Last week we continued to read the story of Joseph as the news was breaking that Nelson Mandela had died. I realized as I was putting my d’var Torah together that we needed to address what Mandela, King and Joseph teach us. All three were dreamers. All three were interpreters and implementers of dreams. All three were in prison. All three preached reconciliation, either by their words, or by their actions.
Joseph dreamed that everyone around him bowed down to him. Then he interpreted dreams while he was in prison, thereby qualifying him to be called upon to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams and as Lord Rabbi Sacks pointed out last week–implement the vision.
King was a dreamer. We all remember his “I have a dream”. When I hear the quote from Amos in our Siddur Sim Shalom, I hear it in the deep, resonate voice of King, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24) King was working on implementing his dream when he was gunned down far too young. Others have taken up his clarion call for justice. Both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were written on the conference room table of the Religious Action Center, the legislative arm of the Reform Movement in Washington DC. We need to remain vigilant to assure that the hard fought equality becomes a reality and not just vision. We have that obligation as Jews.
Mandela was a dreamer too. He said, “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.” and “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” He spent much of his time in prison writing and working to implement his vision of a world where his nation would not be divided by color and apartheid.
All three of these men went to prison. King famously wrote “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail” exhorting his fellow clergymen to continue the fight, that the time was right, explaining the four steps to non-violent protest. Mandela quipped that “In my country we go to prison first and then become President.” (to which some Illinois residents respond, in our state we become governor and then go to prison).
But for each of these men who spent time in jail, they learned something. They learned the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. Mandella has been saluted all week as a man of deep forgiveness. For saying things like, “You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.” and “Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.” “We forgive but not forgotten.” “If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.”
And he said as he was leaving prison after 27 years, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” Would I have the strength to do that? I would hope so but I don’t know. None of us knows for sure. We can only hope–and model what Joseph, King and Mandela taught.
How does someone leave that sense of bitterness and hatred behind? How does one forgive without forgetting? What about the prison experiences of Joseph, King and Mandela allowed them to offer reconciliation to their enemies? to their brothers?
We looked at their actual words. I divided the group into three groups, one to study Joseph, one King and one Mandela. We read their actual words. We talked about what they teach us about dreams, leadership, reconciliation. The conversation was deep. The King group, reading excerpts of a Letter from the Birmingham Jail, did not want to come back together. We could probably still be talking about it!
In this week’s Torah portion, Joseph offers his brothers reconciliation. The very brothers that threw him in a pit, allowed him to be taken to Egypt as a slave and told their father that he was dead. So on Shabbat morning, we looked closely at the text. Some Christians developed something called “Liberation Theology,” the idea from Exodus that G-d wants us to be free–a dream shared by Joseph, King and Mandela, a hope that kept the African American slaves alive before the Emancipation.
It has been said that the book of Genesis is the story of our family–our patriarchs and matriarchs, the formative stories. And the story of Exodus is how we became a people. But the story of Exodus really begins in this week’s parsha. In Chapter 45 we are told that Joseph stood (nitzavim), like at the end of Deuteronomy when we all “Atem nitzavim kulchem” stood before…he cried out as did the Israelites under Egyptian yoke and he had everyone exit from his presence, hotzi’u, just as the Israelites exited from Egypt 400 years later. His sobs were so loud, when he revealed himself that the Egyptians who had exited could hear him. He embraced Benjamin, his youngest brother and wept.
One congregant pointed out the night before that we have become Judahites, not Josephites, because it is Judah who rescues Benjamin and would have been willing to take the fall for him. It is Judah who calls for reconciliation, not Joseph. I would argue however, that it is Joseph who powerfully acts out that reconciliation by weeping openly and supporting his brothers and father. Looking closely at the haftarah, we are given another image, of Judah and Joseph together, reconciled. Not only reconciled but as the text says “I am going to take the stick of Joseph–which is in the hand of Ephraim..and I will place the stick of Judah upon it and make them into one stick, they shall be joined in My hand.”
As I read these words in shul, I had goosebumps. I could not read these words of Ezekiel 19, without thinking about how Mandela used the World Cup Rugby victory in South Africa to heal a nation, how he brought the blacks and whites together and created one nation. I was reminded of watching the movie Invictus with my nephews just before they went to South Africa for the World Cup Soccer games. Part of the movie focuses on Mandela’s experience in prison and how the poem “Invictus”, by William Ernest Henley, inspired him and kept him whole:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever base god may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The last stanza gets me every time. May we all learn to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul. May we become like Joseph, King and Mandela, able to dream, interpret dreams and rise to be great leaders. Mandela understood that he was not perfect. He was human: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
Freedom does carry with it responsibilities. We learn that in the story of Exodus. We are reminded of that every time we sing Michamocha, every time we act out the plagues at a Passover seder by diminishing our joy of freedom by remembering the pain of the Egyptians with each drop of wine spilled.
One of Mandela’s mistakes may have been his oft quoted line, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” For him, this was the responsibility of that until all of us are free, none of us are free. However, from this statement, some people began calling Israel an apartheid state without having all the facts. Israel is not an apartheid state. Nonetheless, I worry about human rights violations. Deuteronomy is clear on how to fight a war and fruit trees may not be cut down. Olive trees are fruit trees. A house may not be torn down–and that would include being bulldozed an all too frequent occurrence on the West Bank. Citizens may not be expelled as was suggested for the Druze. (That situation may have been defeated this week with the pressure of 800 rabbis, including me).
Nonetheless, Mandela’s statement was wrong and frequently taken out of context. And yet, two wrongs do not make a right. While Israel sent its president, its prime minister, Benjamin Nitanyahu should have attended. That would have given the world a powerful example of reconciliation. He, who bears the name Benjamin who reconciled with his brother Joseph, in this week’s parsha, missed a critical opportunity to work for peace and stabilize the region.
The funeral is now over. In the meantime, may we continue to learn the lessons of reconciliation that being in jail can teach. May we learn not to be bitter in our own lives. May we continue to work for an age where all people can dwell under their vines and fig trees and none will make them afraid. May justice roll down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream. And may Mandela’s life continue to be a blessing.