12 October 2024

‘May your name be written in the Book of Life’

‘Yom Kippur’ by Vyacheslav Braginsky

Patrick Comerford

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican member of Congress for Georgia, embodies and typifies everything that is frightening and ugly about the Trump campaign. She is a far-right conspiracy theorist who promotes antisemitic and white supremacist views, such as white genocide conspiracy theories, QAnon, and Pizzagate and conspiracy theories that allege government involvement in mass shootings in the US, implicate the Clinton family in murder, and claim the 9/11 attacks were a hoax.

She blames weather forecasters and metereologists for the latest hurriacnes in the US but deines climate change, has supported calls to execute Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, equated the Democratic Party with Nazis, compared Covid-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, repeated Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine and praised Vladimir Putin.

Greene, who identifies as a ‘Christian nationalist’, supported Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and has promoted Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

She is an embarrassment even to her own Republicans. The House of Representatives voted to remove her from all committee roles in 2021 in response to her endorsements of political violence, and in 2023 she was expelled from the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Last Sunday, in a now deleted message to X (formerly Twitter), Marjorie Taylor Greene, sent out a Yom Kippur greeting using images linked to an entirely different Jewish holiday. In her original message, she wrote, ‘To all those preparing for the solemn day of Yom Kippur, I wish you a meaningful fast. Gamar Chasima Tova!’ Along with it was an image of a shofar in front of a Chanukah menorah.

Although she caught her error and tried to correct it, her initial message reminded many people that this is not the first time she has insulted the Jewish community. Back in March, she was similarly called out for writing, ‘Happy Purim! May it bring light, happiness, joy, and honour!’

Greene is long known for wild antisemitic statements. She claims ‘Zionist supremacists’ are secretly masterminding Muslim immigration to Europe in a scheme to outbreed white people. She once claimed wildfires in California had been started by the Rothschilds and other Jewish conspirators using space lasers to clear room for a high-speed rail project.

With those antisemitic images of space lasers in mind, I wonder why she ever thought of sending out greetings to mark Yom Kippur.

And by what right does she think she can decide who will live, and who will die, and how?

‘Who in the sunshine, who in the night time’ (Leonard Cohen) … in the streets of Prague at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today is Yom Kippur or the Day of Repentance, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, and I attended the Kol Nidre service last in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue last night.

I spent much of this morning in Milton Keynes University Hospital at a consultation following my ECG earlier this week. But it gave me some time to reflect on, and to think about the significance of this most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.

Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Who by Fire’ was released 50 years ago in 1974 on the B side of his album New Skin for the Old Ceremony, sung as a duet with Janis Ian.

‘Who by fire’ is inspired by the Hebrew prayer Unetanneh Tokef (ונתנה תקף‎) chanted in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year, and especially on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The prayer describes God reviewing the Book of Life and deciding the fate of each and every soul for the year to come – who will live, and who will die, and how.

Jewish tradition dates this prayer to the 11th century when, it is said, Rabbi Amnon of Mainz was punished for not converting to Christianity by having his hand and feet cut off on Rosh Hashanah.

As he was dying from his wounds, he had a vision of God sitting and writing in a book. In his dying hours, Rabbi Amnon wrote the prayer that begins with ‘Who by fire? And who by water?’ The prayer concludes:

Who will live and who will die;
Who in his due time and who not in his due time;
Who by water and who by fire,
Who by the sword and who by beasts,
Who by famine and who by thirst,
Who by earthquake and who by plague,
Who by strangling and who by stoning.
Who will rest and who will wander,
Who will be tranquil and who will be harassed,
Who will be at ease and who will be troubled,
Who will be rich and who will be poor,
Who will be brought down and who will be raised up?
But Repentance, Prayer and Charity avert the severe decree.

In Jewish tradition, the Book of Life lays open between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the greeting among Jews in those days is: ‘May your name be written in the Book of Life.’

Leonard Cohen heard this traditional prayer as a child in the synagogue. In Montreal In his own words, he recalls the tradition: ‘On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning.

‘Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.’

At the age of 39, the poet and singer was famous but unhappy and imagined he had reached a creative dead end. In October 1973, he left his home on the Greek island of Hydra for the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War.

Cohen travelled around the war front with of local musicians, entertaining the troops. In his book Who by Fire, the journalist Matti Friedman told the story of those weeks Cohen spent in the Sinai, with a kaleidoscopic depiction of a harrowing, formative moment for both a country at war and a singer at a crossroads.

The war transformed Cohen. Instead of abandoning his music career, he returned to Hydra and to his family, had a second child, and released his album New Skin for the Old Ceremony. References to war can be heard in a number of the songs, including ‘Lover, Lover, Lover,’ written during fighting, and ‘Who by Fire,’ inspired by the Yom Kippur prayer about human mortality.

The traditional catalogue or listing includes deaths that are natural, accidental, punishment, by decree, and that are unjust. Like the original, Cohen’s Who by Fire,’ tells of a litany of ways and reasons one might meet their death: to this he adds avalanche, greed, hunger, suicide, drugs and the abuse of political power, to the original prayer, and even the cruelty of failures in love: ‘Who by his lady’s command.’

When Cohen introduced the song live in Melbourne, in March 1980, he explained the melody is based on the one he ‘first heard when I was four or five years old, in the synagogue, on the Day of Atonement, standing beside my tall uncles in their black suits.’

He continued: ‘It’s a liturgical prayer that talks about the way in which you can quit this vale of tears. It’s according to a tradition, an ancient tradition that on a certain day of the year, the Book of Life is opened, and in it is inscribed the names of all those who will live and all those who will die, who by fire, who by water.’

The line: ‘And who shall I say is calling?’ can be understood in the context of hearing the Shofar or liturgical horn being blown on Rosh Hashanah. It is a symbolic wake-up call, stirring those who hear it to mend their ways and to repent: ‘Sleepers, wake up from your slumber! Examine your ways and repent and remember your Creator.’ Who is calling? At one level, it is my own heart calling me to Repentance, Prayer and Charity. But, ultimately, it is God who is calling us to Repentance, Prayer and Charity.

It is not surprising that as families in Israel tried to come to terms with the Hamas massacres a year ago on 7 October 2023, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Who By Fire’ was given new lyrics in memory of the 1,200 people murdered in southern Israel.

Meanwhile, his visit to the frontlines of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 was dramatised for a new limited TV series from Keshet International and Sixty-Six Media. Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai is an adaptation of Matti Friedman’s book.

As we come to the end of a year that has been shrouded in hatred, war and death – from the increasing hatred here and across Europe towards refugees and migrants, to the wars in Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran – there is an urgency to the words of the prayer from the Yom Kippur afternoon service and in Leonard Cohen’s song.

Teach us to number our days, O Lord, that we might apply our hearts unto wisdom.

‘And who shall I say is calling?’ (Leonard Cohen) … a shofar or ritual horn in the Casa de Sefarad or Sephardic Museum in Córdoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Leonard Cohen, Who By Fire:

And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt
And who by avalanche, who by powder
Who for his greed, who for his hunger
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident
Who in solitude, who in this mirror
Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand
Who in mortal chains, who in power
And who shall I say is calling?
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by fire who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?
And who shall I say is calling?

Leonard Cohen, ‘Who by Fire’ (Live in London)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
154, Saturday 12 October 2024

Edith Cavell depicted in a bronze bust on her memorial by Henry Alfred Pegram (1862–1937) outside the Erpingham Gate at Norwich Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XX).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Wilfrid of Ripon (709), Bishop and Missionary, Elizabeth Fry (1845), Prison Reformer, and Edith Cavell (1915), Nurse.

Today is Yom Kippur or the Day of Repentance, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, and I attended the Kol Nidre service in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue yesterday evening.

I have an appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital later this morning, following my ECG earlier this week. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Patriotism is not enough’ … the Edith Cavell Memorial in Saint Martin’s Place, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Luke 11: 27-28:

27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ 28 But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

The Edith Cavell Memorial near Trafalgar Square is the work of the sculptor Sir George Frampton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s reflection:

The Gospels – and in particular Saint Luke’s Gospel – are scattered through with short pithy sayings from Jesus that I am reminded of when I read the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the Pirkei Avot or Ethics of the Fathers in the Mishnah and Jewish tradition, or even the sayings of Zen masters.

This morning’s short Gospel reading quotes one of those short and pithy sayings or aphorisms from Jesus. It is one I thought of as an appropriate Gospel response when Trump’s running mate JD Vance referred to Vice President Kamala Harris and spoke dismissively of ‘childless cat ladies’ who are ‘mean and mean spirited.’

The Trump campaign has been infected in a thorough-going way with racism, misogyny, antisemitism and violence, and seems to be nourished by and feed on all four. A ‘childless cat lady’ seems to have the greater potential of being blessed in the way she may encourage ‘those who hear the word of God and obey it’.

Edith Cavell (1865-1915), who is remembered in Common Worship today (12 October), is an example of those childless women who provide moral leadership in the face of violence and who realised the inappropriate values inherent in what passes as patriotism.

I went to see two monuments to Edith Cavell earlier this year: one close to Norwich Cathedral, where she is buried, the other in Saint Martin’s Place, close to Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and beside the Church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields.

Edith Cavell was a matron at Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels when World War I broke out in 1914. She nursed soldiers from both sides without distinction and also helped 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested in August 1915, court-martialled, found guilty of treason, and shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915.

A month before the end of World War I, hHer statue in Norwich by Henry Pegram (1862-1937) was unveiled on 12 October 1918 by Queen Alexandra. It stood originally in the middle of the road opposite the then Cavell Rest Home for Nurses, which occupied part of the Maids Head Hotel. The depiction of the soldier offering a wreath represents the men she protected at the cost of her own life.

Her body was brought back from Belgium to Britain in May 1919 for a state funeral at Westminster Abbey and she was buried at Norwich Cathedral.

The sculptor Sir George James Frampton (1860-1928) accepted the commission for her monument in London, but declined any fee. He adopted a distinctively Modernist style for the memorial, which comprises a 3 metre high statue of Cavell in her nurse’s uniform, sculpted from white Carrara marble, standing on a grey Cornish granite pedestal. The statue stands in front of the south side of a larger 12-metre grey granite block. The top of the block is carved into a cross and a statue of a mother and child, sometimes interpreted as the Virgin and Child.

The inscription on the pedestal beneath her statue reads: ‘Edith Cavell / Brussels / Dawn / October 12th 1915 / Patriotism is not enough / I must have no hatred or / bitterness for anyone’. The last three lines quote her comment to the Revd Stirling Gahan (1870-1958), the Irish-born Anglican chaplain in Brussels, who shared Holy Communion with her on the night before her execution.

The face of the granite block behind the statue of Cavell bears the inscription ‘Humanity,’ and higher up, below the Virgin and Child, ‘For King and Country.’ Other faces of the block read ‘Devotion’, ‘Fortitude’ and ‘Sacrifice.’ On the rear face of the block is a carving of a lion crushing a serpent, and higher up is the inscription ‘Faithful until death.’

The memorial was unveiled by Queen Alexandra on 17 March 1920. The site was chosen because it was beside the first headquarters of the British Red Cross at 7 Saint Martin’s Place.

Edith Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, near Norwich, where her father, the Revd Frederick Cavell (1824-1910), was the vicar for 45 years; her maternal grandmother was Irish. She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, and then went to boarding schools at Clevedon in Somerset, and Laurel Court in Peterborough.

In 1888, when she was 23, Edith was governess in Keswick Hall, near Norwich, for the children in the Gurney family, the family of Elizabeth Fry, who is also commemorated in Common Worship on this day. She later spent five years with a family in Brussels, and began nursing training in London at the age of 30.

At the invitation of Dr Antoine Depage, she became the matron of a new nursing school in Brussels in 1907. She was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk when World War I broke out. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

After the German occupation of Brussels in November 1914, Edith began sheltering British soldiers, helping them to escape to the neutral Netherlands, and hiding wounded British and French soldiers and Belgian and French civilians of military age.

She was arrested on 3 August 1915, charged with harbouring allied soldiers and war treason, despite not being a German national, and was sentenced to death. The First Geneva Convention guaranteed the protection of medical personnel, but this was forfeit if used as cover for belligerent action. At her trial, she made no attempt to defend herself.

The British government said it could do nothing to help her. But Hugh S Gibson of the US legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing her would further harm Germany’s already damaged reputation. He reminded the Germans of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania.

The sentence of death by firing squad was confirmed at 4:30 pm on 11 October 1915, to be carried out before dawn the next day. Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, the Revd Paul Le Seur, were, ‘Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.’

Pastor Le Soeur realised that Edith could not receive spiritual help from someone in a German uniform. He hurriedly called for Horace Gahan who was not at home, but eventually the message reached him to meet the chaplain at his lodgings. Learning of Edith’s fate was a very shocking moment for him.

Gahan arrived at Saint Gilles Prison after 8:30 that evening with a pass and went to Edith’s cell. There he found her calm and resigned. He recalled her words, ‘I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!’

They shared Holy Communion together and he stayed for an hour. She spoke kindly of her treatment in prison and said, ‘But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’

The meeting ended after they softly recited together the hymn Abide with Me. On leaving, he said ‘God Bless’; she smiled and replied tenderly, ‘We shall meet again.’

Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the death sentence on her and four Belgian men in Schaerbeek at 7 a.m. on 12 October 1915. News reports after her execution were found to be only true in part. Even the American Journal of Nursing repeated the fictional account that she fainted and fell because of her refusal to wear a blindfold in front of the firing squad. Allegedly, while she lay unconscious, the German commanding officer shot her dead with a revolver. She was 49.

Pastor Le Seur, the German army chaplain, recalled at the time of her execution, ‘I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr … but she was ready to die for her country … Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian.’

Immediately after her execution, Horace Gahan wrote a moving account of their last meeting. It was sent through the US Legation to the Foreign Office in London, where it was released. Her story was used in war-time propaganda as an example of German barbarism and moral depravity.

Edith Cavell became the most prominent British female casualty of World War I, and many memorials were created around the world to remember her.

The reredos of the Last Supper behind the altar in Holy Trinity Church, Essex Street, Norwich, where Edith worshipped with her mother, was dedicated as a memorial to her. The Edith Cavell Health Care Campus is on the site of the former Edith Cavell Hospital in Peterborough, and there is a memorial to her in Peterborough Cathedral. She is also remembered in Peterborough in the name of the Cavell car park at the Queensgate shopping centre.

The Revd Horace Sterling Townsend Gahan (1870-1959), who shared Holy Communion with her on the evening before her execution, continued to live in Brussels until 1923, and there he was sometimes known affectionately as ‘Father Pat’ because of his Irish origins.

Gahan was born in Lurganboy, Co Donegal, on 11 November 1870, a son of Frederick Beresford Gahan, an engineer, and his wife, Katherine Janes (Townsend). He was ordained deacon (1894) and priest (1895), and worked in parishes in the Church of England until 1905, when he returned to Ireland. He moved to Brussels as the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church, just as World War I was about to break out. He returned to England and a parish in Leicester in 1923, and died in 1959.

As for, Meanwhile, on this Day of Repentance, Yom Kippur, as I continue to fret about the dangers of Trump returning to the White House, with his brutal interpretation of ‘patriotism’, I am reminded of two pithy sayings in the Pirkei Avot or Ethics of the Fathers: ‘Your house should be open wide, and you should treat the poor as members of your household’ (1: 5) … ‘On three things the world continues to exist: On justice, truth, and peace’ (1: 18).

The monument to Edith Cavell near Norwich Cathedral, where she is buried (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 12 October 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been the ‘Humanitarian Corridors project in Leuven, Belgium.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rebecca Breekveldt, Second Secretary, Central Committee of the Anglican Church in Belgium.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 12 October 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert’ (Isaiah 43: 19).

The Collect:

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XX:

God, the giver of life,
whose Holy Spirit wells up within your Church:
by the Spirit’s gifts equip us to live the gospel of Christ
and make us eager to do your will,
that we may share with the whole creation
the joys of eternal life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Abide with me, fast falls the eventide’ … Edith Cavell depicted in a memorial Window in Saint Mary the Virgin Church, Swardeston, Norfolk

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org