Today's date and time:

Sermon for Sidra Lech Lecho
November 2008
by Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman

Let me share with you a story.

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?" wondered the mouse. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Running to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, and said, I am so sorry to hear, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

Then the mouse turned to the cow and said: "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm so sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, humiliated and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . alone.

That very night a sound reverberated throughout the house -- the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a poisonous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with chicken soup, so the farmer took his knife to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for them all.

In the meantime – the little mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with utter sadness.

The moral of the story is that when one of us is threatened on earth - we are all at risk. In this instance the mouse was saved whilst others suffered but often it is the reverse.

Initially, as we read in today’s Sidra, Abraham was a bystander in the war of the kings that befell the Middle East. But when Lot was taken captive by the invading troops – then he got involved with his meagre army of 318. He pursued the army all the way to Dan and rescued not only Lot and his possessions but also others. He had learnt the vital message – “Lo saamod al dam reecho” – “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour”- (Vayikra 19:16) - that as human beings we have a moral duty to act to save others. And therefore later when Abraham pleaded with G-d against His decree to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, it wasn’t just for the sake of Lot but indeed for its entire population. He had discovered the obligation of collective or universal responsibility – that it’s not just about looking out for your own.

As we enter into a period of remembering the World Wars and this Sunday night being also the 70th Anniversary of Kristalnacht, we will remember how the world stood idly by to the rise of anti-Semitism in pre-war Germany. Like the chicken, the pig and the cow in the story, they did not think it would affect them, till it was too late. Then the world suffered including the Germans themselves.

Judaism teaches us a greater lesson than can be derived from the story of the mousetrap. Yes true, when one of us is threatened we are all at risk. But more fundamentally - we have a moral obligation as human beings to save life and fight for justice in the world – because as humans we must care for others.

Perhaps tomorrow we will see a better world under the new leadership of America’s President, Barrack Obama.

May we only witness a world filled with caring human beings.