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If you will look at the toy; of your Order of Service you will see that
today is the 5th of Iyyar.
That is the day on which, 33 years ago, the
State of Israel was established.
But when, as this yegr, the anniversary
falls on Shabbat, the festival celebrating the anniversary, known as Yom
ha-Atzma-ut, is observed two days earlier.
That is way we held our Yom
ha-Atzma-ut Service, jointly with three sister congregations, 59 Wednesday
night, the eve of the 3rd of Iyyar, and I was glad to see quite a number of
you there.
But although Yom ha—Atz-ma#ut_has already been celebrated, 1?
is, I am sure you will agree, appropriéte that in our Service today, which
marks the actual anniversary, we should also recite special prayers, as we
shall do presently, relatifig to the State of Israel.
The Yom ha-Atzma-ut Service to which
I
have just referred begggfvith a
quotation from the 2nd Psalm, "Worship the Lord in reverence, and rejoiée
with trembling"; and I must confess to you that this year, compared witi
previous years,
I
felt less inclined to rejoice and more inclined to tremble.
That is partly because of the clash between Israel's Prime Minister Menachem
BegifiIéhaZwest_§er;:;if§:Chancellor He;mut Schmidt which has shared ta;
headlines during the last few days with the hunger strike of Bobby Sanéa
a§d the county council elections.
For to me it seems plain that Mr. Schmidt
was almost completely right in what he said, and th§t Mr. Begifi3s persona;
attack on him almdat entirely unjustified, so that I find the applause Mr.
Begin has received from Jews véry disturbing and frightening.
But that is
The point is, rather, that, in my Opinion, the present
not quite the point.
israeli Government is pursuing policies which can only lead @0 catastrophe;
that it is indeed, as Mr. Schmidt said, "acting out a Greek tragedy".
Thére-P
to rgjqioés Bfikxifiéreforé;‘t§b, I sha;;:join with
fqrg I-findwit'difficulfi
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LEO‘BAECKCOLLECE
LIBRARY
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special fervour in the prayers for the State of Israel, hoping that, by a
timely change of government or of policy, the otherwise inevitable doom will
be averted.
But now, especia11& for the children, let me turn to quite another subject.
If-it has any connection with what I have just said, it is only thgt it is
about Alexander the Great, who came from the land of Greek tragedy.
As we
all know, be conquered many countries and established an empire that extended
'all the
way to India and therefore included the whole of the Middle East.
Not
surprisingly, there are many stories about Alexander in Jewish literature, and
many of them show him in a favourable light. 'He was, after gll, a brilliant
/
general, a wise statesman, and friendly to the Jewifih people.
On the other
7
hand, like most conquerors and colonisers, he did have a cerigéy attitude é}
'éugegi;;it&:
He was proud of being Greek, and suré that he ;as bringing a
higher civilisation to the supposedlyopéckfiafdcpeoyies he conquered.
wasn't always true.
But that
The Greeks might have been more gdvanced in art and
architetture and philosophy, but moralll some of the conquered peoples certainly the Jews - had higher standards than the Greeks did.
So the Rabbis,
in spite of their respect for Alexander the Great, rather enjoyed telling
stories about him which showed that he wasn't 3323 great, that he had much
to learn, not only from the Jews, bi? even from supposedly primitive peoples
in remote parts of Africa.
And here is one such story.
It comes from Midrash Va- ikrgirgge Midraah on the book of Leviticus, and
relates, in fact, to today's Parashah.
For you have to know that just before
the passage we reéd, there are one or two laws about the humgne treatment ofm
animals; and the discussion of these leads to the quotation of various verses
showing how God cares, not only for human beings, but for animals as well, and
one of these verses, as we shall see, comes from the 36th Esalm which was read
‘
“.7”-
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a few minutes ago.
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Bfit-enough introduction, and on with the story.
Once, the Midrash tells gs, Alexander the Great went on a royal tour to
So far as I know he dian't make any long-distance
a refiote country in Africa.
telephone cails to his fiancee in Macedonia, or if he did, they were not
recorded, or if they were recorded, no newspaper published them.
However,
as happens to royal personages on such tours, he was presented with gifts.
The particular gifts the king of the country presented to him were rayher
unusai
golden apples, golden pomegranates and golde/ioaves of bread.
Unfortygétely, Alexander didn't accept them very graciously.
are these for?" he said.
"What on eartp
"Do they then eat gold in your country?"
"Oh no,"
said the Q€?ican king, as politely as he could. "But I said toffiiy;if, 0rdinary_
apples, pohégranates and so forth you can get in yqur own country, in Macedonia.
In fact, your fruit salad, called macedoine, is world famous.
But these are
ornaments made by our best craftsmen, and I'fihgught‘they*fi6uldqidog nice in
your palace."
.But
Alexander, still rather rude, said: "I am nét really
interested in your crafts; I am much mére interested in your laws, how you
dispense justice."
1/
Well, by pure hhance, just at that moment two men éppeared and asked the
king to settle a dispute.
One said: "Your majesty!
I
bought a carob-tree
from this man, but when I Eniied it out I found a treasure among its roots;
w~u.‘-,-
so I said to him, 'Take your treésure
,
for I bought the carob-tree, not the
treasure‘."
Now here let me interrupt to ask you if that reminds you of another story,
one of the famous stories of Rabbinic literature.
And it is about one of the
very early teachers of Rabbinic Judaism, Shim'on ben Shetach, who had to work
very hard to make a living.
-to buy a donkey for him.
To make life easier fér him, his disciples decided
So they went to an Arab and bought a donkey; but
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when fihgy‘yrqgght’;§uh9qe Fpeyifqggd
a
gearl on it.v Full of joy phey wgyt
to their master, Shim'on hen Shetach, and told him what had happened, and
said: 'Now you won't éave to work at all any.more, for this is a very precious
pearl, and we'll be able to sell it for lots of money.‘
But Shim'on ben
Shetach saidzx’do and give it béck to the Arab at onceéG< The disciples,
crést-fallen, said: 'But why? ‘éurely you yourself have taught us that if\
yap find something 0; an article you have bought it belongs tolyouz'xr'YéS,'
said Shim'on ben shetach, 'strictly speaking that is so.
_
But I wéfiih rather
hear that Arab sgy, Blessed be the God of the Jews, than possess all the riches
of the world" (J. B.M. 2:5).
And that story is of course an example of what
it means to acfi in accordance with the principle stated in our Torah portion,
v'nikdashti p'toch b'ngx yisraeR, "I will be sanctified among the children of
Israel" (Lev. 22:32).
It means that we Jews, especially in our dealings with
non-Jews, should always behave in such a way as to cause them to respéct and
admire the religion\e profess.
But back to our main $tory,'§fia I hape you haven't forgotten where we left
it off.
While Alékahder the Great was chatting with his host, the African
king, two men, ye; will remember, came and presented their dispute.
The one
we have heard about had fougd a treasure underneath the carob-tree, which he
wanted to give back to the other.
But the other didn't want to take it back,
for he said to the first man, 'If you found it, it is yours.‘
African king thought for
a
minute, then he said to the man who had sold the
carob—tree: "Do you have a son?"
.to the man who had
And he said he had.
Well, the
And he answered: "Yes".
And then he turned
bought the thee and asked him: "Do you have a daughter?"
Then the king gave his judgment: "Let them marry each
other and share the treasure."‘ And the two men agreed.
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But Alexander looked amazed;
So the African king said £0 him: "Why are you
Have I not judged well?"
so amazed?
"0 yes," said Alexénder.
"How then."
asked, the African king, "would you have dealt with Such a case if it had
happened in your country?"
"0,
"
said Alexander the Great, "I would have
ordered both men to have their heads chopped off, and the treasure given to
me as king."
This time the African king looked amazed, and he askéa Alexander:
"Tell me, your majesty7 does the sun shine in your country?” "Yes," said
Alexander.
"And does rain fall in your country?"
"Yes, of course, sometimes.”
"Well, then, asked the African king, perhaps you have small cattle in your
country?"
"Certainly," answered Alexander.
"We have lots of sheep and goats."
"Ah, that‘explains it," said the African king.
Alexander.
"Explains what?" demanded
"It explains why God allows the sub to shine and the rain to fall
in a country that has such cruel, inhumane laws.
Obviously, he allows the
sun to shine and the rain to fall, not for the human beings who live there,
but for the sake of the sheep and goats."
And that, says the Midrash, explains
also what it says in Psalm 36: adam u-v'hemah toshia Adonai, "Man and feast
thou presefvest, O Lord."
It means that God cares both for human beings and
for animals, and when the human beings don't deserve it, God preserves the world
for the sake of the animals.
And
I
must say that sometimes, when I read about the cruel things human beings
do t9 each other, and then I look at my big ginger tom-cat, who couldn't hurt
I
a
flm let alone a mouse, or, more to the point, I see the sheep grazing peacefully
in the céuntryside, I feel that way as well and say to myself: 'It must be for
their sake that the world endures'.
But let us hope and pray that human beings,
too, here in Britasn, and in the State of Israel, and throughout the world,
will yet learn so to behave that, for their sake, too, God will allow the suh
to continue to shine and the rain to continue to fall.