Ahead of the Seder - why do Jews obsess about rituals?

A few thoughts ahead of the Seder, based on last week's Torah portion, Tzav.

Tzav is one of the most difficult portions of the Torah for the modern reader: not only because the sacrificial cult is alien to contemporary religiosity, but because the general principles of sacrifice have already been laid out in the preceding parsha, Vayikra.  Tzav merely supplements the general commandments to the Israelite nation with more detailed instructions for the priests.  These regulations focus exclusively on ritual minutiae and show no concern whatsoever for theological or ethical matters.

This kind of obsession with ritual detail has a long history in Judaism.  Shabbat Hagadol was historically one of two annual Shabbatot on which rabbis would address their congregations (the other occasion was Shabbat Shuva before Yom Kippur).  Rabbis traditionally used their talk to deal with the intricacies of the Pesach dietary laws; it has been humorously suggested that the name “Shabbat Hagadol” – the great or big Shabbat – was connected with the length of the rabbi’s speech.  The prophet Malachi – the author of today’s haftara – was similarly concerned with punctilious obedience to the law, sarcastically condemning those with lower standards: “When you present a blind animal for sacrifice – it doesn’t matter!  When you present a lame or sick one – it doesn’t matter! ... This is what you have done – will [God] accept any of you?” (1:8-9).  Unlike the author of Tzav, Malachi had ethical concerns too (see 3:5), but his ultimate concern was for faithfulness to God, expressed through adherence to both ritual and ethical laws.

Were today not Shabbat Hagadol, we’d be reading a different haftara, from the book of Jeremiah, whose opening stands in stark contrast to the accompanying Torah portion:

“Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat! [Rashi explains this sarcastic injunction: as your burnt offerings are unacceptable to Me, why not use those animals for a sacrifice in which the meat is eaten following the ceremony; at least then the meat would not go to waste].  For when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice.  But this is what I commanded them: Do My bidding, that I may be your God and you may be My people; walk only in the way that I enjoin upon you, that it may go well with you” (7:21-23).  While Tzav is all about ritual detail, Jeremiah condemns an exclusive concern for the letter of the law, insisting that sacrifice without obedience to the spirit of Torah is little short of blasphemous.

Tzav, it seems, does not reflect a monolithic Jewish voice which we must either accept or reject.  Instead, the Bible consists of a dialogue between different voices and positions, one in which we are invited to participate.  This diversity was celebrated by the seminal secular-cultural Jewish thinker, Ahad Ha’am, at the turn of the twentieth century.  Ahad Ha’am condemned the tendency of Jews (the ‘people of the Book’) towards a myopic sanctification of the letter of the law.  In “The Law of the Heart” (1894) he wrote: “The Oral Law (which is really the inner law, the law of the moral sense) was reduced to writing and fossilized ... not conscience but the book became the arbiter in every human question.”  He celebrated the prophets and the early rabbis as radicals who refused to submit to the authority of written texts or to allow the tradition to stagnate:  “If on occasion the spontaneity of thought and emotion brought them into conflict with the written word, they did not efface themselves in obedience to its dictates; they revolted against it where it no longer met their needs, and so forced upon it a development in consonance with their new requirements.”

How to community-organise middle class Jews?

A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting of the Citizens’ group at New North London Synagogue.  The group is affiliated to Citizens UK, Britain’s largest broad-based community organising network which has close to 300 institutions in membership, ranging from mosques and churches to schools and student unions – and, more recently, synagogues.

Community organising focuses on issues which emerge out of the broad self-interest of community members.  Self-interest doesn’t mean selfishness – you can have an interest in an issue which benefits other people.  The important point is that the issues we think are supposed to concern us on ideological grounds very often fail to motivate to take action.  We’re too busy and we just don’t care enough, however much we think we should.

The idea behind self-interest is to build the habits of good citizenship and collective action by tapping into the issues which genuinely motivate people because they have something at stake.  Citizens’ Living Wage campaign was started by members of Citizens-affiliated churches in East London who had no time to spend with their families because they were working two or more jobs.  City Safe was initiated by families who had lost their children to street violence.

But while Citizens have been remarkably successful at identifying issues and building a campaigning network in disadvantaged areas of the capital, organising in the synagogue has proved in some ways a tougher challenge.  Last year, we conducted a listening campaign at New North London synagogue with the aim of identifying issues that connected with our self-interest.  While problems definitely came up – notably the problem of bad conditions in care homes where many of our members’ elderly parents live – nothing seemed to spark the kind of passion needed to generate leadership and kick-start a campaign. 

Some people think that as largely middle-class suburb-dwellers, our lives are simply too comfortable.  I think this prejudges the issue – the Jewish community is far more diverse than we think and the fact that disadvantaged people are less visible doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  Their invisibility could well be a symptom of their marginalisation.  But it also seems to me that maybe we just haven’t managed to articulate our issues properly.  So, while genuine issues need to emerge from our members, here’s a quick list of things I’d be prepared to do something about - and I bet other members of the Jewish community would too.

1. The pay gap and time poverty – yesterday’s Observer had a story about bankers’ (anonymous) responses to the proposed EU cap on bonuses.  Most seemed unfazed, saying that anyone who was affected would move into hedge funds or private equity, or that the banks would find a way around the cap.  They also said that a net pay cut of say £50k would be unlikely to make anyone with a seven-figure salary and a family actually relocate to avoid it.  Another article exposed the scandal of growing numbers of women being squeezed out or made redundant after takingmaternity leave.  The same paper’s editorial today focused on the ways new technology is changing the economy and society.  The bottom line was that more automation means fewer jobs but that ultimately unemployment will reduce demand and bring the economy to a halt.  It’s striking how few people point out the connection between rising pay inequality, unemployment and time poverty – ironically among the rich.  I remember reading in the 80s that advancing technology would create more wealth with less labour and would force us to consider how to spend increasing amounts of leisure time.  What’s actually happened is that working hours and inequality have both expanded, leaving us (and that includes the wealthy) busier and less happy than before.  Working to bring about a change of culture and employment practices to encourage part time and flexible employment could be a powerful issue for time-poor middle class families.

2. Schools – lots of people I know are nearly hysterical about getting their kids into the right schools.  Successive governments have emphasised choice and competition in education, rather than providing good neighbourhood schools for all.  Most schools operate distance-based admissions policies and this has created not only a post-code lottery, but effectively a system of selection based on who can afford to live near good schools.  This affects reasonably well-off families who can’t afford million pound houses as much as disadvantaged ones.  While we might not be able to take on the entire education system, what would happen if we campaigned for non-distance based admissions policies (such as that recently adopted by the new Alma primary school in Finchley), thus disconnecting the right to education from the property market and breaking the circle between rising house prices and improving educational standards?

3. Parking – everyone hates parking restrictions in boroughs like Barnet, seeing them as a council-owned racket for making money out of motorists.  But parking policy also impacts on shopkeepers and the local economy.  At a time when suburban high streets have taken on look made up of betting shops, payday loan shops, charity shops and boarded up storefronts, parking is not only an issue which affects everyone and could motivate them to get involved, but could also play a significant role in regenerating local economies and communities.

4. Community relationships – for many Jews, a real piece of self-interest is in building relationships with members of other communities.  Connecting synagogues with local churches, mosques and schools, welcoming their members in to our communities, visiting their and working on projects of common interest in inherently interesting and worthwhile.  Whatever other issues we choose, by working on them in partnership with others, we can find ourselves a constructive place as Jews in British society and begin to make our community more open-minded, outward looking and values-focused.

What other issues should we be taking on?  I’d love to hear feedback via Twitter: @MattPlen.