenable to demand this, and perhaps a bit pedantic. Perhaps we, and the understandably angry brigade, should be a bit more pragmatic. Another perspective considers the process of assimilation, which arguably can happen within the span of just one generation, in Britain if not in countries. The children of today’s Gazaheads will be tweedy.

The final position insists that everyone, including immigrants, should be subject to exactly the same absolute laws, treated and punished accordingly, no ifs and buts, no early release for special cases and no ECHR-aligned reprieves.

Our new prime minister seems to be reflecting on the ethics and efficacy of early release within broader contexts. But to what extent is Andy Burnham a friend of the Jewish community? Like many politicians, he flip-flops. He wasted no time to apologise for his predecessor’s hesitation to urge Israel to declare a ceasefire even in the immediate aftermath of October 7 when it was simply trying to defend itself. This is just further normalising blanket  demonisation of Israel and fuelling hostility and violence against the Jewish Community in Britain. Now he’s holding up Jewish Care as an exemplar, but this is a soft concession.

Hopefully, Burnham will find other ways to stand with us but, like us, he is crossing a narrow bridge and I remain pessimistic.