"To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. I am not a teacher, only a fellow student." (Soren Kierkegaard)
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Archived Articles: Good and Evil
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A FEW PRE-SHABBAT WORDS FROM RABBI AARON Remembering Slavery Keeping in mind that we can learn from the stories of other people, I visited iziko.org.za/sh/resouces/slavery/slavery_why.html Below is a sample of this website... Why remember slavery? Slavery has for a long time been a forgotten part of South African history even though:
Slaves played an important role in South African history. Yet we learn about governors and explorers, but little about the ordinary people who helped build South Africa under very poor conditions. We experience the legacy of slavery everyday: in culture, in politics, and in family histories. It is therefore time to recognise the history of slavery at the Cape. Legacy of slavery The slaves came from Asia and Africa. They came from diverse cultural backgrounds with different languages and religions. Many of the slaves had relationships with the indigenous Khoekhoe and some with the burghers. Part of South Africa’s cultural diversity can be regarded as a consequence of its history of slavery. Many South Africans are descendants of slaves. Although it is not always possible to prove that you are a descendent of slaves, people with slave names such as Cupido, September and Titus can assume that they have slave ancestors. Other people’s slave ancestry cannot be seen in their names. For example, the Bassons are descendents of Angela of Bengal, the Snymans are descendents of Antony of Bengale and the Claasens are descendents of Claas of Malabar. Many people believe that the development of the Afrikaans language can also be attrributed to slavery. Slaves came from many different places and spoke different languages. Some historians believe that Afrikaans developed as the result of slaves trying to communicate with their mainly Dutch-speaking owners. There is evidence that Afrikaans was spoken in mosques. The first Afrikaans was written in Arabic script. These manuscripts were all Muslim religious texts. Afrikaans also contains many words that came from the eastern languages spoken by the slaves. Examples of these words are: Baie : many The slaves had a big influence on the kind of food South Africans eat. People refer to the Indian and Indonesian influences on South African cuisine. The origin of some South African recipes can be seen in the names of food, for example sosaties, bredie, curry, bobotie, koeksisters and tameletjie. C. Louis Leipoldt, a Afrikaans writer and cook who lived in the first half of the 20th century, considered Indonesian cooking methods and food customs as the strongest influence on South African cuisine. However, these traditions were not only brought to the Cape and practised by the slave cooks, but also by their owners. The VOC officials at the Cape usually lived and worked for many years in Batavia before coming to the Cape. They were therefore already used to that kind of cooking before coming to the Cape. The slaves built many of the old buildings that date back to the Dutch colonial period, for example the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town and the houses on Cape wine estates such as Groot Constantia, Vergelegen and Simonsig, as well as ordinary dwellings in Cape Town and surrounding areas. Slavery is often associated with the introduction of Islam to the Cape. The Western Cape still has a very large Muslim community. However, not all Cape Muslims are descendents of slaves. Islam was brought to the Cape by Muslim political exiles and slaves from the East Indies. In Cape Town, Islam was also regarded as the religion of resistance. Slaves and Free Blacks met in the houses of Muslim exiles and on the hills around the town. By 1832, a third of the population in Cape Town was regarded as Muslim. Some religious practices of Cape Muslims are of slave origin. For example, on the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday women cut up orange leaves in the mosques. This slave tradition, known as rampie-sny is unique to Cape Muslims and their descendants in other parts of South Africa.. ...And what has all this to do with us? In the final analysis, all people are children of God. Any discussion of holiness and freedom will have to reach out beyond the borders of tribe and blood.Consider this quote from the late Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (Festival of Freedom - Essays on Pesach and the Haggadah, page 85). Admittedly, his comments were focused exclusively on Freedom and the Jew, but I suggest that his words resonate far beyond our family. "...Sanctity and slavery are mutually contradictory. Slavery is rooted in the profane, in impurity, in the unworthy; it cannot be paired with holiness with the spiritual fitness of the personality...The halacha expresses this idea very nicely: "A slave whose master places tefillin upon him" goes free [Gittin 40a]. Why? Because slavery cannot harmonize with the proclamation of God's unity and the acceptance of His commandments expressed in the four passages contained in the tefillin. Similarly, if a master calls up his slave to read from the Torah in public, the slave earns his freedom..." Finally, this idea of freedom as a universal human right was driven home to me in a powerful way when I used to frequent Jerusalem's cinemateque. During the week of Passover the films being shown were from a variety of countries - all focused on the theme of freedom. If the first 15 or so chapters of Exodus are to mean anything, we need to open our hearts to all the stories of oppression and liberation. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Aaron
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