RAMADAN & AV: CONNECTIONS & COLLISIONS

1 August 2011, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA)

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Last night, with the coming of the New Moon’s sliver of light, Jews entered the month of Av; Muslims, the month of Ramadan. I want to take this moment to examine ways in which Jewish-Muslim relations have become entangled in the broader crisis of Europe and America that has led to attacks on Muslims and to the atrocious murders in Oslo last week.

Today, I want to share some sense of the spirit-lifting meanings and possibilities of this moment. Tomorrow, I want to examine the broader question of the wave of anti-Muslim feeling and action we are experiencing in America and Europe -- and what to do about it.

For Jews, the month of Av is one of foreboding, sorrow, and slow recovery – all built around memories of the Destruction of two Holy Temples in Jerusalem, one by the Babylonian Army in 586 BCE; the other by the Roman Army in 70 CE. The ninth day of Av – in Hebrew, Tisha B’Av -- has been set aside to mourn these disasters.

Jewish tradition blamed these disasters partly on Imperial arrogance, but partly on internal Jewish failings and corruptions.

And the tradition sought to transcend these traumas: In the Biblical era, on the seventh day after the commemoration of Destruction there was a rejoicing with erotic overtones: On the Full Moon of Av, young women danced in the fields and chose their husbands. In the Rabbinic era, seven Sabbaths of Consolation after the day of disaster were set aside to read Prophetic passages of hope, leading in seven steps to the renewal of Rosh Hashanah.

But efforts at transcending the trauma never fully worked. These two destructions helped set the tone of Jewish history as a series of traumas and victimizations – a tone that, after many later repetitions and especially the Holocaust, still deeply colors Jewish responses to history, even though a “Jewish state” now holds considerable political and military power.

For observant Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spiritual self-examination and redirection. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset each day in order to turn their attention from physical satisfactions to spiritual growth; read the entire Quran during the month; increase their sharing with the poor; and late in the month celebrate the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They end the month with Eid ul-Fitr, the Feast of the Break-Fast.

What can we learn from each other, living this “moonth” alongside each other?

The effort to transcend trauma is not for Jewish hearts and minds alone. Islam as a whole has during the last several centuries been conquered, colonized, subjugated by various Western powers, from Morocco to Indonesia. Palestinians in particular have tried to elevate this experience into a kind of Tisha B’Av of their own, observing the Naqba – the “Disaster” that came upon their community as Israel was established.

For them and for many other Muslims, the Disaster still means military weakness, less-creative arts and sciences, stagnant economies. Can the Disaster itself be turned into fertile soil for a new Islam --as Rabbinic Judaism flowered from the ashes of the Second Temple and as the Rabbis taught that Tisha B’Av was the birthing day of the Messiah?

And in the other direction, what can Jews learn from Ramadan? In Jewish tradition, the forty days from the beginning of the month of Elul to Yom Kippur were intended to be days of religious study and spiritual self-examination. But for most Jews, the currents of Modernity and its pressure for swiftness have swept away this practice, and even the Ten Days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are rarely taken as a time for self-assessment, repair of wrongs, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

Perhaps the daily practice of fasting is what helps to hold the great majority of the world’s Muslims to observance of Ramadan. Perhaps Jews should be rethinking what daily practice for a full month would have such an impact on our lives. (There is a tradition of blowing the shofar every morning of the forty days that lead to Yom Kippur, but the Jews who do this are rare today. And perhaps the ritual is too “ritualistic,” too little a dent upon our earthy daily lives, to raise our consciousness as fasting does.)

Perhaps there is even a hint of what Jews could do, in the cultural history of Morocco. There the Jewish and Muslim communities feed each other – literally – at the end of Ramadan and the end of Passover. Muslims bring Jews the first post-Passover bread -- for a celebration that became known as “Maimouna,” “Prosperity-time.” And Jews bring Muslims the first food for the great Break-Fast at the end of Ramadan.

Here and there in America during the last few years, Mosques and synagogues have been connecting during Ramadan. Precisely in the face of the tensions between the two communities that have arisen in the last decade, what if they agreed that every evening – or even just every Sunday evening -- during Ramadan, Jews would eat with Muslims, in synagogues or mosques (and as individuals got to know each other, in private homes)?

What if synagogues agreed that during every Shabbat during Ramadan, they would read and study a passage from the Quran?

Or what if the lesson were transposed into Jewish time – so that despite the rush of business and the craving for mid-summer vacation, Jews ceremoniously set aside 18 minutes every morning in Av or from the First of Elul to Yom Kippur to dedicate some money to healing the world – pursuing peace, seeking justice, protecting the Earth?

May your Av, your Ramadan, help lift you into a fuller awareness of the loving care we owe each other!

SHAVUOT 2011: OBSCENITIES AS WORDS OF TORAH

This isn't the Torah we received. Since that time, Israel has been swallowed up by the Land of Israel and disappeared inside its maw.

7 June 2011, Haaretz הארץ

By Yossi Sarid

Go to your computer right now and watch the frightening video clip posted on YouTube as a memento of Jerusalem Day (it's called "Yom Yeru 2011" ). Not a handful, but hundreds of young people high on hard-core nationalism wave blue-and-white flags; may their eyes grow dim.

"Death to the Arabs, death to the leftists," they chanted. "The Temple will be rebuilt, the mosque will be destroyed." "Kahane lives, Mohammed is dead." "Itbach al-Arab" ("Death to the Arabs" in Arabic ). Thus they elevate Jerusalem as their chief sin: May their tongues cleave to their palates.

While I was roaming Jerusalem's streets, another mob was gathering at the city's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, with rabbis Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed and Dov Lior of Hebron among the guests. The former demands Israel be purged of Arabs, while the latter endorses a book that justifies killing gentiles, urges soldiers to disobey orders and refuses to show up for questioning by the police.

Nowadays, every obscenity is treated as 'words of Torah.' A bill was even submitted for discussion to the cabinet that would permit incitement by rabbis, and rabbis only. And MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union ) was also among the guests.
The guest of honor was the prime minister; lift up your heads, O ye gates. "I see you as an elite Torah combat unit," the king of glory - and of shame - said fawningly. Now the Torah, too, has its own elite combat unit.

Jerusalem Day ends, and Shavuot arrives - the holiday I once loved above all others for its graciousness and compassion. This is the time of the giving of our Torah, "a Torah of life I gave to you." But this isn't the Torah we received. Since that time, Israel has been swallowed up by the Land of Israel and disappeared inside its maw.

Our education minister, Gideon Sa'ar, is also living in the Book of Joshua, as if the Torah had no other books - as if we had no children here, but only our distant forefathers. Of all the possible nationwide school trips, he chose to join the first visit by students to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, to support his new program, "Visits to the Land of Our Fathers." A few months ago, he threatened a principal with dismissal because he proposed teachers take a tour of army checkpoints. But what is permissible for an emperor is forbidden to the flea in his ear.

As a part-time civics teachers when he deems the occasion right, Sa'ar surely explained to the visiting students how the Jewish settlement was established in "Kiryat Arba, which is Hebron" as a plot against the government; how the settlers there beat up soldiers and policemen and spat on their neighbors; how the people who dwell by the Cave of the Patriarchs make pilgrimages to the grave of the Jewish murderer Baruch Goldstein, and sanctify his name in public; how the Torah handed down at Sinai authorized us to dispossess, deport and seal houses; and why a Hebron market street stands empty.

Shavuot is blessed with a beautiful megillah, the Book of Ruth. I sometimes wonder how Ruth managed to worm her way into the Book of Books; perhaps the Song of Songs paved the way for her. It could never happen today. The Education Ministry and Mercaz Harav would never consent, and the Culture and Sports Ministry would disqualify its candidacy for the Zionist Artwork Award.

That's all we need: For a complete goy - a Moabite, on top of all her other problems - to marry Mahlon, who, even though he has fallen low, is still a Jew. By what right did she cleave to Naomi - a healthy woman, after all, who doesn't need a Filipina in constant attendance - so that she could later seduce another wealthy Jewish man, thus enabling her to remain without a permit from the rabbis and without even a pro forma conversion? And how did it happen that "all the people" were happy and supportive, without a single opponent?

After all, even back then, they could have deported her as a foreign agricultural worker who had infiltrated into Israel by means of dubious paperwork.

And they would have left her great-grandson, David, without a chance of even being born, much less later being anointed as Israel's king.

As the holiday approached, I telephoned the Bialik-Rogozin School and asked to speak with Ruthie. She's an 11-year-old girl, a sixth-grader, with Ghanaian parents who work as cleaners. But don't think they - her mother and father - are innocents. For it's not by chance that they named their daughter Ruthie - Ruth, of all things - in order to remind us of, and make us mourn, what we have lost.