The Last Exile

There are probably a million and one important news events happening in the world this past weekend but I don’t know of a single one. I’ve been painting my kitchen – with its 20ft walls and reading novels as the world passes me by which most suits me just fine. Like a great deal of other people, I have been reading Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo series and am on Book 2 – The Girl Who Played with Fire.

For sheer escapism, it beats the Di Vinci code or anything Dan Brown wrote ever – even if Book 1 does take a great deal of reading time until you meet the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ girl. Is there an editor shortage in Sweden? Or maybe its a cultural thingy but I’m not use to major characters only being introduced after sixty odd pages – but still, I can cope – well that is until late yesterday afternoon when I got half-way through the book.

You see, Larsson has created a ‘orthodox’ Jewish character – a senior police officer who is so decidedly un-Jewish despite all of his alleged Jewish creds – like wearing a kippah, keeping the laws of kashrut, going to synagogue but he is just not believable.

I even made it past the part where Larsson’s Jewish character goes to the ’synagogue’ on the Sabbath and when services are over he goes walking around the city while his wife goes shopping. Now you could suggest the character is perhaps a reform Jew – which would make more sense except why isn’t he going to ‘Ttmple’ rather than a ’synagogue’ and why is it important enough to eat kosher but he does so using decidedly ‘unkosher’ dishes and utensils?

Still, I managed to to keep reading until I got to this part and I quote:

“On his way home to Katarina Bangata, Bublanski felt an urge to talk with God about the case, but instead of going to the synagogue he went to the Catholic church on Folkungagatan. He sat in one of the pews at the back and did not move for over an hour. As a Jew he had no business being in a church, but it was a peaceful place that he regularly visited when he felt the need to sort out his thoughts, and he knew that God did not mind. There was a difference, besides, between Catholicism and Judaism. He went to the synagogue when he needed company and fellowship with other people. Catholics went to church to seek peace in the presence of God. The church invited silence and visitors would always be left to themselves.”

All of which makes me think there is not just a lack of editors in Sweden but a decidedly lack of Jewish editors in Sweden as well. I realize Christian readers wouldn’t find this anything to ponder. Christians are so ‘use’ to Jews and often do think of Jews as a kind of ‘quasi’-Christian without the ‘Jesus’ part, and if I had a nickel for every time a Christian suggested we all worship the same G-d I’d have been in retirement twenty years ago. While that is definitely a Christian sentiment it is not really an authentically Jewish one.

A kippah wearing, kosher keeping, synagogue going Jew wouldn’t enter into a Catholic church with its statues and its life sized crucifixes of Jesus laid out bleeding on the cross to seek peace with G-d and at no time or age would a religiously observance Jew ever presume to think G-d wouldn’t mind – unless suddenly all 613 mitzvot laws are suddenly irrelevant. It isn’t going to happen unless pigs sprout wings and start flying. So in the interest of inter-faith understanding I am going to illustrate this principle with a story about the origins of the name Sender which my youngest son carries.

Sender is a name from the Pale settlements in Eastern Europe and its a Yiddish name for Alexander. Back when Alexander the Great entered Egypt the Jews in the city now known as Alexandria were faced with an existential conundrum. You see, Alexander was rather fair-minded about the people he conquered and didn’t want to impose his personal religious beliefs but he did have one requirement for this policy of religious tolerance. He required that all places of worship, regardless of religious faiths or creeds, must erect at least one statute of him in their place of worship so they would be forever cognizant of the magnanimosity and tolerance of his rule.

For all the other religions of the time, this wasn’t a problem except for the… Jews. Go figure. There are strict rules which demand no statutes depicting the form of a human be placed in their place of worship. The elders of the synagogue met, prayed and debated among themselves various ways they could possibly get around placing a statute of Alexander the Great in their synagogue. Finally, after much debate a course of action was agreed to.

The eldest Rabbi went to seek an private audience with Alexander the Great and after much embarrassed hemming and hawing the rabbi told Alexander the Great he had a confession to make and he had to violate one of the secret tenants of his faith to share this with him. He explained in no uncertain terms even sharing this secret ritual guaranteed his personal damnation in the World to Come but the Rabbi felt it was extreme importance for Alexander to understand this secret knowledge. Alexander was intrigued and gave his promise to keep secret whatever the Rabbi was to tell him.

The rabbi explained it was one of the particulars of the Hebrew faith, that in the midst of their most reverent ritual, it is required for all males to throw human excrement around inside the synagogue in an effort to underscore how insignificant all are before the King of Universe which is also why the ritual bath was also kept in the synagogue. Yes, Jews had to pelt each other with shit. There are so many levels of irony to this that I cannot know where to even begin to explain this to a non-Jewish audience.

The Rabbi played to the great hubris and vanity of Alexander and suggested this treatment would desecrate his majesty’s form and he could not in good faith allow the dignity and majesty of a ruler like Alexander to be desecrated – even inadvertently by the community on a regular basis. Alexander was duly repelled by the strange practices of the Hebrews and accepted the Rabbi’s proposed alternative solution which was to name at least one male child ‘Alexander’ to honour the ruler.

Now you can begin to understand why a people who are prepared to go to any outrageous lengths to keep their faith and have duly kept and continued to name their children ‘Sender’ thousands of years later; wouldn’t seek peace with G-d in a Catholic church filled with statutes in the images of men or women.