Articles

Introduction

Hello everyone. I’m sorry I can’t be with you in person. As someone designated ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’, I need to keep Covid-safe.

I have been asked by Rebecca and René to speak about individual and personal theology, so here is my take on the theme.

An LSE Sociology graduate-come-Marxist anti-racist activist turned radical feminist activist, writer and editor, who became a lesbian separatist, decides to apply for rabbinic training. Sounds far-fetched?

I had two very good reasons back in late 1983 when I put in my application to the Leo Baeck College.

The first: I felt excluded from Jewish life and wanted to be included and to do what I could to include others and help make Jewish communal existence more egalitarian and inclusive.

The second reason: The Jewish Lesbian group I belonged to – which is where I met Sheila Shulman, Zichronah livrachah – decided to read Emil Fackenheim’s book, The Jewish Return into History^[1], and I felt compelled by the additional commandment: ‘Thou shalt not give Hitler a posthumous victory’.

As an individual Jew who was an outsider before training for the rabbinate, my approach to ‘individual and personal theology’ emerges out of a triangle of connections:

• my engagement with foundational Torah narratives that centre on individuals who had to take flight and found themselves alone in the wilderness communing with the Eternal;
• my determination to enable individual Jews on the margins to participate in and contribute to Jewish life;
• and back to the Torah again: my reading of key teachings that address the individual and invite engagement.

1. Torah narratives of individuals in flight and their encounters with the Eternal

The Torah narratives that most capture my imagination are those of Hagar, Jacob and Miriam. When it comes to the flight-tales of Hagar and Jacob, what interests me in their stories is how the protagonists make sense of their experience of the Eternal. So, thinking of Jacob: On the run from Esau’s rage, going to sleep with a stone as a pillow, and then dreaming of the ladder and its ascending and descending messengers of God. When he awoke, he said (to himself): Akhein yeish YHWH ba-maqom ha-zeh, v’anokhi lo yadati – ‘Surely, YHWH was in this place, and I did not know it’^[2] ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven’^[3]. And so, when Jacob got up ‘early in the morning’, ‘he took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, poured oil over it, and called the name of that place Beit Eil, House of God.’^[4]

The story of Jacob is very long. The considerably shorter tale of Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian servant, is for me, much more compelling. ^[5] After acknowledging that ‘God was in this place and I did not know it’, Jacob named the place he had alighted upon. Hagar gave God a name. I shall now focus – albeit, briefly, for lack of time – on the first Hagar narrative in parashat Lech-L’cha, Genesis 16.

I studied the Hagar narratives in 1995 when I was preparing my Jewish keynote lecture for the International Council of Christians and Jews conference being held in Budapest that summer on the theme of ‘Speaking of God Today’. The lecture was published latter as a MANNA Essay^[6], and then included as a chapter in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism^[7].

Let’s remind ourselves of the story. Sarai was unable to conceive. She said to her husband Avram “bo-na el-shiphchati, ulai ibbaneh mimmennah – please come into my servant-woman, perhaps I will be builded up through her.” Avram complied and when Hagar became pregnant “va-teikal g’virtah b’eineha – her mistress was contemptible in her eyes.” Aware of this, Sarai spoke to Avram, who told her “hinneih shiphchateich b’yadeich asi-lah ha-tov b’einnayich, behold your servant-woman is in your hand do with her whatever is good in your eyes.” So, Sarai treated Hagar “harshly” and “she fled from her presence into the wilderness”, where a malakh–YHWH “found her by a spring of water (ein mayyim) on the way to Shur.” The malakh-Adonai addressed her and asked her where she was coming from and where she was going. When Hagar responded, ‘“I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai”, the malakh-YHWH told her: “Return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand.” The malakh-YHWH also offered Hagar hope for the future: “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” More directly, the malakh-YHWH addressed her immediate predicament: “Behold, you (are) with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Yishma’eil because YHWH has heard [shama] your affliction. But the promise about Yishma’eil was not all good news: “He shall be a wild ass of a man; his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”

How did Hagar respond to this startling other-worldly encounter and its revelations? Was this Egyptian servant-woman bewildered? Overwhelmed? Overawed? We read at verse 13:

Va-tikra sheim-YHWH ha-doveir eileha: ‘Attah Eil ro’I’

Then she called the name of YHWH who was speaking to her, ‘You, God, see me’;

ki am’rah: “hagam halom ra’iti acharei ro’i?’

for she said, ‘have I even here seen after (one who) sees me?’

And as we know, the text doesn’t end there. We read at verse 14 that the material landscape was then named for this ephemeral revelatory incident and Hagar’s response to it:

Al-kein kara la-b’eir: B’eir Lachai Ro’i

Therefore, the well was called: ‘Well of the Living (one who) Sees me’ ;

hinneih vein-Kadeish u’vein Bared.

behold, (it is) between Kadeish and Bered.

So, Hagar’s experience in response to Divine encounter, was not only recorded in the Torah, it was marked on the map.

There are many familiar elements to this tale of domestic rivalry and abuse and some very remarkable ones. The Egyptian servant-woman did not simply experience God in the wilderness, communing with her in her distress, giving her hope for the future, the power of the encounter impelled her to name it, to name God: ‘Attah El ro’i – You, God, see me’. As Jane Litman points out, ‘Hagar is the only person in the Hebrew Bible to name God.’^[8]

Hagar’s naming of God may remind us of Moses’ encounter with the Eternal at the burning bush and his request – on behalf of the Israelites to whom he would be reporting – to know God’s name^[9]. But unlike Moses, the changeling-prince-turned-fugitive, who had been saved from the plight of his fellow Hebrews as a baby, Hagar knew what it was to be subjected to the will of another; she had tasted bitterness and despair. Moses was quietly tending his father-in-law’s flock when he led them astray achar ha-midbar, ‘behind the wilderness’^[10], but Hagar fled into the wilderness, wild with desperation. When she met the Eternal and God recognised her pain and spoke to her hopes and her fears, she did not have to ask for God’s name, she uttered the name which her experience evoked in her: ‘Attah Eil ro’I – You, God, see me’.

Hagar is not one of the Bible’s celebrated heroes: An alien; a servant; a lone woman; other, dependent, utterly marginal. Yet out of her distress, she heard God’s voice and she found the words to express her experience. And so, she becomes a model for each and every one of us – particularly for all those who have not had the courage to speak yet or whose voices have not been heard. Hagar’s tale is a source of inspiration, reminding us that the powerless have the power within them to name God – and also that each individual has that possibility.

But that’s not all. Would that Hagar, the progenitor with Abraham of Islam, might be regarded by Jews alongside Jacob/Israel as an inspirational figure, teaching us that the struggle and experience of individuals in the search for meaning is integral to communal existence. Further, given the extent to which the foundational Torah narratives focus on the lives of individuals and their encounters and relationships with the Eternal, perhaps, instead of seeing those tales as a preamble to the core story of the Jewish people that begins with the Exodus from Egypt, they should be integrated into our understanding of what it means to live as Jews, so that as we engage in the cycles and practices of Jewish life, we allow our personal stories and journeys to shape the ways in which we live Jewishly.

1. Enabling individuals to contribute their gifts to the community

Which brings me to another side of the triangle of connections that shapes my approach to individual and personal theology: the emphasis in my rabbinic practice on enabling individuals who are, or have been, outsiders. This has been made possible, practically speaking, because of my commitment to meet with each and every individual who has contacted me in search of a rabbi to talk with about their personal circumstances and journeys.

I’m not talking about my extra-congregational work. Whenever I’ve been contacted over the years, I have always arranged to meet with the individual concerned – and to meet with them at the synagogue, conscious that when an individual makes a decision to talk with a rabbi about their personal issues and challenges – such as, a difficult family history, experiences of exclusion, marginalisation and isolation, their search for meaning – they are often trying to reach out and to forge new connections. And so, in my experience, enabling individuals on their journeys includes enabling them to find their own ways of connecting as individuals with community and to identify for themselves how to make meaning out of their personal lives as individuals in a communal context.

Of course, when an individual makes contact with a rabbi, what they might choose to do next doesn’t just represent a challenge for the individual concerned. When a congregation opens the door to an individual and welcomes them in, congregants and shul leaders alike must be prepared to make space for them and enable them to bring their gifts to the community.

1. Key Torah teachings that address the individual and invite engagement

Thinking of the gifts that individuals bring to the community, let me turn to the third side of my triangle of connections: the key Torah teachings that I read as addressing individuals and inviting engagement. The first of these is the opening passage that introduces the last five parashiyyot of the ook of Sh’mot, which focus on the building of the mishkan in the wilderness. We read at the beginning of parashat T’rumah, Exodus 25, verses 1 to 8:

The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying: / Speak to the Israelites, that they take for Me an offering – t’rumah; from everyone whose heart makes them willing you shall take my offering – mei-eit kol-ish asher yid’vennu libbo tik’chu et-t’rumati / And this is the offering that you shall take from that which is theirs: gold, and silver and brass; / and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, / and rams’ skins dyed red, and sealskins and acacia-wood; / oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense; / onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the cape and for the breastplate. / Then let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them – v’asu li mikdash; v’shakhanti b’tokham.

Every individual who makes contact with a rabbi in search of connection, or who approaches a congregation directly, is not only looking to be helped and welcomed, they have gifts to offer; their own personal gifts for the building and enrichment of community. Rather than simply absorbing new members, congregations need to be prepared to be transformed by their presence and by their contributions.

But, of course, when individuals bring their gifts, the onus is not only on the community to embrace them. Each and every individual – both, those coming inside from the outside, and those already ensconced in congregational life – are challenged to actively engage with Jewish teaching and practice. For me, the Torah text that expresses this challenge most evocatively and succinctly is from parashat Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 30, verses 11-14, which Jews around the world will be reading in our shuls next Shabbat:

Ki ha-mitzvah ha-zot asher anokhi m’tzav’kha ha-yom – For this commandment that I am commanding you today – is not too wonderful for you nor too remote. / It is not in heaven that you need to say, “who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it?” / It is not across the sea that you need to say, “who will cross the sea for us and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it?” / For the word is very near to you; in your mouth and in your heart to do it – Ki-karov eilekha ha-davar m’od; b’phikha u’vilvav’kha la’asoto.’

I have elaborated my responses to both these Torah teachings – from T’rumah and from Nitzavim, respectively – in different chapters of Trouble-Making Judaism^[11]. I offer them to you today as expressions of my approach to ‘individual and personal theology’. In my view, what is most striking about this passage from Nitzavim is the way in which it stresses singularity: ‘For this commandment: singular; ‘that I am commanding you: singular; ‘For the word: singular; ‘is very near to you’: singular; ‘in your mouth’: singular; ‘and in your heart’: singular; ‘to do it’: singular. As no doubt we are all aware, the reference here to ‘this commandment’ gave rise to rabbinic speculation concerning whether the teaching concerns any particular commandment. According to Nachmanides,^[12] for example, ‘this commandment’ is a specific reference to the command to repent, since a passage a few verses earlier includes an exhortation to ‘return to YHWH your God’ – v’shavta ad-YHWH Elohekha^[13]. But since the Book of D’varim speaks elsewhere of ‘the’ or ‘this commandment’ in the singular^[14], we might conclude that it either means different things in different contexts, or that expressions in the singular should be understood to encompass the mitzvot as a whole.

From the perspective of the individual engaging with the Torah, the statements in the singular in the Nitzavim passage juxtaposed with the references to the communal context – ‘who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it’; ‘who will across the sea for us that we may hear it and do it’ – only serve to reinforce the power of the closing verse as a direct challenge to the individual: ‘for it is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ Moreover, the order – ‘mouth’, then ‘heart’ – is suggestive of how the individual may go about imbibing ‘the commandment’: from the mouth, that is literally, the interface between the public and private, to the deeply personal and internal domain of the heart.

Taking these two passages from T’rumah and Nitzavim together, they may be understood as evoking an interplay of individual engagement between giving and receiving – the individual contributing their personal gifts to the community and receiving teaching as they engage with the words of Torah. But as we can see in the Nitzavim passage, clearly, receiving is not the end of it. And so, alongside giving and receiving, there is a third dimension: ‘for it is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ Words must be translated into practice. Further, words and actions are one. Or, to put it another way – with my old Marxist hat on – in my approach, ‘individual and personal theology’ is a theology of praxis; a philosophical concept adopted by the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, to express his philosophy of the unity of theory and practice.^[15]

Conclusion

In conclusion, for me, ‘individual and personal theology’ is a theology of engagement, encompassing personal experience, personal encounter with Jewish teaching, and personal practice that enhances, both, the individual and communal existence – and, ultimately, the wider society and the life of the world.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Joint Conference of Liberal Rabbis & Cantors / Assembly of Reform Rabbis Meeting

13^th September 2022 – 17^th Elul 5782

1. Schocken Books, New York, 1978. Chapter 2 The 614^th Commandment. ↑

2. Va-yeitzei, Genesis 28:16. ↑

3. Gen. 28:17. ↑

4. Gen. 28:18. ↑

5. The Jacob narrative begins at Tol’dot, Genesis 25:19 ff. and concludes at the end of the Book of B’reishit, Gen. ch. 50. The story of Hagar is related in Lech L’cha, Gen. 16 and Va-yeira, Gen. 21. ↑

6. MANNA, No. 5, Summer 1996. ↑

7. David Paul Books, London, 2012. Third reprint: 2019. ↑

8. See ‘Postmodernism, Jewish Theology and Naming God in The Reconstructionist, Vol.59, No.1, Spring 1994, p.78. ↑

9. Sh’mot, Exodus 3:13. ↑

10. Ex. 3:1. ↑

11. Re: T’rumah, Exodus 25:1-8: Chapter 11 Empowering Individuals and Creating Community. Re: Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 30:11-14: Chapter 10 Compelling Commitments and the Impulse for Engagement. ↑

12. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman. Born in Gerona in Spain in 1194. Also known as the RaMbaN. He brought his interest in Kabbalah – the mystical dimension of Judaism – to his commentaries on the Torah. ↑

13. Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 30:2. ↑

14. For example: Va-etchannan, Deut. 6:25; Eikev, Deut. 8:1; R’eih, Deut. 15:5. ↑

15. Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) proposed his ‘philosophy of praxis’ in his ‘Prison Notebooks’. See: Antonio Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Ed. Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Lawrence and Wishart, 1998). First published 1 January 1947. ↑

Shabbat shalom everyone. It’s an honour and a great pleasure to be invited to speak today at this first European Union for Progressive Judaism Pride Shabbat morning service.

I would like to take this opportunity to express heartfelt solidarity for all those living in countries where LGBTQ+ people do not have the protection of equality laws and experience homophobic and transphobic abuse and persecution, both by the authorities and in popular culture. I’m going to speak from my experience in Britain in the hope that the journey to equality and inclusion, both in the wider society and within the Jewish community, may serve as inspiration for what is possible.

I want to begin by paying tribute to the first gay rabbi in Britain, the extraordinary Rabbi Lionel Blue, Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be for blessing. My tutor during my five years of rabbinic training at Leo Baeck College and my ordaining rabbi, Lionel experienced life as a gay man when homosexuality was still illegal. Lionel shared his unique wisdom and insights as a gay Jew and a rabbi, when he addressed the Gay Christian Movement in 1981, on ‘Being Godly and Gay’.^[1]

Today, I feel the loss of Lionel and also the loss of Sheila Shulman. When we both received s’michah on 9 July 1989, we became the first lesbian rabbis in the world. Sadly, Sheila died in 2014 just a few months after the 25th anniversary of our ordinations was celebrated with a special day conference at Leo Baeck College.^[2] Zichronah livrachah – May her memory be for blessing.

Today, is a moment to acknowledge our losses, the continuing challenges faced by LGBTQ+ people who are still experiencing discrimination and persecution – and also to celebrate. Because today over 20% of the progressive rabbinate in Britain is LGBT+ and LGBT+ Jews now have a home within the British progressive Jewish community. So, how has this enormous change come about?

Since the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalised ‘homosexual acts’ between two consenting males over the age of 21 in private, legal changes in Britain over the past 50 years have resulted in an equal age of consent,^[3] equal marriage^[4] and transgender people being able to have their birth certificates altered to reflect their new name and gender identity.^[5] But let’s not forget: these legal changes, and those in other countries, have only happened because LGBT+ people engaged in a struggle for acknowledgement of our full human rights – beginning with the landmark moment when the gay clientele of the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village, New York, started a riot on June 28,1969, in response to a police raid and repeated police harassment.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, activism took the form of the Gay Liberation Front, founded in 1972, on the one hand, and Lesbian Feminism, on the other. It was Lesbian Feminism that put the ‘L’ into what later became LGBT. For lesbians in Britain as elsewhere, our struggle for liberation did not have a legal dimension, but without the Lesbian Feminist challenge to Patriarchy, and to what the Jewish lesbian feminist writer and poet, Adrienne Rich called ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, lesbian existence would have remained invisible.^[6]

By the late 1980s, the ‘rainbow flag’ first developed a decade earlier,^[7] proclaimed an alliance of solidarity encompassing ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ people – hence: LGBT – and embracing a plurality of identities. While ‘bisexuality’ challenges binary assumptions concerning sexual orientation, the inclusion of ‘transgender’ challenges binary male/female notions of gender.

We have seen enormous changes in progressive states across the world over the past 50 plus years^[8] and an ever more encompassing rainbow – extended even further, with an extra, ‘Q’ to acknowledge those who are ‘Queer’ and/or ‘questioning’ of their gender and/or sexuality, and an ‘I’ to acknowledge those who are intersex. But it’s not all good news. 71 countries continue to criminalise LGBTQ+ people, including 32 African nations, 23 nations of the Middle East and Asia, 9 nations in the Americas, and 7 nations in Oceania. In addition, while not outlawing ‘homosexuality’, in 2013 Russia enacted an ‘anti-gay propaganda law’.^[9] And hatred of LGBTQ+ people doesn’t only happen in those places where persecution is enshrined in the law. In recent years, November 20 has been designated as Transgender Day of Remembrance in honour of Rita Hester, a transgender woman of colour, who was murdered in her home in Allston, Massachusetts, USA, on November 28, 1998.^[10]

Meanwhile, growing equality and inclusion across the progressive world has not led automatically to change within the Jewish world. For that to happen, Jewish LGBTQ+ people had to come knocking at the door of Jewish life – which is what Sheila and I did in 1984, when, members of the same Jewish lesbian group, and without discussing it, we both applied to the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme. I can’t speak for Sheila. For my part, my decision to apply involved the realisation that to have a chance to effect real change, it was no good being part of a radical cadre, separated from society. I needed to work to generate change from the inside. My way of doing this was by joining the mainstream Jewish community and doing what I could to contribute to making Jewish life egalitarian and inclusive and fit for purpose in the late 20th century.

So, two lesbian feminists on their journeys. But of course, once Sheila and I had survived being on probation throughout the five years of our rabbinic training and been ordained, soon, there were many more LGBTQ+ Jews who now knew it was possible to become a rabbi. And just as important, Jewish LGBTQ+ community was enlivened by the contributions of rainbow rabbis.

To give two major examples. First, the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group,^[11] founded in 1972 as the Jewish Gay Group; the oldest of its kind in the world. A few lesbians, including me, discovered the Jewish Gay Group in 1987 after attending an international conference of Gay and Lesbian Jews in Amsterdam. At that time, it was a male-only enclave. But before long, we managed to make space for ourselves and get ‘Lesbian’ added to the name. I feel very proud to have led JGLG’s monthly Erev Shabbat services in those early days, joined in 1992 by Rabbi Mark Solomon, a refugee from the United Synagogue, who then went on to make an important contribution to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ Jews within Liberal Judaism. Nowadays, a host of rainbow rabbis regularly lead the monthly Erev Shabbat service. Meanwhile, two years ago there was another name-change and the JGLG became the Jewish LGBT+ Group.

My second example is Beit Klal Yisrael,^[12] the congregation founded by Rabbi Sheila Shulman and a group of lesbian feminist friends in 1990 as an inclusive Jewish community. Led and nurtured by Sheila with love for so many years, Sheila also nurtured many individuals to realise their potential to become rabbis, in particular, LGBTQ+ people, including Rabbi Judith Rosen-Berry, who succeeded her. The current incumbent is another lesbian, Rabbi Anna Posner.^[13]

Meanwhile, my particular rabbinate has been dedicated to making mainstream congregations more inclusive. It was a rocky road for the first few years, but I refused to give up hope. I started working as rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive in December 2000 and today BHPS has become a truly inclusive community, in which LGBTQ+ individuals, couples and families can participate, contribute their gifts, and celebrate their lives and their milestones. The practical changes that have made inclusion a reality encompass: same-sex marriage ceremonies, baby blessings for the children of LGBTQ+ individuals and couples, the option for young people to be gender neutral and become b’ mitzvah (rather than bar or bat), the opportunity to mark gender transition Jewishly, and the provision of all-gender toilets.

So, a changing Jewish landscape because of the work of rabbis and congregations – and, also because of change at a movement level in response to the presence and contributions of rainbow rabbis. Liberal Judaism, for example, has gone on a journey towards inclusion, which in turn has served to support and encourage congregational change. In 2002, LJ set up a rabbinic working party on same sex ceremonies on which I served and in the next few years, there were a series of landmark developments. In December 2005, LJ published the Working Party’s liturgy for same-sex ceremonies to coincide with the Civil Partnership Act coming into force.^[14] As the Equal Marriage Campaign gained momentum, with leadership from the Rabbinic Conference, Liberal Judaism gave public support for equal marriage, and also began working with Queer and Trans Jews UK.^[15] LJ also launched other projects: Rainbow Jews^[16], recording Jewish LGBT+ history from the 1950s to today, the trans interfaith project Twilight People^[17] and Rainbow Pilgrims, a project exploring the experiences of LGBT+ migrants and refugees^[18].

I have spoken about the development of LGBTQ+ inclusion in Britain in general, and in the British Jewish community, in particular, in order to demonstrate that change is possible when we commit ourselves to generating change. This week’s parashah Pin’chas, includes a story about when the five daughters of Tz’lophchad, a descendant of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, petitioned Moses with the request that their father having died without any sons, they could be allowed to inherit his property. Their petition was granted and an amendment to the law was made to allow daughters to inherit when their father died without having any sons.^[19] In next week’s double parashah, Mattot-Mas’ei, in response to an appeal from the daughters’ male relatives, the inheritance law was then modified again with the decree that in these circumstances, daughters could only marry within their tribe to ensure that their father’s estate remained within the tribe.^[20]

So, not a huge victory for women’s rights, but a significant one – not least, because it demonstrated that the law could be changed in response to the call for change. With the emergence of progressive Judaism in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, being responsive to the call for change and to changing circumstances became a key principle. A century later, in 1899, Lily Montagu, one of the three founders of Liberal Judaism in Britain and the first Honorary Secretary of the World Union for Progressive Judaism when it was established in 1926^[21], encapsulated the task of Progressive Judaism. I quote: ‘to satisfy the needs of the age’:^[22]

In focusing on the narrative of the daughters of Tz’lophchad , you may think that I’m avoiding the less edifying story of Pin’chas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, with which the portion that takes his name opens; a tale that begins at the end of the previous parashah, Balak. This story introduces Pin’chas, by telling us what he did when he saw one of his brethren consorting with a Midianite woman. I quote: ^[23] ‘… he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand / and he went after the Israelite man into the chamber and thrust both of them through, the Israelite man, and the woman through her belly.’

Obviously, we recoil from the murderous zealotry displayed by Pin’chas and by all those who continue to kill in the name of God. But as we celebrate Pride today, we are challenged to recognise that zealotry is not always a destructive impulse, and to acknowledge the zeal for equality that has propelled individuals and communities to engage in the struggle for LGBTQ+ inclusion. We need that kind of constructive zealotry. As I say this, I’m aware that as Elisheva Tikvah Sarah bat Y’hudit^[24] u’Phin’chas, my parents’ Hebrew names are a constant reminder to me of the murderous underside of zealotry. Nevertheless, my parental inheritance apart, my personal experience of fighting for LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, demonstrates that in order to effect change, sometimes you have to be a zealot; a zealot for justice and human rights. So, today as we celebrate this first Pan-European Pride Shabbat, let us give thanks for all the pioneering zealots and recite the blessing that thanks the Eternal One for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and bringing us to this time:

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

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

1. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. See also rabbiellisarah.com: ‘Remembering Rabbi Lionel Blue, Z”L’, my tribute to Lionel, delivered at the Erev Pride Erev Shabbat service, held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue on 7^th July 2017: http://rabbiellisarah.com/remembering-rabbi-lionel-blue-zl/ ↑

2. The Leo Baeck College Day of Celebration was held on 23rd June 2014. Rabbi Dr Rachel Adler was the key-note speaker. Her lecture, ‘Queer Rabbis Talking Their Way In’ is included in a special issue of European Judaism in memory of Rabbi Sheila Shulman, Z”L (Vol. 48, No. 2, Autumn 2016, pp. 6-13), together with my response, ‘Reflections on the Journey of a Lesbian Feminist Queer Rabbi’ (pp. 14-21). ↑

3. http://www.youngstonewall.org.uk/lgbtq-info/legal-equality ↑

4. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/contents/enacted/data.htm ↑

5. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/notes/contents ↑

6. Adrienne Rich’s essay, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence was published as a pamphlet in 1980. ↑

7. The rainbow flag was first designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker of San Francisco. http://pflagdetroit.org/story_of_the_rainbow_flag.htm ↑

8. As of January 2021, 29 countries recognised same-sex marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory ↑

9. http://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal/ . ↑

10. Human Rights Campaign, which works for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, states on its website: ‘TDOR … provides a forum for transgender communities and allies to raise awareness of the threat of violence faced by gender variant people and the persistence of prejudice felt by the transgender community. Communities organize events and activities including town hall style “teach-ins,” photography and poetry exhibits and candlelit vigils. These activities make anti-transgender violence visible to stakeholders like police, the media and elected officials.’ http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/transgender-day-remembrance. ↑

11. http://www.jglg.org.uk/ ↑

12. http://www.bky.org.uk/ ↑

13. https://www.bky.org.uk/rabbi/ ↑

14. Covenant of Love – B’rit Ahavah (Liberal Judaism, 2005). See www.liberaljudaism.org. Also see ‘Marriage by any Other Name’, chapter 8 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism. (David Paul Books, 2012) ↑

15. http://transgenderjews.org.uk/ ↑

16. http://www.rainbowjews.com/ ↑

17. http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑

18. https://www.rainbowpilgrims.com/ ↑

19. Pin’chas, Numbers 27:1-11. ↑

20. Mas’ei, Numbers 36:1-12. ↑

21. The WUPJ was inaugurated at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London in 1926. Claude Montefiore, another founder of Liberal Judaism was the first President of the WUPJ https://wupj.org/about-us/history/ ↑

22. ‘Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today’. Published in the Jewish Quarterly Review, 1899. ↑

23. Balak, Numbers 25: 7b-8. ↑

24. The Book of Judith, is included in the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, but was not included in the canon of the Hebrew Bible. It tells the story of how Judith cut off the head of Holofernes, the Assyrian General and saved her people from oppression ↑

Dearest Friends,

It’s so very kind of you to arrange this Zoom hour with me – in particular, since the ongoing coronavirus crisis and the additional demands it has placed on me in my role as Rabbi has meant that I’ve not been able to attend executive meetings for several months.

I would like to say a few words about why I think Interfaith work is so important.

I don’t know whether I’ve ever told you this but it was an integral part of my five-year postgraduate training as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College in London, and included travelling to Germany twice a year for in-depth and intense eight-day Jewish Christian Muslim conferences.

In my view and on the basis of my experience, there are eight important dimensions to Interfaith encounter, all of which involve active engagement:

1. Listening
2. Sharing
3. Giving
4. Receiving
5. Acknowledging and respecting our differences
6. Caring – both, in the sense of caring for one another, and taking care in how we communicate with one another.
7. Celebrating
8. Learning

Let me say a little bit about what I mean by each of these dimensions of Interfaith encounter.

1. Listening

As we all know, listening is not the same as hearing – which is a physical capacity. Listening means paying attention. It means making space in one’s head to take in the experience of the other; what they are saying about themselves. So many of us have assumptions and projections about the other. Listening involves absorbing and processing what another person has to say about themselves in their own terms.

1. Sharing

When we are engaging with people of other faiths, it’s so important that we don’t just listen, but are also prepared to speak and share our truths, our understandings, our experiences. If were not prepared to share and enable someone to listen to us, then encounter can’t take place. Of course, such sharing requires trust, mutual trust.

1. Giving

Giving is related to sharing, but unlike sharing, which can be motivated by our own needs, giving is usually a response to the needs of others, rather than the need to express ourselves. Giving requires generosity of spirit and a preparedness to forge, maintain and cherish relationships. It is an essential aspect of Interfaith encounter.

1. Receiving

Some people who are prepared to give to the other, find it more difficult to receive from the other. But without the willingness to receive, giving can become a form of condescension. A fundamental component of Interfaith encounter has to be equality. That doesn’t mean that the parties to the encounter are treated equally in society at large. The experiences of someone who is part of majority culture are very different from those of someone who is part of a minority, in particular, a minority that has been subject to persecution and abuse. Nevertheless, for interfaith encounter to be a genuine exchange, we need to consciously meet one another as equals.

1. Acknowledging and respecting our differences

When people of different faiths meet, there is often a powerful urge to look beyond our differences and find common ground. We want to look at the other and say, ’how wonderful, we are really the same’. Of course, it’s true. Thinking in religious terms, as we read in Genesis chapter 1 (:27), each human being is an image of God, and so we are essentially, the same. But our urge to look for similarities can often overlook important differences. Often, what we are doing is trying to find ourselves in the other; a reflection of ourselves, so the other feels less other, less alien. But when we do this, we are not so much encountering the other as trying to bolster up your own sense of ourselves. Perhaps the most important thing I have learnt from 37 years of interfaith work is to value the differences between us. The differences that make us who we are as Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Pagans, and so on – and all the denominations within each faith or religious grouping. Interfaith encounter is successful when it enables us to acknowledge our differences and respect our differences while recognising our common humanity.

1. Caring – both, in the sense of caring for one another, and taking care in how we communicate with one another

Caring for one another is so essential to interfaith encounter. If we don’t care one another then we won’t care to do the work of listening, sharing, giving, receiving, and acknowledging and respecting our differences. One of the loveliest things about the Brighton and Hove Interfaith Contact Group is the way that it has fostered a spirit of caring amongst those who participate in its activities; caring that manifests itself in a readiness to offer support and be there for one another. The other aspect of caring that is equally important and is actually fundamental to our capacity to care for one another is taking care in how we communicate with one another. Taking care in this way, encompasses the language we use, the way in which we refer to each other’s religions and faiths, and the way in which we talk about our own. For example, speaking from my own personal experience, when someone who is a Christian, talks to me about the ‘Old Testament’ rather than the ‘Hebrew Bible’ or the ‘Hebrew Scriptures’, however friendly they are to me, they demonstrate a lack of care.

1. Celebrating

When we can celebrate together, celebrate what we share and also celebrate our differences, then we know that we are engaged in a real encounter. The annual Interfaith service and other events that have been organised by the IFCG over the years are good examples of celebrating together.

1. Learning

People sometimes think about interfaith encounter as a quest for ‘understanding’. Of course, we may grow to understand one another, but that is an outcome of the work we do together. Interfaith work involves learning about one another. I’ve used the word ‘work’ a few times. In Hebrew, sacred work is spoken of in the language of service, Avodah. Interfaith encounter requires work; sacred service; avodah; service to one another, and ultimately, service to the Eternal that is within and beyond us.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Interfaith Contact group gathering via Zoom, 16 February 2021 – 5^th Adar 5781

Friends, thank you for inviting me here this evening on the occasion of your AGM, which is taking place during Interfaith Week. It’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you.

There are so many urgent issues to address. In the immediate future, Brexit still unresolved, we face a General Election in four weeks’ time. Meanwhile, the global refugee crisis continues, many countries around the world are in turmoil, and as winter approaches, we are reminded that homelessness remains a critical problem in Britain. But as forests burn out of control in California and New South Wales, and homes and fields are filled with floodwater in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands, we are all aware that we face an even greater and more urgent matter: the threat of environmental catastrophe. And so, I’ve chosen to speak this evening about Jewish teaching on the environment with the understanding that people and peoples of all faiths and none are challenged to participate in the great task of repairing the world and preventing irreversible climate change.

I would like to begin by reading you a poem by the contemporary Jewish poet, Danny Siegel:^[1]

Along with the endangered owls

And the snow leopards at risk of extinction

And the dying colours of so many species of butterfly,

Add this: the gold-winged human soul.

We have forgotten who we are.

We have become estranged from the movements of the earth.

We have turned our backs on the cycles of life.

We have sought only our own security.

We have exploited simply for our own ends.

We have distorted our knowledge.

We have abused our power.

Now the land is barren

And the waters are poisoned

And the air is polluted.

Now forests are dying

And the creatures are disappearing

And humans are despairing.

We ask forgiveness.

We ask for the gift of remembering.

We ask for the strength to change.

Danny Siegel’s poem paints a disturbing picture that I’m sure we all recognise. We know that human beings are responsible for the state the planet is in – and we also know that we are also responsible for doing something about it. The Jewish approach to this responsibility begins with the Hebrew Bible – which is also part of the Christian Scriptures – where we encounter a contradictory double-message about what it is to be human. On the one hand, there is the six-day hierarchical account in Genesis chapter 1, with humanity at the pinnacle of creation, empowered to dominate all the other creatures of the earth. On the other hand, in the second creation story, absolute mastery gives way to stewardship and guardianship.

So, we read in Genesis chapter 1, verses 26-28:

God said, ‘Let us make a human [adam] in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, and over the animals, and over all that creeps upon the earth.’ / So, God created the human [ha-adam] in the Divine image, creating them in the image of God [b’tzelem Elohim], creating them male and female. / God blessed them and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, and over every animal that creeps on the earth.’

And then in Genesis chapter 2, verses 7 and 15:

The Eternal God formed the human [ha-adam] – dust from the ground [‘afar min-ha-adamah] – and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life [nishmat chayyim], so the human became a living being [nefesh chayyah] / ………. The Eternal God took the human [ha-adam], placing (the human) in the garden of Eden to serve it and to keep it [l’ovdah u’l’shomrah].’

The evidence of the extent to which human beings assume we have a licence to dominate is everywhere – and it threatens the future of the planet. So, Jews and Christians, in particular, who have inherited theses sacred texts, have a duty to promote the alternative version of human beings as guardians, responsible for serving and keeping the earth – that is, for maintaining, guarding and protecting it.

Interestingly, rabbinic teachings – which were first developed in the centuries that followed the destruction of the last Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE – also express the understanding that human beings have been tasked by God with a special role as guardians of the earth.^[2] In his commentary on Psalm 115, verse 6 – ‘The heavens belong to the Eternal One, but God has given the earth to humankind’ – the 12^th century mediaeval Spanish biblical commentator, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, wrote:^[3]

This means that we are like God’s stewards on earth, charged to exercise responsibility in God’s name for all that exists.

So, what happens if we don’t undertake this responsibility? In a 6^th to 8^th century collection of midrashim – rabbinic commentary – we find this sobering passage:^[4]

After creating the first human, the Holy One Who is Blessed, took them round all the trees of the garden, and said to them: ‘See how lovely and excellent My works are; I have created them all for you. Take care not to spoil and destroy My world, for if you spoil it there will be no one to repair it after you.’

In Jewish teaching, the planting of trees represents a key way in which human beings can exercise their responsibility as guardians of the earth. We read in a 3^rd century collection of rabbinic wisdom:^[5]

If you hold a sapling, ready for planting, in your hand, and they tell you, ‘The Messiah has come!’, Go ahead and plant the sapling, and then go to greet the Messiah.

For the early rabbis, the coming of the Messiah would herald in the future time of peace. This teaching makes it clear that, ultimately, the responsibility for creating the future lies in our hands here and now. A story in a 5^th to 7^th century collection of midrashim (rabbinic commentary), underlines the imperative of tree-planting for the sake of tomorrow:^[6]

Once, when the Roman Emperor Hadrian was walking along one of the paths that lead to Tiberius, he saw an old man digging trenches to plant saplings of fig trees. ‘How old are you?’ The Emperor asked him, and he answered; ‘A hundred years.’ ‘You are a hundred years old’, said Hadrian, ‘yet you are digging trenches to plant saplings of fig trees! Do you ever hope to eat of them?’ Then the old man replied: ‘If I’m worthy I shall eat; but even if not – as my ancestors worked for my benefit, so I will work for the benefit of my children.

The importance of tree-planting for the early rabbis is also reflected in halakhah, Jewish law. The very first paragraph of the tractate Rosh Ha-Shanah in the Mishnah^[7] – the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200 CE – mentions the New Year for Trees (Rosh Ha-Shanah L’Ilanot) on Tu Bishvat (the 15^th of the Hebrew month of Sh’vat), which falls in the late winter – that is, any time between mid-January and the second week of February .^[8]

The New Year for Trees is not just a date for acknowledging the life of trees. Every year, on Tu Bishvat, trees are planted in Jewish communities around the world – not least, in Israel. Of course, the experience of planting trees in Britain in late winter is rather different from the experience of planting trees in the land on the eastern seaboard of Mediterranean. I’ve had experience of both. I can recall winters in this country, when we’ve had to boil kettles to unfreeze the ground in order to plant a tree. I can also recall being on a kibbutz in the Western Galilee in 1979, where we planted trees on Tu Bishvat in glorious warm sunshine.

So, Jewish teaching, both biblical and rabbinic, is very clear about our responsibility to care for the world, and we even have a special annual tree-planting festival. There can be no doubt: We must plant trees! A couple of months ago, one of my God-Sons, Elliot Cohen-Gold, contacted me, asking me to support a new project he had initiated with his older brother, Aaron, to plant one million trees by Tu Bishvat, which will coincide this Jewish year with 9^th February 2020.^[9]

Alongside positive action like tree-planting, rabbinic teaching also includes the principle bal tashchit, which is Aramaic for ‘do not destroy or waste’, and developed from a Biblical prohibition found in Deuteronomy chapter 20 (:19) against cutting down fruit-bearing trees during war-time.

The rabbinic sages expanded the prohibition bal tashchit to include the careless destruction of trees at any time and all unnecessary destruction or waste. And so, we read in the Talmud – the compendium of rabbinic teaching edited around the year 500 in Babylonia, which includes, both, the Mishnah and the commentary on the Mishnah by later generations of rabbis (Kiddushin 32a):^[10]

Whoever breaks vessels, or tears garments, or destroys a building, or clogs, or a well, or does away with food in a destructive manner violates the negative mitzvah (commandment) – of bal tashchit (do not waste or destroy).

The Talmud contains a number of stories and rules that relate to the prohibition of bal tashchit.^[11] In one, it is related concerning a sage called Rav Chisda (Bava Kama 91b), that whenever he had to walk between thorns and thistles, he would lift up his garment and rip his skin rather than his clothing, since nature would cure his skin but not his clothes. This might seem to us an extreme response on the part of an individual determined to avoid damage to their clothing. But in the more sober context of the custom of k’ri’ah, tearing an item of clothing in mourning, the principle of bal tashchit is also applied. The Talmud teaches (Bava Kama 91b) that tearing silk garments when performing k’ri’ah violates the prohibition unless the tear is in the seam.

The prohibition of bal tashchit also extends to taking care to ensure energy efficiency. It is recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 67b) that a sage called Mar Zutra taught that whoever covers an oil lamp or who uncovers a paraffin lamp transgresses bal tashchit since these acts cause the lamp to burn too quickly – and hence, waste energy.

Clearly, the principle of bal tashchit is very relevant to the contemporary challenge of preventing irreversible climate change. In January 2018, inspired by the development of Eco Church, a Christian response to the task of taking responsibility for caring for the planet, Eco Synagogue was launched with the aim of changing the relationship of synagogues with the environment.^[12] I’m delighted to say that at the festival of Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, on June 8^th/9^th, with our all-night programme on ‘climate change and our responsibility to repair the world’, my congregation, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, began the process of becoming an Eco Synagogue.

Eco Churches and Eco Synagogues – and Eco Mosques and Temples – have an important role to play in efforts to combat climate change. Jews and Christians and members of other faith groups are also participating in a global initiative that has the potential to transform how we live on this planet and how we connect with one another by generating a ‘sharing economy’ as an alternative to an economic system rooted in excessive consumption and waste. As it happens one of the members of my congregation, Benita Matofska, is a major champion of the sharing economy and for the past couple of years, she has travelled all over the world meeting with people engaged in sharing projects. What Benita discovered is recorded in her wonderful book of testimonies and photographs, entirely made from recyclable materials, Generation Share.^[13] Importantly, the proceeds of the sales of the book are going to fund an amazing sharing project in a slum in Mumbai, India, where a young teenage ‘sharer’ has started a school for girls in her one-room home. A sharing economy is exactly that. Clothes can be shared – we hosted our first clothes-sharing event at the synagogue in the past year. Cars can be shared – a way of dramatically reducing the number of cars on the road and their toxic emissions. Just think of all those electrical items that you only use once or twice a week – hoovers, lawnmowers – they can all be shared between neighbours. And then, imagine what a difference sharing rather than, consuming and discarding could make to the planet.

Jewish teaching on the environment begins and ends with our unique responsibility as human beings amongst all God’s creatures for serving and guarding the Earth, which is our only home. Ultimately, Jewish teaching conveys a message of hope. We have done so much damage to the world in our drive to dominate and control, but we have the capacity to repair that damage. And now, the need to engage in the work of repair has become urgent. We all know this. I’m sure we would all say with Danny Siegel in the closing anguished words of his poem: ‘We ask forgiveness. / We ask for the gift of remembering. / We ask for the strength to change’. May we all rise to the challenge.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Crawley Interfaith Network AGM, 13^th November 2019

1. Danny Siegel, A Hearing Heart, Town House Press, 1992, p. 54 (included in Siddur Lev Chadash, the Sabbath, Festival and Daily Prayer Book of Liberal Judaism, 1995, p. 168). ↑

2. The following four texts I quote here are included in the themed sections on ‘Conservation’ and ‘Tu Bishvat’ in Siddur Lev Chadash, Liberal Judaism, 1995, pp. 165-168 and pp. 402-405. ↑

3. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164, Spain). ↑

4. Kohelet Rabbah 7:13. Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes. ↑

5. Avot d’Rabbi Natan version B, chapter 31 (3^rd century CE). This text is similar to Pirkei Avot, the ‘Chapters of the Sages’ appended to the Mishnah (3^rd century CE). ↑

6. Va-yikra Rabbah 25:5. Commentary on the book of Leviticus. ↑

7. Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1 (3^rd century CE). ↑

8. The passage references a debate between the Schools of Shammai and Hillel about the actual date of the New Year for Trees. According to the School of Shammai, it should it be the 1^st of Sh’vat. The School of Hillel preferred the 15^th. As with many debates recorded in the Mishnah, the ruling of Hillel prevailed – hence: Tu Bishvat; the 15^th day of the month of Sh’vat. The other ‘New Years’ mentioned include the new year for the festivals commencing with the first month of the Jewish year, Nisan in the spring, and the New Year for years on the first day of Tishri in the autumn. ↑

9. Remember to use Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees, when searching on the Internet.

   https://www.classy.org/team/250434 ↑

10. There are two editions of the Talmud. The earlier and shorter one known as the ‘Jerusalem Talmud’ was completed under Roman occupation around the year 400 CE. The longer one that runs to 70 volumes is known as the ‘Babylonian Talmud’ and was completed in Babylonia (present-day Iraq) around 500 CE. All references to ‘the Talmud’ are to the Babylonian version, unless otherwise stated. References refer to the tractate and page. Each page has an ‘a’ side and a ‘b’ side – hence: Kiddushin 32a. ↑

11. The teachings I’m referring to here are included in an article on bal tashchit in http://www.reformjudaism.org.uk/bal-tashchit/ ↑

12. https://ecosynagogue.org/ ↑

13. https://www.thepeoplewhoshare.com/generation-share

    Generation Share. The changemakers building the Sharing Economy by Benita Matofska, with photographs by Sophie Sheinwald. Policy Press, University of Bristol and University of Chicago Press, 2019. ↑

ALL-NIGHT CHEESECAKE & REFRESHMENTS STUDY MARATHON

Led by Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

CLIMATE CHANGE

& OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPAIR THE WORLD

Saturday 8^th (PM) – Sunday 9^th (AM) June 2019

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue, 6 Lansdowne Road, BN3 1FF

Start: 8 PM (last entry: 10 PM). Finish: 5.30 AM on the beach

(Participants will be free to leave at any time during the night)

PLEASE BRING PHOTO ID IF YOU ARE VISITING FOR THE FIRST TIME

PRECEDED by 6-8pm MUSICAL HAVDALAH (end of Shabbat-Sabbath)

Led by Polina Shepherd and other Klezmer South teachers plus members

PROGRAMME

8pm EREV (Eve) SHAVUOT Service w/ PLANT OFFERINGS & PLANT QUIZ

9.15pm WHAT ARE THE ISSUES? PANEL DISCUSSION with Rabbi Jeffrey Newman, Jews for Climate Action & Eco Synagogue, Phélim Mac Cafferty, Green Party Councillor for Brunswick and Adelaide & Convenor of the Green Group of Councillors, B&H City Council, Benita Matofska, Global Sharing Economy expert, + a Speaker from the Permaculture Trust (TBC)

10.45pm REFRESHMENTS WITH VEGAN CHEESECAKE

11.00pm FILM: ‘THE AGE OF AGE OF STUPID REVISITED: WHAT’S CHANGED ON CLIMATE CHANGE’ (11 mins)

11.15pm INTERACTIVE CLIMATE GAME with Claire Bessel & Mats Kober

12.45am CHOICE OF ACTIVITIES:

• VEGAN CHEESECAKE MAKING with Claire Bessel
• CREATIVE WRITING with Claudia Gould

1.45am JEWISH TEACHING ON CARING FOR THE WORLD with Rabbi Elli

2.45am MAKING IT PERSONAL: SHARING & SUPPORTING ONE ANOTHER TO TAKE STEPS TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY with Benita Matofska*

3.45am FILM: THE RACE IS ON: SECRETS & SOLUTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE (40 mins)

4.30am CLEARING UP – the ecological way….

5.00am SHACHARIT (Morning) service on the beach opp. Lansdowne Place

We want to wish all of our candidates well… It is not an easy time to be involved in public life… Is it any wonder that women are still underrepresented in local and national government given the abuse that comes with putting your head above the parapet. We want to thank Councillor Yates, Councillor Mac Cafferty and Councillor Junio for standing for election, for your commitment to being involved in public life. We too want to be involved in public life. We will sometimes do this in a way that will challenge our political leaders but we will always be respectful – and at a time when politics has become divisive and unkind, we will aim to bring people together and act with kindness towards one another.

Friends: We have gathered here this evening in good faith on the understanding that by working together as citizens of our city, and working with those who represent us, we can achieve our goals. This Assembly is not about ‘us’ and ‘them’; it is about all of us, including, the councillors here this evening. We are all citizens of Brighton and Hove and we all want the best for our city and for everyone who lives here.

In the Bible, Psalm 133 begins with the words usually translated as: ‘How good it is and how pleasant when brothers dwell together in unity.’ In Hebrew, the root meaning for ‘brothers’ [achim] is ‘those who belong to one another.’ We belong to one another as citizens of Brighton and Hove; as human beings who share responsibility for the planet, for this island that we inhabit, for this city in which we live and work, for one another. Another key phrase in this verse also has a deeper resonance in the Hebrew: the root meaning of ‘together in unity’ [gam yachad] is ‘all as one’. Here we are: a collection of individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, life situations, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, cultures and ethnicities, who dwell in this particular place. We can dwell separately in our microworlds and pass each other by, or, celebrating all our differences, we can all dwell together as one for a shared purpose and for the common good. This evening we have chosen to dwell together as one and we have already discovered ‘how good it is and how pleasant’. Inspired by this special Assembly, what we need to do now is to continue to work together on the campaigns we have identified with focused, unrelenting determination to make Brighton and Hove a city that does justice to all our lives.

Rabbi Elli Sarah Tikvah Sarah, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

[I wrote this paper last year. I’m posting it again in the context of the recent re-emergence of the issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party – ETS]

Good evening everyone and thank you for inviting me to participate in this meeting. I would like to contribute to our discussion about how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by inviting us to think about how we might move away from a binary approach to the issues. In the interests of the Palestinians, who have been subjected to occupation for the past 50 years, all those who want a just resolution to the conflict are challenged to acknowledge that such a resolution will only be achieved on the basis of justice, peace and security for both peoples.

In the interests of avoiding binary conceptions, I would like to start by reminding us of the variety of Jewish responses to the conditions of Jewish existence in the late 19^th century, when Zionism emerged as a political movement in Europe in response to anti-Semitism. For Theodore Herzl and other exponents of political Zionism, the establishment of a Jewish state was the only solution to the persistence of anti-Jewish persecution in the diaspora.^[1] Nevertheless, there were at that time three major alternative approaches:

Many orthodox groups remained committed to life in the Diaspora and opposed Zionism because as they saw it, the redemption of Zion was dependent on the Divine will and the coming of the Messiah.

Jewish Socialism, as articulated by the Bund – shorthand for the General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia – rejected Jewish nationalism in favour of international socialism.

Progressive Judaism argued that the people of Israel best fulfils the prophetic vision of being ‘a light unto the nations’^[2] by living amongst the nations.^[3]

So, Jews spoke with many voices – and we continue to do so. While Jewish Socialism’s opposition to Jewish nationalism has remained fairly constant since the late 19^th century, approaches within Orthodox and Progressive Judaism have become more diversified – for the most part in response to the 1967 Six Day War. And so, the past 50 years has seen ultra-Zionist religious zealots holding sway among the West Bank settlers, and the development of Progressive Zionism, which at one end of the spectrum is reluctant to publicly criticise Israeli policy, and at the other, is actively involved in challenging the occupation and campaigning for a two-state solution.

Jewish life is nothing if not extremely complex! That complexity has its roots in complex, multifaceted Jewish experience. It also has its roots in Jewish teaching. Jewish teaching is multi-vocal. Look at a page of the Mikra’ot G’dolot, the ‘great commentaries’ on the Hebrew Bible, or a page of the Babylonian Talmud, and you will find a host of interpretations and perspectives. Literalism and fundamentalism are anathema to Jewish teaching. As the saying goes, two Jews, three opinions. This has always been the way of Jewish life.

And so, there are many Zionisms, just as there are many expressions of Judaism and Jewish identity. Varieties of Zionism within ‘Zionism’, with different goals and different approaches to the Palestinians.

But before I say more about that, I would like to approach the question of how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by acknowledging an issue that precedes the Left’s exclusive presentation of Zionism as colonialism; an issue rooted in Christian anti-Semitism and in Christendom – that is, Christianity wedded to imperial power, which was the outcome of Roman Emperor Constantine converting to Christianity in the early 300s CE.^[4] Seen through the lens of historic Christian supremacist triumphalism, the Christian case against Judaism has been presented by a set of binary oppositions: Jewish law versus Christian love; Jewish justice versus Christian mercy; Jewish particularism versus Christian universalism. In reality, however, Jewish teaching embraces law and love, justice and mercy, particularism and universalism: a particular piece of land and the whole world. And so, just as the Jewish people is part of humanity, the particular bond between the Jewish people and the land forms an integral part of the Torah, of the unique history of the Jewish people and of Jewish identity for many Jews.^[5] Jews are a people of the world and a people connected to a particular land. Both. Contrary to popular myth, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE by the Romans, Jews continued to live in the land, where the rabbis reconstructed Jewish life and teaching for a post-Temple era, culminating in the production of the Jerusalem Talmud, which was edited around the year 400.^[6] Moreover, a remnant continued to live there, mostly in Jerusalem, during the succeeding centuries. Meanwhile, vibrant Jewish life continued in other centres of Jewish existence – in particular in Babylon, present-day Iraq, where the Babylonian Talmud was edited around the year 500. Down the centuries, Jews have lived in practically every corner of the earth, including in the land.

The Left’s demonisation of Israel reflects, both, the failure to acknowledge the roots of Zionism in Jewish experience, and the failure to acknowledge the complex diversity of Jewish points of view and the diversity of Jewish life.

Now I would like to say something more about plural Zionisms, which are an expression of this diversity. The first Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897. In 1925, largely in response to the Arab riots of 1921, Vladimir Jabotinsky established the Revisionist movement. An open split occurred at the 14^th Zionist Congress in August 1925 between Jabotinsky’s confrontational approach towards the Arab inhabitants of the land, and the approach represented by Chaim Weitzman and others. At the Congress, Chaim Weizmann declared: ^[7]

In true friendship and partnership with the Arabs we must open the Near East to Jewish enterprise… Palestine must be built in such a way that legitimate Arab interests are not impinged upon in the slightest…- we must take Palestine as it is, with its sands and stones, Arabs and Jews as they are. That is our work. Anything else would be deception… We shall rise or fall by our work alone.

Another delegate at the Congress, Arthur Ruppin, expressed the need to acknowledge the Arab inhabitants of the land and work in partnership with them in even stronger terms:^[8]

… there is the possibility… to establish in Palestine a community where both nations, with no ruling advantage to the one, nor oppression of the other, shall work shoulder to shoulder in full equality of rights towards the economic and cultural development of the country.

Arthur Ruppin became a founder member of Brit Shalom, ‘Covenant of Peace’, an organisation with a binational approach to Zionism, which held its first meeting in his house in mid-November 1925. Martin Buber, Robert Weltsch, Hans Kohn and Hugo Bergmann were also founder members. The clearest articulation of Brit Shalom’s form of Zionism is in the ‘open letter’ that Martin Buber wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939 in response to Mahatma Gandhi arguing that, and I quote, ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs’. Let me quote from the letter. Buber wrote:^[9]

I belong to a group of people who from the time Britain conquered Palestine have not ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab.

By a genuine peace we inferred and still infer that both peoples together should develop the land without the one imposing its will on the other…. We considered it a fundamental point that in this case two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…

… We considered and still consider it our duty to understand and to honor the claim which is opposed to ours and to endeavor to reconcile both claims.

The continuing conflict, which included Arab riots in 1929 and 1936, marginalised the stance taken by Brit Shalom. Nevertheless it’s binational state platform was adopted by Mapam, the leftist United Workers Party in the 1940s, and in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the emergence of the Peace Now movement, once again brought different conceptions of Zionism to the fore, and in the years that followed there has been proliferation of groups concerned with working together with the Palestinians towards coexistence.

Some years ago, Jews for Justice for Palestinians asked me for a quotation from Jewish teaching to include in JfJfP literature. I chose this verse from the parashah – Torah portion – Shof’tim, Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 20: Tzedek, tzedk tirdof – ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’ Pithy and powerful this statement says so much in three short Hebrew words. In Hebrew syntax, the verb usually comes first. Here, the word ‘justice’ precedes the verb, and repeated for further emphasis, teaches that it is impossible to pursue justice for one side without pursuing justice for the other. The choice of verb, however, is equally important: tirdof – ‘you shall pursue’. Justice is so hard to achieve, we have to go after it. At the same time, we have to recognise that acknowledging, as Buber puts it, that ‘two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…’, securing a just resolution to the conflict – either in the form of two states or one – will involve compromises on both sides in order to achieve peaceful coexistence.

In view of a complex reality in which there are many Zionisms, but one ongoing persistent problem, namely, the occupation and the continuing dispossession of the Palestinians, the task must be to pursue – to borrow that expression from the Torah – a just resolution of the conflict. In place of the overwhelming predominance of non-constructive anti-Zionist rhetoric and demonisation of Israel, what is needed now, as Sam Bahour and Tony Klug argue, is that, either, the occupation is dismantled, so that an independent State of Palestine can be established, or, the lands occupied by Israel are incorporated into Israel and equal citizenship rights granted to the Palestinians.^[10]

Finally, in my article recently published in the American Jewish journal, Tikkun, in the special issue, ‘Israel’s Occupation at 50’, taking as my starting point that anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitic, I offer three criteria for identifying an anti-Zionist position as anti-Semitic:^[11]

First: the unilateral rejection of Jewish nationalism alone among the nationalisms of the world, and the targeting of Zionism for special condemnation.

Second: this exclusive preoccupation with Israel and demonisation of the Jewish state becoming enmeshed with historic anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power.

Third: the presentation of Zionism as a form of European colonialism without any understanding or recognition of how the Zionist movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was a response to the rise of a new malevolent form of racist anti-Semitism in Europe.

For the Left to engage in a new kind of conversation about Israel/Palestine, one that does not get enmeshed in anti-Semitic tropes, a starting point would be recognition of the conditions of Jewish life in which political Zionism emerged.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Contribution to panel discussion

(meeting organised by Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Independent Jewish Voices and the Jewish Socialist Group, 28.06.17)

1. See Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), first published in 1896, a year before the inaugural meeting of the Zionist Congress in Basle. ↑
2. Isaiah 47:6. ↑
3. The non-Zionist stance of early Progressive Judaism is expressed, for example, in paragraph 5 of ‘The Pittsburgh Platform’ of 1885: ‘We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.’ http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/platforms/declaration-principles/ ↑
4. Emperor Constantine reigned from 306-337 CE. ↑
5. From the moment that Abraham and Sarah set off on a journey to a land that the Eternal promised to ‘show’ them (Genesis 12:1) until the time when their descendants completed their journey through the wilderness and camped on the eastern border of the Jordan in readiness to cross over into the land (Numbers 36:13), the land frames the Torah narrative. ↑
6. The work of the first generations of rabbis, the tanna’im, ‘teachers’ led to the creation of the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200 CE. ↑
7. Protocols of Fourteenth Zionist Congress, pp 328-329, translated by Hagit Lavsky, and cited in Lavsky, Hagit, German Zionists and the Emergence of Brit Shalom, translated from the Hebrew, reprinted in Reinharz, Jehuda and Shapira, Anita eds. Essential Papers on Zionism, New York University Press, 1996, pp. 664. ↑
8. Ibid. cited in Lavsky, p. 664. ↑

9. From: Martin Buber’s ‘Open Letter’ to Gandhi Regarding Palestine (February 24, 1939) in Arthur Hertzberg, ed.,The Zionist Idea. (Jewish Publications Society, 1997), pp. 463-464.

   ↑

10. See: ‘Israel Can’t Have It Both Ways. Recognize Palestine or Grant Equal Rights’ by Sam Bahour and Tony Klug, Tikkun, October 26, 2015 http://tikkun.dukejournals.org/content/30/4/26.full See also: ‘A Never Ending Occupation: The End of Hope?’ by Tony Klug, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1692 and ‘After 50 Years: Save Israel, Stop the Occupation’ by Izhak Schnell and Daniel Bar-Tal, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1690 ↑
11. ‘When anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism and Zionism becomes anti-Palestinian’, Tikkun, Volume 32, No., 2, Spring 2017, pp. 59-62. ↑

It’s February: the shortest month of the year and the last month of winter, reminding us that spring is just around the corner. So, a time for looking forwards. This year, February has also been a moment for looking backwards 100 years to 6^th February 1918 and the Representation of the People Act, which gave women the right to vote to vote for the first time^[1] – although it took another ten years before there was full equality.^[2]

In recent years, February has also been marked as LGBT History Month.^[3] Many people regard the existence of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people as a modern phenomenon; the product of the more permissive society that emerged in the 1960s. LGBT History Month reminds us that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people have a long history – as long, indeed, as the history of the human species – it’s just that in many places and for long periods of time, LGBT people have been forced to live their lives in hiding. Of course, that is still the case in many countries around the world today.

At the Brighton Museum, there are currently two exhibitions of British artists that remind us of this history. The paintings and sculpture of Glyn Philpot, who lived from 1884 to 1937, explore the artist’s life and his relationships.^[4] The display of the life and work of Gluck, who was born Hannah Gluckstein in 1895, and who died in 1978, reveals how a Jewish lesbian became ‘a trailblazer of genderfluidity’ with her men’s clothing and short hair.^[5]

Gluck died forty years ago, the same year that the rainbow flag was first adopted as a symbol of LGBT life.^[6] The rainbow flag also reminds us that LGBT people are now and have always been people of all colours, ethnicities, cultures and religions. LGBT people are not a race apart, but rather, part of the glorious, rich fabric that is the human race. This LGBT History Month, may all of us, regardless of our sexuality or gender, celebrate the wondrous diversity of human existence.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

1. https://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/1918-rep-people-act.pdf ↑
2. http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/keydates/ ↑
3. http://lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/ ↑
4. https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/brighton/exhibitions-displays/glyn-philpot/ ↑
5. https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/brighton/exhibitions-displays/gluck-art-identity/ ↑
6. http://www.stop-homophobia.com/rainbow-flag-history ↑

STANDING UP FOR HUMAN RIGHTS – THIS MONTH, December 2016

This year Human Rights Day on 10 December coincides with Shabbat – a Shabbat that will be doubly special for us here at BHPS because we will be celebrating the Bat Mitzvah of one of our young people, Eve Murphy. Human Rights Day commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1950, the Assembly passed resolution 423 (V), inviting all States and interested organisations to observe 10 December each year as Human Rights Day. (See: http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/ ). In recent years, across the Jewish community, the Shabbat nearest to Human Rights Day has been designated as ‘Human Rights Shabbat.’

Human Rights Day 2016 ‘calls on everyone to stand up for someone’s rights!’ The UN.org page on Human Rights continues: ‘Many of us are fearful about the way the world is heading. Disrespect for basic human rights continues to be wide-spread in all parts of the globe. Extremist movements subject people to horrific violence. Messages of intolerance and hatred prey on our fears. Humane values are under attack. We must reaffirm our common humanity. Wherever we are, we can make a real difference. In the street, in school, at work, in public transport; in the voting booth, on social media… It starts with each of us. Step forward and defend the rights of a refugee or migrant, a person with disabilities, an LGBT person, a woman, a child, indigenous peoples, a minority group, or anyone else at risk of discrimination or violence.’ If you use Twitter, follow: #Standup4Rights #HumanRightsDay

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a call to humanity. Drafted and ratified in response to the horrors of the Sho’ah, and the violent conflict unleashed during the Second World War, significantly, Jews played a major part in its formulation. The Jewish charity, René Cassin (http://www.renecassin.org/) which ‘works to promote and protect universal human rights, drawing on Jewish experience and values’, takes its inspiration from René Cassin, the French-Jewish jurist, law professor and judge, who co-drafted the Universal Declaration. A French delegate to the League of Nations from 1924 to 1938, during the war, René Cassin was delegate to the UN Commission on Inquiry into War Crimes (1943-1945). After the UN declaration was adopted, he helped to establish the Consultative Council of Jewish Organisations – dedicated to providing encouragement from a Jewish perspective to the newly founded UN human rights system. He was also president of the Hague Court of Arbitration from 1950-1960. On being informed that he would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968, René Cassin replied: “I am very happy…. I would be happier if there were a little more justice in the world”. The René Cassin charity declares: ‘Our mission is to bring “a little more justice” to the world in René Cassin’s name’ (http://www.renecassin.org/who-we-are/history/)

For a fascinating in-depth exploration of the development of human rights legislation, and the challenges to human rights today, I recommend everyone reads a book published in 2015 to mark the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta: A Magna Carta for all humanity: homing in on human rights (Routledge, Abingdon – ISBN 9780415423748). The author is Professor Francesca Klug, one of the principal architects of the UK Human Rights Act – and, incidentally, my dear cousin.

Towards the end of December we will celebrate the festival of Chanukkah. When we recall the struggle of the Maccabees against oppression and tyranny in the second century BCE, let us remember all those subjected to oppression and tyranny across the world today. As we light the Chanukkiyyah each night, and watch the flames accumulate, may we resolve ‘to stand up for someone’s rights!’ and to do what we can to kindle the light of hope in the hearts of those suffering discrimination, persecution and violence. Chanukkah Samei’ach! Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah