For some reason this is only the third time I have preached from this august pulpit, though no doubt your archivist will prove me wrong.  The first was at my ordination in 1970; the only sermon of thousands I can still recall and would be happy to repeat.  The second time I can’t remember when, but I think it was in the old sanctuary. And now the third:  what a Shabbat, what a time on which to preach, to seek to give words of understanding, comfort, religious inspiration and hope.  My inclination is to follow the advice of the prophet Amos:  “The prudent will keep silent at such a time; for it is an evil time” (Amos 5:13).  But can one?

How often have text books on Judaism claimed that Shalom is the core word in Jewish thinking?  A Hebrew word most known to non-Jews.  The word and thought with which we end whole sections of our daily liturgy.  The prayer for peace is the concluding prayer of the Amidah which we are meant to recite three times a day, the preceding blessings just leading up to this finale that expresses our greatest wish.  The whole service, ending with the Kaddish which ends with the hope that oseh shalom bimromav, as God makes peace in the high heavens, so will God bring peace to humanity on earth.  Shalom, the very hello and goodbye and essence of Judaism.  God and the heavens must be weeping, impotent, at this moment as the events on the holiest of lands unfolds.

So I decided to follow Amos’ advice, avoid the issues of the day, and seek comfort in the Torah reading.  What do I find: no role models of peace-seekers there. Dying Jacob blessing his sons: Reuben, unstable as water. Simeon & Levi a pair: when angry they slay men, when calm they maim horses.  Judah…of course the one that the poem seeks most to praise…yet even Judah is lauded as a lion waiting to pounce.  Dan, the judge, yet still described as a serpent by the road.  Gad: a raider.  Joseph a wild ass, his bow taut, his arm strong.  Even baby Benjamin a ravenous wolf.  No wonder half way through his blessing, as he seems to reflect on his words, Jacob says “Lishu-atcha kiviti Adonai : I long or hope for Your deliverance, O God!”

And the Haftarah is hardly helpful.  I’m glad you decided not to read the traditional passage (1 Kings 2:1-7) : the dying King David urging his son to settle, by assassination, the scores he had not had time to personally conclude. Even the more acceptable substitute (2 Samuel 23:1-7) has David’s last words declaring that the “godless are to dealt with an iron bar or the shaft of a spear.” And David is the ancestor of the Messiah, the Prince of Peace.  Where can we find Shalom….must we just keep a frustrated silence?

Of course, both the Torah portion and Haftarah are episodes spoken with the benefit of hindsight.  Jacob’s blessing a reflection of the fates of the tribes once they had settled in the land of Canaan, and also propaganda for the later dominance of Judah and Joseph.  David’s words, perhaps justification for the acts of revenge taken by Solomon.  However both episodes remind me, at least, why the Bible is so great:  because it pictures life as it really is, people as they really are.  In other chapters we get visions of the ideal, but here we get accounts of the weaknesses, moral imperfections, The reality of the behaviour of most human beings or nations at some time in their life, under certain circumstances, the bad and the good.  Yet despite the bad Jacob verbalises, his words are suffused with the love he yet has for his sons.

The fact that the Torah portion and Haftarah speak with the benefit of hindsight is maybe a valid comment on our reactions to the current disaster in Gaza and Israel.  Only in time to come will we be fully able to make a judgement on the actions taken and know what was right and wrong.  To do so every time we see another distressing photograph is natural, but perhaps not wise.

I must be honest and say that I do wonder which other nation has allowed 3 hour ceasefires in the middle of battles (and then heard it said, it is not enough).  Where were the pages of pictures and vitriolic condemnation day after day as we, or the Americans, bombed cities in the Iraq war killing or maiming hundreds of thousands of civilians, or are doing at this moment in Afghanistan?   When were mistakes not made in the heat of battle leading to the killing of your own troops or unfortunate innocents?  I could list the questions I would ask of Israel and Hamas, I have no doubt you have your own list and opinions, but this is meant to be a sermon and not a political commentary…you can join such a debate at the Montagu Centre on Monday night.

It’s too late to know whether further diplomacy might have stopped the Hamas rockets, whether opening Gaza’s borders might have changed Hamas’ mind and they recognise Israel’s right to exist.  With hindsight we may come to conclusions that this terrible war just increased Arab & Muslim enmity and made Israel, Diaspora Jewry and in fact the whole world less secure, or else that the defeat of Hamas was a defining point in the establishment of a really democratic Palestinian State and the beginning of real peace in the middle East.  Sadly we will have to wait and see and meanwhile mourn the loss of life that continues.

To end let us consider Jacob’s blessing not as hindsight, but as indeed the honest words of a dying man, and as I said he speaks words of admonition as well as praise.  Rabbi Norman Cohen, Professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College created a new midrash  to express Jacobs dying wish that his sons, despite their past enmities and wrongs to each other and to others, will yet unite in brotherhood and love. He pictures Jacob saying “Promise me, my children that you will put the past to rest and build together for the future.  Tell me that you will cherish the ties that bind our family as one people covenanted with the God who created heaven and earth.”  (Voices From Genesis p149)   This might be a good prayer and hope for all to say this Shabbat, this weekend.  

And to really conclude I return to Jacob’s prayer: “Lishu-atcha kiviti Adonai: I wait for Your deliverance, Your salvation, O God.”  Kiviti can mean to wait, but also “to hope for” and Midrash Rabbah comments on this “Everything depends on hope.  Suffering is bound up with hope, the sanctification of God’s name with hope, the merit of our ancestors with hope, the desire for a better world with hope, and forgiveness comes through hope.” (Bereishit Rabbah Veychi:20).  And we can add…and please God answer our prayer that our fervent hope for deliverance, for peace and reconciliation comes bimheyra v’yameynu very soon and in our days:  please do not make us wait. 
Amen