Getting Along Like Cats and Dogs
April 2, 2007
14 Nisan 5767
It is the 14th of Nisan (the month formerly known as Datsun), the month of Spring, as it is known in the Bible, the first month on the Hebrew calendar and the month in which we celebrate Passover arguably the most important holy day in the sacred cycle of the Jewish year. On Passover we celebrate our liberation from Egyptian slavery more than 3,500 years ago and in the dramatic retelling of the Haggadah narrative we rehearse the ancient story whose message is as fresh today as the greens we eat to remind us of the hope that story inspires. No Jewish holiday, neither Shabbat nor even Hanukah is as universally observed, as is Passover. Such is the compelling power of freedom’s story.
Passover is the national story—the defining mythos—of the Jewish people. Formerly a nomadic loosely confederated band of clans—slaves among slaves to the Egyptians—we emerged from bondage to begin a journey towards freedom and national identity culminating with the revelation of Torah on Mount Sinai. There, upon the flinty rocks of Sinai a nation and a people—Israel—were forged, and there our destiny was made manifest. So powerful was the Exodus that each Shabbat, each holy day is another reminder—a zecher lizi’at Mitzra’im—commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. And every Passover we literally relive the experience as the Haggadah exhorts us, “In every generation everyone is to view themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”
Passover, of course, focuses upon the Exodus, the escape. Only the beginning of the story relates the hundreds of years of our sojourn in Egypt (the numbers of years is debated by scholars both ancient and modern). At first we were welcomed to Egypt, in fact, it was our salvation. There was famine in the land of Canaan the home of our patriarch Jacob and his growing clan; only Egypt provided hope against almost certain starvation. Thanks to Joseph (assimilated into the “Egyptian” Zaphenath-paneah, vizier to Pharaoh), the Hebrews found refuge and succor in Egypt.
However, all was not perfect. Towards the end of the story of Jacob and Joseph in Genesis we are told that our Hebrew forebears were settled in the land of Goshen because it was most suitable for their flocks and herds. It was far away from Pharaoh and most Egyptians, “For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians (Genesis 46:34).” You see, it seems that much before a pharaoh arose “who knew not Joseph” and enslaved the Hebrews there was ill will between our ancestors and their Egyptian neighbors. Why? Our ancestors were shepherds. The ancient Egyptians counted the ram among their gods, perhaps these nomadic shepherds who raised sheep (for food) were abhorrent to the Egyptians.
If we symbolize the Egyptians by one of their other gods—the cat, and the Hebrews by the shepherd’s trusted companion—the dog, it might be fair to characterize the ancient relationship between the two peoples as being like that between cats and dogs—they simply could not get along. Just like cats and dogs, fighting and enmity, territoriality and tension have defined their age-old relationship. And so, it seems, this animal drama has played on fairly consistently throughout history from generation to generation from era to era.
We tell our story of the Exodus, the Egyptians have theirs. In ancient tales, going back at least 2,300 years tracing back at least to the account of the Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera around 300 B.C.E. (drawing from earlier Egyptian sources) the Jews were kicked out of Egypt as the source of a plague. They were led out by a man named Moses (whom later sources identify with an Egyptian priest named Osarseph) and resettled in Judea. In their story the Hebrews are the villains, not the liberated. As they told it, Moses was a renegade, and God had nothing to do with the Exodus at all (which is probably why our rabbis chose to leave Moses out of the Haggadah—except for one passing reference—and emphasized God’s role). Cats and dogs.
Earlier, in the 7th century B.C.E. a Jewish garrison colony was set up by the Persians in Egypt at Elephantine. It even had its own functioning temple carrying out many of the same sacral rites as the Temple in Jerusalem until it was destroyed some two hundred years later by the Jews’ Egyptian neighbors. Some of the Egyptians’ calumnies against the Jews at that time sound very much like those cited later by Hecataeus. Cats and dogs.
In 110 C.E. the Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria dredged up these stories again to “prove” to the Roman rulers that the Jews followed the strange laws given by Moses that were contrary to Roman law and unlike the laws of any other peoples. So much mischief resulted that there was an uprising by the Jews in that city that spread through many Greek-speaking Jewish communities in the Roman Empire during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Cats and dogs.
There have been periods—very long periods—when the cats and dogs have gotten along fairly well together. Alexandria (the same Alexandria mentioned above) has historically been a model of cosmopolitan sophistication and even tolerance. Elsewhere in Egypt, Maimonides found refuge in Fostat (near modern day Cairo) when he was forced to flee his native Spain). In fact, up until the advent of Zionism and the modern state of Israel, Jews have played a significant role in the cultural and commercial life of Egypt. The cats and dogs have at least called a truce at times.
In 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel (the modern incarnation of the Exodus as a defining moment in the national identity of the Jewish people) the cats and dogs were at it again. The fighting came to a climax in 1956 following the Suez War when the ancient Jewish community of Egypt was forced to pack up and leave the homes and businesses behind and become refugees in an exodus not of their choosing. Tens of thousands of Jewish refugees became homeless leaving behind them assets worth millions upon millions of dollars in the currency of the day. Cats and dogs.
However, unlike those Jews uprooted decades before in Europe, the Jews of Egypt had a home waiting for them—Israel. Many chose other destinations: Europe, the United States, Mexico and South America. But, for any and all who sought refuge and a welcoming home, Israel opened its heart to them. This is a fulfillment of the Passover promise of redemption.
And there are more promises in the Passover story I believe. Let me share another, perhaps more fanciful story, a kind of fable if you will.
Last October Wendy discovered a black cat in our entry. There are many feral cats in Jerusalem; they rummage through the garbage, hunt vermin and eye humans with a great deal of wary suspicion. But this black beauty wasn’t one of those wild ones. It was obvious that she had once been a house cats. And more, she was obviously “with kittens.” Wendy, God bless her, took pity upon the little mother-to-be and began feeding her—much to my chagrin, as I do not like cats (I am quite allergic to them); I am distinctly one of the dogs. Nature, being nature and taking its course, she eventually gave birth in our planter box to three kittens. And Wendy continued to bring food and milk, promising me that she would stop her ministrations as soon as we left for our trip to California in November. True to her word, she stopped—I emphasize that she stopped—actually, she hired the boy who watered our houseplants to continue the feeding, “just until the kittens are big enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise they’ll starve!”
This continued until January. Now we were buying sacks of cat food in addition to our monthly ration of dog food for Kipper. One day we found that one of the females was no longer to be counted among the little family; in Jerusalem this is not an uncommon fate as outdoor cats have a very low survival rate—we chose not to speculate upon its fate. Then Wendy left for a conference in California in January and left instructions for me to feed the cats. Now remember, I do not like cats—at all, nor, I might add, does Kipper. We’ve always suspected that he was part cat (a “dat” perhaps, half dog half cat), because of the way he acted so cat-like for a dog. But this is where the story gets interesting.
Not being one to ignore instructions from Wendy (unless absolutely necessary, of course), I dutifully prepared the cat food and brought it down to the little feline family as I took Kipper for his daily afternoon constitutional. It was about two days into this routine that something strange began to happen.
At first, the cats would begin to look for us (obviously looking out for the meal) then they began to follow us out onto the sidewalk. And, as for Kipper, he acted strangely himself. His fur didn’t go up in aggression and he didn’t growl at them. He almost seemed to—dare I say it—accept their presence in his domain. Gradually, little by little, the little family ventured farther and farther along the walk with us until, by the fourth or fifth day, two of the three cats accompanied us on the whole walk. Now picture this: here we are, me and this oversized Chihuahua walking down the sidewalk with an honor-guard of two cats right next to us—what a sight!
And, it gets even better…now the cats look for Kipper to go for a walk (even when it isn’t suppertime) and Kipper looks for them. They actually seem to like each other! The cats still don’t like other dogs (they run right away when one approaches) and Kipper seems to hold other cats in as much contempt as ever, but our happy family seems to get along just fine, thank you.
So, what does this mean? Well, if Kipper (of all dogs) can get along with cats, maybe it is possible for human dogs and cats to be liberated from the enslaving bonds of enmity which restrict and conflict them. We desperately need such transformative redemption now every bit as much as in ancient days.
Today our news is filled with hopeful possibilities for diplomatic breakthroughs emanating from the Arabic world—from Saudi Arabia in particular—tenuous and fragile as the overtures maybe they are at least cause for hope. At the same time we have more cat howls and screeches from other quarters in our region—from Iran and (unfortunately) even Egypt. And, here at home, we have our shares of barking dogs that see any concession or compromise as a sign of weakness and capitulation.
I hope and pray the Kipper and the cats are a harbinger of better times when even traditional enmities can be put aside—not without caution perhaps, but with a measure of mutual respect. Cats and dogs…if they can do it, why can’t we?
I wish you and yours a happy holy day of spring renewal.
Shalom from Jerusalem
14 Nisan 5767
It is the 14th of Nisan (the month formerly known as Datsun), the month of Spring, as it is known in the Bible, the first month on the Hebrew calendar and the month in which we celebrate Passover arguably the most important holy day in the sacred cycle of the Jewish year. On Passover we celebrate our liberation from Egyptian slavery more than 3,500 years ago and in the dramatic retelling of the Haggadah narrative we rehearse the ancient story whose message is as fresh today as the greens we eat to remind us of the hope that story inspires. No Jewish holiday, neither Shabbat nor even Hanukah is as universally observed, as is Passover. Such is the compelling power of freedom’s story.
Passover is the national story—the defining mythos—of the Jewish people. Formerly a nomadic loosely confederated band of clans—slaves among slaves to the Egyptians—we emerged from bondage to begin a journey towards freedom and national identity culminating with the revelation of Torah on Mount Sinai. There, upon the flinty rocks of Sinai a nation and a people—Israel—were forged, and there our destiny was made manifest. So powerful was the Exodus that each Shabbat, each holy day is another reminder—a zecher lizi’at Mitzra’im—commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. And every Passover we literally relive the experience as the Haggadah exhorts us, “In every generation everyone is to view themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”
Passover, of course, focuses upon the Exodus, the escape. Only the beginning of the story relates the hundreds of years of our sojourn in Egypt (the numbers of years is debated by scholars both ancient and modern). At first we were welcomed to Egypt, in fact, it was our salvation. There was famine in the land of Canaan the home of our patriarch Jacob and his growing clan; only Egypt provided hope against almost certain starvation. Thanks to Joseph (assimilated into the “Egyptian” Zaphenath-paneah, vizier to Pharaoh), the Hebrews found refuge and succor in Egypt.
However, all was not perfect. Towards the end of the story of Jacob and Joseph in Genesis we are told that our Hebrew forebears were settled in the land of Goshen because it was most suitable for their flocks and herds. It was far away from Pharaoh and most Egyptians, “For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians (Genesis 46:34).” You see, it seems that much before a pharaoh arose “who knew not Joseph” and enslaved the Hebrews there was ill will between our ancestors and their Egyptian neighbors. Why? Our ancestors were shepherds. The ancient Egyptians counted the ram among their gods, perhaps these nomadic shepherds who raised sheep (for food) were abhorrent to the Egyptians.
If we symbolize the Egyptians by one of their other gods—the cat, and the Hebrews by the shepherd’s trusted companion—the dog, it might be fair to characterize the ancient relationship between the two peoples as being like that between cats and dogs—they simply could not get along. Just like cats and dogs, fighting and enmity, territoriality and tension have defined their age-old relationship. And so, it seems, this animal drama has played on fairly consistently throughout history from generation to generation from era to era.
We tell our story of the Exodus, the Egyptians have theirs. In ancient tales, going back at least 2,300 years tracing back at least to the account of the Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera around 300 B.C.E. (drawing from earlier Egyptian sources) the Jews were kicked out of Egypt as the source of a plague. They were led out by a man named Moses (whom later sources identify with an Egyptian priest named Osarseph) and resettled in Judea. In their story the Hebrews are the villains, not the liberated. As they told it, Moses was a renegade, and God had nothing to do with the Exodus at all (which is probably why our rabbis chose to leave Moses out of the Haggadah—except for one passing reference—and emphasized God’s role). Cats and dogs.
Earlier, in the 7th century B.C.E. a Jewish garrison colony was set up by the Persians in Egypt at Elephantine. It even had its own functioning temple carrying out many of the same sacral rites as the Temple in Jerusalem until it was destroyed some two hundred years later by the Jews’ Egyptian neighbors. Some of the Egyptians’ calumnies against the Jews at that time sound very much like those cited later by Hecataeus. Cats and dogs.
In 110 C.E. the Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria dredged up these stories again to “prove” to the Roman rulers that the Jews followed the strange laws given by Moses that were contrary to Roman law and unlike the laws of any other peoples. So much mischief resulted that there was an uprising by the Jews in that city that spread through many Greek-speaking Jewish communities in the Roman Empire during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Cats and dogs.
There have been periods—very long periods—when the cats and dogs have gotten along fairly well together. Alexandria (the same Alexandria mentioned above) has historically been a model of cosmopolitan sophistication and even tolerance. Elsewhere in Egypt, Maimonides found refuge in Fostat (near modern day Cairo) when he was forced to flee his native Spain). In fact, up until the advent of Zionism and the modern state of Israel, Jews have played a significant role in the cultural and commercial life of Egypt. The cats and dogs have at least called a truce at times.
In 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel (the modern incarnation of the Exodus as a defining moment in the national identity of the Jewish people) the cats and dogs were at it again. The fighting came to a climax in 1956 following the Suez War when the ancient Jewish community of Egypt was forced to pack up and leave the homes and businesses behind and become refugees in an exodus not of their choosing. Tens of thousands of Jewish refugees became homeless leaving behind them assets worth millions upon millions of dollars in the currency of the day. Cats and dogs.
However, unlike those Jews uprooted decades before in Europe, the Jews of Egypt had a home waiting for them—Israel. Many chose other destinations: Europe, the United States, Mexico and South America. But, for any and all who sought refuge and a welcoming home, Israel opened its heart to them. This is a fulfillment of the Passover promise of redemption.
And there are more promises in the Passover story I believe. Let me share another, perhaps more fanciful story, a kind of fable if you will.
Last October Wendy discovered a black cat in our entry. There are many feral cats in Jerusalem; they rummage through the garbage, hunt vermin and eye humans with a great deal of wary suspicion. But this black beauty wasn’t one of those wild ones. It was obvious that she had once been a house cats. And more, she was obviously “with kittens.” Wendy, God bless her, took pity upon the little mother-to-be and began feeding her—much to my chagrin, as I do not like cats (I am quite allergic to them); I am distinctly one of the dogs. Nature, being nature and taking its course, she eventually gave birth in our planter box to three kittens. And Wendy continued to bring food and milk, promising me that she would stop her ministrations as soon as we left for our trip to California in November. True to her word, she stopped—I emphasize that she stopped—actually, she hired the boy who watered our houseplants to continue the feeding, “just until the kittens are big enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise they’ll starve!”
This continued until January. Now we were buying sacks of cat food in addition to our monthly ration of dog food for Kipper. One day we found that one of the females was no longer to be counted among the little family; in Jerusalem this is not an uncommon fate as outdoor cats have a very low survival rate—we chose not to speculate upon its fate. Then Wendy left for a conference in California in January and left instructions for me to feed the cats. Now remember, I do not like cats—at all, nor, I might add, does Kipper. We’ve always suspected that he was part cat (a “dat” perhaps, half dog half cat), because of the way he acted so cat-like for a dog. But this is where the story gets interesting.
Not being one to ignore instructions from Wendy (unless absolutely necessary, of course), I dutifully prepared the cat food and brought it down to the little feline family as I took Kipper for his daily afternoon constitutional. It was about two days into this routine that something strange began to happen.
At first, the cats would begin to look for us (obviously looking out for the meal) then they began to follow us out onto the sidewalk. And, as for Kipper, he acted strangely himself. His fur didn’t go up in aggression and he didn’t growl at them. He almost seemed to—dare I say it—accept their presence in his domain. Gradually, little by little, the little family ventured farther and farther along the walk with us until, by the fourth or fifth day, two of the three cats accompanied us on the whole walk. Now picture this: here we are, me and this oversized Chihuahua walking down the sidewalk with an honor-guard of two cats right next to us—what a sight!
And, it gets even better…now the cats look for Kipper to go for a walk (even when it isn’t suppertime) and Kipper looks for them. They actually seem to like each other! The cats still don’t like other dogs (they run right away when one approaches) and Kipper seems to hold other cats in as much contempt as ever, but our happy family seems to get along just fine, thank you.
So, what does this mean? Well, if Kipper (of all dogs) can get along with cats, maybe it is possible for human dogs and cats to be liberated from the enslaving bonds of enmity which restrict and conflict them. We desperately need such transformative redemption now every bit as much as in ancient days.
Today our news is filled with hopeful possibilities for diplomatic breakthroughs emanating from the Arabic world—from Saudi Arabia in particular—tenuous and fragile as the overtures maybe they are at least cause for hope. At the same time we have more cat howls and screeches from other quarters in our region—from Iran and (unfortunately) even Egypt. And, here at home, we have our shares of barking dogs that see any concession or compromise as a sign of weakness and capitulation.
I hope and pray the Kipper and the cats are a harbinger of better times when even traditional enmities can be put aside—not without caution perhaps, but with a measure of mutual respect. Cats and dogs…if they can do it, why can’t we?
I wish you and yours a happy holy day of spring renewal.
Shalom from Jerusalem
posted by RSJD at 12:17 PM
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