Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster, reflects on Proverbs 5 and what it has to say about some of our present challenges.
Recently, we have been hearing a great deal about water wastage, especially preventable leakage by the companies themselves. This was brought home when I received a message from my own water company, which is one of the worst offenders, letting me know that they were pleased my water usage had not risen in the last six months, but that my bills were going up from July in any case, due to a rise in standing charges. In other words, we, the customer, are paying for the profligate behaviour of autonomous multi-billion-pound water institutions.
I was reminded of this anomaly while researching the Book of Proverbs. Chapter 5, verses 15 and 16, are particularly illuminating in this regard.
The writer, reputedly, King Solomon in middle age, compares three kinds of water container as examples of three attitudes to life.
The first attitude is symbolized by the 'bor', translated as hole, pit, cistern, or jail. This is the famous pit which Joseph was cast into by his jealous and angry brothers (Genesis 37:24).
The bor represents the person who thinks that he or she is responsible for everything. Everything that happens in life is due to them. Reciprocal relationship, let alone dependence, does not exist for them. This person digs the hole, fills it with water, and does all the work. However, pits of water are stagnant, don't go anywhere, certainly don't inspire, and often end in negativity.
'Mayan', the 'spring', 'water course' or even 'geyser', simply gushes out incessantly, without any effort on our part. We simply lie back and allow life to take over. No effort is needed, and the attitude posed is one of passivity.
But in between the pit and the spring, we have the b'er or 'well'. In the original Hebrew, the pit and the well are differentiated only by one vowel sound. But the difference between a pit and a well is that in the case of the well, we build it, G-d fills it with water and then we have to actively draw water from it. In other words, the well denotes partnership, a reciprocal relationship which helps us grow and develop. And in Biblical times, the well was the source of life itself. Without water from the well, you were dead.
For this reason, it is no accident that so many of our biblical ancestors met at wells, where they built up positive relationships leading to flowering and generation. Eliezer, sent by Abraham, met Rebecca at the well, and chose her for Isaac (Genesis 24). Isaac's son, Jacob, met Rachel at the well (Genesis 29), and their union grew into the twelve tribes of Israel, and from there the Jewish people. And Moses met Zipporah, daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, also at a well (Exodus 2) and became our greatest prophet who took us out of slavery on our journey to the Promised Land.
Most would agree that the pit is not a good symbol for growth, but surely the spring is the fount of life? But Judaism doesn't agree with this approach of letting it all happen. Judaism believes that we can help to make things happen; and if things are to go well, then we should go for the well, symbol of the partnership between G-d and his creation.
To drive this point home, it is also interesting to note that b'er' is an anagram in Hebrew for the word for 'health'. And health is another subject that has been in the news this week, the National Health Service being the cause of some concern, with its own health being discussed on all sides.
For, 75 years ago, here in Manchester, the first patient was treated free of charge in the first ever National Health hospital. But the country was very different then. In 1948 we had just been through a terrible war. The population of the UK was around 45-50 million, and most people spoke English as a first language. Unlike in 1948, the majority of the country are now overweight, and the proportion of old people to people of working age has also changed significantly in 75 years.
Yet we carry on either as if health were a bottomless pit, with the UK in 2023 being the same as the UK in 1948. Or, we treat the NHS as an ever-bubbling spring which will miraculously keep on giving, without any input from us.
Neither of these analogies will work in the long run. It may well be helpful to take a leaf from the Hebrew book of Proverbs and start treating the health service neither as a bottomless pit, nor as an every-bubbling spring, but as a well.
This country built the NHS in 1948. And, to start with, we did not take it for granted, and, unlike today, the NHS did not act as if they were doing us huge favours. In those days, we only contacted the GP in a dire emergency and took responsibility for our own health. Hardly anyone was overweight. We walked everywhere and did a great deal of incidental exercise without even realizing it. TV, if it existed at all in most homes, was severely regulated. We were expected to help with the housework and nothing was taken for granted. After all, this country had just been through a dreadful war, and rationing was in operation until 1955.
Sadly, however, the original NHS has gradually morphed into the sick man of Europe, the laughing-stock of many other countries. Those other countries, with similar or smaller budgets, adjusted their health services accordingly. And they certainly don't worship the health service, as is the case here. In those countries, the health service has become a reciprocal relationship, based on respect, just as the biblical well. Whereas, here in this country ....
And why has this happened? It is hard to say. But, where there is no true religion, golden calves, sacred cows and their equivalents will rush in to fill the gap. This is what has happened to our National Health Service and to our water companies. But also to our gas and electricity companies, universities, the BBC, the unions, the Church, and many other once revered and necessary institutions which are no longer fit for purpose. Even Wimbledon has become commercialized, politicized and therefore open to abuse. Reverence is now a dirty word.
But there may be a solution if we change our attitude. If we stop thinking we can either do everything ourselves, or, on the other hand, lie back and expect others to do everything for us, but strive to treat life as a well of water, well then a positive surprise may lie just around the corner.
And this country, which once gave so much to the world, may find her rightful place once again.
