Guest Sermon by Rabbi Sybil Sheridan 8th August / 25th Av 5786

Re’eh Ancient Civilisations

‘Take care that your heart is not deceived into straying, obeying other gods and worshipping

them.’ Deut 11:16.

So we read in the second paragraph of the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 11. It is a familiar theme

that seems to dominate the book of Deuteronomy. Our parashah, Re’eh begins only verses later

and continues the subject, so that today, we read the words:

‘Take care that after you have destroyed (your enemies on the land) that You do not enquire after

their gods.’

The book of Deuteronomy, unlike the other books of Torah seem focussed on the

dangers that lie ahead for the people when they actually settle in the land, rather than those that

confronted them on the journey. And the chief of this seems to concern the gods worshipped by

the indigenous population.

Hardly surprising. Imagine… you grow up in a desert, eating manna and quails. How do you

grow crops? You have no idea. So what do you do? You ask some local friendly Canaanite and he

tells you.

‘First you go to the Temple of Baal and offer a sacrifice, then you spend time with a Temple

prostitute, then you go out to your fields and say an incantation, then you plant your seed.’

Then again, as a newly settled desert rat, you look at the huge stone-built Temples of the

Canaanites and compare them with the Mishkan of the Holy One - a tent. Wouldn’t you be

seriously tempted?

On holiday in Malta some years ago, I saw many examples of an ancient Neolithic civilisation

whose huge temples were built from around 3,800 BCE – that is 1,000 years before the pyramids,

1,500 years before Stonehenge – and in our Jewish context… 2,000 years before Abraham.

They are said to be the oldest freestanding, roofed structures in the world.

There have many statues which look to be stylised deities of some form or another. I found them

immensely appealing. For a start the figures are fat. Very fat – obese in fact with bloated arms, and

legs and thighs. The figures appear to be neither male nor female – and they have no heads.

There is a socket in the neck into which various different heads could be slotted. To our modern

eyes, the figures could be transgender, and depending on the head you use, could represent either

a god or a goddess.

But we can go back much further. Homo Sapiens – us – are thought to have developed about

400,000 years ago. What was their world view? Did they have a religion? When did faith begin?

We do not know. The oldest religious artefact is believed to be the ‘Lowen mensch’ – lion-man

discovered in a cave in Germany. A beautiful mammoth ivory carved statue dated between 35,000

and 40,000 years old. A long time into the development of human beings, so we can assume, a

religious sensitivity existed long before. We just haven’t found the evidence for it… yet.

It means between them and the time of Abraham, who according to our history, was the first

Jew at the beginnings of our religion, there are at least tens of thousands possibly hundreds of

thousands of years.

What does that say about our faith? We like to think of ourselves as one of the oldest religions,

but in this context, we are actually one of the newest. Is religion itself a human construct? An

invention by civilisations as they grow and develop a sense of identity? Or can we say truly

that God is behind all of this?

In this context, the myths of our origins as stated in the early chapters of Genesis can be really

helpful. I would suggest the early chapters of Genesis reflect myth. Not history. If we regard it

as history, - we can get into real trouble and end up rejecting it and the whole faith as bunkum.

But as myth – that is - an attempt to understand the world and our role in it, - as myth - the first

ten chapters of the book of Genesis represent the most beautiful and the most true that there is.

Myths can be true even if they are not factual. Genesis is not historically accurate, nor

scientifically correct. But that is not the point. It is telling a story – and a story that helps us to

understand Life, the Universe and Everything.

The myth of Genesis talks about Adam and Eve, two people with close, but troubled

relationship with God. We have a family tree of descendants who live impossibly long lives.

Are their ages an attempt to explain the passage of huge periods of time between the first of

our species those hundreds of thousands of years ago?

We have Noah’s flood and the destruction of vast swathes of the earth and its creatures.

Memory of mass extinction perhaps.

And we have the story of Babel which explains not only the proliferation of different

languages, but of cultures and of religions. Till Babel, there was only one God. Post Babel, any

number of gods were worshipped by the people, and it was down to Abraham to announce to

the world the reality of one God who created the heaven and the earth.

Religion may well be a human construct; however, God… God’s existence lies outside of that.

Religion is built upon a belief in a deity, but that belief is not necessarily something invented,

rather something interpreted. It comes from an innate sense, a feeling, an understanding of a

reality beyond what we see.

The sense of something outside of us, - that controls and has a stake in the world in which we

live, - and that has been there from the very beginning of human existence.

How that sense has been understood by individuals, races and nations has changed as the

cultures and civilisations of the world have changed, but religion in essence and God in reality

were there from the start.

We do not know what ancient human beings believed, nor when among those early humanoids

thought beyond the material reality around us developed. The fact that Judaism arrived so late

on the scene does not mean it was an invention. The rituals, the theology, the myth were late,

yes. but they linked back into that ancient undiscovered past.

We cannot claim today to be the oldest religion. We are certainly not the biggest and we should

not suggest we are the best.

But the beliefs of Judaism are right in as much as they are right for us. We may be one of many

‘pathways up the mountain’ in search of God. – you know the story, of different religions

taking different routes, only to meet at the summit.

Judaism is neither better, not worse than other faiths in existence today, but it is the faith, we

know, the one that gives us the best possible chance of reaching our goal. If we stick to our

path on the mountain, rather than stray onto another, we will reach the summit that much

quicker.

We don’t have to go around destroying all the idols as our ancestors did. Just follow the path

laid down for us, and maybe we will find the answers we all crave.

As our portion this morning told us:

‘The Eternal you God is the One whom you should follow, whom you should revere, whose

commandments you should observe, whose orders you should heed, and to whom you should

hold fast.’ (Deut 13:6)

Shabbat Shalom.