Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

GOING OUT AND COMING IN AND GOING OUT AGAIN:

THE BAT MITZVAH OF MIRIAM SEGAL

We have come here today, not simply to celebrate Shabbat. We have come here today, in particular, to celebrate Miriam Segal, as she becomes Bat Mitzvah, literally, ‘a Daughter of the Commandment’. We have come here to witness a special moment, in the midst of Miriam’s life; the moment, when she leaves her childhood behind, and begins her journey towards adulthood.

You may have noticed that I have repeated one word three times: come – more of this in a moment. The Torah, the Five Books of Moses, is divided into weekly portions, and read in an annual cycle. We began reading the Book of Exodus three weeks ago, and so, the story of the Exodus from Egypt. What does the word, ’Exodus’, mean? Like the related word, ‘exit’, it denotes ‘going out’. The Exodus from Egypt was a great departure: after 430 years of settlement, including over 200 years of slavery, finally, the Israelites went out of the house of bondage,[1] along with a ‘mixed multitude’ of other slaves – the erev rav – who also took the opportunity to take flight.[2]

Unlike English, which has a huge vocabulary, and where there are so many words for saying the same thing, the Hebrew Bible, has a much smaller vocabulary. While writers of English may search for alternative words, rather than the repeat the same one, biblical literature is marked by the repetition of words – and, specifically, by the repetition of the root meanings of words, which may take different forms. The Hebrew root for the word, ‘Exodus’, and the concept of ‘going out’ is Yud Tzadi Aleph – and so, in Hebrew, the Exodus from Egypt is y’tzi’at mitzrayim. However, the root Yud Tzadi Aleph is not only used of the Exodus. In the Book of Genesis, we read that Jacob ‘went out’, when he fled his brother, Esau’s anger after stealing the blessing due to the firstborn son (28:10). We also read that, a generation later, his daughter, Dinah, ‘the daughter of Leah’, ‘went out to see the daughters of the land’ (34:1). Less dramatic than the great Exodus, these personal examples of going out, were, nonetheless, very momentous for the individuals concerned.

Today marks the moment when Miriam goes out, when she begins to go out into the world. At the same time, today also marks the moment when Miriam comes in, when, taking responsibility for her own Jewish life, she enters the Jewish community in general, and this congregation, in particular, in her own right.

A little earlier, in my introductory remarks about how we have come here today to celebrate Miriam’s Bat Mitzvah, I drew your attention to the repetition of the word, ‘come’. At first sight, compared with ‘going out’ into the world, with making a great departure, ‘coming in’, sounds a more domestic note. But the use of the Hebrew root, Beit Vav Aleph, suggest otherwise. In a short while, Miriam will read a section from this week’s parashah – portion of the Torah – indeed, more than anything else she does today, reading the Torah in the presence of this congregation will signal her new status as a young adult. Each Torah portion is known by the first word that differentiates that particular portion from all others. Sometimes, the first word fulfils this function – as in the opening word of the Torah: B’reishit bara Elohim eit ha-shamayim v’eit ha-aretz’ – In beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1). And so, the first portion of the Torah is called B’reishit. On other occasions, as with this week’s parashah, Bo, we have to read a rather unexceptional phrase before we reach the first differentiating word. And so, the portion begins (Exodus 10:1a):

The Eternal One said to Moses: ‘Come! to Pharaoh’ – Bo el-Par’oh

To appreciate the significance of the word, Bo, it helps to realise that the form here is an imperative, a command: Bo! – with an exclamation mark. But we need to do more than appreciate the significance of the word; we also need to think about the context: Moses, a rather diffident individual, who, not long before was a humble shepherd, shepherding his father-in-law’s flock, is being told – by the Eternal One, no less – to ‘Come to Pharaoh’ – to approach the mighty King of Egypt. For Moses, coming into Pharaoh’s presence was a rather daunting, terrifying prospect.

Which brings me back to Miriam: What do you think Miriam was feeling as she prepared to come here today? What do you imagine it’s actually like for a young person, just 13 years old, to come in to the presence of all these people? What do you think it takes to stand up in the presence of a large congregation to lead the Shabbat morning service and to read the Torah, the sacred inheritance of the Jewish people? It takes courage – the courage to contain one’s fears and anxieties. Miriam has that courage. It takes presence of mind – the presence of mind to focus on the task at hand. Miriam has that presence of mind. It takes determination – the determination to see beyond the terrifying moment, to the goal: By having the courage, the presence of mind, and the determination to come here today, leaving her childhood behind and the protective embrace of her family, Miriam has become Bat Mitzvah before our eyes.

As you can see, coming in can be as momentous as going out. What is more, the Hebrew root, Beit Vav Aleph, carries with it a freight of meaning that is actually very complex. The dictionary of the Hebrew Bible, compiled by 19^th century Christian ministers, Brown, Driver and Briggs, identifies three major uses of the root in the simple active form of the verb – there are further uses in the causative active and causative passive forms – and within two of the three categories in the simple active form, the dictionary identifies between seven and eleven sub-categories! In a number of these different uses, the resonance is compelling – and sometimes, unsettling. At the beginning of the Exodus story, when the Torah relates how Moses is apprehended by a burning bush and finds himself in the presence of the Eternal, we read that the Eternal One declared (Exodus 3:9):

And now, behold, the cry of the Israelites has come to Me - V’atah, hineih, tza’akat b’ney yisrael ba’ah eilay.

Yesterday was National Holocaust Memorial Day. Since the millennium, the British government has set aside January 27^th, which is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945, as the day for reflection and educational activities to commemorate the Sho’ah, and to learn about and remember the genocide of other peoples during the 20^th century. For Jews, accustomed to remembering the Exodus from Egypt every Shabbat and each year at the Festival of Pesach, Passover, for whom the central hero of the story has always been God, not Moses, the Sho’ah provokes searing questions: Where was God? What was God doing while six million of His people were being murdered? Why didn’t the God of our Hebrew ancestors, deliver us out of the furnace on Eagle’s wings?[3] Why didn’t our cry come to God?

There are no satisfactory answers to these questions. Perhaps it might give us pause for thought, to remember that our ancestors suffered in the house of bondage for at least 200 years before their cry came to God… The modern Orthodox thinker David Hartman argues that in the absence of the interventionist God of the Bible, the early rabbis who reconstructed Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, transformed the Torah into the vehicle for God’s presence in the lives of the people. He writes:[4]

Rabbinic Judaism developed a new paradigm that differed from the dominant biblical model. I believe that had Jews retained the biblical framework alone they would have gone insane. An event-based theology would have driven them into collective manic depression. Victory suggests ‘God loves me’; defeat, ‘God has withdrawn His love.’ What saved them from this manic-depressive relationship with God was a text-centred theology that made God’s presence in history a function of the presence of the Torah. As long as we were the carriers of learning and continued to interpret God’s Word, God was present.

David Hartman may not provide the definitive answer for all our anguished questions, but his words remind us, as we look into the abyss of the Sho’ah, that although Hitler managed to murder a third of the Jewish people, he did not succeed in destroying the Torah, which is the heartbeat of our people still. This congregation even has a scroll, our Czech scroll, which is a valiant testament to this truth. The Jewish community of Frydek-Mistek was annihilated, but their Torah scrolls and the scrolls of the other Czech communities destroyed by the Nazis, did not simply survive, they live on in vibrant living communities of Jews the world over.

Towards the end of the service, Miriam will mark the final moment of becoming Bat Mitzvah by receiving the Torah scroll through the generations of her family. Miriam: in that moment. You – the special unique individual that you are – will become a link in the chain of the generations of the Jewish people. As you put it yourself: ‘Being Jewish means that I am part of a community; that I am part of something special and unique. It also means that I am connected to people all over the world, past and present. Becoming Bat Mitzvah means that I am growing up, and ready to accept my responsibilities as part of the Jewish community.’

Miriam: for you, as you expressed it – and I’m quoting you again: ‘the synagogue is a place where I can have fun and relax, while at the same time discover more about my Jewish heritage. Since joining the synagogue I have got to know loads of people that I never would have met without it, and it has helped me make lots of new friends.’ Miriam: Your experience demonstrates the power of Torah to live in our lives here and now. And the way you live every day also shows that living self-confidently as a Jew, and being proud of your inheritance, is also about connecting with others and with other sources of knowledge – that is, it is about going out into the world, as well as coming in to the Jewish community. And so, you have many interests – as you put it: ‘I love playing the flute, because it lets me express myself, and I hope to take my Grade Six in the summer. I also enjoy spending time with my friends and family, either going out or just sitting around talking. I enjoy most of my school subjects, especially ones with a creative edge, such as art, DT, drama and English. I also like languages, particularly French, as they are both useful and interesting. I am currently learning Mandarin, too. I’m not really sure what I want to be, although I would quite like to be a lawyer as I find law extremely interesting and I also want to do something that would help people. I would also like to do something creative – possibly an author – as I enjoy writing, and would love to make a career of it!’ Miriam: you are multi-talented and enjoy so many pursuits. You are also very concerned about the wider world around you. Again, in your own words: ‘A really important issue at the moment is global climate change, so I would like to do something to help that. After all, this is the only planet we have, so we need to look after it.’

Miriam: Preparing for this day has been a journey, and it has also been a process of transformation. As you put it: ‘Over the past year, I have changed in many ways – not least my height! I have become more organised (despite what my mum would say!), responsible and mature, and have more confidence in myself and my abilities.’ Of course, you recognise that you have been accompanied on your journey – learning so much from your tutor, Andy, you have also been surrounded by your friends and family. Again, in your own words: ‘They have helped and supported me so much, and I don’t know where I would be without them.’

Miriam: your family and friends are with you today, and they will always be with you. Nevertheless, today marks a beginning for you alone, the beginning of another stage in your unique life’s journey. Psalm 121, closes with these words (:8): ‘May the Eternal One guard your going out and your coming in now and always’ – Adonai yishmor tzeit’cha u’voecha mei’atah v’ad olam. And in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, in the parashah, Ki Tavo, we find a similar sentiment, expressed the other way round (:6): ‘Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out’ – Baruch atah b’vo’echa u’varuch atah b’tzeitecha. Miriam: today these words of blessing are for you: May you go out and may you come in, and go out again, embracing all the gifts of life from this day onwards. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue, 28^th January 2012 – 4^th Sh’vat 5772

THE STORY OF CHANUKKAH: THE FIRST STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION

Did you listen to Radio 4’s, In Our Time, when the panel of experts assembled by Melvyn Bragg, focused on Judas Maccabeus (24.11.11)? Whether or not the listener was familiar with the history behind the story of Chanukkah, the programme was absolutely fascinating. Having celebrated the festival of lights since I was a small child, and then learnt about the historical and political significance of Chanukkah much later when I was a rabbinic student at Leo Baeck College, I thought I had a fairly good grasp of the ins and outs of the story. But the programme made a point that I hadn’t fully appreciated before: The revolt of the Hasmoneans – of Mattathias, the priest of Mod’in, and his sons – against the tyrannical regime of the Seleucid King Antiochus IV was the first national liberation struggle in the history of the world.

Brought up on the legend of the miracle of the one day’s supply of oil that lasted for eight made famous by the rabbis of the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), although Jews celebrate the victory of the Maccabees over the wicked Emperor, who banned the practice of Judaism, the festival is primarily about the triumph of the Jewish religion over pagan worship. We learn that three years after Antiochus IV became ruler, and Judah Maccabee and his band began their campaign of resistance, on 25^th Kislev 164 BCE, they entered the Temple, which had been turned into a pagan shrine, cleansed it completely, rebuilt the altar of un-hewn stones, as prescribed in the Torah, re- kindled the m’norah, and re-dedicated the sacred site to the service of God. And then, because a miracle was wrought, and the meagre one day’s supply of untainted oil, still protected with the seal of the high priest, lasted for eight days, the victors established a new eight-day festival called Chanukkah – which means, ‘dedication’.

That is the tale of Chanukkah – the triumph of religious piety over paganism and religious intolerance, which concludes with the restoration of Jewish worship. But as it happens, that glorious moment of spiritual renewal was not the end of the story. The struggle of the Maccabees against the Seleucids went on for a further 24 years, until the empire was finally defeated in the year 140 BCE, and an independent Judean state was established. In other words, the Hasmoneans were not just motivated by religious zeal, they will also propelled by a political goal. And their political achievement was, indeed, remarkable: The first independent Jewish nation since the Babylonians destroyed the kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE, 446 years earlier, Judea was the last independent Jewish nation until the foundation of the State of Israel in May 1948. But more than this, the establishment of Judea represented the triumph of the first concerted campaign for National liberation in human history.

It is one of the ironies of Jewish life that forever accused by the anti-Semites of controlling the world – as money-crazed ‘Capitalists’ or power-hungry ‘Communists’ – depending on the particular political perspective of the particular anti-Semites concerned, the unique gifts that Judaism has bequeathed to the world are rarely recognised. The teachings and core narratives of the Torah, simultaneously co-opted and denied by unreconstructed Christian supremacists, the real story of Jewish life and the Jewish people has been completely marginalised.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Just the other day, the daughter of a dear friend and cousin of mine, who goes to a very good girls’ school in London, and is studying for an A-level in Theology and Philosophy, told me that her teacher had recently insisted that ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ was a unique teaching of Jesus, and would not accept that Jesus was quoting from the Torah. She has since been put right by chapter and verse: Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18 to be precise.

And then there is the Christmas story: As Jess pointed out in her Chanukkah sermon two years ago, there are parallels between the Jesus and Moses narratives. And they are not accidental: As baby Moses grew up to be the Liberator of the Israelites, so baby Jesus – as his Hebrew name, Yeshu, suggests became the Saviour – the Hebrew root, Yud Shin Ayin means to ‘save’. But the way in which the Jesus narrative echoes aspects of the Moses narrative is seldom acknowledged by Christians – and more significantly, the Jewish story is trumped by the Christian story: while Moses was responsible for the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery, Jesus, according to Christian doctrine, is the Saviour of us all.

Now, it is not my intention to have a go at Christianity. And it is gratifying that in response to the Sho’ah, in recent years, a considerable amount of rethinking has been going on in Christian circles about Judaism – not least within the Catholic Church. But the fact remains that Judaism has been consigned to the side-lines – and even the introduction of the teaching of Judaism among other religions in the National Curriculum has not done much to change this. Another anecdote: I learnt recently that a Jewish child, who attends a local mainstream secondary school, not only had to sit in a class where the Religious Studies teacher told the pupils that Jews go to church, but when this Jewish child put up her hand, and pointed out that Jews, actually, go to synagogue, she was corrected and told she was wrong! Thankfully, a number of schools in Brighton and Hove and across the country, do actually make visits to synagogues, so school pupils have a chance to hear about Judaism in Jewish life directly from Jews – and we are fortunate, that for the several years, Eileen Field, took responsibility for the crucial task of hosting and leading school trips – and that, more recently, other members of the congregation have also volunteered to do this. Perhaps, it is only a matter of time before these children grow up with a better understanding of Judaism than their parents – and teachers. We can but hope…

But at this point I’m not very hopeful. Because it’s not just a matter of ignorance; it is also a matter of prejudice. Did you know that the latest issue of the Green Party’s, Green World magazine (GW 74), featuring the teachings of the different religions concerning ecology, makes a spectacular omission: Yes, three Christian perspectives, and Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism all represented – but no mention of Judaism! I know about this because Jess is a member of the Green Party, and she has got back to them about it. So, how can it be that one of the great world religions, indeed, the first great monotheistic religion, that has celebrated the New Year for Trees – Tu Bishvat – for almost 2000 years (see Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1), was not included?

That question brings me back to Chanukkah – and the first struggle for national liberation in human history. The point is, most non-Jews don’t get it – indeed, many Jews don’t get it: Judaism is not, simply, a religion. It is not even, simply, a way of life. Judaism is a civilisation, encompassing religious, economic, and political dimensions, which also encompasses many cultures and ethnicities, plural ways of living, multi-various denominations, and differing and often conflicting understandings.  And if Judaism is complicated, the Jewish people, completely defies definition. Are we one people, or several peoples? Or are we several peoples within one people? When the Hasmonean family established an independent state of Judea in the year 140 BCE, there were already Jewish communities living in the diaspora – in Babylon – present-day Iraq – and in Alexandria – on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Egypt. Indeed, since the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel around the year 722 BCE, and scattered ten of the twelve tribes, the Jewish people has encompassed numberless Jewish communities, living in very different geographical, political, economic and cultural settings across the globe. So, even back then, just as today, one could speak of the Jewish nation and of the Jewish people, and be talking about two very different phenomena. I would take a guess that the reason that the Green Party has omitted Judaism from its publication on ecology, is because, having identified Judaism with Israel, and having taken a principled stance against the Jewish state because of its treatment of the Palestinians, they are unable to acknowledge, either Jewish teaching or the existence of the Jewish people, as distinct from the Jewish state.

But then there is something else going on – which brings me back to another aspect of the Chanukkah story. Who would have thought a year ago that there would be an ‘Arab Spring’ – that people living in despotic regimes across the Arab world – in Tunisia, in Libya, and in Yemen and in Syria – would rise up and challenge their tyrannical rulers? On the one hand, these revolts represent a triumph of technology, of the Internet and Facebook, of ethereal phenomena conjured up in cyberspace that know no boundaries of geography, and so, like a fresh cool breeze in springtime, have blown through the cracks, even of authoritarian societies, shuttered up against the winds of change.

On the other hand, the revolts in the Arab world represent the resurgence of something equally intangible and ethereal, but much more ancient: Hope. It is possible to see the rapid spread of revolt as a consequence of the Internet, generating ever widening circles of communication. But all the Internet explains is the mechanism, it doesn’t explain the impulse. Like the Israelites Moses encountered when he returned to Egypt on his mission, ‘crushed in spirit’ (Exodus 6:9), one might imagine that after decades of repression, people across the Arab world are also crushed in spirit. But then again, like the slaves, ‘groaning’ under their burdens (Exodus 2:23), the groaning of the Tunisian and Libyan and Yemenite and Syrian peoples have become a cry of protest. Every voice raised in protest is a voice of hope – the hope that the protest will be heard, the hope that protest will lead to change.

Ultimately, that is the message of Chanukkah – that is the miracle of Chanukkah: ‘Not by might, more by power, but by my spirit says the Eternal God of hosts’ (Zechariah 4:6). The passage from the book of Zechariah that the rabbis chose as the Haftarah reading for Shabbat Chanukkah, expresses the rabbis take on the Maccabean victory, and makes sense of the miracle story we read in the Talmud. Yes, the struggle continued after the Temple was retaken in 164 BCE, and eventually the rebels were victorious, and established an independent state of Judea. But their success in the political realm was just that: a political triumph – and as it happens, with state power added to priestly power, the Hasmonean family eventually became corrupt. The story of the miracle of the oil is important because it reminds us of the miracle that is the flame of hope that, inexplicably, ignites in the human heart, even in the darkest of dark times. The process of liberation begins, when people, however crushed in body and broken in spirit they may be, somehow from somewhere deep inside themselves, begin to nurture the hope to be free.

And that is the ultimate miracle proclaimed by the accumulating flames of Chanukkah – that step-by-step, moment by moment, flame by flame, individuals, connecting together, ignite the hope that they can transform their circumstances and overcome tyranny. As we kindle the flames each evening, may we also kindle sparks of hope in our own hearts. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

                                                                                                                                                                  24^th December 2011/ 28^th Tevet 5772

BEING YOUR OWN PERSON – THE BAT MITZVAH OF CONNNIE WARD-LEE

Every Bar or Bat Mitzvah is a unique and special occasion, and every Bat or Bar Mitzvah is a unique and special individual. And yet, there is something particularly unique and particularly special, both, about this occasion and about this individual.

Connie: here you are today. You have already led the service beautifully for us this Shabbat morning, and in a short while you will read from the sacred scroll of the Torah. When you called us to prayer by singing the Bar’chu you did at least two unique things. First and foremost, you called us together as a congregation – which is what the Bar’chu is all about. But as you sang, you also expressed who you are in your own unique and special way: you told us all, hinneini – ‘here I am’ – this is Connie.

Yes, Connie: here you are. What do I mean by here? Of course, you are not in the synagogue sanctuary, which has become so familiar to you over the years since you were a small child. I know how much the synagogue sanctuary means to you. In your own words: ‘the Ark is beautiful, and I’ve always loved pulling the cord to open the curtains – I’ve always tried to stand next to the cord on the bimah.’ And just because the ark curtain has been so important to you, thanks to Michael, we now have a new temporary ark, with a curtain – just for you! Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we can return to our synagogue home, and are able to enjoy it again – repaired and refurbished, and minus all the leaks!

So, what I mean by here you are, is that here you are in the heart of your community – which is what a synagogue is all about. And: here you are being who you are – a courageous, life-loving, fun-loving, mischievous, utterly determined individual.

Before you read from the scroll, you are going to give your d’var Torah, your own commentary on your portion, Tol’dot. There are so many things one can say about your portion. We are all looking forward to hearing your particular take on it. And now, I’m going to say a little about how I think the story of Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Rebecca and Isaac, relates to you.

The tale of Jacob and Esau is sad and disturbing. Here they were, twin brothers. They could have been the best of friends, as many twins are. But their mother, Rebecca, knew enough about the ways of the world at that time, to understand that only one son would inherit the birth-right due to the eldest son. So, keeping Jacob close to her at home, he became her favourite, and Rebecca made plans to ensure that, although born second, Jacob would be the one to inherit his father, Isaac’s blessing.

Meanwhile, Esau, a hunter, the man of action, became his father’s favourite. On the surface, what Isaac loved about Esau was simply that he cooked him delicious stews whenever he came back from hunting (Genesis 25:28). But there was something more profound going on. Isaac nearly died, when his father, Abraham, took him on a journey and very nearly took his life, because God had told him to do so (Genesis 22). Isaac was saved at the last minute, but did he really ever recover from his trauma? We learnt in last week’s Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah, that Sarah died immediately afterwards. How did Isaac feel after that terrifying experience? The Torah doesn’t tell us. All we are told is that Abraham instructed his servant to go back to his birthplace, Haran, and find a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24). And then, after the servant returned with Rebecca, Isaac simply took her into his tent, and was, as the Torah says, ‘comforted for his mother.’ (Genesis 24:67).

As soon as we begin to read the tale of Jacob and Esau, it becomes clear that Isaac was a broken man. Who was Esau to Isaac? The kind of man he could never have been: full of energy and life. And when Esau cooked those stews for his father, wasn’t he comforting Isaac, just as Rebecca had comforted him, when they had first got married? But then after she became a mother, Rebecca’s focus of attention became Jacob, not Isaac; her concern was for the future, not for the past.

It becomes clear when we examine the tragic story of this dysfunctional family that Esau and Jacob never had a chance to be the brothers they could have been. Their parents’ needs defined their lives. Connie, I’m not surprised you found it a little challenging relating to this story – because your experience of your family life has been so different. In your own words: ‘I love my brother because he is awesome. He listens to me, let me join in, he helps me and he’s really kind. I love my parents because they are helpful because they believe in me because they did all these things for me. I love all my family and I’m glad I came to this family.’ Your family also includes your animals. As you put it: ‘I love my hamster, even though she’s a bit naughty: she ate through the Internet cable and she chewed a big hole in my curtain. I love my dog – Nancy Small And Naughty Ward Lee’. And you also ‘love baking and helping Pam next door with her horses’. You ‘loved going to France’ with your family and ‘staying in Sandra and Cliff’s caravan.’

Connie: Unlike Esau and Jacob, you have such positive experiences of family life. Your loving parents, Trudy and Janet, have devoted themselves to enabling you to grow and have done – and continue to do – everything in their power to ensure that you enjoy your life to the full.

In a way, the story of Jacob and Esau teaches us a negative lesson – because it teaches us about how families should not behave. It also teaches us about what it means to be an individual. Of course, we are disturbed by how Rebecca and Jacob go about deceiving Isaac, and by how Jacob takes advantage of Esau. But at a deeper level, the tale is also exploring how a member of a family, any family, becomes their own person. Jacob was only able to become his own person by taking flight from Esau’s anger. The Torah doesn’t tell us anything about Esau’s life after Jacob’s departure. But when they meet one another again after 20 years, we can tell by Esau’s dignified demeanour that he has managed to come into himself during his brother’s absence (Genesis 32-33).

Meanwhile, the Torah focuses on Jacob, and as he is deceived by his uncle Laban into marrying Leah, we can see him struggling to find himself over the years he spends in Laban’s household (Genesis 28-31). In the end, it is only after his night-time struggle on the eve of his reunion with Esau, that we see Jacob emerging as himself. He has survived his terrors and overcome his fear about meeting his brother again, but he is wounded in the thigh, and is limping (Genesis 32:32). Jacob, the favoured one, had to suffer before he could begin to take responsibility for his own life, and learn to live with his damaging family experiences – although he didn’t learn enough to avoid perpetuating the parental favouritism syndrome with his own children.

Connie: you have done more to become your own person in the first 13 years of your life, than Jacob managed in a lifetime. You have shown enormous strength and determination, and been prepared to work so hard to stand before us here today, ready to start your journey into adulthood. Fortunately, in addition to your wonderful parents and the best big brother ever, you have been loved and supported by many, many people since the time that you were born.

These special people include: Anna, the nurse who used to go and play with you, when you were in hospital as a small baby, before you joined your family; Lesley, the social worker you had at that time; Gerry, the social worker who assessed your mums as adopters and recommended that they would be allowed to adopt you; Sian, the paediatrician who was on the adoption panel that approved the match, and supported your mums, so they understood how to care for you; Karen, the head teacher at the infants school who worked hard to make sure that the school took care of your health needs, and that you were very much included in all aspects of school life; Maddie, the reception teacher who taught you how to read and shared her passion for high heeled shoes with you – and, yes, Connie, I think we have all noticed the lovely black patent shoes you’re wearing today! The other special people who have helped you along the way are Jenny and Alison, the teaching assistants, who worked the whole time with you in school, feeding you and doing regular blood tests; and Charlotte, the art psychotherapist who helped you make sense of your life and your health needs.

All these people have helped you to become who you are – and as a result you enjoy your school life and really care about education, and like a lot of subjects. I think I only liked one or two that your age, but your list includes: Music, Drama, English, IT, Science, History and Geography – practically the whole curriculum!

And your life has also been blessed by other special people, who have played very important roles: Annabel, who has been part of your extended family, and has always been there for you, when you wanted to talk things over; your wider family and friends, including Laura and Oscar who have come from France to be here today; and the families from the lesbian and gay adoption group.

And then there is the synagogue, which is like your village. The members and friends of BHPS – many of whom are here today – have been so happy to watch you growing and developing in confidence, and have enjoyed seeing you enjoy yourself, like when you dance to Adon Olam. The synagogue is very ‘important’ to you. In your own words: ‘[It] feels like a friendly warm place. Lots of people love me and I feel very safe here. Coming to synagogue means I get to meet all my friends. I like singing Adon Olam, Mah Tovu, the Sh’ma and the Amidah [and] I like talking to people.’

In the past year, the synagogue has meant more than anything else, preparing for your Bat Mitzvah, and you have been helped, in particular, by your teacher, Eileen, and your tutor, Harry, who have supported you and guided you along the way. For you, again in your own words, ‘becoming Bat Mitzvah is about growing up and becoming an adult in the community. I’m excited about going to KT with Miriam in January. I have loved the evenings at Harry’s – learning with him and then being able to play with his dog. Harry makes me laugh and I love him singing. Becoming Bat Mitzvah [also] means I can wear high-heeled shoes.’ Connie: you realise that you have changed over the last year: you’ve ‘grown taller’ and ‘learnt lots of Hebrew.’ You have also ‘made more friends at school.’

Connie: there is no doubt about it, being Jewish is special to you. For you – again in your own words: ‘Being Jewish means having fun. I like my teachers. I love doing Shabbat. I usually make challah at home. We sing the blessings and I love singing. We find out about how the week has gone for everyone around the table.’ For you, being Jewish also includes your LJY-Netzer youth activities. When you go to Kadimah, you ‘love their soup and dumplings.’ You also ‘like making Havdalah’ – again because you love the singing.’ Anna and Sam from LJY have helped you become a 21st century Liberal Jew, and become part of the community of young people away from your family.

Connie: many of the people who are here today have watched you as you have made an incredible journey. And now you’re about to start a new one. In the future, you would like to work with horses because, as you put it, ‘They are big and beautiful and fast at running – [and] when I’m with horses it feels really peaceful.’ You also have hopes for the future – and again I’m quoting from you: ‘I care about people having chances like I had a chance moving into a new family.’ You would also like to play your part in ‘making less pollution.’ You think people shouldn’t ‘use their cars so often and just use public transport.’ If we did this, as you put it, ‘The world would be a healthier place.’

Connie: we hope that your dreams for the future come true – for yourself and for the world around you. But before you get to the future, I know that everyone gathered here today joins me in congratulating you for reaching this special moment in your own special way. We are hugely proud of you and everything that you have achieved. We also send you all our warmest good wishes as you begin your journey as a teenager. Above all, we hope that you will continue to go from strength to strength, singing and dancing and celebrating, and continuing to be the unique individual that you are. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

 26^th November 2011 – 29^th Cheshvan 5772

THE SUKKAH OF COMMUNITY

On Sunday, a group of friends came round to help us build our sukkah. We couldn’t do it ourselves, because last year, one of these friends decided we had to have a ‘proper’ halachic sukkah – he isn’t Jewish by the way – so he proceeded to investigate the rules for building a sukkah on the Internet. As a result of his research, he went on to create six large ply-wood wall panels, two for each of the three of the sides of his design, which we then painted and decorated with pictures. Kept in the garage since after last Sukkot, these panels are not easy to move, have to be fitted together, and then bolted into place on the deck behind the house – hence the need for a team of helpers.

So, what constitutes a ‘halachic sukkah’? The rules for the construction of a sukkah, first discussed by the rabbis in the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the 200 CE, are set out clearly – minus the rabbinic discussions and disagreements – in the Shulchan Aruch, the code of law created by Sephardi Rabbi Joseph Caro, and first published in 1565, which soon became authoritative throughout the Jewish world.[1]

According to the halachah, a sukkah is a temporary structure constructed explicitly for the festival of Sukkot. It should be erected in the open air, under the sky, not in a room or under a tree (Orach Chayyim, Shulchan Aruch 626:1). It consists of a minimum of three walls. Theoretically, two complete walls and part of a third wall satisfy the minimum requirements, but it is customary to have four walls (Rama on 630:5).[2] The walls should be strong enough to withstand the impact of ordinary winds (630:10), and should not be constructed as a cone, because a sukkah implies s’khakh, the word for the covering on the top of the sukkah. S’khakh – which like the words, sukkah and Sukkot, is derived from the Hebrew root, Sameich Kaf Kaf – must be made of material that grows from soil, and has been detached from the ground (629:1), excluding grasses or leaves that dry quickly and start falling, or greenery that has an offensive odour (629:14). The s’khakh should be loose enough that one can see the sky, yet thick enough so that the shadow it casts on the ground exceeds the light thrown by the sun (631:1, 3). No gaps measuring three hand breadths, or about 12 inches, or longer, may be left in the s’khakh (632:2).  The sukkah itself should be at least seven by seven hand-breadths in area – approximately 26 inches square – the minimum space necessary for a least one person (633:1). The Mishnah records, that according to the school of Shammai, the sukkah must be large enough to contain a man’s head, most of his body, and his table (Sukkah 2:7); while the school of Hillel disagreed about the table. The sukkah should not be more than 20 cubits high – about 30 feet (631:1), since it would then require very strong walls, and would cease to be a temporary dwelling. On the basis of the rabbinic principle, that the commandments should have aesthetic appeal (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 133b), it is customary to decorate the sukkah.

The building of a sukkah is a mitzvah, an obligation for each individual, but because some people may find it difficult to build their own sukkah, since the Middle Ages, it has been customary for congregations to build a sukkah on synagogue premises.[3] It is sufficient for those who are unable to build their own sukkah, to fulfil the other mitzvah associated with the sukkah, which is to ‘dwell’ in the synagogue sukkah – during kiddush after the service, and while eating together with the congregation. The mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah may be fulfilled by sitting in the sukkah because the Hebrew root, Yud Shin Beit means, both, ‘dwell’ and ‘sit’.

So, a sukkah is a temporary dwelling; but open to the skies and the elements, it is certainly not a shelter. Our ancestors dwelt in tents – ohalim – in the wilderness, and the Torah speaks of the ohel mo’eid, ‘the tent of meeting’ at the heart of the camp (Exodus 33:7). Nevertheless the Torah relates that while the people were wandering for those forty years, the Eternal One caused them to dwell in sukkot (Leviticus 23:43) – the word used for the ‘huts’, constructed during harvest time, once the people had entered the land. So why does the Torah say that the Eternal One caused our ancestors to dwell in sukkot during the wilderness years? Have two traditions got mixed up – or may there be something else going on here?

By way of responding to that question, I want to tell you what happened before everyone got down to sukkah-building on Sunday.

Our sukkah-building friends were all going to have lunch with us beforehand, so I went out to do some shopping. I discovered that Seaford, usually a quiet and sleepy place, can get extremely busy at around 11 AM on a Sunday morning, so I found it quite difficult to find a parking space. Fortunately, after driving round a couple of times, I saw someone taking shopping to their car, so I made a beeline for the space, and waited for them to leave. While I was waiting, I noticed an old lady with a sturdy walking frame on wheels, a bag of shopping hanging from one of the handles. The car in front then moved, and by the time I was parked, I saw that she had reached the top of a steep flight of steps. Her walking frame still standing on the pavement, I quickly got out of the car and offered to carry it up for her. As I did so, I felt the heaviness of it, and when I reached the top, I asked her how she managed to carry it up and down, and how she felt about having to climb a steep flight of steps every time she went out. She thanked me and smiled, and said how much she loved her flat, because it has a bay window at the front, allowing her to sit there and watch the people going by – ‘so I never get lonely,’ she said. As I walked down the steps, I took in the view in front of the house: just the back end of Morrison’s, and a block of flats. But for her, the view wasn’t about what most of us would mean by a view, for her, having a view, meant being able to see people.

I was pondering what the old lady had taught me about what really matters, when you’re elderly and living alone, as I walked into Morrison’s. Having lived near Seaford for just 18 months so far, I haven’t quite got over how friendly people are. When I arrived at the checkout, a young man was on the till. After asking me the statutory question, ‘Can I help you with your shopping?’ he commented on how the weather had improved that morning, and we got into a conversation, as he checked items. I told him how pleased I was that the sun had come out, because a group of friends were coming round and we were going to be in the garden. He told me had planned to go out in the afternoon after work, but he was so tired, he was going to go to bed. ‘Did you have a late-night?’ I asked – expecting him to tell me he had gone to a club. ‘Yes’, he replied; ‘me and a group of mates went down to the beach because it was free, and ended up hanging round there for hours.’

It is easy to get lost in the detail of all the halachic requirements for building the sukkah, and miss the fundamental point. Again: the sukkah structure is not designed to shelter us. We build it in remembrance of our ancestors’ experience of living in the desert and sleeping under the stars, and so we build it in such a way that, while it actually conforms more to the huts built in the fields at harvest time, it also recreates the sense of being at the mercy of the elements. And yet, our ancestors survived those forty years. According to the Torah they survived because God was with them – the Eternal One, like a sukkah, not protecting them from the elements, but rather, enabling them to endure in that barren, exposed landscape nonetheless. But they had more than the Eternal One; they had one another. The presence of God may have sustained them, but it was through their own collective efforts that they created a dwelling place for the Eternal and for themselves, constructing a community together in the wilderness.[4]

Can someone living alone feel part of a neighbourhood community? Despite having to get herself up a steep flight of stairs every time she ventured out, despite having to go back down the stairs again and drag up her walking frame, each time she returned, the old lady I met on Sunday said she loved her. How often have you heard a person living on their own say that they have to get out because they can’t bear looking at the four walls? Well, she didn’t have to look at the four walls, she could look out and see people, and feeling connected to others, meant that she did not feel lonely.

Traditionally, even though technically, as the Mishnah shows us, it is possible to have a sukkah big enough for just one person, the sukkah is supposed to be an opportunity for people to get together. It is traditional to invite ushpizin, the ancestors of our people, as Divine visitors into the sukkah,[5] and it is also a mitzvah to welcome family, friends and strangers as guests. A sukkah, however perfectly constructed, according to the halachic rules, is not complete without people in it – and, indeed, ultimately, a sukkah may be understood, symbolically, as the people; as a community. What can we learn from that young man, who spent Saturday evening on the beach? Clubs and pubs are expensive, but, as he told me, the beach is ‘free’. Why did he have such a good time outside on a windy night? Because he was with a group of friends; together these young people created a sukkah, a space to be and share together and reinforce their relationships.

While sukkah-building was going on in my back garden on Sunday, a group of members and friends of the synagogue gathered to dismantle and remove the contents of the synagogue building, in preparation for the completion of the sale of 26 Farm Road. As with the gathering at my home, I’ve been told that food was an essential ingredient to the proceedings! Significantly, the word ‘synagogue’ is a Greek translation of the Hebrew, k’hillah, and both the Greek and Hebrew words mean ‘assembly’. Thinking about what a great time everyone had clearing the synagogue on Sunday, reminds us that what the synagogue is really about is not the building, but the people. While dismantling all the signs of life, and emptying the synagogue of its contents, at the same time the individuals who came together for this important task, reinforced the bonds of fellowship, and demonstrated what a strong and vibrant community we are.

This coming weekend a group of our young people will enjoy a Sukkot camping experience in the Sussex woods, organised in conjunction with the Sussex Wildlife Trust, and on Sunday afternoon, everyone is invited to the sukkah in my back garden. As we embark on a new journey, without our building, may the image of the sukkah be a source of inspiration to us wherever we gather and celebrate together, and in all the ways we support one another, over the weeks and months to come. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Sukkot 5772 – 13^th October 2011

IN SEARCH OF ‘A FUTURE AND A HOPE’

Why are we here today? Each one of us will have our own answers to that question – and those who are not sure why they are here today, may find answers in the course of the next few hours. I don’t have any official answers to give you. What I can say is that Yom Kippur is a special opportunity to be with ourselves and with one another, and to reflect on our lives and on the challenges of Life itself. As we share this precious day, I would like to invite you at some point, to take a moment to identify the questions you bring with you today, and to think about any questions you may have about the world outside – and in particular, about the society we are living in right now in Britain in 2011.

In the meantime, I want to remind you about a couple of significant events that took place over the summer. On July 23^rd a young woman called Amy Winehouse died alone in her Camden Square townhouse, while her bouncer slept below.[1] September 14^th would have been her 28^th birthday. Who was she? A lonely little waif, blessed with a big voice? A nice Jewish girl, who lost her way? A wonderful jazz singer and musician, gobbled up by the insatiable public hunger to consume other people’s talent? A home-girl, who couldn’t cope with fame, and so turned to drink and drugs? An exceptionally gifted artist, who allowed her less talented partner to lead her astray – and then couldn’t mend her own broken heart? Just another over-blown celebrity?

Maybe she was all these things – and more – but if she did become a celebrity, always in the spotlight, judging by how she responded to fame, she certainly didn’t want to be. Whatever you thought of her, Amy Winehouse was what most celebrities certainly are not: a prodigious talent. And even more important: there was real substance to her; intelligence, character, personality, integrity. Amy Winehouse wasn’t just famous for being famous.

And then there was something quite complex going on in the sad tale of her demise. Having won multiplatinum awards for her album, Back to Black, the first single from the album, ‘Rehab’, didn’t just become a top 10 hit, it stayed in the charts for 57 weeks, selling 10 million copies.[2] As a result of the success of ‘Rehab’, Amy Winehouse became the first British singer to win Five Grammy awards. But what was she saying with this song? ‘They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.’ A hip, cool lyric? No. It’s a cry of utter despair. Is that why so many people bought the single? Because they were as intoxicated with the palpable anguish of Amy Winehouse, as she herself was with alcohol? The Guardian columnist, Alexandra Topping observed, ‘At the messy and makeshift shrine outside Winehouse’s home, with its vodka bottles and cigarette packets, flowers and portraits, some fans cried. Others took oddly awkward photographs of themselves outside the place where she spent her last hours.’[3] Apparently, one fan who went to watch the coffin go past outside Golder’s Green crematorium, remarked, ‘We saw her deterioration every day, in every picture. It’s like we were on a journey with her. So many people just wanted her to get better.’[4] So, Amy Whitehouse, her wretchedness writ large, somehow, perhaps, representing the misery of others – and holding out the hope, that if she could recover and find purpose and meaning in her life, so could they?

Amy Winehouse had many, many fans; but, no doubt, despite the fact that her music really belonged to the more intimate world of the jazz clubs frequented by an older generation, she captured the hearts and imaginations of tens of thousands of young people, whose adoration helped catapult her into the stratosphere of stardom.

So, what about these young people? Of course, it’s a coincidence that on August 6^th just two weeks after Amy Winehouse died, following a protest march in Tottenham, North London concerning a fatal police shooting two days earlier, a riot broke out, which soon sparked five days of rioting in towns and cities across Britain. Less than a week later, about 3,100 people had been arrested, of whom more than 1,000 had been charged.[5]  Of course, the rioters were not just young people. However, already on the third day of the rioting, it was clear that the majority of the rioters were young. In its on-line data-blog of August 9^th, The Guardian recorded that of the 155 people arrested in London the previous night, whose age was known, 2 were born in the 1960s, 6 were born in the 1970s, 49 were born in the 1980s, and 98 were born in the 1990s.[6]

At the time, and since, so many reasons have been offered to explain the rioting:  poor relations with the police, family breakdown, unemployment, government cuts, social exclusion, gang culture, criminal opportunism, and a lack of moral leadership at the top, being among the main causes cited by pundits and politicians of various persuasions. If we consider these factors, it is evident that the younger members of our society have been disproportionately affected, let down, in particular, by an educational system that fails to meet the needs of the majority, and by cuts in the youth provision, especially the closure of youth clubs, in response to the economic crisis. Of course, only a very small proportion of people, all together, were involved in the riots – and so, consequently, a small proportion of young people, too. And no doubt, the ‘copycat’ factor cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, the riots revealed an issue that has nothing to do with numbers, and which exposes something very troubling at the heart of our society: anomie – the word used by the 19^th century French sociologist, Emil Durkheim, to express the sense of futility, hopelessness, meaninglessness and lack of purpose.[7]

In his Guardian column published on the same day as those interesting statistics – Tuesday, August 9^th – Jonathan Freedland commented on what he saw as an absence of ‘political purpose’ in the riots. He wrote: ‘For some, especially at the start in Tottenham, there was clearly a political dimension – with the police the prime focus of their anger. But … It’s striking that the targets have not been town halls or, say, Tory HQ – stormed by students last November – but branches of Dixons, Boots and Carphone Warehouse. If they are making a political statement, it is that politics does not matter.’ Yes, not just those who looted and burned, it seems a lot of people have the feeling, as they watch politicians lie and cheat, and fail to deal constructively with the economic crisis, that politics does not matter – and ethical behaviour doesn’t matter either. But one thing can make a difference to people’s lives: ‘stuff’; valuable material goods – flat-screen TVs and smart phones, and fashionable clothes. And in our society, who is more desperate to grab hold of ‘stuff’ than young people with no hope of obtaining any employment, let alone a good job?

And before we get too moralistic about the preoccupation with ‘stuff’, let’s not forget that those who seem consumed with a craving to have all the latest consumer products, only want what other people – including some of us – already have and take for granted. But, as it happens, those who feel marginalised and excluded, do want something more – which brings me back to Amy Winehouse and the issue of the culture of celebrity.

Amy Winehouse was a hero for some young people – perhaps, for those, who like her, struggled to make sense of their lives. For other young people, there are other heroes: pop stars, footballers; the people who have made it – many of whom, significantly, did not do well at school. But then, anyone who has watched ‘The X Factor’, or ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, can see that the contestants, even the deluded ones with no aptitude for anything save self-exposure, are looking, not simply for fame, but for significance; they want their lives to amount to something; they want their lives to matter.

Isn’t this what we all want? Isn’t that why we are here today on Yom Kippur; the most sacred day of the Jewish year? Whether we consider ourselves ‘religious’, ‘cultural’ or ‘secular’ Jews; whether we are Jewish or Jew-ish; whether we are Jewish first and foremost, or human beings first and foremost – or vice versa – don’t we, too, sometimes struggle to understand the purpose of our lives? Are we not, also, in search of meaning – even those among us, who find meaning in being parents? Whatever our personal circumstances, doesn’t each person want to feel that our individual lives matter – and that what we do, or don’t do, makes a difference? And so, whether questioning and sceptical, or open and ready to receive, we have gathered here to go on a journey towards atonement – at-one-ment – a journey to discover, or rediscover, ourselves, and to explore the purpose of our lives.

But then, as we embark on the journey, provided we are prepared to go with the flow, we discover something paradoxical. Because this day out of the ordinary, daily routine of our lives gives us an opportunity to be with ourselves for a while, it also has the potential of liberating us from the burden of making our lives significant. We may come here feeling unsure of ourselves, uncertain about where we are going; we may want to find answers; we may be looking for reassurance and affirmation. And then, if we allow ourselves to enter this eternal moment, we discover that eternity, for all its mystery, is a much more powerful reality. And so, we can take comfort, perhaps, in our insignificance in the grand scheme of things. A prayer, originally composed by the rabbis for Yom Kippur,[8] addressing, Ribbon kol ha-olamim, the Sovereign of all worlds, ask these questions: Mah-anachcnu? What are we? Meh-chayyeinu? What is our life? Mah-chasdeinu? What is our love? Mah-y’shu’ateinu? What is our success? Mah-tzidkeinu? What is our justice? Mah-kocheinu? What is our endurance? Mah-g’vurateinu? What is our power? And then it goes on to say:

What can we say before you Eternal one our God and the God of our ancestors? Are not the mightiest of us as nothing before you, the famous as though they had never lived, the wise as if they had no knowledge, the discerning as if without understanding? For most of what we do is futile, and our life on earth is but a span; our superiority over other animals amounts to nothing, for all is vanity.

Like much of the liturgy of the yamim nora’im, literally, ‘awed days’, this prayer is couched in the first person plural. When it says ‘we’, it means, we human beings. As each one of us stepped into this service, bringing our questions and our doubts and our frailties with us, we became one, not simply with the Jewish people, but with humanity as a whole. Perhaps the most pressing problem of contemporary society is that so many people have lost touch with a sense of the eternal that might put their individual lives into perspective. Measured, appraised, labelled, and defined, according to judgmental criteria, which treat individuals as commodities, is it surprising that, both, those who succeed by these criteria, and those who fail to succeed, end up wondering what their lives are all about? Is it surprising, that young people, who feel dismissed, marginalised and worthless, try to distract themselves and realise themselves with dreams of fame and fortune?

Less than two weeks after the riots, a neon artwork by Tracey Emin, proclaiming the words, ‘More Passion’, was unveiled in 10 Downing Street.[9] What message was the Prime Minister, David Cameron, sending out with this acquisition? That: despite asserting the powers of law and order against the mob, he was still in tune with the passionate beat of a more liberal society? After all, Tracey Emin may be a supporter of the Conservative Party, but she is not exactly known for being a shining example of conservative values. But look more closely: Tracey Emin’s neon messages represent her, perhaps ironic, concession to glitz and commerce – and what better way for the Prime Minister to try to catch some of the glamour, than to proclaim to the world with a neon slogan, no less, that he is an advocate of ‘More Passion’. But is he prepared; is the government prepared; are ordinary citizens, like us, prepared to put the slogans and the headlines aside, and respond to the plight of young people, and give them hope?

Britain may not, as David Cameron declared on August 15^th, be ‘broken’, but it is not in perfect shape either – and there is no doubt that many people feel broken, or, feel broken-off and discarded by those in charge of the political and economic agenda. In Temple times, after the High Priest had finished making a three-fold confession, and had come out of the Holy of Holies, he would say a prayer for blessing and prosperity, peace and tranquillity, in the year ahead.[10] Today on Yom Kippur, as we face the challenge of repairing ourselves and our lives, let us ask questions about the plight of those who are currently failed by our society, and resolve to engage ourselves in the task of social repair, so that all the citizens of Britain may enjoy, in the words of the prophet Jeremiah (29:11), acharit v’tikvah – ‘a future and a hope’. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

 Yom Kippur Shacharit 5772, 8^th October 2010 – 10^th Tishri 5771

LIFE AS ART

The sun set a short while ago, and now, in the darkness we have embarked on the unique journey that is Yom Kippur. When I was preparing for this moment, my mind went back to a sunny Sunday in June. Unusually for a Sunday, I was in London, visiting one of my favourite haunts: the South Bank.  It was the place to be that afternoon. Among the star attractions: food stalls serving every kind of delicacy, beach huts and sandpits on the promenade, and a green roof garden on the Queen Elizabeth Hall. But the main attraction, as far as I was concerned, was the Tracey Emin retrospective exhibition being held at the Hayward Gallery.[1] It was a tour de force: striking colourful quilts and a partially collapsed wooden pier, complete with hut; neon signs and films; her early work, together with pieces in various media, exploring relationships with family and friends, and her own personal experiences; drawings and paintings; works in white and white neon, as well as sculpture. A real retrospective – with one curious exception: that infamous un-made bed that got Tracey Emin shortlisted for the Turner prize in 1999; apparently, the art collector, who owns it, wasn’t prepared to lend it …[2]

There is no doubt about it, Tracey Emin’s art is all about Tracey Emin – or so it seems. As we inspect all the memorabilia, and in particular, when we view the autobiographical films – a conversation with her mother, a scene at the seaside with her father, the account of one of her abortions, her review of her early days in Margate and her young ambition to be a dancer – it seems that Tracey Emin is telling all; revealing everything about herself.

I will say more about this in a moment. Before I do, I want to tell you about another exhibition. As I went round the Tracey Emin retrospective that day, for some reason my mind went back to another retrospective, held exactly 40 years earlier in the summer of 1971. I had just completed my O-levels, and my elder brother, Geoffrey and I, went together to see the op-artist, Bridget Riley’s show at the Hayward Gallery.[3] It was a dazzling experience – quite literally: the stewards all in dark glasses to protect them from the dazzling impact of vast canvases with their lines and squares and dots and triangles, shimmering light, forcing me to squint as I gazed.

It is impossible to imagine a greater contrast between the two exhibitions and the two artists. Seeing Tracey Emin’s work, the untutored spectator feels drawn into her life, her quirky personality, her pain, her struggles, her chutzpah, her flair, her obsessions, her passions. Seeing Bridget Riley’s paintings – the untutored spectator feels forced to step back, unsettled by the optical challenge, literally, unable to open one’s eyes fully, let alone one’s heart. What does it all mean? And when we learn that teams of students were marshalled to complete the works, to fill in the squares and dots and triangles – a massive task, requiring precision and hours of labour – we can’t help wondering: who is this artist? What is she about?

Of course, all the apparent differences in their art and the way they work as artists apart, Tracey Emin and Bridget Riley have something in common – not least, the fact that they are both women, and also that, in both cases, their detractors are inclined to say that what they are doing is not art: Tracey Emin being too self-indulgently confessional; and Bridget Riley, too abstract and technical.

So, what is art? As it happens, Tracey Emin and Bridget Riley have something else in common: despite appearances to the contrary, despite leaving school at 13, Tracey Emin graduated with an honours degree in printmaking from Maidstone College of Art, and later received a Master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in 1989. She was not only shortlisted for the Turner prize in 1999, in 2007 she represented Britain at the 52^nd Venice Biennale, was elected a Royal Academician, and was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Kent, London Metropolitan University and the Royal Academy of Art. The similarities with Bridget Riley are striking: Bridget Riley went to Goldsmith’s College of Art in 1949, and then on to the Royal College in 1952. Combining teaching with her painting, she had her first exhibition in 1960, and by 1968, was so well-regarded that, together with Philip King, she represented Britain at the 34^th Venice Biennale and won the International Prize for Painting – the first woman to do so.

Again: what is art? One answer to that question is, clearly, this kind of ‘evidence’.  But there is something much deeper going on – which is why I’ve chosen this evening, on Erev Yom Kippur, at this sacred service, to talk about these two artists. In her review of the Tracey Emin retrospective, the writer, Marina Warner, points out that ‘[T]here are long gaps in the story unfolded by these works’.[4] Yes, if you go along with the way in which Tracey Emin presents herself, you wouldn’t know that she got a Master’s degree at the prestigious Royal College of Art. Her formal artistic training is not part of her narrative. The issue is that Tracey Emin is not actually revealing her life to us, she is constructing and reconstructing her life-story; she is transforming her life experience through her art. The making of art is a process of transformation. Even something as evidently documentary as the video showing Tracey Emin talking about her most harrowing abortion is not simply a record of that experience. As the viewer listens to her story and watches her face, we get a sense of how the artist has contained her experience and placed it in a frame within the tale of her life, which she has crafted.

In the second account of creation, related in Genesis chapter 2, we read that, ‘The Eternal God formed the human being of the dust of the ground’ – Va-yyitzer Adonai Elohim et-ha-adam afar min-ha-adamah (:7a). Va-yyitzer – based on the Hebrew root letters, Yud TZadi Reish – to ‘form’. Genesis chapter 1 describes God as a Creator. In chapter 2, this more abstract notion is replaced by an image of God as an artist, a sculptor, hands in ha-adamah – in the red earth[5]; kneading ha-adam – the human being – into life: ha-adam from ha-adamah. And what of the human being? According to Genesis 1, the human being is created b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God’ (1:27). What does this mean? The passage in Genesis 2 goes on to tell us that ‘The Eternal God took the human being, and put him into the Garden of Eden l’ovdah u’l’shomrah – ‘to tend it and to keep it’. (2:15). So: the human being is a gardener – and an artist, too? Surely artists have special gifts and skills and a unique vision? And: are trained to be artists – just like Tracey Emin and Bridget Riley. Of course. Perhaps, a better way of putting it would be to say that every human being is an artist with a small ‘a’ – shaping his or her experience, crafting her or his own story; each one of us, creating and inventing, as we remember this and forget that, and present and re-present ourselves.

Of course, we are very rarely aware that this is what we are doing. But Yom Kippur is one of those rare moments when, stepping outside the routines of our daily lives for a day, we can become aware of how we are choosing to live, what we’re doing and not doing, and what we are saying about who we are to others, and also to ourselves. And if we are brave enough, Yom Kippur is also an opportunity to challenge ourselves and to re-form ourselves; to dig our hands deep into the mud of our lives and to re-shape ourselves anew.

My late mother’s closest sister, Victoria, aged 93 now, had a stroke in March. Fortunately, although she has problems with her swallow function, has lost sensory awareness on her left side, and has severe short-term memory loss, cared for at home around the clock, she is still able to enjoy many of her customary activities – like attending her synagogue every Shabbat and going to art exhibitions. I try to visit my aunt most Wednesdays, and on this particular Wednesday in August, I took her out to lunch. It was a sunny day, and so we sat outside. One of my aunt’s favourite pastimes is reciting poetry. She is very proud of the fact that when she attended Newington Green primary school, her teacher, Miss Spender, the sister of the artist Stephen Spender, used to call on her to recite a poem, whenever there were visitors. Since that time, she has relished her ability to memorise poems, and recite them with feeling. As we sat there that day, in the midst of our meal, she paused and suddenly quoted from the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: ‘O gift of God / O perfect day /…. / whereon it is enough for me / not to be doing, but to be’.[6]

There are probably not too many ‘perfect days’ in a lifetime – and to be able to experience a day as ‘perfect’, at the age of 93, and living with the aftermath of a stroke, is a ‘gift’, indeed. Today may not be a perfect day, but it is a gift of a day nonetheless, and on this gift of a day, released, briefly, from the tasks of the daily round, perhaps we may find a way of being with ourselves. But there is more to being then being with ourselves. As I said earlier, I’m not sure why visiting the Tracey Emin retrospective reminded me of the Bridget Riley retrospective forty years earlier. And I’m not sure why the Bridget Riley exhibition had such an impact on me, since I found it so bewildering. But it did have an impact. I was so taken by the experience at the time, that with my 16-year-old’s pocket money, I bought the 80 page catalogue. Perhaps, the fact that my Auntie Vicky and Uncle Bernard had opened an art gallery[7] sensitised me to the importance of art. But there was more to it than that. Somehow, even though I didn’t understand those paintings, I came away with a sense of the enormity of the experience that caught my breath. Was it simply that the paintings were so dazzling and commanding?

When I got home after visiting the Tracey Emin exhibition, I took out the Bridget Riley catalogue and began to read the 21 page introduction by Bryan Robertson. As an untrained eye, I find it quite difficult to make sense of an art critic’s analysis of a painter’s work, but two passages in the introduction – direct quotations from Bridget Riley – seem to me to get to the heart of the matter: ‘There are vast reserves of energy in everything and if you allow them to operate freely, relieved of pressures, concepts, malfunctions, distortions or perversities, or remove from them the burden of carrying or embodying the projected character, you are nearer to stimulating or unleashing a truly creative power’ (p.8). In their carefully crafted repeated patterns, which seem so abstract, impersonal and controlled, Bridget Riley’s paintings evoke the transcendent power of the universe and provide intimations of eternity. As Bridget Riley puts it: ‘Our bearings still suffer from the concept or suppositions of Renaissance theory, which is: “man as the measure of all things”. But man is part only of a bigger whole…’ (p.14).

If Tracey Emin’s flamboyant display testifies to the human being as an artist, with the power to relate and craft their own particular life, then Bridget Riley’s vast patterns remind us that humanity ‘is part only of a bigger whole’. Taken together, the creative output of these two artists, presents us with the blessing and the burden of being human. As Chasidic Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha (pronounced: Peschischa), in Poland, taught:[8]

Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: “For my sake was the world created.” But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: “I am but dust and ashes.”

Today, on Yom Kippur, we have the challenge of reaching into both pockets – of honouring ourselves with our scrupulous attention, and honouring the Eternal beyond, with our unconditional humility. May each one of us grasp that challenge and find the courage to acknowledge and receive the gifts of this special day.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Yom Kippur, 10^th Tishri 5772 – 8^th October 2011

Yom Kippur is the day when Jews across the world, gather together from sunset to sunset to confess their sins and failings, and journey towards forgiveness and atonement. But the day does not stand alone. Yom Kippur completes the ‘Days of Awe’, which begin ten days earlier on Rosh Ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Ha-Shanah, is the day of ‘judgement’ and ‘remembrance’, when all are ‘called’ with the multiple blasts of the shofar – the ram’s horn – to wake up to their deeds, reflect and repent. The Jewish New Year begins on the first day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish year, which like the seventh day of the week, is a time set aside for renewal.

Preceded by Ellul, a month of preparation, Rosh Ha-Shanah ushers in an intense period of repentance, an opportunity for individuals to reflect and to make amends and apologise to family and friends for the wrongs they have inflicted. The Hebrew word for repentance is t’shuvah, which means, ‘returning’. After returning to others, Yom Kippur is a day for turning towards God in humility, making confession and seeking forgiveness.

Like all Jewish days, Yom Kippur begins in the evening, and like all Jewish days follows the cycle of the evening, morning and afternoon services. As with Shabbat (the Sabbath) and the festivals, it also includes readings from the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) and the prophetic books, as well as an ‘additional’ service after the morning service. The key scriptural readings are Isaiah chapter 58 in the morning and the Book of Jonah in the afternoon. While Isaiah proclaims that the Eternal One disdains empty ritual, and calls on us to ‘break the shackles of injustice’, ‘feed the hungry and clothe the naked’, the story of Jonah reminds us that God forgives all those who make sincere repentance – even wicked rulers and regimes. After a memorial service, for the remembrance of loved ones have died, Yom Kippur concludes with a unique service called N’ilah, which evokes the image of gates closing on the day, and the need to make a final appeal for God’s mercy.

The day ends but the festival period of this special seventh month of the year continues. Just five days later, the seven-day festival of Sukkot, Tabernacles, is the time for rejoicing in the fruits of the land and for remembering the forty years spent wandering in the wilderness, when the people were dependent on the protection of God. The key rituals of the festival involve ‘dwelling’ – or at a minimum, ‘sitting’ – in a sukkah, a temporary abode, the roof of greenery open to the elements, and ‘waving’ the lulav – a bundle made up of a palm branch, two willow and three myrtle twigs – together with a lemon-like fruit, the etrog (see Leviticus 23), in all directions: east, south, west, north, heavenwards, and towards the earth. Inviting guests into the sukkah is a key feature, but while the sukkah creates an opportunity for hospitality, it also reminds us of the fragility of life. Similarly, waving the lulav and etrog makes us aware of the wide world, and the universe beyond, and puts our lives in the context of Eternity. The key scriptural reading associated with Sukkot is Ecclesiastes, the book of Wisdom, which teaches equanimity and awareness that ‘For everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven’.

The special festival period of the seventh month ends on Sh’mini Atzeret, the Eighth day of ‘Closure’. In Progressive Judaism, it is on this day that we celebrate the post-biblical festival of Simchat Torah, meaning the ‘Rejoicing of the Torah’, while in Orthodox Judaism the festival is celebrated on the following day. On Simchat Torah the annual cycle of Torah readings ordained by the rabbis, concludes with the reading of the last chapter of Deuteronomy, relating the death of Moses. After this special moment, we then go back to the beginning, and read the story of Creation. It is traditional for individual members of the community to be honoured to preside over the readings from the end and the beginning of the Torah, as ‘Bridegroom of the Torah’ and ‘Bridegroom of the Beginning’, respectively. In Progressive Judaism, ‘Brides’ are also honoured, and in some congregations, like Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, rather than use a second Torah scroll for the Genesis reading, we physically unwind the scroll around the congregation after reading the concluding chapter, with everyone gathered holding it up, before winding back to the beginning again. After Simchat Torah the New Year begins in earnest

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

A FUTURE FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE?

LEARNING FROM A MESSENGER OF PEACE

A new year has begun. Will it be any different than the old one? Is there anything we can do to make it different, so that it is, truly, a new year? Let me tell you a story:

A man is walking along the seashore as the tide ebbs, revealing a multitude of stranded starfish. Soon he comes upon a young girl, who is picking up the starfish one by one and returning them to the sea. So he asks the girl, “What are you doing?” And she replies, “They will die if I don’t get them back into the water.” “But there are so many of them,” the man says. “How can anything you do make a difference?” The girl picks up another starfish and carries it to the sea. “It makes a difference to this one.”

The man who tells the story is a living example of an individual, who impelled by his own personal experience, is determined to do what he can to make a difference, and create a new future. His name is Izzeldin Abuelaish. Born in 1955 and brought up in poverty in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, Izzeldin Abuelaish trained as a doctor in Cairo, and went on to work in Israel as a gynaecologist, helping infertile Israeli and Palestinian couples to conceive. In 2009 he left Gaza for an associate professorship in Public Health at the University of Toronto: Yet another Palestinian professional, joining the ranks of the expanding Palestinian diaspora? Yes and no: when Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish left for Toronto, only half his family went with him: two of his older daughters, Dalal and Shatha, and his youngest children, daughter Raffah, and sons Mohammed and Abdullah. This was because his wife, Nadia, died of cancer in December 2008, and then, thirty-five days later, on January 16th 2009 at 4:45 PM, an Israeli tank shell killed his other three daughters, Bessan, Aya, and Mayar, and his niece, Noor. Meanwhile, his daughter, Shatha, his niece, Ghaida, and his brother, Nasser were all gravely wounded. Perhaps you heard about this incident?

Wherever destructive events are being played out across the world, we are usually told that ‘400’ people died here, ‘2000’ people died there. So, in normal circumstances there wouldn’t be any reason why anyone living outside Gaza would have learnt about the experience of a particular family during the three-week incursion at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 that the Israeli government called, ‘Operation Cast Lead’. But this particular incident drew the attention of the world. In his book, I shall Not Hate, Izzeldin Abuelaish explains how this happened: ‘Because the Israeli military had forbidden access to journalists and everyone wanted to know what was happening in Gaza, I had been doing daily interviews with Shlomi Eldar, the anchorman on Israel’s Channel 10. I had been scheduled to do one that afternoon. Minutes after the attack occurred, I called him at the TV station; he was doing the live newscast, and he took the call on air’ (p18). And so, the story of this man and his family was broadcast across the world.

As it happens, I was in Israel at the time. Needless to say, like everyone else, when I watched the television news that day I was shocked and stunned – not least, by the tragic irony, that a man who spent his life bridging the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians through his humanitarian work as a doctor, should have suffered this terrible personal tragedy. My imagination was also caught by the bizarre series of conjunctions: a man born and brought up in Gaza, who was also a specialist in gynaecology working in Israel, and had briefly become an ad hoc news reporter, providing a unique window on events in Gaza for the outside world. When I heard that he had written a book entitled, I Shall Not Hate, and was going to speak about his experiences at an event during the Brighton Festival, I knew I had to go along and hear him.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I still had the image in my mind of that broadcast; his anguished voice; his desperate plea to his Israeli friend for help. Now here he was: a big man, with a loud resonant voice, speaking passionately about his vision of peaceful coexistence, about how important it is for Israelis and Palestinians to see each other as human beings, and about how ‘medicine can bridge the divide between people and… doctors can be messengers of peace.’ Sharing his reflections about his beloved daughters, Izzeldin Abuelaish also spoke of his conviction that the education and empowerment of women in the Middle East is an essential component in the task of breaking the cycle of violence, and told us about ‘Daughters for Life’, the educational foundation he has set up in memory of Bessan, Mayar and Aya.

A few people asked Dr Abuelaish questions, but his responses demonstrated that he wasn’t prepared to indulge in political rhetoric. Leaving no one in any doubt that he thought that the only solution to the perpetual conflict was the establishment of an independent, sovereign State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, he also made it clear that, although he was angry about the perpetuation of the Israeli occupation, he didn’t just refuse to hate, he considered Jewish Israelis to be his brothers and sisters. Yes, this is how he felt, despite the terrible events of January 16th 2009 – and despite having shared with his fellow Gazans, for years, the daily indignities of long waits at Israeli checkpoints. Yes, however much he was loved by his medical colleagues, as well as by his appreciative patients, both Israeli and Palestinian, nevertheless, when travelling between home and hospital, and back home again, Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish was always just another Palestinian to the soldiers on patrol.

There is no doubt that Izzeldin Abuelaish is a very special, even exceptional individual. And he was fortunate that a teacher noticed him, and he managed to get out of Gaza to go to Cairo and study medicine. But before that move changed his life, Izzeldin Abuelaish was just another young Palestinian in Gaza. Gaza is full of them – how many more might become doctors, might develop their skills and abilities, and make a positive contribution to their people and to the wider society; to the efforts towards peace, if given half the chance?

Of course, we don’t know the answer to that question. The point I’m making by talking about Izzeldin Abuelaish is that, yes, he has an exceptional story to tell, which should shock us, and a vision of peaceful coexistence, which should inspire us. Even more important: his personal testimony also reminds us, when we are talking in global terms, about ‘Israelis’, or ‘Palestinians’, or ‘Jews’, or ‘Muslims’, or ‘Arabs’, that each member of any ethnic group or nation or people or religious community is an individual human being, with their own experience, their own story to tell, their own attitudes and aptitudes. And so, while listening to Izzeldin Abuelaish was inspiring, reading his book was a revelation. In its pages the reader learns his life story, meets his parents, his wife and his children, and discovers their personalities and their dispositions, their interests and their talents, their hopes and their dreams. Just imagine what a picture of ‘Israelis’ and ‘Palestinians’ we might have if every Israeli and Palestinian child got a chance to tell their own personal story, and those stories were collected into a book – a book of several volumes – together with photographs of themselves and their families, or broadcast on the Internet.

Izzeldin Abuelaish is a dedicated doctor and humanitarian. He is also a faithful Muslim, whose religion has been a source of comfort and strength to him, enabling him to make sense of his loss, and remain hopeful about the future. He writes:

I want this book to inspire people who have lost sight of hope to take positive action to regain that hope and have the courage to endure that sometimes long and painful journey to peace and a peaceful life. I learned from the Quran that the whole world is one human family. We were created from a man and woman and made into nations and tribes so we may know one another and appreciate the diversity that enriches our lives…. I hope my story will help open your mind, your heart and your eyes to the human condition in Gaza and help you avoid making sweeping generalisations and forced judgements. I hope to inspire people in this world, afflicted with violence, to work hard at saving human lives from destructive hostilities. It’s time for politicians to take positive actions to build, not destroy. Leaders cannot be leaders if they are not risk-takers; the risk they must take is not sending in the soldiers, but finding the moral courage to do the right thing to improve the world’s human face in spite of criticism from the haters… If we want to spread peace throughout this planet, we should start in the holy lands of Palestine and Israel. Instead of building walls, let us build bridges of peace. I believe the disease affecting our relationships – our enemy – is ignorance of one another. Judging others without knowing anything about them is what causes tension, apprehension, distrust, and prejudice… By knowing one another on a personal level, we can begin to respect each other’s differences, but more important we can begin to see how truly similar we are.

Izzeldin Abuelaish wrote those words after the terrible events of January 2009. I wonder what he has to say about the prospects for a peaceful and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – as the blockade of Gaza and settlement expansion continues, and just after the leadership in Israel has pointedly failed to seize the opportunity to support the Palestinian Authority’s bid for United Nations’ recognition as a sovereign state. Probably, he is very angry. I doubt he is surprised. But I have a feeling that if he were speaking to us now, he would reiterate his message – and counsel us not to give in to cynicism or despair.

In a few moments, we will turn to the Torah portion that the rabbis set aside for reading on the first day of the New Year. Selected by the rabbis because it tells the story of the birth of Isaac, to Sarah and Abraham, Genesis chapter 21, also relates the expulsion of Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, and his mother, Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maid-servant. Sarah says to Abraham: ‘Cast out this servant-woman and her son; for the son of this servant-woman shall not inherit with my son, with Isaac’ (:10). At first glance, it looks as if the Torah is only concerned with ensuring the succession of Isaac: ‘And God said to Abraham: “Let it not be grievous in your sight because of the lad, and because of your servant-woman; in all that Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac shall descendants be called to you”’ (:12). But then the text continues: “And also of the son of your servant-woman will I make a nation, because he is your offspring.” Further, this promise is reiterated to Hagar, when she and Ishmael are abandoned to the wilderness. In fact, the Torah makes the point of underlining the meaning of Ishmael’s name: ‘Then God heard the voice of the lad; and the Messenger of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her: “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. / Get up, lift up the lad and hold him fast by your hand; for I will make him a great nation’ (:17-18). As we learn in Genesis 16, when, pregnant, Hagar flees from her mistress’s cruel treatment, Yishma’el means, ‘God will hear’: ‘The Messenger of the Eternal said to her: “Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Eternal One has heard your affliction”’ (16:11).

Why does the Torah make it clear that both Isaac and Ishmael were heirs to a Divine promise, and that each son of Abraham would be the father of a nation? In the Mishnah, the first code of rabbinic law, edited around here 200, we read: ‘It was for the sake of peace among us that creation began with a single human being: so that none might say to another: my ancestor was greater than your ancestor.’ One God means: One humanity. This is what Judaism teaches. This, as we have seen from the words of Izzeldin Abuelaish, is what Islam teaches. But there is more that we should learn from the story of Isaac and Ishmael, as recounted in the Torah: When we find ourselves making generalised statements about ‘Palestinians’ or ‘Muslims’, we need to remember the individuals behind the labels – individuals like, Izzeldin Abuelaish. As the Torah introduces humanity by talking about a single human being, so the Torah introduces us to the nations, by telling the stories of individuals and families: Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael and Isaac. And so, as we read about the brothers, Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham’s two sons, we are prompted to remember that Jews and Muslims are sibling peoples. And so, too, Israelis and Palestinians – some of whom are Christians: Even when disagreeing, even when hurting one another, even when taking separate paths and going in different directions; the past of these two sibling peoples is shared, and their destinies are linked.

I began by asking whether there is anything we can do to make the New Year different, and by relating that story about the young girl, and her painstaking efforts to rescue the stranded starfish, one by one. As we begin another New Year, dragging in its wake the freight of old unresolved problems, we can give in to cynicism or despair, or, even at a distance, we can continue to hope, and support and promote the efforts of all those individuals and groups, among the Israelis and Palestinians, who are working for a just and secure resolution of the conflict between them. The national anthem of the State of Israel is Ha-Tikvah – ‘The Hope’. To the hope of the restoration of the Jewish people to Zion, let us add the hope that maybe this year, certainly one year, we will yet see the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, living side by side in peace. Bimheirah b’yameinu. Speedily in our own day. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5772 – 29th September 2011

ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF CHANGE?

Every morning when I go downstairs to feed our two cats, I always open the door on the area of the house that that they are allowed to roam in at night, rather gingerly: what will I find? Sometimes: a neat pile of innards on the carpet – always the carpet; never the wooden floor. Sometimes, a tiny inert mouse or vole – left uneaten. Sometimes: a pile of feathers. Sometimes – thankfully – nothing at all. Exactly two weeks ago, I opened the door, and looked left to take in the small organs of a consumed creature. As I proceeded to put out the food that some nutrition-conscious human beings have decided their cats should eat, Dinah, the larger of the twins, whom I usually find waiting for her breakfast, did not begin to eat. The cat-flap moved – was that the wind? As she continued to be distracted, I went to investigate. Lailah, our other cat was standing still in the conservatory area, a small greenfinch in her mouth. In a flash, managing to surprise Lailah, I released the bird and she fluttered behind the store of tins in the corner. Somehow, despite Lailah’s determined efforts to recapture the greenfinch again, I managed to take the fledgling in my cupped hands, walk across the kitchen into the living area and open the window to release her. On that short journey to the window, I felt that tiny creature’s heart beating rapidly against my left palm. As I was walking back, glancing at that hand, I found a small patch of blood. Obviously, she was injured – and yet she had flown away … would she survive? If she didn’t, I hoped that, at least, she would die quietly in a sheltered space, and not become prey to another creature.

What do you make of that story? Does it point to the difference between human beings and animals; that they are guided by their instincts, and we are impelled by conscience? Does it demonstrate how irrational so-called rational human beings can be; after all, there is a food chain: cats eat birds; birds eat worms; it’s a natural process. The birds that are caught are weaker, or simply unlucky; the birds that don’t get eaten are stronger: ‘survival of the fittest’ rules – okay? So, what’s the point of interfering? No point, but still, the need to intervene – governed by our human moral sense, and by our feelings of empathy for a suffering, captured creature, born to fly and roam free.

Where does this moral sense and empathy come from? Is it natural? The very first portion of the Torah, B’reishit, relates in Genesis chapter 4, the tale of the first siblings. Like so many of the stories the Bible tells, it is shocking: jealous because God prefers his brother, Abel’s offering over his own, Cain kills Abel. And then, when asked by the Eternal One, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ Cain has the nerve to retort, ‘I don’t know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ (4:9). Hot-blooded murder; compounded by cold-hearted deceit.

So, human beings don’t just kill to feed ourselves, we kill in fits of rage, revenge or rivalry. Of course, the murderous feelings nurtured in our childhoods alongside the loving feelings, provoked by our experiences of helplessness, abandonment and displacement, don’t lead the great majority of us to commit murder. But the point is that human beings are not simply creatures of conscience, capable of constructing moral codes, with the unique ability to think and reason, we are emotionally driven, too. And our emotions may drive us to kill, as well as to save life.

What sort of theme is this for an Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah sermon, you may ask? Well, in essence that’s why we’re here: to explore what it means to be human. According to the rabbis the Jewish New Year is ‘the birthday of the world’ – harat olam; the anniversary of Creation – and so, the birthday of humanity, too. It is also, again, according to the rabbis, yom ha-din, ‘the Day of Judgement’, when, following a month of preparation, we embark more intensely on the process of reflecting on our lives and on our deeds – and misdeeds; what we have done and what we have failed to do; whom we have hurt and wronged; on our frailties and habitual failings and weaknesses. However, while the forty days from the first day of Ellul until Yom Kippur, may be the Jewish time for engaging in cheshbon ha-nefesh, ‘the accounting of the soul’, that’s not because self-examination is a Jewish task alone: Muslims, engage in a similar process during the month of Ramadan, and Christians, during the forty days of Lent that lead up to Easter.

Each of us is on our own personal journey. At the same time, we are also walking together, alongside one another, the path of t’shuvah, repentance and return. So what sense are we making of who we are – of what it is to be human? I have mentioned Cain and Abel. As we survey the history of the world on the world’s birthday, and reflect, in particular, on the history of our people, as we ponder the defining events of the 20th century, as we look back on the first decade of the 21st century, we are aware that alongside the wondrous fruits of our creative endeavours as a species: conflict and war, destruction and genocide. But how often do we collectively own up to it all? How often, by contrast do we make sense of the challenging events of the past – and the present – in terms of victims and perpetrators; letting ourselves off the hook, because other people – murderers, despots, terrorists, fanatics, psychopaths – have committed these terrible deeds?

Of course, 99% of the time, other people are directly responsible. Nevertheless, these other people, whether we consider them to be ‘mad’ or ‘bad’, are still human beings – like us – and were babies once. Not only that, but some of these other people – like the 2005 7/7 bombers, for example – had fairly unexceptional childhoods, went to school and university, like thousands of other young people. Until they were radicalised by extremist Islamist propaganda, the path they were taking was leading them towards middle-class professional careers, not in the direction of murderous terror.

Two months ago, on July 22nd, a 32-year-named, Anders Breivik, bombed government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people, and then went on a shooting spree at a camp of the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the nearby island of Utøya, where he murdered 69 people, mostly teenagers. Breivik was clearly motivated by extreme right-wing views, as is evident in the militant far-right manifesto is circulated on the Internet just before he went on the rampage. Is Breivik a psychopath? Probably. But judging by his contacts with organisations, like the English Defence League, his views are shared by a significant minority of other right-wing extremists. And what about the particular details of Brevik’s personal biography – do the facts of his life explain his behaviour? Breivik’s father was a diplomat, his parents divorced when he was young, and the young Anders was brought up by his mother. Meanwhile, both his parents are Labour Party supporters. Significantly, the newspapers at the time of the killings report his father’s feeling that his son should have taken his own life. Should Breivik have taken his own life before or after he killed 77 people? Having planned his attacks meticulously for nine years, Breivik clearly felt that this was what he had to do. But what else might he have done with his rage and resentment? Could he have chosen another way?

On September 11th, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist assault on the United States was marked by commemorative events in the US and in London. On the anniversary of 9/11 itself, and in the days leading up to it, a series of television programmes repeatedly replayed video footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, of the towers collapsing, of the destruction and mayhem. There are no words adequate to express the horror of it all. And, since that day: the ‘war on terror’, resulting in the wars, still on-going, in Iraq and Afghanistan; thousands more dead – including hundreds of British and American soldiers.

So, this is how human beings deal with our conflicts and our grievances. The 9/11 terrorists, like their 7/7 counterparts, were also, educated young men once, full of other possibilities: could they have taken a different path? The American and British governments felt compelled to respond to 9/11 by going to war. Again: were there other options?

I don’t have the answers to these questions – and I don’t expect that you do either. I recall at the millennium, looking back on the 20th century. Even after the Great War, and the Second World War, after the Sho’ah and Hiroshima, after Stalin’s purges, after Biafra and Cambodia – after all this and more, the 1990s bore witness to the, so-called, ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs, and the mass murder of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis by their Hutu neighbours in Rwanda. I remember hoping at the dawn of a new millennium, that the 21st century would be different. How foolish! How irrational! After all, the calendar that configures that we have completed one millennium and started another, is a human construct. And so, the only era that is really significant is the era of homo-sapiens, of the human species that began to evolve around 200,000 years ago. And the only question that really matters is, are we human beings capable of change?

The scientists will remind us that evolution is a very slow process, and since we haven’t really evolved as a species since the time we lived in caves, it is unlikely that we can change our behaviour in the short term, at least, during the next few thousand years …. And yet, alongside the litany of horrors, there are all the steps that we have taken, especially since the end of the Second World War, with the founding of the United Nations and the International Declaration of Human Rights. And so, the creation of new political and legal frameworks to create possibilities for nonviolent ways of dealing with human conflict, reflecting the determination on the part of the human community – in a formal sense – to change. This is an entirely new departure in the history of human affairs. And then, there have been some largely non-violent transformations, most notably, in South Africa and in the former Soviet Union. Maybe we don’t have to wait thousands of years. Maybe human beings can learn from our mistakes and effect positive change?

So how do we go about it? All the self-help books around now tell us that it is possible for individuals to change, provided the individual acknowledges the need to change and is really committed to personal transformation. So, we can break destructive habits; we can find new ways of relating to others and ourselves. But we don’t have to look to contemporary self-help guides. The basic premise of all Jewish teaching, from the Torah onwards, is that human beings are capable of change – hence all the commandments and laws directed, not simply at controlling our behaviour, but, more importantly, at changing our ways. Indeed, these ‘awed days’ – yamim nora’im – are predicated on the notion that we can turn our lives around, and are structured to enable us to engage in a process of transformation. That is why Rosh Ha-Shanah is preceded by a month of preparation. That is why Rosh Ha-Shanah revolves around the shofar waking us up to pay attention to our lives, and ushers in a ten-day period of repentance that concludes on Yom Kippur. This does not mean that we may be able to transform ourselves in just ten days – or even in forty. As we read in Pirkey Avot, the Chapters of the Sages, appended to the Mishnah, the first code of rabbinic law, edited around the year 200: lo alecha ha-m’lachah ligmor, v’lo atah ven-chorin l’hibateil mimenah – ‘It is not for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it’ (2:16).

Perhaps, we may only manage to change in very small ways. But each New Year brings a new opportunity. Of course, there are obstacles in the way – fear, obstinacy, denial – before we can even embark on the process. But that is why this important season summons us to come together. The task of trying to change lies before each one of us, but we are not alone. We are accompanying one another, and hopefully, encouraging one another. As we begin this New Year together now, let us give thanks for the opportunity it gives us to renew our lives. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5772 – 28th September 2011

The season known colloquially as, ‘the High Holy Days’ has arrived. This evening at 9 PM I will lead a study session on ‘The conditions for Forgiveness’, which will be followed by the unique S’lichot service, with its evocative rehearsal of the themes of confession and forgiveness. ‘Forgiveness’ – S’lichot – that is the goal of the journey we will embark on this evening; a journey towards atonement.

So, the season of t’shuvah, of ‘return’ and ‘repentance’, has arrived – but have we arrived? The month of Ellul, which will end when the sunsets on Wednesday evening, was designated by the rabbis as a time of preparation for the yamim nora’im – the ‘awed days’ that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude on Yom Kippur. The Reform High Holy Day machzor – festival prayer book – published in 1985, includes a ‘Calendar of Repentance’ for the month of Ellul, with a relevant reading for each day. It is hard for most of us to take a journey – any journey – into the unknown, without a map to guide us. And so, in the absence of a daily reminder, a guide to navigate the days of Ellul, I imagine that most of us will experience the arrival of S’lichot as a sudden jolt. But then, most Jews don’t actually attend on S’lichot, so, in reality, it’s not until the sun sets on the old year, that the realisation dawns that the new one is beginning.

The parashah for this week is Nitzavim-Va-yeilech – a double portion. The Torah is divided into 54 portions to allow for the fact that a leap year is 13 months long, that is a year consisting of 56 weeks, and that sometimes a festival will fall on Shabbat, in which case, the Shabbat portion, superseded by the festival portion, is postponed to the following week. In short 52-week years, certain portions are put together – hence: Nitzavim-Va-yeilech. It’s a very significant double-bill in Jewish teaching terms – but before I go on to explore the compelling conjunction of the two portions, I need to point out that today, for us here, at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, the portion is actually, simply, Nitzavim – and explain why we have departed from the standard lectionary of Torah readings.

In recent years, this congregation has held an annual commemoration of our Czech scroll on Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of ‘Return’ between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur. We began to do this when we learnt that the community of Frydek Mistek that once owned our scroll was deported by the Nazis in 1942 precisely during this ten day period between the New Year and the Day of Atonement. Checking the Torah reading lectionary for 1942, we also discovered that the portion read the Shabbat prior to the deportations, on the last occasion that the community of Frydek-Mistek gathered together, was Nitzavim-Va-yeilech.

In view of this, Avodat Ha-Lev, the rites and practices committee, decided that even in those years when Nitzavim-Va-yeilech is read before Rosh Ha-Shanah – as is the case today – we would always read from it when commemorating the anniversary of the deportations on Shabbat Shuvah. Nevertheless, to avoid simply repeating the same reading, we decided to divide the double portion between this week and next week. So, today we are reading from Nitzavim, and next week we are reading Va-yeilech. And to make sure that we don’t miss out on next week’s designated portion, Ha-azinu, after reading Va-yeilech, we will also read the concluding section of Ha-azinu.

Sounds complicated doesn’t it? The point is that as a result of our connection with Frydek-Mistek, our congregation also has a particular double-connection with the double portion, Nitzavim-Va-yeilech – a connection further enhanced by the fact that the Liberal Judaism lectionary, also designates two passages from Nitzavim for reading on Yom Kippur morning.

Today, rather than go into the detail of the content of this double portion, I want to explore with you the implications of the conjunction of the two words which constitute its double-name: Nitzavim-Va-yeilech. You may be aware that, both, the books of the Torah and the individual Torah portions, derive their names from the first significant word. And so, Nitzavim begins at Deuteronomy 29, verse 9:

Atem nitzavim ha-yom kul’chem lifney Adonai Eloheychem.

You are standing today, all of you, before the Eternal One your God.

Meanwhile,Va-yeilech begins at Deuteronomy 31, verse 1:

Va-yeilech Moshe, va-y’dabbeir et-ha-d’varim ha-eilleh el-kol-Yisrael.

Then Moses went, and spoke these words to all Israel.

Atem nitzavim – ‘You are standing’: literally, ‘you are stationed’. The Hebrew root for ‘standing’ is Ayin Mem Dalet. Here, the Hebrew root is Nun Tzadi Beit, which is always used in a passive and reflexive sense, so means, either, to ‘be stationed’, or, to ‘take one’s stand’. The use of this root, implies, not simply the physical state of standing up, but standing in readiness. We might picture a unit of soldiers standing to attention – but the particular use of the language here also implies everyone’s individual responsibility to stand themselves’ up, as well as a collective endeavour: Atem – ‘You’ – plural – nitzavim – are standing in readiness – kul’chem – ‘all of you’ – that is, each one of you. And so the passage goes on to list all the different groups within the community, who are standing to attention – including the children – ‘from those who chop wood to those who draw water ‘ (29:10).

So, each individual member of the community is stationed in readiness. Readiness for what? The passage goes on to say: L’ovr’cha bivrit Adonai, Elohecha – the literal translation is: ‘In order to cross over into the covenant of the Eternal One, your God’ (:12b). In the context of the narrative, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the people are about to cross over the River Jordan into the land beyond. But before they can do this, they must first ‘cross over’ into the covenant with the Eternal One. So, they are standing in readiness to take a leap, psychologically and emotionally – as well as physically – into the unknown. For 40 years they have been putting one foot in front of the other; wandering from place to place. For 40 years they have been setting up the camp and taking it down, standing up, walking, and sitting down, as they followed their leaders, day after day. But today – ha-yom – is utterly different:

Atem nitzavim ha-yom kul’chem lifney Adonai Eloheychem.

You are standing today, all of you, before the Eternal one your God.

Today. After 40 years of wandering – ha-yom – ‘Today’: a transformational moment – and also a transitory moment. The Torah does not linger long in the present between past and future – which brings me to Va-yeilech:

Va-yeilech Moshe, va-y’dabbeir et-ha-d’varim ha-eilleh el-kol-Yisrael.

Then Moses went, and spoke these words to all Israel.

Va-yeilech Moshe – ‘Then Moses went.’ It doesn’t sound very dramatic. But the phrase takes on a deeper resonance, when we turn to another place in the Torah, where the identical phrase – in this case, concerning Abraham – denotes something much more momentous. We read in B’reishit, the book of Genesis, at chapter 12, in the portion, Lech-L’cha (12:4): Va-yeilech Avram – ‘Then Avram went’. So, the same words, but here, Va-yeilech signals the beginning of a journey that didn’t merely transform the life of Abraham and Sarah, it also generated a new future for the generations that came after them, who became a people – our people. We read (12:1; 4):

Now the Eternal said to Avram, ‘Lech-l’cha – Go for yourself out of your country and from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land of I will show you…’ Then Avram went as the Eternal One had spoken to him.

Va-yeilech Avram – ‘Then Avram went’. And so it was for the generation at the end of the wilderness wanderings. Having stationed themselves in readiness to cross over into the covenant with the Eternal One, and heard the words of the covenant imparted to them by Moses, they then proceeded to cross over into the land beyond Jordan and to go on a new journey.

And what about us? Nitzavim-Va-yeilech: On the one hand, the conjunction of the two portions is just a logistical, administrative issue; on the other hand, the conjunction is also a rallying cry: stand yourselves up and go! Not just the generation gathered on the eastern bank of the River Jordan, around 3,250 years ago: at this season of repentance and return we, too, are called to station ourselves in readiness for an immense journey. If we are prepared to examine our lives and change our ways, this particular journey will take us to atonement and a new beginning. We don’t have to cross a river into an unknown land, but today we are challenged to take the risk of breaching the defences we have built around ourselves, in order to explore the secluded terrain of our hearts and souls.

Nitzavim-Va-yeilech – to be stationed is to be ready to go – and to arrive anywhere, suggests a journey. All we need to do now, as the New Year beckons, is to acknowledge that we have arrived at this moment. Ha-yom. Today. May each one of us find the courage to respond to the call of this sacred season and begin to take our own steps towards renewal. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

24^th September 2011 – 25^th Ellul 5771

What have been your thoughts about the upheavals going on in the Arab world? Are you pleased that the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria have been rising up against their autocratic rulers? Are you thinking that if the Palestinians also took to the streets in large numbers that might be a more effective way of achieving the goal of an independent Palestinian state than rocket attacks and suicide bombings? Are you concerned that the outcome of all these challenges to the established status quo may not be increased democracy, but rather increased autocracy? Are you worried about how Islamist groups might take advantage of the instability to assert their own authoritarian agenda?

I imagine that our thoughts and responses depend on a number of factors, not least, the extent to which we are optimists or pessimists, and our own attitudes towards absolutist forms of authority. I have to confess that despite getting a bit older and wiser, I remain, basically, an unreconstructed rebel. I have always challenged authority, when it was clear to me that the way that authority was being asserted was unfair or unjust in some way. And so, as a child, I used a challenge my father and certain teachers at school; and by the time I was 17, and I heard about the Black Power movement in the United States, the Anti-Apartheid movement, and discovered Marxism, my rebellious spirit was channelled into challenging tyranny, injustice and oppression in every place.

So, yes, I am very pleased about what has been called ‘the Arab Spring’ – even though the outcome of what might become, ‘the Arab Summer’, is a little uncertain…

Being rebellious and advocating rebellion may be a personal disposition, but, interestingly, it is also woven into the fabric of the Jewish narrative. In this week’s Torah portion, the parashah, Korach, at Numbers chapter 16 (:1ff.), we read about the rebellion organised by Korach, together with Datan, Aviram and On.

Who were these individuals? The very first verse gives their genealogies:

… Korach, the son of Yitzhar, the son of K’hat, the son of Levi, with Datan and Aviram, the sons of Eli’av, and On, the son of Pelet, the sons of R’uvein.

So, Korach was a first cousin of Moses and Aaron – and Miriam, of course (who isn’t mentioned here – more of that in a moment), and a fellow Levite – but, unlike, Moses and Aaron, Korach did not share in the leadership of the people. At the beginning of the book of B’midbar, Numbers, we get an insight into the reasons for Korach’s rebellion We read at Numbers chapter 4, verse 15:

When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sacred furniture, and all the sacred vessels, as the camp is set to journey forward – after that, the sons of K’hat shall come to carry them; but they shall not touch the sacred things, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of K’hat in the tent of meeting.

So, Korach, the grandson of K’hat – so near, and yet so far from power. And what about Datan, Aviram and On? Well, again, the answer to that question is found in the first portion of Numbers, B’midbar. We read at Numbers chapter 3, verses 11-12:

The Eternal spoke to Moses saying: ‘And I, behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every firstborn that opens the womb among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be Mine.

Datan, Aviram and On were all members of the tribe of R’uvein. R’uvein was the firstborn son of Jacob – and in the new leadership system described in the opening portion of the book of Numbers, the firstborn are to be displaced by the Levites.

All that we have to do is be aware of the genealogies of these characters, and it is completely apparent why they decide to challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron. As we read in today’s portion, at Numbers 16, verse 2-3:

They rose up before Moses, with men from among the Israelites, 250 men; they were princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown; / and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them: ‘You take too much upon yourselves since all the congregation, every one of them are holy, and the Eternal One is in their midst; why then do you lift yourselves up above the assembly of the Eternal One?

So, the rebels did not accept the privileged position of Moses and Aaron – arguing that the two leaders had elevated themselves above the people. The challenge has a real feel of men jockeying for power – and that is, perhaps, why the women, not least Miriam, are so conspicuous by their absence. And yet, as we read in the Torah, just two weeks ago, it was Miriam who initiated ‘the Israelite Spring’ in the wilderness, when she became the first one to speak out, specifically, against Moses. As we read in parashat B’ha’a’lot’cha, at Numbers chapter 12, verse 1: Va-t’dabbeir Miryam – v’Aharon – b’Moshe – ‘Miriam spoke – and Aaron – against Moses’. The verb is in the feminine singular: Va-t’dabbeir – ‘she spoke’ – and Aaron went along with her. Given that Miriam is completely marginalised in the Torah narrative, which highlights the leadership of Moses and Aaron, it is not surprising that she led the challenge. But what they both then said to Moses makes it clear why Aaron joined his elder sister in confronting their younger brother. We read at verse 2:

And they said: ‘Has the Eternal One indeed spoken only with Moses has He not spoken also with us?’

Korach and the other rebels did not accept that God had elevated Moses and Aaron. In this incident, we can see Miriam and Aaron struggling with Moses’ special relationship with the Eternal. And, indeed the Divine answer they receive is unequivocal. As we read at verses 6 to 7:

‘Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Eternal make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. / My servant Moses is not so; he is trusted in all My house; / with him I speak mouth-to-mouth, manifestly, and not in dark speeches; and he has seen the likeness of the Eternal; why then are you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?’

So, according to the Torah, the pre-eminent position of Moses is sanctioned by God – and when it comes to Korach and his fellow rebels, the narrative makes it clear that their dispute with Moses and Aaron is a challenge against the authority of the Eternal. Indeed, to prove to the rebels that God is in charge, the Torah tells us that the Eternal One made the ground open up and swallow the rebels and their families and all their belongings (16:30-33).

What do the Democrats among us feel about the Eternal One as a Divine Autocrat – ever-ready to punish disobedience? It is interesting to note that despite the prevailing patriarchal presentation of God in the Torah, Abraham, who goes along with the Divine command to sacrifice his son, Isaac, right up until it is revoked by a messenger of the Eternal One at the last moment (Genesis 22), nevertheless argues with God fearlessly when it comes to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18). And there are occasions when Moses is also undaunted by the prospect of challenging his Divine Master (e.g. Exodus 33:12-16). Of course, according to the Torah, both Abraham and Moses had privileged access to God; it is hard to get away from the fact that when it comes to the people, the choice is absolute obedience or death – as the passage in parashat Nitzavim, Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19 puts it so eloquently:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse; therefore choose life – u’vacharta ba-chayyim – that you may live, you and your descendants.

So, no positive lessons about the virtues of challenging autocracy in the Torah, it seems. But then, what do we make of the very first example of a human being transgressing the boundaries and disobeying God? I’m thinking of the story related in the first parashah of the Torah, B’reishit, in Genesis chapter 3, about the first woman, curious, and hungry for knowledge, as she takes the fruit of the forbidden tree, and then shares it with ‘her man’ (3:6). It’s easy to blame the serpent. In his commentary on Genesis, first published in 1934, Benno Jacob, a Reform rabbi in Germany until World War II, when he became a refugee, suggested that the conversation with the serpent represented an externalisation of the woman’s own internal conversation.[1] In other words, the first woman was not led astray – after an internal struggle, her curiosity overcame a caution

We all know the infamous outcome: the woman is punished with pain in childbirth; the man is punished with hard labour, tilling the cursed ground, in order to get his daily bread (3:16-19). But the problem is, we know the story so well, we read it very superficially. Didn’t humanity have to leave the garden – or should we not say, kindergarten, the lush playpen that hemmed them in – in order to grow up, and become responsible adults? Didn’t the first human beings have to learn about the realities of life – about pain and toil and suffering and death?

The first woman was curious. She longed for the knowledge of good and evil because it was in her nature, as a human being, to search and to probe and to challenge. On the one hand, the story is a cautionary tale about the limitations of human power and control and the absolute authority of God. On the other hand, the Torah is teaching us that to be human is to challenge absolute authority; to be human is to negotiate with the world, to work out what is right and what is wrong, and take responsibility for our actions and our capabilities and our powers.

Perhaps Korach was a demagogue, motivated by envy and interested only in empowering himself – or, perhaps, he was a democrat, determined to challenge the autocratic leadership of Moses and Aaron because he really did believe that each and every member of the congregation was ‘holy’ (Numbers 16:3). Most likely, he was driven by a complex, toxic mix of a thirst for personal power and genuine social concern – like most politicians. Whatever we make of Korach, the Torah‘s account of the transgression of the first human beings reminds us that it is natural for people to challenge autocracy. And more than this: according to Jewish teaching, as expressed by the prophets, it is an ethical obligation. As we read in Isaiah chapter 58, verse 6 – in a passage, which is read as the haftarah on Yom Kippur morning:

Is not this the fast I have chosen: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every chain?

As we ponder the stirring words of the unknown prophet of the Babylonian exile, the ‘second’ Isaiah, let us think of those, who are engaged in challenging tyranny today, and pray that the outcome of revolt will be new democratic social orders, which respect the human rights of all, and practice justice, equality, freedom, pluralism, compassion and peace.[2]

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

25^th June 2011 / 23^rd Sivan 5771

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

According to rabbinic tradition, Shavuot – the Festival of ‘Weeks’ – is z’man matan Torateinu: ‘the season of the giving of our Torah.’ After the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the rabbis  reinvented a feast that was purely agricultural in nature – Yom Ha-bikkurim, ‘The Day of First Fruits’ (Numbers 28:26) – and transformed it into the celebration of the Revelation of God at Mount Sinai. Without this radical transformation, Shavuot would have disappeared from the festival calendar. Nevertheless, the rabbis’ inventiveness was rooted in the narrative of the Exodus:  the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot (Leviticus 23:15ff.) is mirrored by the journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai. As we read in parashat Yitro, at Exodus chapter 19: ‘In the third month after the Israelites went out of the land of the Egypt, the same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.’

So, the narrative in Exodus chapters 19 and 20 relates that the Eternal One spoke to the ex-slaves in the ‘wilderness’ – that is what is meant by ‘Revelation’: God did not simply appear; the Eternal One also spoke. The Hebrew word for wilderness, midbar, is connected to the Hebrew root, Dalet Beit Reish, to ‘speak’. A familiar noun, also based on this root, is davar, meaning ‘word’ – and also, ‘thing’: The wilderness or, more precisely, the desert is a barren, empty place – devoid of words and of things. Interestingly, the same consonants that make up midbar, can also form another word – if you substitute the vowels: mi-davar, which means, literally, ‘from a word’ – or ‘from a thing’. As we read in the opening verses of the Torah: God spoke the world into existence out of tohu va-vohu – ‘formlessness and void’ (Genesis 1:2ff.).

From a sociological perspective, the desert is tohu va-vohu – a place devoid of human habitation: settlements, villages, towns and cities. So, in a sense we could say that the Eternal One spoke a people into existence out of the wilderness. Who were those who stood at the foot of the trembling mountain? They were a rag-taggle mass of ex-slaves – including both the Israelites and the erev rav, the ‘mixed multitude’ (Exodus 12:38) – still blinking into the light of the new dawn of freedom; a chaotic mob, without form or structure, purpose or direction. In other words, they were a human wilderness

It sounds quite romantic doesn’t it? The Eternal One speaking a people, our people, into existence out of the wilderness that was the raw material of their lives, and out of the wilderness that surrounded them – just as, according to the Torah, at the beginning of time, God had spoken the world into existence. But if we examine the Torah, we can see that the two narratives are not exactly parallel: the creation of the world was an act of supreme, singular Divine will; the mob became a people only when they responded to the Eternal with their own unified utterance: na’aseh v’nishma – ‘We will do and we will listen’ (Exodus 24:7). The Eternal One was not alone in that moment. The people listened – and then they made a commitment: we will act, and we will continue to listen.

This is truly remarkable. The Eternal One might have bellowed and thundered and roared on the mountain, and the rabble might have kept silent – either out of terror and fear, or, possibly, indifference. After all, hadn’t they been essentially unmoved by the plagues? Hadn’t the experience of persecution and oppression deadened their senses? Could it be that after generations of servitude, they were open to the possibility of a new way and a new life? Wasn’t it much more likely that having, finally, been ‘driven out’ of Egypt (Exodus 12:39), ‘sent away’ by an exhausted and exasperated Pharaoh, as the Torah tells us at the beginning of parashat B’shallach (Exodus 13:17), the ex-slaves were cynical and dismissive, interested solely in where the next meal was coming from? Isn’t that, indeed, what we read in the text, straight after their dramatic passage through the divided Sea of Reeds – that no sooner had they arrived at the next stopping place, they were complaining about the lack of water? (Ex. 16:22ff.). But before we get too critical about the behaviour of the ex-slaves and their apparent lack of gratitude about being liberated, maybe we should think about how we might react in similar circumstances…

So, the real miracle was not that the Eternal One spoke – how do we know that God is not speaking to us all the time? The real miracle was that the rabble at the foot of the mountain listened. What we should really be celebrating today is not that God declaimed on Mount Sinai, but rather that it was there in the midst of the desert that a motley crew of ex-slaves listened, and acknowledged that the Eternal was addressing them.

If we realised, really recognised that that is what we should be celebrating, we wouldn’t be able to avoid the implications for us. As we commemorate the anniversary of the moment when that our ancestors listened to the voice of the Eternal One, we can’t really avoid an insistent question: are we listening out for that voice? They had good reasons for being deadened or indifferent – but nevertheless, they did listen. What about us? If we fail to listen, what’s our excuse?

Of course, the ex-slaves didn’t hear the voice of the Eternal until they were in the desert, far away from Egypt, and the bondage they had endured for generations. Do we need to go into the desert, too? Do we need to get away from it all – away from our daily demands and everyday concerns – to have the space to listen and notice? These are real questions. After all, it wasn’t just the ex-slaves, who discovered the Eternal in the wilderness. Think about Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant and the mother of Abraham’s first-born son, Ishmael, who encountered a messenger of the Eternal in the desert, not once, but twice – and received the Divine promise for her son and future generations that transformed her plight (Genesis chapters 16 and 21). Think about Jacob, in flight, bedding down as the sun set, a stone for a pillow, exclaiming the following morning: ‘Surely, the Eternal One was in this place and I didn’t know it!’ (Genesis 28:16). Think about Moses, leading his father-in-law’s flock, achar ha-midbar, ‘behind the wilderness’, turning aside to notice that lowly bush, burning, and yet not consumed; and hearing a voice speaking to him (Exodus 3:3)

As I pointed out a few moments ago, the word, midbar, might be read, by substituting the vowels, as mi-davar – ‘from a word’ – or ‘thing’. And the consonants also invite another set of vowels, which create yet another word, a verbal form of the same root, Dalet Beit Reish: m’dabbeir, which means, ‘speaking’: In the midbar, a place devoid of words and things, nevertheless, the voice of the Eternal m’dabbeir, ‘speaking’.  So, midbar a barren, empty place, where the voice of the Eternal is free to resound, unmuffled by the incessant noise of human affairs.

Of course, there is a well-established tradition, in all the world faiths, of mystics going into the wilderness to commune with God – leaving organised society behind and becoming hermits, in order give their full attention to the Eternal. But this is not a path that is realistically available to most people. So what about us? If we go along with the proposition that the Eternal is addressing us here and now, but most people are too caught up in the noisy, busy, cluttered societies we inhabit to hear, and too distracted and preoccupied to notice, is there anything we can do to enable ourselves to listen in the midst of our hectic lives?

I think that there are some simple answers to this question. One of those answers is Shabbat, the weekly opportunity to step outside of the daily round, pause, rest and reflect. Of course, it’s rarely possible for most people to set aside a whole day, but a few moments fully experienced can make all the difference: like participating in the Shabbat services, where, in between the words of the liturgy, and particularly when we raise our voices in song, we may sense the voice of the Eternal – whatever sense we make of ‘the Eternal’ – speaking to us. Another answer may be found in the festivals, which punctuate the year, and remind us of our story as a people, and challenge us to connect that story to our own lives. And then there are all the other practices which define Jewish life – including, kashrut, the dietary regulations, correcting economic injustice, by giving tz’dakah to those in need, g’milut chasadim, acts of loving kindness, such as visiting those who are ill. Perhaps, some Jews carry out these practices, simply because, according to tradition, God has commanded us to do so. But, perhaps, other Jews, might think about these distinctly Jewish acts, as ways of punctuating our lives, of interrupting the endless flow, like punctuation in a piece of text, to create sense and meaning, and to enable us to listen in the pauses between activities.

The simplest example, by far, of such Jewish punctuation, is saying a b’rachah, a blessing. There are the traditional blessings of course – and there is a tradition of reciting at least 100 blessing each day. But what I’m suggesting is not so much that we get into the habit of reciting lots of blessings, more that we might enter the spirit of pausing to bless, to give thanks, to acknowledge:  the meal we are about to eat, the scent of a rose, the view of the horizon, the new shirt we can’t wait to put on. It’s when we pause and acknowledge what we are about to do, or what lies before us, just at that moment, that we may be aware, not only of being in the moment, but also sense something transcendent beyond the moment that apprehends us – yes, even in the feeling of a new garment on our skin.

So, here we are now in this moment – in this Shavuot morning service. In a short while we will read the Torah. It’s an obvious point, but we will not read the Torah silently, we will read it out loud; so, we will not simply read Aseret Ha-dibrot – ‘the Ten Utterances’, best known as the Ten Commandments – we will hear them. The Hebrew root for ‘reading’, Kuf Reish Alef, also means, ‘calling’. The congregation will stand and I will call out the words, and we will all listen. In this way, we will remind ourselves of our ancestors standing at the foot of that quaking mountain. But, hopefully we will do more than remind ourselves of their experience. Hopefully, in the moment that we stand and listen, we will also discover that we are really listening – both to those ancient words, and to the voice of the Eternal, breaking into our lives here and now – challenging us to respond. Kein y’hi ratzon – May this be our will. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Shavuot Morning

8^th June 2011 – 6^th Sivan 5771

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

What are your thoughts about the lack of rain over the past few weeks? I’m not very keen on rain myself, but when you have a garden, the absence of natural water descending from the heavens during the spring time, is a considerable problem. And what about the farmers? If we don’t get a decent spell of rain, there will be real problems for the crops this year. I have to admit, an urban Jew for most of my life, I didn’t really think much about this issue until I moved out to the countryside. Now I have a big garden, and I’m very aware of the difference that rain makes.

Yes, I’m closer to nature now. But gardening and farming are not really about nature. What would the landscape of Sussex look like if people neither farmed nor gardened? It would be an undulating wilderness of wildflowers and grasses. When we moved into our house just outside the village of Bishopstone last year, we thought it would be really nice if the huge lawn at the front could be returned to down-land rather than be continuously mowed, like the manicured lawns of our neighbours either side. They, however, soon made it clear, in the politest possible way, that this would not be acceptable… Consequently, to indicate that we are prepared to co-operate with the idea of taming nature, we have created a large oval which we have left to grow wild, and mowed around it, so it looks contained… Well, to be honest, I haven’t exactly been the one doing the mowing…

And our attempt to balance a commitment to nature with good neighbourliness has continued with the creation of a ‘green’ roof on the top of the garage. The organic gardener we employed has set it up to be a down-land. Completed just a week ago, it is going to take quite a while for the seeds to grow, but when they do, it will provide an interesting counterpoint to the modernist lines of our 1930s house. Needless to say, given the issues about the front lawn, we have, of course, consulted with our next door neighbours – and made sure that it will not restrict the view of the people living closest to the roof. The experience of managing this situation has given new meaning to the injunction we find in the Book of Leviticus – namely: ‘You shall love your neighbour, as yourself’! (19:18)

As it happens, we completed the Book of Leviticus last Shabbat, which means we now turn to the Book of Numbers. The Hebrew name of this fourth book of the Torah is B’midbar because it opens with the words: Va-y’dabbeir Adonai el-Moshe b’midbar Sinai – ‘The Eternal One spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.’ B’midbar is the first distinguishing word that marks out both the book and the first portion, and that’s why both the book and the portion are named B’midbar. Interestingly, the English and Hebrew names are not just different they also express utterly contrasting aspects of the book. Significantly, the word midbar is connected to the Hebrew root, Dalet Beit Reish, to ‘speak’. A familiar noun, also based on this root, is davar, meaning ‘word’ – and also, ‘thing’: The wilderness – or, more precisely, the desert – is a barren, empty place, devoid of words and of things. So, after spending several weeks considering the rules and regulations connected with the Divine Service of the sacred Tabernacle, and the laws associated with k’dushah, holiness, we now return to the narrative of our ancestors, and their life in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt.

Our ancestors spent a long time living in the desert – forty years, as it turned out. No wonder they complained. No wonder they thirsted for water and longed to return to the fleshpots of Egypt! (Exodus 16:2ff. and Numbers 11:4ff.). At least slaves get fed regularly. But they were not completely abandoned to the harsh terrain. The Torah tells us about the manna from heaven, and quails, and water gushing from rocks (ibid. and Numbers 20:1ff.) – and the rabbis spoke of Miriam’s Well, which accompanied them on all their journeys, until Miriam, the eldest of the three sibling leaders, died in the fortieth year of their wanderings (Talmud Bavli Ta’anit 9a; Shabbat 35a – with Rashi’s commentary).

Yes, as anyone who is familiar with the Torah narrative knows, from the very beginning of their journey, our ancestors did not take the short route from Egypt to the land on the western side of the River Jordan (Exodus 13:17-18). They wandered, rather than journeyed, through the wilderness. Nevertheless, this is not the impression given by the opening chapters of the Book of Numbers. Here we learn that ‘on the first day of the second month, in the second year after their going out from Egypt’ (Numbers 1:1), the people were numbered and organised, tribe by tribe, family by family, and marshalled to the east, south, west, and north sides of the Tabernacle, for a march through the desert (Numbers chapter 2). Hence: the Book of Numbers.

Aware that seven is the number of completion, Martin Buber[1] identified seven correspondences between the construction of the Tabernacle in the desert, outlined in the last fifteen chapters of the Book of Exodus, and the account of the creation of the world. Noticing parallels in the language – not least, the repeated use of the Hebrew root, Ayin Sin Hei, meaning to ‘do’ or to ‘make’ – Buber’s analysis helps us to see how the human task of building a community mirrored the Divine work of creating order out of chaos (Genesis 1:1ff.). At the beginning of the fourth book of the Torah, we can identify a similar process at work: Thirteen months after leaving Egypt, the people are still in the desert. The time has come to take control, impose order despite the unruly surroundings, and set out for their destination.

Well, that was the plan, anyway … As we read the story week by week, we are reminded that it wasn’t just the landscape that remained unruly: other forces of disorder were rampant; and rebellion followed rebellion (see Numbers 12-17). In the end, after forty years of battling with the people and the elements, even Moses and Aaron lost control, and an exasperated Moses yelled at the people, overwhelmed by the death of Miriam: ‘Hear now, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?’ (Numbers 20:10).

Why do we continue reading this ancient narrative, year after year? Of course, that’s the regime: the rabbis instituted the annual Torah reading cycle 1500 years ago, organising the text into weekly portions – and we have been going round and round and round, ever since. But we are doing more than simply maintaining an ancient rite. In Pirkey Avot, the Sayings of the Sages, the collection of the wise aphorisms of the rabbis, which is appended to the Mishnah, edited around 200 CE, we read that a rabbi referred to as Ben Bag Bag, said, ‘Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it’ (PA 5:22). So, we turn the Torah again and again and we find that so much of it continues to speak to our lives. Life is a wilderness. Our task is to make order out of chaos. And yet, as the Hebrew word for life, chayyim, reminds us, life is plural; it resists our attempts to contain and control it. And it’s not just that nature is constantly defying culture. The truth is that each one of us represents a complex interaction between nature and culture that cannot be disentangled. Why is the world economy in such a mess? Is it a human failure? Is it a systems failure? But at least the economy is the work of human ingenuity. Why do human beings develop and grow, and then, begin to deteriorate, and eventually die? However sophisticated and ingenious and inventive we may be, we cannot defy the natural cycle of life. Yes, we have managed to cure some diseases that used to kill people, and we may come up with more and more cures, and we may extend life expectancy yet further, and enable people to live longer, healthier lives, but we cannot cure death. We are creatures, organisms, just like all the other creatures on planet Earth. The only difference is that we have consciousness; we can manipulate nature, and make sense of our existence, and make plans and dream – and we know we’re going to die.

At the moment, we are counting the days from the Festival of Pesach to the Festival of Shavuot – or, more precisely, from the second day of Pesach to the feast of ‘Weeks’ that falls on the 50th day, following the seven weeks of counting. After the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the rabbis transformed the priest’s daily ‘waving’ of the omer, a sheaf of grain, described in Leviticus chapter 23, into a countdown to Sinai, a journey from Liberation to Revelation. But the origins of the seven weeks of the omer lie elsewhere: the farmer sows the seeds, in the hope that the rain will come and the sun will shine, in balancing proportions, and the seeds will grow into grain. It’s as simple as that. We are nature and we are culture. We interact with the natural world and we cultivate it, and nurture new life out of it in order to nourish and sustain our lives. We are here for a span – hopefully, like the seven ‘complete’ weeks of the counting of the omer (Lev. 23:15), a complete span. But whatever our hopes, we cannot control all aspects of our lives, however hard we may try. What we can do, is recognise that we are not alone. We have neighbours and fellow travellers on the glorious odyssey we call Life, from birth to death. And more than this, like our ancestors who built the Tabernacle and organised themselves for their trek through the desert, we enhance our individual lives when we cooperate and share together – and yes, argue and disagree for the sake of our common purpose, too. All being well, and we exchange contracts on the sale of 26 Farm Road, in a short while we will begin to count down the days towards leaving the synagogue building as we have known it for so many decades, and begin the process of rebuilding it. As we do so, may we all take to heart that by participating and engaging in this great adventure together, we will not only construct the building we need for our diverse and growing congregation, we will also fashion a tabernacle and an arbour for all those in search of meaning and community in the midst of the wilderness of Life. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah, 28th May 2011 / 24^th Iyyar 5771,

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

As I mentioned at the beginning of the service, sadly, three of our members died during the past week: Cyril Davidson and shul President, Ivor Miskin, and L’Chayyim volunteer, Pam Magrill, finally let go, yesterday in the late afternoon – zichronam livrachah, may their memory be for blessing.

Each one of these unique and precious individuals leaves a huge void in the lives of their loved ones and friends, and their funerals, which have not yet taken place, will provide the opportunity to reflect on their lives and special gifts.

For now, as we face the challenge of coming to terms with the loss of the person, who has been the most senior lay leader of our congregation for many years, I would like us to take a moment to think about leadership. Because, occupying a leadership position is one thing – being a leader, is quite another; and Ivor was a leader. What does it mean to say that Ivor was a leader? Of course, as chairman, and later as president, he took very seriously the role of the Council as the governing body of the synagogue. But he also did something else – and this was particularly evident, when he became president. Behind the scenes, he facilitated and supported his fellow lay leaders; he gave advice and wise counsel, he helped sort out difficulties. And in public, he addressed the congregation at significant moments – not least, when he gave the annual Kol Nidrey Appeal – and represented the congregation in the wider community, and was a wonderful ambassador for us. And so, it’s not surprising, that the loss of Ivor is felt not only here, but in the Jewish community of Sussex as a whole. As a co-chair of the Sussex Jewish Representative Council, and a member of the Sussex Jewish News editorial team, Ivor didn’t simply contribute to the effectiveness of both these concerns, his interpersonal skills, and leadership ability, enabled everyone involved in these important arenas of Jewish communal activity to contribute to the best of their ability.

Rabbis always have a way, as any regular shul-goer will know, of making connections between what we’re experiencing in our lives, and the weekly Torah portion. Well this week is no exception. The parashah, Sh’mini, begins at Leviticus chapter 9, with an account of the ritual on the eighth, and concluding, day – sh’mini means ‘eighth’ – of the rite of ordination for Aaron, the High priest and his sons. It is very hard, as modern people to connect with and really make sense of the priesthood, which played such an integral role in the life of our people in Temple times. The priests officiated over the Avodah – the Divine Service of the sanctuary; by presenting all the sacred offerings, and bringing them before God, they maintained the relationship between the people and the Eternal, the mysterious One, whom they could not know directly, but were bound to serve.

And yet, despite the special, unique place they occupied, the priests were not really leaders. They inhabited their special roles, not because they had particular qualities, but, rather, simply because of their lineage. Although they conducted powerful sacred rites, apart from being, the son of a priest, the principal qualification required for a priest, involved being physically perfect – without blemish, just like the offerings. And although their priestly role gave them power in the community, not having any tribal lands of their own, they were completely dependent on the offerings brought by the people for physical sustenance. And they also paid a very high price for their priestly power. As the ritual for the eighth day of the ordination rite unfolds in parashat Sh’mini, we learn at the beginning of Leviticus chapter 10, that when Aaron’s eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, in their zeal and enthusiasm, did not do exactly what God had commanded them, but rather offered ‘strange fire’ – eish zarah – they were instantly executed by God (:1-2). With their bodies just as instantly removed, and mourning rites forbidden, Aaron’s younger sons, Elazar and Ithamar, were summoned to take the place of their dead brothers. I imagine they felt absolutely thrilled to be elevated to their new role. All that the Torah tells us about the impact of these terrible events on the family is that Aaron was, quite literally, s’truck dumb’: We read at end of verse 3: Va-yiddom Aharon (Lev. 10:3).

No, the priests weren’t leaders in any usual meaning of the word ‘leader’. They were functionaries, responsible for carrying out their duties to the letter – or rather to the lamb and the bullock – and it was very hard work. Just imagine what it must have been like hauling those great carcasses around; and all that blood splattering their beautiful, woven garments. They were sacred butchers. It is interesting, and significant to note in this regard, that the first paragraph of Pirkey Avot, the Chapters of the Sages, which is appended to the Mishnah, and sets out the line of transmission of the Torah from Moses to the rabbis, omits the priests altogether. We read (1:1):

Moses received Torah from Sinai and handed on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets. And the prophets handed it on to the members of the Great Assembly. The latter said three things: be deliberate in judgement; raise up many disciples; and make a fence around the Torah.

Note: the key role played by the prophets here. Yes, the prophets were leaders – and of course, Aaron’s siblings, Miriam and Moses were the first prophets recorded in the Torah (Exodus 15:20 – Miriam; Deuteronomy 34:10 – Moses). And yet, the prophets didn’t occupy official leadership positions. On the contrary, the prophets were the hecklers, the sacred wordsmiths who barraged the official leaders, the Kings and the priests, with criticism, tormenting them with threats of punishment for their sins and misdeeds. Their only responsibility was to speak out. During the past month, I’ve been on writing leave, and I’m pleased to report that I have completed my book. As you will find when you read it – I hope you do, it should be published in time for Chanukkah – the prophets provide some important inspiration for my take on ‘Trouble-Making Judaism’, which is the title of the book. But not just the prophets: as the first paragraph of Pirkey Avot demonstrates, the first rabbis regarded themselves as the heirs of the prophets, receiving the Torah directly from them.

So, what kind of leaders are rabbis? Well, we are teachers by definition. Rabbi means, ‘my teacher’; and the first rabbis were the descendants of the sof’rim, the scribes, who alone among the community had the knowledge of the sacred text of Torah. The so’frim, Ezra being the most significant, played a crucial role in transmitting the Torah to the people, after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. And then, the first rabbis ensured the continuity of Jewish life by codifying the law, which was then edited into the form of the Mishnah around 200 CE. But they were not simply engaged with formulating the law, the halachah, through their imaginative commentaries on the Torah, the rabbis also created a wonderful tradition of aggadah, ‘tales’. And through, both, their halachic and aggadic interpretations of the Torah, in many places, a prophetic voice shines through – for example, as in the famous comment by Rabbi Akiva, the third century sage, who said that ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ – in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18  – is the ‘greatest principle’ of the Torah.

And yet, for centuries, while most of our people lived in ghettos, segregated from the host society, the rabbis were, principally, dayanim, judges, focusing on the important task of guiding their communities, and providing continuity and stability. It was only with the advent of modernity, and the birth of Progressive Judaism 200 years ago, that rabbis rediscovered their prophetic voice. And as we began to live alongside our, mostly, Christian neighbours, progressive rabbis – as well as modern Orthodox rabbis – also took on some of the roles associated with the Christian clergy. This has meant that, apart from within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world, rabbis today are teachers and prophets and ministers and pastors and counsellors – and even priests. The Temple may be gone, and the Temple altar may have been replaced by the dining-table of the Jewish home, but when rabbis preside over the life cycle moments, in particular, the role we play is very akin to the role of a priest.

But, of course, while rabbis may have become multi-taskers, we don’t work on our own. Let us not forget that the Torah tells us that before the moment of Revelation at Mount Sinai, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, came to see him, and the priest of Midian, gave Moses some sound organisational advice. You could call him, the first managerial consultant – although I don’t think he collected a fee! (Exodus 18). Jethro told Moses that he could not bear the burden of leading the people all by himself – and that he needed to organise the elders among the people to deal with the less weighty matters. There is a sense in which, Jethro’s advice to Moses provides the first paradigm for lay leadership within the Jewish community. Certainly, the Torah suggests, that since the time of Moses, leadership is a shared responsibility.

So, lay-leaders have also made an important contribution to Jewish life. While the rabbis created the institution, we call the synagogue, nowadays, the governance of synagogues is largely a lay leadership affair, with rabbis walking a difficult tightrope between being the religious leader of the congregation and an employee! Nevertheless, the harnessing of the energies of, both, rabbi and lay leadership for the benefit of the congregation, can often be very fruitful – and certainly has been during most of the time that I have been rabbi of BHPS – which brings me back to Ivor. This weekend, as we welcome the Board of Deputies to Brighton, we are reminded of the important role played by this unique institution of British Jewry:  the community’s only democratically elected cross-communal organisation, which, as the BOD web-site puts it: ‘engages with Government, media and wider society, providing a unique means through which all British Jews can be heard and represented’ (see  HYPERLINK “http://www.bod.org.uk/” http://www.bod.org.uk/). Ivor, perhaps more than any lay leader I have worked with during the 22 years since I received s’michah, really understood the responsibilities of lay leadership, and also the importance of lay leaders and rabbis working together to represent the community – both in the context of the synagogue, and in the context of the wider Jewish community of Sussex. As we look to the future, let us resolve to pay tribute to his memory by continuing the vital work of sustaining and developing Jewish life. Zichrono livrachah – May Ivor’s memory be a source of blessing for all our endeavours. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

26^th March 2011 – 20^th Adar II 5771

Sadly, a fourth member, Elizabeth Curtis, who had also begun her final journey earlier in the week died at 6.30pm on Motza’ey Shabbat – Saturday evening

A few moments ago, the person standing here in the pulpit, leading the Shabbat Morning Service, was a young woman: Kate Goffi.  Today, we are witnessing the moment when Kate becomes a bat mitzvah, literally, a ‘daughter of the commandment’, and by standing before us, signals that she is taking responsibility for her own Jewish life, and beginning her journey towards Jewish adulthood.

Kate is doing this in a very particular way: by leading the congregation in prayer and in the study of the sacred text which is at the heart of Judaism: the Torah. In a few minutes, Kate will come up again to the bimah – the platform, which stands in front of the Aron ha-Kodesh, the Holy Ark, and she will give a d’var Torah, her commentary on the Torah portion of this week, which is Yitro. She will then read from the Sefer Torah, the Scroll of the Torah, on behalf of the congregation. In other words, Kate will, once again, lead the congregation. And so, before she starts reading from the scroll, she will call the congregation to the Torah reading with the words, Bar’chu et Adonai ha-m’vorach, ‘Bless the Eternal, who is blessed’ – the words with which she also called the congregation to prayer, earlier in the service.

Kate: I’m not sure that when you were preparing for today, you thought about yourself as a leader-in-waiting – but here you are, leading us! You have been helped, of course, by your tutor Harry, and you couldn’t have done it, without the support of your parents. But even with all the help you have received – including from your teachers, Melanie and Eileen – you have done it. I’ve not decided to retire early – and I’m pretty sure becoming a Rabbi has not featured in your thoughts about your future occupation – at least, not yet! Nevertheless, you have demonstrated today that in an important sense, you are fast learning the skills you need to become a leader.

How does one become a leader? By leading. The story of the Exodus from Egypt shows us that the first leader of the Exodus, was not Moses, but Miriam, his elder sister: If it hadn’t been for her initiative, Moses might never have survived, when his mother and sister placed him in a basket in the reeds of the River Nile, in an effort to save him from Pharaoh’s genocidal decree. It was Miriam, who stood by and waited to see what would happen, and when Pharaoh’s daughter found the baby, arranged that Moses’ mother became his wet-nurse (Exodus 2). But Miriam didn’t, simply, like the midwives, Shiphrah and Pu’ah before her, who saved the lives of the new born boys (Exodus 1), facilitate her baby brother’s survival: last week’s portion, B’shallach relates that at the time of the Exodus, Miriam was designated as a prophet – n’vi’ah – led the women in song and dance, with timbrels, when the waters of the Reed Sea parted. And she didn’t just lead the women, like Moses, she sang on behalf of all the congregation (Ex 15:20-21)

Miriam became a leader by taking the lead. But given that Miriam was the elder of the triumvirate of leader siblings: Miriam, Aaron and Moses, and that she clearly played such an important leadership role in the Exodus, and the subsequent journey through the wilderness, it is astounding that the Torah actually tells us so little about her. But then, we all know that she lived during patriarchal times, when fathers and husbands ruled their daughters and wives, and sisters played second fiddle to their brothers.

But, significantly, Miriam never became any man’s wife. This made her position in the social order rather anomalous, but it also gave her more room to manoeuvre: struggling with a younger brother (Numbers 12) is not quite the same as having to deal with the power of a husband. Interestingly, the haftarah, the reading from the prophetic books that accompanies B’shallach, is the Book of Judges chapter four, verse 4 to chapter 5, which centres on the leadership of the prophet, Deborah. Deborah, like Miriam, sang a song of victory – and, significantly, Deborah was also unmarried. In addition to calling her a ‘prophet’ – n’vi’ah – the text also tells us that she was eishet lappidot. Most translations, translate eishet lappidot as ‘wife of Lappidot’. However, there is no character called Lappidot in the whole of the Hebrew Bible – so, clearly, the Hebrew means something else. In Hebrew, the words, ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ are the same word: ishah; so, eishet means wife of…, or, woman of… Interestingly, the Hebrew word lappid, means ‘torch. Since Lappid is a masculine noun, the usual plural is lappidim. However, since Deborah is referred to as eishet lappidot – the ot ending is the feminine plural – in the absence of a man called Lappidot, the most logical literal translation is ‘woman of torches’ – or, in more comprehensible English, ‘a torch-bearing woman’, or, simply, and more bluntly: ‘a fiery woman’. The association of Deborah with torches – and, indeed, fire – makes a lot of sense: she did, after all, as Judges chapters 4 and five relate, not only serve as a Judge and leader of her people in times of peace, but also, together with the general, Barak, she led the people in times of war – which is how she got to sing a song of victory with him.

So, both Miriam and Deborah were not simply like the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, strong women, they were also leaders. And – they were also both unmarried – which is probably why they were able to occupy leadership positions in societies that were usually led by men. Of course, male domination is not simply a thing of the past: there are many societies in the world still today, where men hold all the public power, and women are relagated to the private sphere of the home. And it’s not just in other countries that women’s lives are circumscribed in this way: in parts of the Jewish and Muslim communities here in Britain, for example, while boys are taught to participate in the public arena, girls are trained to be wives and mothers, whose primary purpose is to serve their families.

Fortunately, however, there is more than one way of practising Judaism. Today marks the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death of the first female leader of Liberal Judaism in this country, Lily Montagu – zichronah livrachah, may her memory be for blessing, who died at the age of 89, on January 22^nd 1963.  Lily Montagu, together with Claude Montefiore and Rabbi Israel Mattuck, was one of the three leaders, who formed Liberal Judaism in this country – one of the ‘3 Ms’, as they are affectionately called. In her article on Lily Montagu, published in 1994 in Hear Our Voice (edited by Sybil Sheridan and Sylvia Rothschild, SCM Press), the first anthology of women rabbis writings, Rabbi Dr Margaret Jacobi, now the Rabbi of Birmingham Progressive Synagogue, writes about this ‘pioneer in religious leadership’, who also, throughout her life, engaged in social work, mostly in London’s East End, and was dedicated to improving the lot of young working women. Brought up in an observant Orthodox Jewish family, Lily Montagu became attracted by the Reform movement in Germany and the United States, and after meeting Claude Montefiore at the age of 25, became committed to this new form of Judaism. A year later in 1899, she wrote an article for the Jewish Quarterly Review on, ‘The Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today’, which was so well received that it inspired a gathering of like-minded people, which led to the establishment of the Jewish Religious Union in 1902.

Lily Montagu was the catalyst for the development of Liberal Judaism in England. But interestingly, she asked Claude Montefiore to lead the new movement. And then, when the Liberal Jewish Synagogue was founded in St John’s Wood, London, in 1911, and Dr Israel Mattuck came over from the US a year later to be its first Rabbi, he took centre stage. And so, although Lily Montagu led children’s services and Shabbat afternoon services at her Girls Club, which later became the West Central Synagogue, she was reluctant to lead services at the LJS. Indee, it was not until June 1915, at the request of Rabbi Mattuck, that she gave her first sermon there. Subsequently, Lily Montagu did stand regularly in the pulpit, and also became one of the co-founders of the World Union of Progressive Judaism, and was one of the principal organisers of World Union activities for many years. She was also one of the founders of the London Society of Jews and Christians, which still exists, and which predated the Council of Christians and Jews by several years.

Both Claude Montefiore and Rabbi Mattuck, saw themselves as leaders; was this how Lily Montagu saw herself, too? Interestingly, she never married: was this why she was able to devote so much time to Liberal Judaism? If she had married, would her duties to her husband and family have come first? Questions like these are never asked of men because they simply would not be relevant: historically, men have never had to choose between marriage and family and a role in the world. Of course, during the 20th century, women’s lives changed dramatically, as women began to challenge the patriarchal status quo. But still today, while more and more women work, and are also found in the professions, most of the leaders remain men in every sphere: in business, politics, law, education, medicine – and, of course, religion.

Which brings me back to Kate. Kate: thankfully, unlike Miriam and Deborah and Lily Montagu, you have the choice to get married, if you want to, and go out into the world. Just look at your parents: your mum and dad both have careers, and they both look after the home, and share the care for their children: you are very fortunate to have such wonderful role models! And if the confident and accomplished way you have led the service this morning is anything to go by, you have real potential to be a leader. When I asked you, as part of your preparations for today, to think about what it all means to you, your answers revealed a deep level of understanding and real maturity. For you, ‘Being Jewish is all about friends, family and festivals. About getting together and doing things as a community. It’s also about both old and new traditions.’ I think you managed to summon up everything in just a few short words! And your reflections on becoming bat mitzvah were just as pertinent: ‘My Bat Mitzvah marks a point where I start to take responsibility for my actions, and I am recognized in my own right. I will also start to try and give more of a contribution to the synagogue as a whole.’ You are very aware of how you have changed over the past year – again, let me quote you:  ‘I feel I have got more confident in both myself and my Judaism. I have got more independent and responsible, and am relying less on other people.’ You are also rather pleased that you have ‘got a few centimetres taller’ and are now ‘taller than Nana!’ Like many young people, you ‘love spending time’ with your ‘friends, whether it’s just hanging around or going on a trip’, but you also love reading – and not just because it’s a way of getting out of tidying your room! You love the opportunity that reading gives you to enter ‘another world… that’s totally different’.  At the same time, your feet are firmly on the ground: you don’t know what you want to do in the future yet, but you do know that you ‘want to do something that interacts with people… something useful that helps others.’ In this spirit, thinking about what you could do to help make the world a better place to live in, you ‘would like to help young carers who have to look after and support their families because their parents are unable to.’

Kate: I don’t want to pre-empt your wonderful commentary on today’s portion on the subject of leadership – but I do just want to say one thing in that connection before I close: When Moses’ father in law, Yitro, advised him about how to identify leaders – of course, they were all ‘men’ – to share some of the responsibilities of leadership, Moses’ role as a leader was actually enhanced, not diminished. As the eldest sister, you have already taken the lead in your family, and today you are demonstrating your ability to lead the congregation in prayer and study. May the achievement of this day inspire you to continue to be a leader in all that you do. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

22^nd January 2011 – 17^th Sh’vat 5771

When does childhood end and adulthood begin? Until modern times, childhood was very short, and children assumed adult responsibilities from one day to the next, as they were put to work, or were married off. Of course, this still happens in some parts of the world even today – but not here, not in Britain, or Europe, not in most of what is called ‘the developed world’ – and not in most of the ‘Jewish world’, either.

And yet, today Emma Williams becomes Bat Mitzvah, literally, ‘a Daughter of the Commandment ‘; according to Jewish tradition, from this moment onwards, Emma assumes the responsibilities, which devolve on Jewish adults; that is why, she has stood in the pulpit, leading the service – very beautifully, I’m sure you’ll all agree – and that is why, in a short while, she will read this week’s portion from the sacred scroll of the Torah. It’s not just the act of being on the bimah, and doing these things, which signifies Emma’s new status – as an active participant in our Beit Lameid, our educational programme for young people, Emma has been on the bimah, taking part in the leading of the congregation’s Shabbat morning services for several years – rather, it is the fact that today, for the first time, she is standing before us, as our representative; as a sh’lichat tzibbur, an ‘emissary of the congregation’. And so, together with her tutor, Harry Atkins, and myself, Emma stood facing the Ark, and called the community to prayer; and so, in 15 minutes or so, she will repeat the same phrase, as she calls the community to the Torah reading: Bar’chu et-Adonai ha-m’vorach – ‘Bless the Eternal One, who is blessed’; and once again, we will respond, Baruch Adonai ha-m’vorach l’olam va’ed – ‘Blessed is the Eternal One, who is blessed forever and ever.’

So, what are we witnessing today? Has Emma become an adult? Of course not: Sorry, Emma – and sorry, Sarah and Martin; on one level, it would be quite nice if Emma could start helping to pay all those bills… Outside the arena of traditional Jewish practice, becoming an adult means assuming economic responsibilities. And yet, today is not simply a quaint, Jewish ritual moment; yes, Emma will go back to school on Monday, but she will no longer be a child; today, as Emma calls the congregation together, she is also proclaiming to us that she is setting out on a new journey, away from her childhood, and towards adulthood.

As Emma makes this proclamation to us today, she echoes generations of young Jews before her – not least, one of our ancestors, who features prominently in the last four portions of the book of Genesis: Joseph. Today’s Torah portion, the parashah, Va-yeishev, which begins the story of Joseph is so familiar, I’m sure most of us here could tell it without having to read it. But the problem with knowing a story very well is that sometimes we miss crucial details. What was Jacob thinking when he told his favourite son to go and find out how his brothers were doing? Didn’t he know how much they hated and resented Joseph? And what about Joseph; was he so oblivious to his impact on his brothers that he could just go off and look for them?  These are the questions we are bound to ask.

But in our preoccupation with the dynamics of this dysfunctional family, we overlook something very important: when Jacob tells Joseph to go to Shechem to find out how his brothers are doing, as they tend the flock, Joseph’s response is startling: hinneini – ‘here I am’, he replies (Genesis 37:13). I say Joseph’s response is startling – but that may only be apparent to those who recall the moments when other significant individuals in the Torah said, hinneini: Hinneini: this was the immediate response of Abraham to the voice of the Eternal One, even before he heard that he must go to Mount Moriah, and sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1). And, having responded, hinneini, Abraham had to take the next step; because hinneini doesn’t simply mean, ‘here I am’, it implies, ‘I am ready’ – for anything.  Similarly, when the Eternal One apprehended Moses, as he was shepherding his father-in-law’s flock, achar ha-midbar, ‘behind the wilderness’, Moses responded, hinneini (Exodus 3:4). Like Abraham, Moses was ready even before he knew his mission – and, significantly, the narrative tells us that the Eternal One only addressed Moses, after he had turned aside to look at the ‘burning bush’ (ibid.). The implication is that if Moses had simply got on with his shepherding, he would have wandered off into oblivion, and that would quite simply have been the end of the story – the end of the Jewish story altogether: no Exodus; no Sinai; no wilderness wanderings; no crossing over into the land beyond the Jordan.

As the examples of Abraham and Moses show us, the simple response, hinneini, ushers in momentous events – and so it is with Joseph. Yes, he is a spoiled, irritating, boastful, teenager, preoccupied only with himself and his dreams – and yet, he is ready: hinneini – ‘here I am’. And, as with Abraham and Moses, his readiness says something very particular about Joseph: hinneini – here I am; Joseph has a sense of himself as an individual; indeed, he has already demonstrated that he is an individual, even before he uttered hinneini. Similiarly, before Abraham’s hinneini, he had already left all that he knew to go on a journey far away from home, into the unknown (Genesis 12:1ff.); and, likewise, some time before Moses said, hinneini, despite living a privileged life in the Egyptian court, he had gone out one day and killed a taskmaster, who was beating a slave (Exodus 2:11-12). So, although he expressed his singularity in a different way, when Joseph stood up amidst his brothers, and said, I’m not like you, I’m special, in an important sense, he was following in the footsteps of Abraham and Moses.

Interestingly, while set apart from his brothers, Joseph’s singularity also made him rather like the only daughter in the family, Dinah, who, amazingly, as recounted in last week’s portion, Va-yishlach, ‘went out’, of her own volition, ‘ to see the daughters of the land’ (Genesis 34:1ff.). I say, ‘amazingly’, because unmarried daughters didn’t go out on their own in ancient times – and, indeed, like a cautionary tale along the lines of, ‘good girls should stay at home, lest something awful befalls them’, Dinah got her comeuppance…

It’s tempting, but I’m not going to stray into the disturbing story of Dinah. For one thing, fortunately, today we live in a society that is moving in the direction of full gender equality, and, also, we are progressive Jews, for whom equality is one of our basic principles. But today, there is an even more important reason for focusing on Joseph rather than Dinah: right at the beginning of the story, the reader is told that Joseph is 17 years old – and that’s the point: not yet a fully-fledged adult, still in his family home, Joseph was his own person, an individual in his own right – and that’s why he could say, hinneini – ‘here I am’.

Which brings me back to Emma: Emma, each young person who becomes Bat Mitzvah or Bar Mitzvah is a unique individual, and it is fascinating to see how some aspect of the weekly portion always seems to speak in a particular way to each individual – even though, it is just the weekly portion, and was not written for them. And so, the story of Joseph, or rather, Joseph’s ready, hinneini, seems to speak directly to you: I remember when we met to plan your Bat Mitzvah studies: you were completely ready then to step out on a new journey – and your tutor, Harry, has told me that your readiness has shone out throughout your preparations: hinneini – here I am! But it’s not just that you have been eager and enthusiastic, you have also been yourself – completely the ‘I’ in ‘here I am’: totally focused; an utter perfectionist; knowing exactly where you are going and why you want to get there. You’re not a bit like Joseph in character, of course – and you are lucky that in your family, there are no favourites – but you do have something of Joseph’s quality of self-possession, of knowing who you are. You are aware, for example, of how much you have changed since you began your Bat Mitzvah preparations – in your own words: ‘Over the past year I think I have become a lot more mature in many ways. I have also thought a lot more about Judaism and put a lot more energy and time into it.’  You have also thought about the implications of becoming Bat Mitzvah – as you put it: ‘Becoming Bat Mitzvah means becoming a more respected member of my community and taking on more responsibility within the community’. For you – and I’m quoting you again – ‘being Jewish means being part of a huge family who are all interlinked and share one belief. For me, the synagogue is a place where I can meet with my friends and other people who are just like me. It is a place where I can learn and socialize and pray. I can be what I want to be.’ Emma, you say the words, ‘For me’ and ‘I’ very readily; you seem to have an inner capacity to enjoy being with people, while, at the same time, being utterly yourself – that is a very rare quality; Joseph, while very much his own person, had to suffer terribly before he learned how to relate with other people.

That capacity to reach out to others and to be yourself at the same time is also reflected in your interests beyond the synagogue: as you put it: ‘I enjoy being with my friends a lot and (my emphasis) I love to read and be transported away, but my main hobby is my music which I love because it is relaxing and helps me focus.’ You know how to nourish yourself and to be with yourself – and be the life and soul of the party – and that adaptability and breadth is also expressed in your favourite school subjects: how many people do you know, who ‘love English because it involves being creative’ and ‘biology, because you find out how things work’?  You embrace both dimensions, and perhaps it isn’t surprising that you would like to be a doctor, and would relish doing medical research into diseases, like cancer, so that you can help people in need. The readiness you have shown in connection with your Bat Mitzvah preparations, extends to a readiness to go out into the world and make a difference.

Emma: you are a very special person – and because you are the kind of special person you are, you know that you have not arrived at this day on your own: you love your family and your friends are very important to you, and you have also appreciated working with Harry, and the years you have spent learning with Melanie, Eileen and Andy, your teachers at the Beit Lameid. Nevertheless, you are here today because you have chosen to take responsibility for your Jewish life; because you responded to the challenge and said, hinneini, ‘here I am’. May you always be ready to engage with the Jewish heritage you receive today, and eager to make it your own, as you continue your life’s journey. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

27^th November 2010 – 20^th Kislev 5771

HINNEINI – ‘HERE I AM’

THE BAT MITZVAH OF EMMA WILLIAMS

I have gone to Israel many, many times. My first visit was in blistering heat in July 1978. I then spent seven months living on a small radical kibbutz less than two kilometers from the Lebanon border in the Western Galilee, from late 1978 to 1979. Returning to Israel most years, up to the present day, the biggest gap between visits was when I was studying to become a rabbi at the Leo Baeck College, from 1984 to 1989 – having chosen the rabbinate over making aliyah.

So, you could say I’m a seasoned traveler to Israel. Except: it’s never possible to say that about going to Israel; each visit, in my experience, has been utterly unique – even when I have returned to the same places. Because the same places are never the same: because the geological fault-line between two continents that runs through the heart of the land seems to be mirrored in perennial instability within the society as well: the political and economic circumstances always in flux; the bruising interactions between all the different Jewish constituencies, classes, ethnicities, and cultures – secular, religious and political – generating multiple conflicting loyalties; the relationships between Jewish and Arab Israelis – also a diverse people; encompassing Druze and Bedouins, town dwellers and farmers – shadowed by loss and mistrust; the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, which vary, depending on the Israelis and the Palestinians concerned – as well as, on whether we’re talking about Gaza or the West Bank – defined by an exhausting perennial contest…  One land; so much diversity and complexity; so many competing narratives; so impossible to grasp – and yet so fascinating and inspiring – which is why I have returned, again and again.

And so, no surprise then that, despite having been in Israel so many times, the Israel tour I co-led with Rabbi Charley Baginsky of Kingston Liberal Synagogue and Dana Friedman, the Liberal Judaism Sh’lichah (Israel Emissary) was also a completely new experience. It would have been more straightforward to have stayed in three main centres and taken trips to various sites of interest. But we wanted to do something different. All Jewish tours to Israel are like pilgrimages; but we wanted our tour to be a real journey in and through the land, so that all the participants, whatever they already knew about Israel, and whether or not they had been there before, could really discover the country – a bit like, the leaders of the tribes, commissioned by Moses to reconnoiter the land beyond the Jordan in the second year of their journey through the wilderness (see Sh’lach L’cha, Numbers 13ff.).

It would have been ideal if we could have flown to Eilat, and then worked our way up the land from the southernmost point. As it was, we flew to Ben Gurion airport, stayed the night in Jerusalem at the Rabin Youth Hostel, and then left the next morning to go down south, to the Aravah desert. Our destination was Kibbutz Lotan, which is part of the progressive movement, and is on the border with Jordan. Israel is 60% desert and the Aravah is one of the most intense deserts in the world, and is, technically speaking, unable to sustain life. And yet, the Zionist pioneers and their descendants have created life there – as the saying goes, they ‘made the desert bloom’. It’s not a myth; it’s true – and it’s also the purist part of the Zionist story: because there, in the Aravah, the pioneers really did create something out of nothing. And so, today, not just date-palm plantations, but flowers for export, and one of the largest dairy farms in Israel: Yotvata. Yes, milk cows in 40+ degrees of heat! It’s all a bit crazy – which is why Kibbutz Lotan has become an ecological centre, recycling everything, including transforming rubbish into buildings.  Of course, it’s hard to live in the desert – Kibbutz Lotan is small, and the fifty or so members rely on Thai workers to help them with their agricultural tasks, which must be conducted on a large scale to make economic survival possible. Idealism versus realism: It’s a balancing act all over Israel.

After a fascinating stay in Lotan, which included a muddy hands on experience of ecological farming in the desert, the following morning we set off, northwards, our coach climbing through a very different and startling terrain: the upper Negev desert. There, we took a hike in over 100 degrees of heat in the centre of Machtesh Ramon – the site, eons ago, of a sea – which takes the form of a massive basin of rock, 9 kilometers wide. We didn’t all go on the hike, of course – the sensible ones went to a shady place on the northern rim of the Machtesh, by the development town of Mitzpeh Ramon, and waited for us.

After lunch in that desert shade, we continued our journey northwards to S’deh Boker, the kibbutz where the first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben Gurion spent a lot of his time, modeling the life of the ‘new Jew’. Home now to Ben Gurion University, here we learnt some more lessons about ecology, and were shown some of the ecological investigations being conducted at the University, which has become one of the world centres for such research.

The Northern Negev is an important area for the Bedouin nomads, and skirting the city of B’eir Sheva, where Abraham and Sarah settled 4000 years ago, we saw many Bedouin encampments on our way to Arad – one of the cities built in the desert after the establishment of the State of Israel. Arad is home to a number of artists – as well as the writer, Amos Oz, and we ended our day by visiting the studio of an artist who worked in glass, before sleeping at Arad’s Youth Hostel.

The next morning we set off for the Dead Sea, and a tour of the Dead Sea Works at its southern tip – a large factory, established in 1934, that mines potash and other minerals for agricultural use throughout the world. Like the kibbutzim in the Aravah, the Dead Sea Works bring home what it means to transform a natural landscape into an environment, shaped to meet the needs of large-scale human habitation. I love the Dead Sea, but it’s always a shock to see it, because it is shrinking each year – by 1 to 2 meters – as the water sources that feed it are diverted to support the growing populations of Israel, Jordan and nascent Palestine.

The Dead Sea region, the lowest point on Earth, 450 meters below sea level, is famous for its densely salty sea, and for its wadis – or ravines. While, like the Aravah, very little rain falls there, the rains, which descend on the Judean Hills above it in the winter, rush down the crevices, briefly flooding the landscape. There are also springs, and those who walked up Nachal David, at Ein Gedi, experienced the pleasure of the fountains and pools of deliciously cool water in the intense heat. As the Bible tells us, and archaeological finds confirm, King David built ‘strongholds’ at Ein Gedi, and those who visited the ruins of the second century synagogue saw clear evidence of community life in ancient times. Booked in for the night at the Ein Gedi Youth Hostel, another day’s exploits in the desert concluded with a relaxing float in the Dead Sea.

The following morning, we began the day by visiting Masada. I went with the brave group that got up at four o’clock in the morning to walk up the famous landmark and see the sunrise. The site of a huge palace built by King Herod, Masada is best known as the refuge where the Zealots held out against the Romans after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem for four years, and then, chose to die – all 960 of them – rather than succumb to their enemies. How did they survive all those years? They managed to draw on the water sources deep in the rock. Leaving Masada, on our way northwards, we were given another reminder that despite the heat and the barren mountains, people were able to live by the Dead Sea: the caves of Qumran where the scrolls were discovered in the late 1950s, confirming the existence of the Essenes, the all-male monastic Jewish sect that lived in that area during Roman times.

After leaving the Dead Sea, we traveled up the Jordan Valley, the Palestinian territories and Jewish settlements to the west, Jordan to the east, making a lunch stop at the site of the old Kibbutz Gesher, whose members held the line against the Jordanians in the 1948 War of Independence. Continuing northwards, we arrived at the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, where we visited the cemetery, which is the final resting place of many of the pioneers, including those who established the first kibbutz, Degania, and famous Israeli figures, like the poets, Rachel, and Naomi Shemer. The day’s touring ended with our arrival at Karei Deshe, the Youth Hostel on the northern shore at 4 p.m. – which gave us time to enjoy the beautiful location, including a swim before dinner.

On Friday morning, we set off, still northwards, to the Hula Valley. Originally drained by the pioneers because it was a malaria-ridden swamp, in recent years the Hula Valley has been re-watered and restored to its former role as a wildlife habitat. So the valley includes lakes, which provide an essential stopping off point for the half billion birds, whose route from Europe to Africa and back, takes them down the Jordan Valley, from the source of the Jordan at the most northern point of Israel, through the Hula valley, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, and through the Aravah, to the Red Sea. Half a billion birds! A staggering natural wonder to sit alongside the sociopolitical history of this remarkable land on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean, this bridge between East and West, North and South; which was such a magnate for the empires that disrupted Jewish life again and again long before Christians and Muslims arrived on the scene: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans.

Leaving this little Hula Eden behind us, we continued our journey northwards to the Lebanon border, before traveling south-west through hilly terrain that includes Arab villages, kibbutzim and moshavim – communal farms, where people work together, but live privately – to the ancient Mediterranean seaport of Akko. Akko is home to both Jews and Arabs, and so we visited the Arab-Jewish centre, which is located in a poorer part of the city. There we met the Director, Mohammed, who established the centre 25 years ago, and is passionately committed to Arab-Jewish co-existence. After speaking to us, he showed us round. Because it was lunchtime, and school was over for the week, we were fortunate to encounter some of the children who come to the centre after school, to have a meal, to play and to learn. In one room, a young Arab boy agreed to let us observe his violin lesson – and his eager and yet shy demeanour, brought many of us to tears. In a larger room, several children were playing games and sitting at computers, and were very accommodating of the strange visitors, who assailed them.

After lunch and a tour of parts of the old city, we set off for Haifa, another place inhabited by both Jews and Arabs, going straight to Ohel Avraham, the progressive congregation, based at the Leo Baeck Centre, for the Erev Shabbat service. The service – all in Hebrew, of course – included an array of familiar and unfamiliar tunes, accompanied by guitar-playing Rabbi Ofek, who later, after dinner, came to our hotel and led a programme of songs on the theme of ‘holy time and holy place.’

Having traveled non-stop for six days, thankfully, the seventh day, Shabbat, was a day of rest! After our own Shabbat morning service, which I co-led with Rabbi Charley, the afternoon was an opportunity to visit the famous gardens of the Bahai Temple, walk around, or, simply, relax, before setting off in the early evening down the coast to Tel Aviv – and more free time to eat and explore the centre of modern Israeli Israel.

The next morning we went to Beit Daniel, the largest progressive synagogue in Israel, where Rabbi Talia spoke to us about what it means to be Jewish, as an Israeli Jew. Paradoxically, apart from the Orthodox, Jewish Israelis identify less and less as Jews. What are the implications of this, she asked, for Israel as a Jewish state? In what sense, is Israel a Jewish state? Searching questions to consider; alongside the knowledge that well over 20% of the population of Israel is Muslim or Christian.

Following a speedy bus-tour through Tel Aviv, we were left with these questions and our own thoughts, as we took the road up to Jerusalem. There, after a period of free time, we gathered together at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City for a walk through the Christian quarter, via the relics of Roman habitation, to the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall – the outer wall of the Temple, built by King Herod, which is all that remains of the centre of pre-rabbinic Judaism. We arrived as dusk was falling and green lights came on in all the minarets of East Jerusalem, some of which – including the green light in the minaret of the Al Aqsa Mosque that sits opposite the golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount – are visible from the Jewish Quarter; a reminder, if we needed one, that Jerusalem is sacred not only to Jews and Christians, but to Muslims, too.

We probably had enough to think about already, but before our last dinner in a lovely literary cafe called T’mol Shilshom, we went to Beit Shmu’el, the headquarters of the World Union of Progressive Judaism, which is situated just outside the old city, opposite the Jaffa Gate, to meet a representative from the Israel Religious Action Centre, which campaigns for human rights and justice on behalf of all the different disadvantaged groups in Israel – including, the progressive movement, which is struggling for recognition, and whose rabbis do not have the authority to officiate at weddings and funerals. And so, our last full day ended, as it had begun, with food for thought about the nature of Israeli society.

That could have been it – but somehow, like the delicious food we ate throughout the trip, we found room for one more stimulating morsel. And so, on the last morning, before leaving for the airport, a visit to the ‘Museum on the Seam’, so-called because it is situated in a villa once owned by an Arab called Tourgeman, located on the Green line, the ceasefire line agreed by Israel and Jordan at the end of the 1948 war, which became a military outpost between 1948 and 1967. So, a museum dedicated to peaceful coexistence, on the 1948 border between Israel and Jordan; the seam which still separates East and West Jerusalem. But that’s not all: situated next to the ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of Mei’ah Sh’arim to the West, the Museum also sits on the seam between the religious and secular Jewish worlds of this complex city. The museum is a statement in itself. Meanwhile, the current exhibition on ‘The Right to Protest’ spoke directly to one of the most pressing issues in Israel today: the steady erosion of democratic rights, as the Israeli government presses on with its agenda of promoting a strong and secure fortress Israel, at all costs. Interestingly, that morning, when we went down to breakfast at the Rabin Youth Hostel, where we had begun our trip, the dining room was occupied: a large banner informing us that it was hosting ‘The Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010’ – that is, the one involving the Turkish flotilla on its way to Gaza…

There is so much more I could say. But I’m aware that I’ve taken up much too much time already.  Before I close, I want to mention, briefly, the missing element in my account of the Israel tour: the people. So many of the people we met – including our indomitable tour guide, Efrat – radiated pride, in the best sense of that term, as well as commitment, and a passion to engage and communicate. I’m sure that their enthusiasm inspired ours: and so, finally, a word of thanks to all the participants, who took this amazing journey, enthusiastically, every step of the way – despite the heat and the hectic pace – embracing all the challenges; without whom it would never have happened.  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

6^th November 2010 – 29^th Cheshvan 5771

A COUNTRY OF MANY COLOURS

THE BHPS/KLS ISRAEL TOUR, 17.10 – 25.10.10

A Bar or Bat mitzvah at this synagogue is always deeply moving to witness – and very impressive. I am always impressed by two things, in particular: how each Bar or Bat Mitzvah stands in the pulpit and summons up the courage to lead the congregation in prayer and to read the sacred scroll of the Torah for the first time; and what they have to say, when they comment on their Torah portion. I’ll never forget, for example, what Jacob Swirsky said in his D’var Torah six months ago (13.03.10), when, reflecting on the setting up of the Tabernacle in the wilderness (Va-yakheil-P’kudey – Exodus 35-40), he talked about belonging to several different communities – including the shul community. It was a fact of his life that he was sharing with us, and it was also a very profound insight: We all inhabit different communities – although, we may not always recognise and acknowledge that we do. We inhabit the community that is our family of birth or our family of choice – or both. We inhabit the community of our friends. We inhabit the community of the synagogue – and may be part of several sub-communities within it. We inhabit the community of our neighbourhood, our city, or town, or village. We belong to the wider Jewish community of Brighton and Hove, of Liberal Judaism in this country, of British Jewry as a whole. Some of us choose to belong to a variety of other communities of shared activity as well – from our workplace, to the bowls club, to the orchestra we play in, the political party we support, and the causes and activities we are committed to. The list is as long and varied as all the different people gathered here today. For many of us, daily life is a complex nexus of connections, and of journeys that take us in different directions.

So, how do we make sense of our personal identity in the midst of all this diversity and plurality? What does it mean to be a Jew, who carries the experiences and history of our people together with her or his own particular bundle of life experiences and personal history, and whose personal bundle may also include experiences and legacies that are not Jewish? Complicated, isn’t it? Quite apart from all our individual differences, it’s not as if ‘the Jewish people’ is singular: our people, inhabiting, for thousands of years, so many different geographical settings and cultures is also extremely complicated. When my partner, Jess, and I were living in Israel for four months during 2006 – 2007, what struck us most was how incredibly culturally diverse a place it is.  Of course, the history of that land has made it so: shaped, as it has been, by its millennia long experience of occupation by successive empires, including, most recently, the Ottoman Turks in the 19th century and the British in the 20th century. And then, there are the different people, who live there: the Muslim and Christian Palestinians, the Bedouin and Druze communities, as well as the various Jewish communities, with roots, not only in the land, but also in, Germany, France, Eastern Europe, Russia, North Africa, Iraq, Syria, the Yemen, South and North America – and many more places besides these. While we were in Tel Aviv, we used to make a daily visit to a greengrocer nearby to where we were staying. High on one of the walls of his shop he had a large, colourful poster with pictures of all the different fruits, which grow in Israel. On the day we were leaving Tel Aviv, we went into the shop and asked him if he knew where we could buy the poster. His response was, simply, to take it off the wall and give it to us. When we got it home, we noticed that in addition to giving the Hebrew names for each fruit, the names were also printed in Arabic, English, and Russian. Framed and now hanging in our kitchen, the poster reminds us of all the wonderful, varied ‘fruits’ of Israel – both actual and symbolic – and of what a complex society it is.

So, what are the implications for this congregation, and for our Jewish practice, of all the diversity that we encompass between us as the members and friends of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue? BHPS is proud to be a constituent of Liberal Judaism in Britain, and founded 75 years ago in 1935, was part of the first generation of congregations in this country, offering a distinctive Liberal approach to Jewish life. The first members of the synagogue were mostly exiles from Orthodox Judaism, attracted to the radical tone of the new movement; the way it promoted universalist values, and put an emphasis on reason, sincerity and integrity. The founders of this community, following in the footsteps of the founders of Liberal Judaism, were keen to preserve only those rites and practices that clearly expressed and enhanced the ethical spirit of Judaism, and to discard those that did not.

But 2010 is not 1935. Rather than rehearse again all the different ways in which Jewish life has changed and diversified since this congregation was established – influenced by so many factors, including the devastating impact of the Sho’ah and the establishment of the modern State of Israel – I want to look at where we are now as a Liberal synagogue today, from a different angle; from the perspective of the individual on his or her own journey, whose travels bring them here. So many different people have come to see me over the past decade since I became Rabbi of the shul: secular Jews, lost Jews, marginal Jews, patrilineal Jews, new Jews, who have recently discovered their Jewish inheritance, ex-Christians, looking for God, ex-atheists looking for spiritual meaning; long-time searchers, who have explored many religious paths and have not yet found a home; non-Jews, whose journey to Judaism began several years earlier, when they first learned about the Sho’ah; non-Jews, who are simply drawn to Jewish life and want to become part of it: each person, with a unique history and set of experiences, and with very particular needs and questions. But, curiously, significantly, they have all shared the same, basic quest: having approached our synagogue because they already knew that there was a good chance of receiving a warm welcome – having heard about us from a friend, or checked out our website – they want to experience the distinct qualities of Jewish life, and participate in the particular ways of Judaism. Of course, it’s important to them that BHPS is liberal, progressive, inclusive, egalitarian, and open to, and engaged with, the wider world – that’s why they approach this congregation, and not the other synagogues in the area, or, in some cases, come to us having tried one or two of the other shuls. But what these seekers want more than anything else is to savour and explore all the particular elements that make Jewish life, Jewish. So, they have made their way here – and most of them have stayed.

There has been much debate in recent years in Britain about the pros and cons of living in what is called a ‘multicultural society’. Multicultural obviously means ‘many cultures’: a multicultural society can only be genuinely multicultural if each one of the many cultures it encompasses, is distinct, active, and vibrant. And so, alongside all the other cultures which inhabit these shores, we Jews face the challenge of making our own particular contribution to the mix. For Jews who define themselves as Orthodox, the challenge is simpler because their principal raison d’être is to follow the traditional teachings first formulated by the Sages centuries ago in the pre-modern world, and to continue the practices that have been enshrined in the halachah, in Jewish law, for hundreds of years. For Liberal Jews, on the other hand, the challenge is more complex: having defined ourselves as the children of the Enlightenment, and embraced the gifts of Emancipation, and become passionate exponents of the values of the modern world, like, democracy, freedom, and equality, we have often also defined ourselves against the Jewish traditions of the past, and, indeed, rejected, both, the worldview of pre-modern Jewish life, and those rituals, such as kashrut, the dietary laws, which set us apart from other peoples.

So how do we, who call ourselves ‘Liberal Jews’, express the Jewish dimension of our identity? An easy response to this question is that we simply adopt only those Jewish practices that cohere with our commitment to Liberal principles, or, at least, don’t conflict with our Liberal principles. But nothing is ever easy. This year is the 200^th anniversary of the first ever Liberal service, which took place on July 17^th 1810 at the Temple of Jacob in Seesen, Westphalia, in Germany – the country which was the first home of Liberal Judaism. Curiously, while keen to excise those Jewish traditions, which were out of step with modern ideas, many of the pioneers of the new movement, nevertheless, wanted to keep the practice of circumcision*. Why? I don’t have the space or the time here to explore that question, but what is clear from the early debates among Liberal Jews back then, is that ‘reason’ and the other Liberal criteria did not always win the day when it came to deciding which practices should be maintained and which should be rejected. The example of circumcision is obviously quite extreme. The point is that Liberal Jews aren’t motivated to maintain less controversial rituals, like candle-lighting and making kiddush on Shabbat and festivals, because these rites express Liberal principles, we continue to do them because they express what is distinctive about Jewish life and make us feel Jewish.

Not long after I first came to the shul, I produced a booklet about celebrating Erev Shabbat in the home, which includes explanations and annotations, as well as the text in Hebrew and English accompanied by transliterations. I give it all the seekers who come and see me, who want to begin to engage in Jewish practice. I also put it out every Erev Shabbat at kiddush, when I’m leading the service. It has proved to be the most popular resource I’ve ever produced in my 21 years as a Rabbi. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to re-photocopy it because it has run out; and we don’t get that many people here on Friday evenings! So, Liberal Jews want to engage in Jewish practice as Liberal Jews – and, interestingly, one of the most popular pamphlets produced by the rabbis of the movement in recent years is Ethical Eating written by Rabbi Janet Burden, which provides guidelines for eating Jewishly, which encompass fairtrade, ecological concerns and animal welfare.

Clearly, the time has come for Liberal Judaism to explicitly articulate our commitment to maintaining and developing Jewish life in today’s multicultural society. What do I mean by this? I am suggesting that in addition to continuing to promote and champion the universalist agenda that is so in keeping with our Liberal ethical stance, and continuing to encourage Liberal Jews to participate in social justice activities, we also champion our Liberal approach to the particular concerns of Jewish life, and encourage Liberal Jews to participate in distinctive Jewish acts as Liberal Jews: I am suggesting that we do both and we value both, equally.

Interestingly, there is an important rabbinic precedent for this approach, which precedes the development of all the different denominations of Jews by 1600 years. We read in Pirkey Avot, The Sayings of the Sages, which is appended to the Mishnah, the first Rabbinic code of Jewish law edited around the year 200 (1:2):

Al sh’loshah d’varim ha-olam omeid – The world stands on three things: on Torah – Teaching; and on Avodah – Divine Worship; and on G’milut Chasadim – Loving Deeds.

And then, a few paragraphs further on, we read (1:18):

Al sh’loshah d’varim ha-olam omeid – The world stands on three things: on Din – Justice; on Emet – Truth; and on Shalom – Peace.

The world stands on these six pillars; these two sets of three; what a wonderful idea! Without them, the world will collapse. And: both sets of three are needed; the three pillars that uphold the core features of Jewish life are not complete without the three pillars that express more universal values.

I prefer to think of these two sets of three, as two interlocking triangles, forming, together the ‘six pointed star’ we call the Magein David, ‘the Shield of David’. During the Sho’ah Jews were forced to wear the ‘yellow star’, a badge of shame that set our people apart as shunned and despised, and facilitated our persecution. Since that devastating time, the Magein David has become a badge of pride, emblazoned in blue on the flag of the modern State of Israel, and worn by hundreds of thousands of Jews across the world, who are proud, once again, to claim their Jewish identity. But as yet, the ‘six pointed star’ that has become so familiar as a sign of Jewishness, has not been invested with a universalist meaning alongside its particularist meaning. Living as we do now in a multicultural society, participating as we do in the wider world, hasn’t the time come for the Magein David to become a symbol of the complete interconnectedness of universalist and particularist concerns that are, after all, as our Sages taught us, the foundation of the world? And: who else to proclaim those two interlocking triangles of commitment than we Liberal Jews?

The portion from the Torah which we will be reading in a short while begins (Deuteronomy 29:9a):

Atem Nitzavim ha-yom kul’chem lifney Adonai Eloheychem.

You are standing today, all of you, before the Eternal your God.

The Torah usually uses the singular form when addressing the people, but in some places, as here, it employs the plural – again:

Atem Nitzavim ha-yom kul’chem lifney Adonai Eloheychem.

You (plural) are standing today, all of you (plural), before the Eternal your (plural) God.

Kul’chem – all of you: that is, each one of you – and to underline the point, the passage goes on to make a list: ‘your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your offices; every man of Israel; / your little ones, your wives, and your stranger, who is the midst of your camp; from those who chop wood until those who draw water’ (29:9b-10).

Today that ancient text from the book of Deuteronomy is addressed to us: we are standing today, all of us, before the Eternal; all of us; each one of us. Each one of us will have our own reasons for being here today; and each one of us, will have a different sense of understanding of what it means to be standing in the presence of the Eternal. For some of us, perhaps, the Eternal means God; for some of us, perhaps, the Eternal represents Eternity; for some of us, perhaps, the Eternal is unfathomable, and we have come here today to touch a mystery; for some of us, perhaps, the notion of the Eternal is not meaningful, but we have chosen to stand here today, nonetheless.

All of us are here together, with all our differences; individuals on a journey; compatriots and fellow- travelers. Just as our ancestors, with all their differences, including their different backgrounds – some, b’ney Yisrael, the descendants of Jacob, some, descendants of the erev rav, the ‘mixed multitude’, who escaped slavery in Egypt with the Israelites (Exodus 12:37-38) – came together as a people in the wilderness, so, too, this motley crew gathered here today; here we are, coming together as the Jewish people. We have work to do now; each one of us: the work of examining our lives and our deeds, acknowledging our mistakes, and recognising the ways in which we have hurt others and ourselves. But we are not doing that difficult and challenging work on our own, and as we engage in it, our prayers and our sacred readings are continually reminding us that our personal stories, with all their complexities, are part of the great, continually unfolding story of the Jewish people, which is also a tale of complexity. As we go on our journeys today, may we find our own ways of embracing the complexity of our lives, and resolve to re-commit ourselves – as individuals and as a congregation – both, to our people and to our world. And that is say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom V’rei’ut

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5771

18th September 2010 – 10th Tishri 5771

The day that started as the sun set this evening is a very special day – Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. We all know this, of course; that’s why we’re all here. The sages called it Yoma, which is Aramaic for ‘the day’ because ‘the day’ is unlike any other in the Jewish year. There are so many features that set ‘the day’ apart: First, this special evening service, known by the mediaeval text with which it opens, Kol Nidrey – ‘All Vows’; then, there is the wearing of the tallit, the prayer-shawl, in the evening, to mark the fact that although punctuated by separate services, ‘the day’ is essentially one long moment, indivisible; another feature: the way in which we inhabit the synagogue for the whole day, and pray our way through five services – including the memorial prayers of Yizkor, and concluding with the unique service of N’ilah; and, finally, the defining qualities of ‘the day’: the absence of food and any of the other signs or distractions of daily life; and the focus on confession and the pursuit of forgiveness and atonement. ‘The day’ is the spiritual equivalent of a strenuous physical workout that, pushing us to the limits of endurance, leaves us feeling, both, exhausted and replenished.

And so, ‘the day’ ends; it is just one day, after all. To all intents and purposes, it is a day in and of itself; and as soon as it is over, we return to our day-to-day lives, albeit renewed and ready to embark on the New Year. But is that all there is to it? Perhaps, the exceptional nature of Yom Kippur – with all its unique characteristics – actually masks a more fundamental purpose: to teach us to live today – in the present moment – not just for one day, but every day.

But what does it really mean – to live in the present moment? Has the Jewish people ever really lived in the present? Isn’t Jewish life all about remembering the past and journeying towards the future? Aren’t we forever trying to escape the present moment, especially during times of persecution. After all, most of our remembering is centred on recalling our ancestors’ great escape from slavery. And when we think of our forbears, going right back to the patriarchs and matriarchs, weren’t they always on the move?

Intriguingly, while the Torah relates the stories of our ancestors, and their endless journeys, the Hebrew text of the Torah, and, indeed, the rest of the Bible, continually subverts the meaning of past and future. It does this quite methodically, by using the Hebrew consonant, vav, which is usually translated as ‘and’ or ‘but’, to convert verbs expressed in the future tense into the past, and vice versa.

Let me give you the most common example:  Va-y’dabbeir Adonai el-Mosheh – ‘The Eternal One spoke to Moses’; how many thousands of times is that phrase repeated in the Torah? So often, that any regular attendee of Shabbat morning services probably knows the phrase – and the translation – off by heart. How disconcerting, then, to learn that without the ‘va-‘, y’dabbeir means ‘He shall speak’: Va-y’dabbeir Adonai – ‘The Eternal One spoke‘; y’dabbeir Adonai – ‘The Eternal One shall speak’. Even more bewildering, perhaps, is the way in which the meaning of a key phrase in the Sh’ma (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) hangs on how one stresses a particular word, which begins with a ‘converting’ vav: V’ahavta eit Adonai Elohecha means ‘You shall love the Eternal One your God’, but only if you stress the last syllable; V’ahavta – stressed in the middle – eit Adonai Elohecha, means ‘You have loved the Eternal your God’; indeed, without the converting vav, the ‘v’, ahavta, means simply, ‘you have loved’. So, what’s going on? Is this how the Torah teaches us to be sophisticated about the passage of time and acknowledge that the past was the future once, and that the future will become the past?

And what of the present?  There is no present tense in Hebrew; the present is either assumed in a particular context, or expressed by the use of a participle and a personal pronoun. And so, significantly, the famous text in the parashah, N’tzavim, in the Book of Deuteronomy (29:9-14), which we will be reading tomorrow morning, begins:

Atem nitzavim ha-yom, kul’chem, lifney Adonai Eloheichem.

You are standing today, all of you, before the Eternal your God

What a wonderful way of conveying the power of the moment! What could be more immediate than the image of a group of people standing in readiness ha-yom – ‘today’? And not any people, of course: the Jewish people; our people.  Is that what we are doing here today? And what about tomorrow: will tomorrow also be another today?

The Sh’ma suggests an answer.  We read (:6)

V’hayu ha-d’varim ha-eileh, asher Anochi m’tzav’cha ha-yom al-l’vavecha.

These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

Is this verse, like the one in N’tzavim talking about a particular today – a day that is now in the past?  When we read these passages, are we engaging in the Jewish version of ‘Once upon a time…’: on a day long ago, the Eternal One addressed our ancestors? If we are, then we are missing something important because both texts were actually written in Judah, not in the wilderness, centuries after the ‘today’ moment they invoke – so, from a historical perspective ‘today’ was already ‘yesterday’. But it’s not just that both texts were composed so long after the ‘today’ they describe: if we treat them as located in a particular past, we are in danger of ignoring the purpose of both passages, which is, precisely, to make the past, present; present to the inhabitants of Judah in the 600s BCE when the Book of Deuteronomy was written, present to us here in 2010.  It is in this spirit, after all, that a text from Deuteronomy (chapter 6, verses 4-9) became the Sh’ma, a key part of our liturgy.  And it is in this spirit that the phrase, u’v’shochb’cha u’vkumecha – ‘when you lie down and when you rise up’ – was translated into daily liturgical practice.

V’hayu ha-d’varim ha-eileh, asher Anochi m’tzav’cha ha-yom al-l’vavecha

These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

‘Today’ is today. But that is not all: the text of the Sh’ma and the prescribed twice-daily recitation conveys the message that something momentous is happening continually: the Eternal One is addressing us everyday. But what does it mean to say that the Eternal One is addressing us every day? And how do we know? Psalm 95 – one of the Psalms set aside for reading on Shabbat – includes this intriguing suggestion (:7):

Va’anachnu am marito, v’tzon yado; ha-yom, im- b’kolo tishma’u.

We are a people God tends and a flock of His hand; today, if we listen to His voice.

Today is not, after all, an end in itself; it is an opportunity to listen: Sh’ma Yisrael! – ‘Listen Israel! Im- b’kolo tishma’u – If we listen to the voice of the Eternal – Im – If…So, what would our lives be like if, rather than, forever looking backwards and forwards, we were to fully inhabit the present – and listen out for Eternity? Maybe that’s what all that switching of tenses – future to past; past to future – is all about: a device for transporting us to the eternal present.

But as soon as I say this, another question immediately asserts itself: why would we want to fully inhabit the present? The present moment can be, after all, in real life, terrible, painful – or, simply, dull and endless in its empty torment. If we can’t think of examples from our own experience, all we have to do is turn our minds to the suffering being endured right now by the people of northern Pakistan in the aftermath of the devastating floods, or think of individuals we know, who are gravely ill, or imagine what it’s like to be living alone and housebound due to chronic disability, or think of a child constantly victimised by abuse. There are so many circumstances when all we want is for the present to be over – even when it is something as trivial as a visit to the dentist. And anyway, isn’t there something rather problematically cliché about the preoccupation with living in the present?

The last thing I want to do is rehearse a cliché. My current thoughts about the importance of living today actually began in the presence of one of our members, who is terminally ill. Visit by visit, I witness her determination to live in the face of her impending death – and not just live; enjoy her life still each day: enjoy seeing the squirrels scurrying a cross the wall outside the window of her room; enjoy the care of the carers; enjoy the visits of family and friends; enjoy reading her daily newspaper – and experience all this daily enjoyment, amid the pain and discomfort of her condition, aware, each day, that her life is almost over – and could end any day. She is an exceptional person; a special individual, with a strong character. But it would be wrong to explain away her courage and wisdom as a function of her personal qualities. She is exceptionally admirable – but she has, also, simply learnt something from her experience of life, in the same way that we can all learn from the experience of our own lives: today will pass – and sometimes, even she, hopes a particular day will pass as quickly as possible – but today is also a singular moment calling us to live now; not yesterday; not tomorrow: now.

The poet, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) wrote this reflection on ‘now’ in 1862 (The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson):

Forever – is composed of Nows -
‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home -

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These – Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be
From Anno Domini’s –

‘Forever – is composed of Nows’ – and now, if lived fully and deeply, is not simply a domain of time – the present moment squeezed between past and future – it is the abode of the Eternal. As soon as we let go of yesterday and stop worrying about tomorrow, now becomes a vast universe. But can we really do this, shaped and haunted as we are by the past, driven as we feel, relentlessly, towards the future? Perhaps living now is a luxury only to be enjoyed by those who know their end is near? Our questions, doubts and fears are real; Yom Kippur is an opportunity to explore them – and even, perhaps, to exhaust them… May this special ‘Sabbath of Sabbaths’ bring each one of us the nourishment and space that we need to reflect, and to inhabit this unique moment, so that when the sun sets once more, we feel ready to begin a new today. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Yom Kippur, 10^th Tishri 5770 – 17^th September 2010

Here we are again on the threshold of another new year: are we ready to look back – and to move forward? What were we thinking as we journeyed here this evening? About the old year? About the future? Perhaps, we were simply in a hurry to get here on time. So, now we are here – but where are we? We are congregated together in this synagogue, obviously – but where are we in ourselves? Are we ready to make a new beginning? What are we feeling? Expectant? Anxious? Excited? Nervous? Hopeful? Fearful? Each one of us will be feeling different things, of course – and perhaps, some of us are not aware of what we’re feeling; at least not of our deepest feelings, although we may be aware of feeling hungry because we missed dinner, or pleasantly replete because we have just eaten a delicious festive meal, or vaguely uneasy because we’re really not sure why we are here, or simply, happy to have arrived at this special moment of celebration.

Yes, here we are – each of us with our own bundle of feelings, needs – and, maybe, questions – like: is there anything new about the year – except the date? And: what difference will it make to our individual lives that the Jewish year has changed?

It will not make a difference – this New Year of 5771 – unless we want it to; or rather, unless we are able to make a difference, or to do something different; that is the challenge we face: to renew our lives. Some of us really like new challenges: stepping out on a new path; trying something different; exploring an unforeseen opportunity; embarking on an adventure. But some of us, really don’t: we feel fearful and anxious about the unknown; and feel that there is just too much change going on all the time already; bewildering us and constantly overtaking us; the change some of us yearn for, is for everything to slow down – and, preferably, stand still; if only the hectic world we live in today was a bus, moving on its predetermined route, stop by stop, and we could just ring the bell, and get off when it suited us.

Judging by my own experience and my pastoral work as a rabbi for the past twenty-one years, I would say that the people who embrace the new and are eager to explore uncharted territory are in the minority. But it’s not just a matter of our personal predispositions. The Danish 19^th century philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) explored the phenomenon of anxiety in his work, The Concept of Anxiety, first published in 1844 (1). Known as the “father of existentialism”, Kirkegaard, was also keen to revitalise Christianity, and so, drawing on the biblical account of Creation and the Christian concept of ‘original sin’, he identified the primal anxiety as the choice set before Adam to eat from God’s forbidden tree of knowledge or not. The first human being was free to make the choice, and according to Kierkegaard, the mere fact that one has the possibility and freedom to do something, engenders feelings of dread. As Kirkegaard famously put it, “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom.”

For Kierkegaard then, anxiety is intrinsic to the human condition. But it has been during the past hundred years that anxiety has also come to be seen as the spirit of the age.  Ever since the Great War of 1914 to 1918 wreaked its havoc; squandering a generation of young men and destroying the sense of optimism and hope that had marked modernity’s steady march of progress, thinkers have been talking about living in ‘an Age of Anxiety’. And some have argued that modernity itself has been the problem: In his book, The Crisis of the Mind, published in 1919 (2), French thinker, Paul Valery, argued that ‘the crisis of the mind’ was a direct result of “the free coexistence…. of the most dissimilar ideas, the most contradictory principles of life and learning, [which] is characteristic of a modern epoch.” And so, according to Valery, although the military crisis was over, ‘the crisis of the mind’, precipitated by the loss of a fixed system of reference for living and thinking, remained.

The thinker, whose reflections on the Age of Anxiety became the most influential during the second half of the 20^th century, was Protestant theologian-philosopher, Paul Tillich. In his book, The Courage To Be, published in 1952 (3), Tillich identified three types of anxiety: Ontic anxiety, focused on fears about fate and death, moral anxiety, centered on feelings of guilt and fear of condemnation, and spiritual anxiety, characterised by a sense of emptiness and loss of meaning. While all three may be present in any age, Tillich associated each one with the end of a major epoch, arguing that ”at the end of ancient civilization ontic anxiety is predominant, at the end of the Middle Ages moral anxiety, and at the end of the modern period spiritual anxiety”. He wrote, further:

It is significant that the three main periods of anxiety appear at the end of an era. The anxiety which, in its different forms, is potentially present in every individual becomes general if the accustomed structures of meaning, power, belief, and order have disintegrated. These structures, as long as they are in force, keep anxiety bound within a protective system of courage by participation. The individual who participates in the institutions and ways of life of such a system is not liberated from his personal anxieties but he has means of overcoming them with well-known methods. In periods of great changes these methods no longer work. Conflicts between the old, which tries to maintain itself, often with new means, and the new, which deprives the old of its intrinsic power, produce anxiety in all directions.

Like Valery, Tillich connects spiritual anxiety with the very nature of modernity, arguing:

The breakdown of absolutism, the development of liberalism and democracy, the rise of a technical civilization with its victory over all enemies and its own beginning disintegration – these are the sociological presuppositions for the third main period of anxiety. In this the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness is dominant. We are under the threat of spiritual nonbeing.

Emptiness; meaninglessness; spiritual nonbeing.  It was the 19^th century German Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who is understood to have been the first thinker to speak of ‘the death of God’ – but there have been so many other deaths since Nietzsche made his somber pronouncement: the death of hope, the death of progress; the death of reason; the death of the human spirit; eclipsed by the deaths of millions of human beings – from the trenches of the Great War to the Nazi death camps; from the Stalinist executions to the killing fields of Cambodia and the machete-wielding mobs of Rwanda.  Is that why so many people today feel tormented by feelings of emptiness, meaninglessness and spiritual nonbeing?

You may be wandering what Jewish thinkers have to say about all this? Could it be that we Jews are all too preoccupied with feeling anxious most of the time to devote much time to thinking and writing about it? Or, perhaps, the extent of Jewish anxiety explains why so many Jews are practitioners of psycho-analysis and psycho therapy – beginning, with Sigmund Freud, of course, who developed his theories on the basis of his clinical work with his, mostly, Jewish patients in Vienna.

Psycho-analysts and psycho-therapists treat individuals. In recent years, the Age of Anxiety seems to have spawned a new epoch characterised by ‘catastrophic thinking’ – a concept first identified by psychologists, working with individual sufferers, and now applied on a societal level.  Interestingly, in an article published online a year ago, an Israeli American writer and blogger, called Benjamin Kerstein, contributed a skeptical note to the debate (4):

We are living in an age of catastrophic thinking. Our social and cultural discourse on any number of subjects – the environment, the economy, public health, technology – is defined by a vocabulary and a worldview that can only be described as apocalyptic. The world, we are constantly told, is in a state of mortal crisis, and unless we act fast enough to stop it, we are all facing disaster and oblivion. Everything, it seems, is swiftly accelerating toward a terrible end.

One gets the feeling that Benjamin Kerstein is not convinced.  But whether we agree with his tone or not, or think that we are approaching the apocalypse, or not, it does seem that the Age of Anxiety has gone global.  So, how does what we are doing here this evening connect with the zeitgeist?  Is there a connection at all – or are we participating in some kind of anachronistic rite in an effort to fend off the sprit of the age? Are we taking refuge from the concerns of the world around us – or, as we share this sacred moment, are we engaged, on the contrary, in reviving the human spirit and restoring hope to our broken planet? Ha-yom harat olam: as the Sages put it, ‘today is the birthday of the world’; is it just too fanciful to imagine that by coming to this Erev Rosh ha-Shanah service – whatever brought us here, and however we are feeling – our participation in the celebration of the world’s birthday might actually make a difference?  After all, if a collection of over-excited traders at the Stock Exchange can destroy or revive economic fortunes, depending on the collective mood, why can’t all the Jewish congregations assembled across the world this evening summon up the spirit we need for a shanah tovah – a good year?

It could work… but we would need to believe in what we are doing here at least as much as those stock-brokers believe in what they are doing over there… and isn’t it a strange thing that while religion is so often dismissed as ‘nonsense’ these days by atheists and secularists alike, the irrational antics that determine the fortunes of the economy, are not…

Of course there are real problems out there and justifiable fears – at home and abroad: unemployment is still rising; a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians continues to be elusive; oppression and persecution remain rife across the globe; climate-change is in evidence… the list goes on.  And yet, beset by real threats of all kinds, and feeling anxious and anguished, we can still choose to celebrate Life – as our ancestors did before us – and, so choose to challenge the increasing dominance of ‘catastrophic thinking’. In doing so, we might find inspiration in the words of the poet, W.H. Auden (1907-1973), whose long six-part poem, entitled, The Age of Anxiety. A Baroque Eclogue, was published in 1947.  Auden’s allegorical reflection on the spirit of the age, centered on a fictional cast of characters in a New York bar, includes this sharp comment (5):

Yet the noble despair of the poets
Is nothing of the sort; it is silly
To refuse the tasks of time
And, overlooking our lives,
Cry – “Miserable wicked me,
How interesting I am.”
We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

As Jews we would hardly think of climbing ‘the cross of the moment’, but perhaps no other people knows as well as we do, what it means to grasp the tasks at hand and to climb out of the abyss for the sake of tomorrow.  Auden won the 1948 Pulitzer prize for The Age of Anxiety. Meanwhile, that same year, Leonard Bernstein, inspired by Auden’s work, began to compose his Symphony No.2, giving it the same title – and, even more pertinent, from a Jewish perspective, the modern State of Israel was established: Whatever has happened in and around Israel, and across the world in the past sixty-two years, do we need more evidence that hope can triumph over despair and that anxiety can be transmuted into a transformational impulse?

Interestingly, Kierkegaard did not simply regard anxiety in negative terms; he saw anxiety as a way of salvation for humanity, as well as a torment, because, as he understood it, through the experience of anxiety we can become truly aware of our potential, our choices and our personal responsibility; in this way, anxiety can be a vehicle for recognising and realising our true identity and freedoms. And so, while in The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard expressed its horrors graphically, “No Grand Inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety”, he also believed that, “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

We are here this evening to apprehend intimations of the ultimate in our midst – and in the, as yet, unknown realm of tomorrow beyond this moment. May we all learn in our own ways to transform our anxieties into a source of enrichment and growth, for our own sakes, and for the sake of our families, our community, our people, and our world. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5771 – 8^th September 2010

I didn’t write this sermon – or the one I gave last night, or, the two I will deliver on Yom Kippur; I dictated them onto my computer screen using a programme called Dragon Naturally Speaking 10.0. Although speaking, as the saying goes, is ‘second nature to me’, dictating turns out to be anything but natural – especially when you’re using a clever IT gadget that having read all your documents thinks it knows what your going to say, and then gets it wrong… Suffice it to say, it’s an ‘interesting’ experience; quite unlike the reassuring picture on the packaging of a young woman sitting cross-legged on the couch, a laptop to her right, speaking into the microphone and smiling… maybe, she just doesn’t care that the words running across the screen next to her are gobbledygook… after all, she doesn’t look like she is trying to write a sermon!

Why have I been submitting myself to this strange kind of torture? Well, as some of you know, in the middle of April I developed a condition in my right forefinger and thumb, known as RSI – which means, ‘repetitive strain injury’. Unfortunately, tendons take a long time to heal, and I still cannot use my right hand properly.

So, why am I telling you all this? My experience of coping with RSI over the past few months, and learning to use voice recognition software, got me thinking – not just about the vagaries of having a minor health problem and turning to the NHS for treatment – but also about the increasing role of technology in daily life. There is no doubt that technology has revolutionised our lives – and not just during the past twenty years: Being at school every day, I didn’t get to see how my mother, a ‘housewife’, spent her time; so observing her daily routines during the holidays, when it was too wet to play outside, was a real revelation: I remember ‘wash-days’ – which, indeed, took the whole day; we did have a washing machine, but it was of the pre-automatic variety, so after washing each load, my mother had to put each individual item through a wringer that she operated by hand; the bathroom would be filled with steam as she laboured for what seemed like hours… I’m sure one or two people here remember it well …

For those who can afford it, technological developments, particularly in the domestic arena, have liberated millions of people from daily drudgery – many of them, housewives like my late mother. Technological advances have also transformed the workplace and the workforce beyond recognition. More recently, during the past couple of decades, technology has changed the way we spend our leisure time and how we relate with one another. A recent study by Ofcom, reported in The Times (‘Hooked on Gadgetry’ by Alexi  Mostrous,19.08.10), concluded that the average Briton spends seven hours five minutes each day on media or communications activities. Apparently, in 2009, 104 billion text messages were sent; in 2004, the total was 27 billion. As the author of The Times article put it, we have become ‘hooked on gadgetry’, and with technology being all about speed, it is mind-boggling to think what the text messaging figures will be for 2014 – unless, of course, by that time another communications gadget has taken off.

But at least, text messaging – and ‘tweeting’, and visiting ‘Facebook’, and e-mailing – are all about communicating; about people making contact with one another, albeit via technology. What about the time spent each day – especially by the young – sitting alone and entering into the strange worlds conjured up in the mushrooming thousands of computer games? Of course, for many young people, playing these games is just part of their leisure time, which also includes sports, music, seeing friends, even reading. But we just have to think about that singular Ofcom statistic again: the average Briton spends seven hours five minutes each day on media or communications activities…

A few months ago, in the early days of my RSI, while visiting my favourite bookshop, Much Ado About Books – a wonderful, quirky independent enterprise in Alfriston, my eye was taken by a hardback, entitled, You Are Not a Gadget – A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier (Allen Lane, 2010). Jaron Lanier is a musician, philosopher and computer scientist, connected, both, with the University of California at Berkeley, and with Microsoft, whose achievements include ‘coining the term Virtual Reality’, ‘creating the world’s first immersive avatars’ and ‘ developing cutting edge medical imaging and surgical techniques’ – I’m quoting from the dust jacket. I thought that the book would provide food for thought for the New Year, so I read it during August. It is quite hard to summarise – but, focusing on developments in the World Wide Web, Jaron Lanier’s basic thesis is that the Internet is dominated by what he calls ‘cybernetic totalism’ – which is his way of talking about the ‘absolutism’ and ‘singularity’ which characterise how information is presented and used in the universe of cyberspace, with very worrying consequences for creativity. Lanier writes (p.48)

If a church or government were doing these things, it would feel authoritarian, but when technologists are the culprits, we seem hip, fresh, and inventive. People accept ideas presented in technological form that would be abhorrent in any other form. It is utterly strange to hear many old friends in the world of digital culture claim to be the true sons of the Renaissance without realizing that using computers to reduce individual expression is a primitive, retrograde activity, no matter how sophisticated your tools are.

Lanier gives music as an example. Apparently, digital music has ‘flattened’ musical tone. But that’s not the only problem: so much of the music accessed on the Internet is presented in disconnected pieces, rather than as complete works. Looking more broadly, Lanier argues that ‘absolutism’ and ‘singularity’ have resulted in the loss of the individual voice and the dissemination of random pieces of information, demonstrated, for example, by the rise of Wikipedia, which has become the key resource for those researching topics on the Internet. Masking the individual voices that contribute to its bank of information, Wikipedia takes on the voice of singular authority. Why read the work of any individual thinker, past or present, if his or her ideas can be predigested for you?  But it’s worse than this: secondary sources have always summarised, explained and re-presented the ideas of individual thinkers; what Wikipedia and other information sites do is extract ideas from their original context, and break down creative wholes into disconnected bits of information.

But the issue is not just how knowledge and ideas are presented – it’s also why this is happening. As one of the key people involved in developing the web, Lanier is acutely aware of the idealism that fuels it – an idealism that seeks to serve ‘the hive mind’, the collective consciousness that the architects of cyber technology see emerging in cyberspace.  He writes (p.144):

Typical authors of Wikipedia … implicitly celebrate the ideal of intellectual mob rule. “Edit wars” on Wikipedia are called that for a reason. Whether they are cordial or not, Wikipedians always act out the idea that the collective is closer to the truth and the individual voice is dispensable.

By contrast, Lanier, who remains active in, committed to, and enthusiastic about cyber-technology, wants to see a return to humanism, creativity, and respect for the individual voice. In place of ‘cybernetic totalism’, he wants, as he puts it, to ‘foster an alternative mental environment where the exciting opportunity to start creating a new digital humanism can begin’ (p.23). As Lanier presents these two alternatives, his disdain for the current cyber-culture is palpable. He writes (p.44):

Maybe if people pretend they are not conscious or do not have free will – or that the cloud of online people is a person; if they pretend there is nothing special about the perspective of the individual – then perhaps we have the power to make it so. We might be able to collectively achieve anti-magic.

Humans are free. We can commit suicide for the benefit of a Singularity. We can engineer our genes to better support an imaginary hive mind. We can make culture and journalism into second-rate activities and spend centuries remixing the detritus of the 1960s and other eras from before individual creativity went out of fashion.

Or we can believe in ourselves. By chance, it might turn out we are real.

There is no going back to life before computers, but there are peoples around the world who live without them, and, more important, have no intention of entering the digital age. Can we learn anything from them? I asked myself this question as I watched the four-part series about the Amish on Channel 4 over the summer (Sunday evenings, July 25^th – August 15^th), entitled, Amish: The World’s Squarest Teenagers. The series charted the once-in-a-lifetime expedition into the world of ordinary teenagers in Britain, undertaken by five Amish, aged 17 to 19 – two young women and three young men. Apparently, all Amish teenagers have an opportunity to experience the freedoms of the wider world before being baptized, but this televised Amish Odyssey into teenage life in different parts of Britain was unique.

Even if you didn’t watch the series, you may know a little bit about the Amish, a Mennonite Christian sect of biblical fundamentalists, whose members originally migrated from Switzerland, France and Germany to America in the 18th century. Preserving the culture of their forebears, the Amish eschew all forms of modern technology, including electricity. They also live a completely gender-defined existence: the women look after the domestic sphere, including growing their own vegetables, and the men support their large families and cooperate together to build their own wooden houses. The Amish live in small, segregated communities, regulated by strict rules, in which wives submit to their husbands, and children learn to be obedient.

It’s all very narrow, and yet, despite a very limited education, in which academic learning is restricted to the basics, reading is largely confined to the Bible, and the emphasis is on developing practical skills, the five young Amish who came to Britain, were not just wholesome and innocent, they were also thoughtful, responsive and engaging. While bewildered, and sometimes dismayed, by the antics of young Brits, they were more perplexed than judgmental, and also ready and eager to explore and enjoy those new experiences, which were clearly and simply, fun – like swimming and surfing. All in all, they came across as likeable, warm human beings, who seemed, quite frankly, to be more mature than most of the young people they encountered in Britain.

Now, as we celebrate the arrival of the New Year, I’m not about to suggest that we abandon modern technology, take flight from all the freedoms we apparently enjoy, and start living the Amish way, but maybe the Amish have something to teach us about what my partner, Jess, calls ‘the art of living’. The art of living is about living fully and deeply and creatively; it’s about finding and being ourselves and engaging with the world around us, including nature, and relating to others as human beings, who are ‘as ourselves’ (Leviticus 18:18), while respecting each person’s uniqueness. Today, on a day that is, according to tradition, harat olam, ‘the birthday of the world’, the anniversary of creation, it is fitting that we reflect on what it means to be human and to be part of the natural world.

Of course, from the outset, from the moment we created fire, human beings have been technologists, manipulating our natural environment to serve our needs. And the making of fire, and all the related technical feats we have accomplished since the first homo sapiens walked the earth, have also, always been harnessed to both creative and destructive purposes: the first human beings fashioned tools and also weapons, and in each successive epoch, human beings have been making increasingly sophisticated tools and weapons ever since. But now we have reached a point in the evolving story of humanity when, whether it is tools or weapons, the products of our labour and our ingenuity, seem no longer to be in our hands and under our control; they have begun to rule our lives.

The most sobering issues to emerge from Lanier’s critique of cyber-technology don’t just revolve around the assault on individual creativity, but also include the way in which the creativity of so many brilliant people has been channeled into weaving the spectacular electronic web around our lives, and how the cyber revolution has been driven by the all consuming thirst for profit. Access to the goods of the Internet may be free on the whole, but just look at all the advertising and the way it insinuates itself onto every web page, and is so carefully crafted to every target audience. Cyber-technology is ‘big business’, and we are its eager consumers. Of course the internet has enhanced so many aspects of our lives – not least, giving us the opportunity to shop online – and is, indeed, a lifeline to those who are disabled and/or housebound, as well as being in the process of transforming the lives of those without access to education in the poorer parts of the world. But hasn’t the time come for us to remember that human beings first developed technology to serve our needs, not to dominate and diminish us – and, so, eclipse the art of living? As Jaron Lanier, puts it (p.154):

My first priority must be to avoid reducing people to mere devices. The best way to do that is to believe that the gadgets I can provide are inert tools and are only useful because people have the magical ability to communicate meaning through them.

Lanier is talking about putting gadgets in their proper place – at the service of human beings. Today is all about recalling our humanity – not simply by gathering together, not simply by sharing this sacred service and reading from our sacred texts, but also by listening to the voice of the shofar. What better antidote to our enslavement to technology than a simple ram’s horn? What can we do with it? We can polish it, so that it looks attractive. We can blow through it, and produce sound. We can even, although it isn’t a specially crafted musical instrument, devise, as we have done, different ways of blowing to produce different kinds of sound. But that’s all we can do. And then, all that is left for us to do, is to listen; to really listen, not just with our ears, but also with our innermost beings, allowing the blasts of the simple ram’s horn to stir us and move us, to disturb our composure and wake us up to ourselves and to our lives, to our relationships with others and to our connections with the earth. As we begin our journeys of reflection and renewal, and prepare for the year ahead, may the voices of the shofar remind us to find our own unique voices, and to listen out for the unique voices of other people, and of the natural world around us. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5771 – 9^th September 2010

I would like to begin by saying, ‘happy birthday, Sam’. It’s quite a way to celebrate your 13th birthday… leading a congregation on a Shabbat morning; I wonder if it will catch on? It strikes me that it’s the kind of scenario that nightmares are made of … you know, the sort of thing when you wake up in a sweat, and then feel a wave of relief, when you realise it was only a bad dream… Seriously though, today is a double celebration, both, Sam’s 13th birthday, and the day he becomes Bar Mitzvah; and in a way, it makes a lot of sense to mark both together on the same day: So, today, Sam, you begin your teenage years, and today, Jewishly speaking, you embark on a journey away from your childhood and towards adulthood.

Sam, you have already led the first part of the service for us, and in a short while, you will read from the Seifer Torah, the scroll of the Torah, when you will also give your D’var Torah, your commentary on the section from this week’s portion that you have chosen. I’m not going to say anything about the theme of that section – I’ll leave that to you – but I do want to say a few words about the parashah as a whole, Mattot-Mas’ey – which is also, as it happens, a double portion.

Mattot opens with Moses addressing the mattot – the ‘tribes’ of the Israelites – on the subject of making vows and swearing oaths (Numbers 30:2ff.); and Mas’ey opens with an account of mas’ey v’ney Yisraeil – ‘the stages of the journey of the Israelites’ through the wilderness, following their flight from slavery in Egypt (Num. 33:1ff.) – a journey that took forty years.  Sam, no one is going to require you to make any vows or swear any oaths today; but you know, as well as I do, that today is the moment when you take responsibility for your own Jewish life; when you make a vow to yourself, to claim your Jewish identity for yourself, and to choose your way of living as a Jew. In a sense, you began your journey to this day the day you were born – but it was not a journey you chose for yourself; the journey you take from now on, will be your own journey.  Where will it take you?

Mas’ey is the last portion of the Book of Numbers – the fourth of the five books of the Torah, which was also, until the seventh century, the last book of the Torah; that’s why the portion – and so the book – closes with the Israelites encamped on the eastern shore of the River Jordan (Num. 36:13) at the end of their forty years of wilderness wandering, in preparation for entering the land on the other side. But we all know that the journey of the Jewish people did not the end when our forbears entered the land beyond the Jordan around 3250 years ago; indeed, although the Jewish people has inhabited that land continuously since that time, the journeys of the Jewish people have also been continuous, as conquest by some of our Imperial overlords – in particular: the Assyrians in 722BCE, the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Romans, in 55BCE – led to exile and dispersion.  And so, Jews today are found in every region of the world, as well as in the modern State of Israel.

But it’s not simply that we have been driven out and forced to wander, again and again; from the very beginning, from the time, as we read in Parashat Leich L’cha, in Genesis chapter 12, that our first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, left their land, their kindred, and their family home, around 4000 years ago, to set out on a new path has been part of our identity as a people; we might go as far as to say that journeying has defined us. What would the Jewish people be like if we had always stayed in one place? Would we, indeed, still be around; a living people, still, if we hadn’t had to adapt, again and again, to changing circumstances? And would there have been so many varieties of Jew, so many different Jewish cultures – S’phardi, Ashkenazi, North African, Ethiopian, Arabic, Persian, Indian; the list goes on – if we hadn’t set up home in so many different countries?

And the impact of living in so many different countries has not only been cultural: the main denominations of Judaism in the world today – progressive, conservative, and orthodox – were direct responses to the changing political landscape of central Europe following the French Revolution 1789, which meant that after hundreds of years of segregation and confinement in ghettos, Jews, like their Christian neighbours, had the opportunity to become citizens; to become French and German and British, as well as Jewish. In broad terms, while the Orthodox response involved building a ‘fence around the Torah’ in order to ensure that the new freedoms did not result in defection from Jewish life, and the conservative response, centred on the dictum to be ‘a Jew at home and a man (sic) in the street’ (proclaimed by late 19^th century Russian maskil, Judah Leib Gordon, as the Haskalah – Jewish Enlightenment – ideal), the progressive response was to embrace modernity, and adapt the Jewish inheritance for the new age of reason, democracy and equality.

As it happens, next Shabbat will be the 200th anniversary of the first progressive synagogue service, which took place at the Temple of Jacob in Seesen, Westphalia, Germany, on July 17^th 1810. My colleague, Rabbi Pete Tobias, has produced a booklet to mark the occasion, which demonstrates, among other things, how far progressive Jews have journeyed since 1810; because it has been the continuing journeys of progressive Jews, across time as well as space, which have ensured that progressive Judaism has continued to change in response to new developments in society and changing circumstances.

Even closer to home than the 200th anniversary of the first progressive synagogue service, yesterday was the yahrzeit of Claude Montefiore, one of the founders of Liberal Judaism in this country, who died on July 9^th 1938. Together with Lily Montagu and Rabbi Israel Mattuck, Claude Montefiore was determined to ensure that Jewish teaching and practice adapted to the modern age. In one of his early sermons, he argued (‘Religious Education, undated, c.1905-7);Jewish Religious Union Shabbat service) :

Where Jewish students, or rather Jewish teachers, so often fail is that they learn the answers of past ages to past problems, but hide their ears and envelop their own minds from the questions and problems of today.

Significantly, Claude Montefiore died before the Nazi menace became violent, exactly four months later on Kristalnacht, 8^th/9^th November 1938; before six million of our people were murdered, and thousands of Jewish communities across Europe were destroyed; before the establishment of the modern State of Israel; before so many of the nations colonised during the 19th century threw off the yoke; before the growth of a youth culture; before Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation; before the United States took on the role of global policeman; before the collapse of Communism and the rise of Islamism: What would he have made of these developments? No doubt, he would have continued to champion change in Jewish life ‘in order to satisfy’, as Lily Montagu put it, back in 1899, ‘the needs of the age’ (Jewish Quarterly Review).

So, the journey of Jewish life continues in every place. And today, we are particularly, interested in the journey of one particular Jew, in this particular place.  Sam: For you, as you put it, ‘becoming Bar Mitzvah means taking my first steps into adult Jewish life’. For you, being Jewish is ‘is an entire world away from the deadlines and stress of school life’. And you also know that before very long, your journey will take you far away from school: You have told me that ‘Even though it is very far off, I would like to be an archaeologist because it involves history and traveling; two things I like very much.’ In fact, your ‘favourite subject at school is history because [you] ‘find it interesting’ and because you realise that, as you put it, ‘to understand why the world is like it is today you have to look to the past.’

Sam; before you continue your journey and move on from this moment, it is only right that we think about what brought you to this day: the support of your parents and your sister, Sarah – who’s not always annoying – the guidance and skill of your teachers, Melanie, Eileen and Andy, and your tutor, Harry, and your own decision, made not so long ago, to become Bar Mitzvah.  You are aware that, as you expressed it, ‘I have changed a fair deal in the past year, learning to get down to it and actually commit to something. And’ – I’m still quoting you – ‘also, even though it doesn’t appear like it to most of my friends I’m sure I’ve grown a bit.’

Sam, the way you have grown is so much more important than inches – and those around you have helped you to remain your special self through all the demands. For you, ‘the synagogue… is a place with a strong sense of community, full of friends’; and friendship is crucial to you – as you expressed it: ‘what I enjoy most is spending time with my friends, they are the most loveable and at times crazy bunch of people. I’m lucky to have friends like them.’  Sam, your friends are lucky to have a friend like you – someone who is reliable and loyal, and who is full of fun. But however good a friend you are, you are never just one of the crowd – you’re always your own person, with your own take on things, and a strong sense of yourself and what you enjoy – and what you don’t. At the same time, you are very modest. You don’t know where your journey is taking you, but as you step out your plans don’t centre on yourself. When I asked you, ‘What would you like to do to help to make the world a better place to live in?’ your response revealed your wit, in every sense of that word: ‘I’m not exactly a key figure in world events – or ever will be – but I would like to help someone who is, or will be, so I know that even though it would be the smallest of things I would have contributed in some way.’ Sam, I have no doubt that you will make a difference to the world – not least because you understand that ‘the smallest of things’ can make a difference, if each one of us makes a contribution.

Sam, as everyone knows, tomorrow is the World Cup Final – not today – and England is not playing, so, unlike that Jewish family in the film, ‘1966’, your family have not had to compete!  But the truth is, no mega-event – not even the World Cup Final – could ever compete with a day that marks not the end of a journey, however glorious, but a new beginning. May you enjoy every moment, as you step out into your future – with so many possible goals in your sights.  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

10^th July 2010 – 28^th Tammuz 5770

THE CONTINUING JOURNEY

THE BAR MITZVAH OF SAM KINGSLEY-FRIED

As we all know, a few weeks ago there was a General Election, and we now have a new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government, and a new Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. In previous governments, the Deputy PM has stood in when the PM has not been available; although past Deputies have had their own specific responsibilities as well. But the deal brokered between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties for the new coalition government, means that Nick Clegg is much more than a ‘stand-in’. Are David Cameron and Nick Clegg offering a new form of co-leadership?

 Let me leave you with that question, as I turn now to this week’s Torah portion. On the face of it, Parashat Chukkat, at Numbers chapter 20, provides a snapshot of co-leadership in the wilderness in the form of Moses and Aaron – not unlike a PM and Deputy PM – making efforts to control an unruly mob desperate with thirst. We read (20:9-11):

Moses took the rod from before the Eternal, as [God] had commanded him. / Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock, and he said to them: ‘Listen now, you rebels, are we to bring for you water out of this rock?’ / And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice, then water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.

 But that’s not the end of the story; the text continues (:12):

Then the Eternal said to Moses and Aaron: ‘because you did not believe in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, consequently, you shall not bring this assembly into the land, which I have given to them.’

 So what did Moses and Aaron do wrong? The Spanish mediaeval commentator, Nachmanides, Rabbi Mosheh ben Nachman, also known as the Ramban, suggested that the mistake they made was to give the congregation the impression that they were going to produce water out of the rock – rather than God: Instead of saying, ‘…are we to bring for you water out of this rock?’ Moses should have said: ‘…is the Eternal One to bring you out water?’  Alternatively, most interpreters assume that what Moses did wrong was to strike the rock, when God told him to speak to it – as we read a little earlier (:7-8):

The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying:  / ‘Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron, your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, so that it gives out its water.’

But another Spanish mediaeval commentator, Abraham ibn Ezra, ever the rationalist, provided the most plausible explanation: when God said, ‘Speak’, Moses was supposed to strike the rock – striking is the only language a rock understands – the mistake he made, was to strike it twice.

 So, what’s the point of this brief foray into mediaeval biblical exegesis? If we think of Moses and Aaron as co-leaders, trying their best to handle a challenging situation, it’s obvious that they had a daunting task, because they didn’t just have to produce the required result, they also had to demonstrate to the people, the power of God: So, in a real sense, neither Moses, nor Aaron, could lead the people; that role belonged to the Eternal One alone; all they could do was communicate God’s will to the people, and demonstrate that God was in charge. 

 I’m not suggesting for one moment that David Cameron and Nick Clegg may be compared to Moses and Aaron; but the story of the failure of these two wilderness leaders to affirm God’s leadership in the eyes of the people – with tragic consequences for themselves – could prompt us to think about how the new Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should exercise leadership in the current financial crisis: In place of the usual ‘ping-pong’ politics, should they model compromise and flexibility? Instead of drawing on testosterone to fuel the habitual adversarial style of political debate, should they be using the coalition of their parties to foster a spirit of common endeavour? 

 And what do we expect them to do? Accomplish the feat of banishing the deficit, while protecting all essential services? Provide moral leadership by taking pay cuts and living more frugally?  Since we live in a democracy, and not a theocracy, the new PM and deputy PM, may not be answerable to God, but they are answerable to their parties and to us, the voters: so, again, what do we expect them to do? – and how will they demonstrate that they have fulfilled all the multi-various expectations thrust upon them by their respective parties, and by the heterogeneous electorate? With the people clamouring on the one hand, and God demanding, on the other, Moses and Aaron had an impossible assignment; but compared with the complexity of what David Cameron and Nick Clegg are expected to accomplish, that relatively minor matter of finding water in the desert seems quite straight-forward.

But of course, there was more to it than that: Water is always a problem in the desert. Why were the people clamouring for water at that moment? The beginning of Numbers chapter 20 provides an answer (:1-2):

The Israelites, all the congregation, came into the wilderness of Tzin in the first month; and the people dwelt in Kadeish; and Miriam died there, and was buried there. / And there was no water for the congregation; so they assembled together against Moses and against Aaron.

The French medieval commentator, Rashi, noted the connection between Miriam’s death and the congregation’s murmurings for water. Curiously, the reference to Miriam’s death marks a return to the narrative after a lacuna in the text of thirty-eight years. What happened during those lost years? The Sages spoke of ‘Miriam’s Well’, which accompanied the people on all their journeys through the wilderness (Shabbat 35a).

 The legend of Miriam’s Well is delightful, and it suggests that Miriam’s leadership was essential. And yet, Miriam is almost completely absent from the Torah narratives: There is the story of her helping to save the life of her baby brother Moses in Sh’mot, Exodus chapter 2 (:1-2); there is an even briefer snippet about her leading the women in song and dances with timbrels at the Sea of Reeds in B’shallach, Exodus chapter 15 (:20-21). After that, the narrative does not include Miriam again until Parashat B’ha’a lot’cha, which we read two weeks ago. But when she reappears there, the story is very revealing. The text tells us at the beginning of Numbers chapter 12 (:1):

Va-t’dabbeir Miryam – v’Aharon – b’Moshe: Miriam spoke – and Aaron – against Moses.

Va-t’dabbeir – She spoke: Miriam is the prime-mover. We read (:1-2):

Miriam spoke – and Aaron – against Moses because of the Cushite woman, whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said: has the Eternal One, indeed, spoken only with Moses? Has he not spoken also with us?

 Why did Miriam object to Moses’ new wife? Was she perhaps angry on Tzipporah’s behalf? We don’t know, but certainly, she had much more reason to be aggrieved than Aaron about Moses’ exclusive relationship with God – and significantly, she was the only one who was punished: with a temporary dose of tzara’at – leprosy (:10). Despite being the eldest sibling, despite being described as a n’vi’ah, a prophet, Miriam’s leadership role is completely marginalised in the Torah. And yet, the people couldn’t continue their journey without her. The tale concludes (12:15):

Miriam was shut away outside the camp for seven days; and the people did not journey on until Miriam was brought in again.

 So, why was Miriam’s death mentioned only in passing?  All the text says is (20:1) – and I repeat: ‘and the people dwelt in Kadeish; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.’  By contrast, seven verses are devoted to Aaron’s death at Mount Hor a short while afterwards (20:23-29), where we read (:29):

When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, all the house of Israel.

Are we to understand that in place of formal mourning rites for Miriam, the people, in their grief and loss, clamoured for water? And what of Miriam’s brothers? Did Moses and Aaron find it so difficult to control the people because they, too, were grief-stricken? After all, Moses owed his life to his resourceful and courageous older sister; was that why he became so enraged as he stood before that rock?  And as he looked at that rock, did his thoughts turn, perhaps, to another rock; the stone that marked Miriam’s grave?

 Which brings me back to Messer’s Cameron and Clegg and the challenges they must grapple with: As they make efforts to provide effective leadership in the current crisis, isn’t it obvious what is lacking? Where were the women during the Prime Ministerial debates? Where are the women in the new government? Once again, the majority of the ministers are men. Once again, after thirteen years of Tony Blair, followed by Gordon Brown, another two youngish men-in-suits sit at the helm of British politics. And as the Labour Party goes about finding a new leader, are we any doubt that he will be another youngish man, too? Of course, all the recent male-leaders are ‘new men’, who probably know how to navigate themselves around the kitchen, as well as around the Cabinet, and participate in the care of their children. But nevertheless, as long as the government and the majority of the political parties are so male-dominated, can we really expect a new form of leadership, and a new approach to the problems we face?

 Of course, there is another question: Would women really manage it all any differently? After all, look at Margaret Thatcher – known as ‘the best man’ in her Cabinet. But Margaret Thatcher was a lone woman. As I draw to a close, let us reflect on Miriam at the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 15:20-21):

Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. / And Miriam sang to them…

Moses’ leadership depended on his special ‘mouth to mouth’ (Numbers 12:8), ‘face to face’ relationship with God (Deuteronomy 34:10), which set him apart from the people; Aaron’s priestly leadership separated him from the people, too.  By contrast, on the one occasion that the Torah mentions Miriam as a leader, she stands, not alone, but with the women who follow her; taking a timbrel in her hand, she empowers the women to do likewise.  But Miriam did not just lead the women; she sang to all the people; the women and the men; the Hebrew says she sang lahem - to them, masculine, not lahen, to them, feminine: Hebrew is a completely gendered language, and the use of the masculine form on its own denotes both genders. Miriam modeled an inclusive form of leadership that was empowering and enabling of others – both women and men. The American anarchist, Emma Goldman, is reputed to have said, ‘If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.’ Maybe, just maybe, if not just one woman came to the fore, but, rather, many women participated in leadership, on equal terms, women and men might all get a chance to dance during the revolution, and begin to find new inclusive ways to lead and to govern, and new approaches to resolving crises and conflicts: Bimheirah b’yameinu – speedily in our own day. And let us say: Amen.

  Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah, The Liberal Jewish Synagogue, 19^th June 2010 – 7^th Tammuz 5770

During the last few weeks the airways have been dominated by the upcoming general election, the competing claims of the different political parties, and, in particular, by the personalities of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg as the three TV debates have taken centre stage.

 The budget deficit is massive and none of the parties seem to be suggesting cuts big enough to tackle it – although whichever one gets in, will have to deal with the huge fall out of the economic crisis – so should we really be so preoccupied with how these three leaders measure up against one another under the media spotlight?

 Perhaps, not – but for all that, the three debates have reminded us that although the election is about which party gets into power, individuals do matter: not just the individual political leaders – but everyone; all of us: each individual voter – and not just at the moment when we vote: each one of us has a role to play in tackling the problems we face as a nation; and indeed, as human beings on this planet. We may feel powerless – and yes, so much power does lie in the hands of the government and the banks, who share responsibility for the mess we’re in. But what each one of us does – or fails to do – can make a difference.

 In the Talmud, the compendium of rabbinic law and wisdom, edited fifteen hundred years ago, there is an important teaching for all of us as we prepare to vote next Thursday:

 [Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon said:] 

Because the world is judged by the majority of its people and an individual is judged by the majority of their deeds, happy the person who does a good deed that may tip the scale for themselves and for the world. (Kiddushin 40b)

Some of those who are gathered here today can remember back to 1935. For those who can’t – and that includes me – just try and imagine what life was like in the mid-1930s: the depression had taken hold, Hitler was in power in Germany, Mosley was preparing to march through the streets of the Jewish East End… Was it a hopeful time – or was it is a fearful time? Judging by the way the founders of this congregation went about establishing a Liberal presence in what had hitherto been an Orthodox Jewish community that had been ensconced since the early 1800s, one might say that on balance, those went about transforming 29 New Church Road into a synagogue, felt optimistic about the future. Indeed, their vision was rewarded: within two years, the congregation had become so successful that it moved to new premises here at 6 Lansdowne Road – indeed, took up residence in a 1930s building that reflected perfectly the modern outlook of the members of Brighton and Hove Liberal Synagogue.

What did it mean to be a Liberal synagogue back in those days? It meant being part of a Liberal movement in Jewish life that began in Germany in 1810, and was founded in this country in 1902. Apart from the observance of Shabbat and most of the festivals, it meant giving priority to ethical teachings and values over ritual practices, like the dietary laws of kashrut. It meant treating the genders equally when it came to life-cycle moments and participation in religious services and study. It meant a much shortened liturgy and conducting the greater part of Shabbat and Festival services in English. It meant a more formal approach to music with the use of choir and an organ.

The list goes on… One cannot underestimate how radical and innovatory Liberal Judaism in England was in the early decades of the 20th century; it was very modern, very avant-garde, very different from traditional Judaism – indeed, for those Jews were not Liberal it did not seem Jewish at all, and in a very crucial sense it wasn’t: Liberal Judaism, like Rabbinic Judaism, following the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, although rooted in Jewish tradition, was an entirely new form of Jewish life. While Orthodox Judaism responded to modernity by building a fence around the Torah, Liberal Judaism embraced modernity with all its democratic values – not least, modernity’s rationalist impulse and belief in progress.

Ah … progress … when Liberal Judaism was first founded in this country in 1902, progress was taken for granted; to paraphrase that overused new Labour slogan of the 1997 General Election: things could ‘only get better’ … – but unfortunately, they didn’t: the First World War, with its tragic and catastrophic loss of the lives of so many thousands of young men; the rise of fascism and Nazism in the 1930s, which led to the annihilation of one third of the Jewish people and the murder of hundreds of thousands of other groups – Gypsies, gay men, the disabled – all those who did not meet the Aryan notion of perfection. In a way, when this synagogue was founded in 1935, the ideal of progress had already been severely tarnished and was on the verge of being obliterated by the forces of irrational hatred – although the optimistic founders of BHLS probably did not realise it at the time. So, progress had already had its day in 1935. But despite the challenges brought by the Second World War, after it was over the membership of BHLS grew, activities expanded – not least, the legendary youth club, first set up in 1946 that managed to keep going with its increasingly un-youthful membership for many years, drawing in people from the wider Jewish community to participate in its varied and enjoyable range of programmes and events.

Brighton and Hove Liberal Synagogue was ‘the place to be’ for so many people during those years. At the same time, gradually, during the 70s and 80s, the impact of the Sh’oah began to make itself felt – both the scale of the loss of six million individual lives, and the loss of thousands of Jewish communities across the continent of Europe. And so, led by a new post-war generation of rabbis, this congregation, together with its sister congregations elsewhere, began to become aware of its responsibility to maintain the traditions of Jewish life. In the words of the late Emil Fackenheim, we refused to ‘give Hitler a posthumous victory’. But the Sho’ah was not the only impetus: the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, created a new self-confident Jewish presence in the world, and the transformation of Britain into a multicultural society gave Jewish congregations a new reason to celebrate Jewish distinctiveness. And so, following the lead of the Liberal movement, this congregation began to reclaim many of the rituals and practices that had seemed so irrelevant back in the heady days of the dawn of the 20th century.

To some of those whose Liberal Jewish identity was formed during the first decades of Liberal Judaism, these developments have looked like a backward step – and worse: a retreat into ‘orthodoxy’. At the same time, it is clear to everyone, including ‘classical’ Liberals, that the changes in Liberal Jewish life in general over the past thirty years or so, and in this congregation, in particular, have been much more complex: on the one hand, we now have a prayer-book that we call a Siddur, using the traditional name, that opens from right to left and follows the rabbinic order of the service; on the other hand, that same Siddur, includes a covenant ceremony for daughters, alongside the traditional b’rit milah ceremony for sons. On the one hand, Bar Mitzvah has made a comeback; on the other hand, girls also celebrate becoming Bat Mitzvah on equal terms, and Confirmation at age 17 has been transformed into Kabbalat Torah with young people choosing to continue their Jewish learning for a further two years after they have become Bar and Bat Mitzvah.. On the one hand, we have reintroduced the commemoration of Tishah B’Av, the day that marks the destruction of the first and second Temples; on the other hand, we do so with a new liturgy that includes, both, all the destructions of the Jewish people, and remembrance of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11^th 2001. On the one hand, the synagogue kitchen is now kosher; on the other hand, the synagogue not only promotes ethical eating, including fair-trade, championing justice and inclusion in every area of life, it openly includes, and indeed welcomes and celebrates mixed faith couples, lesbian and gay individuals and couples, single people, and a wide variety of individuals, with complex histories and journeys, some of whom are Jewish, some of whom are Jew-ish, and some of whom are not Jewish at all.

When, back in the mid-1980s, Brighton and Hove Liberal Synagogue changed its name to Brighton Hove Progressive Synagogue to signal its hope that it might be possible for the Liberal and Reform movements to merge, the congregation also, without realising it, reinvented the word ‘progressive’ for a new era in which simple progress was a thing of the past. And so, this progressive synagogue stands for and embraces everything that is forward-looking, open, inclusive, egalitarian and centred on the promotion of justice and human rights. And yet, we know that things won’t simply ‘get better’: we have to take responsibility for ensuring that our values are translated into practice each and every day – not least, in the way we respond, both, to those who cross the threshold, and to individuals and groups in the wider community.

For the past three weeks an exhibition of the history and life of the congregation has been on display, thanks, in particular, to the hard work of Betty Skolnick one of the vice- presidents. As we look back and reminisce, and also savour events of the more recent past, I hope we feel proud of who we are, what we are and what we have achieved, and that we feel a sense of gratitude for the leadership of successive Councils over the years, and for the contribution made by all the rabbis and lay ministers, who shaped the life of the congregation: Rabbi Goldberg and refugee Rabbi Lemle, Revd. Archie Fay, Rabbis Baylinson, Richards, Sirtes, Benjamin, Ginsbury and Wallach, Aubrey Milstein, whose passing we mourned in August 2008, and, during the 1990s, Rabbis Wolff and Glantz.

I also hope that we look forward to the future with that same optimism and expectation that emboldened our founders to establish Brighton and Hove Liberal Synagogue in 1935. I have now been rabbi of BHPS since December 2000. Before I close, I would like to end by sharing with you my vision of the years ahead. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, my hope is that the kind of future we are journeying towards includes seven strands, which woven together will make the fabric of congregational life, vibrant, strong, flexible, whole and enduring:

1. A commitment to life-long Jewish learning that translates into a full programme of Jewish educational opportunities for members and friends of all ages

2. A ‘Keeping in Touch’ network of caring interactions across the congregation that ensures that ‘contact’ takes place not only between the synagogue professionals and lay leaders and ‘the rest’ of the congregation, but also between people of all ages, with activities taking place in people’s homes as well as in the synagogue building

3. A pallet of Shabbat activities – including, meditation, discussion and dance, as well as a variety of services – running parallel with one another, enabling people with a variety of interests, passions and needs to express their differing ways of being Jewish and celebrating Shabbat, before gathering in one place at the end of the morning to celebrate kiddush and eat together. 

4. Active participation in Jewish life beyond the synagogue doors: in the local Jewish community and its cross-communal activities, in the national movement of Liberal Judaism, in Progressive Judaism across the world, and, in particular, in Israel

5. Engagement with the wider non-Jewish community of Brighton and Hove and beyond,  encompassing multi-faith encounter and study, cross-cultural and social justice initiatives, ecological projects, and ‘arts and culture’ events that are part of the city calendar

6. The re-configuring of the festivals, beyond the provision of worship services, to create links between all the different dimensions of synagogue life, and with the wider community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, so that the festivals don’t just ‘happen’ on particular dates, the themes of the different festivals, provide a framework for the whole year, connecting together both people and the key activities associated with each theme.   And, finally:

7. The fostering of a ‘participatory democracy’ culture at BHPS to ensure maximum involvement of all the different ‘constituencies’ within the synagogue in the development of the congregation.

We are 75 years young and going strong. As we pause on the threshold between the past and the future, please join with me in giving thanks to the Eternal One, with the words of the Shehecheyanu, the blessing for new experiences and special moments:

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech ha-olam, shehecheyanu, v’kiy’manu, v’higi’anu laz’man ha-zeh.

Blessed of are You, Eternal One, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has kept us alive, and sustained us, and enabled us to reach this time. And let us say: Amen.

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, 22nd May 2010 – 9th Sivan 5770

‘For you were strangers in the land of Egypt’:  How many times does the Torah repeat that phrase?  And now we have arrived once again at the season for remembering our misery in ‘the house of bondage’ par excellence: Pesach; or, as the first Rabbis called it, Z’man Cheiruteinu – the ‘Season of our Liberation’.

I don’t know how often the Torah reminds us of our slavery in Egypt – I’ve never counted.  I do know that having read the Torah year after year these past twenty-six years, since I first began my rabbinic studies, my main thoughts about that constant repetition have gone in two, interconnected, directions:  So, even before we stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, the experience of slavery defined our existence as a people; and: the imperative to remember our experience then, acts as the principle rationale for Jewish ethical conduct now – that’s why being reminded that we were ‘strangers in the land of Egypt’ invariably follows an injunction about our obligation to act justly towards the vulnerable and marginal in our midst.

But there is one very obvious thing that I’ve never really noticed about the Torah’s insistence on remembering our bondage in Egypt – or maybe just taken for granted:  The Torah is addressing a people, not only liberated from slavery a long time before anyone can actually remember, but, even more significantly: a people with power over their own lives – and, perhaps, more important; power over the lives of others.   Alongside the key narratives about the journeys of our ancestors, which coalesce into a journey down into Egypt, and then, 430 years later, a dramatic Exodus from Egypt, at the heart of the Torah are the various codes of law, whose purpose is to regulate the social order.  In fact, that’s the whole point of the Torah – and of the complex odyssey of our forbears, from the time Abraham and Sarah left their land, their kindred, and their home: to journey towards a particular piece of God’s earth – the land of Canaan – where they will establish a new society.

Yes, it’s very obvious – and yet, we never really consider the implications – for at least two main reasons: The first reason is because, reading the Torah narrative as we do, year after year, re-tracing the steps of our ancestors, of the slaves, of the wanderers in the wilderness, and then, just as they are about to enter the land, returning to the beginning again – to Creation – that new society is always a future promise beyond.  The second reason is that, despite the fact that our forbears did, in fact, enter the land, and establish a social order – albeit, failing, repeatedly, to follow the laws of justice – they were conquered and exiled again and again – and then, spent almost two thousand years living a marginal and vulnerable existence in other people’s lands.  In other words, our experience as a people has, for the most part, not been about empowerment at all, but rather been about being disempowered – and worse: persecuted and oppressed.

And so, until the establishment of the modern State of Israel in May 1948, being a Jew was synonymous with being a victim at the mercy of those in power.  And so, generation after generation, we have read the Torah, not as a self-determining people, with responsibilities and obligations towards others, not as a people with power, but rather, as the vulnerable and the marginal.  And so, we haven’t really understood the reminder, ‘for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ – because we have never forgotten:  we have still been the victims.  And so, we have, for the most part, failed to notice, that the Torah is addressing those with the power and the means to act for good or ill – because, from the perspective of our historical experience, we have, for the most part, been powerless.

But with the establishment of a Jewish state in our ancient homeland, a substantial section of our people now does have power.  And yet, we do not seem to have caught up with this new reality: neither the Jews who live there – the new ‘Israelis’ – nor the Jews who still live as minorities in the diaspora.  In a sense, we have become two peoples – an empowered people in Israel, and a diaspora people, living in other people’s lands.  But , of course, we are not prepared to see the Jewish people, as two peoples – for understandable reasons, because we share the same inheritance, the same history, and, crucially, the same very recent trauma: the Sho’ah.  And most of us are not prepared – neither Jews in Israel nor Jews in the diaspora – for these shared reasons – to acknowledge, not only that a Jewish state means Jewish power, but that since 1967, in particular, the State of Israel has exercised power over the lives of others, who are not Jews – the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Now, there is nothing wrong with having power.  One of the most unique and valuable aspects of the Torah – apart from the wonderful tales it tells – is that rather than deny the reality of power, the various codes of the Torah regulate the exercise of power and insist that those who occupy powerful positions in society exert their power responsibly and ethically – especially in relation to the most vulnerable and marginal.

Of course, we only have to read the accounts of the reigns of the numerous monarchs of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the books of the Bible that follow the Five Books of Moses, and in particular, read the words of the prophets, who railed against injustice, to know that ethical government was a very rare thing back then.   And if the Bible is not our regular ‘book at bed-time’, the weekly Haftarah, the concluding reading after the Torah reading, on Shabbat and the festivals, which comes from the second section of the Bible, N’vi’im, ‘Prophets’, often reminds us of how Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah and Amos raised their voices against the corrupt and oppressive rulers of their day.

The prophets were not afraid to speak out – on the contrary, they saw it as their duty as servants of the Eternal One to challenge the abuse of power; when they held the rulers of the people to account and exhorted the wealthy to share their riches, they did so in the name of God, the liberator of the oppressed and the guardian of the needy.  Let me just remind you of a few verses from Isaiah chapters 1 and 5 (1:16-17 and 5:7-8):

Wash yourselves clean; put your evil doings away from My sight. Cease to do evil; / learn to do good.  Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged.  Uphold the rights of the widow; defend the cause of the orphan.

For the vineyard of the God of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the seedlings He lovingly tended are the men of Judah.  And He hoped for justice, but, behold, injustice; for equity, but behold, iniquity! / Ah! Those who add house to house and join field to field, till there is room for none but you to dwell in the land!

Here we are, on the first day of Pesach, at a moment, when all our people, all over the world, in the diaspora and in Israel, are celebrating the liberation of our ancestors from tyranny and oppression:   ‘For you were strangers in the land of Egypt’; remembering that ‘we were strangers’ is what this festival is all about.  But why?  Why do we need to remember?  We read in Exodus chapter 22 (:20), in the first code of law included in the Torah, Mishpatim, the code that is inserted into the account of the Revelation of the Eternal at Mount Sinai: 

V’geir lo-toneh v’lo tilchatzeinu; ki geirim heyitem b’eretz Mitzrayim

A stranger you shall not wrong or oppress, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

And two verses in K’doshim, the ‘Holiness Code’ in Leviticus chapter 19 (:33-34), make clear the context for the injunction:

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. / The stranger who resides with you shall be like a citizen amongst you, and you shall love him like yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Eternal am your God.

Why the need to remember?  Because once settled ‘in your land’ there is the danger of becoming forgetful… So, what would Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah and Amos be saying to the government of Israel today?   What would they say about the forty-two year occupation of the West Bank and the continuing domination of another people against their will?  What would they say about house demolitions in East Jerusalem and the destruction of Palestinian neighbourhoods to make room for the ever-expanding Jewish settlements?   Would they not call the government to account and rail against injustice?   I’m sure we know the answers to these questions – and we also know that if the prophets were around, the Israeli government would probably make strenuous efforts to silence them – just as it has taken steps to silence the individuals and groups working for human rights and justice in Israel today – chief among them:  Rabbis for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Israel Religious Action Centre, and B’tzelem, the Human Rights organisation that takes it’s name from the verse in the Torah, which states that each human being is created b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God’ (Genesis 1:27).

Those who defend or excuse the actions of the Israeli government often argue that they ‘love’ Israel and what they are trying to do is protect the Jewish state and ensure its security and survival.  Well, I love Israel – and have done ever since I lived on a small kibbutz in the Western Galilee for seven months in 1978-79.  My efforts are directed to protecting the Jewish state and helping to make it more secure.   I want Israel to survive – and thrive.  I also want Israel to be much more Jewish – a really Jewish state: a state that is governed by Jewish values; by the ethical imperatives we find in the Torah and in the words of the prophets – which is the only way that it will become fully secure and live in peace with the Palestinians and all the other states of the region.  I have quoted from Isaiah – and Micah expresses very similar sentiments (Micah 5:12;15;24) – but let’s give the last word to Amos (:7-10) – or rather to the Eternal One who spoke through him:

Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me, O Israelites? declares the Eternal.  Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and also the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir? / Behold, the Eternal God has His eye upon the sinful kingdom: I will wipe it off the face of the earth!  But I will not wholly wipe out the House of Jacob, declares the Eternal. / For, behold, I will give the order and shake the House of Israel through all the nations – as one shakes [sand] in a sieve, and not a pebble falls to the ground.  / All the sinners of My people shall perish by the sword, [those] who boast, never shall the evil overtake us or come near us.

The prophets did not mince their words!   And we should not either.  Yes, Israel is surrounded by enemies – but the greatest threat it faces is not from Iran or Hamas – however dangerous these two forces of anti-Israel hatred may be.  The greatest threat Israel faces is from the forces of injustice within.  Surely, the time has come for those who love and support Israel to speak out, so that, in the words of Amos (5:24): ‘Justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’, and we may yet see two sovereign democratic nations, Israel and Palestine, flourishing side by side and living in peace – bimheirah b’yameinu – speedily in our own day. And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Ve’reiut

30^th March 2010 – 15^th Nisan 5770

This week our regular Shabbat morning service has a very special quality as we celebrate the moment that Jacob leaves his childhood behind and becomes Bar Mitzvah.  In a profound sense, although Jacob only began actively preparing for today, just six months ago, he has been on a journey to this day all his life.  And yet this moment is only a moment – and that’s what makes today so very precious:  Everything about how Jacob marks this moment – his leading of the service and reading of the Torah scroll – heralds a new beginning; as he begins the journey of his teenage years towards adulthood, we all know that Jacob’s life and the life of his family will never be the same again.

I am basically a very rational person, not given to the apprehension of miracles, but I would have to say that every time a young person becomes Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and reads a section of what is, after all, the weekly, Torah portion, not specially chosen for them, it is as if the verses of the Torah were, on the contrary, somehow miraculously selected for this very special transformational moment. In a short while, Jacob will share with us his understanding of how those verses relate to him and connect with his life, and although the portion was not written with Bar or Bat Mitzvah in mind – and obviously not with Jacob in mind – right now, I would like to invite you to reflect on what today’s double Torah portion – Va-yakheil-P’kudei – might teach us about the significance of this special milestone.

But first I need to set the scene:  The slaves liberated by the Eternal One from the ‘house of bondage’ – with the help of Miriam, Moses and Aaron – arrived at Mount Sinai just six weeks after their departure.  But then, during Moses’ forty day sojourn with God on the mountain, in need of a ‘god’ to lead them, and unprepared for the Revelation of the ineffable Eternal, they created a ‘molten calf’.   After this rather problematic diversionary activity, which provoked Moses to smash the tablets – and then have to go up the mountain again to fetch a new set – the people were given a more constructive outlet for their creativity: the building of the Mishkan – a dwelling place for the Eternal – usually translated as ‘Tabernacle’.  Intriguingly, the editors of the Torah interrupted the narrative of the Revelation by inserting the instructions for the building of the Mishkan found in the portion, T’rumah, at Exodus chapter 25, before the incident of the molten calf, described in Ki Tissa, Exodus chapter 32 – as if to teach us that in a way the errant people were right: How could they relate to an invisible God who dwelt in a cloud on a remote mountain-top?  What good was God up there?  

So, parashat T’rumah, introduces the sacred building project, and explains its purpose: V’asu Li mikdash, v’shachanti b’tocham – ‘Let them build Me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them (:8).  But then, it becomes evident that although the point of building the Mishkan is to bring God down to earth to dwell in the midst of the people, the building project actually achieves something else as well, that is just as important:  it transforms a rabble of ex-slaves into a community.  But how does it do this?  When the people clamoured to ’make a god’, Aaron told them to him bring their gold earrings, which ‘he took from them and cast in a mould and made into a molten calf’ (32:4).  In the section of Va-yakheil that Jacob will be reading for us shortly, which expands the text we find at the beginning of T’rumah, we learn that in addition to bringing a variety of cloths of different colours, and various animal skins and wood and silver and copper, each gift a t’rumat Adonai – ‘an offering for the Eternal’ (35:24) – both men and women ‘came bringing brooches, earrings, rings and pendants; gold objects of all kinds’ (:22).  These verses also tell us that ‘everyone whose heart was moved and whose spirit was willing came, bringing an offering of the Eternal for the work of the Tent of Meeting – Oheil Mo’eid – and for all its service and for the sacred garments’ (:21).  So what was the difference between bringing gold to make a molten calf and bringing gold and other offerings to make the Oheil Mo’eid – the ‘Tent of Meeting’; literally, the ‘appointed’ place where Moses would meet with the Eternal, who dwelt within?  The difference from the perspective of the Eternal is obvious – but what was the difference from the perspective of the people? 

The clue to the difference lies in a key phrase at the very beginning of parashat Va-yakheil: Va-yakheil Moshe et-kol-adat b’ney Yisraeil – ‘Moses assembled all the congregation of the Israelites’ (35:1).  When ‘the people’ took fright at Moses’ long absence, like an angry mob, they ‘assembled against Aaron’ – Va-yikaheil ha-am al-Aharon – ‘and said to him: “Come, make us a god, who will go before us”’ (Exodus 32:1).  In the context of the building of the Mishkan, by contrast, the people are an eidah – a congregation, an ‘appointed’ community assembled together by Moses; the words for ‘congregation’ – eidah – and Tent of Meeting – Ohel Mo’eid – are connected: both imply a designation for a purpose.  From the perspective of the people involved, there was a world of difference between feeling abandoned by Moses when he disappeared up the mountain, and being acknowledged by Moses as a community.

A comparison between these two building enterprises tells us a lot about leadership – and there is no doubt that Moses had to learn, from bitter experience, about how to be a leader.  But just as important is what it teaches us about what it means to be a community.  The account of the preparation for the building of the Oheil Mo’eid makes it clear, as we have seen, that ‘everyone’ brought their offerings; each person ‘whose heart was moved and whose spirit was willing’ (:21); each came with their special gifts – and curiously, leaving nothing to doubt, the text adds, ‘Men and women – came, all with a willing heart’ (:22) – and then, again, in the singular: ‘each man and woman whose heart was moved’ (:29).  The Torah very rarely specifies ‘men and women’ – and depending on the context, ‘people’ means both, or in some cases, women are explicitly excluded.  But here the emphasis is on inclusion – inclusion of each individual, man and woman.  And that’s not all:  In last week’s parashah, Ki Tissa, the chief artisan of the Mishkan, B’tzaleil, is described as ‘filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in discernment and in knowledge (Exodus 31:3).  Our portion today speaks of ‘all the women who were wise of heart’ (:25) and whose hearts were moved with wisdom (:26), applying their skills to spinning the different yarns and the goats hair.  Wisdom – chochmah – a feminine noun in any case, is a quality shared by women and men – and so it seems that the phrase, kol-adat b’ney yisraeil: ‘all the congregation of the Israelites’ means what it says.

Jacob: three thousand three hundred years separate this moment from the day that the Mishkan was finally completed – and the Jewish people have been on so many, many journeys since that first journey in the wilderness – and still, your portion has important messages for you.  Like each one of our Israelite ancestors, you have your special gifts – your thoughtfulness, your sensitivity and ability to sense how others are feeling, your loyalty to others, your passion for fairness and justice, your commitment to making the world a better place, and your sense of fun.  And like them, your special offerings connect you with other people; like them, you bring your different qualities to the way you relate to the people around you; an array of gifts for the building of community in all the different areas of your life: among your friends, with Woodland Craft, a movement you have belonged to since you were six years old, and here at the synagogue that has been part of your life since you were five.

As you put it to me when I asked you, being Jewish means knowing – and I quote, ‘that I’m part of a wide community’.  You also feel that you should ‘carry on’ the ‘tradition’ of your Jewish grand-parents and great-grand-parents.  And so, becoming Bar Mitzvah means for you – as you put it: ‘Becoming more involved in the synagogue and taking more responsibility. And teaching others about what being Jewish means.’   For you the synagogue is a place where – and again, I quote: ‘I can be with other people who are like me, who are kind and respectful.’   Supported at all times by your loving parents and your sisters, Hannah and Rebecca, you have also received support from many of those ‘kind and respectful’ people here at the shul on your journey to this day – in particular, your teachers, Melanie, Eileen and Andy and your tutor, Harry.  And you have always acted with kindness and respect in return.  You have both received from others – and given your gifts willingly and with an open heart.

And now you have arrived at this day.  I mentioned earlier that today we are reading from a double portion, Va-yakheil-P’kudei.  P’kudei is the last portion of the Book of Exodus.  The theme of the construction of the Mishkan occupies a good part of five portions of the Torah – amounting to fifteen chapters in all from Exodus 25-40 – and when it is finally completed, the closing image of the book is very telling: it is of a ‘cloud’ that settled over the Mishkan when the Israelites were encamped, and which moved with them, when they went on their journeys (40:36-37).  The Mishkan, for all its resplendent beauty, rich textures and materials, was after all, an Oheil Mo’eid – a ‘Tent of Meeting’; a temporary, movable dwelling place of the Eternal: The mysterious ‘cloud’ that is the Eternal lives, neither ‘on a mountain-top, nor in any other particular place; the mystery that is the Eternal is in every place, and accompanies us on all our journeys.

And so the image of the cloud hovering over the Tent gets to the heart of the matter:  The journey never ends – not only for the Jewish people, for each one of us; as long as we are alive we are forever on a journey – even on a wonderful moment like today:  Jacob, you have already led the service for us beautifully; soon you will read from the Torah – and then, before too long, the day will be over.  Towards the end of P’kudei we learn that the Mishkan was erected ‘in the first month of the second year, on the first of the month’ (Exodus 40:17).  Well, today is known as Shabbat Ha-Chodesh, ‘the Sabbath of the month’, because it is the Shabbat before the beginning of the first month of the Jewish year, Nisan; which means it is also, the Shabbat prior to the anniversary of the setting up of the Mishkan.  And there’s more: The original name of Nisan, Aviv, which means ‘Spring’ says it all:  With the month of Nisan, we begin the cycle of the months and welcome the spring: what a perfect moment, Jacob, for you to celebrate the end of your childhood and make a new beginning:  May the achievement of this day, and everything that you have given and received in the process of building the Mishkan of your life so far, inspire you, as the cloud moves on, to continue sharing your special gifts with others, as you continue your journey.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

13^th March 2010 / 27^th Adar 5770

I usually write my sermon on a Friday.  But BT informed us that we wouldn’t be connected to the internet in our new home until midnight on Thursday – ten days after our move – and I knew that I would need to catch up on a back-log of emails on Friday that during my stints in my shul office I had not managed to reduce significantly.  Consequently, I decided to write my sermon on Wednesday – my non-congregational work day.

So there I was on Wednesday sitting at the desk in Jess’ study – mine isn’t ready yet – looking out on the view outside the window, trying to think about what it means to be a Jew and to live a Jewish life.   We haven’t moved to the middle of the country-side – were just off the A259 passed Newhaven on the way to Seaford by Bishopstone.  But the front of our house faces the plain that leads to the sea – which we can see to the right – and the Downs that stretch out ahead and to the left.  Apart from clusters of houses on the hillside across the plain, to the right-side of the house, the rest of the vista is simply the plain, a slice of the sea, and the sloping Downs – and 360 degrees worth of sky that is not obscured by the homes on either side of us.

It’s a bit different from staring out at a row of identical Victorian terraced houses…  It’s a bit different from living in crowded Brighton.   And it’s exactly twelve miles along the coast west-wards from any signs of Jewish life…   So what does it mean to be a Jew in all that space, and natural East Sussex beauty – and all that sky?   My booba, my maternal grandmother, who grew up on the outskirts of the small town of Siemiatycze not far from  Bialystok in the Russian Pale, would have wondered what all the fuss was about.  When Rosa Mindel Tuchmacher, as she was called then, arrived in the East End around 1902, and went to live with a cousin, who had made the move a few years earlier, her cousin remarked that Rosa’s rosy country-flushed cheeks were ‘like two red apples’.  The pogroms aside, which had forced booba’s departure, and which she described to me in blood-curdling detail, I also remember her talking to me longingly about spending her childhood days playing in the woods and swimming in the bubbling stream…  That’s a dimension of shtetl life that we don’t tend to think about…  And then, there were the animals – not just the wild creatures in the woods: the chickens and the cow that lived in the backyard, providing the family with fresh eggs and milk. 

Even the urban Jews of that generation, like the man my booba met and married in the East End, Solomon Waltzer, who grew up in the city of Czernowitz, which was in the far east of the Austro-Hungarian empire at that time – even his family had come to live there from a village.  Indeed, even my father and his parents, Julius and Paula Klempner, who lived in the centre of Vienna until the Nazis marched in, in 1938; for all their urban sophistication, they were part of families that had originally come there from very small towns in the midst of rural Rumania.

Yes, we tend to think that Jews live in urban clusters, but it wasn’t always the case, and in recent years, after a century of city-dwelling, Jewish people have been moving out to the wilds, even beyond surburbia, in increasing numbers.  We only have to consider the local Jewish community of Brighton and Hove:  in addition to the successive waves of 18+ year olds, who have moved to cities, like London, Leeds and Manchester, there are all those people who now choose to live in various parts of East and West Sussex.

So how does a Jew live outside an urban centre, at some distance from a synagogue and Jewish community?  How does a Jewish couple or a Jewish family live Jewishly in a context that does not mirror and reflect Jewish life?  The simple answer to these questions is that Jews have always carried our Jewish life with us in portable parcels wherever we have roamed – in our m’zuzot, which we fixed to the door-posts of our homes, in our candle-sticks, and challah cloths and kiddush cups, in our saucepans and chopping boards, in our books and, for the more musical, in our violins.  And even without these external ‘signs’, generation after generation,  as we journeyed from place to place, we have carried our Jewish life within us – in our hearts and in our mouths: in the songs we sang and the stories we told and the recipes our hands conjured up from memory.

This week’s Torah portion, T’tzavveh, opens at Exodus chapter 27, verse 20, with the instructions to the priests concerning the lighting of the m’norah, the seven-branched lamp-stand, in the Temple.  The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago, and the huge golden m’norah was taken in booty.  Since that time, it has been left to ordinary Jews, to kindle the light of Jewish life in our homes every Shabbat, and during the annual eight-day festival of Chanukkah.   For the Temple was replaced not only by the synagogue, but, just as importantly, by the home.  Indeed, apart from the reading of the Torah, which is a communal responsibility, the majority of the most important Jewish rites and practices – lighting Shabbat and festival candles, the dietary laws of kashrut, the Pesach seder, the building of the sukkah and the waving of the lulav at Sukkot – were designated by the rabbis for home observance.  Where will you find the altar that was at the heart of Temple-worship?  Not in the synagogue: at home, transformed into the dining table.

So, Jews have carried our Jewish lives with us on all our journeys, and have created sanctuaries of Jewish life in our homes – especially, perhaps, during times of persecution.  This evening we will celebrate the festival of Purim in time-honoured fashion by reading the Book of Esther, which may be found in K’tuvim, the ‘Writings’, which form the last of the three sections of the Tanach – the Hebrew Bible. Traditionally, Esther is one of the ‘Five Scrolls’, connected with five significant moments of the Jewish year.  The most famous of these scrolls – m’gillot in Hebrew – it is known as the m’gillah, the scroll.  The story related in the Scroll of Esther has a larger-than-life ‘fairy-tale’ character – but like all fairy-tales, it speaks truths that are deeper than mere ‘facts’.  One of these truths is articulated clearly and chillingly by the villain of the piece, Haman, whom the King, Achashveirosh, appoints as his chief courtier.  Addressing the King, Haman says (3:8-9):

There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them. / If it please Your Majesty, let an edict be drawn for their destruction…

‘Scattered and dispersed among the other peoples’ – that’s the diaspora in a nut-shell.  And as a ‘scattered and dispersed’ people, ‘whose laws are different from any other people’, we have suffered persecution at the hands of our inhospitable ‘hosts’ for millennia.   What is more, although the type of pre-modern autocratic society the Book of Esther conjures up is long gone in most parts of the world, the Sho’ah reminded us that we can still be singled out for ‘destruction’ – and that the liberating impulse of modernity could not prevent Jew-haters using modern technologies to devise modern methods of mass-murder.

Against this hideous backdrop the decision of some Jews in the post-Sho’ah era to leave cities and Jewish urban and suburban centres to live in the country-side could look more like flight.  And in the context of the stubborn persistence of anti-Semitism in modern guises, on the one hand, and the openness of modern society, on the other, the traditional view of the home as a centre of Jewish life becomes open to question:  Jewish life maybe portable, but that doesn’t mean that we can assume that those Jews who choose to live in the country-side are also choosing to create Jewish home-lives; the opposite may be true.  Of course, it’s not possible to generalise, and anyway, people make their life choices for complex reasons, and live in ways that are rarely, either/or.  But when we consider how contingent our choices about how to live our lives can be, we realise that however important the home may be, for Jewish life to flourish, Jewish communal existence is vital.  Look at us here this Shabbat morning: we all have homes to go to, but we draw nourishment from engaging together and we re-connect with the well-springs of our existence as a people by participating in the weekly reading of the Torah, which provides the framework of meaning for all our Jewish endeavours.

And so, back to Wednesday – and writing this sermon facing that broad, open vista:  Yes, Jess and I have transported our portable Jewish lives into our new abode, and are gradually unpacking all the special Jewish ‘signs’ that will mark our house as a Jewish home on the East Sussex landscape.  But however Jewish we make our home, the Jewish meaning of our lives remains inextricably connected with the wider Jewish world that we inhabit, which encompasses, the synagogue, and the Jewish community of Brighton and Hove, and Liberal Judaism – and, indeed, Israel.  Ultimately, living Jewishly is about, as the Sh’ma puts it (Deuteronomy 6:4ff.), the ‘words’ we hold in our ‘hearts’, when we are ‘at home’, and when we are ‘along the way’, when we ‘lie down’ and when we ‘rise up’ – and how we act and conduct our relationships in every place.   The second Torah portion today, from Deuteronomy chapter 25 (:17-19), which begins, Zachor – ‘Remember’ – and gives the Shabbat before Purim its special name: Shabbat Zachor; reminds us of Haman’s ancestor, Amalek, ‘who attacked the stragglers in the rear’ as they were leaving Egypt (25:17).  But there is another kind of remembering; the kind that is about repeatedly making connections and re-membering: re-constituting Jewish life.  Let us all commit ourselves to this task – not only when we dismantle our homes for a move, and put the pieces back together again, but also, as we go about our daily lives.  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

27^th February 2010 – 13^th Adar 5770

This Shabbat we have come together to celebrate both the seventh day of the week and the Bat Mitzvah of Leah Segal.  But today is not simply a double celebration.   As we go through the liturgy and read the weekly Torah portion each Shabbat, the feeling that we are participating in a great cycle, week after week, that is repeated year after year, is very reassuring.  A Bat Mitzvah – or Bar Mitzvah – on the other hand, is not at all like that:  Today is a transformational moment – and for one young woman and her family, life will never be the same again.  Becoming Bat Mitzvah means that Leah is leaving her childhood behind and embarking on the next stage of her life’s journey towards adulthood and adult responsibilities.   Life with a capital ‘L’ may be a great cycle; but the life of the individual is a line that, as the years pass by, wends it’s way in one direction.  So, there is nothing reassuring about a young person coming of age…

Now, Leah – and Ruth and Mark – I’m not saying any of this to make today even more nerve-racking than it already is!   Today is a wonderful moment of celebration – and it is very important that we inhabit that moment fully and be completely present.  At the same time, since as human beings we are blessed with consciousness and awareness of the passage of time, it is virtually impossible for us to simply inhabit the present; we are not simple, we are complex creatures – and so as we experience the wonder of today, we cannot help, also, feeling loss, as Leah’s childhood ends, and not a little anxiety about the future.

And so, we cannot help acknowledging that even Jewish life – despite the ever-repeating cycles – is about on-going change and development.  We just have to take ourselves back one hundred years and think about the journeys of our own families and all that they experienced over the course of the twentieth century.  And so, we know that as we complete the first decade of the twenty-first century and embark on a new one, what it means to live as Jews today is very different from what it meant back then.

And if we are not convinced that Jewish life has changed, let us just pause for a moment and think about what we are witnessing today: Leah’s Bat Mitzvah.  Leah has already led the service beautifully for us, and in a short while I will call her up to the bimah to give her d’var Torah – her commentary – on the Torah portion and read from the scroll.  A century ago, the notion that a young Jewish woman would celebrate her coming of age in the same way as a young Jewish man was unthinkable – and not just one hundred years ago:  I didn’t celebrate my Bat Mitzvah; I stopped attending cheider – religion school classes – at the age of eight when my brother became Bar Mitzvah.  How many women here I wonder celebrated their Bat Mitzvah when they were twelve or thirteen?   And if you did mark your coming of age, did you celebrate the moment by leading the congregation in prayer and reading from the Torah?   As that nice Jewish boy, Bob Dylan, put it back in the 1960s, ‘The times they are a-changing’.

Jewish life has changed – and not just in the progressive world.  Indeed, since the new millenniam dawned, a small number of women have been ordained as orthodox rabbis – yes, female orthodox rabbis.  The first was Rabbi Eveline Goodman-Thau, who received s’michah privately in Jerusalem on 18th October 2000, and became the first female rabbi to serve in Austria where she led the liberal Jewish Community in Vienna until March 2002 (1).  Interestingly, Rabbi Goodman-Thau, whom I met in Berlin at the Bet Debora conference for women rabbis and scholars in 2000, shortly after her ordination, was a child refugee from Vienna in 1938 and is descended from a long-line of rabbis and Chassidic rebbes.  Finding sanctuary in Holland and surviving the Sho’ah, she moved to Jerusalem in 1956 and went on to become a scholar in Jewish studies, before deciding she wanted to become a rabbi much later in life (2).

Rabbi Goodman-Thau is very clear that she calls herself a ‘Rabbi’) (ibid.) – so, too, Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, an orthodox woman living in Jerusalem, who was ordained privately by Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky in Tel Aviv in 2006, while gaining a Phd. in Talmud and raising five small children at the same time (3).  Needless to say, as yet, most of the orthodox world refuses to acknowledge these women as rabbis.  And as it has turned out, the cost of public recognition within orthodoxy has been quite high – and very controversial.  The trail-blazing orthodox feminist Blu Greenberg was very enthusiastic when, on 22^nd March 2009, in an orthodox synagogue in Riverdale, Bronx, New York, Sara Hurwitz, ‘a learned and devout Orthodox Jewish woman was conferred the new title of MaHaRa’T by Rabbi Avi Weiss, senior rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale’ (4).  The title Maharat is an acronym for Manhigah Hilchatit, Ruchanit, Toranit, which means ‘Leader in Jewish Law, Spirituality, and Torah’.  It basically describes a rabbi’s role.  However, some have asked whether the creation of a special title for women, rather than using the time-honoured one, doesn’t simply reinforce the message that it is unacceptable for women to become orthodox rabbis (5).  

The debate rages on… But the very fact that there is a public debate and that orthodox women are studying as men have done for millennia, and are being recognised for their knowledge by their orthodox male teachers, tells us how much has changed – even in the orthodox Jewish world.  On December 27^th 1935 Regina Jonas became the first ever woman rabbi, when, having studied at the progressive seminary in Berlin, she was ordained privately by Rabbi Max Dienemann in Offenbach (6).  As I discovered when I undertook my research into her life and work in the early 1990s, before the Sho’ah the idea of ‘women’ rabbis was too much even for Progressive Judaism – although interestingly, Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jewry at that time, authorised Rabbi Jonas’ ordination certificate in 1942 six months before she was deported to Theresienstadt.   Rabbi Jonas was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 and it was not until the feminist movement of the 1970s challenged the patriarchal status quo that Progressive Judaism began to ordain women as rabbis.  And now, today, half the progressive rabbinate in Britain – around 74 rabbis in all – is female; and in the United States, the figure is several hundred (7).  

Who knows what the future will bring?   Of course, not all Jewish women want to become rabbis.  The issue is not only about equal access to Jewish leadership, but equal access to Jewish life – and the struggle for gender equality is taking place across the Jewish world – even in the ultra-orthodox heartland of the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  Some of you may have heard of the current controversy concerning the ‘Women of the Wall’.  For twenty-one years now women dressed in tallitot – prayer-shawls – have been praying each Rosh Chodesh – New Moon – at the Western Wall, and reading from a Torah scroll.  They have been spat on and abused verbally and physically by orthodox men praying on the other side of the m’chitzah, the fence that separates the sexes.  But now the law is being used against them.  Rabbi Sh’muel Rabinovich, appointed as Rabbi of the Wall by secular leaders, who have always left Judaism in the hands of the orthodox, has taken action to stop the Women of the Wall.  And so, in November 2009, Nofrat Frenkel, was arrested during the Rosh Chodesh service because she was wearing a tallit and kippah and carrying a Torah scroll.  And so, on January 5^th, Anat Hoffman, the leader of Women of the Wall, who is also Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, a human rights organisation, was ‘summoned to the Jaffa Gate Police Station’ and ‘warned’ that she was ‘being investigated for committing a felony’ – that is, for performing ‘a religious act that offended the feelings of men (8).   It looks like the ultra-orthodox are winning; but I’ve met Anat Hoffman; she won’t be intimidated – and remember: the suffragettes were also arrested – and imprisoned – and the vote was finally won.

So, Leah was has all this got to do with you?   Well, today, with the support of your parents and your teachers, and the guidance of your tutor, Andy, you become Bat Mitzvah.   You have already stood before us in your tallit, with it’s tzitzit, its fringes, symbolising your new status as a ‘daughter of the commandment’, taking responsibility for your Jewish life.   And, in short while you will not only read from the Seifer Torah, you will read from this week’s portion, Yitro, which relates how a rabble of ex-slaves entered into the covenant with the Eternal One at Mount Sinai.  Moses was there, of course – and his older sister, Miriam, too; the men were there – and so were the women.  The Torah has Moses speaking only to the men: ‘Be ready for the third day, come not near a woman’, he is reported to have said to them (Exodus 19:15) – and for over three thousand years since, Jewish men – both the leaders and the followers – have assumed that Judaism centres around what they say and do, as they have laid total claim to the public space of Jewish life.  But Jewish life is changing:  Here you are at the centre of this public space, this Sanctuary in your synagogue: your synagogue:  As of today, no longer a child – it belongs to you – although you’ll be pleased to know that you won’t be expected to pay a membership fee until you have completed your education, and are earning some money!   The point is, Leah, you have the absolute right to play an equal part, and to choose how you want to lead your life as a Jew – not as a Jewish woman – as a Jew.

You know this already, of course.  You are part of a generation of young Jewish women who expect to play an equal part in Jewish life.  When I asked you what being Jewish means to you, you responded – and I quote:  ‘Being Jewish means having people who are always there for you, and who you have something in common with, instantly.  It means being part of a community and connecting with people – people from all over the world, and also those who aren’t with us anymore. I love the fact that I will be able to pass this on, these rituals and traditions, and they will continue throughout the generations.’  Yes, Leah, you realise, as you put it, that becoming Bat Mitzvah ‘means growing up and officially taking on my responsibilities as a Jew today’ – and that it is also about , ‘being a part of my family’.  You understand that when you receive the scroll through the generations of your family, you will be following in the footsteps of those who went before you as you become responsible for transmitting Judaism to others – and for continuing to learn about Judaism with others: – that’s why you have already started participating with your ‘friends who are in the Kabbalat Torah class.’

Leah: it is clear that you are not the same person you were a year ago: you are, as you put it, ‘more sure of myself… I have grown up and I think that I can now understand my feelings and those of people around me far better….  I can now take more responsibility for myself and am far more independent.’   Leah, what is so special about your increasing independence is that you feel able to enjoy being part of community, where – and I quote: ‘everyone is welcome here despite all our differences.’  Leah, becoming Bat Mitzvah is about becoming more fully yourself – so it is important that for you, as you put it, ‘the synagogue is a place where I can come to learn, to be with my friends and just to think. I like the feeling of community I get… Everyone is so friendly that it is easy to just relax and feel a part of things.’

Leah:  you love being with others – and, also, ‘good with words’, you don’t just ‘love to talk’, you also, ‘like to learn about books’, as well as ‘read them.’  And then there is music, which you ‘enjoy listening to and playing.’   You are excited by life and all its possibilities for learning and enjoying yourself – which is why, at the moment, you have ‘no idea’ what you’d like to do in the future, although you do know that – and I quote:  ‘I would like to do some kind of work that interacts with other people, or helps those who are less fortunate in some way’ – and you are passionate about helping ‘the environment… because’, as you put it, ‘ every single person has to live in the world that we are creating, and if we keep on like this, it will all be ruined.  We, in the developed world, use far more than our fair share of the earth’s resources, and the hunger of poorer people is directly our responsibility. I would like to be able to change this.’

Leah:  I have no doubt that you will be involved in helping to change the world – and that you will also contribute to the continuing transformation of Jewish life.   May the achievement of this day be a source of inspiration to you as you continue your own very special Jewish journey.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

6^th February 2010 – 22^nd Sh’vat 5770

Notes

(1)  www.spme.net/cgi-bin/facultyforum.cgi?ID=456). 

(2)  The Jerusalem Post, 17.03.2005).  

(3)  jwablog.jwa.org/orthodoxwomanrabbi – Jewish Women’s Archive).  

(4)  Oct 1^st 2009 www.firstthings.com/…/women-orthodox-rabbis-heresy-or-possibility – United States -).   Blu Greenberg wrote the ground-breaking book, On Women and Judaism.  A View from Tradition.   Published by the Jewish Publication Societ of America (Philadeplphia) in 1981      it was the first book to come out of the modern Jewish feminist movement.

(5)  Leora Tanenbaum; www.huffingtonpost.com/…/a-rabbi-is-not-a-rabbi-in_b_189767.html).

(6)  Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah: ‘Rabbi Regina Jonas, 1902-1944: Missing Link in a Broken Chain’. In Hear Our Voice.  Women Rabbis Tell Their Stories. SCM Press, 1994; ‘The Discovery of Fraulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas: Making Sense of Our Inheritance’. European Judaism, 95:2, December 1995.

(7)  See Union of Reform Judaism: www.urj.org

(8)  See Anat Hoffman’s e-letter in The Pluralist – Newsletter from the Israel Religious Action Centre, 11^th January 2010 – www.irac.org

This Shabbat we are marking the moment when Sam Watling becomes Bar Mitzvah – literally, a ‘Son of the Commandment’ – and so becomes a link in a chain of tradition that goes back two millennia to the time of the first rabbis, who decreed that at age twelve and thirteen respectively, girls and boys, become obligated to undertake adult Jewish responsibilities.

Bar and Bat Mitzvah, then, is a rite of passage – not unlike those practised in other cultures.  But there is a crucial difference:  This Shabbat Sam has stood before us at the lectern, and led the service – beautifully, I’m sure we all agree – and in a short while I will call him ‘up’ to the bimah to read a section of the portion of the week – the parashah – from the Seifer Torah – the sacred scroll of the Five Books, which lies at the heart of Jewish teaching; becoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah is not a collective experience; young Jews become links in the chain of tradition, one by one.

And so we have an interesting paradox: on the one hand, the sense of weighty, ancient communal obligation; on the other hand, the individual young Jew, celebrated as a unique human being.

Jewish life and teaching is defined by such paradoxes:  on the one hand, Judaism seems preoccupied with particular rites and practices centred on the particular destiny of the Jewish people as the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, and of those who experienced liberation from ‘the house of bondage’ and met the Eternal One at Sinai; on the other hand, the ideas and values of Judaism flow from an understanding that as God is one, so the world is one – and humanity is one; each human being a unique ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27).

The collective and the individual; the particular and the universal: No chapter in the long odyssey of the Jewish people illustrates these paradoxes better than the tale of the Exodus from Egypt:  the story of the Israelites’ redemption over three thousand years ago, as the slaves in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries understood so well, carries the hope for all oppressed peoples; the story of a collective triumph, yet one that centres on the heroism of particular individuals: the midwives, Shifrah and Pu’ah, Miriam, and her mother, Yocheved, Moses and Aaron.

And there is another paradox: past and present.  Can you think of any other tale, whose messages are as relevant today as they were at the time of the events they describe, long, long ago?   It’s not just that, to our shame and sorrow, oppression is still rife in the world.  The point is that the tale of the Exodus, which reaches its climax in this week’s portion, Bo, can still teach us so much about the nature of oppression and liberation.

Just think of what we learn from it: 

• Moses confronted Pharaoh: oppression is wrong and must be challenged
• The midwives, Shifrah and Pu’ah, and Moses’ mother and sister, Miriam and Yocheved, defied Pharaoh’s decree to exterminate the baby boys: for a people to be liberated, individuals need to find their courage and take the risk to be free
• Egypt was bombarded with a succession of ‘plagues’: the process of liberation from oppression involves conflict and struggle – and often, violence
• The slaves daubed their doorways with blood, and so saved themselves from the final plague: to become free the oppressed must participate in their own liberation
• ‘Let my people go that they may serve Me’: Liberation is not just about achieving freedom from oppression, but having the freedom to live in new ways
• The slaves left Egypt to journey through the wilderness: true liberation means transformation and making a new beginning in a new terrain
• The Exodus happened: liberation from oppression is always possible; the slaves, whoever they are, in every place and in every time, will go free

These are just some of the key lessons of the Exodus, which are as relevant now as they were then.  But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – however much we repeat the tale of the Exodus, both during our weekly Torah readings, and around the Pesach seder table, have we learned them yet?  And by ‘we’ I don’t just mean, Jews; the Exodus story has become part of the tale of humanity; not just ‘our’ story, it is familiar to the two and a half billion Christians, across the world today.  As we recite the litany of tyranny in every place – and remember that before the poor people of Haiti were devastated by the recent earthquake, they were oppressed and impoverished by a despotic regime – aren’t we forced to acknowledge that we simply haven’t learned the lessons of the Exodus – at least, not yet…

Which is where Sam comes in…Now, Sam – I’m not about to suggest that you, single-handedly, can make the difference:  that having studied what your Torah portion teaches about slavery and liberation, you are about to go out into the world, like a latter-day Moses…  On the other hand, I am saying that you – you, Sam Watling – with your unique set of qualities and abilities can make a difference – a big difference.  After all, Moses didn’t do it on his own – and that’s the point:  We – collectively – can change the world, and the deadly habits of persecution we keep repeating, but only if each one of us resolves to act – like Shifrah and Pu’ah and Miriam and Yocheved and Moses and Aaron – and all the individual Israelites, who marked out their houses for redemption, girded their loins, and dashed for freedom – with their half-baked dough.

Sam: today is for you an Exodus of sorts: no you haven’t been kept in chains – although being a child without control over your life can probably feel a bit like that at times – but today, as you become Bar Mitzvah, you are making a radical departure from childhood, and beginning your journey into adulthood – your own particular journey: and you have made it happen; in fact it was your determination to learn about Judaism and lead a Jewish life that brought you here with your dad to participate in the life of this congregation.  

When I asked you what being Jewish means to you, you told me that being part of a Jewish community is, and I quote, ‘of great importance in my life’ and that you value the ‘nice, trusting impartial people’ you have encountered.   For you ‘the synagogue’, in particular, ‘means’, in your own words, ‘a brilliant and thriving community where I can study [and] enhance my religious views and understanding… Every time I go to synagogue I learn new things, meet new people and have a pleasant time.’   Having found a home here, Sam, for you becoming Bar Mitzvah ‘signals’, as you put it,  ‘the start of a journey, not just in my Jewish life but in my whole one; it means I am old enough to be more independent, and ready to make choices for myself . Though it does not mean I am a man, it does mean that I am becoming one as I mature and become more responsible for my actions.’   You recognise that you have become more secure in making your ‘own decisions’, and ‘more confident’.  You also acknowledge that, as you expressed it, ‘developing  my own opinions means that I argue more and become more hot-headed , especially with [my] parents.’  Well, Sam – your parents are not the first to experience the delights of their child becoming a ‘teenager’!

Sam: You have already started on your journey – but as you have demonstrated since you joined this congregation, your journey is not just about you: your determination to learn and play your part in Jewish life is palpable.  And not just in Jewish life:   Your ambition is, as you put it, ‘to work in economics (maybe international development) because I have a flare for it and find it fascinating – the facts, the figures – and how it can affect us… in a volatile world, reeling from a housing bubble. With years of austerity and slow growth predicted [economics] is incredibly useful. It can also be used to help lift people out of poverty in developing countries by providing jobs (for the right things in the right places) and money.’   Sam, your passion and your vision shines through your words – so I’m going to quote you some more: ‘I care about justice, the planet and the right of everyone to be informed properly.  I hate false accusations and believe that justice for whatever crime should be dealt out, even if it means upsetting some people.  Likewise I believe that the planet is important and is very undervalued and mal-treated.  If everyone was properly informed … so many of the world’s problems would be stopped, for it is lack of information that leads to ignorance, and ignorance can be exploited into things far worse.   To improve the world everyone must care more about others and be less ignorant.  We must… work together, whatever culture, faith or petty values.  We have to realise that everyone is just as important and that just a small thing here can make a big difference somewhere else.  We have to give to charity , lobby the government for things such as helping the developing world feed its people, stand up for the climate and human rights, even if it costs us economically and politically. ‘

Sam – you said it!  Drawing on the support of your parents and the guidance you have received from your teachers, and, in particular, from your tutor, Andy, you have learned that becoming engaged as a Jew and participating in Jewish life is about being true to yourself and valuing your own uniqueness.  You have also made connections between your individual life and the lives of others and so, have already learnt some of the crucial lessons of the Exodus.  In the Babylonian Talmud, the compendium of rabbinic law and commentary edited in Babylon – present-day Iraq – around 500CE, we read in the tractate Kiddushin (40b):

The world is judged by the majority of its people, and an individual is judged by the majority of their deeds.  Happy the person who performs a good deed: that may tip the scales for themselves and for the world.

Sam, as you begin your journey into adulthood, my hope for you is that you continue to be yourself: an individual Jew ready to make a difference for yourself and for the world.  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

23^rd January 2010 – 8^th Sh’vat 5770

We have gathered here today on this winter’s Shabbat morning to celebrate with Jerome and his family as he becomes Bar Mitzvah.  Today, Jerome leaves his childhood behind and begins the next stage of his life’s journey as a Jew, towards adulthood responsibility.

What does it mean to be a Jew?  What does it mean to be an adult?   What does it mean to be a young Jew, crossing the threshold into the domain of adult responsibility?   Today Jerome is demonstrating his commitment to living his life as a Jew – essentially that’s what becoming Bar Mitzvah means.   But what does it mean to live one’s life as a Jew?

Context is everything, of course.  Here we are in a progressive synagogue, affiliated to a Jewish movement in Britain, known as Liberal Judaism.  While celebrating the core rites of Jewish life, including Shabbat and the festivals, Liberal Judaism places its emphasis on the ethical teachings of Judaism and on the pursuit of justice and peace.  For Liberal Judaism, everything a Jew does begins with a question about its ethical meaning and the ethical impact of our behaviour – which is why, for example, Liberal Judaism’s leaflet on Kashrut is entitled, ‘Ethical Eating’.  What is more, for Liberal Judaism, rather than the individual’s actions being determined by communal norms, the individual is empowered to make informed choices about how to lead his or her Jewish life.

So, today is an empowering moment.  Leaving his childhood behind, from today, Jerome is empowered to begin the process of making informed choices about how to lead his life as a Jew.  Informed choices:  a simple phrase – but the implications are more complex:  Although Liberal Judaism is a distinctive stream within Jewish life it shares with all the other streams of Judaism a commitment to the centrality of education.  In an important sense, today is a celebration of what Jerome has learnt so far about Judaism.  A few moments ago, he led the service for us beautifully and confidently; in a short while, he will give a d’var Torah, his commentary on the week’s Torah portion, and read a section of the portion from the Sefer Torah, the scroll of the Five Books of Moses, which lies at the heart of Jewish life.  Jerome’s preparation for today has largely centred on studying – and not just during the past six months when, with the assistance of his tutor, Andy Cable, he has focussed on studying the prayers of the service and his Torah portion; guided by all his teachers, including Melanie Rubin and Eileen Field, Jerome has spent the past eight years actively engaged in Jewish life and learning together with his fellow students here at Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue.

So, from this day forwards, Jerome has the power to choose.  At the same time, an important part of his Jewish education so far has been about learning that in order for the choices he makes about his Jewish life to be Jewish choices, they need to be rooted in Jewish knowledge and experience – and emerge out of a commitment to lead a Jewish life.

As soon as I say this, the questions I raised earlier come to mind, and I feel bound to ask, what does it mean to lead a Jewish life?   As I have indicated, Liberal Judaism provides some powerful answers – and as a constituent of Liberal Judaism, this synagogue creates a nurturing context for leading a Jewish life.  But the reality is that, as Jews in the diaspora, unless we live in places like North West London, Jewish life is very fragile – and so utterly tangential to the mainstream society that we inhabit.

But then, even for those Jews who live in the midst of large Jewish communities, it is not obvious what leading a Jewish life involves.  Last Monday night I returned from fifteen days in Israel – my time there framed by Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.  Israel is continually referred to as a ‘Jewish state’.  What does this mean?   I know Jewish Israelis who do not live as Jews – and never step foot inside a synagogue.  And yet, for some of these secular Israelis, just as for most religious Jews in Israel, it is axiomatic that they live in a state where the vast majority of the inhabitants are Jews.  At the same time, I know other Jewish Israelis, both those who are religiously observant and those who are not, for whom living in a Jewish state is less about demographics and more about ethics; their sense of their ethical Jewish inheritance impelling them to reach out to those who are not Jews – to migrant workers, to Israeli Palestinians, and to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel is a complex place!  It is a Jewish state in at least two dimensions; the demographic and the ethical – which are sometimes in conflict.  To add to the complexity, Israel faces not only demographic and ethical questions at home, but also abroad:   How different might be the current impasse between Israelis and Palestinians if Israel were not such a small state, a tiny minority in the Middle East; a nation that has spent most of the six decades of its existence fighting for its right to exist?   Surely, the two minority peoples, Jews and Palestinians, would have found a way of acknowledging one another and living side by side if they were not surrounded by entrenched autocracies determined to maintain their power?   Who knows?  But the particularity of the Palestinian situation – both part of the larger Arab world and apart from it – only serves to add to the complexity; and that’s without considering the divisions between Hamas and Fatah, and between the Palestinians, who are citizens of Israelis, and the Palestinians, who as yet remain stateless refugees.

But it is not my main purpose today to address the complexity of Palestinian identity.   On the occasion of Jerome’s Bar Mitzvah we are all challenged – not just Jerome – to think about the complexity of Jewish identity, the commitments and the choices we do or don’t make.  Of course, it is a particularly challenging time to be considering all these questions – in the immediate aftermath of the war between Israel and Hamas.  We feel deeply troubled by the conflict.  We fell defensive.  The attention of the world has been focussed on Gaza, and concern for the Palestinian people has translated, not only into anger at Israel, but also into attacks on Jews in the diaspora.  Our hearts break for the people of Gaza, held hostage by Hamas, who have borne the brunt of Israel’s single-minded determination to stop Hamas firing rockets into Southern Israel. We are horrified by the scale of the casualties and the destruction – and also fear for Israel, as Hamas, equally determinedly repairs the tunnels, with Iran at the ready to supply more arms; ever more sophisticated weapons.  First S’derot, Ashdod, Ashkelon; then B’eir Sheva: next Tel Aviv?  Where will it end?  It will end when the talking starts – but at the moment it is very hard to look beyond the seemingly unending conflict, mired in hatred and despair.

In this week’s Torah portion we read that when Moses returned to Egypt to tell the slaves of their impending liberation they were unable to listen to him because they were suffering ‘from a shortness of spirit’ – mikotzer ru’ach (Exodus 6:9).  Spirit – ru’ach – which also means ‘wind’:  the spirit, like the wind should roam free.  But, enslaved in Egypt – Mitzrayim – which means a ‘narrow place’, the slaves’ spirits, too, felt trapped and restricted; completely overwhelmed by their plight, the Israelites could not listen to Moses’ message of freedom.  And so it is with the Israelis and the Palestinians – and also with us.  Although the circumstances are different, like the slaves groaning under Egyptian bondage, we have spent far too long trapped in a narrow place of unending conflict to be able to summon up the hope needed to see a way out; the possibility of an exodus from the morass of fear and violence.

So, what do we do?   The slaves needed convincing that their crushing plight would end – hence the plagues.  We have endured and witnessed enough plagues raining down like barad – like the hail Jerome will tell us about shortly, when he reads from the scroll.  We need signs of hope.  Perhaps President Obama, with his fresh spirit and his wisdom, with his confidence and imagination, will help us to identify the signs of new life.  Perhaps, young people, like Jerome, full of hope and good will for the world, may also play their part in helping to create new possibilities for liberation, justice and peace; for a future when, in the words of one of the ministers at President Obama’s induction, tanks are beaten into tractors – and just as important: when the resources used to construct bombs are directed to the building of homes and schools and hospitals.

When I asked you, Jerome what it means for you to be a Jew, to become Bar Mitzvah and to be part of this congregation, which has been your second Jewish home for so many years, you told me some interesting things:  For you, being a Jew is: ‘A way of expressing my beliefs about the world while being part of a community’.  Very significantly, you understand that you are a human being, who is also a Jew; for you, being a Jew doesn’t set you apart from the world, it connects you to the world.  That’s why you also told me that while ‘becoming Bar Mitzvah means becoming a more understanding member of the community’, it also means: ‘stepping through a door to see the world from a different angle’.   And the world is very important to you.  In your own words, you ‘care most about the planet around me’ and ‘express this by making my views on issues heard’ and ‘by protecting the environment’.  You are also clear about your hopes for the future and the task before you – as you put it: ‘I would like to help make a world where people are more equal and people can fulfil their potential’.

Jerome:   it is clear that you are a very committed Liberal Jew, who has no intention of treating the occasion of the celebration of your Bar Mitzvah as a moment when you receive a shul-leaving certificate!    It is up-lifting for us to know this – for your family, for your community – up-lifting, because your commitment and idealism reminds us that at its core, being a Jew is about making a commitment l’chayyim – to life and to the future.   Before I end, I would like to share with you the words of French Jew, Edmund Fleg, who, living from 1874 to 1963, witnessed the key upheavals of Jewish life in modern times.  This is what he said about being a Jew:

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of the mind.

I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires of me all the devotion of my heart.

I am a Jew because in every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.

I am a Jew because at every time when despair cries out, the Jew hopes.

I am a Jew because the word of Israel is the oldest and the newest.

I am a Jew because the promise of Israel is the universal promise.

I am a Jew because, for Israel, the world is not yet completed; human beings are completing it.

I am a Jew because, for Israel, humanity is not created; human beings are creating it.

I am a Jew because, above the nations and Israel, Israel places humanity and its unity.

I am a Jew because, above humanity, image of the divine Unity, Israel places the divine Unity and its divinity.

Edmund Fleg was born a Jew, but he also chose to be a Jew and to live as a Jew.  Jerome:  May you, like him, always find good reasons to choose to be a Jew and to live as Jew; and may the achievement of this day, inspire you – and inspire all of us – as you continue your journey.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

24^th January 2009 – 28^th Tevet 5769

THE BAR MITZVAH OF JOSHUA WINSTONE

We have come here today – the highpoint of the Jewish week – to celebrate a very special highpoint in Josh’s life: the day when he becomes Bar Mitzvah.  But becoming Bar Mitzvah is not simply a highpoint in Josh’s life; today represents a very important milestone on a journey that began for him – and for his parents – when he was born thirteen years ago; a journey that stretches before Josh into the future.  In a real sense, today is the day when Josh completes the first stage of his life’s journey as a Jew, and embarks on the next stage; just as Shabbat is a moment of sacred time when we pause each week and step off the treadmill, so the celebration of Josh’s Bar Mitzvah is a precious moment when Josh pauses on his life’s journey before moving on.

Life is a journey; a continuous flow of time we move through day by day from the day we are born – until we die.  All creatures – indeed, Life itself – moves in this flow.  But we human beings are rather exceptional creatures; we mark the passage of time; we celebrate special moments and key milestones on our life’s journey.  This week’s Torah portion, Va-yeitzei, begins by describing a life-changing moment for Jacob – one of the twin-sons of Rebecca and Isaac.  We read at Genesis 28, verses 10 and 11:

Jacob went out from B’eir Sheva and went towards Haran. / He then alighted on a place and stayed there because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and he placed it under his head, and lay down in that place.

It’s a very well known story: no wonder Jacob had that strange dream about a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it (:12) with a stone for a pillow!  Because it is such a familiar tale, it is easy to miss a few crucial details.  The Torah doesn’t tell us where Jacob was; only where he had come from – B’eir Sheva – and where he was going – Haran.  And yet in just two verses, the Torah reiterates the word ‘place’ – makom in Hebrew – three times.  The place that Jacob ‘alighted’ upon – where he just happened to stop because the sun had gone down, and so was forced to pause, became a significant milestone on his journey.  In fact you could say that the very idea of a ‘milestone’ has its origins in the moment when, after his dream-filled night, Jacob rose in the morning, took the stone that had served as his pillow and set it up as a pillar – the Hebrew word is matzeivah; that which stands up (:18).   Twenty years later when Jacob was on his journey back home from Haran, he erected another matzeivah to mark the grave of his beloved wife, Rachel, who died giving birth to Benjamin (Va-yishlach – Genesis 35:16-20) – hence matzeivah became the Jewish word for a gravestone.

That night in that unnamed place; that passing place on Jacob’s journey from Be’eir Sheva to Haran changed his life.  In the morning he didn’t just set up the stone to mark the place where he slept; Jacob placed the stone there to mark his encounter with the Eternal One, and then named the place, Beit Eil – which means ‘House of God’ (:19), saying: ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; and this is the gate of heaven – sha’ar ha-shamayim (:17).

Sometimes, like Jacob we just happen upon the transformational moments that become the milestones on our journey through life – and sometimes, like Josh and the other young people who become Bar or Bat Mitzvah around their thirteenth birthday, we plan for these special moments.  But however much planning we do – and Josh has done a great deal – however familiar the place where we mark our special moments, the eagerly anticipated day still holds surprises for us – and more than a little awe, too.  Josh – you know this particular place so very well – but I have a feeling that even your familiar shul feels rather different to you today, because, with the help of your tutor, Harry, over the past few months, and with the on-going guidance of your teachers, Melanie, Eileen and Andy, over the years, and the loving support of your parents, you have actually arrived at an utterly new place and a completely new moment; the place and the moment where your childhood ends and a new journey on a new path towards adulthood begins.  And so, as that unknown place was for Jacob, this well-known place is for you, a ‘gateway’; a gateway to the next stage of your life.

Josh – this week’s parashah has much in it that you can connect with your own experience of becoming Bar Mitzvah – and we all look forward to hearing what you have to say about it.  There are some fascinating disconnections, too: You are not Jacob; you are not a younger twin, who has cheated his brother out of his birthright and his blessing, in flight for your life.  Jacob was on the run – and if the sun hadn’t set and he hadn’t been forced to lie down that very first night, no doubt he would have kept on running.  The very first word of the portion says it all: Va-yeitzei Ya’akov – ‘Jacob went out’; it was his own personal Exodus; he was in exile.  The Hebrew three-letter root, Yud Tzadi Alef, is also used to describe the great departure of the ‘children of Israel’ – Jacob’s descendants – from slavery in Egypt many generations later: yitziat Mizrayim.

But as soon as we connect Jacob’s personal Exodus with the Exodus of the Israelites, we begin to ask questions: Did Jacob have to flee in order to become himself and realise his destiny?  The Israelites left Egypt to begin their journey through the desert towards the land beyond the Jordan; Jacob left the land beyond the Jordan to return to the place that his grandparents, Abraham and Sarah, had left – Why did Jacob go backwards rather than forwards?  Did Jacob have to go back before he would go forward?  Abraham and Sarah came out of Haran; Jacob’s mother, Rebecca, also came out of Haran: did Jacob, too, have to make that crucial journey himself?  Isaac, alone, of the ancestors of our people stayed where he was; or rather, perhaps, he never recovered from the very particular journey that he made with his father – that three days’ journey away from their family home in B’eir Sheva, when he was bound on the altar by his father, and almost sacrificed (Va-yeira – Genesis 22)… Perhaps, from that moment onwards, stripped of personal volition, Isaac could no longer go anywhere – except stay at home and wait – first for a wife to comfort him for his mother’s death (Chayyey Sarah – Genesis 24:67); then for the wrong son to claim the blessing and deceive him (Tol’dot – Genesis 27).

Yes, Jacob was the wrong son – but he was also the right son – and that’s what is so bewildering.  Only Rebecca knew – not Isaac – that Jacob – not Esau – was destined to receive the birthright and his father’s blessing; that’s what God told her when she asked about the troubling stirrings in her womb during her pregnancy (Tol’dot – Genesis 25:22-23).  I say, bewildering – because, on the one hand, the Torah teaches us a host of ethical rules about the fair and just treatment of others; and on the other hand, the Torah transforms a cheating scoundrel like Jacob into a hero – and then turns him into Yisra’el – Israel – the namesake of our people to boot.  Not just bewildering – this is very troubling:  what are we supposed to learn from this?

What are you, Josh, supposed to learn from this?  Va-yeitzei is your portion after all.  Well, you could say that you might learn that Life is not straightforward – far from it.  You might learn that sometimes we must go back in order to go forward.  You might learn that sometimes you have to go wrong, and do what is wrong, before you can find the right way and do the right thing.  You might learn that Life is about learning – and learning is about making mistakes.  Josh: ask any of the adults you know – your parents, your teachers – we will all tell you that we have learned much more in our lives from our mistakes and our failures than from our achievements.

Of course, that is not to disparage in any way those achievements – and today is a wonderful moment for celebrating your achievements – for celebrating your life.  It’s almost thirty years since your mum, tutored by Harry – just as you have been – became Bat Mitzvah.  Three decades ago she was here before you.  But she knows – and your dad knows; and Harry knows – that today is your day; uniquely yours; just as your life’s journey has already been, uniquely yours.  When, as part of your preparation for this day, I asked you some questions about what it all meant to you, you made an interesting response – becoming Bar Mitzvah ‘has taught me I can make my own choices’.  Whatever your parents wanted for you, Josh, becoming Bar Mitzvah has been your choice.   More than anything else, you love playing the piano, ‘because’ as you put it, ‘it’s an amazing way to express how I’m feeling at the time.  For me it is my life and I can relax and feel I’m in the music whatever I play. If I’m happy or sad it means everything to me.’  Yes, music is your life – and when you are older you hope to become a ‘Musical Director’.  And at the same time ‘being Jewish’ – as you put it: ‘makes me different but in a good way.  I think I am really lucky to be in such an amazing community of Jewish people…. Coming to synagogue makes me feel like part of a large family’.   Josh – you have made choices: you have chosen to express yourself through music and as a Jew – which means that you have also made a commitment to honour both these important dimensions of yourself.  And so, just as your musical studies continue, today is not the end of your Jewish journey; it is the beginning of a new one: As you put it, becoming Bar Mitzvah ‘makes me feel that I can now lead the congregation and help other children become Bar Mitzvah too by becoming a helper.’

Josh: you have led the congregation beautifully today – and we look forward to seeing you, both on the bima and around the shul, helping the younger ones, and participating in the Kabbalat Torah learning programme.   Of course, you cannot know – none of us can – exactly where your journey will take you, over the years to come.  When Jacob got up that first morning, he certainly had no idea that he would be away from home for so long, and that he would have to learn so much before he was ready to meet his brother, Esau, again.  I’m sure that I am expressing the good wishes of everyone who has come here today to celebrate this special milestone in your life with you and your family, when I echo the words of blessing we find in the Torah (Deuteronomy 28:6) and in Psalm 121:  ‘Blessed may you be when you come in, and blessed may you be when you go out… May the Eternal One guard your going out and your coming in, now and always.’  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah,

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue,

28^th November 2009 – 11^th Kislev 5770

I look forward to Yom Kippur.  When I first became a student rabbi, I used to be very anxious about whether I would be able to fast all day and be able to lead the services and manage all the singing – the congregations I went to before my final year didn’t have choirs, so whether or not there was any music, really did depend on me.  But then, I went to a congregation that did have a small choir of a hand-full of people, became their rabbi after my ordination – and from then on, it became easier and easier; by the time I’d taken High Holy Day services a half dozen times, I knew the ropes.

Yes, Yom Kippur became familiar – its themes, rhythms and cadences so well known that I began to really look forward to it.   Perhaps some of you – those of you are very well acquainted with Yom Kippur – can recognise what I’m talking about.   And how can it be otherwise?  After all, we do return to Yom Kippur year after year; by the time we’ve read the same prayers and scriptural readings many times over and can sing the melodies off by heart, aren’t we bound to feel increasingly comfortable – despite the on-going anxiety about whether or not we’re going to manage without food and water?

Of course, we are.  But if this is really so, then we face a paradox:  Yom Kippur is not only a day set apart, a day radically unique and different from all other days of the Jewish calendar, it is also that very singular time when we are challenged to examine ourselves and our deeds and confront the realities of our finite lives in the context of the Infinite – the Transcendent mystery beyond us.  Yom Kippur, for all its familiarity, is not a cosy, quaintly old-fashioned, gathering around the fire-side in comfortable arm-chairs to chat with our intimates and share old stories.  We do gather together, and there is a fire of sorts burning both above and within the aron ha-kodesh – the sacred ark – before us, but the focal point of our gathering is also a discomforting reminder that when we arrive at Yom Kippur, we enter the realm of the unknown beyond our day-to-day experience.

Whether or not we believe in God; whether or not we see ourselves as religious or secular, all of us confront the unknown beyond us.  In fact, interestingly, sometimes the secular person, who does not have faith in the existence of God, is much more able to acknowledge the unknown beyond, than a religious person, for whom God’s presence is taken for granted; who is confident that God is there and directly available.  Yom Kippur, for all its apparent familiarity, for all its well-rehearsed litanies, confounds the assumption and the expectation that we know where we are and whom we are addressing.  We don’t know; there can be no certainties on this Sabbath of Sabbaths; this day set apart from all others, when we step out of the regular routines of our lives.

So, here we are – actually on unknown territory.   Being on unknown territory is in a real sense an increasingly unfamiliar experience in our world today, which, assisted by the world-wide-web, has apparently been transformed into a ‘global village’.  Of course, there are still places beyond the reach of the web, places outside the ‘global village’, where McDonalds and Coca Cola have not – yet – set up shop.  But then, there are all those intrepid new-style explorers trekking to all the regions and peoples beyond, with their film crews in tow, making sure that we get to see the places and the people that the modern world has not – yet – reached, in ‘High Definition’ on our flat-screen TVs.

We may see them – those other people who inhabit unknown territories – but they remain beyond us and our lives.  But that’s not all, our awareness of these unknown landscapes and their inhabitants beyond may serve to bolster the illusion that everyone else – those who don’t live in the northern and western regions of the world, but nevertheless have entered the ‘global village’ – are essentially, either, just like us – or on their way to becoming just like us.  This illusion is highly problematic for at least two related reasons:  first, it tends to air-brush out the characteristics of these other inhabitants of the ‘global village’, which don’t quite fit in with our image of ourselves; and, second, it tends to reinforce the hegemony – the supremacy – of what for want of a better word, is called ‘western culture’.

Now, some of you may be wondering at this point – what’s the problem?  What’s wrong with the world becoming a ‘global village’?  What’s wrong with other people adopting western culture?   If current trends continue, won’t that mean that, eventually, once everyone has bought into the system and has access to all the life-enhancing technology, that there will be an end to poverty and war?  May be – if we don’t destroy the world first; and now that China and India, in particular, have jumped on the ‘progress’ bandwagon, the chance that we may do irreparable harm to the planet, is fast becoming a certainty…

Actually, my concern today is not with debating the pros and cons of globalisation in these terms.  Instead, I’d like us to take a few moments to consider another aspect of the impact of globalisation.  At the beginning of July, Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’ slot was unusually thought-provoking (02.07.09).  A certain Reverend Dr Charles Fraser chose to devote his three minute ‘thought’ to exploring a core idea developed by the contemporary Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas.  The essential point he drew out from Levinas was that ‘the face of the other is other’ and that we have an ethical responsibility towards other people, not because they are like us, but, rather, because they are different from us.

It is extremely difficult to summarise Levinas, who articulates his thinking in very dense philosophical language – and I must confess, I hadn’t read much of his writing before that ‘Thought for Today’.  But what I took from Levinas, when I picked up one of his most accessible books, from a Jewish point of view – Beyond the Verse. Talmudic Readings and Lectures (Continuum, London, 1994) – helped me to understand in a new way what this afternoon’s Torah portion teaches about how we should relate to our neighbour – and also, how we should relate to the geir: a word that is usually translated as ‘stranger’, but actually means ‘sojourner’.

We read at Leviticus chapter 19, verses 33 and 34:

V’chi-yagur it’cha geir b’artz’chem – When a sojourner sojourns with you in your land, you shall not oppress him; / the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be like the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt – ki geirim heyyitem b’eretz mitzrayim – I am the Eternal your God.

The p’shat – the ‘plain’ meaning of these verses is that when someone comes to live in your country – we would call that person an ‘immigrant’ – you may not wrong them in any way; rather, you must treat them in the same way as someone born in the country, and love them as you love yourself, because you know what it’s like to be an immigrant.   Earlier, in the same chapter, the Torah teaches – at verse 18: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (:18) – that is you shall love the person who is like you: the Hebrew word for neighbour, rei’a, based on the root Reish Ayin Hei to associate with, means, ‘friend’ or ‘companion’, and also, ‘fellow’.  So, we should love those who are like us, and also, remembering our ancestors’ experience of marginality and exclusion, of being ‘the other’, love the other people in our midst and behave ethically towards them.

Acting ethically towards the different people we encounter is a far cry from the way in which those driving globalisation treat the other inhabitants of western culture’s greatest export, the ‘global village’.  Trampling over differences – including differing needs – the juggernaut of globalisation, spurred on by the promise of ever-expanding markets, and so, spiralling profits for the global businesses involved, would turn the world into an endless series of undifferentiated shopping malls, and homogenise the different peoples into consumers.

In the ‘global village’ there seem to be no neighbours and other people are just so much economic fodder.  It could be very different.  Levinas writes in one of his more straight-forward statements: ‘The Torah teaches: the closer you get to the other, the greater your responsibility towards him becomes’ (1994, p.30).  Fortunately, in recent years, this alternative understanding has been emerging in the Fairtrade movement, in particular, which has been developing a framework for ethical conduct towards the small-producers of our staple imports, bananas, coffee, tea, chocolate and sugar – all of whom are vulnerable in today’s global market.  Nevertheless there is a long way to go before our increasingly close contact with other people within the global village becomes regulated by a code of ethics, rooted in a sense of responsibility towards others.

Of course, in the ‘global village’, there are, yet, different ‘villages’, different peoples – and even in the different ‘villages’, strangers arrive from other places.  Jewish teaching exhorts us to act ethically towards neighbour and stranger alike, but, again and again we fail to do this – and it’s not just that most Jews focus on our own, rather than on others.  Interestingly, while there are some Jews, who only feel obligated towards fellow Jews, there are other Jews, who feel a sense of responsibility only towards non-Jews.  But actually this crude dichotomy of mutually exclusive fidelities doesn’t do justice to the more fundamental matter:  Ultimately, the choice is not between supporting your own, or reaching out to others; the challenge before us all is to acknowledge the other altogether; to acknowledge that everyone – neighbour, stranger, beloved partner, relative and friend alike – is another person; their own person.

When Levinas speaks of the other, he understands that for the self, everyone else is ‘other’.  The legislation we find in Leviticus 19 is an ethical code concerned with governing our relationships with all others – both fellow Israelites and sojourners.  But if we focus only on the details, the particular rules regulating economic behaviour and the treatment of vulnerable and marginal groups, and so on, it is easy to miss the raison d’etre.  We read at the beginning of the chapter – which is also the beginning of the parashah, the portion, K’doshim (:1-2):

The Eternal Spoke to Moses, saying: / Speak to all the congregation of the Israelites and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Eternal your God, am holy – k’doshim tihyu ki kadosh Ani Adonai Eloheichem.

We are called to imitate the Eternal One – but what does this really mean?  And how is it possible?  After all, the Eternal, by definition, is radically different from us – absolutely other.  How can we be like the Eternal One?  For Levinas, God is utterly other, and yet the Revelation of the Eternal that is at the heart of the Torah demonstrates that God ‘remains “uncontainable”, infinite, and yet still maintaining a relation’ (p.144).  Revelation is the way that the Eternal comes into our lives.  And it is this ‘relation’ that provides what Levinas describes as ‘a model in the non-indifference towards the other, in a responsibility towards him’ (ibid.).  In other words, as God, the ultimate other, establishes a relation with us through Revelation, so we must be in relation to others.  That’s what it means to ‘be holy’ as the Eternal One is ‘holy’.  That is our most essential obligation; our responsibility as human beings – and that is how, in relation with the other, that each person becomes a ‘self’ (ibid.).

While Martin Buber speaks of the relation of Ich und Du – ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ –– Emmanuel Levinas speaks of the relation between ‘self’ and ‘other’ – and of the responsibility such a relation entails.  For Levinas, the Eternal is the epitome of the other; it is in acknowledging the ultimate other that we can learn to acknowledge the otherness of other people – both those we feel are ‘like us’ – and those we feel are different from ‘us’.  Essentially that is the value of a religious perspective – which in its simplest sense is just a way of being alive that acknowledges the other.

Whether we see ourselves as secular or religious – and it’s interesting to note that being a Jew, a member of the Jewish people, whether by birth or choice, does not require one to be formally religious – we are all here today, the secular and the religious together, inhabiting the realm of the other.  But we are not here, simply, in a passive sense; here, in the realm of the other, leaving the known world behind us for a day, we are summoned to take a journey towards the ultimate other, the Infinite beyond.  During the Kol Nidrey service I spoke of Yom Kippur as a garden.  If Yom Kippur is a garden, its familiar contours mask the fact that it is also a wilderness without end.  That’s why we cannot stay here; only visit for a while to remind ourselves that, ultimately, every one alive is a sojourner; a temporary dweller in a land on the edge of the unknown – and that it is our task as Jews and as human beings: to acknowledge one another, wherever and whoever ‘we’ and ‘they’ are, and take responsibility for our relationships with one another, both locally and globally.  It is that simple – and also that demanding.   May our experience of being here today, and of being together on this journey into the unknown, be a source of inspiration when we return to the world and our daily lives.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5770 – 28^th September 2009

ACKNOWLEDGING OUR CAPACITY TO NURTURE AND DESPOIL THE EARTH

In June, while taking a few days break in Cornwall, Jess and I visited the Eden Project at Bodelva, just off the A390, a few miles north of St Austell Bay.  As the web-site puts it: “The Eden Project exists to explore our dependence on the natural world, rebuilding connections of understanding that have faded from many peoples lives” (1).  Just ten years ago, the Eden Project ‘Green Team’ took over a derelict tin-mining site, fit only for gorse to grow, and since that time through careful planning; sourcing and planting, have nurtured over a million plants from every part of the world.  This means that when you enter this new Eden, you can wander from the ‘Mediterranean’ to the ‘Tropics’ – or vice versa – each region recreated in its own huge ‘bio-dome’.  We were fortunate that it was raining on the day we visited because the Tropics bio-dome was quite warm enough without the sun beating down on it!

The Eden Project is much more than a giant green theme park.   Its aim is to educate people about the natural world, and through its exhibits, programmes, projects, events and workshops contribute to creating “a culture” that, as the web-sit puts it, “knows how to sustain the things that sustain us and at the same time nurtures creativity, imagination and adaptability.”

But that’s not all.  In response to “unprecedented change” across the globe, which includes “revolutions in science and in the economic and political maps of the world alongside threats such as pandemics and the ‘demographic time-bomb’ on top… of the challenge of climate change”, the Eden Project ‘Green Team’ has launched “Climate Revolution”, a remarkable climate change programme to meet what they see as “a level of social change” needed “equivalent to the industrial revolution”.

We have all heard a lot about ‘climate change’; the Eden Project has identified some of the key challenges that climate change produces, “ranging from the need to address environmental refugees or find new energy technologies to the question of how to finance infrastructure changes for more unpredictable weather.”  What is so inspiring about the Eden Project is that it not only addresses the problems, it is also working out the solutions, and so the “Climate Revolution” encompasses “educational projects with schools, the exploration of new technologies for a low carbon world, research projects, climate-related events, conferences and training sessions and public events such as the first ever Green Car Show”

We can all get very depressed about the ‘state of the world’; the Eden Project tackles the issues head on – and, even more important, focuses on how we can deal with them; it is practical, up-beat and very compelling.   But there is a sense in which it is important for us not only to address the specific problems that the world faces, but also to explore our human culpability for these problems – and to ask, what is it about us – Homo sapiens; the human species – that we have got the world into such a mess?   There are lots of ways of responding to this question, depending on your point of view or area of expertise.  I would like to offer a Jewish response – which seems rather appropriate given that it is the biblically named, ‘Eden Project’, that is leading the way in showing us how to sort out the mess we’ve made.

The Garden of Eden – in Hebrew: gan eden.   According to the Torah, that is where the first human beings took their first steps.  Of course, it’s a ‘story’ – but it’s not only a story.  And in fact there are two stories – two accounts of the Creation of the world – but more of that in a moment.  So, the first habitation for humanity was a garden – not a mountain, a valley or a plain; not a jungle or a desert – not, in other words, simply some part of the natural landscape; rather: a garden. What is a garden?  A cultivated space; a place where nature has been tamed and shaped and nurtured – by human beings.   The people of Britain know all about gardens; gardening is one of our national past-times.  Gardening involves digging and planting and weeding, pruning and watering.   We read in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15:  ‘The Eternal God took the human being and put [the human being] into the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it – l’ovdah u’l’shomrah.

So, the first human being was a gardener – and more than this.  We read a few verses earlier: ‘The Eternal God formed the human being out of the dust of the ground’ (2:7).  The English is clear – but the Hebrew is clearer: ‘The Eternal God formed ha-adam – the human being – out of the dust of ha-adamah – the ground’.   We could say that the human-being is an earthling – if that word did not carry with it confusing sci-fi connotations (2).   What does it tell us about what it is to be human: that we are one with the ground?   Interestingly, the words adam and adamah are both related to the Hebrew word for ‘blood’, dam: the red earth; the human being pulsating with blood – and something more:  the text tells us that ha-adam is a ‘living being’ – nefesh chayyah (ibid.).  Again:  the Hebrew is more instructive than the English.  Later on, following the great Flood, when humanity and the earth must make a new beginning, Noah is instructed by God: ‘Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; like all the green vegetation I have given you; / only flesh with its being – nefesh – which is its blood, you shall not eat’ (9:3-4).  In the Torah, nefesh means ‘being’ rather than ‘soul’; the concept of the soul, which emerges in rabbinic writings, is influenced by Greek philosophy.  And so, nefesh is real matter – hence, ‘blood’.   And nefesh is not unique to humanity: all creatures have a nefesh – which is why we must not eat blood.  Indeed, earlier, in the first account of Creation, we read that every creature is a ‘living being’ – nefesh chayyah (1:21).

So, adam is not only one with adamah the ‘ground’; adam is also, like all other living creatures, a nefesh chayyah.  Everything in the garden is rosy it seems.  But of course it isn’t.  The verses from the Noah story I just quoted hint at the problem:  Why is it that after the Flood humanity is permitted to eat flesh – basar – albeit without the blood – the nefesh?   We read in the first account of Creation that God has given all the vegetation and all the fruit as food, both, for humanity and for the animals (1:29-30) – so what’s changed?   A rational answer to this question might be that the plants and trees simply didn’t survive the forty days and nights of rain, so, a new food source was required.  But this response misses the opportunity to comment on why there was a Flood in the first place.   The Torah tells us that God brought the Flood because the earth was ‘ruined’: ‘for all flesh had ruined their way upon the earth’ (6:12) and ‘the earth was filled with violence through them’ (:13).

Ruin and violence:  The Hebrew terms are based on the roots, Shin Chet Tav – to ruin, corrupt, destroy – and Chet Mem Sameich – to treat violently or wrong.   Ruin and Violence:  this more or less sums up the state we’re in now, doesn’t it?   We are ruining the earth; wherever we go, we perpetrate violence.   The only difference is that when the next great Flood comes – or maybe it will be a great drought or another Ice Age – most people will understand that rather than being ‘acts of God’, these disasters will be very much of our own making – which is, of course, what the biblical account is really teaching us:   If it hadn’t been for the ruin and violence inflicted by Noah’s generation, there would never have been a Flood.

But how is it that we went from working and tending a garden to wreaking such destruction – then and now?   I’ve mentioned a few times that there are two accounts of Creation in the Torah.  The first is the well-known Creation in seven days version recounted in Genesis chapter 1 and the first three verses of chapter 2.   Controversially, there are ‘Creationists’ – biblical fundamentalists – who insist that the account describes actual events in real time.  But what’s really controversial about this version in my view is not that it speaks of seven days – which, after all, can be understood to mean seven epochs – but, rather, the rigidly hierarchical nature of the account, which posits humanity at the apex.  We read (Genesis 1:26-28):

God said, ‘Let us make humanity – adam – in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. / So God created adam in His own image, in the image of God He created it (oto); male and female he created them (otam). / Then God blessed them; and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply. And fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.’

According to the first Creation account in the Torah, God blesses humanity – not only with fertility, but also with capacity to subdue the earth and have dominion over it and everything in it.  What a message!  Is it any wonder that this Master Race felt – and continues to feel, it seems – licensed to do anything?   But there’s something even more troubling:  The text suggests that exercising this special role of Mastery is a direct consequence of being an ‘image of God’.  Is this what it means to be created in God’s image – to trammel the rest of Creation into submission?   Is God a domineering Master, too?

Well, yes – but not only that:  God is also a potter, forming adam out of the red dust of the ground –  and adam is also a nefesh chayyah, a living being, at one with the other creatures, whose special task it is to be a gardener, working and maintaining the earth.   God has two dimensions, and humanity, too:  Master – and servant; to work the ground, l’ovdah, based on the root letters Ayin Beit Dalet also means to serve the ground; elsewhere in the Torah an eved is a servant, or, as the Exodus story relates, a slave.

But it’s actually more complex than this binary view would suggest.  If we return to the second account of the creation of adam, we find that the complete verse says: ‘The Eternal God formed ha-adam – the human – out of the dust of ha-adamah – the ground – and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life – nishmat chayyim – and ha-adam became a nefesh chayyah – a living being (Genesis 2:7).   ‘The breath of life’ – nishmat chayyim: Here we are shown another aspect of what it means to be created b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God’; to be an ‘image of God’ is to be infused with God’s breath.  As the story of Moses and the burning bush suggests (Exodus 3), it is impossible to capture God.  When Moses asks for God’s name, so he can tell the slaves, who sent him, when he returns to Egypt, the answer he receives is, as Gabriel Josipovici has observed, ‘as near as we can get in language to pure breath’ (3): Ehyeh asher Ehyeh (3:14).  The translation: ‘I am that I am’ or I will be what I will be’ – the Hebrew can be translated either in the present or the future – while indicating the ‘being-ness’ of the Eternal One, misses a more fundamental point.  As Gabriel Josipovici puts it:  ‘God…. also indicates by his palindromic utterance, with its repeated ‘h’ and ‘sh’ sounds, that his is the breath that lies beneath all utterance and all action, a living breath… (ibid.)

Unlike the English translation, Ehyeh expresses the sense that the Eternal One is ‘a living breath’ infusing humanity with nishmat chayyim – ‘the breath of life’ – ‘the breath that lies beneath all utterance and all action’, which also means that humanity, like God, has the power to create and to destroy, to nurture and to despoil – and, not or.  It would be so much simpler – and nicer – if we could somehow make the nasty, domineering, destructive dimension of our humanity disappear.  But we can’t; like breath, like air, both dimensions are one and indivisible; what is more the energy that makes for creativity is also the energy that wreaks chaos; just think of the other elements: fire and water; both, simultaneously, forces of creation and destruction.

Alternatively, ponder what the rabbis had to say about the two ‘inclinations’: the yeitzer tov, the ‘good’ inclination’ and the yeitzer ra the ‘evil inclination’.   Born with the capacity for good and evil – a yeitzer tov and a yeitzer ra – we might think that living a constructive existence involves suppressing our evil impulses in favour of our good ones.  The early rabbis, who formulated these concepts, discussed the nature and problematic consequences of the yeitzer ra at length, but they also recognised that the impulses represented by the ‘evil inclination’ are necessary to life.  And so we read in Midrash B’reishit Rabbah, a commentary on Genesis:  ‘Without it [that is, the yeitzer ra] a human being would never marry, beget children, build a house, or engage in trade’ (9:7).  Significantly, the Hebrew word yeitzer is connected to the word that tells us that God formed – va-yyitzer – ha-adam out of ha-adamah.  Unlike the more abstract concept, ‘create’, as in ‘God created – bara – the human being in His own image’ (1:27), to form is to mould, to fashion – like the potter kneading clay.  So: the yeitzer tov; the yeitzer ra – both inclinations are like that: tangible, malleable, endlessly changeable and changing; melding into one another; producing new forms.

So, where does this leave us right now, on the day that the rabbis called harat olam, ‘the birthday of the world?   As we consider the good works wrought by the Eden Project and all the other initiatives directed at taking responsibility for the planet and limiting the damage that we’ve done to it, we know that the birthday of the world is a day of reckoning; that’s why we are here, and why we return to this gateway of renewal each year to make a journey that is all about returning – to God, to one another, to ourselves; that’s why we take this annual opportunity to reflect on our actions – so that we may find a new way, a new path, a new direction.  As the alphabetical litany of our failures, we recite on Yom Kippur expresses it:  rashanu, shichatnu, ti’avnu, ta’inu, titanu – ‘we have dealt wickedly, we have ruined, we have acted abominably, we have gone astray and led others astray’ – all of us – collectively and individually.  May the sound of the Shofar – the ram’s horn that is completely inert until it is infused with breath – stir within us the will to harness all of our energies to the task of healing ourselves, restoring our relationships and repairing our world.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5770 – 19^th September 2009

Notes

1. www.edenproject.com See also: eden project. the guide 2009 (Eden Project Books – www.booksattransworld.co.uk/eden).

2. The term ‘earthling’ is originally from Old English eorðe (ground, soil, dry land) and the suffix -ling (from Old English -ol, -ul, -el; and -ing, meaning “a person or thing of a specific kind or origin”. First used in 1593, earthling (or worldling) referred to a mortal inhabitant of earth as opposed to one from heaven or the underworld (Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 27 Jul. 2008. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=earthling).  The first use of the word in the contemporary sense was by science fiction author, Robert A. Heinlein, in Red Planet, 1949. (The Heinlein Society, http://www.heinleinsociety.org/)

3. The Book of God. A Response to the Bible. Yale University Press, 1988, p.74

Do you recall the moon-landing on July 21^st 1969? (1)  I remember watching the images on television – and also gazing at the moon through the window: my eyes flitting between the two frames.  Was it really possible that men were up there on the moon?  And when my eyes returned to the screen, they were mesmerised, not only by the sight of two men walking on the unknown landscape over there, through the window, but also by the blackness of space around them…

Of course, there had been ventures into space before that momentous day, but somehow, the sight of two people treading terre ferme somewhere else, out of this world, suddenly made me aware that, yes, the Earth really was a planet, spinning around in space.  Fourteen years old back then, as I gazed at the night sky and at the dark backdrop to those TV images, I seemed to understand for the first time that the world I inhabited was finite; a tiny speck in a vast universe…

Unlike the Pilgrim festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, which take place at the full moon, Rosh Ha-Shanah begins in darkness; the sun sets on the old year, but there is not even the glimmer of a crescent moon to light the way of the new one.  If we were all to leave the synagogue right now, and go into the Downs, somewhere far away from any signs of human habitation, we would be greeted by the blank blackness of a moon-less night; that is how the New Year emerges out of yesterday.   It’s as if we are being taught a lesson about what it really means to leave the old year behind, and step into the unknown beyond.

But, of course, the issue is not simply that we are here this evening standing on the threshold of the unknown beyond this moment.   The Moon landing forty years ago gave us a new perspective:  It wasn’t just the images of the men on the moon which caught my imagination, but also the pictures of the world from space:  the blue planet, wreathed in clouds, looking so serene.   Didn’t the concept of the ‘global village’ really have its origins in that moment?  Hinneinu – Here we are: all of us together; all of humanity; all the creatures of the earth, inhabitants of this one small world.   Rosh Ha-Shanah not only marks the beginning of a new year for the Jewish people; the first day of the month of Tishri is the anniversary of Creation – that’s what the date, 5770, however mythical, represents; as the Rabbis of old taught:  Ha-yom harat olam, ‘Today is the birthday of the world.’

Not quite a birthday, July 21^st 1969 was an important milestone for the world – which is not to say that this planet wasn’t also at that time – and has not remained every day since – riven with conflict.  But nevertheless, despite all the divisions, that perspective – the perspective of the blue planet – also remains:  We are one – and divided.

And there is something else – highlighted by another milestone:  the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 (2).   The cracks had begun to form in the 1980s as Mikhail Gorbochev promoted the new ideology of Perestroika – ‘restructuring’ (3).  Then, in May 1989, West German Television broadcast the news that Hungary was opening its borders to Austria.  By September so many people from East Germany had arrived in Hungary, that over the course of a few hours, 4,500 East Germans were allowed to cross into Austria as a good-will gesture.  In this climate the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic on October 6^th inevitably provoked protests:  That evening thousands of young people took part in a grand torch-light parade, and two days later, a group of pacifists held a candle light vigil in a church in the city of Leipzig.  Day by day, increasing numbers took to the streets.  By October 16^th the number of protesters had reached millions.

The end of the GDR was drawing near. On November 9^th East German television announced that East German citizens could now travel without restriction to the West.  On November 10^th and 11^th the flow from East to West was endless. The main artery of West Berlin, the Kurfuerstendamm had to be closed to traffic. In the evening of November 11^th the first concrete slab was removed from the wall.  The following day, the Wall was opened at Potsdamer Platz, which once was one of the busiest crossroads in Western Europe.  Finally, on December 22^nd the Brandenburg Gate was unlocked.

As soon as people began to stream from East to West on November 9^th and 10^th, they also began to climb onto the Brandenburg Gate.  I remember the TV images very vividly.  Modeled  after the Propylaeum in Athens – the gateway to the Acropolis – the Brandeburg Gate, built from 1789-1791, as the French Revolution raged, is a true symbol of Imperial power; made all the more daunting, after the defeat of Napoleon, by the addition of an iron cross to the goddess of peace standing in the two-wheel chariot that dominates the structure.  And while the Brandenburg Gate was badly damaged during World War II, when the Quadriga – the chariot with its four horses abreast – was completely destroyed, in 1956, five years before the Berlin wall was erected, the gate was restored, and in 1958 the Quadriga was recast from the original and again displayed (4).

So, although it took six weeks, the opening of the Brandenburg Gate on December 22^nd was a defining moment.   And then, three days later, on Christmas Day, to usher in the new tomorrow, none other than Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony at East Berlin’s Schauspielhaus (now Konzerthaus).  Significantly, Bernstein changed a crucial word in Schiller’s poem – the poet’s ‘Ode to Joy’ (5) – Freude – became ‘Ode to Freedom’ – Freiheit. A celebration of freedom, the concert was also a proclamation of reconciliation:  Assembling musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony together with those from orchestras of each of the four countries which had occupied Berlin since the end of World War II, the choral section included singers from both West and East Germany, while the four soloists were drawn from the United States and Europe (6).

The performance attracted over 200 million viewers world-wide.  I was in Germany at the time – in Trier, on the Rhine; birthplace of Karl Marx – and watched the historic concert on German TV.  Like everyone else I was caught up in the euphoria – the joy of freedom.  But I also felt some disquiet.   Was it a coincidence that the East German government announced that the way to the West was open on November 9^th – the anniversary of Kristalnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ that marked the beginning of the violent persecution of the Jews of Europe by the Nazis in November 1938?  Had the terrible events of a united – and expanding – German nation prior to the division between East and West in 1949 been trumped by the reunification of Germany in 1989?  Would the memory of November 9^th 1938 now be supplanted by the memory of November 9^th 1989? What a troubling irony that Germany should once again have the potential of becoming the dominant power in Europe on the day that the Third Reich had come of age fifty one years earlier.  Not surprising, of course, that as people flowed through the newly-opened check-points on November 9^th 1989, no one was thinking of another November 9^th…

These were some of my thoughts and questions back then.  Today, of course, despite enormous upheaval across the continent of Europe and the destructive events in the Balkans during the early 1990s, life in Europe has become completely transformed.  No less than ten states, once subsumed in the Soviet Union – including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland – are now members of the European Economic Union, and their citizens are free, not only to cross borders, but also to live and work in any EEC country.  Germany is a strong nation, but has not lost its memory – either of the years of division between East and West, or of its Nazi past.   And so, sixty years after the defeat of Hitler, in May 2005, a very unusual Holocaust Memorial was inaugurated (7) – which I saw from the outside just before it was opened to the public, when I visited Berlin with a group of my rabbinic colleagues a month earlier.

The Memorial to the Sho’ah occupies a huge 19,000 square metre (204,440 sq foot) area of prime land between the Brandenburg Gate and the site of Adolf Hitler’s bunker, and is situated diagonally across from the old Reichstag building, which, enhanced by its new Norman Foster glass dome,  has been home to the German Parliament, the Bundestag, since 1999.  Designed by US architect Peter Eisenman the Holocaust Memorial is very difficult to describe: a maize of stones – each one a unique shape and size – ‘tilting like shadows’, through which visitors may move from any direction.  Controversially, there are no plaques, inscriptions or symbols of any kind – so in response to concerns about the totally abstract nature of the design, a visitors’ information centre was constructed underneath it; a compromise which allows this enormous domain of stone, evoking both ‘cemetery and concrete wilderness’, to remain powerfully and appropriately overwhelming.

If you visit Berlin the Sho’ah Memorial is impossible to miss – which tells you everything about Europe post-1989.  The dismantling of the very concrete Berlin Wall and the lifting of the more symbolic ‘Iron Curtain’ created new vistas, new possibilities, new freedoms and new challenges – as well as revealing a new disconcerting landscape in which nothing is hidden – neither the horrors of the past, nor the problems of the present – anymore.  For me that is the real significance of that seemingly endless sprawl of stone alongside a magnificently refurbished Brandenburg Gate and the glittering glass dome filling the old Reichstag building with new light.

And the significance is not only particular to Europe; there are also universal lessons to be learned when a wall comes down and a curtain is lifted – and two men walk on the moon.  It may seem that the moon-landing was an event of a completely different order – but there are connections.  To begin to understand what these utterly distinct events have in common – twenty years apart, separated, quite literally, by 238,855 miles (8) – it might be helpful to recall the primordial myth of the first human beings in the Garden of Eden.  On the face of it, the Garden of Eden bears no resemblance to a divided Berlin – for one thing, Eden was a natural paradise, not a man-made prison.  But like the East Germans, the first human beings were confined, and what is more, prohibited from eating of the Tree of Knowledge, their realm of action was restricted (Genesis 2-3).  On the face of it the Garden of Eden was just a garden, but a microcosm of the Earth, Eden represented for its two human inhabitants the whole known world; what lay beyond it was a complete mystery – so when they left the garden, they entered an utterly new unknown domain.

And so, we can see that the moon landing of July 1969 and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 both involved breaching the boundary between the known and the unknown.  The known may be beautiful or terrible or relentlessly familiar – but the unknown is always simply that: utterly mysterious until we take a leap and enter it. We cannot know what we will find there until we go there; and we cannot fully understand where we are here, until we regard here from beyond the horizon, over there.  Death, of course, is the final boundary, but before we die there are many other boundaries for us to cross.   And so, this evening we cross a boundary into the unknown realm of the New Year beyond this moment.   And so, we mark the passing years, not only to recall the past and everything we have experienced until now, but also to remind ourselves that life is always a stepping out into the future.   May each one of us find the courage to step out into the future with hope.  And let us say:  Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5770 – 18^th September 2009

Notes

1. www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/…/21/nesid_2635000/2635845.stm
2. ODE TO JOY AND FREEDOM.  The Fall of the Berlin Wall by Ursula Grosser Dixon: www.nevermore.tripod.com/wall.html
3. www.historyguide.org/europe/perestroika.html
   
4. www.berlin.de/tourismus/sehenswuerdigkeiten.en/00022.html
5. Schiller wrote the poem “The Ode to Joy” in 1785.  www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/931_Schiller_Ode.html
   
6. www.npr.org/about/press/061222.berlin.html
7. . www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4531669.stm
8. The mean distance between the Earth and the Moon is 238,855 miles – 384,400 kilometres. www.stardate.org/resources/ssguide/earth_and_moon.html

We began this evening with silence.   Erev Yom Kippur is marked out by the haunting melody of Kol Nidrey, the Medieval text, opening with the words ‘All vows’, which has also lent its name to the first service of the special day out of time that is Yom Kippur.  But for me, the meaning of the day is always signalled a few minutes earlier.  It is when we stand silently before the open ark, the silence etched by the faint tinkle of the bells of the rimonim that adorn the scrolls cradled in the arms of their temporary custodians, that I really know that this awesome day has arrived.

Silence:  It is not the Jewish way of every day; we talk; we shout; we sing – we are rarely silent.  And even on this exceptional day of Yom Kippur, we will spend most of the time uttering words and singing; delving only briefly into pools of silence.  If a non-Jewish visitor were to come here on Yom Kippur, who had never been with us before, they might be forgiven for thinking that it’s a very busy day of marathon proportions – not least because of the endless changes of personnel; both leading the service and participating in it.

But all that external hyper-activity is only half the story.  For all the comings and goings, something else is happening that can’t be seen.  But still, we might ask, why is it that we are silent so infrequently on Yom Kippur?  Perhaps, one of the reasons is that silence is only partly characterised by the absence of noise around us; it is when everything around us is quiet and still that we are more likely to be aware of the noise within us:  Not just our gurgling stomachs around noon on the day of Yom Kippur, but the beating of our hearts and the voices in our heads.

The truth is, more than anything else, we have come here on this most sacred day of the Jewish year to listen to the voices within – not the sounds without.  Or rather, the purpose of all those external sounds – the beautiful words and evocative music – is to beckon us to enter into ourselves.  But entering ourselves is very hard – even scary; without the external garb of the liturgy, we feel a kind of spiritual nakedness; much safer to wrap ourselves in the words and the music…

Have you ever read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett?   It tells the story of nine year old Mary Lennox, who, following the death of her parents during a cholera epidemic in India, goes to live at the home of her uncle, Archibald Craven, in Yorkshire.  He has a huge house with grounds that include several walled gardens.  Brought there from London by Mrs. Medlock, the housekeeper, lonely Mary, already a neglected child, finds that her uncle is not interested in her – in fact, he departs the morning following her arrival to resume his travels.  Left to her own devices, Mary explores the new world around her, and discovers a garden that has been locked for ten years…

I have no intention of telling you the whole story.  If you missed out on The Secret Garden as a child – do find the time to read it.  I’ve mentioned this novel for two reasons: because of solitary Mary Lennox – who does, fortunately, find a friend; and because of that mysterious garden that she just has to discover for herself.  Reading Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beautiful tale at face value, the plot is simple: there is a lonely little girl and a garden.  But at another level, we can discern that Mary and the garden are one: not only that secret place, but also Mary, herself, is a mystery she unlocks and explores.

Yom Kippur is an invitation to unlock the garden of our inner selves.  When we went to Cornwall for six days in June, Jess and I spent time in St. Ives.  Jutting out into the Atlantic and boasting three rugged coves, St. Ives is as famous for its art as for its beaches, and while we were there we visited both the Tate, which displays international modern and contemporary art, and also the house, studio and garden of sculptor, Barbara Hepworth.   When you are outside the high walls of Barbara Hepworth’s house, which opens straight on to a narrow street, it is not apparent what lies within.  The garden is dense with foliage and also with sculptures, which seem to express the relationship between exterior and interior in a way that draws you in from the beautifully wrought stone and wood rounded surfaces to an inner landscape, where space is the dominant feature.    You want to explore with your fingers – which, of course, is not allowed – so, the next best thing is to follow the lines, shapes and hollows with your eyes, and walk this way and that to see how the space changes.

Having engaged in this way with the Barbara Hepworth sculptures displayed in the Tate, opposite the massive window overlooking Porthmeor Beach, seeing the sculptures in her garden, outside the studio where she worked was a very different experience.  So, what was the difference?  At first glance, it might appear that the gallery is a carefully constructed environment and the garden is a more natural setting.  But, of course, this is not the case:  the garden, like all gardens, has also been crafted, reflecting Barbara Hepworth’s imagination as much as the sculptures themselves.   The difference lay not in the contrast between gallery and garden, but in what the garden represented:  the living world of the artist.

When we look at the work of any artist, we have the immense privilege of glimpsing a part of what for want of a better word, I will call their soul – an experience, which is deepened when we also enter the environment in which the artist lived and worked and see their soul’s creations in situ.  Of course, being an artist involves immense technical skill, but more important than this is their creative vision and their unique way of translating that vision into forms – traditionally, sculptures or paintings.

Few of us may be moved to express ourselves as painters or sculptors – but as human beings all of us are blessed with the gift of creativity, which we may live out in different ways.  It is, indeed, our creativity, our ability to shape the world around us, which distinguishes us from the other creatures, with whom, after all, we share so much from a biological point of view.

Just over two months ago now, two ten week old half-Siamese black-brown kittens, sisters, whom we have called Dinah and Lailah, took up residence in our house.  I could devote an entire sermon to my reflections on and what I’ve learnt from Lailah and Dinah, but I will cut to the chase:  A few days after they had received their last vaccinations, when they were almost fifteen weeks old, we let them outside into our tiny back garden for the first time – accompanied of course.  A pleasant decked area with plants and vegetables and small trees, it was a revelation to watch them discover the world outside.  But before they began to scamper about and find new nooks and crannies to explore, they were completely still:  their ears pricking as they took in the new sounds – the squawk of sea-gulls over-head and the buzz of the bees; their noses twitching as new unfamiliar smells assailed them; their eyes darting in all directions – and then becoming transfixed as they saw for the first time, flowers and plants moving in the light breeze.  As I watched their fascination, I realised that, of course, until that moment, things only moved when they – or we – moved them.

Dinah and Lailah have discovered a whole new world of the outside, which will expand as they grow, and begin to explore beyond the garden walls – which, now twenty weeks old, they cannot wait to do…  They will, no doubt, become great explorers and bring back trophies of their expeditions, but creatures of nature they will never know what it is to cultivate a garden or plan their day or listen to their inner voice.   Less naturally agile than cats, much slower to develop, nevertheless, we human beings have unique creative and expressive abilities, which we harness as we go out into the world.

But today is not a day for going out into the world.  On the contrary:  Yom Kippur is the time for stepping back from the sturm und drang – the ‘tumult’ of daily existence – and investigating our selves and our inner lives, so that when we return to our day to day concerns, we are not only refreshed, but also ready to try and live in a new way.  But this is much easier said than done.  How do we begin to live in a new way?   What can possibly help us during these twenty-five hours to start anew?

Of course, what we find helpful will very much depend on who we are as individuals.  Nevertheless, I have a feeling we could all learn a lot about what it means to investigate ourselves, and pay attention to our inner lives by thinking about the various tasks involved in gardening – which are essentially the same, whether the garden is big or small, an artist’s garden, or our own cultivated domain at home.  And, for those, who either don’t have a garden, or don’t look after the one they have, I hope my remarks, nevertheless are useful as you begin to think about taking care of your inner self.

So what are the most important gardening tasks?  Top of the list must be, preparing the ground, clearing the weeds, and enriching the soil.  Then, there’s planning what you want to grow, where.  Next, there’s the planting itself – and the watering; an on-going essential – along with dead-heading and weeding and feeding and pruning.  Anyone who has a big garden will be occupied almost full-time on these tasks during the spring and summer.

So, what has all this got to do with ourselves?   Well, today is the day for taking the neglected garden of ourselves in hand; for raking through the tangle of our mistakes and stubborn ways; for exposing the little deceits and convoluted conceits that enmesh us, to the light and the air of honest reflection; for examining our bad habits and resolving to break them; for allowing ourselves to be nourished by the words and the music of the prayers, and the messages of the readings; for thinking about ways to better look after our bodies, nurture our minds and tend our souls; for considering what we can do to enhance the lives of others and work for justice and peace.

Today we are called not just to stand and sit, to read and sing and ponder, but to garden.  And where better to work out how to garden our selves than in a garden?   Welcome to the garden that is Yom Kippur; a garden so long established, so attuned to visitors for millennia, so perfectly appointed, that all we have to do is enter it, enjoy its light and shade – and eat of its fruit – metaphorically speaking, of course!   Here, in this special sheltered space, set apart behind its walls of ritual and liturgy from the everyday world, we are invited to dwell awhile.  Here, in this container of tranquillity, holding the now for a long moment, we have the opportunity to pause and be still.  How can any of us resist?

We can’t.  That’s why we are here.  But there is work for us to do – that gardening of ourselves – and while we are busy doing it – or, perhaps, busy not doing it – we can’t help waiting; it is all here before us – and yet we wait: because there has to be more than a beautiful garden; there has to be more than the challenge to garden ourselves.  And there is.  But the ‘more’ cannot be scripted.  It’s like when Lailah and Dinah went into the back-garden for the first time and became transfixed by the flowers and plants moving in the invisible breeze.   We read in the Torah, in the tale of the first human beings, in Genesis chapter 3, that after they had eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, ‘they heard the voice of the Eternal God walking around in the garden at the windy time of the day and hid themselves….. from the presence of the Eternal God amongst the trees of the garden’ (:8).  Unlike Dinah and Lailah, the first man and woman knew that something was making the leaves rustle; they heard a voice that walked in the wind – ru’ach, a word that means both ‘wind’ and ‘spirit’ – and they were afraid because they knew that they had transgressed.  We, too, know that we have done wrong and gone wrong – that’s why we are here.  But being here, it’s not enough for us to admit our errors – we could do that on our own at home – we need to feel that being here has made a difference.

Since most of us don’t have that ready and direct awareness of God, we wait – not for a voice, or for a sign, but for a moment that stills us; a moment of silence between the words and sounds that surround us, when we realise that who we are and what we do, for good and for ill, really does matter.   It is in that moment, that we will begin to find ourselves and so begin to find each other.  It is in that moment that we will be ready to return to ourselves, and so be able to return to one another.  It is in that moment that we will know that when we walk out into the world once more we will have the resources to take responsibility for our lives, and begin a new year.  May each one of us, in our own ways, discover that moment.  And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Yom Kippur, 10^th Tishri 5770 – 27^th September 2009

The season of autumn has begun in earnest:  it’s colder in the mornings; more wind and rain than sunshine; the leaves are beginning to turn.  A line from a Simon and Garfunkel song comes to mind: ‘August – die she must; the autumn wind blows chilly and cold’.

I wonder how many people here went away on holiday during the summer?   Holidays away from home are like islands:  We inhabit them for a while, and then we leave them to return to the shore of our daily lives – and sometimes it can feel like we’ve never been away.  Even if you didn’t take a holiday this summer, can you recall that feeling?

Before going away, of course, there are all the preparations:  First, we have to decide where we are going – which can take some time – and unless we’re planning to stay with family or friends, we need to book the hotel or arrange the holiday-let.  Then, if we are not travelling in this country by car, or choosing a package deal, there are train or plane tickets to buy; and if we are planning a trip abroad, there are the passports to find.  Then there’s the packing – which usually involves several stages: choosing what we want to take with us, washing and ironing those items that aren’t immediately pack-able, gathering toiletries – and buying any that are missing – bringing out the suitcases; and the last hurdle: managing the feat of getting everything in.   What a palaver!  If we weren’t making all that effort to go on holiday, we’d certainly need one by the time we’d finished all our preparations.   Even if you haven’t been away for a while, do you recall everything you had to do the last time you went on holiday?

A fortnight from today it will be Rosh Ha-Shanah – the New Year.  Actually, to speak of the ‘New Year’ is a little misleading – although Rosh Ha-Shanah will, indeed, usher in the New Year of 5770.  As the Hebrew tells us, Rosh Ha-Shanah is the rosh, the ‘head’ of ha-shanah, the ‘year’.  Falling at the beginning of the seventh month of Tishri, Rosh Ha-Shanah is the high-point of the year, marking the moment, when, six months having passed, the year turns.

Rosh Ha-Shanah marks a turning point, and so, apart from, proclaiming a New Year, the Shofar, the ram’s horn, calls us to reflect on our actions, turn our lives around, and return to one another, to our true selves – and to the Eternal: which for some means God; and for others represents a sense of the Transcendent; that which is larger than ourselves and our finite lives.

Rosh Ha-Shanah: the first of the ten days of t’shuvah – literally, ‘returning’ – an intensive period of Repentance, that culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, At-one-ment; it is a big deal; a very big deal; it is momentous.  Like a holiday, the aseret y’mei t’shuvah, ‘the ten days of returning’ – also known as yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’ or ‘days of awe’ – represent a special period of time outside our daily routine. And yet, unlike the way we approach a holiday, many of us – perhaps most of us – do little or no preparation for the yamim nora’im.   Yes, those who attend the synagogue for Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur services, do make a note of the dates when these two particular days fall, and make plans to attend.  But what else do we do?   Do we think about where we will be going during the ten days?  Do we think about what we will need for our t’shuvah journey?  Do we reflect on the year that is drawing to a close and get ourselves ready for a new one?  Do we begin to turn ourselves round?

In Sephardi tradition, the Jewish way that originated with the Jews of Sepharad – those who lived in Spain and Portugal until the expulsions of 1492 and 1497 – the Shofar is blown every morning during the month of Elul as an aid to preparation.  In both Sephardi practice and the Ashkenazi tradition that has its roots in Jewish life in northern and central Europe during the Middle Ages, it is customary to recite psalms and penitential prayers each day during Elul, and for the congregation to gather for a special service late on the Saturday night or early Sunday morning prior to Rosh Ha-Shanah, when the Shofar is blown.  Known as S’lichot, because of its emphasis on the quest for ‘Forgiveness’, which is one of the goals of the t’shuvah journey, this service serves like an intensive warm-up for the yamim nora’im – an opportunity to direct our minds and hearts on the time ahead.  With Rosh Ha-Shanah only a fortnight away, our S’lichot service will be held next Saturday night – so do check your tickets for the details.

There are other Elul traditions to help us prepare for the ‘awed days’ from Rosh Ha-Shanah to Yom Kippur.  There is the custom of expressing our best wishes to people l’shanah tovah – ‘for a good year’ – both in person, and when writing letters – and these days, emails.  This simple practice serves as a daily reminder to ourselves and others.  It is also traditional to visit the graves of loved ones during Elul – reminding ourselves of our connection with those who went before us, and the legacy we have received from them.  On a more demanding level, Elul is the time to begin to orientate ourselves to the major challenges of the yamim nora’im: T’shuvah, T’fillah and Tz’dakah.  Translated most usually as, ‘Repentance, Prayer and Charity’ – the Hebrew words are more complex:  We are called to ‘return’ to the true path of our lives, to judge ourselves – l’hit’palleil – essentially that is what tfillah, ‘prayer’, means, and to practice ‘righteousness’ by giving to those in need.  Each of these tasks, T’shuvah, T’fillah and Tz’dakah, represents a demand on our time and our energies.  But before we can start to grapple with the challenges of T’shuvah, T’fillah and Tz’dakah, we need to engage in cheshbon ha-nefesh, literally make an ‘account of the soul’.  Think back to the holiday analogy:  The preparations for our holiday surely begin when we sit down and do an account – a cheshbon – of the state of our finances, work out what we can afford, and draw up a budget.  And so, the t’shuvah journey begins in Elul with just such a cheshbon – an account of the state of our souls.

A bit heavy isn’t it?  A bit like those over-packed suitcases!   And now, we’re already two weeks into Elul.   But there is another way of looking at it:  we have, yet, two whole weeks to make a start – and the getting started is crucial.  Let me share with you a mashal, a ‘parable’ related by the 19^th century sage, Rabbi Chayyim of Zans, and re-told by S.Y. Agnon, in his wonderful ‘Treasury of Traditions, Legends and Learned Commentaries Concerning Rosh Ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, and the Days Between’, entitled, Days of Awe (Schocken Books, New York, 1965, pp. 22-23):

There was once a poor countrywoman who had many children.  They were always begging for food, but she had none to give them.  One day she found an egg.

She called her children and said, “Children, children, we’ve nothing to worry about any more; I’ve found an egg.  And being a provident woman, I’ll not eat the egg, but shall ask my neighbour for permission to set it under her setting hen until a chick is hatched.  For I am a provident woman!  And we’ll not eat the chick, but will set her on eggs, and the eggs will hatch into chickens.  And the chickens in turn will hatch many eggs.  But I’m a provident woman, I am!  I’ll not eat the chickens and not eat the eggs, but shall sell them and buy me a heifer. And I’ll not eat the heifer, but shall raise it to a cow, and not eat the cow until it calves.  And I’ll not eat it then, either, and we’ll have cows and calves and buy a field, and we’ll have fields and cows and calves, and we won’t need anything any more!”

The countrywoman was speaking in this fashion and playing with the egg, when it fell out of her hands and broke.

Said our Master [that is, Rabbi Chayyim of Zans]: “That is how we are.  When the Holy Days arrive, every person resolves to do Teshuvah, thinking in his heart, ‘I’ll do this, and I’ll do that’.  But the days slip by in mere deliberation, and thought doesn’t lead to action, and what is worse, the person who made the resolution may fall even lower.  Therefore every person ought to exercise great caution so as not to fall even lower, God forbid.”

A cautionary tale for all those who make great plans; but fail to execute them – and a call to action:   Elul is a month of preparation for the ‘awed days’ that lie ahead; but for Jews, preparation is always practical; it is never simply a matter of what’s happening in our heads.  Just think of those holiday preparations:  all the thoughtful mental planning in the world won’t get the tickets booked and the cases packed.  So, the time for t’shuvah is now during this month of Elul.

And something more, which gives the month of Elul an important historical dimension:  Interestingly, the word Elul only came into usage after the Babylonian exile, which began in 586 BCE – and is in fact a Babylonian name, which was later adopted into Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.  The first occurrence of the word is in the biblical book of Nehemiah, which relates the return of ‘N’chemyah, son of Hachalyah’ to Jerusalem forty years after the destruction of the city, to oversee the work of repair.  Significantly, the month of Elul is mentioned in the context of a verse in chapter six stating that ‘[t]he wall was finished on the 25^th of Elul, after fifty-two days’ (6:15).  Then, later, chapter 8 relates how the Israelites, having settled back into their towns, assembled before the Watergate at the beginning of the seventh month, and listened to Ezra the scribe read ‘the scroll of the teaching of Moses’ – sefer torat Moshe (8:1ff.).

From that time onwards the sixth month of Elul became the signal of a new beginning.  But it is important to acknowledge that Elul of its self does not bring renewal – either then, or now; it is up to us, as it was up to our ancestors before us, to use the month for this purpose.  And so, another cautionary note – this one of a linguistic nature:  Disconcertingly, a similar word in the Bible, the Hebrew noun, Elil, means ‘worthlessness’ – as in Jeremiah chapter 14, verse 14, where Jeremiah rails against the worthless divinations and deceits of false prophets.  Spelt almost identically – except for the difference of a vowel – ‘u’ in Elul, ‘i’ in Elil, the