Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

In this week’s parsha we read about the death of Aaron’s two sons, who died from an accidental explosion in the Tabernacle. Aaron’s reaction is quite telling–despite the absence of scriptural detail from the narrator. As is often the case with biblical narrative, more is said by what isn’t stated, than by what is actually mentioned. In the book of Leviticus, the biblical narrator says in but a couple of words the reaction of Aaron:  וַיִּדֹּם אַהֲרֹן (wayyidöm ´ahárön) “And Aaron was silent” (Lev. 10:3).

Nowhere does the biblical narrator provide us with a sense of what Aaron must have been feeling. Did he blame himself? Was this God’s pay-back for when he made the Golden Calf? Did he neglect to tell his sons how to carry out their duties in a safe and careful manner? To decipher Aaron’s response, we must read in between the lines and look for clues.

Among the Hebrew words for “silence” dumah stands out as a term associated with grief and loss.

Another bereaved father in the Bible, Job, does not accept his children’s death silently or stoically–much to the surprise of his community. The differences between these two men’s emotional response certainly ought to pique our curiosity. Job’s community criticizes Job for questioning God’s justice. He refuses to play the role of the quiescent victim, resigned to his misery. Perhaps the men of Job’s community expected him to react like Aaron did after he lost his two sons Nadab and Abihu, who died in the prime of their youth.

In both the narratives of Job and the death of Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu, there are a number of nuances that define the shape and pathos of a grieving silence.

Unlike Aaron, who is forced to hold his feelings within because his priestly office demands no less, Job refuses to accept his loss in stoic silence. He is determined to confront his feelings of torment and anger by directing these toxic feelings to God. Job deeply resents the theological attitude espoused by his “friends” that since his sons were obviously “sinners,” they ultimately received what was coming to them–death. Job’s friends assert that  the social order is maintained whenever God exacts vengeance against His enemies. Job cannot accept such theological nonsense.

Whereas Aaron’s silence was pierced with a divine visitation by God, Job was not as fortunate as Aaron; he is denied an immediate revelation. God seems to be reluctant in responding to Job’s plea for justice. Job’s own silence–and especially the silence of God–threatens to destroy him.

It is an experience known well by anyone who has ever suffered. The best way to understand someone who is grieving is for us to see ourselves as walking in the shoes of the Other. Ergo, the  feelings of restlessness, disorientation, incoherence, shock, and terror often reduces us to silence. Extreme suffering often destroys our ability to communicate for the weight of our suffering leaves us feeling verbally incapacitated. We feel stone-like and lifeless. Trauma makes us feel overwhelmed, terrified and distressed. When we suffer, we must find a language that will lead us out of our bondage of muteness and through the wilderness of silence. We seek a language of redemption. We have felt wronged, we have cried, and we have felt outraged.

All the subtle nuances of Aaron’s and Job’s silence are familiar experiences to most Holocaust survivors and to a lesser extent to their children who grew up in the captivity of silence.  Many survivors like my father, whose family was murdered in Auschwitz, lost their capacity to speak about the horror of the camps. Many second-generation children of survivors grew up never hearing our parents speak about the atrocities that they experienced. Frightened and confused, we never encouraged our parents to tell us their stories.

Several years ago, a refined woman in my congregation lost her father and husband to cancer within the same year. On the anniversary of her husband’s death, her son hosted a golfing tournament. He was a very well-fit young man, age 26, who exercised every day and was the apple of his mother’s eye. After personally winning the tournament, he dropped dead from a heart attack. After the autopsy, they discovered he had ephedrine in his blood, which caused him to have his heart attack. His mother faced a sorrow of Jobian proportions; and for many years, she could not bring herself to pray in the synagogue. Who could honestly blame her?

Another young woman I once knew, had worked at a bar and went to bring a hot beverage from a large coffee maker, which exploded and burned over 90% of her body. Accidents like this occur every day, and it is in these painful epiphanies of the diabolic, the human soul often gets mangled and disfigured along with the body.

Any close brush with the diabolic makes it exceedingly difficult to even talk about faith. Martin Buber asked poignantly:

In this our time, one asks again and again: how is a Jewish life still possible after Auschwitz? I would like to frame this question more correctly: how is a life with God still possible in a time in which there is an Auschwitz?

The estrangement has become too cruel, the hiddenness too deep. One can still “believe” in a God who allowed those things to happen, but how can one still speak to Him? Can one still hear His word? Can one still, as an individual and a people, enter at all in a dialogical relationship with Him? Can one still call on Him? Dare we recommend to the survivors of Auschwitz, the Jobs of the gas chambers: “Call on Him, for He is kind, for His mercy endureth forever?”[1] There is a place in Judaism for religious skepticism. When the wisdom literature of the Bible included Job into the Canon, the ancient Sages revolutionized Judaism forever. You could say that today’s skeptic serves an almost prophetical role in keeping professional rabbis and theologians honest. There is a place in Judaism for questioning and doubting. Skeptical feelings should never be silenced but welcomed into any discussion about faith.

When we suffer we hunger for a restoration of God’s Presence (theophany), and a settling of the records. Like Aaron and Job, not only do we wait for consolation—we expect it; we demand justice. The Psalmist was not unaware of this kind of evil, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation” (Psa. 62:1).

Among the non‑Orthodox rabbis who were placed in the concentration camps, Rabbi Leo Baeck provides one of the most outstanding examples of shepherding of that era. Baeck’s saintly conduct served as an inspiration to all who were with him in the camp. In the years prior to the war, Baeck did his utmost to encourage the Jews of Germany to leave the hostile climate of Germany. Baeck refused offers from the Jewish communities in England and the United States to offer him asylum. He was determined to remain in Germany until he was the last remaining Jew. Like the shepherd, he was determined to look after the flock regardless of personal danger. Baeck succeeded in getting out one third of the German Jewish population. He used his pulpit to challenge the atrocities of Hitler and the Gestapo When he was summoned to appear before the Gestapo on the Shabbat, he openly refused and defied them.

In 1941, Baeck was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The Nazis used  Theresienstadt as a model camp where the Jews were supposedly “treated well.” Prior to his 70th birthday, Baeck volunteered to be responsible for the camp’s welfare program. He was determined to keep up the morale of his fellow inmates. Baeck recognized the importance of keeping his people’s spirit as strong as possible. He taught Torah and philosophy in the camp while arranging for theatrical and musical performances for the camp’s children. Rabbi Baeck recalled after the war:

• It was dangerous for us to meet at night. There was an additional danger as well. During the day these men were involved in terrible, back‑breaking work. And after such work, when they needed rest, they came together at night to listen to lessons and lectures, which could have weakened their bodies further. I shall never forget those meetings. We would assemble in darkness. To light a candle there, or even a match, would have brought immediate disaster upon us. We spoke about matters of the spirit and eternal questions, about God, about Jews in the world, about the eternity of Israel. In the midst of darkness, I sensed light in the dark room, the light of Torah…More than once I could not see their faces, but I did see great spiritual light.[1]

Leo Baeck also personified the best qualities of shepherding by refusing to abandon his flock when they needed him most.  In fact, when the Church attempted to work out a prisoner swap for Baeck, the Church official replied: “Your mission is in vain; if the man is such as you have described him, he will never desert his flock.”[2] Indeed, the Church official’s words proved true for in 1945, the Nazis released 1200 Jews from Theresienstadt, but Leo Baeck refused to be one of the rescued numbers. When an American officer came to personally look after his release, Baeck insisted on staying for an additional two months, until the typhus epidemic had been properly controlled. While he was there, Baeck wrote many letters for inmates who had no identity papers; these letters ensured that the inmates would be well-received by the international community.[3]

The heroism of men like Rabbis Eliezer Silver and Leo Baeck deserved to be remembered until the end of time. The Jewish people were blessed to have such outstanding leaders.

Notes:

[1] Cited in Siddur Sim Shalom (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly & The United Synagogue of America,1985), 832.

[2] Leonard Baker, Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 62.

[3] Naomi E. Pasachoff, Great Jewish Thinkers: Their Lives and Work (Springfield, NJ: Behrman House, Inc, 1992), 154.

Nothing challenges the belief in a benevolent God like the ubiquity of evil in the world.  For the Jewish people, the experience of the Holocaust revealed the inadequacy of traditional theology. The God of the Exodus seemed “to be out for lunch.”  Asked in more simple and straight-forward terms, we wonder: So, God, what have you done lately since the Exodus?

Actually, our discomfort with theological platitudes is nothing new. The book of Job is famous for challenging the theological vision set out in the biblical theology of Deuteronomy. Good people often suffer, while the wicked prosper. In Late Antiquity, the philosopher Epicurus fleshes out the cognitive dissonance people experience when contemplating the problem of theodicy:

1. Is God unable to prevent evil?

2. Is God unwilling to prevent evil?

3. If God is able and willing to prevent evil, then where does evil come from?

4. If God is neither able nor willing to prevent evil, then why do we call him “god”?

The cynics of religion often play a prophetical role in confronting our superficiality as “religious” people. We would be wise to ponder their searing words.

Martin Luther King appears to have anticipated this genre of theological questioning. In his Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, King asserts, “Structures of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If history teaches anything, it is that evil is recalcitrant and determined, and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold short of an almost fanatical resistance. Evil must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day-to-day assault of the battering rams of justice the forces of light cautiously wait, patiently pray and timidly act. So we end up with a double destruction: the destructive violence of the bad people and the destructive silence of the good people.” [1]

I believe King’s provocative words offers the only realistic solution to the theological problems posed by Holocaust and other genocides we have witnessed in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  I believe God’s will is manifested in our will to actively thwart the forces of chaos and inspired fanaticism, which perpetuate human suffering. How we respond to crisis speaks volumes about the depth of our religious convictions and ethical sensibilities.

Some rabbinic leaders demonstrated great acuity in responding to the challenges of rescuing endangered Jewish lives. Others reacted with passivity and waited for a miraculous Divine intervention to occur. In a manner of speaking, redemption came—but not in the form that the theocrats and Hassidic rebbes imagined.

Let us focus on the life of one incredible human being and rabbinical leader. Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1882-1968) was not a physically tall person; he stood about 5ft tall and wore a top hat that made him seem taller. To those who knew this man, Rabbi Silver walked the earth like a Colossus. Jewish leaders, politicians—and even the President—respected Rabbi Silver because of his humanity and concern for others.

For the record, Rabbi Silver proved to be one the greatest rescuers of European Jewry during the Holocaust. He is credited with saving many thousands of Jewish lives. Early on in 1939, Silver was one of the founding fathers of the Vaad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee), where Silver was appointed as its president. He was instrumental in rescuing the cream of European rabbinic leaders, who along with Rabbis Aaron Kotler, Abraham Kalmanowitz marched up Pennsylvanian Avenue on October 6, 1943.

While standing in front of the White House, the large Jewish entourage of over two hundred rabbis recited the Psalms and announced, “We pray and appeal to the Lord, blessed be He, that our most gracious President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, recognizing this momentous hour of history and responsibility that the Divine Presence has laid upon him, that he may save the remnant of the People of the Book, the People of Israel.”

Shortly afterward, the Jewish delegation met with Vice President Henry Wallace and a congressional delegation to make their case for European Jewry. Later, at the Lincoln Memorial, a special memorial prayer was said on behalf of the martyred Jews. Finally, the five rabbis went to the White House to meet with the President, where the President made his famous backdoor exit rather than meeting with them. Although they did not meet with the President, the publicity of the march led to the eventual formulation of the War Refugees Board that opened the doorway to over 100,000 Jews. When one considers how many of these survivors went on to have children–not to mention grandchildren–Rabbi Silver really saved millions of lives!

After the event, Rabbi Silver succeeded and raised over $5,000,000 for the new immigrants and secured over 2,000 emergency visas for the Jewish refugees. Like Rabbi Michael Weissmandl, Rabbi Eliezer Silver utilized every means available to bribe officials in Europe and in Latin America, to help settle Jews in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Palestine. Foreign diplomats provided the fake visas to help facilitate the rescue. He even attempted to trade concentration camp prisoners for cash and tractors, resulting in the release of hundreds of Jews from the Bergen Belsen concentration camps along with several others.

Rabbi Silver, driven by the biblical admonition against standing idly by a brother’s blood, made no apologies for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act. In one of his most famous letters, he writes:

• We are ready to pay ransom for Jews and deliver them from concentration camps with the help of forged passports. We are prepared to violate many laws in order to save lives. We do not hesitate to deal with counterfeiters and passport thieves. We are ready to smuggle Jewish children over the borders, and to engage expert smugglers for this purpose, rogues whose profession this is. We are ready to smuggle money illegally into enemy territory in order to bribe those dregs of humanity, the killers of the Jewish people![2]

Even after the war was over, Rabbi Silver continued to help bring over refugees from more than eight European nations. In the end, he died penniless after using all of his monies to help pave the way for Jewish immigration to the United States and Israel, including those who were trying to flee from Communism.

As mentioned above, Rabbi Silver’s life speaks volumes about the kind of biblical faith that is transforming and spiritually real.

It is significant to note that there is no redemption anywhere in the Bible where God acts unilaterally when it comes to the redemption of His people. For an Exodus to occur, God requires human partners, e.g., a Moses, an Aaron, a Miriam and so on. For the miracle of Purim to occur, there must be a Mordechai and an Esther. This theme runs like a stream of conscious throughout the Tanakh; the only question remains: What will we do as God’s junior partner in eradicating human evil that we—and  we alone—have either created or allowed to flourish in this world?

Faith in God needs to inspire in us a willingness to step up to the plate and make a difference. Sermonizing might be fine for Christian pastors, but our tradition demands that “we walk our theological talk.” Continue Reading

A few weeks ago, we heard President Obama condemn the accidental burning of the Qu’ran. With great interest, I went online to see what the President had to say about the murders that took place in the French city of Toulouse, where three Jewish children along with their father were killed at gunpoint by a crazed Jihadist. The only reference I found was a statement from White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, who said:

• We were deeply saddened to learn of the horrific attack this morning against the teachers and students of a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse . . . Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims, and we stand with a community in grief . . . We join the government of France in condemning this unprovoked and outrageous act of violence in the strongest possible terms.

However, a friend of mine later brought to my attention a news article that appeared in today’s Yahoo’s News that said:

• US President Barack Obama has called up his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, to express his solidarity with the people of France as they deal with the aftermath of the “tragic and unprovoked attacks” at a Jewish school . . . “Obama expressed his solidarity with President Sarkozy, and the government and people of France, as they deal with the aftermath of the tragic and unprovoked attacks that left seven dead, including three French soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school,” the White House said in a statement after he spoke by phone with Sarkozy while aboard Air Force One en route to Nevada yesterday . . . “Obama welcomed the actions taken by French authorities in identifying and locating a suspect in the killings, and their continued efforts to prevent further acts of violence,” the White House said, adding that Obama underscored that the American people stand shoulder to shoulder with its French allies and friends in this trying time.

This article could have appeared a couple of days ago, but it didn’t. “Better late than never,” I suppose. I think that a  public statement from the President would have made a much greater impression on the international community that America stands shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish victims of terror.

President Obama had nothing to lose politically by offering a Presidential condolence to the French Jewish families and to the American Jewish community would have given all Jews in this country a sense of solidarity.

The President’s advisers made a serious blunder here in failing to advise the President properly–especially in a year where he ought to be concerned about the Jewish vote.

Many American Jews tend to think of anti-Semitic attacks as a part of our past—it’s something a lot of us would much rather forget. However, France, Germany, Italy, and other Eastern European countries have a long history where the Jew suffered for the “crime” of being different.

According to the NY Post, the killer Mohammed Merah may have been in U.S. custody while he was in Afghanistan! “The stunning revelation that the mad Jihadist was once in the hands of the US Army came as the Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his two boys Arieh, 5, and Gabriel, 4; and a cousin Miriam Monsenego, 8, were laid to rest in Jerusalem in a funeral that drew 1,000 mourners, including the French foreign minister.”[1]

If the NY Post allegation is indeed correct, the President ought to consider making another apology–but this time–to the Jewish community.

Somebody dropped the ball.

“There is a time to speak and a time to be silent” (Eccl. 3:7). When the Palestinians shot 500 rockets at Israeli cities, President Obama also chose silence. I hope that  the loss of Jewish innocents means something in the political world.

One last note:
The Republican candidates running for President had even less to say about the Toulouse attack than did the White House. Perhaps some politicians don’t read or pay much attention to the newspapers. Sen. Santorum can lecture us all he wants about American values,” but empathy for others does not seem to be a part of his moral or religious teachings. Surprisingly, Gov. Mitch Romney also had nothing to say. Still and all, making a public condolence at the time of the attack, or shortly after, is really the job of the President.

Sometimes a story is told as much by silence, as it is by speech.

Notes:

[1] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/french_police_turn_out_lights_around_M3gTWTgzc9KDddy8t8jw5N#ixzz1ptJqzP6a

Barely eight months have passed since the “Arab Spring” has taken root in Egypt. At the time of his departure from power, Hillary Clinton hailed Hosni Mubarak’s eviction from office as one of President Obama’s crowning achievements.

Nearly eight months later, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken political control over Egypt. Does the leopard change its spots? The Muslim Brotherhood’s legacy of antisemitism is unique in the modern Arab world. During WWII, Egypt supported Hitler until he began to lose the war. Several decades later, the Muslim Brotherhood quietly planned for the day when it would overturn everything Hosni Mubarak tried to achieve in a lifetime.

Yesterday, Egyptian parliament decided to expel Israel’s ambassador over Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip. “Egypt will never be the friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity which we consider as the first enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation!” Egypt’s Parliament called upon its government to “revise all its relations and agreements with that enemy.”

One day later, Iran applauded Cairo’s decision.

The fruit of the Arab Spring appears to be bitter; the entire region has become more unstable as a result of President Obama’s efforts to remake the Middle East into a safer environment.

The text from the Egyptian Parliament called for supporting Palestinian “resistance… in all its forms” in the face of the Jewish state’s “aggressive policies,” Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency reported. The statement – approved unanimously in the Islamist-dominated chamber – also called pulling Egypt’s ambassador from Tel Aviv and for an immediate end to natural gas exports to Israel.

Let us not assume the worse. It is crucial to remember that the Egyptian military makes all the final decisions regarding the peace treaty with Israel. However, the situation could quickly deteriorate if Washington fails to handle this situation properly. Will the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty be the next casualty of the Arab Spring? What about the Jordanian-Israeli peace accords? A Palestinian-Israeli peace treaty becomes a practical impossibility. The prognosis does not look appetizing.

Hosni Mubarak is not a candidate for sainthood. Nevertheless, he accomplished something miraculous: he made a peace treaty with Israel that lasted over 35 years. There is an old saying, “Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” In this case, however, we know exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for and personifies.

Now, after applying considerable pressure on Mubarak of Egypt to resign, President Obama is quickly learning that no amount of flowery rhetoric about the civil rights of all citizens is going to convince the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood to adopt a Western-style democracy for its citizens. Women, gays, Coptic Christians and other minorities feel anxious—and for good reason.

I am reminded about the story of an outlaw who went to the preacher and he told the preacher, “You had better say something nice about my brother, (who also happened to be an outlaw) or I will kill ya!” The preacher composed an original eulogy that was perfect for the occasion, “Jesse was a horse-thief, a bank-robber, an adulterer, and a cold-hearted murderer, but compared to his brother, Jesse was a real saint!” Compared to the chaos and destruction the Muslim Brotherhood is capable of unleashing, Mubarak looks like a saint in comparison! Continue Reading

Who says  that a picture is not worth more than a 1000 words?

For the past 2000 years, enemies of the Jews have often portrayed the Jews as leeches and vampires. Some people think Bram Stoker’s gothic novel about the blood-thirsty demon bears an uncanny resemblance to the pale-skinned Jew, who hates anything associated with the light of Christianity. Over 110 years since the Dracula novel’s first appearance, the Arab world continues depicting the Jew as a blood-sucker. One of the most popular themes in Arab cartoons is the blood-loving or blood-thirsty Jew.

What else would you expect from a society that subsists on anti-Semitism as a form of self-definition?

However, images of Jews as “leeches” and “blood-suckers” finds occasional literary expression in the United States as well. Almost a year ago, an Internet comic-book named, “Foreskin-man,”  appeared on the Internet. The cartoonist used his new character to launch a new political campaign to ban ritual circumcision in the State of California. The cartoonist had enough common sense not to attack the Muslim community, but directed his animus toward the Jewish community. The cartoonist depicts the mohel as a dark and sinister figure who loves mutilating Jewish male infants. In contrast, his protagonist, Foreskin-man is the blond-haired and blue-eyed superhero who rescues Jewish male children from the villain named, “Evil Mohel.” This fiendish ghoul delights in a ritual called, metsitsa b’peh, literally, “sucking the blood [of a baby’s penis] with one’s mouth.”

By now, many folks are probably wondering: You must be kidding me, right? No, this is not a joke. The real tragedy of this depiction is the fact that many mohels perform this ritual while paying no regard to the potential health risks.

The Mishnah discusses the sundry rituals associated with the circumcision of a young infant boy. One of the customs included “suction.” The Mishnah does not provide a clear definition what this custom means. The ancients believed that sucking the blood of a baby’s penis prevented infection and that the saliva of a person is “clean,” functioning almost like an anti-septic. Well, modern medical science has demonstrated that this folk-medicinal belief has no basis in science. In fact, sucking the baby’s penis has sometimes lead to tragic consequences.

The problem boils to down to what Tevya on Fiddler on the Roof calls, “Tradition!”  Can or should Tradition change when it is confronted by the medical and technological advances of the times? Or must we robotically perpetuate tradition for its own sake, especially because the Kabbalah has developed a mythology centering on an antiquated custom?

A two-week old boy died at a Brooklyn hospital last September after contracting herpes through a religious circumcision ritual. The unidentified infant died Sept. 28, 2011, at Maimonides Hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner, who confirmed the death after a News inquiry. The cause of death: “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.”[4]

Many leading rabbis within the Haredi and Modern Orthodox community have urged the mohels to take extra-precautions when fulfilling the precept of brit milah (ritual circumcision). Several leading rabbinical authorities have offered an important alternative to the traditional sucking: using a sterilized glass tube between the wound and the mohel’s mouth avoids direct oral contact.[6]

In the past, Rabbi David Zwiebel, the head of Agudath Israel of America admitted that the Haredi leaders may have lied to their constituencies about both the dangers of metsitsa b’peh, and the city’s intent.[7] Chabad mohels have sometimes  disregarded the hygienic problems of the metsitsa b’peh ritual.[8] For people in the San Diego area, anyone wishing to use an Orthodox mohel would be wise to tell the rabbi that either he use a sterilized tube if he wishes to do the metsitsa b’peh, or else it would be far safer for the rabbi to not perform this ritual.

Ask yourself one last question: How would an anti-Semite view this story?

In the age of the Internet, as Jews, we need to avoid giving credence to images of the Jew that craves the blood of babies, thus inviting anti-Semites to exploit this antiquated tradition as a modern-day blood libel–especially when the custom results in multiple deaths.  We have more than enough enemies to deal with; must we give the tormentors of our people another reason to decry us as blood-sucking monsters? Haredi and Hassidic Jewish leaders need to recognize that the greater world community observes our behavior much more than we may realize.

It is surprising that the great anti-Semites of history did not refer to this particular custom in their blood libels. The relative scarce mentioning of this custom may give us pause to wonder how prevalent the metsitsa b’peh  in the pre-Lurianic world of the 16^th century. Tradition is important, but not if it results in the death of an infant because of a Mohel’s carelessness. Combined with the health dangers associated with metsitsa b’peh, if only one child’s life is ruined or lost as a result of this custom, then we would be wise to remember the wisdom of the ancient Judaic teachers, “God created the first human being alone in order to teach us that whosoever kills a single soul is considered as though he has destroyed an entire world. By the same token, anyone who preserves a single human soul, it is as if that person sustained a whole world.” [9]

* Continue Reading

Most people  would be surprised to hear that the charge of drinking blood was a common accusation made against the nascent Christian religion in the first three centuries of its existence. Yes, this historical fact is true and recorded in the annals of ancient history. The Roman historian Tacitus (56 –117 CE) hated the Christians so much, he believed Christians drank blood and killed babies.

Rumors like these abounded largely because of a remarkable passage in the book of John, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). Paul the Apostle is credited as instituting the ritual of the Eucharist. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians (c 54-55), Paul gives the earliest recorded description of Jesus’ Last Supper:

• The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes (1 Cor. 11:22-25).

Some of the Early Church followers may have felt confused whether Jesus actually gave his flesh and blood literally to his students to partake of during his Last Supper.[1] Romans, much like some of the early disciples, did not appreciate the language of metaphor and simile, so they considered the Eucharist as a magical ritual. The Romans Emperors took the Eucharist liturgy literally and assumed that the early Church preached and practiced cannibalism!

In addition, since people heard Christians calling each other, “brother” and “sister,” they also assumed the Christians practiced incest as well. These beliefs persisted well into the second century and it could explain why the Romans persecuted the Early Church with a vitriolic delight, believing they were ridding the world of a dangerous new cult.

The Roman historian Tacitus (56-117 C.E.) recalls:

• Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.[2]

Trajan (53 –117), also continued Nero’s policy of persecuting Christians. Justin Martyr (103–165 CE),[3] and Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225 CE) defended themselves from the charges of cannibalism, which continued to persist into the 4^th and 5^th centuries as well. However, each of them admitted that sects (presumably Gnostic) behaved promiscuously and did so in the name of Christianity. The Christian historian Eusebius wrote about how Christian slaves confessed under the threat of torture that their Christian masters behaved promiscuously and practiced cannibalism.

When the historian Pliny interrogated a number of Christian about the charge of cannibalism, the Christians insisted their Eucharist was a harmless ritual.  Unfortunately, these mistaken beliefs did not stop the masses from their pogroms against the Christians living in their communities.[4]

The Roman revulsion toward the Christians occurred for many reasons. They thought Jesus was a magician, one who was executed for treason. Ergo, Christians were guilty by association. In addition, their Gospel taught that there was only one God, and like the Jews before them, they rejected the belief that the Emperor was a deity Romans regarded the Christians (and the Jews) as “atheists.” They also preached that someday, God would destroy all the hierarchies that defined their society. Since the Christians belonged a cultist organization, their enemies presumed they did all sorts of forbidden activities, e.g., cannibalism, drinking blood—practices of which magicians were commonly accused. From the Roman perspective, the Christians’ Eucharist was not much different from the cannibalistic rites associated with Osiris, Dionysus and Attis, each of whom were dismembered in sacrifice for rebirth.

Blood libels persisted in the 5^th century as well. Once Christianity became the official Roman religion, Christians started accusing Christian Gnostics of practicing cannibalism! Another Early Church father, Epiphanius (439-496), accused a group of Christian Gnostics that he called, the Borborites (literally, “the filthy ones”  from borboros, meaning ‘mud,’ was used to symbolize the group’s moral depravity), of smearing their hands in menstrual blood and semen, and extracted the fetuses from pregnant women, which they consumed as part of their enactment of the Eucharist. The real name of this group is believed to have been Phibionites, who happened to be a group of Gnostic Christians that really knew how to party.

Prior to Epiphanius’ conversion, he recalls his own sexual encounter with this sect. His description of this libertine Gnostic sect is in some ways, a forerunner to the 1960s philosophy of “free love,” that was the characteristic of the “Hippy” generation:

• Their women, they share in common; and when anyone arrives who might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by which they make themselves known to each other . . . when they have so assured themselves, they address themselves immediately to the feast, serving up a lavish bounty of meats and wines, even though they may be poor. And when they have thus banqueted. . .they proceed to the work of mutual incitement. Husbands separate from wives, and a man will say to his own spouse: “Arise and celebrate the “love feast” with thy brother.” And the wretches mingle with each other, and although I am verily mortified to tell of the infamies they perpetrate, I shall not hesitate . . .[5]

It is unknown whether all these rumors were true or hearsay, but some historians think that they did have a basis in fact. The Borborites had a ritual where the woman and the man receive the male sperm in their hands, raise their eyes toward Heaven, offer their semen to God and consumed it.[6]

• Is the Eucharist a Form of Sacred Cannibalism?

Some scholars think the Last Supper, as defined and understood by Paul, represented a spiritualized example of sacred cannibalism.[7] Although Tiny Tim once popularized, “You are what you eat,” sacred cannibalism takes a different approach, “You are whom you eat,” i.e., the cannibal believes that he will incorporate the life essence and soul of that individual he is digesting. In a pre-conscious manner, primal peoples wished to assimilate the attributes of the god or hero, whose life experiences a mythic rebirth in the individual/community participating in the ritual. This process is also seen in primal societies, whenever the tribe partakes of the totem animal in a sacred meal. By ingesting the totem animal, the tribe believed the act of consumption created a bond between the tribal member and the spirit of the totem creature.  From a Christian perspective, the blood of Christ creates an astral link between him and his disciples, one which would keep them connected even though Christ would no longer be physically dwelling among them, but in a manner of speaking he would be reborn through them.[7]

Catholics have long understood this passage to mean that Christ is both substantially and supernaturally present in the Eucharist ritual, thus the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ. For Catholics and other Christians, the ritual symbolizes something more than just metaphor. Regardless how one interprets the historical and apologetic literature concerning this subject, Paul’s introduction of the Eucharist became one of the most important rituals that severed Christianity from its Judaic roots. With Paul’s theological and mystical understanding of Christ, Christianity became a new religion.

It is a pity that the Catholic and Protestant Church forgot about how others have accused their ancestors, much like they had alleged against the Jews, witches, and Cathars of their time. From this perspective, Western civilization has a long way to go along its evolutionary path.

Gandhi was once asked, “What do you think about Western civilization?” Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea . . .” Continue Reading

Purim has a “carnivalesque”  quality both in terms of its original narrative, as well as how the holiday is celebrated. Despite its joyous display of festivities and mardi gras, the holiday masks a very serious reality—the precarious nature of Jewish survival.

One of my favorite literary critics, the 20th century Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, defined the carnivalesque as a literary mode that subverts and liberates the  assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor, chaos, and paradox.

The carnivalesque vision is utopian in that it exposes the hierarchical distinctions of our social order as arbitrary, relative–a matter of social convention.  Hans Christian Andersen’s famous short story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, illustrates the carnivalesque spirit that ridicules monarchs who believe that their social position makes them inherently superior to the common person is altogether ridiculous–even illusory.

The experience of the carnival–with all the social niceties, hierarchies within a given social order, perceptions of truth, the concepts of reverence or piety and etiquettes–are profaned and overturned by normally suppressed voices and energies. A fool may suddenly appear wise, kings may transform into beggars, worlds of opposites co-mingle as if reality itself has turned upside down upon its head.

Many of Bahktin’s ideas can be seen in the story of how Esther and Mordechai thwarted a genocide that was being planned against the Jewish people.

In the book of Esther, the King’s penchant for partying, immediately displays to the reader a surreal world where the beautiful Queen Vashti is suddenly treated as  though she were a common stripper at a bachelor party.

Vashti’s transformation as a well-respected woman to someone who is banished from the kingdom is contrasted by an equally far-fetched scenario–Esther’s ascent to the royal throne. No sooner does Esther become queen, a deadly threat  emerges that threatens the people of Esther–Haman.

Haman’s rise to power is mysterious and rapid. No sooner had the Jews started to feel comfortable in their new Persian home, then suddenly–they are about to be annihilated by a foe who hates them for merely being religiously different.

As with Vashti and Esther, Haman’s ending is equally unpredictable as it is topsy-turvy. The man who obviously aspires to become King, ends up getting hung or impaled because of his hubris. Normalcy returns to the kingdom and the Jews live to see another day–and then some.

Even God undergoes a carnivalesque transformation in Esther. Far from being the revealed Deity of the Exodus, God is invisible throughout the Esther narrative. Yet, it is when God is most hidden, His Presence can still be felt through the downfall of the Jews’ archetypal enemy–Haman. Continue Reading