A tale of three rabbis

ON OUR FINAL evening in Kyiv, we had an extraordinary experience. At perhaps the only kosher restaurant still operating in the city, Rabbi Moshe Azman, chief rabbi of Ukraine, and Rabbi Jonathan Markovitz, chief rabbi of Kyiv, joined us for dinner. With delegation member Dawid Szychowski, we now had three Orthodox rabbis together at a table.

In the tradition of Jewish teaching, every genuine question is the start of a journey toward God, which is why Jewish parents teach their children to ask good questions and thus prompt a never-ending conversation with God. With this in mind, delegation member Maurice Glasman brought this question to the rabbis: “Is Putin Pharaoh?”

War propels existential questions to the forefront: Where is God in this? Who are we to be now? These rabbis had already been thinking and praying deeply on questions like this one.

Rabbi Markovitz answered, “When we know ourselves and know what we should do and for whom we do it, then we have no pharaoh. If we are feeding our neighbor, then there is no pharaoh, and we live liberated. But I also turn the question around and ask, ‘Is pharaoh an individual or a system?’”

Rabbi Azman then spoke. “Our situation is not a situation like Egypt and Pharaoh,” Azman said. “It is the battle of Gog and Magog, an apocalyptic battle against the enemies of God, between good and evil,” referencing scriptures in Ezekiel that point to a messianic age.

Rabbi Szychowski turned the question yet again. “I am less interested in who pharaoh is than I am in who the people are who are preparing for liberation.”–Rose Marie Berger (excerpted from “Why Our Faith Delegation Went to Ukraine” (Sojourners, Sept-Oct 2022)