Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Introduction: ‘Finding’ the ‘lost’ woman rabbi

Good evening everyone.  Thank you for inviting me here to tell you about Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas, who received s’mikhah, rabbinic ordination, in Germany in 1935.  I first heard about Rabbi Regina Jonas in 1992, when I had been a rabbi for just three years.  Intrigued to discover that a woman had become a rabbi Germany in the 1930s, before the Sho’ah, I decided that I wanted to find out more about her.  As it turned out, my research raised many more questions than it answered – questions that remain very relevant to this day.

I gave a lecture about Rabbi Regina Jonas at the Leo Baeck College in 1994, which was later published in the journal, European Judaism in 1995.  Prior to this publication, a briefer account of my research into her life and work was included in the first anthology of the writings of women rabbis in Britain, Hear Our Voice, which was published by SCM Press in December 1994 1.  At the time that I spoke at Leo Baeck College, I was honoured to be giving the first public lecture devoted to the life and work of Rabbi Regina Jonas, fifty years after her death in Auschwitz in 1944.  Research had already been conducted by a German Christian feminist, Katharina von Kellenbach – who, incidently, died a few months ago 2.  And in the years since my humble efforts, important work in the retrieval of Regina Jonas’ legacy has been undertaken:  Most significantly, Elisa Klapchek, rabbi of the Beit Ha’Chidush congregation in Amsterdam, who grew up in Germany, has written a biography, which was translated into English by New York-born, Toby Axelrod – who has also translated Regina Jonas’ 1930 treatise, “Can Women Serve as Rabbis?”  3

So, in an important sense Rabbi Regina Jonas is no longer ‘news’ – except, of course, to those who have yet to learn about her life and work.  And that is where I began – as a relatively new ‘woman rabbi’ back in 1992.  At that time, it had been exactly twenty years since Sally Priesand had received s’mikhah from the Hebrew Union College in the United States in 1972.  As far as I was aware, and as far as my women rabbinic colleagues were aware, Sally Priesand was the ‘first’ woman rabbi.  We largely saw ourselves in the context of a new era, which had been significantly shaped by the Women’s Liberation Movement which re-emerged in the late 1960s and led to profound changes in the lives and expectations of women, especially, in Britain, western Europe and the United States.  In other words, we saw ourselves as a new phenomenon. 

And then we heard about a German woman rabbi called Regina Jonas who worked as a pastor, preacher and teacher in the Berlin Jewish community and in the Terezin ghetto and died in Auschwitz in 1944.  And we wondered: What contribution might she have made to Judaism if she had survived?  What difference would her survival have made to the development of women in the Rabbinate?  If Hitler has not come to power shortly after Regina Jonas completed her studies… if German Jewry had not become preoccupied with simple survival… if European Jewry had not been consumed by the fire of Nazism…  What would have become of Regina Jones and the other twenty-six women who studied with her at the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judenturns (the ‘High School for the Science of Judaism’) in Berlin? 4

Once I began my research into the life and work of Rabbi Regina Jonas, these questions, vital though they are, were soon overtaken by other questions – which amounted to one big question:  Why was the historical record so silent about her?  There is no reference to Regina Jonas in the Encyclopaedia Judaica .  There is no reference to Regina Jonas in H.G. Adler’s monumental work, Theresienstadt, 1941-1945, published in 1960.  Ditto the testimony gathered by the Council of Jewish communities in the Czech Lands, entitled, Terezin published in 1965.  Ditto Richard Fuchs’ article on ‘The Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the Nazi Period’ published in the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (XII) of 1967.  Similarly, in his article included in Living Judaism in Spring 1967, in which he argues for the ordination of women, Aryeh Dorfler, Lecturer in Rabbinics at the Leo Baeck College at the time, makes no mention of the precedent set by Regina Jonas. 5

Interestingly, in the account of “The Last Days of the Hochschule’ by Alexander Guttman published by Hebrew Union College in 1972 – the year that the first woman, Sally Priesand, was ordained by that institution – Guttman refers to the dissension regarding Regina Jonas, both prior to, and following, her ordination.  And yet, in  Response to Modernity.  A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, published in 1988, Michael Meyer makes only passing reference to Regina Jonas in his discussion of the controversy about women’s ordination at the Hebrew Union College. 6  Even more perplexing, the specialist study, Women of Theresienstadt.  Voices from a Concentration Camp by Ruth Schwertfeger, published in 1989 7  does not include the voice of Regina Jonas – a spectactular omission.  Regina Jonas lost her life in Sho’ah, and, it seems that the memory of her life and work also vanished practically without trace.

Of course, there was the problem of written evidence.  While Regina Jonas is included in institutional records of the Hochschule, the Judische Gemeinde (Jewish Community) of Berlin, Theresienstadt (Terezin) and Yad Vashem – and there is lively discussion of the special ‘case’ of Regina Jonas in the Jewish newspaper of the time, Israelitisches Familienblatt – until the Berlin Wall came down, Regina Jonas’ letters and papers – including her rabbinic thesis – rested undisturbed in the Bundesarchives (State Archives) in Coswig, 100 kilometres east of Berlin for over four decades. 

But the political realities of Germany after 1945 do not explain why the official records were not investigated earlier.  And then there is the question of the leading Jewish figures who knew Regina Jonas and survived the Sho’ah – like her teacher at the Hochschule, Rabbi Dr Leo Baeck, and Viktor Frankl with whom she worked in Terezin.  As far as we know, they did not breathe a word about her. 8  Why is this?  A surviving fellow Hochschule student – who became a senior Progressive rabbi in Britain – told me when I made enquiries that she simply had not interested him;  she was not his ‘type’! 9

But at the time at least, there were others who were far less indifferent and dismissive.  During her early years at the Hochschule (1926-1929), Regina Jonas corresponded with two of her teachers there, Eduard Baneth, Professor of Talmud, and responsible for rabbinic ordination, who supervised her final thesis, and Ismar Elbogen, Professor of Liturgy – and their letters to her are preserved in the archives. 10   Indeed, there is clear evidence from this correspondence that these distinguished scholars recognised the difficulties she faced as a woman.  As early as 1927, Elbogen wrote to Regina Jonas at Purim urging her not to be pessimistic of her chances of getting work.  He added that the community should not pay her less than the rate 10.  Perhaps Ismar Elbogen and Eduard Baneth would have remained stout supporters of their colleague following her ordination.  But Eduard Baneth, who originally conducted the rabbinic examination of Regina Jonas, died in 1930, during the course of it 11 and Ismar Elbogen, emigrated to New York in 1938 where he joined Hebrew Union College and died in 1943 12 .  These two scholars did not live to relate their experiences of Regina Jonas.

And what of Leo Baeck, who survived the Sho’ah and lived in London for eleven years until his death in 1956?  His letters to Regina Jonas span the period from 1934 to 1940, and reveal that he was not just a teacher, he was a friend.  Indeed, this is also true of Leo Baeck’s wife, Natalie, who also corresponded with Regina Jonas. 10 What is more, Leo Baeck and Regina Jonas were in Thereseinstadt – in Terezin – at the same time – although Regina Jonas was deported to the ghetto in November 1942, and dispatched to Auschwitz two years later and Leo Baeck was incarcerated there from 1943 until its liberation in 1945.

So why didn’t Leo Baeck keep the memory of his student alive and pass it on to the next generation?  One can only speculate – and in all fairness to the memory of Leo Baeck himself, speculation is dangerous.  Perhaps he did mention her.  But if he did, nothing he said seems to have been recorded 8.  Perhaps, too, Ellen Littman, a fellow student of Regina Jonas, who taught Bible at Leo Baeck College in the early years, also mentioned Regina Jonas to her students.  But if she did, the knowledge that a woman student at the Hochschule had received s’mikhah, does not seem to have excited the curiosity of the first post-war generation of European progressive rabbis.

And yet, by contrast, for a woman who was taught by Regina Jonas as a girl between the years 1934 and 1937 at a non-Jewish school in Berlin where she was a visiting teacher, ‘Dr Jonas’, as she was known there, left a ‘lasting impression’. 13  When the news of Regina Jonas’ ordination certificate and photograph was published in Inform, the  newsletter of the Reform Synagogues of  Great Britain in December 1993, a delighted Inge Kallman of Southport quickly wrote to the Leo Baeck College and the Principal, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Magonet, kindly passed her letter on to me.14   In her letter to me,15  she recalled that at twelve years of age, she was encouraged by ‘Dr Jonas’ to attend her first Oneg Shabbat.  And she went on to say that it was also at the instigation of Regina Jonas that she attended an Erev Shabbat service that her teacher conducted at an old people’s home near the Jewish Hospital in Berlin.  It was here that she remembers seeing Regina Jonas in her rabbinical robes for the first time.  In addition to these more formal settings, this former pupil also remembers:  ‘one occasion when the few Jewish children still remaining at the school were invited to her flat for biscuits and coffee, a flat she shared with her mother.’

Why did it take so long for these memories to surface?  Inge Kallman writes:  ‘Whenever I asked previously, it seems that although her existence was known, there was no evidence.’16   No substantial written evidence, clearly.  But if those who had known Regina Jonas, who taught her, studied with her, worked with her, had made an effort to transmit their experience of her to others, we would have had the evidence of oral testimony, and it would not have been necessary to rediscover Regina Jonas almost fifty years after her death in the archives where she herself deposited her letters and papers.17

Regina Jonas may have expected to retrieve her own work from the archives after the war – or perhaps, she did not think she would survive and hoped that future generations would rediscover her contribution to Jewish life.  But she died in Auschwitz and so it became the responsibility of the next generation to engage in to the task of retrieval. 

In addition to reading Katharina von Kellenbach’s article published in the journal Schlagenbrut  in 1992 2 and also the tribute by Hans Hirschberg published in Leo Baeck College News in 1993 11, I conducted my own piece of research in November 1993, when I visited the archives at Coswig – which have since been transferred to Potsdam, near Berlin.  Although I was only given access to a few letters, they helped to illuminate aspects of Regina Jonas’ experience as a student and rabbi and her relationships with her scholars/teachers.  Fortunately, after going to see Dr Hermann Simon, Director of the Zentrum Judaicum Foundation at the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue in East Berlin, he agreed to let me have the microfilm containing all the archive material – including Regina Jonas’ rabbinic dissertation on the ordination of women – which I finally received in March 1994 and deposited in library of the Leo Baeck College.  And so – technical issues of translation aside – for the first time, the written evidence of the contribution of Regina Jonas became accessible. 

From Teacher to Rabbi

So, what do we know about the first woman rabbi?  Regina Jonas was born on August 3^rd 1902 in Berlin.  At the age of twenty-one she began working as a teacher of Religion in the Orthodox Jewish School in Berlin, where her brother, Abraham, also taught, and spent the next twenty-one years until her death intensively engaged in Jewish learning and teaching.

However, Regina Jonas was not content with being a teacher.  She attended the Hochschule from 1924 to 1930 attaining the qualification, ‘Academic Teacher of Religion’ 18.  Did she plan to become a rabbi or did her studies at the Hoschschule lead her in that direction?  Further research may yield an answer to that question.  What we do know is that towards the end of her studies, she clearly sought ordination.  She devoted her thesis to an exploration of the Talmudic sources regarding Women’s Ordination and waited to receive s’mikhah.

But it was not to be – at least not under Hochschule auspices.  Although Regina Jonas had the support of the majority of her teachers, the Talmud Professor, Dr Chanokh Albeck, declined to put his name to a Rabbinic Diploma.  The controversy raged but was unresolved 19 and despite the fact that Leo Baeck was her teacher for many years he did not ordain her.  Hans Hirschberg argues that: ‘[a] possible explanation might be that Baeck presided over the General Association of Rabbis in Germany which also included Orthodox and Conservative Rabbis.  The ordination of a woman as Rabbi’, he writes, ‘may have led to unwanted arguments, likewise in Berlin, where Leo Baeck had to work with non-liberal colleagues in unified congregation (Einheitsgemeinde)’. 

But the issue of ordination – or rather the lack of it – did not end there.  At the request of the Union of Liberal Rabbis in Germany on 27 December 1935 Regina Jonas received s’mikhah from Rabbi Max Dienemann in Offenbach who having examined her declared her ‘qualified to occupy the office of Rabbi’ 20.  Interestingly, Leo Baeck wrote to her just four days later on 31 December, congratulating her on her performance in her examination 10.  And it was Leo Baeck again, who, over six years later on 6 February 1942, signed a certificate confirming her s’mikhah  21.

It is the certificate alone – presented by Dr Hermann Simon, to Leo Baeck College on 3 October 1993, together with a photograph of Regina Jonas in her rabbinic robes – that provides the incontrovertible evidence of her ordination which sets her apart as the first woman whose status as a Rabbi received formal acknowledgement.  Interestingly, Inge Kallman recalls her teacher saying that ‘apart from a woman rabbi in America, she was the first woman rabbi’. 22    Who was that woman rabbi?  Perhaps Regina Jonas was referring to Martha Neumark, the daughter of a professor at the Hebrew Union College, who provoked an outcry when she requested ordination in 1922.  Michael Meyer discusses the controversy briefly in Response to Modernity (1988).  Apparently, while the HUC faculty were unanimous in their support of Martha Neumark, a majority of the College’s Board of Governors decided against changing the policy of ordination for males only 23.  So, Martha Neumark did not receive s’mikhah.  But if Regina Jonas was alluding to Martha Neumark when she spoke of ‘a woman rabbi in America’ then it seems that Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas, at least, considered her a colleague.

Working as a Rabbi

What kind of woman was Regina Jonas?  And what kind of a rabbi did the first woman to officially assume that role, turn out to be?  The evidence explored so far reveals a picture of a determined individual, a dedicated teacher and pastor.  Here are some of the pieces in the puzzle:

The first piece is a picture:  a photograph, which now hangs in a classroom at the Leo Baeck College dedicated to the rabbis of the pre-war Hochschule generation.  Her face is strong: piercing eyes, firm chin, resolute mouth; her stance is defiant.  She looks like a force to be reckoned with.

Regina Jonas was a bold individual.  There are clear signs that she would not allow the absence of ‘official’ recognition to stand in her way.  And no doubt the fact that the dispute spilled out into the wider Jewish community, turning her into a public figure, helped to embolden her still more.  Shortly after she completed her examination at the Hochschule, the Jewish Journal, Israelitisches Familienblatt, published an article entitled ‘It strikes us’ on 4 June 1931, in which the author expressed his ambivalent reaction – and perhaps that of many others – to the anomalous position of Regina Jonas.  He wrote:

One is rightfully permitted to be proud of her.  One is rightfully permitted to see this as a good sign of the times when a young woman out of her own inclination and zeal grasps hold of the Jewish teaching profession …  But nevertheless it strikes us that in this certificate which the Hochschule for the Science of Judaism has bestowed, it was not stated that it is only a teaching and not a preaching Diploma …  As long as it is not the regular norm that women ministers are appointed and as long as …  many small communities …  give people with Academic Religion certificates, rabbinic functions, it must be said that this Diploma when bestowed on a woman should not include the qualification to preach which normally a certificate like this includes.  Otherwise it could happen that other Academic and Seminary-educated women religion teachers could climb the pulpit and claim to be qualified by their educational institutions to do so …

Perhaps if the German Jewish community had not been overtaken by external events, some of the other female students at the Hochschule  may have risen to this challenge.  In any case, Regina Jonas pursued the case for woman rabbis.  She gave a lecture at the Judischen Frauenbund in Berlin with the title, ‘Can Women Become Rabbis?’, which was reported in the same journal (Israelitisches Familienblatt) on 5 November 1931.  Beginning with an historical sketch of the origin of rabbinic ordination, she explained:

In earlier times, there existed no exams for rabbis.  Leaders of the community were learned people who were authorised by other learned people to practice the rabbinical function.  They themselves had the right to name as rabbis, men who seemed to them to be worthy.

Regina Jonas knew that there were rabbis who considered her to be worthy – and members of the Berlin community with which she worked, too.  Perhaps that is what made her so tenacious.  And yet there continued to be many detractors 24 and the ambiguity which surrounded her role persisted even after she received s’mikhah.  A survivor recalls: 25

In Berlin there lived at this time in the thirties the first woman rabbi, Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas.  She watched carefully that one said ‘Fraulein Rabbiner’ to her because a ‘Frau Rabbiner’ was the wife of a rabbi … She came into the hospital and old age home very often, and there she wanted to function as a rabbi.  Generally, this worked in the old age home.  In the hospital, she came into the synagogue, wearing a purple robe – not black – she sat herself downstairs next to a man on the rabbi’s seat.  She wanted to give her lecture or sermon during the prayers, but always when this doctor was there and prayed with the people, he said to her, ‘You can do what you want, but for the prayers you go upstairs to the women, and afterwards you can come downstairs’.

Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas worked with the old and with the young primarily as a pastor and teacher.  However, she found that despite the resistance of some people, once the violence and deportations began, she increasingly assumed an overt pulpit presence.  Hans Hirschberg writes 26:

Contemporaries praised her extraordinary personality and oratorical gifts.  Where and whenever she preached to those who were to perform forced labour, they filled the place to capacity and those who did not manage to get in, stood in the doorways as far as the street.

On 3 November 1942, Regina Jonas completed a declaration form listing her property – including her books – which was officially confiscated ‘for the benefit of the German Reich’ two days later.  On 6 November, she was deported to Theresienstadt 27.  But her rabbinic work did not end with deportation.  In the ghetto, she continued functioning as a rabbi, working together with the well-known psychologist, Viktor Frankl.   Her particular task was to meet transports at the railway station and help people deal with their initial shock and disorientation 28.

Curiously, Viktor Frankl, while he wrote extensively about what he learned from his experience in the camps after the war 8 did not mention his work with Regina Jonas.  However, when approached by Katharina von Kellenbach in 1991 and asked directly about her, Frankl described Regina Jonas as ‘loaded with energy and a very impressive personality’.  He also called her ‘a blessed preacher and speaker’ 29 – a reference to the fact that, in addition to her pastoral work, Regina Jonas also gave sermons and lectures.  The amazingly full cultural life of Terezin is well-documented, and she contributed to the programme of activities.  A hand-written list of her lectures, entitled, ‘Lectures of the one and only woman rabbi, Regina Jonas’ has survived in the Terezin archives. 30   Of the twenty-three different titles, five concern the position, meaning and history of Jewish women, five deal with Talmudic topics, two with biblical themes, three with pastoral issues, and nine offer general introductions to the  basic contents of Jewish beliefs, ethics and the festivals.

Like Viktor Frankl and her teacher, Leo Baeck, who both survived Terezin, Regina Jonas was clearly an inspiration for all those who knew her.  A glimmer of her spiritual strength is apparent in the one sermon delivered in the ghetto to have survived – which includes these words of hope. 31

Our Jewish people is sent from God into history as ‘blessed’, ‘from God blessed’ which means, wherever one steps in every life situation, bestow blessing, goodness and faithfulness – humility before God’s selflessness, whose devotion-full love for His creatures maintains the world.  To establish these pillars of the world was and is Israel’s task.  Men and women, and women and men have undertaken this duty with the same Jewish faithfulness.  This ideal also serves our testing Thereseinstadt work.  We are God’s servants and as such we are moving from earthly to eternal spheres.  May all our work which we have tried to perform as God’s servants, be a blessing for Israel’s future and Humanity.

After two years of tireless work on behalf of her fellow prisoners in the ghetto, Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas was dispatched to Auschwitz.  There is some dispute about the date.  Katharina von Kellenbach, citing the Transport List held in the archives at Yad Vashem on which Regina Jonas is included as No.722 32, says that the date was 9 October 1944.  Hans Hirschberg states that the date was 12 December 1944 33.  The Yad Vashem reference itself seems to be dated 20 December. 34   von Kellenbach later revised her estimate and suggested that the date was 12 October. 35   What is certain is that Rabbi Regina Jonas did not live to see the New Year of 1945 and liberation in the Spring.36

Although since the time that I conducted my research, there have been further studies 3, much of the mystery that surrounds Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas remains. It is clear that she was a gifted, courageous individual and a committed rabbi.  The circumstances of her time meant that she was, in her own words, ‘the one and only woman rabbi’.  We cannot know how many other women may have become rabbis after her if the Sho’ah had not happened.  We cannot know if Regina Jonas would have made a special contribution to Jewish life if she had been one of many and European Jewry had not been rounded up and slaughtered.  The chain was broken.  But today, women rabbis, who now make up half of the progressive rabbinate in Britain, are creating a new chain, and as we do so, we are proud to restore a missing link with our past:

Frauline Rabbiner Regina Jonas – zichronah livrachah, ‘may her memory be for a blessing’.  Amen.

 

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

The Jewish Historical Society, Brighton & Hove Branch

23^rd February 2010

 

 

 

 

Notes

1.            Elizabeth Sarah: ‘Rabbi Regina Jonas, 1902-1944: Missing Link in a Broken Chain’. In Hear Our Voice.  Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories. SCM Press, 1994; ‘The Discovery of Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Making Sense of Our Inheritance’. European Judaism, 95:2, December 1995.

2.            At the time I conducted my research, Katharina von Kellenbach had published: ‘Frl. Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Eine religiose Feministin vor ihrer Zeit’ in Schlangenbrut Nr.38, 1992, pp.35-39(kindly translated for me by Maren Freudenberg); “Forgotten Voices: German Women’s Ordination and the Holocaust” in Proceedings of the Second Biennial Conference on Christianity and the Holocaust, Rider College II (1992);  and: “God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being: The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jonas” in Leo Baeck Institute: Yearbook XXXIX (1994).  In 1998 a further article was published in the journal, Shofar: “Preaching Hope: Denial and Defiance of Genocidal Reality in Rabbi Regina Jonas’ Work”

3.            See Klapheck, Elisa, ed. Fräulein Rabbiner Jonas—The Story of the First Woman Rabbi. San Francisco: 2004. (Fräulein Rabbiner Jonas—Kann die Frau das rabbinische Amt bekleiden?. Teetz: 2000); Axelrod, Toby, 2009: “My years with Regina Jonas”.  In: Bridges. A Jewish Feminist Journal, Autumn 2009, Vol. 14, No.2, pp.27-31.  Also see: Herweg, Rachel Monika. “Regina Jonas (1902–1944).” In Meinetwegen ist die Welt erschaffen. Das intellektuelle Vermächtnis des deutschsprachigen Judentums. 58 Porträts, edited by Hans Erler, Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich, and Ludger Heid. Frankfurt, New York: 1997.  For a summary account of Regina Jonas, see the aricle by Elisa Klapchek in the Jewish Women’s Archive: jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jonas-regina

4.            See Annual Report of the Hochschule for 1932 cited both in ‘The Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the Period of Nazi Rule.  Personal Recollections’ by Richard Fuchs (Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, XII, 1967, p.7) and in ‘Frl. Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Eine religiose Feministin vor ihrer Zeit’ by Katharina von Kellenbach (Schlangenbrut Nr.38, 1992, pp.35-39).  Fuchs points out (p.7) that there was a rise in the student population at the Hochschule after the First World War.  In 1921, there were 63 regular students and 45 external students.  In the Summer of 1932, the total number rose to 155, including 27 women.

5.            My thanks to Rabbis Jonathan Magonet and John Rayner z”l for drawing my attention to the articles by Fuchs and Dorfler respectively.

6.            Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism. OUP, 1988.  He writes (p.379):  ‘When [women’s ordination] was raised again (note: the first time was in 1922 with the case of Martha Neumark) among Sisterhood leaders in 1958, even they were initially divided.  By then, however, one woman, Regina Jonas, had received private ordination upon completing her studies at the Liberal seminary in Berlin, and for a brief time had served as a rabbi before perishing in the Holocaust

7.            Ruth Schwertfeger, Women of Theresienstadt.  Voices from a Concentration Camp, Berg, 1989

8.            Leo Baeck’s biographer, Albert Friedlander does not recall any reference made by Leo Baeck to Regina Jonas (Private conversation, 20.6.94) and his biography, Leo Baeck, Teacher of Theresienstadt, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, New York, 1968 certainly makes no reference to her.  As for Viktor Frankl, he discussed his experience of the camps in his books, From Death Camp to Existentialism, later revised and included in a  larger work, Man’s Search for Meaning.  An Introduction to Legotherapy, Hodder and Stroughton, London, 1962.  However, although he worked with Regina Jonas in Theresienstadt, this text, at least, does not mention her.

9.            Rabbi Curtis Cassell.  Private conversation 14.6.94

10.          The Bundesarchives reference no. for the letters addressed to Regina Jonas is 75D JO 1

11.          See ‘Tribute to Rabbi Regina Jonas of Berlin’ by Hans Hirschberg (Leo Baeck College News 1993, p.46.

12.          Fuchs, 1967, p.23

13.          Inge Kallman, letter to Jonathan Magonet 4.1.94.

14.          ibid

15.          Inge Kallman, letter to Elizabeth Sarah, 27.4.94

16.          Inge Kallman, letter to Jonathan Magonet, 4.1.94

17.          Hirschberg, pp.46-7

18.          ibid. p.46

19.          Some of the controversy found public expression in the journal Israelitisches Familienblatt, quotations from which are included in Katharina von Kellenbach’s article (see note 2).

20.          Hirschberg, pp. 46-7

21.          ibid. p.47

22.          Inge Kallman, letter to Jonathan Magonet, 4.1.94

23.          Meyer, 1988, p.379

24.          von Kellenbach (Schlangenbrut 1992) quotes opponents of Regina Jonas.

25.          von Kellenbach, Schlangenbrut 1992, p.38.  Despite Regina Jonas’ express wish to be addressed as ‘Fraulein Rabbiner’ there is evidence that she continued to be addressed as ‘Frau Rabbiner’.  See, for example, a letter from the central office of the Judische Gemeinde (Jewish Community) of Berlin, of 11.9.40, concerning her work at the old people’s home (75 D JO1).

26.          Hirschberg, pp.47

27.          von Kellenbach, Schlangenbrut 1992, p.38

28.          ibid., pp.38-39.

29.          ibid., p.39

30.          ibid.

31.          ibid.

32.          ibid, p.38; footnote 22, p.39

33.          Hirschberg, p.47

34.          von Kellenbach, Schlangenbrut 1992, p.39

35.          von Kellenbach, “God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being”.   The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jonas’.  Leo Baeck Year Book, No.39, 1994. 

36.          There is no doubt that the last transports to Auschwitz took place in October.  Perhaps Regina Jonas was killed in December

My contribution to this evening’s reflections focuses on a story, the formative story of the Jewish people, which Jews the world over will return to in three weeks time, when we celebrate the festival of Pesach – Passover.  Today, the human population of the globe has expanded to six and a half billion; of that number just 14.2 million are Jews; a tiny minority; it has always been so.  And yet this story has provided a powerful raison d’etre for Jewish existence – ultimately more powerful than persecution and genocide – because this story is about our liberation from persecution and genocide.

One might say that the Jewish people is still here, despite our recurring experience of persecution and genocide, because of the inspiration we have drawn from this story:  The Eternal One is a liberator; ultimately the oppressed must go free.  And yet, in recounting this story, we have sometimes forgotten the key individuals, whose actions made the liberation possible.  Even those, for whom the Bible is not their sacred literature, have probably heard of Moses – the fugitive-turned-shepherd, who was apprehended by the Eternal One in the wilderness, and then sent on a mission to return to Egypt and persuade both Pharaoh and the slaves that freedom was at hand.  But what about the other important characters?

Let me remind you on the story:  As the Book of Exodus opens, we read that a new king had come to the throne, who ‘did not know Joseph’ (1:8) – the Hebrew who had settled with his family in Egypt some time earlier.  Unlike his predecessor, who tolerated the presence of this minority people, the new Pharaoh was afraid that they might grow too numerous and pose a threat to his rule (1:9).  So, he decided to enslave the Hebrews (1:11-14), and then instructed the mid-wives to kill all the new-born males (1:15-16).  But he didn’t reckon on the courage of two particular midwives, Shifra and Pu’ah, who defying his orders, ensured that the baby-boys lived (1:17-19); and he knew nothing of one family, of a mother and her eldest child, a daughter – unnamed at this point – whose bold and decisive actions ensured that the baby boy of their family, did not die (2:2ff.).  Not only did the mother prepare a floating basket and hide her baby in the reeds of the river; standing guard, the daughter was quick to act when Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the river to bathe and found the baby – offering the princess the services of a Hebrew woman as a wet-nurse:  hence the baby Moses grew up in the Egyptian court, with his mother looking after him until he was weaned.

So, a small band of women subverted the great and powerful Pharaoh.  On one level this story serves no other purpose than to provide an explanation of how Moses survived to lead his people out of bondage and into freedom.  Looked at in this way, the women involved simply serve the narrative, which centres on the all-important male figure.  Nevertheless, their role in a story that is essentially about Moses doesn’t diminish the importance of what they did – and the immense courage and determination that exhibited in the face of tyranny.

But, as it happens, one female character in the Exodus story does much more than serve the plot – Moses’ sister.  The Torah makes no mention of her again until, years after she saved her baby brother, she surfaces once more:  The slaves have escaped Egypt, passed safely on dry-land through the sea of reeds, and Moses has led them in a song of exultation.  Then we read (Exodus 15: 20:21a):

Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.  / and Miriam sang to them.

It’s only a small word in Hebrew – lahem – ‘to them’ – but, interestingly, it is the masculine gender.  Hebrew is a gendered language – there are no ’neutral’ ways of speaking; by using the masculine gender, by saying lahem instead of lahen, the Torah let’s us know that Miriam sang not only to the women – lahen – but also, to all the people – hence, lahem.  It seems like a tiny point.  But it is very important.  We haven’t heard from the sister of Moses for fourteen chapters – three portions of the Torah – and now suddenly she not only appears, she is given a name, Miriam, and is described as ‘the prophetess, the sister of Aaron’.  This description is contradictory:  If Miriam is a prophetess – n’vi’ah – then she is parallel to Moses, who is later called a prophet – navi (Deuteronomy 34:10); but her designation as ‘the sister of Aaron’, suggests that, together with Aaron, who is not called a prophet, she shares a lower status than Moses.  And yet, Miriam not only leads the women – a secondary sub-set of the people – she also sings to the whole community.  But this short but dense reference to Miriam is very frustrating for readers of the Torah, interested in knowing more about her:  while Moses and Aaron take centre-stage, after this tantalising glimpse, Miriam immediately disappears from the narrative once more until chapter 12 of the fourth book of the Torah, the Book of Numbers.

Miriam’s absence from the story is baffling enough – but when we do meet Miriam again, she is leading a rebellion – against Moses!   If you read the English translation, you will find that it says:  ‘Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses’ (Numbers 12:1).  But the Hebrew puts the verb in the feminine singular: Va-t’dabbeir – which means ‘She spoke’.  So a more accurate translation would be: ‘Miriam spoke – and Aaron – against Moses’.  Aaron went along with her – but Miriam was the prime-mover.  The Torah tells us that Miriam – and Aaron – spoke against Moses, for two reasons: first, because of the Cushite woman, whom Moses had married (:1) – did Miriam perhaps feel aggrieved on the part of Moses’ existing wife, Tzipporah? – and, second, because of Moses’ exclusive relationship with God.  It isn’t surprising that Miriam, ‘the prophetess’ should feel aggrieved.  And, also, not surprising that although Aaron joins her in saying: ‘Has the Eternal indeed spoken only with Moses?  Has He not spoken also with us?’ (:2); Miriam alone is punished: her skin made leprous, as ‘white as snow’ (:10).

Miriam is punished for stepping out of line, for forgetting her place.  But that is not the end of the matter.   Like all those with ‘leprosy’, she is shut out of the camp for seven days until she is healed.  But the Torah makes a point of saying that ‘the people did not journey on until Miriam was brought in again’ (:15).  On the one hand, the Torah account marginalises Miriam; on the other, the Torah acknowledges the importance of her leadership role for the people.

Miriam’s challenge to Moses is the first of a series of rebellions against Moses – and, subsequently, against Aaron, too – recounted in the Book of Numbers.   The rebellions take place in the second year of their wilderness journey – when the people have already reached the border of the land beyond the Jordan, which is their destination. However, they are condemned, for their rebelliousness, to wander for forty years until the last member of the generation that left Egypt, has died (Numbers 14:28ff.).  Silent, once more, about Miriam following her outburst, the Torah says nothing about those thirty-eight years.  And then, significantly, when the narrative resumes in the first month of the fortieth year, the first thing is relates is that after arriving in the wilderness of Tzin, and settling at Kadesh, ‘Miriam died there’ (Numbers 20:1).  The eldest of three sibling leaders died first.  It makes sense.  But the brevity of the reference to Miriam’s death immediately after the yawning lacunae in the narrative, only serves to highlight how little is said about her in the Torah – less than thirty verses in total.

Interestingly, the midrash – rabbinic commentary – regarding Miriam goes some way to compensate for the marginal role she plays in the Torah.  Immediately following Miriam’s death, the Torah relates that the people murmured against Moses and Aaron for lack of water (Numbers 20:2ff.).  The rabbis made a connection between the two events:  And so we read in the midrash* that during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, ‘Miriam’s Well’ accompanied the Israelites on all their journeys; it only dried up after she died – hence the clamour for water.

Why did the rabbis, the scholarly leadership of the Jewish people, following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, choose to relate this whimsical tale about Miriam?  Was it perhaps, one of the forgotten stories about her that didn’t get included in the Torah?  Or does the story simply emerge out of the imperative of exegesis – interpretation – demanded by the text?  If the Torah says Miriam was a n’vi’ah, a ‘prophetess’, and shows us glimpses of her leadership, surely her role in the Exodus and wilderness narratives was much more significant than the Torah lets on.

That’s the point:  Miriam was one of the leaders of the Exodus – and more than this, her role was crucial.   Together with her mother, Yocheved, and the midwives, Shifra and Pu’ah, she played a key part in setting the Exodus in motion; together they were agents of change, long before Moses and Aaron became involved.

But there is another point – which is the reason why I have shared the story of Miriam with you this evening:  Judaism was not shaped by Miriam and Yocheved and Shifra and Pu’ah; it was shaped by Moses and Aaron and the men who came after them.  The Torah tells the stories that men have told about the creation of the world and the formation of the Jewish people.  The teachings of the Torah, elaborated later by the rabbis, were formulated by men for societal arrangements in which women’s role was circumscribed within the private, domestic arena.   Of course, women appear in the Torah, in the Tanach, that is, the Hebrew Bible, and in rabbinic literature, but only a few exceptional women are included – and even these exceptional women serve the narrative that centres on the experience of men.   The story of Miriam – the most exceptional of the exceptions proves the rule.

But that said, Miriam is also a very inspiring figure:   The American anarchist, a Jewish woman called Emma Goldman, who challenged the male radical leadership of her day once said, ‘If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution’.  Miriam wasn’t only a woman of action, bold and intelligent, she spoke out against an exclusive patriarchal leadership and had the spirit to sing and dance her way to liberation.

Nevertheless, we can’t get away from the fact that Miriam was a lone woman leader in a male-dominated world – and that for generations, feisty women have been exceptions.  But today we inhabit a different age.   We still live in a male-dominated society, but during the past three decades something has begun to change.  For the first time, since the sages deliberated in their academies over two thousand years ago, Jewishly-educated women – many of them rabbis – writing, and engaging with one another consciously as Jewish women, have begun to study the Torah and the corpus of rabbinic literature.   In doing so, they have not only challenged the gender divide, but also the gender of God.  Despite Moses’ mysterious encounter with the nameless, elusive, ineffable One in the wilderness (Exodus 3:14), God is presented in both the Torah, and subsequent rabbinic teaching, predominantly as male.  Alongside new interpretations of the Torah and rabbinic texts, women have challenged the patriarchal God by re-interpreting the Eternal One – in myriad ways.  What all these new approaches to the Eternal share in common is the awareness of the power of language and imagery about the Divine to shape and reinforce gender relations:  When God ceases to be regarded as Adonai Tz’va’ot, ‘the Lord of Hosts’ and melech malchey ha-m’lachim, ‘the king above the king of kings’; the power of warrior lords and of kings and emperors and dictators of various kinds is no longer legitimated ‘on high’.

So, where once there were lone exceptional Jewish women; today women as a collectivity have begun to transform Jewish life and teaching.  What does it mean for Jewish women as a collectivity, to move from the margins to the centre; from the private to the public arena of Jewish life?   It means women becoming leaders of religious services and synagogue Councils.  It means women engaging in learning and teaching.  It means women re-interpreting the Torah.  It means that Jewish life is changing – not only for Jewish daughters, but for Jewish sons, too.

And the leadership of women rabbis has been crucial to this process.  The first woman rabbi in Britain, Jackie Tabick, was ordained in 1975 before Jewish feminism arrived on the scene.  Today, half of the seventy progressive rabbis in Britain are women.  To give you an example of the significance of women’s rabbinic leadership:  Directly as a result of the work of women rabbis, the Liberal and Reform movements have produced gender-inclusive liturgy.  Indeed, published in 1995, the Liberal prayer-book, Siddur Lev Chadash, for daily and Sabbath use, has had a significant impact on congregational life.  Alongside the development of gender inclusive liturgy, women rabbis have also been involved in developing new rituals, which celebrate women’s lives, for example, covenant ceremonies for girls, while enabling women to lay claim to rituals and practices, like the wearing of tallit, the prayer-shawl, which have previously been the exclusive prerogative of Jewish men.

Of course, there is still a long way to go before there is complete gender equality in Jewish life – but still, the transformations that have already taken place are bound to make us wonder:  What would the synagogue and the home look and feel like if women and men played full and equal parts in both domains?   What difference would it make to the life of the Jewish people as a whole if Jewish teaching was transformed in such a way that it reflected the perspectives and experiences of Jewish women as well as those of Jewish men?

For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, Jewish women as a collectivity have become agents of change, and are in the process of transforming Judaism into an egalitarian, inclusive inheritance.  And so it will that in three weeks time when Jews around the world sit around tables in their homes and synagogues for the seder, the ‘order’ of the telling of the Exodus story, which is a central feature of the observance of Pesach, among many progressive Jews a significant new element will be added to the proceedings:  Alongside the Cup of Elijah – the prophet, who, according to tradition, will herald the coming of the Messiah, the messianic future of liberation, justice and peace for all the world – they will place the Cup of Miriam.  While the Cup of Elijah contains the fruit of the vine, the Cup of Miriam contains water; while, in Judaism, the fruit of the vine is a symbol of joy and celebration; water is a symbol of life. As we celebrate Pesach in joy, we look forward with hope to the joy of deliverance from oppression in the future.  But the future will not simply happen automatically:  That is the lesson of Miriam’s life from the waters of the Nile, through the waters of the Sea of Reeds, to the River Jordan;   life is a journey and a commandment; every step along the way, we are challenged to act, so that the promise of liberation, justice and peace, may become a reality for all.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Interfaith Contact Group Women in Faith Dialogue Event

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

17^th March 2009

*See Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, Vol. III (JPSA, Philadelphia, 1968), where the various midrashim about Miriam are compiled together under different headings, including, ‘Miriam’s Well’, pp.50-44.

Thank you for inviting me to say a few words in response to Michael Henderson and to offer a Jewish reflection on Forgiveness.

The most powerful aspect of what Michael Henderson has said to us today – amply illustrated in his most recent book, No Enemy to Conquer – Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World (Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas, 2009) – is how vital it is to listen to people’s personal testimonies, and so find out how and why they were able to forgive and be forgiven, and to reconcile with former enemies.

Michael Henderson gives us reason to hope and he also helps us to understand that ‘forgiveness’ is not a theological construct; it emerges out of people’s lives and their needs; forgiveness is a way people find for dealing with their feelings of hurt; not an idea.  And so, forgiveness takes place between people because individuals feel the urge to forgive, or to be forgiven – or both.  And so, forgiveness can not be imposed by external third parties; forgiveness cannot be given or received by those, who are not directly involved; forgiveness can not be isolated from the particular context in which the pain, the damage, the wrong has been inflicted and experienced.

It is important to remind ourselves of these things because alongside the reality of conflict and violence and injury and suffering – all the deadly ingredients that feed hatred of the ‘enemy’ and poison people’s hearts towards one another – there is a trope of Forgiveness that is very unhelpful – and may even damage any hope of people finding their way to forgiveness.  I call it a trope because it is basically a theological message that some people have absorbed from their religious teachings, and which they tend to articulate all too readily on behalf of others.  I’ll never forget one shocking example of this.  Do you remember the case, some years ago, when a young woman was raped by an intruder, in her own bed, in her parents’ home, and her father, a Christian minister, let it be known, when interviewed by the press, that he forgave the rapist?  The victim was silent; the perpetrator showed no remorse – and yet the father pronounced ‘forgiveness’ – I say, ‘pronounced’ because, although he was her father, he seemed to speak as a spokesman for Christian teaching.  Of course, it may be that he actually felt the need to forgive the man who violated his daughter.  But, even if he did – did he have a right to forgive him on her behalf?   Perhaps, he might have forgiven the rapist for the injury he experienced as a father; but could he forgive the rapist for the crime he perpetrated against her?

From the perspective of Jewish teaching, forgiveness is the outcome of a process that begins with expressions of remorse and sincere confession of the wrong we have done, and encompasses a journey of repentance that, where possible, includes making reparation.   Forgiveness is the gift that the one who has committed a wrong – or wrongs – receives from the one, or those, whom he or she has wronged at the end of this journey.   Of course, a victim may choose to forgive the perpetrator in the absence of any signs that he or she has made this journey, and may be moved to do so for a variety of reasons – because the perpetrator has disappeared, for example, or because the victim simply feels the need to let go of the hurt and pain he or she is carrying, and move on.  But, it is not possible for one person to forgive another for the wrong he or she did to someone else.

Only the victim has the power to forgive – and in the best circumstances, forgiveness is the outcome of a journey that the perpetrator makes towards their victim.   This is the Jewish approach to Forgiveness.  But what happens when the victim is also a perpetrator and the perpetrator is also a victim?   Some of the conflicts between peoples today – for example, that raging between Israelis and Palestinians – involves wrong and suffering on both sides.  As some of the examples of conflict Michael Henderson has given demonstrate, in these circumstances, any hope of breaking the cycle of wrong, injury and retribution, is dependent on both sides finding a way to acknowledge the narrative of the other, which necessarily involves acknowledging the humanity of the other, their experience and their needs.   In the case of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, such mutual acknowledgement would involve Israelis recognising why the establishment of the State of Israel on 15^th May 1948 represented a naqba – a ‘catastrophe’ for the Palestinians; and Palestinians recognising that re-establishing a nation in their ancient homeland as a refuge from persecution, represented for Jews the renewal of life following the murder of third of the Jewish people, and the destruction of thousands of Jewish communities across the continent of Europe.  Such mutual acknowledgement would be a first step towards reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

When we think of conflicts between peoples, the key issue is reconciliation.  Individual Palestinians and Israelis may or may not feel moved to forgive one another, but both peoples do need to find a way of living side by side: two peoples, two sovereign states, occupying the one land that, rightfully, belongs to both of them.  Reconciliation does not mean succumbing to the other, but it does demand compromise on both sides; compromise that reflects acknowledgement, on both sides, of the rights of the other, and an understanding of where the other is coming from.

Only the direct parties to any conflict can become reconciled to one another – but they can be helped.  One of the most important aspects of the work that Michael Henderson is doing – and is being done by the other individuals and groups that he has brought to our attention – is that of enabling people in conflict to meet and speak together.  Whether or not people whose lives are caught up in conflict and violence are able to forgive and be forgiven is up to them, but outsiders do have a crucial role to play in bringing warring parties together, and creating the kind of safe and neutral conditions away from conflict zones that are a pre-condition for any possibility that enemies will see each other as human beings and begin to acknowledge one another.

Hinneh mah-tov u-mah-na’im, shevet achim gam-yachad – ‘How good it is – and how pleasant when brothers – and sisters – dwell together in unity’; so begins Psalm 133 in the Hebrew Bible.  It is an ideal.  How do we achieve it?  By acknowledging that we are all brothers and sisters?  Before such acknowledgement is possible, people need, simply, to sit together – the word shevet in Hebrew means ‘sit’ as well as ‘dwell’.  But in order to get people to sit together, someone needs to hold the vision of ‘how good and pleasant’ it could be – eventually, in the future – for everyone concerned.  What is so important about the work of all those involved in conflict resolution is that they help us all to see that it is possible for those engaged in conflict, to break the cycle of violence and direct their energies towards establishing justice and peace.  May we all summon up the courage, the sense of responsibility, the patience and the determination to be counted among them.  As we read in Pirkey Avot, the ‘Chapters of the Sages’ (2:16), the philosophical teachings of the early rabbis, compiled around 200 CE:  Lo alecha ha-m’lachah ligmor, v’lo atah ven-chorin l’hibateil mimenah – ‘It is not for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to abstain from it.’

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Interfaith Week Event with Michael Henderson, Friends’ Meeting House, Ship Street, Brighton, 15^th November 2009

A Jewish Response – Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Good afternoon everybody.  I am delighted to be here and welcome the opportunity to share in the discussion of the important question:  Material Wealth: Blessing of God or Root of all Evil?

My Jewish response to this question begins with a story – the foundational narrative of the Jewish people, which is also the foundation of Jewish teaching about material wealth – as of everything else. The Torah – broadly the whole of Jewish teaching; more specifically, the text known as the ‘Five Books of Moses’: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – actually tells two great stories. The Torah relates the story – or rather stories – of the origins and early escapades of humanity, and also the story – or rather stories – of a particular people, most frequently designated as b’ney Yisrael, ‘the children of Israel’ – the descendants of Jacob – who was the grandson of the first patriarch and matriarch of the Israelites, Abraham and Sarah.

From the outset, the story of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants centres on a great journey, that becomes many journeys; a journey that twists and turns, and turns again; a journey that has a destination: the land beyond the Jordan: a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’; a journey that becomes defined by the transformational experience at its heart: the liberation of the ‘children of Israel’ from slavery in Egypt and their wanderings in the wilderness.

So, what did the children of Israel learn from their extraordinary experiences?

Thanksgiving

An important answer to this question can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy; the fifth book of the Torah (1).  At the beginning of Deuteronomy chapter 26, we find a passage describing a sacred ritual of thanksgiving during Temple times that encapsulates the story of the people – and explains what the Israelites made of their experience (2).  Significantly, during the 2^nd century CE, the rabbis, that is, the scholars who reconstituted Jewish life after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE,  included a key part of the passage in the Haggadah, the text, ‘telling’ the tale of the Exodus that is narrated each year at the Passover seder (3).  Because it is so potent and revealing, let me quote the eleven verses from Deuteronomy chapter 26 in full (:1-11):

When you come into the land that the Eternal One your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, ² you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Eternal One your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Eternal One your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. ³And you shall go to the priest who is [in office] in those days, and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Eternal One your God that I have come into the land that the Eternal One swore to our ancestors to give us.’ ⁴Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Eternal One your God.  ⁵ And you shall respond and say before the Eternal One your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and numerous. ⁶And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us and laid hard labour upon us. ⁷Then we cried to the Eternal One, the God of our ancestors, and the Eternal One heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. ⁸And the Eternal One brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and with wonders. ⁹And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, Eternal One, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Eternal One your God and worship before the Eternal One your God. ¹¹And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Eternal One your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

The ‘wandering Aramean’ was Jacob and as we can see the great story of his descendants’ experiences generated a whole-hearted appreciation of the blessings of liberation and prosperity.  But more than this: thanksgiving for God’s blessings became translated into the obligations that prosperity entails; the obligation to give thanks and the obligation to give to others.   This passage describes a ritual associated with the harvesting of the very first fruits of the land.  During Temple times, a  ‘Day of First Fruits’, Yom ha-Bikkurim (Numbers 28:26), known best by the name, Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, took place each year in the early summer, and was the second of three Pilgrim festivals – the first being, Pesach, ‘Passover’, in the spring, and the third, Sukkot, ‘Tabernacles’ in the autumn.  At these key moments of the agricultural cycle, the people would go on pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem with their offerings and give thanks for the bounty of the land (Exodus 23: 14-17).

Although the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, and the people, over time, ceased to farm the land, and became increasingly dispersed, re-constituted by the rabbis, the three Pilgrim festivals, have remained a core feature of the Jewish calendar to this day.  And so, for Jews, wherever we live, the theme of thanksgiving remains paramount:  At Pesach , we thank the Eternal One for liberating us from slavery; at Shavuot we thank the Eternal One for  making a covenant with us at Mount Sinai; and at Sukkot, we thank the Eternal One for enabling us to survive forty years in the wilderness (4).

Tz’dakah –the obligation to give

We give thanks – and we give.  Let me remind you of the concluding verse of that passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26(:11):

And you shall rejoice in all the good that the Eternal One your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

Material wealth is an opportunity to share the gift of prosperity with others. The text here mentions two particular groups of ‘others’: ‘the Levite’ and ‘the sojourner’.  ‘The Levite’ is a reference to the members of the tribe of Levi.  Unlike the other Israelite tribes, the Levites were responsible for the Temple service and did not own land.  Consequently, they relied on receiving tithes and a portion of the offerings brought to the Temple.  Similarly, the sojourner, by definition, was also landless.  The Hebrew word for ‘sojourner’ – geir – denotes either a ‘temporary dweller’ or a ‘newcomer’.  Today, we might also translate geir as ‘outsider’, or ‘stranger’, or ‘immigrant’.  With no inherited property rights, the sojourner was, like the Levite, also dependent on receiving material support.  So the message of the passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26 is clear:  Everyone shall rejoice in the fruits of the land – including those who are landless.

But it is not just the facts of the circumstances of Levites and sojourners that demand that they share in the bounty of the land.  In the Book of Leviticus, that largely describes the worship rites of the second Temple period, we read in chapter 19, known as ‘the Holiness Code’ (:33-34):

When a sojourner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. / The sojourner that sojourns with you, shall be to you like the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Elsewhere, in the first legal code of the Torah, Mishpatim, the text at Exodus chapter 23 underlines the connection between the people’s experience as sojourners in Egypt and their obligation towards the sojourner, once they are living in the land (:9):

A sojourner you shall not oppress, for you know the heart of the sojourner, seeing you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

The Hebrew word translated here as ‘heart’ is nefesh – which came to mean ‘soul’ in rabbinic thinking.  However, in the Torah, nefesh means something much more material:  after the flood, Noah is told that the people may eat flesh, but not blood, because blood is the nefesh of the animal (Genesis 9:4).  In other words, nefesh is the palpable life-force.  So, the Israelites must not oppress the sojourner – the newcomer, the outsider, the stranger – because, having been sojourners, Israelites know the nefesh of the sojourner; they know what it feels like to be vulnerable and marginal.

The obligation towards the sojourner is so important it is re-iterated, in different ways, thirty-six times in the Torah.  No other injunction is repeated in this way, again and again – and the reason for this is clear:  Those who were once sojourners themselves must be concerned with those who are sojourners now.  But the just and compassionate treatment of the newcomer, the outsider, the stranger, is not only at the heart of the Torah, it also provides the model for the treatment of all other vulnerable and marginal groups.  These other vulnerable and marginal groups are identified in the Torah, in particular, as the orphan and the widow – that is those whose circumstances make them utterly dependent on material aid – but also include all those in need.

Rules governing the treatment of those who are vulnerable and marginal are set out in several places in the Torah – in particular in Leviticus chapter 19 and Deuteronomy chapter 24.  In Deuteronomy chapter 24, the continual emphasis on the story of the Jewish experience of injustice as the rationale for the just treatment of others is very striking.  After setting out obligations towards those who are in receipt of a loan or dependent on a daily wage, the text states a few verses further on (:17-22):

⁷ You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner, or the orphan; nor take the garment of the widow as a pledge. ¹⁸ You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Eternal One, your God redeemed you from there; that is why I command you to do this.  ¹⁹ When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the sojourner, the orphan and the widow, so that the Eternal One, your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. ²¹ When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. ²² You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; that is why I command you to do this.

Interestingly, in this text the rationale for the just treatment of  those who are vulnerable and marginal, and, specifically, for giving them a share of the fruits of the land, is not simply that the Israelites had been geirm – ‘sojourners’ – in Egypt, but, more pointedly because they had been slaves.  Again: You shall remember that you were a slave. A slave – eved in Hebrew – is not simply a sojourner – that is, marginal and vulnerable – a slave has no freedom to roam; a slave is totally economically dependent.

The concern for justice is at the heart of Jewish teaching.  Another section of the Book of Deuteronomy, called Shof’tim, ‘Judges’, dealing with the legal system itself, proclaims:  ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue’ – tzedek, tzedek tirdof (16:18).   On a day by day basis, what those who are vulnerable and marginal need more than anything else is a just share in the material prosperity of the society in which they live.  Economic measures to alleviate the plight of all those in need are essential – and it is also essential that the obligation towards the needy is assumed by the ordinary members of the society.  And so, the biblical imperative of economic justice became translated in Rabbinic Judaism into the obligation of tz’dakah.  Related to the word for justice, tzedek, tz’dakah, is often translated as ‘charity’.  But this is rather misleading.  Based on the Latin, caritas, charity expresses the feeling of love that motivates giving.  By contrast, tz’dakah, stresses that giving is an act of justice; a way of putting right what is wrong; a vehicle for re-distributing wealth to the needy.

In Rabbinic law, tz’dakah is a mitzvah, a ‘commandment’ – that is, the individual Jew is required to give tz’dakah.  Nevertheless there are different ways of fulfilling the obligation.  The great 12^th century Jewish philosopher and codifier, Maimonides, that is, Moses ben Maimon, also known as Rambam (1135-1204), a refugee from persecution in Spain, who settled in Egypt, identified eight degrees of tz’dakah (5) – in descending order, from the highest to the lowest.  According to Maimonides, the highest level  of tz’dakah is to ‘strengthen’ the person in need ‘by giving him a present or loan, or making a partnership with him, or finding him a job in order to strengthen his hand until he needs no longer [beg from] people. For it is said, “You shall strengthen the sojourner and the settler in your midst and live with him,” (Leviticus 25:35), that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall [upon the mercy of the community] or be in need’ (paragraph 7).  In other words, the best form of tz’dakah, involves eliminating the thorny problem of dependence – a lesson which the richer nations of the world, forever pouring money at the scourge of poverty, but doing much less to enable poorer nations to help themselves, could do with learning today.  But from a Jewish point of view, in whatever manner the obligation of tz’dakah is carried out – even if, ‘unwillingly’; the lowest of Maimonides’ eight levels – the essential point is that the individual fulfills their obligation.

Conclusion

And so, to conclude:  The Jewish toast is L’Chayyim! – To Life!   Jews have learnt from the story of our people – a great saga of abundance and loss; and abundance and loss – to celebrate life and appreciate all the gifts of life, each and every day.   And so, from a Jewish perspective material wealth is a source of blessing.  I say ‘source of blessing’ rather than, as the title puts it, ‘Blessing of God’ because while Jewish teaching recognises that God is the source of all blessing, the rules governing the treatment of the vulnerable and marginal in society, encompassing all those who need material aid, make it clear that we – rather than God – are responsible for practising tz’dakah, and so, for ensuring that the blessings of life are shared by all.  Far from being the ‘root of all evil’, material wealth is an opportunity for thanksgiving and for giving to others who are less fortunate, so they, too, may reap the benefits of prosperity.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

One World Week Interfaith Encounter

Worth Abbey, 18^th October 2009 – 30^th Tishri 5770

Notes

1. The Book of Deuteronomy is set in the narrative context of the fortieth year of the wilderness journey, and takes the form of a series of orations delivered by Moses to the people encamped on the eastern side of the Jordan.  However, Deuteronomy – Greek for ‘Second Law’ – was actually written seven hundred years later during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, which began c. 638 BCE, and represents King Josiah’s attempt to reform the kingdom and its people (see II Kings 22:1ff.) – hence the repetition of key teachings at the heart of the Torah – and the reinforcement of core messages.
2. Interestingly, this passage from Deuteronomy chapter 26 constitutes a very early example of Jewish liturgy at a time when the system of worship focussed on the Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial offerings.
3. Seder means ‘order’ – and is the name given to the Passover meal, which centres on the Haggadah, the ‘telling’ of the story of the Exodus.
4. Although Shavuot, ‘the Day of First Fruits’ was, originally, purely agricultural, after the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis transformed the second of the Pilgrim Festivals into ‘the Season of the Giving of our Torah’ – Z’man Matan Torateinu, linking the period of the seven weeks from the second day of Passover to Shavuot (‘Weeks’) to the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19:1ff.)Maimonides’ ‘Eight Degrees of Tz’dakah’ (Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Mat’not Ani’im (Laws of Gifts  of [that belong to] the Poor) 10:1;7-14).  See: Appendix

Appendix

7: There are eight levels of tz’dakah, each greater than the next. The greatest level, above which there is no other, is to strengthen the name of another Jew by giving him a present or loan, or making a partnership with him, or finding him a job in order to strengthen his hand until he needs no longer [beg from] people. For it is said, “You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him,” {Leviticus XXV:35} that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall [upon the mercy of the community] or be in need.

8: Below this is the one who gives tz’dakah to the poor, but does not know to whom he gives, nor does the recipient know his benefactor. For this is performing a mitzvah for the sake of Heaven. This is like the Secret [Anonymous] Office in the Temple. There the righteous gave secretly, and the good poor drew sustenance anonymously. This is much like giving tz’dakah through a tz’dakah box. One should not put into the box unless he knows that the one responsible for the box is faithful and wise and a proper leader like Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon.

9: Below this is one who knows to whom he gives, but the recipient does not know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to walk about in secret and put coins into the doors of the poor. It is worthy and truly good to do this if those who are responsible for collecting tz’dakah are not trustworthy.

10: Below this is one who does not know to whom he gives, but the poor person does know his benefactor. The greatest sages used to pack coins into their scarves and roll them up over their backs, and the poor would come and pick [the coins out of the scarves] so that they would not be ashamed.

11: Below this is one who gives to the poor person before being asked.

12: Below this is one who gives to the poor person after being asked.

13: Below this is one who gives to the poor person gladly and with a smile.

14: Below this is one who gives to the poor person unwillingly.

Maimonides: ‘Eight Degrees of Tz’dakah’ (Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Mat’not Ani’im (Laws of Gifts  of [that belong to] the Poor) 10:1;7-14).