The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

THE HEBREW AND JEWISH ROOTS OF OUR FAITH

The Reverend Richard R. Davis

October 12, 2008

            This past summer U.S. immigration officials descended upon Agriprocessors in Postville , Iowa – the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the nation – and arrested about 400 workers who have not established legal residency here – it was a great shock and trauma for them.  During the following investigation numerous allegations of worker abuse surfaced – many employees were underage, in violation of child labor laws and workers claim they were physically abused, exploited, and paid below minimum wage.   The owners and management of Agriprocessors deny any wrongdoing, so I won’t prematurely judge them.

            Yet in all of this no one claimed that the actual meat produced at Agriprocessors did not meet official kosher standards.  Yet many in the Jewish community - for whom kosher food is produced – concluded that that’s not good enough.   Immigrant workers are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.   They must toil under harsh conditions for meager pay – all because they want what we all want – a good life for their loved ones and themselves.  Now the ones who worked at Agriprocessor have to face the additional ordeal of being arrested and face deportation.   Jewish social activists went to Postville and met with these workers, heard their stories, saw their tears and witnessed their despair.  They concluded that “obtaining kosher food by way of the suffering and exploitation of the vulnerable is unacceptable.”  They are now proposing that in addition to food having kosher certification there also be a “justice certification” (Hekhsher Tzedak) confirming that workers who produce this food are treated justly.  

            Good for them - In calling for this justice certification these activists are seeing beyond mere ritual observance and being true to the HEART of their ancient Jewish tradition.   It’s a tradition that has shaped our entire culture in ways beyond reckoning and recognition.  We don’t have time for a comprehensive lecture on this major faith tradition (not that I’m qualified to give you one), I would like to tell you how this tradition shapes my religious life and Unitarian Universalism.

            It can all be summed up in one word:  Covenant – that’s where the true spiritual genius of Judaism comes most clearly into focus for me.  

This spiritual concept originated about three thousand years ago when the Hebrews (the ancestors of the Jews) considered some rather mundane political agreements that various powers in that ancient world established between themselves for their mutual benefit.   Oftentimes such agreements were between stronger and weaker powers.   

            The Hebrews took this leaden legal model and turned it into spiritual gold.  They conceived of a sacred agreement – a covenant – between themselves and their God.   The Hebrews slowly came to have a very unique image of God.   This God began his career as a rather primitive tribal deity, evolved over time to the point where He (yes, this God was a “He”) was spiritually loftier than any other concept of ultimate reality in the ancient world – a transcendent God of true justice and infinite compassion – a God infinitely more wondrous and awesome than any possible human conception – So awesome you were not to say this God’s name or strive to make any image of Him.  In short, the Hebrews believed that there was “a heart at the heart of reality,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. once put it.

            This fact alone would be of limited significance had not the ancient Hebrews also made another remarkable and unique claim – they said that humankind is created in the image of God, that each one of us has a sacred worth, that God cares for all people, that each and every one of us is precious and we all matter – NO EXCEPTIONS.  This had very practical social implications – it meant that each one of us, most especially the weak and vulnerable, was to be treated justly and with compassion. 

So the Hebrews conceived of entering into a covenantal relationship with their God, Yahweh – they would recognize Yahweh as the ultimate creative and sustaining presence, and they would not worship lesser gods or selfish values at odds with the common good, and they would treat each other as people created in God’s image.  That was their basic spiritual blueprint.  The famous contemporary of Jesus, Rabbi Hillel, aptly summed up this covenantal faith while standing on one leg:  “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah: the rest is commentary.

This Hebrew-Jewish vision of ultimate reality and humankind’s place in the grand scheme of things gave them more spiritual and ethical traction than any surrounding societies in the Middle East .  The Hebrews and later the Jews were of little political consequence in that ancient world – they were a dusty molehill of a nation cowering in the shadows of the majestic peaks of the great Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian Empires.  But their spiritual vision and ethical ideals towered over that ancient world like a Himalayan peak.  

            The Hebrews, and later the Jews, more often than not lost sight of those lofty peaks themselves - clouds of greed, corruption, cruelty, indifference and empty ritualism blocked their view, and thus the elite of that society lived at odds with their highest spiritual and ethical vision.  The rich and powerful exploited the poor, pushed them off their lands and turned them into virtual low wage slaves, they bribed the judges and had the priests on their payroll to perform empty rituals so they could delude themselves into thinking they were actually being pious because they got all dressed up and went to the temple.  Historical evidence suggests that their society was so unjust in their treatment of the poor, the widows and their starving children, the foreign immigrants that it makes your blood boil just to think about this oppression and indifference.  

We probably wouldn’t know about any of this at all, except for another astonishing unique feature of Hebrew and Jewish society.  From their earliest days, there emerged a unique class of religious figures – the prophets – who were protected by religious sanctions.   What they saw of their corrupt society did make their blood boil and they saw it as their call “to tell it like it is” – to remind people of their sacred covenant with God and with one another.  So they roundly chastised and condemned the rich and the powerful, and even kings themselves, right to their faces because they were breaking the sacred covenant by allowing the weak and vulnerable to suffer needlessly.   No other ancient society had any figures remotely like the Hebrew prophets.  If you dared to challenge the prevailing authority in any of the great empires you virtually signed your own death certificate.  But the great classical Hebrew prophets – Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah – they had the authority to speak out.   We know this because their words of moral indignation and their visions of a just and peaceful world got written down by scribes.  And later, as the Jews recognized the stark spiritual beauty of their unvarnished truths they included it in their scripture, which later came to be included in the Christian scripture and also influenced the Islamic tradition.

The prophets were scolds – harsh, angry, outrageous, vitriolic, foul mouthed, street theatrical scolds.  They didn’t pull any punches – they stated the ugly, unvarnished truths about their society so they could get society’s attention and so there could be no misunderstanding.   But if that’s all the prophets were – moral scolds – they’d probably be just a footnote somewhere in obscure biblical journals.  They were scolds in the service of their highest function -- being visionaries.  They so clearly understood humankind’s sublime potential - living in glorious harmony with God and with others in a commonwealth of love, joy and peace, and it broke their hearts to see their society failing so utterly.   They felt called to scold, chastise, and cajole their society lest that vision of a better world, a promised land perish.  But they knew they had to offer a glimpse of that world that can be with the most powerful tool in their arsenal:  The literary genius of their memorable language.  So they spoke of a world where “swords would be turned into plows and spears into pruning hooks, where nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore:”  (Isaiah) a world “where justice rolls down like waters and peace like an ever flowing stream”; (Amos) a world where each person heeds the call “to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” 

Above all, the ancient Hebrews and Jews believed that there is meaning in history – unlike surrounding ancient societies which merely sought to maintain a status quo (which was good for the ruling elite, but no one else).  This small band of ancient people came to see that they, and humankind in general, were called to be on a journey out of bondage to a promised land –  a land where there was no more war, poverty, hunger, cruelty and injustice.   In the ancient world, they alone had such an uplifting vision. 

But what has this got to do with you and me?  Well, let me put it this way:  remove this ancient foundation from beneath us, and we would cease to exist as the religious movement we are.   Foundations lie below us, mostly out of sight and mind, and we rarely think about them.  Yet we rest upon certain spiritual foundations which enable us to be who we are. 

In a word, the gift the ancient Hebrews and Jews bequeathed to us is the vision of a covenantal religion.  That is, they saw religion as being grounded in how we all treat one another, how we live together in this world, and how faithfully we live in relation to the highest and holiest reality.   Compare covenantal religion to the type of religion that seems to be more dominant today – creedal, authoritarian religions which claim that THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is to believe a certain way, to unquestioningly accept the authority of some scripture (even if it seems to promote bigotry, bloodshed and intolerance), or some church or religious authority figure (even if what they teach flies in the face of reason and the dictates of compassion).  Authoritarian religions are the religions that tend to carve humankind up into those who accept the “right” authority, believe “correctly” from those who allegedly don’t.   To put it mildly, this has given religion a bad name among thoughtful, empowered people who want to think and feel for themselves.   They often conclude that all religion is a bane on the human race and have nothing to do with it.  (To be fair, many religions ultimately grounded in authoritarianism still do much good in the world.) 

That’s a shame because there are religions grounded in covenantal relationship that are not a bane but a true blessing.  Unitarian Universalism is such a faith – a covenantal religious faith that says that the most important question is not “what do you believe?” but rather “how are you living in relation with others?” 

It’s a holy and haunting question for me.  It compels me to consider things that I might actually prefer to sweep under the rug of my awareness.  So be careful here.   If you want to have a cozy little life that is all about you and your personal needs and comforts and desires you might not want to really think about what it means to have a covenantal religious faith.   But if you were honestly that small minded you probably wouldn’t be here now. 

Covenantal religion calls me out of the small house of my cautionary being into the larger world.  Sad to say, I sometimes ignore that call and retreat back in to that small house.  But once you’ve really heard the call of a covenantal faith you can’t turn it off so easily.  I think that’s because it is the voice of truth that lies at the center of our being.  It is a voice that reminds me that I’m not in this world alone but I am part of a much greater reality, and I am called to be of service, to be in a covenantal relationship with all of life, or as we name it in our Purposes and Principles “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” 

Covenantal faith calls me to see through the socially visible barriers that divide people according to race, class, ethnicity, nationality, and perhaps most challengingly for me right now, political persuasion.   This faith calls for me to see with the eyes of compassion and recognize the image of the sacred in each person, to recognize that each person MATTERS, especially those who are most vulnerable and neglected.   It naturally follows from this that covenantal faith calls for me to see with the eyes of a prophet, recognizing the rank hypocrisy and the needless and harmful violations of the covenant of common being so rampant in our world

My covenantal faith calls me not only to see, but to live and act in accordance with what I see.   It is a call to recognize a sacred promise - to live with heartfelt presence in the world, to have compassion for those in need, to have the courage to challenge those systems that deny the common good and dehumanize us all.   Do you hear it, too?