The shocking murder of the staff of Charlie Hebdo concerns us all. Martin Luther King wrote in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham City Jail that ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’. Similarly, an attack on liberty anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.
To perpetrate such a crime in God’s name to avenge blasphemy is itself an incomparably greater blasphemy; there is no greater desecration than the unjustifiable taking of life.
As Ed Hussain wrote in yesterday’s Guardian, the act is ‘also an assault on Islam and the very freedoms that allow 30 million Muslims to prosper in the west’. Those same freedoms allow Jews to prosper too. We have here the same interests at heart.
The spontaneous vigils which filled the streets of Paris, Berlin and London on Wednesday night were important indications of the refusal to be intimidated, of a vigorous popular response, not only in solidarity with the victims of the crime and their families, but also with the essential values of democracy and freedom of expression. However, these powerful feelings must not be betrayed by letting them turn into collective hatred and xenophobia, but must remain focussed on what truly matters.
The modern world can be accused of many faults but post-Enlightenment civilisation has, at its best, created the safe spaces in which we currently thrive, spaces defined by democracy, equality, freedom of expression and access to justice. Though these are all imperfect, they are not feeble, and we owe them the openness which allows Jews to be Jewish, Muslims to be Muslim, Hindus to be Hindu and atheists to challenge the lot of us, all within the same civic space. It troubles me as a religious leader to know that the most significant attacks on this space come today from religion itself, albeit religion distorted and misused.
What does Judaism say about freedom of speech? It has never been an explicitly central rabbinic theme. As Mathew Stone writes, ‘The clearest indication that the Talmud supports debate is the document itself’. It interrogates every proposition and consistently includes dissonant voices. It fearlessly challenges even God. Apologising with a stock phrase like ‘one mustn’t say it, but’, it accuses Heaven itself. ‘Moses threw words at God’, it declares. Jewish blasphemy law is scarcely applied; God can take care of God.
Jews are far more sensitive to attacks on fellow Jews and Judaism, knowing that verbal assault is often the precursors to physical attack. Even then, recourse is to protest and laws against incitement. Where Jews themselves are responsible for the curtailment of legitimate liberty of expression, be this in the domains of politics or theology, we must defend freedom of speech as a matter of urgency. We’ve known all too well what it means to live without it. My grandparents used to tell me how in Frankfurt in the 1930’s they stopped by a poster with an ugly caricature and the slogan ‘The Jews are our misfortune’. ‘I quickly nudged your grandmother “Shsh!”’ my grandfather recalled, ‘The Gestapo were watching’.
Judaism has a vibrant tradition of defiance, beginning with the midwives who ignored Pharaoh’s decree to kill the Hebrew boy-babies and continuing through such poets as Osip Mandelstam, whom Stalin deported twice in the 1930’s:
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere?
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence
Yet the use of language has limits. ‘Freedom’ is not entitlement to say whatever we like, however hurtful. Judaism condemns heedless gossip, lashon hara; the exploitation of another person’s vulnerability, ona’at devarim; cruelty with words and unwarranted verbal assault. Careless or needless humiliation of another person or group, especially in public, is a serious wrong. But where there is cause to call conduct to account Judaism upholds the right to challenge anyone and anything in the name of integrity and justice.
A poet in exile was once asked in my home ‘Is there freedom of speech in Zimbabwe?’ ‘Well, there’s freedom before speech’, he answered. We want to live in a world where the way we use speech ensures that there is freedom before, during and after it.
Our thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who were murdered in Paris and in the hunt for the killers.
Interfaith
Seeking together
May 2015 be a good year for everyone. During the course of the coming months may we find worthwhile ways of working together for understanding, justice, sustainability and peace.
All our family loves the New Forest. Less than a hundred miles from London, it feels like a different world. Here, cars must wait for ponies, however slowly they decide to amble across the road. Cows, take precedence too. The dog can run for miles amongst the oaks and beeches of this, the most southerly of Britain’s ancient forests. The deer emerge from the woods to graze near verges at dawn and dusk, pigs feast on pannage in the autumn and the time measured by the turn of the seasons is more significant that the ticking of clocks.
The holiday cottage we rented this year proved not simply to be near, but right next to, the church. I couldn’t help noticing the poster outside with the vicar’s name and her phone number. Recalling a wonderful conversation with a Yorkshire minister whom we had likewise cold-called on a vacation visit to his parish many years ago, I rang and invited the reverend to candle-lighting for the last night of Chanukkah. I don’t imagine that was the sort of call frequently received at the vicarage. But she was unfazed; she’d be delighted, she said, but had a sermon to write and wasn’t sure she’d be free in time. At least I could reassure her that I understood the problem.
Just as we were thinking she wouldn’t make it, my mobile rang: she’d be over in twenty minutes, with her husband, daughter, two grandchildren and a foster baby; they would all like to share the experience with us. Our family literally jumped into action: ‘We need a Chanukkiah; you have to buy chocolate coins; it’ll be so embarrassing if we don’t have anything’. A beautiful piece of rough forest wood was selected and the candles stuck in place. The shops were already shut, so sadly there were no coins. But potatoes and onions were peeled and grated, latkes speedily fried, chocolate and drinks placed on the table, so that by the time the party arrived a true Jewish scene awaited them. We placed the Chanukkiah on the centre of the table. There was surely no relevance to putting it in the window overlooking the public domain, as Jewish law requires, since the only passers-by were New Forest ponies and deer, to whom there is, to my knowledge, no specific duty to proclaim the miracle of Chanukkah. On the contrary, it’s creatures like these who remind me of the wonders of God’s works.
We had a lovely hour of interfaith companionship around the lights, with engaging conversation about what it meant to be a minister in our faiths and parishes. Here was a lady who clearly understood her life as God’s work, caring for people in this beautiful corner of Britain.
Of course, the next night we went to Midnight Mass. Among the hymns, familiar from school, and the rituals of the mass which are strange and puzzling to me, was a prayer specially written for the service: Just as Jesus was born in a stable, teach us to be mindful of those who, due to war and persecution, have no proper home, or who are outcast and lonely this Christmas. Just as Jesus was born poor, help us to be mindful of those who’ve lost their jobs, who’re on income support, who struggle to manage.
While I listened to these frank and straightforward words, in the imagery of a faith not my own, another prayer formulated itself in my mind: As we share this world full of life and beauty, teach us, God, not to see only the differences, disagreements and wounds of history which lie between us, but to look deeper, to our common aspirations to seek and cherish the sacred. Give us understanding and respect for one another, so that together we can find the strength do what is just and good and kind.
It was stirring to walk the short distance home through the dark woods, the stars the only illumination.
The attack on a school in Peshawar
I want to express my horror and sorrow at the merciless attack on the school in Peshawar in which over 130 children and many staff were murdered.
All such violent attacks, wherever they take place in the world, are cruel, vicious and utterly indefensible.
There is something particularly vile and appalling about the killing of school children. As the recent Nobel Peace Prise winner Malala Yousafzai said: ‘Innocent children in school have no place in horror such as this’.
It is blasphemous to devise, carry out or applaud such attacks in the name of religion. All religious leaders have a special duty to teach that every human life is sacred and to do their utmost to prevent the misuse of their faith for violent ends. As David Cameron said, ‘There is not a belief system in the world that can justify this attack’.
Our thoughts are with the grief-stricken families in Peshawar, in Sydney, and with those in mourning over deaths caused by acts of terror anywhere in the world.
I would like to express my appreciation for those who, with vigilance and courage, protect our countries and communities from such attacks and seek to make our schools, homes, cities and countries safe for the pursuit of peaceful life.