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“Shuvah Yisrael! Return O Israel, to the Eternal One your God,” cries the prophet Hosea in our Haftarah.
Thus we get the name demarcation of this Shabbat as Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return that is in the middle of RH and YK. T’shuva, the key-word for the Yamim Noraim - Days of Awe, although we usually translate it as 'repent' can also and perhaps even more correctly, be translated as 'return.' Return to your God and return to the purest state that you can be. Perhaps that is why we dress ourselves and our Torah scrolls in white. Let us return to a state of purity, represented by the white but also a state of blankness. When a baby is born, we understand it to be at its purist. It has no name – at least traditionally, although the trend today is rather to already have carefully thought through the name. A shame in a way because parents have already provided some definition to the child by the name given to it, full of their hopes and aspirations or in remembrance of someone else. Rather pure before even name has been applied. A blank white sheet of paper before a word is written. A blank white canvas before anything has touched it. Think of all the variety of the written word and of art. Each started from the same point. Its purest form where all things are possible.
Written within this week's Torah portion, Vayeilech, is the concern that as son as Moses has died, the people will do another kind of return, denoted by the root word, sur, samech-vav-resh, to turn aside from, to remove oneself, to depart once more. At the moment of a blank canvas, there is the possibility to move in different directions – shuv to return to God, or sur, to turn away from God, from a path that maintains our purity.
It is rather fortunate that we have the opportunity in Judaism to have a blank canvas once a year. The white of our scrolls, the white of our dress hopefully reflected in the white of our hearts and souls, being cleared to let the light of the Divine spark within each one of us shine out bright. Over the year, it accumulates the grime and dirt of living on this earth but once more, we have the opportunity to remind ourselves of the direction we can go in, all the potential of this moment.
Some say third time lucky. Let us hope so for Peter Mandelson who has returned this week for a third time to the Cabinet. Let us hope and pray in these troubled times, that people from all political parties, all forms of business and enterprise, use this moment of troubled times, to wipe the slate clean and return to what is pure – a respect for the God –given gifts of creativity and enterprise - and not to return to a system that is corrupt – a system of overload governed by greed. Let us hope for third time lucky for Mandy.
And let us not turn our heads away from march of the far right in Europe. In Austria this past week, the far right parties almost overtook their slightly more moderate counterparts and will hold more sway over the body politic, injecting fear of the other as its tool for ever increasing its influence. In Italy, it is almost accepted at football matches that Mussolini's name will be chanted and greeted by raised arms in stiff salute as nostalgia for fascism has had a facelift to create a fascism that is modern and sophisticated in its use of propaganda. Across Europe, the growth of far right politics does not respect the old borders of the axis of the first half of the last century. Whilst anti-Semitism may be on the rise, it is anti Muslim sentiments that have become the new focus of the propaganda. We must remember the lack of support that we as a people faced, then. We must speak out about this insidious rise of fascism now, even though right now, we may not be its direct focus. We must help our Government by voicing our concern.
Take the right turn – shuv. Turn our economy back to one that is based on pure principles. Do not let the rise of the far right – the sign of social tension in society – deflect you from the right path – to treat each member of society with the respect that they deserve, whether they are a citizen or the ger toshav, the one who has found them self to dwell with you and wishes do so peacefully. Do not allow yourselves to turn right – sur. It is too easy to turn blame away from the true causes of our current tensions and allow hysteria to focus on easy targets, immigrants, asylum seekers, those who cultures and ethnicity we may yet not truly understand.
Eternal God, we pray that this year, our government and all political parties use a blank sheet to begin to turn the undoubted gifts in our society to good. Help them to shuv, not sur, to return to God, to what is pure, and away from temptation to follow an easy path of blame and recrimination.
Eternal God, give us the strength to return to you in purity and may we use this opportunity to write and paint works of beauty in this year.
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