Wrestling with G-d, wrestling with man

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Have you ever spoken to G-D? I mean in a two-way conversation that wasn't simply an illusion. I have had this experience twice in my life – to be honest, it was the other way round; a person was actually speaking to me.

This was in Oslo, Norway, December 1991. The Nobel committee had invited me to attend that year's Peace Prize ceremony for prisoner of conscience, Aung San Suu Kyi. But at the same time, that year they were also holding a special 90th anniversary Symposium for Past Peace Laureates and Distinguished Personages (otherwise known as DPs) – and for some reason they decided that I was one of the latter, not being of course one of the former.

As a DP, I was invited to two symposiums. The venue was up a mountain - some people actually arrived by sledge, a common mode of transport in Norway at that time of the year. And then, when I managed to carefully skirt the ostentatious red carpet laid out for us Laureates and DPs, I stood all alone, aged 40, waiting to speak to Past Peace Laureate, Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel.

At the time, I was teaching his novels as part of my new academic course in Holocaust Thought and Literature at Liverpool University and couldn't believe that the object of so much study on my part was actually there in the flesh and that I would be able to have a conversation with him.

Suddenly, I was bathed in the most exquisite aura of love, warmth and understanding, which proved very handy in the blistering mountain cold of a Norwegian December, I can tell you!

I whipped round to see who or what was the reason for this incredibly powerful sensation of light, love and warmth – and there he was, the Dalai Lama incarnate!

Back in 1991, DL (as he is affectionately known) wasn't as famous as he is now, and it took some time for me to register the identity of the man with the radiant smile.

'Are you Jewish?' he asked. I had to admit that I was.

'Best people in the world,' he carried on. 'Why are you here?'

I explained that the English family of Suu Kyi had asked me to help them in their attempts to have her freed from house arrest and I was just in the middle of setting up a support group for her in Liverpool.

DL beamed from ear to ear. 'Only you can do this.' he said. 'Only the Jews, who have helped our Tibetan people so magnificently and have gone through the history of exile that you have, can help us.'

I murmured something about being a part-time lecturer in Liverpool with a husband and two children to look after, as well as not being incredibly influential in the UK. Maybe he would care to try Bernard Levin of The Times – also Jewish, based in London, an amazingly good writer, exceedingly well known, and keen to help on this very question.

'Rubbish', he said. 'You can do it and I will help you. And by the way, Israel is the best country in the world – incredibly helpful to the Tibetans in exile.'

He then added, 'The Burmese situation is exactly the same as the Tibetan situation. If you help the Burmese, you will be helping us too. Do come to my seminar later on about Buddhism, and meanwhile I'll get my Ambassador to Europe to speak to you – her English is so much better than mine.'

And with that he was gone – although we did meet up later, when he lectured us on Buddhism not being a religion and, together with Eli Wiesel, addressed the former Laureates and DPs on the tragic situation in Bosnia at the time. I was in good company on that occasion. The great military historian, Sir Michael Howard, was the only other English person in the room. But somehow I didn't feel at all fazed. I felt that it was right to be there, and good would come of it.

DL isn't my god, neither is he the god of my fathers. However, he is god to almost 500 million Buddhists worldwide and a number of Western adherents, including many from Hollywood, so he is definitely worth heeding, in my view at least.

But on one issue I should have challenged DL at the time and didn't. For I have always known that the situation in Burma isn't anything like the situation in Tibet. For a start, even then, despite the adulation, fame and frenzied hysteria surrounding Suu Kyi, she did not, to be completely frank, strike me as being of the same caliber as DL. I could not help, too, but feel great concern for the impact of her prolonged absences on her children.

'If only,' we always say to ourselves after the event. 'If only I had told DL not to be so silly – how could he compare Burma to Tibet. Yes, the religion is basically the same, give or take a fair sprinkling of Christians and Muslims in Burma – but the leadership?' And the truth is that as a mother myself, I could never in conscience have sacrificed my children for some higher cause.

But I didn't tell DL what I really thought – and why didn't I? Not because he was the male divinity of a non-religion I rather admired, nor because I am in awe of my elders and betters. Nor because I wasn't on home territory; neither was he, for that matter. I didn't tell him what I thought for the simple reason that I thought he knew more about the subject than I did. And at the time I thought that DL's knowledge of SE Asia was more relevant to the subject than my own experience of children and their relationship with their mothers.

And now it's all gone pear-shaped. On return to Liverpool, I did start the very first support group for the Burmese anywhere in the world. I spent 10 years on this enterprise and look where it's ended? In mass genocide by a stubborn - and again, to be frank - selfish woman who knew how to fool nearly everyone – everyone who mattered, that is.

I always had a gut feeling that this is what would happen, and never said so at the time, even when one of our Liverpool committee told me in secret one day that he was a Rohingya Muslim and was therefore despised by the other Burmese on the committee who were all Buddhists.

Casting my mind back to 1991, knowing now how things have turned out in Burma despite all my efforts, I feel a certain regret in not challenging DL. It brings to mind the ideas of Rabbi Dr Natan Cardozo put forward in his new book, Genesis, in which he radically suggests that the testing of Abraham was a missed opportunity for Abraham to challenge G-d's command to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

Incidentally, Dr Cardozo taught me Jewish thought and philosophy at religious seminary some 35 years ago. How did this happen? Simply because my family were on Sabbatical in that city, and the seminary was there on the street where we lived, simply waiting to be accessed by those keen on knowledge.

Although at that time baby Esther and I were inseparable, like the little lamb and Mary, in that everywhere that mum went, baby Esther and her collapsible buggy were also sure to go, I decided that for educational purposes, Esther would be better off spending these few hours a week with Maria, the next-door neighbour, who happened to be a highly-recommended childminder.

Originally from Morocco, Maria lived three doors down and possessed a number of advantages I sadly lacked in Jerusalem that year – a working telephone, constant gas and electricity (linked to the local hospital) and an overwhelming love of cooking.

In addition, Esther would learn Hebrew from a near native, and would develop as a happy toddler in the beautiful environment of the best type of childminder ever, while I would pursue Jewish learning in an environment of excellence unheard of in the UK, then or now. Surely a win win situation?

Returning to Dr Cardozo's thinking, which by his own admission goes against many of the established Jewish commentaries on the passage, he proposes that Abraham should have stood up to G-d and refused to do such a thing as sacrifice his only son, the person he loved most in the world.

I appreciate that this is certainly a radical interpretation not only for Jews - who largely aren't about taking G-d to task - as well as for Christians who interpret the passage through the lens of demonstrating faith.

Interestingly, though, I am reminded of a group of Jewish women I came to know while living in Haifa, northern Israel, who expressed similar feelings to those written down by Dr Cardozo. The women were mainly of American background and got together every Shabbat afternoon from Jewish New Year, September 2006, to discuss the weekly section, known as parshah.

Lo and behold, my first introduction to them was on the famous Akedah, the 'binding of Isaac', when Abraham declares to G-d that he is willing to sacrifice his 'only' son Isaac to God, i.e. to kill his only son for a higher cause. To my amazement, and for the first time ever, a religiously observant group of highly intelligent women were getting all worked up and waving their hands around, expressing the same sentiments as Dr Cardozo in very rapid Hebrew that Abraham should have objected.

I will leave it for readers of Dr Cardozo's book to make up their own mind about such an interpretation, but it comes to my mind again because of that exchange with DL, and makes me think again about what I should have done in Oslo in 1991. Certainly it's on my mind again given that Suu Kyi has been back in the headlines, shamefully defending Burma's track record on human rights during a hearing into the Rohingya genocide at the UN International Court of Justice.

Whatever cause we are devoted to in life, we must always ask ourselves: 'Why am I doing this?' Is it really for a greater cause? And if so, is the greater cause really more important than the suffering of our own children?' We must always question our motives whenever we think we are doing something in G-d's name, and I wouldn't say that it is always wrong to wrestle with G-d when we feel Him to be asking something of us.

Don't get me wrong, I will never forget my encounter with the DL. He wasn't so much an ideas man, but more a person who nurtures and enables. Israelis, on the other hand, tend to be no-nonsense people with ideas which they put into action as soon as they can. Both types of people are necessary in the world. But I hope that at this time of year, the true story of the time I should have argued with a person revered by many as their spiritual leader, and didn't, can act as a lesson for all of us, especially those of us who come from one of the three monotheistic religions.

As for Suu Kyi, may she seek out G-d more than any public office or human person's approval, and consider what it might be that He wills for Burma and the suffering Rohingya. And may she, please, consider that any pursuit of a higher purpose should not be at the expense of caring for one's own family. Indeed, may we all remember that, regardless of our pursuits in life.

Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible. She trained as a teacher in modern Languages and Religious Education.