That Old Time Religion
By Frank Gruber
As a Jew I have celebrated our High Holy
Days the past two weeks: Rosh Hashanah,
the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the
Day of Atonement.
As a not-very-observant Jew, the services
I attend each year are my best opportunity
to think about being Jewish. Not that
I'm unaware of the Jewish part of my identity
all the time, but sitting there reading
the ancient words both in the ancient
language and in translation, and singing
them in melodies old and new, does heighten
the focus of mind and emotions.
The holy days are all about symbol, tradition,
and metaphor, but with a lot of exhortation
about "values" -- that loaded
word these days.
While in ancient days, heralds went about
the countryside of Canaan blowing on a
ram's horn -- the "shofar" --
to call the people to festivals, today
we blow the shofar inside the synagogue
as a call to personal reflection. It's
the moment when we are joined by the kids
who have been over at the children's service.
One of the big metaphors is that on Rosh
Hashanah God opens the Book of Life and
during the "ten days of awe"
leading up to Yom Kippur, decides the
fate of everyone for the upcoming year.
One of the prayers is translated as:
"On Rosh Hashanah it is written,
on Yom Kippur it is sealed;
How many shall pass on, how many
shall come to be;
Who shall live and who shall die;
Who shall see ripe age and who
shall not . . . "
Even as a kid I know I understood that
this was metaphorical. During the year,
when someone died, no one said, "well
I guess God didn't put his name in the
Book of Life last Yom Kippur," and
it's not like all the world's incorrigible
sinners meet their demise during the year.
Every week during the year a different
portion of the Torah, the Five Books of
Moses, is read publicly in the synagogue.
This practice has continued each week
for almost 2,000 years, since the destruction
of the Second Temple.
During the High Holy Days, certain specified
Torah portions are read, and the choice
of these readings indicates something
about the priorities of the rabbis who
over the centuries (actually, millennia)
wrote and rewrote the service.
For texts that were written about 2,500
years ago, it's humbling how topical they
can be. You don't have to believe in God,
or that God (or Moses) wrote the Bible,
to admire that.
The final Torah portion on Yom Kippur,
in the most solemn part of the day's services,
is from Leviticus, Chapter 19. It's from
the "Holiness Code," a recitation
of commandments that expands on the famous
ten. While some of the Leviticus commandments
involve rituals and admonitions not to
worship other gods, most of them command
what we today call "social justice."
Commandments deal, for instance, with
leaving food in your fields for the poor
to glean; with paying workers on time;
with the dispensing of impartial justice.
This year one passage caught my attention
in particular. It's about illegal immigrants,
except that they didn't call them that
back then. They called them strangers.
Here's the passage:
"And if
a stranger sojourns with you in
your land, you shall not do him
wrong.
The stranger that sojourns
with you shall be to you as the
home-born among you, and you shall
love him as yourself; for you were
strangers in the land of Egypt:
I am the Lord your God."
|
Keep in mind that this passage is not
from some do-gooder prophet. It's directly
from the Lord, by way of Moses, and the
Lord is saying treat the immigrant like
the native-born -- in today's parlance,
give him citizenship, or at least treat
him as a citizen.
Yet who in this country is most agitated
about illegal immigration? Isn't it those
social conservatives, particularly in
the south, the Evangelicals who believe
that the Bible is the literal word of
God?
Judaism and Christianity are religions
that have their origins in persecution,
both real and that of legend. At their
best, they engender, if not command, empathy
for the oppressed. That's why they seem
at their worst when the powerful and privileged
use them to justify their power and privilege.
For my Jewish readers, and to everyone else
for their next twelve months, have a good
year. |
