 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Previous
article
| Next
article
First of all, I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t organise anything, I didn’t make anything — about the largest contribution I made to the whole affair was finding a corkscrew for the wine. So, doing things completely out of order, I want to thank everyone first, because I really had a good time. Ruth got everything together wonderfully, Juliet produced a Haggadah that brought together the religious aspects of the Seder with the multicultural messages of freedom and morality that Passover is essentially about, Rabbi Warren Elf carried us all through it in a way that was as funny as it was informative, and the soft stuffed Lamb sat on the table looking cute and cuddly in a way only soft toys can …
So I hope all you MethAng-type people enjoyed it too. It seems kind of weird to find you at all interested … but then there’s always that rather too used quote by Mahatma Gandhi about all religions being different paths to the same place. I hope you learnt something useful about Jews and Judaism from it, and I hope you found some ideas that you can apply back into your own personal approaches to God, faith, and life generally. And of course, I hope you enjoyed the wine! Let’s do it again sometime!!
Well, we’re kind of glad that you enjoyed it all because it was definitely you people who were doing all the work. Joel did do more than find a corkscrew despite his modest attempts to relinquish responsibility for anything else, and the rest of the Jewish Society certainly put in an enormous effort to sort out all the food, wine, photocopying and other stuff to make sure that even arts students like myself could follow (and eat/drink) everything. As far as we’re concerned, well I hope this article bears some kind of witness to the fact that we enjoyed it.
As to why we did it, well it was certainly more than just an idle suggestion thrown in because we were desperate for topics for meetings. When the idea was floated in the direction of the committee by the Chaplaincy, we gauged some opinions as to whether it fitted into the programme for the term and our definition as a society. Having done this, we went for it, hoping that this was all right with all those who hadn’t been consulted. We were very pleased that the high turnout in itself showed that we had made the right choice.
This term in MethAng we have been attempting to address the theme of us as Christians in a Wider World. In addressing this, we have repeatedly hit on the problem of individually as Christians, and as a Christian Society, failing to understand and to take the necessary steps to understand other groups, other people, before entering into dialogue. Before the Passover, former SU President Fleur Anderson spoke to us on racial, homophobic and other prejudice-related violence. The week after, one of our very own Chaplains, Graham Jones, explained Liberation Theology to us as needing to be seen in the context of its roots in South America and to be seen as the gift to Christian thought worldwide of the (materially) poor people of South America. Then we had Warren Adams explain how economist E. F. Schumacher’s vision of helping the developing countries by developing small simple technology that could be used by them with little outlay and training, rather than developing large and expensive centralised schemes, made particular sense in the light of Christian ideals.
With all this, I think we seem to be hitting a gradual realisation that we seem to sit on our own little mountains and refuse to accept that we can learn from others and that furthermore, perhaps learning about others is helpful for the occasions when we come into contact with them. Before this is written off as an archetypal Christian failing, it’s worth pointing out that this is universally applicable — we are all guilty at one time or another of failing to attempt to look at the world through eyes other than our own, simply because we can’t be bothered. Thus a Mock Passover seemed particularly in keeping with our programme for the rest of the term.
This was not all though — a Mock Passover also appealed to us in the sense that it was a part of our own Christian history. This is where I include lots of glib history student generalisations about how understanding our past helps explain the present more, but you see what I mean. Rabbi Warren Elf was gracious substantially above and beyond anyone’s definition of the word in pointing out that the Jews had actually stolen the idea of wax (rather than oil) candles from the Christian tradition and not actually pointing out any of the bits us Christians stole from the Jewish tradition …
So, we hoped for a bit of an insight into the Jewish faith, we hoped for maybe a little insight into our own past and we hoped for some fun as well. Did we get what we expected? And can the average Christis reader, unsafely ensconced in his dodgy JCR armchair, cope with the raw cliff-edge tension? Will MethAng get what it expected? Tune into the next paragraph, same time, same place, same uneasily stapled wadge of photocopied bogroll etc. (Oy!! That’s uncalled for — Ed) Well, in the sense that I use “we” advisedly to cover my personal opinion and what I could gauge of other opinions throughout this article, “we” got more than we expected. I think it’s not unfair to say that we all understood more about the Jewish faith by the end of the meeting and also that we understood more about Jewish experience through recent history. Part of the evening’s proceedings included a quote from concentration camp survivor Primo Levi, seeing the ritual Jewish washing of hands as part of the “one power” to be defended “with all our strength … the power to refuse consent” and this way to “remain alive, not to begin to die”. Rabbi Elf’s later declaration that his personal interpretation of the stated wish in the Jewish Passover for “next year in Jerusalem” would be for Jerusalem to become a centre to promote worldwide peace and harmony, was as destructive of stereotypical attitudes towards the Jewish view on the current situation in Palestine as the Primo Levi quotation was poignant.
The Primo Levi quotation, along with further extracts from Rev. Martin Niemoeller, Anne Frank and the story of the battle of the Warsaw Ghetto in the Second World War, all featured in the rather wonderful booklet handed out to all who attended — once again the Jewish Society blamed a third party (the Internet in this case) but this hardly stands up to serious scrutiny. In any case, these quotations were not simply stuck in for the heck of it. They were there because the Jewish Passover is all about freedom from slavery, and telling the story of that slavery — primarily through the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt but also remembering other experiences of slavery in Jewish history and celebrating those who have fought back and those who continue to fight back.
So this is perhaps where we unexpectedly gained — to be shown and be able to share in a celebration of freedom was very heartening and one which we certainly can, as Joel suggests, all apply to our own approaches to God, faith and life. I wouldn’t want to fall into the danger of trying to deny the differences that go into creating our separate identities (and I’m quite sure that that wouldn’t be the desire of anyone who attended) but it was good to be able to share the common ground of celebrating Elijah’s exposure of corruption and his advocacy of common people.
Oh, and did we have fun? Well, perhaps you’ll have to ask others but the good humour seemed to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of the evening — Rabbi Elf’s description of the fluffy sheep’s previous ability to make characteristic errr, sheep-like noises, the description of Moses noticing a blazing bush whilst discussing philosophy with one of his flock and not putting it out because he had no extinguisher handy, the tell-tale signs of inviting too many people to your Seder included in the leaflet that was given out (“when you recite the names of the ten plagues, the locusts really ring a bell” etc) … all really helped build a good atmosphere.
So, yes, let’s do it again sometime … who knows, I might even acquire a taste for that wine (if the last lot left me with any teeth, that is).
Previous
article
| Next
article
|
|
|
|
|
Last modified: 25th November 2005