On Oppression and Liberation

STANDING UP FOR THE OPPRESSED”

Rabbi Lewis John Eron, Ph,D,

May 31, 2018

Community Iftar Dinner

Crowne Plaza Hotel – Cherry Hill, NJ

PEACE ISLANDS INSTITUTE

TURKISH CULTURAL CENTER

I would like to begin with a Psalm, Psalm 146, a psalm praising God.

Psalm 146

הַֽלְלוּ־יָ֡הּ הַלְלִ֥י נַ֝פְשִׁ֗י אֶת־יְהוָֽה׃

אֲהַלְלָ֣ה יְהוָ֣ה בְּחַיָּ֑י אֲזַמְּרָ֖ה לֵֽאלֹהַ֣י בְּעוֹדִֽי׃

אַל־תִּבְטְח֥וּ בִנְדִיבִ֑ים בְּבֶן־אָדָ֓ם ׀ שֶׁ֤אֵֽין ל֥וֹ תְשׁוּעָֽה׃

תֵּצֵ֣א ר֭וּחוֹ יָשֻׁ֣ב לְאַדְמָת֑וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַ֝ה֗וּא אָבְד֥וּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָֽיו׃

אַשְׁרֵ֗י שֶׁ֤אֵ֣ל יַעֲקֹ֣ב בְּעֶזְר֑וֹ שִׂ֝בְר֗וֹ עַל־יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהָֽיו׃

עֹשֶׂ֤ה ׀ שָׁ֘מַ֤יִם וָאָ֗רֶץ אֶת־הַיָּ֥ם וְאֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֑ם הַשֹּׁמֵ֖ר אֱמֶ֣ת לְעוֹלָֽם׃

עֹשֶׂ֤ה מִשְׁפָּ֨ט ׀ לָעֲשׁוּקִ֗ים נֹתֵ֣ן לֶ֭חֶם לָרְעֵבִ֑ים יְ֝הוָ֗ה מַתִּ֥יר אֲסוּרִֽים׃

יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פֹּ֘קֵ֤חַ עִוְרִ֗ים יְ֭הוָה זֹקֵ֣ף כְּפוּפִ֑ים יְ֝הוָ֗ה אֹהֵ֥ב צַדִּיקִֽים׃

יְהוָ֤ה ׀ שֹׁ֘מֵ֤ר אֶת־גֵּרִ֗ים יָת֣וֹם וְאַלְמָנָ֣ה יְעוֹדֵ֑ד וְדֶ֖רֶךְ רְשָׁעִ֣ים יְעַוֵּֽת׃

יִמְלֹ֤ךְ יְהוָ֨ה ׀ לְעוֹלָ֗ם אֱלֹהַ֣יִךְ צִ֭יּוֹן לְדֹ֥ר וָדֹ֗ר הַֽלְלוּ־יָֽהּ׃

Hallelujah. Praise the Eternal, O my soul!

I will praise the Eternal all my life, sing hymns to my God while I exist.

Put not your trust in the great, in a mortal who cannot save.

Whose breath departs; who returns to the dust; who plans come to nothing on that day.

Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Eternal his God,

The maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;

Who secures justice for those who are wronged, gives food to the hungry. The Eternal sets prisoners free;

The Eternal restores sight to the blind; the Eternal makes those who are bent stand straight; the Eternal loves the righteous;

The Eternal watches over the stranger; God gives courage to the orphan and widow, but makes the path of the wicked tortuous.

The Eternal shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Hallelujah.

STANDING UP FOR THE OPPRESSED

The 150 psalms that comprise the biblical Book of Psalms, an anthology of religious poetry from Ancient Israel, can be sub-divided into a number of different collections. Psalm 146 introduces the concluding section of the book. It leads a series of five psalms praising God, which ends with Psalm 150, a description of the orchestra of the Temple in Jerusalem leading all creation in song – all living things singing “Halleluyah!” – “Praise the Eternal One!”

Psalm 146 opens this short collection. The poet presents God to us and asks us to join him in extolling God. It is as if we are meeting God for the very first time, and our host, the psalmist, introduces God to us. The psalmist begins the psalm in the 1st person, telling us that praising God is the focus of his life. Then the poet switches his attention. He turns from speaking to himself, his nefesh, his “soul”, and addresses us. He instructs us not to place our trust in mortal people, but rather in God, creator of all things.

Then, anticipating the question of why should we praise God, the psalmist presents us with God’s resume – a listing of God’s great deeds. For this poet, it is God’s care for those burdened and oppressed by life’s trouble that makes God the only one worthy of our adoration.

Psalm 146 presents a picture of a very busy God; a God who is always trustworthy and reliable; a God whose faithfulness appears in the support God offers to those overwhelmed by the challenges they face in our world. (1) God secures justice for those abused by human systems; (2) God provides food to those who hunger; (3) God frees those unjustly imprisoned; (4) God enables the blind to see; and (5) God lifts up those bowed down. To the Psalmist, God showers love upon the righteous and shields the bodies and uplifts the spirits of those whom society deems as defenseless: (1) the stranger, (2) the fatherless and (3) the widow.

The poet concludes by telling us that this God is our God, a God for all generations.

The God of Hebrew Scriptures is the God who stands up for the oppressed. This is the God we meet in the Torah, in the epic history of Israel, the God who redeemed enslaved Israel and guided the Israelite nation through the wilderness to the Promised Land. God’s faithfulness to the covenantal promise God made with Israel’s ancestors appears in God’s protective care their children as seen in the root story of the Jewish people, the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

The themes we hear so clearly in Psalm 146 reappear in the second blessing of the central prayer in Jewish liturgy, the Amida, the Standing Prayer, which pious Jews recite at least three times a day. The second blessing, known as the Gevura blessing, the blessing over God’s greatness, presents God’s protective care for all, especially for those overcome life’s challenges – the defeated, the ill, the imprisoned, the homeless – as examples of God’ redemptive power.

We say many things about God, yet, as the great medieval philosophers, such as the Rambam, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, remind us, we know very little about who God is, God’s Essential Attributes. But we are not totally ignorant. What we do know about God is what God does, how we experience God in this created world; that is, God’s “Attributes of Action”. In our search for God, we can emulate God by doing what God does. God’s Attributes of Action set the pattern of our lives.

The idea of emulating God stems from the Torah. At the heart of the Book of Leviticus rests the understanding that we can participate in God’s holiness by living holy lives. The Holiness Code, the code of laws that apply to all Israelites, embedded in the middle of the book, claims that by pursuing justice and relieving oppression we can be holy as our God is holy. In the Book of Deuteronomy, and throughout scripture, we are directed to care for the vulnerable in our communities – strangers, Levites, widows, and orphans – because God cared for us when we were oppressed in Egypt.

Since our tradition envisions a God who stands with the oppressed, we, too, must stand with them, that is, if we take our tradition seriously.

Yet this apparently simple directive to imitate God as the one who liberates those oppressed presents us with major challenges: (1) What constitutes oppression?; (2) How do we know when we are oppressed?; and (3) How do we know if we are oppressors?

If we do not know what oppression is, how can we stand against it? While our traditions present broad outlines as to what constitutes oppression – miscarriage of justice, abuse of power, indifference to the others, etc. – the details and contours of oppression vary over time and space. What does it take for us to recognize it particularly in the world in which we live?

If we do not recognize oppression, how can we determine if we ourselves are oppressed or that we ourselves are oppressors? We can be so embedded into our social worlds that we do not recognize that the social systems that support and maintain that world may oppress us or enable us to oppress others. Dismantling those systems, or even modifying them, may seem so threatening to the structure of our social world, that we fear to even examine them. Do we have the strength to step outside of our world? Do we have to courage to act on what we might discover?

Such an inquiry challenges not only the secular institutions of our socially constructed world but also its religious and spiritual foundations Although we may believe that our God stands up for the oppressed, many of us also believe that the far-from-perfect social world in which we live, reflects God’s word. Our understanding of God and how to implement God’s directives may prevent us from seeing how what we do in God’s name keeps us from fulfilling God’s will. The wise may feel tangled up in this dilemma. The foolish may not even know that they are trapped.

We hold that our God establishes justice for those likely to be wronged. And so, we need to ask ourselves if the systems of justice we have established reflect our vision of God’s justice?

We hold that our God frees the captives. But, do we know if we are enslaved? Do we know those whose freedom we have taken? Do we know those whose freedom we have denied?

We hold that God feeds the hungry.

Do we see the hungry in our streets?

We hold that God opens the eyes of the blind.

Are we afraid of opening our eyes?

We hold that God protects for the stranger.

Do we welcome the stranger into our land?

So we are left with questions.

The psalmist calls upon us to praise God for all God does for those oppressed.

Is that the God we praise?

And if so,

is praise enough?