Adina Roth – Director of Jewish Life

Where was God on October 7 and this week’s Parsha

Beyond their usual homework and extra-curriculars, 14 students have volunteered to chant the Megillah of Esther on Purim. At night and on the way to school, they are mastering the Hebrew and the trop (the special tune), so that the entire High School can listen to the Megillah of Esther on Purim, ‘read by Emanuel students and staff, for Emanuel!’ This will be a first. This week I met with the students to check how their learning is going. It was my favourite lunch hour of the week, listening to each student chanting. I couldn’t conceal my nachas and said to them that this learning would stay with them for life and every year, they’d be able to read their chapter at one of the many Megillah readings which are hosted on Purim in Sydney. One of the students smiled and told me she was actually enjoying the preparation.

Human beings have the ability to bring holiness and connection wherever we are. A simple lunch while practising chanting of the Megillah became a sacred moment. In this week’s Parshah, Pekudei, we read about how the long process of building the Mishkan, God’s home in the desert, is finally completed. Once the space is ready, we read, ‘the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting and the Presence of God filled the  Mishkan’ (40, 35). When we create the right space, God’s presence enters. The presence of God is called Shechinah in our tradition. God’s presence filling the Tabernacle leads our Rabbis to develop an imagining of God, not as a removed being who watches the world’s events from a detached beyond. Rather, God is among us, a spiritual energy who fills our every space. Before you think about this as something esoteric and hard to relate to, take note that a Midrash points out that the Shechinah filling the Tabernacle is in direct correspondence to  people’s ethical behaviour. The Midrash cites Proverbs where we are told, that if we are good and do justice, ‘the upright will fill the land.’ The Midrash makes a startling claim: If goodness fills the land, the Shechinah will fill the land too. The claim is radical. We human beings bring God’s presence into the world through good actions. If we create goodness, kindness and holiness, God’s presence ‘shows up.’ This is what I felt in the innovation block as a group of students chanted their various chapters in lunch. God’s presence was in the room.

Conversely, at our Year 11 Speaker Series this week, we had a visiting Rabbi, Rabbi Vurgan who ministers to communities in the south of Israel affected by October 7. Our students asked her a profound question: “Where was God on October 7?” Rabbi Vurgan answered by saying, “I don’t think God had anything to do with what happened on October 7, the events of the day were the result of evil human choices.” A student challenged her and said, “God would not just step back and allow that to happen – God had to have been there.” This profound conversation, which leads to more questions than answers, again made me hugely proud of our Emanuel students. Although there is no simple response to the question of ‘Where was God?’ I am moved by the Parsha this week to say there is a relationship between God’s presence and human action. Could it be that when we do good, we invite in the Good with a capital G. Conversely, when we commit evil, perhaps we close the space for God to enter.

I am very aware that among us, there are some who relate to an Infinite Being and some who do not. Either way, it can be profound to think that our tradition sets up an inter-connectedness between God’s presence and human ethics: each time we act with consciousness and kindness, God’s presence is constellated among us. 

Shabbat Shalom