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The Sifra, an early commentary on Leviticus, written about
220 C.E., paraphrases you
shall be holy as: As I, God,
am set apart, so you must be set apart.
Plaut (p.894) says the meaning is more
like: You shall be something special.
There are many ways of being special. One
that has come to be synonymous with being a victim is called
"being a minority." It was just this sense of special that
the early Reformers rejected. They wanted into the mainstream. They
wanted the right to dress, work, and study the way the
majority population did. They wanted to blend in. This is
all very understandable, and they made great contributions
to the Jewish people and culture with their struggles. But I
believe that if you are a minority, if you suffer injustice
and pain as a minority, it can develop in you a special
consciousness of the pain of others.
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When Mohandas
Gandhi started his
career in 1887, he had the consciousness of a
London-educated lawyer who was born in India of
ancestors who had been prime ministers of various
princely Indian states. So naturally when he
visited South Africa for the first time, he bought
a first-class ticket for the train; he
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had always ridden first class. He
was very surprised that the South African bureaucracy did not consider him a member of the
elite, it considered him a minority. And, as minorities
could not ride first class, he was thrown off of the train.
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In Philip
Glass' opera,
SATYAGRAHA, this incident is ritualized. It is
repeated three times, each time with more tension,
with first one, then two, then three singers
performing the aria. The third time Gandhi is
thrown off he is thrown into a pile of sleeping
third-class Indian passengers, who rise up as the
chorus. What fascinates me about this opera is that
you see Gandhi becoming Gandhi, developing a
different consciousness, and you see that the first
steps were not taken by his own choice.
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In a way, Gandhi's change of
consciousness resembles that of Moses, who was raised apart
from his people, ran away after a clumsy and disastrous
attempt at contact with them, and was forced by God to
return and lead them.
1/2/98
© Rosemarie E. Falanga, Cy H. Silver
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