Last night a small group from our church went to the liberal synagogue for a conversation with the Rabbi on the theme of remembrance in the Bible and extra-biblical Jewish sources. It was our version of scriptural reasoning - adapted to be more accessible and less sola scriptura. It's the middle of Sukkot / the Festival of Booths at the moment. Not sure what Sukkot is? This video explains it brilliantly. With Lego. Last night wasn't an expression of faith in the home - but it did come up in conversation, particularly the importance of children learning about how faith influences the world in general terms as well as having some specific knowledge of other faiths. And perhaps rather than trusting that it will all be taken care of in school - not something we felt confident of in Luxembourg anyway - we could take some age appropriate initiatives ourselves. Not to teach our faith so much as to teach about faith.
Last night we started with a post-biblical text on Sukkot in which Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Akiva offered different interpretations of the festival, one literal and one not. We concluded that both interpretations can live alongside each other. This laid important groundwork for the subsequent discussion. Woven through the conversation about the texts that followed were reflections on the way we approach discussion of texts in our respective traditions. We learned something of the way Jewish theological interpretation and discussion works and were in our turn able to share the traditional Anglican way of shaping our theology through scripture, reason and tradition with experience at least in some circles also part of the conversation.
Our first Bible passage was Noah and the rainbow, when God says that whenever he sees the rainbow he will remember the covenant he made with humanity (Gen 9:8-17). The Hebrew says bow, not rainbow and we learned that this may instead be a warrior's bow, held up to show the cessation of fighting, much like waving a white flag. In other words, God has made peace with humanity. From the Jewish perspective this is a covenant between God and all living creatures. One does not have to be Jewish or Christian to have a relationship with God and be 'saved' - this relationship was established much earlier and we are all part of this covenant.
The Rabbi Yosef Yerushalmi said that Judaism is a technology of memory, a set of practices to make the past present. We agreed that this is true of any religion. We talked about the purpose of memory and remembering, and the importance of it being embodied in practices because we are physical creatures. We studied Numbers 15:37-41: to look at the fringes and remember the commandments. This passage is traditionally said twice a day by Jewish people as part of the daily prayer routine.
After that we studied Luke 22:14-20 and 1 Corinthians 11.23-26, looking at the Last Supper, Holy Communion in the church, and Pesach / Passover. We considered meals as acts of remembrance, thinking about the way symbolic foods help us to remember. This brought us very obviously once again to the embodied nature of remembrance: remembering is not simply a head-activity. Hearing the Rabbi's perspective on the Last Supper (presented in Luke as the Passover meal) was fascinating. He said that traditionally red wine was used at Passover in order to remind Jews of two bloods: the blood of the lambs on the lintels of the doors as well as the blood of circumcision. As he said, if Jesus presents himself as the lamb this all makes perfect sense.
We then considered remembering in three dimensions through time, as Paul presents it. There is a memory of the past (Jesus at Last Supper and dying on the cross), a re-enactment in the present (Eucharist) and the anticipation of a future heavenly banquet. As Paul says in v.26: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup [present], you proclaim the Lord’s death [past] until he comes [future].
Finally we read 2 pages (Zichronot - Memories) from the New Year liturgy. New Year is known in the Bible as the Day of Remembrance. It is a collection of biblical verses woven together into a liturgical piece. Much like the covenant with Noah, where God says the bow will remind him of it, these verses raise profound questions: does God really need reminders? Is there a danger of an omniscient God forgetting? If not, why is it being framed that way? Is it fair to rely on God remembering the good deeds of our ancestors (as presented in these prayers) so that we can piggy-back off them? What does that do to personal responsibility or the fight for justice for all creation? What is the role of hope in all this?
It was a rich and thought-provoking evening and I'm deeply grateful to the Rabbi for making the time for us. One important theme that emerged was the idea of remembering as a locus of encounter with God. I wonder what we could do at home to create a space for embodied remembering in which we can meet with God.