Articles

Dearest Rabbi Elli,

It is such a privilege for all of us to be here, celebrating your simcha – thank you for providing such a lavish and lovely Kiddush for us all.  After 14 years of enjoying the generosity of your spirit and compassion at all of our important life moments; it such a pleasure for all of us to help you celebrate your very proud and significant achievement of 25 years in the rabbinate.

Everyone spoke so eloquently about your many, many outstanding qualities and accomplishments, it is difficult to add to them.  As we have already heard, you are and have been an exceptional Rabbi on every level.

But as a congregant, I would like draw attention to just one of the reasons why we think you are such a great Rabbi!

Your passionate pursuit to make Judaism accessible to anyone interested in it has been remarkable and inspiring.  You have created a synagogue and a congregation that truly accepts and welcomes everyone.  A synagogue that we are all truly proud to be part of.  Regardless of how someone chooses to express their Judaism, you have ensured they are welcome here, that their form of expression is completely valid and is to be celebrated.  As a consequence, our membership, friendships and profile continue to grow and we are a place for anyone to come to, and learn and participate in whatever aspects of our synagogue life they choose, without being judged whether or not one chooses to keep to kosher, to attend a service or attain some arbitrary level of knowledge or proficiency in Hebrew – you have genuinely created a sanctuary for people to simply come and be Jewish or Jew-ish and live Jewishly in our own way.

Hand in hand with this approach to making Judaism so accessible, has been your absolute resolve on being inclusive in every regard.  We hear testimonial after testimonial about how welcome and comfortable people feel engaging with us – often they tell of experiences at other synagogues where they felt excluded, inferior or marginalised because they didn’t ‘fit in’, weren’t Jewish enough or didn’t practice Judaism in the ‘right way’.  So many people tell of the barriers they have encountered trying explore their connection to Judaism.

This simply doesn’t happen at BHPS because of you, what you stand for and the values you have instilled in us.

I feel this alone, makes you a very rare and very special Rabbi, and in my humble opinion, the BEST Rabbi I have known.  This is such an important contribution that you make to Judaism and its future.  Leo Baeck made a profound decision for Judaism 25 years ago, by allowing you to enter the Rabbinate and you have affirmed the wisdom of that decision throughout your Rabbinate.  All of us at BHPS are eternally grateful Leo Baeck had that wisdom.

We would like to present this book to you, with the sentiments each of us have written about how much you mean to us and why we think you are such an exceptional Rabbi.

I would also like to present you with a gift of silver, to mark this very special occasion – this is an antique dish made in 1901 by Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company which held the Royal Warrant and later became Garrod’s, The Crown Jeweller.

And it has this inscription:

For our beloved

RABBI ELIZABETH TIKVAH SARAH

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

In commemoration of the

25^th Anniversary of your Ordination

9 July 1989 to 9 July 2014

6 Tammuz 5749 to 11 Tammuz 5774

from your adoring Congregation

Peter Bennett Speck

Out-going Chair

Elli has been a rabbi for twenty five years! How fantastic! Mazel Tov. Well done.

But it so nearly didn’t happen. 30 years ago, when Elli entered Leo Baeck College, discrimination and prejudice against women, but more especially against lesbian and gay people was rife. Elli had to fight to stake her claim to be part of Jewish life at all, yet alone the rabbinate.

Luckily she was not alone. Sheila Shulman and she were the first lesbians to go through the rabbinic training programme together at Leo Baeck College. Before that, there was only one gay Rabbi in Britain: the wonderful Lionel Blue but he was ordained at a time when being gay was a criminal offence so he had no option but to remain very private. Sheila and Elli were out and the Establishment had to make a decision: were they going to include them or not. Many voices were doubtful. What a struggle they had and how unfairly they were treated.

Unlike their peers, they were given two psychological assessments apiece, not one, and unlike their peers who were on probation for their first year only, Elli and Sheila were put on probation for the entire five years of their training. They were told that we could be asked to leave at any time if there was a ‘problem’. When they asked about what sort of ‘problem’, they were told that no one knew because the situation was ‘unprecedented’. It is hard for us to appreciate the level of pressure this put on both of them, let alone the incredible discrimination, this represented.

They had to be twice as good to be given half the chance.  Both of them – of course – did brilliantly – both academically and vocationally – and there were some wonderful rabbis and laypeople, who supported them. Nevertheless, even after receiving ordination/s’mikhah, the Reform Assembly of Rabbis held a day-long meeting to discuss whether or not to admit them as members – usually an automatic process for any rabbi taking a position in a Reform congregation. Fortunately, the vote went their way.

When I look back, it is shocking to me that these esteemed rabbis, two of the most creative of their generation – were treated so disrespectfully.

Elli and Sheila blazed this trail. They walked through fire so that future generations would not. Since that time, a further twelve LGBT Rabbis have received ordination from LBC, and four others have become part of the progressive movement, who were ordained elsewhere. So, that’s 19 so far – over 20% of the combined Liberal and Reform rabbinate! So I think both Elli and Sheila would say it was all so worthwhile.

Elli became Rabbi of the mainstream Reform congregation. The persecution did not cease. A small group of congregants tried to get rid of her, but the majority won the fight to keep her. Although she’d only been a rabbi for 5 years, Elli was invited to become the Director was Director of Programmes for RSGB. She was forced to resign from this post because she delivered a Kol Nidrey sermon in which she used as an example of covenant, a forthcoming ‘Covenant of Love’ ceremony for two women. All hell broke loose, Elli received hate mail. The papers got hold of it. Somehow, two women, loving each other, and wanting to formalise that love, was seen to be scandalous and Elli’s endorsement of it, a travesty.

But it ended happily because resigning from RSGB led Elli to Liberal Judaism, and ultimately to us!!

Not without a struggle. There were doubters here too – nobody ever doubted Elli’s immense talents and abilities – for sure, she was the very best of rabbis but who wanted a … lesbian… Isn’t it strange that something that has nothing to do with your profession can nevertheless ruin your career and life?

So, on December 1, 2000 Elli started at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. She says: I quote: The reality is that most of the congregants I have encountered over the years have been open – and many of those who were initially sceptical and fearful changed their attitudes. 

BHPS stuck to its guns and those people that opposed the appointment of a lesbian rabbi left and others came around to the idea. Her rabbinate here has flourished because BHPS is home for us but also for the most extraordinary collective of unusual, interesting and dynamic individuals you will ever see in one room anywhere in the world! BHPS is full of characters, but not just wacky eccentric one – characters with values, and deep, powerful allegiances to all that is good and beautiful and true and none of those three qualities can breathe without the oxygen of a fourth value: justice.

If I was to sum up Elli’s teaching, I could do it in one phrase from our Torah: justice, justice you shall pursue.

Our community is totally inclusive and welcoming of everyone. One of the high moments of our lives was celebrating our chuppah with you all and the lovely comments we receive from young and old. Our partnership has been valued and celebrated and we are incredibly proud of our congregation.

Of course, being lesbians is not what makes us special or even interesting. But the struggle to be who we are has carved out dimensions that would otherwise not be there.

So now I would like to ask: what is it that makes Elli such a brilliant rabbi all these 25 years?

As her wife the best judge of this? I am sure, I am not!

For me, I watch again and again how Elli always finds a way to help each of us with all our differences to be part of this community and Jewish life. She is the mistress of opening doors. She sees doors where other people see walls. She shows us the way forward wherever we are stuck, and teaches us to wrestle with whatever it is that is sticking us. She brings people in. She helps them to find a place to be themselves in all their complexity, but also be part of a community in all its singularity.

Elli’s energy is legendary. She had a dream for BHPS and in this wonderful congregation she has found willing partners, and when reflecting on her qualities, I can see how the relationship between Elli and the congregation is one of mirrors and amplifications. Her intense individuality catches our mood and I look around and I see loads and loads of gutsy, real people who stick to their guns and are resolutely themselves. Elli is committed to being all of herself, and she enables us to be all of ourselves, not just our best bits but all the difficult entangled bits too: she is with us on our happy days but also in our misery; she leads our celebrations, but also our mourning. We argue, like all good Jews, but then we make up. There is nothing pious or pretentious about Elli or us. It is all very real and real things last and are strong.

Greatness is never about being perfect but how we manage our own imperfections and tolerate the imperfections of others. In the rabbi, that largeness of heart models not superficial, mock sanctity but a profound sanity.

But none of this really matters when I think of Elli’s greatest gifts to us: her pastoral work – how Elli is when she meets people in their suffering and loss; her teaching – her brilliant thought provoking sermons, her genius in presenting our traditions back to us in new and highly imaginative and relevant ways – only can take unpromising passages in the Torah about spilling seed and menstrual blood, and make it interesting, even vital to our everyday life!

Elli has the most beautiful voice and brings the most extraordinary depth of spirituality when she delivers our festival and Shabbat services. In all my years I have never met anyone who can combine fun and comic humour with solemnity in quite the easy way that Elli does.

To sum up: Elli’s rabbinate manages to span so many aspects of life. She brings so much to our lives – makes our lives so much more meaningful and enriches us in so many ways, that I want to end by thanking Elli for all that she has given to so many people in the 25 years of her rabbinate and also to thank you BHPS for being such great soul mates to her.

Jess Wood Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

12^th July 2014 / 14^th Tammuz 5774

Have LGBT rights gone backwards globally?

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah – Jewish News, July 2014

Over the past 50 years the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have changed beyond recognition, in particular, in Britain, Northern Europe, the United States and Israel, where struggles for liberation are achieving equality before the law and the transformation of social attitudes.

The rash of anti-gay legislation and outbreaks of persecution in Russia, and in many African, Arab and Asian nations in the last 18 months is appalling. However, it would be misleading to conclude that LGBT rights have gone backwards globally and that these authoritarian regimes are more homophobic and transphobic than they were previously.

There is no doubt that we are witnessing in these places a reaction against the rising tide of LGBT rights elsewhere. States that are rooted in the oppression of women and the repression of sexual and gender minorities are fearful that their own LGBT people, emboldened by these liberating developments, will start making demands in their own back-yard. Repressive measures, coupled with the whipping up of homophobia & transphobia in the general population, are designed to terrorise and silence LGBT people, so that they won’t dare to fight for freedom.

But persecution won’t succeed. Access to global media means that even in the most isolationist societies, LGBT people no longer believe the lie that they are sinful or sick, and are longing to be free. Moreover, they have the active support of a global LGBT community. Those who persecute LGBT people are on the wrong side of history.

As first century sage, ‘Ben Bag-Bag’, is reputed to have said of the Torah (Pirkey Avot 5:22): ‘Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.’ At first glance, Naso, the second portion of the Book of B’midbar/Numbers, fits Ben Bag-Bag’s notion that ‘everything is in it’ rather well. To use a contemporary Hebrew idiom, usually associated with grocery stores, it is a veritable kol-bo (‘everything is in it’).

Commencing at Numbers 4, verse 21, Naso continues the theme of the census from the previous parashah, going on to the Gershonites, Meraites and Kohathites (4:21-45). The text then mentions the removal from the camp of those who experience an eruption, discharge, or defilement by a corpse (Num. 5:1-4). The next theme concerns making restitution and adding one fifth (5:5-10).

At the heart of the parashah is the ordeal of jealousy for a woman accused of committing adultery (5:11-31), and the regulations concerning the nazir, the individual who chooses to make a special vow to God (6:1-22). The portion then turns to the priestly blessing (6:22-27), the erection and consecration of the mishkan, the Tabernacle, and the offerings of the tribal chieftains (7:11-88), and concludes with a verse about the location of ‘the Voice’ that would address Moses in the Tent of Meeting (7:89).

There is no need to comment on it all, of course – or to try to make sense of what appears to be disparate elements. But there is a thread running through that interests me as a Jewish woman reading Naso. B’midbar opens with the census taken kol-adat b’ney Yisrael – ‘… of the whole Israelite community’ (1:2), ‘on the first day of the second month in the second year following the Exodus from the land of Egypt’ (1:1). The expression, kol-adat b’ney Yisra’el, requires a more precise translation: ‘all the congregation of the sons of Israel’ – given that the text goes on to say, ’according to their families, the house of their fathers, by the number of their names, every male, head by head’ (1:2). A census of male Israelites then – but not every male: ‘… from the age of 20 years upwards, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms. / With you there should be a man from each tribe; a man who is the head of the house of his father’ (1:3-4). The census actually involved the organisation of the camp into military divisions.

So, what’s new? The authors of the Torah were male; the text of the Torah is written from a male perspective and is preoccupied with what men do. And men do all manner of things, including, as Naso shows, going to war, making the laws, building the mishkan – and controlling their daughters and wives, who are the property of fathers and husbands. It is in this context that it makes complete sense that the ordeal of ‘bitter waters’ for those accused of committing adultery was only imposed on wives, and wass the means of appeasing jealous husbands.

So far, so thoroughly unsurprising. But then, the parashah turns to the theme of the nazir, the individual, who chose to undertake a special vow, consecrating themselves to God (Numbers 6:1-22). The word, nazir, comes from the Hebrew root, Nun Zayin Reish, meaning to dedicate or consecrate. We learn that the individual concerned could be male or female, and the rules applied equally to both. In addition to being voluntary and open to males and females alike, the nazirite vow had to be undertaken within a specific time-frame, and involved abstaining from wine, any fermented drink, and even grape juice, grape seeds and skins. During the period of their vow, the nazir was also not permitted to cut their hair, nor have any contact with the dead – even the dead of their own family. At the conclusion of the period of the vow, the nazir presented a sacrifice (6:13-17), and had their hair cut and put on the altar, with the priest completing the sacred proceedings.

Interestingly, while the parashah presents naziriteship as an individual matter, elsewhere in the TaNaKh, two people were entered into naziriteship by their parents: Samuel (1 Samuel 2:8-28) and Samson (Judges 13: 1-5). More significantly, in parashat Mattot, it is stated in Numbers 30 that while both males and females may not break their vows to God, a female may break her vow, while in her father’s house, on the day her father finds out about it, if he is against it. Similarly, a married woman may break her vow, if her husband objects to it on the day that he finds out. In these special ‘allowances’, we can see the clash between recognition of the spiritual autonomy of every individual, regardless of gender, and the subjected status of females in relation to fathers and husbands.

So, how did those individual women respond, when their fathers or husbands forced them to break their vows? The Torah doesn’t tell us. But the conclusion of the next parashah, B’ha’a lot’cha (Numbers 12), offers a clue. There, Miriam – and to a lesser extent, Aaron – rebelled against their younger brother. We read (12:1):

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

Note: the verb, Va-t’dabbeir, is in the feminine singular. Miriam, no longer a girl in her father’s house and unmarried, was the instigator and had the greatest grievance. Identified as a ‘prophet’ (Exodus 15:20), and the eldest of the three sibling leaders, it had been her initiative that ensured the survival of the baby Moses (Exodus 2). And yet she was marginalised – and this chapter records for posterity how she felt about it.

As we read the Torah, and so link ourselves into the chain of tradition from generation to generation, each one of us is challenged by Naso, both, to acknowledge its assumptions about male domination and female subjugation, and to resolve to make a vow committing ourselves to the building of a new mishkan, a new community that includes all genders on equal terms.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

May 2014 / Iyyar 5774

Written for the Israel Religious Action Centre e-bulletin.

This week’s parashah, T’tzavveh, begins with a very challenging phrase from the point of view of a progressive Jew reading the Torah today: Attah t’tzavveh et-b’ney Yisrael – ‘you shall command the Israelites’ (Exodus 27: 20). The Torah, of course, is replete with ‘commands’. So, what do we make of them as progressive Jews? And what gives the commands, ha-mitzvot, their authority if we understand the Torah as a human document, rather than as Divine – albeit, inspired by the Eternal? Is it possible for there to be ‘commands’, without a ‘Commander’, M’tzavveh, giving the commands?

In Israel today, ‘commands’ are mostly issued by military personnel, and the majority of Jewish citizens of the Jewish state are sharply divided between those who are intensely religious and those who are intensely secular. In this binary arena, despite the incredible work being undertaken by organisations like the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC), Progressive Judaism claims the allegiance of a minority only. And yet, regardless of how individuals make sense of their relationship – or lack of relationship – to Judaism and Jewish teaching, Israeli society seems – to this diaspora Jew at least – to be permeated with a sense of obligation and responsibility. Perhaps, this sense of obligation and responsibility is a direct result of military service and the culture of discipline and loyalty that it cultivates. Perhaps, it is a consequence of carrying the burden of Jewish survival after the Sho’ah. Perhaps, this sense of obligation and responsibility is itself a survival of the sacred notion of mitzvah, we find in the Torah.

Of course, that is not to say that every Israeli Jew is driven by a sense of obligation and responsibility. Some may long to relieve themselves of it, some may actively flee from it, and some may simply not recognise it. After all, managing one’s individual life is hard enough, without carrying the fate of the Jewish people on one’s back – which brings me back to T’tzavveh. The verse that begins, Attah t’tzavveh et-b’ney Yisrael – ‘you shall command the Israelites’ – continues: v’yikkhu eilecha shemen zayit zakh katit la-ma’or, l’ha’alot neir tamid – ‘that they shall take to you pure olive oil beaten for the lamp, to set up a regular light.’ That simple verse about the oil required for what the Torah names elsewhere in parashat b’ha’a lot’cha, as ha-m’norah, ‘the lampstand’ (Numbers 8:2), conveys a much broader meaning: The people Israel are responsible for providing the means by which the light burns ‘from evening to morning… throughout the generations’ (Ex. 27:21). The m’norah, the lampstand, lit in the Temple by the priests in the days of sacrificial worship long gone by, was chosen as a key symbol of the State of Israel – alongside the magein David that adorns the flag. As the blue six-pointed star represents the reclamation and proud declaration of Jewish identity and renewed Jewish life in place of the enforced yellow ‘Jude’ star of persecution, so the m’norah proclaims that the light lit millennia ago still burns.

And so, whatever one’s relationship to the text of the Torah, whether one is progressive or dati or secular, the commanding voice of T’tzavveh resonates still in the State of Israel today. And there is more. Parashat t’tzavveh opens with the very important role of the people, but it focuses on the role of the leaders, the kohanim, priests. It was the responsibility of Aaron and his sons, and their descendants after them, to set up – l’ha’alot – the lights on the lamp – ma’or (Exodus 27:21) / lampstand – m’norah (Numbers 8:2-3).

The priesthood was destroyed when the Temple was laid waste by the Romans in 70 CE. Nevertheless, a new class of leaders, a leadership of learning, was waiting in the wings, ready to take on the task of reconstructing Jewish life for a new post-Temple era, so that the light would continue to burn in every Jewish community in every place. For almost 2000 years in the absence of political power and statehood, the rabbis governed Jewish life. Enlightenment, emancipation and the rise of political Zionism threw up new Jewish leaders, but it wasn’t until the State of Israel was established in May 1948 that responsibility for setting up the lights on the m’norah came home.

But modern Israel is very different from the last independent Judean polity – the theocratic Hasmonean state. Democratic structures and processes – however much threatened by militarism and occupation, and the challenge of functioning as a democracy that upholds the rights of all its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish unlike – have made the leadership accountable to the people and conferred responsibility on all those who have a vote. It is in this context that a host of human rights organisations, including IRAC, undertake their work. It is in this context that Anat Hoffman and Women of the Wall challenge the hegemony of the ultraorthodox. It is in this context that Shulamit Aloni, z”l, who died on January 24, at the age of 85 ‘fought ferociously for Israeli civil rights’ (Gideon Levy, HAARETZ, 26.01.14). Shulamit Aloni, a lawyer, who was first elected to the Knesset in 1965, became the leader of the left-wing party, Meretz, and held numerous ministerial posts, until she retired from party politics in 1996. Throughout her career she sought a peaceful and just settlement with the Palestinians and was passionately committed to human rights for all; her relentless campaigning encompassing advocacy on behalf of Israeli Palestinians and the LGBT community. She was also resolutely secular and a fierce opponent of the power of the ultraorthodox rabbinate. And yet, it is clear that she engaged in sacred work, setting up lights continually, day after day. It is our responsibility to continue bringing the oil for the lamp, and also to show leadership by taking responsibility for keeping the light burning. To paraphrase the famous teaching found amongst the philosophical sayings of the first rabbis, in Pirkey Avot (2:16): It is not for us to complete the work, but neither are we free to desist from it.

1000 WORDS

I grew up in a home in which products from South Africa were banned. My Viennese Jewish father got out of Austria 1936 before the Nazi occupation, and went to South Africa. Following a business trip to London in the spring of 1947, where he met and married my mother, the daughter of Russian Polish Jewish refugees from the 1905 pogroms, they returned together to South Africa, only to leave in 1949, following the election of the Nationalist government. As my father put it, as a Jew who had escaped the horrors of Nazism, he was not prepared to live in a racist regime.

In my late teens, I became involved in the Anti-Apartheid movement in London, joining a local Anti-Apartheid group branch in Hampstead. In my twenties, in addition to AA activities, I went on Anti-Apartheid marches and attended concerts calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. In my thirties, I participated in ‘Freedom Seders’ that took place outside South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, London on the 4^th evening of Pesach (Passover) each year.

I will never forget that day in 1990, when the live news recorded Nelson Mandela’s first walk of freedom, following his release from 27 years of captivity. I will always remember my heart palpitating at the anticipation of that moment as the world waited for him to appear – and how different he looked from the photos on the banners that we had been holding on our protests for his release…

It is now 20 years since Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace and 19 years since the first multiracial democratic elections were held in 1994 and he became the first Black African President of a multi-racial South Africa. Apartheid was abolished, but the task of achieving equality and prosperity for the black citizens of South Africa has not yet been achieved.

As the people of South Africa and the whole world remember Nelson Mandela, let us pay tribute to his memory by committing ourselves to this goal.

Remembering Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela:

Remembering Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela

his courage and vision

his capacity to endure imprisonment and retain his sense of self

his ability to nurture hope through 27 years of confinement

and find the heart to reach out to his oppressors and touch their hearts

his shining spirit, radiating joy and delight in life

and kindling that spirit in others

Remembering the long struggle against apartheid

Remembering Sharpeville on March 21, 1960 and the massacre of 69 peaceful protesters

Remembering Soweto on June 16, 1976 and the slaughter of schoolchildren dancing for freedom and a decent education

Remembering segregation and exclusion

Remembering passbooks and Bantustans

Remembering humiliation and torture

Remembering Steve Biko, who died in police custody on September 12, 1977

and Ruth First, killed in exile by a parcel bomb on August 17, 1982

and all those who gave their lives for justice and liberty and a multiracial, multi-ethnic South Africa.

Remembering that Mandela’s vision of a rainbow nation in which all citizens of all colours, genders and sexualities enjoy equality, justice and prosperity

has not yet been realised.

May all those who remember Nelson Mandela honour his legacy by continuing the journey.

Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela – Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be for blessing.

And let us say: Amen

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

6^th December 2013 / 3^rd Tevet 5774

At the centre of Chanukkah lies a ‘Tree of Life’, represented by the nine branched M’norah or Chanukkiyyah.  That Tree of Life reminds us of our ancestors, who challenged Assyrian Greek domination in 164BCE to re-establish independent Jewish life.  But the celebration of Chanukkah is about much more than commemoration of the past; it reminds us that the task of creating and sustaining Jewish life now – in the present, and for the future – lies in our hands.

This year, as we light the Chanukkiyyah, day by day, I would like us to think of it as the Tree of Life of our congregation, with each branch, and each flame, representing a key element that is essential to ensuring that our congregation flourishes:

1. Good lay and rabbinic leadership. We are fortunate that the people who take responsibility for ensuring that the wheels of congregational life keep turning, not only give unstintingly of their time and energies, they are also motivated by the best interests of the congregation. A rabbi is essentially a teacher.  A good teacher imparts knowledge and inspires others to learn and grow, and is also themselves, a good learner – committed to listening to and understanding the needs of their congregation.
2. Good communication and consultation. Both the lay leaders and the rabbi are essentially the servants of the congregation. Representing the congregation effectively, involves those in positions of leadership ensuring that there are clear channels in place for communication and consultation.
3. Community development. A static congregation has ceased to live.  A living congregation means a congregation in which everyone is enabled to be involved, and the skills and creativity of individuals is harnessed to respond to changing needs.
4. Active participation of members and friends. However skilled the leaders may be, congregational life depends on members and friends responding positively to opportunities to become actively involved, and volunteering their time and energies.
5. Inclusion. Enabling everyone to be involved involves a commitment to including everyone in the life of the congregation – not only in theory, but also, in practice:  individuals of all ages; single people; couples and families; lesbian and gay individuals, couples and families; those who are transgender; people living with disabilities; single-parent households; families where only one parent is Jewish; individuals who themselves have only one Jewish parent – whether their mother or their father, individuals; who choose to become Jewish; secular, cultural and religious Jews.
6. 6.    Caring for each other. Effective inclusion depends on the practice of care and compassion. Caring for others is not just one of the roles of the Rabbi, or the task of a dedicated group of volunteers. Keeping in touch with those who are elderly and visiting the sick is a responsibility that we all share. It is also an integral feature of an inclusive community, ensuring that those who are unable to be actively present are not forgotten and continue to feel part of the congregation.
7. Shared values.  A vibrant community is one where the core values – in our case, of inclusion, equality, justice, compassion, tolerance, diversity and openness – are shared by all, binding everyone together in a sense of shared purpose, while giving each individual the sense of their unique value.
8. Connection with others.  A vibrant congregation does not exist in isolation.   The synagogue magazine is called OPEN DOOR for two reasons:  because we are open to those who wish to cross the threshold, and because we ourselves venture out all the time to connect with others:  with the wider community of Jews in Brighton & Hove, and Sussex in general; with other communities in Brighton and Hove – of all types: religious, ethnic, LGBT, and so on; with the wider community of Liberal Judaism in this country; with other communities and projects that share our values in Britain, Israel and the wider world.
9. Ru’ach – ‘Spirit’.  We light eight candles or flames over the eight days of Chanukkah – or rather one, then two, then three, and so on.  But there is a ninth – the shammash, or, ‘servant’ candle that occupies the ninth branch of the Chanukkiyyah.  Just as without the shammash, none of the other eight wicks will burn, so there is another element, without which none of the eight branches of congregational life I’ve mentioned can flourish:   Rua’ch, meaning ‘spirit’ or ‘wind’.  Ru’ach denotes an energy that is not to be conflated with or confined to ‘spirituality’; a life force.  Like the wind in the trees, our Ru’ach – both individual and collective – animates the branches of the tree that is our congregation and makes it come alive.  May our celebration of Chanukkah re-kindle the Ru’ach within each one of us.

Chanukkah Samei’ach!

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

(Adapted from article in OPEN DOOR, December 2007)

Women Breaching Walls: Women of the Wall

http://womenofthewall.org.il

On November 4^th, on Rosh Chodesh Kislev, the first day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, a special anniversary will be taking place in Israel: the 25^th anniversary of Women of the Wall, a pluralist women’s prayer group that meets each Rosh Chodesh to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a remnant of the Temple.[1]

Kislev, with its remembrance of the victorious struggle of the Maccabees, who succeeded in capturing the Temple from the Assyrian-Greek occupiers, who had desecrated it, and rededicated it to Jewish worship in 164 BCE is a fitting month for celebration – and the remnant Temple wall, a fitting location. But the 25^th anniversary of Women of the Wall is unlikely to be the joyous moment it should be. If previous experiences over the past 25 years of women praying at the Western wall are anything to go by, the first day of the month of Kislev will be a day of courage and struggle, as women, each woman clothed in a tallit, attempt to pray and read from the Seifer Torah, the scroll, in the face of verbal abuse and violent assaults from Orthodox male worshippers. As on previous occasions, there are bound to be arrests – not arrests of the hecklers and protesters, but arrests of the women, who dare to claim the right to be Jewish women on their own terms and not on the terms of a tradition that silences their voices, excludes their presence, and banishes them to the private domain.

Following the leadership of Anat Hoffman, the Director of IRAC, the Israel Religious Action Centre, a progressive project that works for justice and equality in Israel, Women of the Wall includes women from all denominations. The Israeli progressive movement has chosen to work in solidarity with orthodox Jewish women and is also determined to challenge ultra-orthodoxy’s exclusive control of public space in Israel. In my view, it is our responsibility to challenge the hegemony of the ultra-orthodox in all contexts – in Israel and the diaspora. The struggle is as much about the equality of all the different forms of Jewish life as it is about gender equality.

It is appropriate that we should support the cause of religious pluralism in Israel. It is also important that we do not feel complacent about the issue of gender equality just because we seem to have secured equality within Liberal Judaism. There is still much work to be done in British society to ensure that young women today and in the future, enjoy equal opportunities, and are not forced to choose between motherhood and a career, or to try to combine both, full-time, at the expense of their health, their well-being and their personal relationships, without men doing their fair share of child-care and housework. And when we examine the underside of Britain, or look beyond these shores to other parts of the world, our responsibility to support the struggle of gender equality becomes even more imperative, as we think of women and girls subjected to segregation, exclusion, enslavement, sexual and physical abuse – and in some cases, murder. Until all people, regardless of gender, have equal rights and equal responsibilities in both the private and public domains of life, both in Britain and across the globe, in all societies and cultures, we cannot speak of gender equality. And so on November 4^th – on Rosh Chodesh Kislev – google ‘Women of the Wall’, and use every form of social media at your disposal, to express your support for their struggle – and let us all make a commitment to support women challenging oppression and persecution in every place.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

1.

You shall honour the stranger, the asylum seeker and the refugee in the way you wish to be honoured

2.

You shall encourage others to honour the stranger, the asylum seeker and the refugee

3.

You shall love the stranger – Love therefore the stranger; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt Deuteronomy, 10:19

4.

You shall welcome the stranger – One law shall be for the home born, and for the stranger, who sojourns among you Exodus, 12:49

5.

You shall not oppress the stranger – …for you know the heart of a stranger seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt Exodus, 23:9

6.

You shall not abuse the stranger – Cursed be the one that perverts the justice due to the stranger Deuteronomy, 27:19

7.

You shall not wrong the stranger – And a stranger you shall not wrong, neither shall you oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt Exodus, 22:20

8.

You shall not oppress the stranger – And a stranger shall you not oppress; for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt Exodus, 23:9

9.

Judge the stranger in justice – You shall have law for the stranger, as for the home-born Leviticus, 24:22

10.

You shall provide the stranger with the same status as yours – The stranger that sojourns with you shall be to you as the home-born among you Leviticus, 19:24

Rosh Ha-Shanah: the Jewish ‘New Year’; it sounds so simple and straightforward. But if you are considering comparisons with January 1^st – think again: To begin with, Rosh Ha-Shanah falls on the first day of the seventh month of the Jewish year, the Hebrew month of Tishri. The New Year for months begins in the spring, with the month of Nissan – a Babylonian name that supplanted the original Hebrew name we find in Torah: Aviv, meaning, ‘Spring’ (Exodus 12:2; 13:4). To be precise, the literal translation of Rosh Ha-Shanah is ‘head’ – Rosh – of ‘the year’ – Ha-Shanah. If you imagine the months ascending from Nissan, the first day of the seventh month is, indeed, the ‘head’ – the high point – of the year: from the first day of Tishri, the year turns downwards, through autumn and into winter.

So, the Jewish New Year begins in the middle of the year… And it is not so much the New Year as the New Year for years: on Rosh Ha-Shanah the year will change from 5773 to 5774. But the date isn’t straightforward. The years are not counted from the first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, and so, the Jewish New Year does not mark, as one might expect, the beginnings of the Jewish people. Rather, day one of year one is the creation of the world. Now that’s not to say that the world began 5774 years ago – although some Jewish communities believe that it did. The number 5774 represents an accounting of the chronologies we find in the Torah from Genesis onwards. You don’t have to be a creationist to appreciate the notion that the Jewish New Year celebrates ‘the birthday of the world’ – harat ha-olam. This universalistic perspective provides the frame for the core meanings of the day. On Rosh Ha-Shanah, each individual Jew stands before the Eternal One, the Creator of the whole world, as an individual human being.

If we turn to the source texts for the first day of the seventh month in the Torah, not a word is said about a ‘New Year’. We learn, for example, at Leviticus chapter 23, verses 23-25 that this day is a ‘memorial of blasting’ – zichron t’ru’ah – that is its distinguishing feature. In addition, like all the sacred days outlined in the biblical calendar, it is also: Shabbaton – a day of complete rest, when no work may be done, and mikra kodesh – a sacred convocation. As soon as we read on further to the verses about the tenth day of the seventh month, designated as Yom Ha-Kippurim, and described as the day for ‘self-affliction’, it becomes evident that the ‘memorial of blasting’ on the first day serves as a dramatic proclamation, ushering in a period that leads up to the ‘Day of Atonement.’

This is exactly how the first rabbis interpreted what the Torah says about the first day of the seventh month. And so, the day they identified as Rosh Ha-Shanah, the New Year for years, and harat ha-olam, ‘the birthday of the world’, is also Yom Ha-T’ru’ah, ‘the Day of Blasting’ (the Shofar – the Ram’s horn), Yom Ha-Zikaron – ‘the Day of Memorial’, and, most importantly, Yom Ha-Din, ‘the Day of Judgement.’ All these themes are woven into the liturgy the rabbis created for Rosh Ha-Shanah. As the great mediaeval commentator, codify and philosopher, Maimonides, later put it in his code, the Mishneh Torah, the blast of the shofar is like a clarion call urging ‘slumberers’ to wake up, pay attention to their deeds and repent (Hilchot T’shuvah 3:4). On Rosh Ha-Shanah we are exhorted to remember as the Eternal One remembers, and to stand before the Sovereign above all Sovereigns, the Judge, who calls us to account for our actions over the past year. The additional – Musaf – service on Rosh Ha-Shanah, structured around the repeated blasts of the shofar, explores these themes with scriptural passages on Malchuyyot – ‘Sovereignty’, Zichronot – ‘Rememberances’, and Shofarot – ‘Shofar blasts’.

And so, Rosh Ha-Shanah, the first day of Yamim Nora’im, ‘the awed days’ ushers in the ‘ten days of repentance’ – aseret y’mey t’shuvah – that conclude on Yom Kippur. Actually, the word ‘repentance’ is misleading: t’shuvah, based on the Hebrew root Shin Vav Beit, to ‘return’, means ‘returning’. On Rosh Ha-Shanah we are summoned to embark on a journey of t’shuvah, which will involve returning to ourselves, to one another, and to the true path of our lives. This process begins with cheshbon ha-nefesh – making an ‘account of ourselves’ by listing and reflecting on our misdeeds of the past year; how we have hurt and failed others, as well as ourselves. The next step is to act and do all we can to make amends. All this is supposed to happen before Yom Kippur – since, according to the rabbis, for sins between one human being and another, Yom Kippur only affects atonement if one has already taken measures to ‘appease’ those whom we have wronged (Mishnah Yoma 8:9).

The mood of Rosh Ha-Shanah is sombre, judgemental and demanding, revolving around a sharply hierarchical relationship between the supreme Judge on High and the humble, contrite, penitent sinner. And so, we appeal to the Eternal One: ‘Remember us for life, O Sovereign who delights in life, and write us in the Book of Life, for your own sake, God of life.’ Nevertheless, this patriarchal power-play of domination and submission is not meant to render us passive. On the contrary: paradoxically, summoned from on High, each one of us is empowered to act, the task of t’shuvah resting, entirely, in our hands. Ultimately, it is our responsibility to judge ourselves, change our ways, and write ourselves into the Book of Life. The accent is on transformation and renewal. Shanah means ‘year’, but the root meaning is to ‘change’. Rosh Ha-Shanah – ‘the head of the year’ – is the fulcrum point of the annual cycle that turns on our ability to turn and change and renew our lives – l’shanah tovah – ‘for a good year.’

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