Resistance: Tips from Biblical Role Models

What do we know of defiance? How do we learn to resist? What is our ancestral roadmap to taking risks and rise up in protest when those whose role it is to protect us are hurting us instead? Welcome back to our weekly below the bible belt video recap - where the ancient book meets our reality in often startling ways. Today as we shift from the fourth to the fifth and final scroll, from Kohelet to Esther - the life lessons of defiance are loud and clear.

I’m in Jerusalem today, and all week long have joined tens of thousands of people, blocking streets, each day, risking arrest and increased police brutality, again and again, to protest the government that forges on with senseless bloody war that will not bring a single hostage home alive, is claiming daily Palestinian lives, and trampling on the last crumbs of hopes for the people of this holy hurting land. There have also been protests against Hamas this week in Gaza - incredibly courageous and desperate measures of people who have had enough of extremist leaders and violent visions of endless war and nonstop hate. Similar scenes on US campuses, in Istanbul, in Budapest -- all over the world people are brave enough to protest bigotry, authoritarianism and the cruelty of self appointment kings.

So what does our Bible have to say to this?

The Scroll of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, was supposedly written by the old tired king of Jerusalem, cynical and philosophical in the face of futility - nothing new under the sun, all is meaningless, breath after breath.. May as well enjoy the moment for all its worth and have faith in the force of life that is greater than it all. This too is a form of resistance to despair and meaningless existence. For everything there is a season, writes Kohelet, even for dancing, even for tears, and nothing lasts forever. Hang on.

Yesterday we started the fifth and final scroll - named for Queen Esther. While many of us know this text from Purim pageants - there is so much more to this unique and multi-layered political tale about survival and defiance of destruction - not without great shadow and ominous narratives that we must face, and talk back to.

And as I start to make my way through this familiar text with slower speed I’m discovering that one of its central tropes is the art of resistance - whether we succeed or not.

The first to resist tyranny is Queen Vashti, the Persian empress who is ordered to show up at her drunk husband’s palace party with the boys wearing her crown to show off her beauty. She says no. And is banished. We never hear of her again - yet her refusal to bow down to patriarchy and misogyny is now the stuff of legend, a feminist icon before the term even existed.

The next to protest and resist are two guards who try to assassinate the king - and they too are caught and hanged before their coup, whatever it is all about, succeeds. This tiny tale on the edges of the story hints at deeper rumbles in the empire where not everything is great, again and again. There are always those brave enough to plot a better future and find ways to resist.

Next to resist is Mordechai - who will refuse to bow down to the second in command - the man named Haman. Whether this Jewish courtier didn’t bow down because we only bow down to our God and not to human man-made idols or because of some other reasons - this refusal sets the story in motion - threatens the lives of Modrechai’s people and teaches us a crucial lesson about courage and what it means to stand up for your beliefs and rights.

And finally - it’s Queen Esther herself, hidden Jewish woman in the palace, who resists the urge to hide and save herself, and who risks her life by entering the king’s chamber unannounced - seducing power and eventually saving the day.

We will be following the Esther saga for the next weeks, leading us into Passover, which is all about resistance and commitment to collective liberation, and into Easter, a reminder of how through suffering we rise and resurrect the power of love, justice and hope. This wknd is the end of Ramdan, with Id El Fitr celebrated throughout the Muslim world amid deep suffering and yet commitment to resist despair and find light and joy in community and in each other’s family, faith and strength.

So how do we resist within ourselves - resist despair, resist the urge to hate, resist the powers that are strong enough to force us to comply, wanting us to look down, look away and let them get away with it? Story by story, protest by protest, petition by petition, brave breath by breath, in defiance of despair and cruelty, inspired by ancestral courage and role models that have been left behind for us, in the text and in the margins - to keep finding our way home.

Wishing us sacred days ahead, safety and wisdom, support and optimism. Let’s resist - in all the ways we know. Don’t give up or give in. Peace and justice will prevail.

Thank you for joining me below the bible belt.

Shabbat Shalom.