“God hasn’t always shielded us, especially in Europe”

The words of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to warn Jewish pilgrims who’ve travelled to Ukraine to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. It does seem a dangerous thing to do, travel as a pilgrim to a war zone, but 35,000 people from around the world are prioritising their faith (and maybe desire to party) over perhaps common sense.

Why Ukraine? The followers of the rabbi Nachman of Breslov see the Ukrainian city of Uman as a place worthy of pilgrimage. Nachman, a great-grandson of the founder of what is today broadly known as Hasidic Judaism spent the final months of his life in the Ukrainian city of Uman, dying in 1810. This puts Uman on the map and during Rosh Hashanah thousands of worshippers will say 10 verses from the Psalms together.

Some facts about Hasidic Judaism:

1. They wear distinct clothing such as black outerwear and white shirts for men and long-sleeved and high-necked clothing are typical for women
2. Before World War II there were hundreds of Hasidic Jew sects in Europe but they were badly affected by the Holocaust as they were easily identifiable by their clothing and distinctive practises.
3. There are about 400,000 Hasidic Jews worldwide today
4. Most Hasidic groups still use Yiddish as their first language
5. It is a spiritual form of Judaism that emerged in Eastern Europe in the 18th century. Their focus is less on study and more on prayer.

I ate a ham sandwich in the supermarket’s bathroom

An interesting video to watch is of Izzy Posen talking about his upbringing in the Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community in London. Not only can you learn something about the faith group, but also how difficult it can be to leave the faith of your family and community. Izzy explains how he got in trouble at school, secretly started to learn English and then started to rebel with things like eating a ham sandwich he’d bought at the supermarket. Other people have talked to journalists about what it was like to live and then leave the Hasidic community in London. The New Humanist not only tells the stories of these people but also reports on the charity called Mavar which assists people starting a new life outside the Hasidic faith community.

Hasidism had its roots in what is now the Ukraine in the early 18th century. It was a populist movement that emphasised an ecstatic form of worship and quickly spread throughout Eastern Europe.

The Hasidim are themselves subdivided into numerous rabbinical dynasties – the Satmar (the largest group), the Gerer, the Belzer and the Bobover, all taking their name from the village or town in Poland, Hungary or Ukraine where they originated, and each distinguished by some slight variation of religious practice and of dress.

At the head of each dynasty is the grand rabbi, or Rebbe – nowadays all of whom are to be found living in Hasidic communities in New York or Israel. More than just a religious teacher, the Rebbe is held to be the the person to ask about everything such as family issues, financial questions and relationship (marriage) matters. The Rebbe’s authority is said to go back to the learning and wisdom from the Talmud and the Torah, and therefore also to Abraham, Moses and God Himself.

Orthodox Jews follow the 613 Mitzvot Rules or commandments.

Some of these rules are ones you’ll have heard of, whereas others are more surprising:

• Not to follow the feelings of your heart or what your eyes see
• Not to make human forms even for decorative purposes
• Not to plant a tree in the Temple courtyard
• Not to engage in astrology
• Men must not shave the hair off the sides of their head
• Not to do prohibited labour on the seventh day (keep the seventh day holy)
• To have children with one’s wife
• Not selling a captive woman
• An employee is allowed to eat the produce he’s working in

The Hasidim see a lot of modern technology as dangerous it can risk the spirit of purity and threatens the innocent minds of its children. For example television is known as “the Yetzer Hara Box” which roughly means the “evil temptation machine”.

Einstein’s God Letter

The auction house Christie’s described it:

On 4 December, Christie’s will bring to auction one of the most famous letters by one of the 20th century’s most famous thinkers. Albert Einstein’s celebrated “God letter,” addressed to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, fuses Einstein’s thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity and his own search for meaning in life and remains as a definitive statement in the on-going debate between religion and science.

Well in the end the letter sold for $2.9m (£2.3m) even though it had been expected to sell for $1.5 (£1.2). Why do people think it’s so important? Well in the letter, written in his native German, Einstein takes issue with the belief in God.

“The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses,” he writes. “The Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends.” It continues: “No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can [for me] change anything about this.”

The famous physicist also talks about his Jewish identity, writing that it is “like all other religions, an incarnation of primitive superstition. The Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and in whose mentality I feel profoundly anchored, still for me does not have any different kind of dignity from all other peoples.”

The full letter transcribed from German to English can be found here.

Hannukah

I was really grateful for one of my students requesting a special mention to the Jewish festival Hannukah in our lesson this week.

We began in our first lesson with a 5 minute clip by actress and comedian Mayim Bialik which describes in a really light-way why and how the festival is celebrated. Then the next day we watched the slightly cringe music video called Bohemian Chanukah which surprised the students by reminding them of facts from the previous day in a humorous fashion. You can also read the lowdown on this festival from the BBC Schools website.

Now you might be ready to take the CBBC challenge of a Hannukah quiz!

Important Sites of Religious Pilgrimage

A BBC travel article in 2012 named 10 must-see pilgrimage locations around the world. You might have heard of the pilgrimages before, or simply learnt the famous religious story in class and can now discover how a village or town in 2018 can allow a religious person to feel closer to their faith by visiting a place written about in their holy books.

Lumbini
Location: Rupandehi, Nepal
Religion: Buddhism
Significance: birthplace of the Lord Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gardens of Lumbini, which soon became a place of pilgrimage. Buddhism has interesting ideas which we can reflect on when thinking about whether we are at fault for our suffering and if we should take care in our actions so not to harm others or ourselves.

Vatican City
Location: surrounded by Rome, Italy
Religion: Catholicism
Significance: home of the Pope and centre of the Roman Catholic Church. Currently Pope Francis is the man at the Vatican! He often brings to the world’s attention things we learn about at school, such as Christians being persecuted and the need for Christians to pray for them; how Christians should show mercy and compassion to refugees like the Rohingya Muslims; and that if you are fasting during Lent you should still be kind to others to be a truly just Christian.

Wittenberg
Location: Saxony, Germany
Religion: Protestantism
Significance: birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. It was here in Wittenberg that the monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of  Castle Church in 1517. Unfortunately during the Seven Years’ War, much of Wittenberg was destroyed, but Castle Church was rebuilt in the 1800s and the text of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses was inscribed into the church’s front doors. Inside the church you will also find Luther’s tomb. There are some great Martin Luther raps; film clips; animations; and mini documentaries you can watch or sing along to to help you remember the facts!

 

Western Wall
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Religion: Judaism
Significance: the holiest of Jewish sites. The Western Wall made headlines in May 2017 when the US President Donald Trump visited it and prayed there, and female journalist were kept in a penned off area behind male colleagues. It is a place where awe and wonder fills Jewish pilgrims minds and hearts.

Anti-Semitism in France

A Kosher supermarket in Paris was recently daubed with racist swastikas. Then on the 3rd anniversary of a deadly attack by an extremist Muslim gunman, the Jewish supermarket was burned to the ground. France has Europe’s largest Jewish community and in recent years they have faced repeated racism and anti-semitic attacks.

 

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Questions to consider when watching the film:

1. How did you react to the film’s visuals, especially the effects which were used to create the battles, plagues, and the ancient setting? What did these effects contribute to the story, and to your experience of the film?
2. Did anything particularly strike you or surprise you about the film’s portrayal of its historical setting? Does the story’s basis in real history affect your reaction to the film at all? The history behind the story is a matter of some dispute amongst scholars. Some doubt whether such an exodus ever occurred. Many more recognise it as historical but there is some dispute between two different possible dates (and, as a result, which Pharaoh was involved)
3. How did you feel about Moses and his relationships with the other characters? What did you feel were the main turning points for Moses’s own emotional journey? How has he changed by the end of the film?
4. Why do you think Moses initially holds the view that gods exist, but don’t intervene in human history? What might be appealing about this idea, both to Moses and to people today? How and why does Moses change his mind?
5. What might be appealing about a belief that gods are invented by people to fulfil their own needs or desires? How is this idea explored in the film? Is this a good or bad reason for rejecting a belief in God?
6. How does Exodus: Gods and Kings explore the idea that ‘those who crave power are the least fitted to exercise it’? What are the consequences of Ramses’ belief that he is a god, and what might this imply about human nature? To what extent do human beings control our own destiny, and to what extent are we subject to forces more powerful than us? The idea of humans as powerful beings in control of our own destiny became prominent in Western thought during the Age of Enlightenment – a cultural movement beginning in the late 17th Century which argued for reason over tradition and paved the way for a belief in scientific endeavour as a replacement for the religious quest.
7. How does the film weigh the suffering caused by the plagues against the suffering caused by the actions of Ramses? What questions does it raise about the nature of the God who sent the plagues? What might you want or expect an all-powerful and all-loving God to do in the face of human evil and suffering?
8. What was particularly striking or surprising about the portrayal of God in the film? Why do you think the filmmakers chose to represent God in this way? To what extent is it possible to describe or represent God? Many films throughout Hollywood’s history have featured portrayals of God. While some films seek to make the figure of God human and relatable – or even to play him for comic effect – others aim to create a sense of awe and mystery. The challenge faced by filmmakers might cause us all to consider how God might reveal himself to us.
9. Why does the film draw out the distinction between ‘fighting’ with God and ‘wrestling’ with God? What is the difference between these and how is this represented by the differences between Ramses and Moses? What might it mean for us, in our own lives, to wrestle with God?

A great way to quickly get up to speed with the film is to watch either the trailer or a short review of the film by damaris media (scroll down to the 3rd video called faith and gods).

A snapshot of the main world faiths

The video series My Life, My Religion has a really simple format: a child explains how their faith affects their life. You could watch these videos in Year 7 and easily understand them, but they are also useful for students doing their GCSE as a form of revision.

There are thirty minute Christian, Muslim, Jewish,  Hindu and Sikh videos.