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Yom Kippur Shacharit Choose Life ELJC

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Hinneinu – here we are on Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shabbaton, ‘the Sabbath of Sabbaths’. Whatever our individual motivations for participating in this most sacred day of the Jewish year, in addition to reciting prayers and making collective confession in the first-person plural, one of the most important things we will do together as a congregation today is listen to the words of the Torah. The focal point of every Shabbat and festival morning service, is the reading of the seifer Torah, the scroll made of parchment taken from a kosher animal, on which the Five books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – have been written in black ink with a turkey-feather quill by a sofeir or soferet, a ‘scribe’. In Orthodox communities, two portions are read from the Torah on Yom Kippur morning from two separate scrolls. The reading from the first scroll is Leviticus 16, which relates the ritual for the Day of Atonement presided over by the High Priest at the time of the second Temple. The reading from the second scroll is Numbers 29, verses 7 to 11, which sets out the sacrificial offerings on ‘the tenth day of the seventh month’ that were conducted until the last Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Those who attend the morning Torah service in orthodox congregations are reminded about how Yom Kippur was observed in Temple times. It is important to be reminded of the history of Jewish worship. Meanwhile, in progressive congregations we are reminded of the Torah teachings that are at the heart of the meaning of the day. This morning, we will be reading two passages from the Book of Deuteronomy, a book written seven-hundred years after the events it describes during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, as a reminder to his subjects of their heritage. The first passage in chapter 29 (29:9-14) gives an account of the remaking of the covenant with our ancestors in the wilderness at the end of their forty-year journey; the generation who had stood at the foot of Mount Sinai having passed away. The second passage in chapter 30 (30:11-20), placed in that same wilderness setting, presents us with a resounding challenge that defies the gulf in time and place between past and present (30:19). We read:

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

We are not that wilderness-wandering generation. Neither are we the backsliding people of Judah whose evil ways, King Josiah was trying to reform. We are this generation. But the message still speaks to us because in every generation, both individuals and communities face the same stark choices, and this is the time in the annual cycle when we acknowledge them.

However, the message is more multifaceted than it seems. At first sight, it appears that we are being presented with binary choices, ‘life and death, the blessing and the curse’. Indeed, a few verses earlier on, the binary choice between life and death is elaborated: ‘See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil’ (30:15). Nevertheless, on closer inspection, we see that as we are offered a choice between ‘life and death’, we are also summoned to choose in life – ba-chayyim. The Hebrew word for ‘life’, chayyim, is plural. In other words, rejecting the negation of life, represented by death, we are called to choose in life, with all its complexity; to make choices in the ways in which we live, recognising that ‘life’ is never straightforward.

A clue to the complexity of life as we make our choices, can be found in the first part of the passage from Deuteronomy chapter 30 (:11-14):

For this commandment, which I command 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?’ / Neither is it 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 ha-davar is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.

 

Ha-davar may be translated as ‘the word’ or ‘the matter’. And so: ‘For the word is very near to you’, or, ‘For the matter is very near to you.’ More of that in a moment. First let us consider how the passage opens: ‘For this commandment – ha-mitzvah ha-zot’, which I command you today’. This commandment, singular – not ‘these commandments.’ So, what is this commandment? For the Spanish thirteenth century scholar, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known by the acronym RaMBaN,[1] ‘this commandment’ is a specific reference to the command to repent, since the previous section begins with the exhortation to return to God (Deut. 30:1-2). Reading these verses in the context of what follows, another interpretation might be that ‘this commandment’ refers to u’va-charta ba-chayyim – ‘therefore, choose in life’. But it is not just the verses that follow that suggest that this as a possible interpretation. Let us return to how the passage concludes: ‘For ha-davar is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

Ha-davar: As I have already pointed out, the Hebrew may be translated as ‘the word’ or ‘the matter’. Echoing the singularity of ‘this commandment’, ha-davar is singular, but also nonspecific. What is ‘the word’ or ‘the matter’? Whatever it is, it ‘is very near to you, in your mouth and your heart to do it.’ Today, of all days, as we spend hours reciting prayers, we are aware of our mouths, especially, those of us who are fasting, and also of our hearts, of negotiating a range of feelings. Engaging in a communal ritual, we are acutely conscious of our own personal turmoils and dilemmas. The challenge to choose in life is a challenge that is very near to us, to each one of us, individually. A challenge that begins with the words of our mouths articulating our sense of who we are as individuals and our personal values. But it does not end with our mouths and hearts: ‘For the ha-davar is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ The challenge of today is to prepare ourselves for the challenge of tomorrow: to act; to choose in life with our deeds.

The challenge to act is the most demanding of all. In the past two years since October 7, 2023, many of us have raised our voices in grief, in anger, in protest. But we have felt that there is so little we can do here to make a difference to what is happening over there. And yet, we are aware that despite the ongoing death and destruction, ordinary Israelis and Palestinians have been choosing in life day after day after day. The evidence can be seen daily on the streets, and also in the ongoing work of joint Israeli-Palestinian organisations such as the Parents Circle Families Forum,[2] Combatants for Peace,[3] Women Wage Peace,[4] and Standing Together.[5] Standing Together is organised, in particular, as a grassroots movement, with ‘chapters’ in cities and universities across Israel-Palestine.[6] It also has ‘Friends’ groups across the world, including here in Scotland,[7] making it possible for people of all religions and ethnicities wherever they live, to be engaged in fundraising and raising awareness through vigils and events. I became a Friend of Standing Together a year ago, and in the past few months have been involved in helping to get a local Brighton Friends of Standing Together group off the ground.

On the Standing Together website, in the ‘about us’ section, the vision of the movement is clear: [8]

We envision a society that serves all of us and treats every person with dignity. A society that chooses peace, justice, and independence for Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs. A society in which we all enjoy real security, adequate housing, quality education, good healthcare, a liveable climate, a decent salary, and the ability to age with dignity. 

Such a society is possible – we’re already building it.

Standing Together rejects divisive politics in favour of a life-affirming ‘theory of change’.[9] Involved in regular demonstrations together with a variety of different groups demanding a ceasefire, the return of the remaining hostages, and an end to the occupation, the movement focuses on grassroots campaigning and practical activities that make a difference to peoples’ lives,[10] like participating in a Humanitarian Guard ‘protective presence’ in the West Bank,[11] and helping to deliver aid to Gaza.[12] During the twelve-day Israel-Iran war in June (13-24.06.25), Standing Together activists organised temporary bomb shelters for Palestinians with no access to them.[13]

Why am I telling you all this? Because Standing Together not only has a vision of a different future, but through their day-by-day activism, they are making that future a real possibility. They are holding out the hope that Palestinian and Jewish Israelis need, that Palestinians need, that we all need. Despite the obstacles, despair is not an option for them, and it should not be an option for us.

One of the ways in which Standing Together manages to radiate such a spirit of hope is due to the large proportion of young people involved in their activities. At the first event of Brighton Friends of Standing Together on 13 July, hosted by Green Brighton MP, Sian Berry, with over seventy attendees, two young people spoke to us ‘live’ through an online connection: Aya Khatib, a Palestinian member who is active in the Jerusalem and Hebrew University Chapters, and Maya Dernell, a Jewish member in the Tel Aviv-Yafo chapter. Their commitment, clarity, and sense of optimism, despite the hurdles they are navigating was inspiring. At the end of August, I attended a zoom meeting focusing specifically on a series of activities directed at ‘disrupting business as usual’ and raising public awareness of the need for action. Shahar, age 26 who lives in Yaffo, and Ariel, age 23 who lives in Haifa, talked about their occupation of ‘Big Brother’, which went out ‘live’ to the millions of viewers who watched the programme,[14] and how they glued themselves to the floor of the departures terminal at Ben Gurion airport, as a way of letting passengers know that there was no escape from the challenge of taking action to generate change.[15]

Aya and Maya, Shahar and Ariel, and all the other Standing Together activists, are not giving into despair in the face of death and destruction, but rather choosing in life. Ha-davar, ‘the word’, ‘the matter’, ‘this commandment’ to choose in life is very near to them, in their mouths and in their hearts, and they are doing it every day. May their courage and determination inspire us from this sacred day forwards to ‘choose in life’, and whatever the challenges we face, to muster our own courage and determination to act.

Kein y’hi ratzon – May this be our will. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Congregation

Yom Kippur Shacharit

2nd October 2025 – 10th Tishri 5786

  1. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, was also known as Nachmanides, was born in Gerona in Spain in 1104. He was a Talmudic jurist, and also very interested in Kabbalah – the mystical dimension of Judaism – and so his Biblical interpretations frequently offer mystical insights. ↑

  2. https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/homepage-en/ ↑

  3. https://www.cfpeace.org/ ↑

  4. https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il/en/ ↑

  5. https://www.standing-together.org/en ↑

  6. https://www.standing-together.org/en-departments/local-chapter-department ↑

  7. https://www.instagram.com/standing.together.scotland/ ↑

  8. https://www.standing-together.org/en/about-en ↑

  9. https://www.standing-together.org/en/about-en ↑

  10. https://www.standing-together.org/en/2023war ↑

  11. https://ukfost.co.uk/humanitarian-guard-will-mobilise-to-confront-west-bank-settlers ↑

  12. https://ukfost.co.uk/aid-to-gaza ↑

  13. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1235255747820630

    https://ukfost.co.uk/anti-war-activists-in-gaza-and-israel-stand-in-solidarity ↑

  14. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-08-12/ty-article-opinion/.premium/big-brother-interrupted-when-gazas-reality-crashes-reality-tv-in-israel/00000198-9d1a-d825-a39a-dfdaa14f0000 ↑

  15. https://www.instagram.com/reels/DNX1OsFI216/ ↑

Erev Yom Kippur: The Call to Prophetic Action

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We have arrived at the concluding day of Aseret Y’mei T’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’ that began on Rosh Ha-Shanah. T’shuvah is often translated as ‘repentance’, but the Hebrew encompasses so much more. As we reflect on the past year, and in particular, on the hurts and wrongs we have inflicted, and take steps to make amends, we also embark on a process that involves returning to ourselves and to others, and returning to the path of our lives. Rather than take us back to where we were, the process enables us to move forwards. When we return to the path of our lives, we find that we are further along.

The concluding day of the ten-day t’shuvah process has just begun. Observance of Yom Kippur is not a substitute for our engagement in the process prior to Yom Kippur. Our sages taught:[1]

[For] transgressions between a person and God [Ha-Makom], Yom Kippur atones; [however, for] transgressions between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until they appease the other person.

But what if we haven’t done what we were supposed to do for the past nine days? What then are we doing here? Many of us may ask those questions. But there is only really one question we have to ask and respond to on this final tenth day: Are we prepared to acknowledge our failures, confess our misdeeds, and resolve to change our ways? Yom Kippur is a day etched in humility and renunciation. We cannot do anything now to change the past, so we must let it go and with it the unfinished business of the year we have left behind. But before we begin again, we are summoned to immerse ourselves completely in a day that the sages referred to in Aramaic, simply, as Yoma, ‘The Day’. Yoma, ‘The Day’ that is set apart from all other days of the year. The singularity of ‘The Day’ is expressed in signs and rituals. Traditionally, everything is white, the blank colour of death: the ark cover, scroll covers, the cloth that covers the reading desk. And beyond the sacred accoutrements, it is customary for the congregation as well as the service leaders to wear white, in particular, to wear the kittle, the ‘night-dress’-like garment that clothes those who have died. In an important sense, Yom Kippur is a day out of life; devoid of all the usual signs of life, including nourishment.

But Yoma, ‘The Day’ is much more than a day marked by absences. Yom Kippur is a day of disruption; a day that disrupts the rhythm of our everyday lives. In some respects, it is like a major demonstration on the streets that blocks thoroughfares, halts traffic, and brings a city to a standstill. The comparison seems completely inappropriate, until we delve deeper. The purpose of a demonstration is to stop people in their tracks, to obstruct the usual comings and goings of business as usual. To what purpose? To deliver a message loud and clear. Yom Kippur is like that. The purpose of Yoma, ‘The Day’ that disrupts the usual pulse and flow of our lives is to deliver a core message.

What is that message? Fortunately, despite the blanket of whiteness that envelopes ‘the day’ and its apartness from all other days, Yoma broadcasts its message on every page of the machzor and in the Torah and haftarah readings. But the message is complex, expressed in so many different ways, it is difficult to discern. Is it about our individual weaknesses and frailties? Is it the reminder of our mortality? Is it the restatement of the covenant between the Eternal One and the people Israel? Is it the summons to make confession? Is it the promise of forgiveness? The message of Yoma is all these things and more. And ultimately, the ‘more’ concerns not so much ‘the day’ itself, but the day after. We are here today to make a difference to tomorrow. The core message of the day is to stop repeating our habitual tropes and mistakes, our excuses and prevarications, and recommit ourselves to the covenantal task of putting the ethical teachings of our sacred texts into practice.

The clearest statement of that message can be found in the Torah and haftarah portions that we will read in the morning and afternoon. The passages from Deuteronomy chapters 29 and 30, remind us that the covenant made with our ancestors is also made with us, and also that presented with stark choices, we have the power to choose how we will act, for good or ill. The passages from Leviticus 19 make it clear that our relationship with God is lived out in how we conduct our relationships with others, in particular, how we treat the vulnerable and the marginal in our midst. The morning and afternoon haftarot speak in very different voices. The morning haftarah from Isaiah 58 declares that our ritual observance of Yom Kippur is meaningless if we do not challenge slavery, persecution, destitution and poverty. The Book of Jonah read as the afternoon haftarah, tells the story of a reluctant prophet, and a tyrannical monarch who repents, offering the reassurance that Divine forgiveness is available to anyone who sincerely changes their ways, even if they have committed the most heinous crimes.

The themes of all these texts concern not, how we have acted in the past, but how we will act in the future. Yoma, ‘the day’ apart from the every-day, devoid of the clutter and distractions of our day-to-day lives, offers an intensive training in ethical action. But of course, in the past two years, our day-to-day lives have not just followed the usual rhythms. For most of us, our consciousness has been dominated by events in Israel-Palestine, in particular, the horrors perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas, with its devastating impact on the people of Gaza. In the context of this ongoing catastrophe, Yom Kippur offers: an oasis away from the searing images that flash across our screens; a space to reflect; a framework of meaning; spiritual sustenance; and, above all, ethical teachings to guide us as we try to navigate a path ahead.

Back in January, overwhelmed by the horrors of the impact of ceaseless war in Gaza on the civilian population, and the continuing captivity of the remaining hostages, I felt completely powerless. What could I do? What could we do? The voices of our prophetic heritage were haunting me. I realised that we must reclaim Prophetic Judaism with its roots in the teachings of the prophets, those God-inspired individuals, who spoke ‘Truth to Power’,[2] and called out injustice; who addressed, not just the people, but very pointedly, the rulers of their day. The prophets demonstrated two key aspects of the prophetic task: to act on behalf of the poor, homeless, persecuted, vulnerable and marginal; and to call out one’s own people.

The first chapter of the Book of Isaiah could not be clearer. The opening verse sets the scene:

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzzaiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezikiah, Kings of Judah.

Isaiah goes on to present a searing critique of what he bewails as ‘a sinful nation, of people laden with iniquity. A seed of evil-doers that deal corruptly; they have forsaken the Eternal, they have spurned the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backwards’ (1:4). And in the midst of his condemnation, the prophet makes it clear what is needed to put things right (1:17-18a):

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away your evil doings from before My eyes, cease to do evil. / Learn to do good; seek justice, defend the oppressed

Have these words ever rung as powerfully in our ears as they do today? The status quo across the world – politically, economically, ecologically – with compounded devastating impacts on the poor, the homeless, and the persecuted, on those who are trapped in conflict zones, on the vulnerable and the marginal, is leading the entire planet to disaster. We need to hold our leaders to account. We need to hold our communities to account. We need to hold ourselves to account.

Teachings of justice demanding the practice of justice are at the heart of the Torah. The entire rationale for the liberation of the slaves was that the people formed in the covenant at Sinai would serve the Eternal, and create a society rooted in those teachings.[3]

According to the Talmudic sages, a sage, chacham, literally, a ’wise one’ is ‘greater than a prophet’ and ‘wisdom is greater than prophecy’ (Bava Batra 12a 14). And so, in their view the age of prophecy had been replaced by their new age of learning. Nevertheless, when Progressive Judaism emerged in Germany in the wake of emancipation two-hundred years ago, the founders looked to the prophets for inspiration, and it is evident in our own day that prophetic voices are now speaking loud and clear across the Jewish world. The prophetic voices of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel[4] and Israel’s Human Rights Watch, B’tselem.[5] The prophetic voices of all those Israelis, who work together with Palestinians for a better future for both peoples in projects such as the Parents Circle Families Forum,[6] Combatants for Peace,[7] Women Wage Peace,[8] and Standing Together, the grassroots organisation of Jewish and Palestinian Israelis committed to ‘peace, equality and social justice’.[9]

Beyond the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we can also see prophetic Jewish voices being raised here in Britain concerning other major humanitarian and global concerns, most notably in the work of the human rights project, René Cassin,[10] the social justice project, HIAS-JCORE,[11] and Eco-Judaism.[12]

Prophetic Jewish voices are also increasingly evident within Progressive Judaism in Britain. Since October 7, 2023, Progressive Jews for Justice in Israel/Palestine, a homegrown initiative led by members of this congregation and Leicester Progressive, has attracted more and more support from those who are members of Liberal and Reform synagogues.[13] More recently, at Shavu’ot, a group of Progressive clergy launched Voices for Prophetic Judaism with an online Tikkun Leil Shavu’ot, study programme.[14] We have started gathering materials on our website, where anyone interested can access resources to support prophetic thinking and action, including prophetic biblical, talmudic, mediaeval, modern and contemporary teachings, sermons and articles,[15] as well as sign-posting for organisations that act as pathways to prophetic action.[16] Just before Rosh Ha-Shanah, we released the PDF of a booklet for the Aseret Y’mei T’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’, with contributions from nine rabbis and one cantor.[17] Perhaps, you have already seen it, and found thoughts and teachings that echo your concerns. We want to encourage everyone to find their prophetic voice, and to engage in prophetic action, so we can all contribute to the work of pursuing justice, peace, and equality, establishing human rights, and ensuring a sustainable future for the planet.


Yoma, The Day has only just begun. Long hours lie ahead of us. May the liturgy and the scriptural texts that guide us through this unique moment beyond the routine of our daily lives, help us to reflect on our misdeeds of the past year, acknowledge our failures, and inspire us for the prophetic tasks that lie ahead.

Kein y’hi ratzon – May this be our will. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Congregation

Erev Yom Kippur

1st October 2025 – 10th Tishri 5786

  1. Mishnah Yoma 8:9. ↑

  2. https://grammarist.com/phrase/speak-truth-to-power/ ↑

  3. Exodus 19:3-6 ↑

  4. https://www.rhr.org.il/eng ↑

  5. https://statistics.btselem.org/en ↑

  6. https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/homepage-en/ ↑

  7. https://cfpeace.org/about-en/ ↑

  8. https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il/en/ ↑

  9. https://www.standing-together.org/en ↑

  10. https://renecassin.org/our-mission/ ↑

  11. https://hiasjcore.org/what/ ↑

  12. https://ecojudaism.org.uk/ ↑

  13. https://pjjip.org/ ↑

  14. https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/ https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/tikkun-leyl-2025/ ↑

  15. https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/resources/ ↑

  16. https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/partners/ ↑

  17. https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/hhd2025/ ↑

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5786

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The cycle turns, and here we are on Rosh Ha-Shanah morning, embarking on another New Year. We feel a complex mix of emotions as we reflect back on the past year, and as we look ahead. For now, we are together sharing this moment of beginning again.

Rosh Ha-Shanah marks the New Year for years (Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1), but it is so much more than that. Its various names teach us that ‘the head of the year’, which is a literal translation of Rosh Ha-Shanah, is ha-yom harat olam, the day which is the ‘birthday of the world’, yom ha-din, ‘the day of judgement’ and yom ha-zikaron, ‘the day of remembrance’. Throughout our service today, and in particular, during the musaf, the ‘additional’ service, when we will listen to the voice of the shofar, the ram’s horn, the messages these names proclaim will resound loud and clear. Today is the day when, acknowledging that the Eternal One is the Creator of all, Jews across the world are called to give an account of ourselves, individually and collectively, and to remember our deeds and misdeeds of the past year. The task before us is much too daunting for us to get to grips with it on one day. Rosh Ha-Shanah is the first day of aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’ that conclude on Yom Kippur. Before the New Year begins in earnest the day after Yom Kippur, the shofar summons us to examine ourselves, take steps to make amends for the hurts we have inflicted, and the wrongs we have committed, whether unconsciously or consciously, and to repair our relationships.

It is a tall order. But although each one of us is summoned to interrogate our own life, we are not alone. We stand together in community. We are not even alone existentially; on this birthday of the world, we are reminded that we do not exist independently of one another; each one of us is woven into the web of Life. Hopefully, this reminder is reassuring. But it has its downside. It means that our responsibilities are not limited to our own lives, personal relationships, families, communities. Our responsibilities extend to ‘others’ whom we do not know.

In rabbinic literature the principle of responsibility for others is expressed in several references to the teaching that ‘All of Israel are responsible, one for the other – Kol Yisraeil areivim zeh ba-zeh’.[1] During the past almost two years since the massacres, atrocities and abductions orchestrated by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, engulfed by the depravity of that monstrous day, we also continue to be overwhelmed by the catastrophic impact on the civilian population of Gaza of Israel’s retaliatory war. We are thousands of miles away. And yet, as our screens transmit horrifying images of death and destruction day after devastating day, we are witnesses. We feel helpless, but we do what we can do. We join our voices to the calls for an end to the war, the release of the remaining hostages, sufficient aid and medical supplies for the people of Gaza. As progressive Jews, acknowledging the pain and suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, we resist binary mind-sets that deepen divisions, by amplifying the voices of those Israelis and Palestinians who are working together for a better future, and by supporting organisations such as Standing Together, the Parents Circle Bereaved Families Forum, Combatants for Peace – and this congregation’s namesake village of Jews, Christians and Muslims, Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salaam – Oasis of Peace.

Of course, we are not responsible for the ongoing catastrophe in Israel and Gaza – not forgetting, the West Bank, where the occupation is expanding, and, unchallenged by the military authorities, settler violence against Palestinians has become increasingly rampant. But we are not simply bystanders, either. Again: ‘Kol Yisraeil areivim zeh ba-zeh’ – ‘All of Israel are responsible, one for the other’. The reality is that in the war between extremists – death-cult Islamist terrorists bent on Israel’s destruction and an ultra-right Israeli government with a messianic vision of total Jewish domination – moderate Jews across the globe, like moderate Muslims across the globe, are challenged to call the extremists to account. As Jews, we are called, specifically, to speak up for ethical Jewish teaching and the practice of Jewish ethical values. Remembering, as the Torah points out, repeatedly, that we were oppressed and persecuted as slaves in Egypt, and that we ‘know the nefesh – the ‘inner being’ – of the stranger (Exodus 23:9), we are called to articulate a different Jewish narrative of compassion and respect for others, in particular, the vulnerable and the marginal.

That different Jewish narrative can be found both in the Torah’s legal codes and in its tales of our ancestors. Most of the Jewish world, including Israel, observes Rosh Ha-Shanah on two days. Today we will be reading the Torah portion that is traditionally set aside for the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah, Genesis 21. The chapter relates the birth of Isaac. It also tells the story of the expulsion of Isaac’s older brother, Ishmael with his mother, Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian maid-servant. An earlier story in Genesis 16 relates that finding herself barren, Sarah handed over Hagar to her husband Abraham in order to have a child through her. Genesis 21 relates that after Sarah has finally had a child of her own and weaned him, seeing Ishmael ‘playing around’ with his younger brother and protective of Isaac’s inheritance of the covenant, Sarah persuaded Abraham to ‘cast out that slave woman and her son’ (Gen. 21:9-10a). It is a shocking story. As shocking as the one that follows in Genesis 22, which is traditionally read on the second day of Rosh Ha-Shanah. Genesis 22 relates that having already abandoned his eldest son, instructed by God to sacrifice Isaac (22:2), Abraham does not demure, and his knife raised, it takes an insistent heavenly voice to stop him (22:11-13)

At the very beginning of the covenant narrative related in Genesis 17, when God told Abraham that he was making a covenant with him and his descendants, astonished that his barren wife, Sarah, was to bear a child, Abraham’s immediate concern was for the son he already had: ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before you’, he pleaded. God reassured him that although the particular covenant would be inherited by the son that Sarah would bear, God had heard him. We read (Gen. 17:20):

‘And as for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him I will make him fruitful, and I will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.’

As we find, when we read the first Hagar narrative related in Genesis 16, God had already heard Hagar and given her a similar reassurance. When pregnant, Hagar ran away from Sarai’s harsh treatment into the wilderness, the Torah relates that a Messenger of God found her by a well of water and told her that her son would be called Yishma’eil, ‘because the Eternal One has heard your affliction’ (16:11). Yishma’eil means: ‘God will hear’.

God heard Hagar. God heard Abraham. And in Genesis 21, our Torah portion today, we read that, although when Hagar was banished to the wilderness with her son, he is silent and she is crying (21:16), God ‘heard the voice of the lad’ (21:17). Completely desolate, Hagar was reassured with a Divine message. We read (21:17-18):

And God heard the voice of the lad; and the Messenger of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her: ‘What is [going on] for you, Hagar. Do not fear; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. / Arise, lift up the lad and grasp him by the hand; for I will place him as a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. / And God was with the lad, and he grew; and he dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.

The thrice-repeated message that God has ‘heard’ reflected in Ishmael’s name could not be clearer. One family. Two sons. Two Divine inheritances.

What are we to make of this? We cannot simply embrace our particular covenant with God through Abraham and Sarah, without recognising the Divine promise made to the descendants of Abraham and Hagar. Given that the Torah includes stories written down centuries after the events they describe and that it became the first repository of teaching for the Jewish people, the inclusion of the tales of Hagar and Ishmael in the Torah teach us that their story is part of our story, and reminds us that although heir to a separate inheritance, Ishmael was the son of Abraham, just as Isaac was the son of Abraham. Indeed, Ishmael was his first-born. It also reminds us that Ishmael and Isaac were brothers; and that their descendants – the Jewish and Muslim peoples – are kin.

I have recently completed a book I have been working on since I retired called Breaking Binaries. It includes a chapter, entitled, ‘Beyond Israel verses Palestine’. In this chapter, in an effort to challenge the prevailing binary approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict, I investigate a little-known, but significant player in the history of Zionism, the bi-national Zionist movement that developed in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s before the establishment of the modern State of Israel on 14 May 1948. Passionate Zionists, the likes of Progressive Rabbi, Judah Magnes, who became the first President of the Hebrew University, and the philosopher and biblical commentator, Martin Buber, had a vision of the renewal of the Jewish people in our ancient homeland alongside the Arab people who lived there. For them, Zionism did not imply the denial of the rights of the Arab inhabitants to the land. Brit Shalom, ‘Covenant of Peace’, the first Zionist organisation exclusively dedicated to a bi-national objective was established in April 1925. On 14 August 1925, four days before the 14th Zionist Congress opened in Vienna, Robert Weltsch, one of the founder members of Brit Shalom, wrote an article in his journal Judische Rundeschau that expressed the approach of bi-national Zionism. In it, he made this statement:[2]

There may be a people without a country, but there is no country without a people. Palestine was not given to us as a national home but we are to build a national home in Palestine. Palestine has a population of 700,000 souls, a people who have lived in the country for centuries and rightfully consider this country their fatherland and homeland. That is a fact which you must take into account. Palestine will always be inhabited by two peoples, the Jewish and the Arab. Which of them represents 51% and which 49% is irrelevant. The future of Palestine, its peaceful development and welfare can only be maintained by giving it a political system in which both peoples may, with equal rights, live side-by-side, bound through the natural ties of communication, economic and cultural relations. We do not want a Jewish state, but a bi-national Palestinian community.

Again: that statement was written on 14 August 1925. One-hundred years ago. Needless to say, the bi-national Zionists did not win the argument. But their assessment of the need for Jewish-Arab cooperation in order for the Zionist dream of Jewish renewal in the land to be realised fruitfully and peacefully, was irrefutable then, and it is irrefutable now. On August 5, I attended a Zoom meeting organised by Combatants for Peace with CfP co-founders, and former combatants, Avner Wishnitzer and Souli Khatib. Souli told us that from the age of fourteen, he was in and out of Israeli jails. He went on several hunger strikes during the periods of his incarceration, and having been part of the armed resistance, Souli learned the power of peaceful resistance. ‘Violence breeds violence’, he said. Over the years, he ‘learned to be a bridge’. He learned to see things ‘holistically’, from ‘different points of view, rather than ‘good and bad’. His new awareness, Souli said, has ‘grounded’ him ‘during the hardest times’.

Combatants for Peace was founded twenty years ago during the second intifada. The past two years have been among the hardest of times, and yet the experience of the last two years has strengthened the resolution of Combatants for Peace that there is no other solution but non-violence. ‘Violence is not going to free anyone’, Souli told us. ‘I’m not losing hope.’

Souli’s co-founder, Avner, who has refused army service since 2004, was less hopeful. ‘I’m speaking to you from the heart of darkness’, he said. Avner also talked about the effort it took for Combatants for Peace to stay together after the horrors of October 7, 2023, and in the early months of Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas because of the devastating impact on the people of Gaza. But after engaging in separate meetings, the former Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian militants met, and after ‘crying’ together over the fifty years that had passed since the Yom Kippur war, over the decades of ‘dead bodies, loss and pain’, they held more joint meetings, and over a period of weeks, decided to keep going.

For Avner, ‘hope is dependent’ – dependent on the reality on the ground changing in a positive direction. For him, ‘meaning is more important than hope.’ Being part of Combatants for Peace gives Avner meaning. Towards the end of the Zoom meeting, Avner mentioned the Arabic word, ‘sumad’, which means ‘clinging on to’, and is used to express the determination of the Palestinians to cling on to the land, and also in the context of Combatants for Peace, the determination to cling on to humanity. Souli then added that his sister’s name is Sumad. She was born when he and his brothers were in jail, and she was given that name as a way of expressing the family’s steadfastness and resilience.

Souli and Avner: the descendants of Abraham, bridging the gulf between their two peoples. Isaac and Ishmael, the sons of Abraham, were divided from one another, heirs to separate Divine promises. But the Torah records that the estranged brothers came together to bury their father, Abraham in the Cave of Machpelah (Gen. 25:9), where Abraham had buried Sarah, and which he had purchased from the Hittites as a burial site for the family (23:3-20). To this day the Cave of Machpelah, which is in the ancient city of Hebron, is sacred to both Jews and Muslims because Abraham is buried there.

As we have seen with the repeated references in the Torah to the meaning of Ishmael’s name, names are important signifiers. Combatants for Peace are demonstrating sumad, the steadfastness and resilience needed for former Israeli and Palestinian combatants to continue their commitment to nonviolent resistance, and to continue holding on to the vision of a different future for Palestinians and Israelis, a future in which both peoples acknowledge their shared antecedence. In these desperate, heart-breaking times, inspired both by their example, and by the reunion of Isaac and Ishmael as they mourned the loss of their father, let us recommit ourselves to supporting all those grief-stricken Israelis and Palestinians who are continuing to work together for a just peace.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit

23rd September 2025 – 1st Tishri 5785

  1. Commenting on Leviticus 26:37: Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sh’vu’ot 39a; Sanhedrin 27b; Sifra, B’chukkotai 7:5; B’midbar Rabbah 10:5. ↑

  2. Hattis, Susan Lee. The Bi-National Idea in Palestine During Mandatory Times. Haifa: Shikmona Publications, 1970, pp.4-5 ↑

Erev Rosh-Hashanah 5786

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A moonless night has fallen, and a new year has begun. In the Jewish calendar, each Jewish day begins, not arbitrarily in the middle of the night, but rather, after sunset, and then, daylight receding minute by minute, proceeds into the darkness. If ‘Jewish time’ is part of our consciousness, when the sun sets, we will be conscious of the transition from one day to the next. As it is, most of us are aware of Jewish time only in moments; on Shabbat; at festivals; in particular, when a new year begins. Our lives regulated by the civil calendar we rarely live in Jewish time. This is most obvious when it comes to the changing months. Of course, we know when the first day of Tishri begins because it heralds the New Year, Rosh Ha-Shanah. But what about the other months of the year?

Moon-watchers, familiar with the phases of the moon, will have more of a sense of the changing Jewish months because each month follows the moon: beginning in darkness, day-by-day, the waxing moon becomes full between the 14th and 16th of each month, before waning, and ending in darkness. Significantly, the new year, alone of all the sacred days, dawns during the dark phase of the moon. The festival that marks the mid-point of the year, Pesach in the Spring, commences at the full-moon. Three other sacred days are also located around the full moon: the biblical late harvest festival of Sukkot, begins, like Pesach on the 15th of the month; similarly, the post-biblical New Year for Trees, Tu Bishvat; while Purim, is on the 14th.

Being conscious of the Jewish calendar does not indicate a preoccupation with Jewish concerns. On the contrary. Unlike the civil calendar, the Jewish calendar, governed by sunsets and moon phases, is moored in the natural world. According to Jewish tradition, ‘today is the birthday of the world’ – ha-yom harat olam.[1] The changing year-date, reflects a counting of the years based on the chronologies in the book of Genesis that take us back to yom echad, ‘day one’ of the planet, as recounted in Genesis chapter 1, verses 1-5; the world ushered into existence by the word of God. We read in verse 5:

Va-yikra Elohim la-or, ‘yom’, v’la-choscheh kara, ‘lailah’. Va-y’hi-erev, va-y’hi-voker, yom echad’.

Translated literally:

Then God called to the light, ‘Day’, and to the darkness, He called, ‘Night’. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

‘One day’, not ‘first day’; there is no presumption in the verse about what is to follow: a ‘second day’ (1:8); ‘third day’ (1:13); and so on.

Of course, as progressive Jews we do not believe that the world came into existence by the word of God five thousand eight hundred and eighty-six years ago. But you don’t have to be a creationist to appreciate the importance of celebrating the birthday of the world, any more then you have to embrace the midrashic notion of God creating and destroying multiple worlds before creating this one to appreciate the imperative of tikkun olam, the repair of the world.[2] The significant point is that the Jewish calendar begins, not with the first ancestors of our people, but with the earth, and the wider universe. The Jewish year turns with the planet around the Sun, and measures time with the phases of the moon.

So, as the New Year begins in the darkness of this moonless night, we have the opportunity to pause and consider our responsibilities as citizens of this wondrous blue planet. As we do so, we can draw on the resources of our Jewish texts, not least, in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.

There are two creation narratives in B’reishit, Genesis. Genesis 1 presents a hierarchical account with humanity as the apex of creation empowered to dominate and subdue the other living creatures (Gen.1.28). Genesis 2 gives a more holistic account in which the human formed from the dust of the ground, has the more modest role of Gardener and Guardian (Gen.2.15).

Apart from the fact that humanity is created last, the apex of life, Creation in Genesis 1 is conjured up by words and the Creator creates by declamation: ‘And God said, “let there be light”. And there was light’ (Gen.1.3). In Genesis 2, on the other hand, Creation is so tangible, it is, quite literally, earthy. Rather than employing the abstract verb to ‘create’, bara (root: Beit Reish Aleph), here, like a potter, YHWH God ‘forms’ [va-yitzar] (root: Yud Tzadi Reish) the human out of the dust of the ground. Moreover, the human [ha-adam] is directly identified with the ground [ha-adamah].

An earthling, formed from the dust of the ground, the human also partakes of the Divine. In Genesis 1, the connection with the Divine is abstract: the human is created in the image of God (who has no image). In Genesis 2, the connection is visceral: ‘YHWH God … breathed into their nostrils [b’apav] the breath of life [nishmat chayyim]’ (Gen.2.7). The human is infused with the Divine.

Although the first and second narratives concerning the creation of humanity are distinguished by the emphasis on human domination in the first and guardianship in the second, both present unequal relationships: the unequal relationship between the human and the rest of Creation in Genesis 1, and the unequal relationship in Genesis 2 both between the human and the animals whom the human names (2.19-20), and between the man and the woman (2.23).

Nevertheless, there are also hints in both accounts of coexistence with the Earth and its creatures. Significantly, in Genesis 1, a feature shared in common by both humans and animals, is that they are vegetarian. As we read (Gen.1.30):

And to every land animal, and every bird of the sky, and all that creeps on the Earth which is a living being [nefesh chayyah], [I give] all green vegetation for food.

Later, after the flood which has destroyed all the vegetation, that shared bond between all living creatures is broken when humans are permitted to eat meat, albeit, not the blood, which is identified as the nefesh, the ‘being’ of the animal (Gen.9.3-4).

With the identification of an animal’s blood as their nefesh, ‘being’, we have another significant connection between humanity and the animals. Although the second Creation narrative singles out the human for nishmat chayyim, the ‘breath of life’, each creature, according to the first account, is a living being, nefesh chayyah. I have translated the word nefesh as ‘being’. The more familiar and usual translation is ‘soul’. But the concept of soul – a consequence of the binary division between body and spirit – is not found in the Hebrew Bible. Nefesh has a much more material resonance in the biblical landscape, hence, the identification of the ‘blood’ of an animal as its nefesh. Significantly, all the words that have been spiritualised in post-biblical discourse – ru’ach, n’shamah and nefesh – have a materiality about them: ru’ach, ‘spirit’, that which moves unseen, is ‘wind’; n’shamah is ‘breath’, which by definition is a physical dynamic property, albeit invisible; nefesh; the inner ‘being’ is identified with blood, because that is the substance that flows around inside the body, not least, activating our beating hearts. Ru’ach, n’shamah and nefesh are all invisible, but they are all, nevertheless, tangible, physical forces.

The Creation narratives in B’reishit may be read as mythological stories about how things began, and also as cautionary tales about human arrogance. They may also be read for their teachings concerning the need for human beings to exercise responsibility in relation to the Earth and its myriad forms of life, and for their suggestions concerning the essential affinity between the human and the Earth – adam-adamah – and between the human and the other creatures that are also designated as nefesh chayyah, living beings. As earthlings, human beings are not just burdened with the role of being guardians, we are blessed with the same gift of existence as all the other forms of life. This blessing, experienced with every precious breath we take, is an invitation to coexistence.

This blessing also has practical implications for the treatment of other creatures, and for the harnessing of the green life of the planet to human needs. For example, from a Jewish perspective, the dietary laws which are rooted in binary teaching concerning what may or may not be eaten, initially set out in the Book of Leviticus chapter 11, have been reframed in some circles to reflect ecological considerations. Kashrut, a noun based on the Hebrew root Kaf Shin Reish, means that which is ‘fit’. In recent years Jewish definitions of food fitness have expanded to include our responsibility for animal welfare and the environment, with organic, local, and free-range food production, and the need to protect species diversity, becoming major priorities.[3]

The observance of Shabbat provides another opportunity for practising coexistence. Caught up in the 24/7 culture of contemporary life, it is hard to set aside a day of complete cessation. But perhaps, as we face ecological devastation and climate catastrophe, as we count the cost of near-global industrialisation and reckless consumerism, as we begin to acknowledge our domination of all other life forms on the planet, as we run out of breath, we may begin to see in Shabbat an invitation to take a breath and rediscover ourselves as earthlings, and equally important, to give the Earth a rest, too.

The root meaning of Shabbat is to ‘cease’. Shabbat is our weekly opportunity to cease our frenetic activity, at least for one day. Significantly, the biblical calendar in the Book of Leviticus chapter 23, places Shabbat at the head of the list of festivals that follow (Leviticus 23:2-3). This is because Shabbat is the model for all the sacred days of the biblical year, including the first day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:23-25), which became Rosh Ha-Shanah, literally ‘the head of the year’.[4] All the festivals are marked by ceasing from work and gathering in community.

The expression used throughout Leviticus 23 to indicate this gathering in community is mikra kodesh, literally, ‘a sacred calling together’. So, here we are this evening, on the birthday of the world, summoned to be part of this mikra kodesh, and to embark on our journeys of t’shuvah, of ‘return’, together and individually, towards renewal. We are called to repair our lives and our relationships. We are also called to contribute to the repair of the world, tikkun olam. If the repair of the world is to become a reality, it will entail recognising ourselves as earthlings and embracing a life of coexistence with all the life forms on this planet, our only home. Kein y’hi ratzon. May this be our will. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation

Erev Rosh-Hashanah 5786

22nd September 2025 – 1st Tishri 5786

  1. See Machzor Ruach Chadashah (London, Liberal Judaism, 2003, p.147) for the text of ‘Ha-Yom harat olam’, a text, usually sung that begins, ‘Today is the birthday of the world.’ Traditionally, it is recited after each set of shofar blasts during the Rosh Ha-Shanah Musaf, ‘Additional’ Service. It is found in the first published liturgy, Siddur Rav Amram, vol. II, p.114 (9th century) and is common to the rites of all denominations. ↑

  2. See, for example, Midrash B’reishit Rabbah 3:7 (c.300-500 CE), for commentary on Genesis 1 which speaks of previous worlds that God had created and destroyed. ↑

  3. See: The LJ leaflet Ethical Eating by Rabbi Janet Burden https://www.liberaljudaism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Ethical-Eating-MAR-2020.pdf See also: https://evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org/eco-kashrut-a-kashrut-for-our-times/

    https://ecojudaism.org.uk/ The Eco Synagogue initiative Focuses on the practical application of ecological considerations to congregational life, including, synagogue food policies https://www.jvs.org.uk/2018/03/12/ecosynagogue-launches-london/ For an individual example of eco-agriculture in action in Britain: https://sadehfarm.co.uk/saveMidrash Tehillim (Psalms)sadeh ↑

  4. The first paragraph of Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah (1:1) lists the four days that are ‘new years’ the Jewish year: First of Nisan: the new year for Kings, and for the order of the festivals; first of Elul: the New Year for animal tithes; First Tishri: ‘The new year for years – rosh ha-shanah la-shanim’; Fifteenth of Sh’vat (Tu Bishvat): ‘the new year for the tree – rosh ha-shanah la-ilan. ↑

A People Forged in the Wilderness

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This Shabbat, we have opened the fourth book of the Torah. Its English name, ‘Numbers’, reflects its concern with numbering and ordering the tribes for their journey through the wilderness. The Hebrew name, taken from the first significant words that distinguish the book and its first portion, parashah, from all others, is B’midbar. We read (Numbers 1:1):

Va-y’dabbeir Adonai el-Moshe b’midbar Sinai.

The Eternal spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.

The phrase ‘The Eternal spoke to Moses’ is ubiquitous in the Torah. It’s the words that follow – ‘in the wilderness of Sinai’ (b’midbar Sinai’) – that provide the signal for the new book and its first parashah.

This year, we are beginning to read B’midbar just two days before the festival of Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, which falls seven weeks after the first day of Pesach.[1] In biblical times, Shavuot, also known as ‘chag ha-katzir’, ‘the feast of harvest’, and ‘yom ha-bikkurim’, ‘the day of first fruits’ (Exodus 23:14-16) was the early summer harvest festival. In the century following the destruction of the last Temple by the Romans in 70 CE and the final conquest of the land, the sages transformed the meaning of Shavuot, from an agricultural celebration to z’man matan Torateinu, ‘the season of the giving of our Torah’.[2]

The transformation meant that the observance of the festival could continue, wherever Jews live in the world. And significantly, the change connected the festival to the narrative of the Exodus. Having been liberated from Egypt in the first month of the year – named Aviv, ‘Spring’ in the Torah (Exodus 12:2 and 13:4) – we learn in Exodus chapter 19, verse 1, that the ex-slaves entered the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the third month – which in Talmudic times became known as Sivan, a word which is Babylonian in origin.

Just as significant as the linking of Shavuot with the Exodus narrative, is the location of the giving of the Torah: ba-midbar, ‘in the wilderness.’ Divine Revelation did not take place in the land beyond the Jordan, which was the destination of the ex-slaves. Rather, the Eternal spoke in thunder on a mountain top in no-one’s-land. Equally important, those who stood at the foot of the mountain were not just b’nei Yisraeil, ‘the children of Israel’ – that is Jacob (Genesis 32:29) – the descendants of the ancestors, the family, who were the first to journey with the one God. The rabble who huddled together as the mountain shook above them, included the erev rav, the ‘mixed multitude’ (Exodus 12:38), who went out of Egypt with them. Jews are not a race, defined by a shared biological inheritance. We are not a nation, defined by geography. We are a people whose identity was formed, when the Eternal made a covenant at Sinai with that diverse array of former slaves ba-midbar, ‘in the wilderness’.

We are a people whose identity was forged in the experience of oppression and liberation. And it is that experience that forms the bedrock to this day of our ethical values and practices. Significantly, laws concerning the treatment of the sojourner are repeated thirty-six times in the Torah – more than any other prescriptions. And the rationale is repeated again and again: ‘ki geirim heyyitem b’ertez Mitzrayim – for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt’.

And so, we read in the first code of law in the Torah, Mishpatim, in Exodus chapter 22, verse 20:

A sojourner you shall not wrong, neither shall you oppress them, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

And then in the same code, at Exodus chapter 23, verse 9:

A sojourner you shall not oppress; because you know the nefesh – the inner being – of the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

A similar commandment in the Holiness Code, Leviticus 19, verse 34, stresses the implications of this commonality between the people of Israel and the sojourner:

The sojourner who sojourns with you in your land shall be as the home-born among you – k’ezrach mi-kem – and you shall love them as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal your God.

The implications remain for Jews today, wherever we live. A few years ago, I wrote a Prayer for Refugees that is recited in Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue on Shabbat mornings as part of the community prayers. It includes these words:

Eternal Teacher of Your people Israel, as the children and grandchildren and descendants of refugees, aware of your teachings of justice and our sacred obligations towards the stranger, we express our commitment before you now to open our hearts and our hands and our communities to welcome those in need of refuge, and to do what we can to contribute to the alleviation of their suffering.

How can we do otherwise? Just two weeks ago, Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism voted to become one movement, Progressive Judaism. As the name of this congregation suggests, North West Surrey Synagogue, which is a constituent of MRJ, has not made the choice to broadcast its affiliation. I don’t know the reasons for this, but I would hazard a guess that one reason may be that for this shul, living Jewishly implies living ethically, without any need for an adjective. Teachings of justice demanding the practice of justice are at the heart of the Torah. The entire rationale for the liberation of the slaves was that the people formed in the covenant at Sinai would serve the Eternal, and create a society rooted in those teachings.

During the past twenty months since the horrific massacres and abductions orchestrated by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, we have witnessed the actions of a government in Israel dominated by ultraright politicians, which has abandoned the ethical teachings of the Torah, and which continues to ignore the obligations incumbent upon a state that claims to be ‘Jewish’. The modern State of Israel established on May 14, 1948 – 5th Iyyar in the Hebrew calendar – is the first sovereign Jewish state since the Hasmonean dynasty succumbed to Roman domination over two thousand years ago in 37 BCE.[3] Tragically, throughout the history of Jewish nationhood that goes back almost three thousand years, the adage that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’[4] has been played out again and again. We are reminded of this when we read the haftarah, the portion from the books of the Prophets that concludes the reading from Scripture on Shabbat and festival mornings. The prophets, those God-inspired individuals, who spoke ‘Truth to Power’[5] and called out injustice, addressed, not just the people, but very pointedly, the rulers of their day. The prophets demonstrated two key aspects of the prophetic task: to act on behalf of the poor, homeless, persecuted, vulnerable and marginal; and to call out one’s own people.


The first chapter of the Book of Isaiah could not be clearer. The opening verse sets the scene:

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzzaiah, Yotham, Ahaz, and Hezikiah, Kings of Judah.

Isaiah goes on to present a searing critique of what he bewails as ‘a sinful nation, of people laden with iniquity. A seed of evil-doers that deal corruptly; they have forsaken the Eternal, they have spurned the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backwards’ (1:4). And in the midst of his condemnation, the prophet makes it clear what is needed to put things right (1:17-18a):

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away your evil doings from before My eyes, cease to do evil. / Learn to do good; seek justice, defend the oppressed.

According to the Talmudic sages, a sage, chacham, literally, a ’wise one’ is ‘greater than a prophet’ and ‘wisdom is greater than prophecy’ (Bava Batra 12a 14). And so, in their view the age of prophecy had been replaced by their new age of learning. Nevertheless, when Progressive Judaism emerged in Germany in the wake of emancipation two-hundred years ago, the founders looked to the prophets for inspiration, and it is evident in our own day that prophetic voices are now speaking loud and clear across the Jewish world. The prophetic voices of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel[6] and Israel’s Human Rights Watch, B’tselem.[7] The prophetic voices of all those Israelis, who work together with Palestinians for a better future for both peoples in projects such as the Parents Circle Bereaved Families Forum,[8] Combatants for Peace,[9] and Standing Together, the grassroots organisation of Jewish and Palestinian Israelis committed to ‘peace, equality and social justice’.[10] Beyond the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we can also see prophetic Jewish voices being raised here in Britain concerning other major humanitarian and global concerns, most notably in the work of the human rights project, René Cassin,[11] the social justice project, HIAS-JCORE[12], and Eco-Judaism.[13]

Back in January, overwhelmed by the horrors of the impact of ceaseless war in Gaza on the civilian population, and the continuing captivity of the remaining hostages, I felt completely powerless. What could I do? What could we do? Like many of us, I was already supporting various Israeli- Palestinian coexistence and peace efforts. Meanwhile, the voices of our prophetic heritage were haunting me. I realised that we must reclaim prophetic Jewish teachings by establishing ‘a platform for prophetic voices and prophetic action, championing justice, peace, equality, human rights, and the planet.’[14]

Fortunately, a number of my colleagues agreed with me, and Voices for Prophetic Judaism will be launched tomorrow evening with an online Tikkun Leil Shavuot. We have started gathering materials for our new website, where anyone interested will be able to access resources to support prophetic thinking and action, including prophetic biblical, talmudic, mediaeval, modern and contemporary teachings, sermons, articles, pamphlets, and podcasts, as well as sign-posting for organisations that act as pathways to prophetic action. In the absence of an institutional structure, formal membership and official leadership, Voices for Prophetic Judaism is open to all those Jews and fellow-travellers, who want to contribute to the work of pursuing justice, peace, and equality, establishing human rights, and ensuring a sustainable future for the planet. Voices for Prophetic Judaism is open to you, to everyone gathered here today, and to this special congregation, which while rejecting labels remains, no doubt, wholly committed to the core ethical and sacred teachings of Judaism. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

North West Surrey Synagogue

31st May 2025 / 4th Sivan 5785

 

  1. The name, Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, derives from it falling on the fiftieth day, seven weeks after the first day of Pesach/Passover (in biblical times: seven weeks from the Shabbat, ‘Sabbath’ during Pesach – Leviticus 23:15-16). ↑

  2. We read in the midrash, Exodus Rabbah, chapter 31, in reference to the three pilgrim festivals ‘fixed by God’, that the second of these is, according to the second century sage, Rabbi Meir, ‘the festival of the harvest on which the Torah was given to Israel – chag ha-katzir shebo nit’nah Torah l’Yisraeil’. ↑

  3. https://cojs.org/the_hasmonean_dynasty_-142-37_bce/ ↑

  4. First articulated by Lord Acton on April 5, 1887 in a letter to Archbishop Mandell Creighton https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165acton.html ↑

  5. https://grammarist.com/phrase/speak-truth-to-power/ ↑

  6. https://www.rhr.org.il/eng ↑

  7. https://statistics.btselem.org/en ↑

  8. https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/homepage-en/ ↑

  9. https://cfpeace.org/about-en/ ↑

  10. https://www.standing-together.org/en ↑

  11. https://renecassin.org/our-mission/ ↑

  12. https://hiasjcore.org/what/ ↑

  13. https://ecojudaism.org.uk/ ↑

  14. From the strap-line of the Voices for Prophetic Judaism website: https://voicesforpropheticjudaism.uk/ ↑

DEDICATING THE FLAMES OF CHANUKKAH (5785-2024)

At Chanukkah, the Festival of ‘Dedication’, as we recall our ancestors’ struggle against tyranny by kindling light, we invite the gathering flames to inspire our own struggles against oppression and injustice.

This year, almost fifteen months since the horrors of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, we dedicate our nightly kindling to all those whose lives have been devastated in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, in the hope that the violence will soon cease, and that all those who have been bereaved, injured, and traumatised, will be enabled to rebuild their lives in Peace and Freedom.

  • We dedicate the 1st flame of Chanukkah to the 251 people taken hostage and 1200 massacred by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. We think in particular of the 38 children, 364 young people murdered at the Nova Music festival, the kibbutzniks slaughtered in twenty-one kibbutzim – including 90 members on Kibbutz Be’eri alone – and the 71 foreign nationals.
  • We dedicate the 2nd flame of Chanukkah to the more than 35,000 Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas.
  • We dedicate the 3rd flame of Chanukkah to the almost 100 Israeli civilians killed since October 7, 2023, including fourteen hostages in Gaza, and thirty-three additional hostages thought to be dead.
  • We dedicate the 4th flame of Chanukkah to the 1.6 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza, living in tents, without sufficient food, and under constant threat of bombardment.
  • We dedicate the 5th flame of Chanukkah to the 135,000 people displaced in Israel, including 60,000 in the North.
  • We dedicate the 6th flame of Chanukkah to the more than 500 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by settlers and the IDF soldiers since October 7, 2023.
  • We dedicate the 7th flame of Chanukkah to the 3,960 Lebanese killed during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hezbollah during the autumn of 2024.
  • We dedicate the 8th flame of Chanukkah to the 101 Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

THE FESTIVAL OF CHANUKKAH: A CELEBRATION OF FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION – Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Chanukkah, meaning ‘Dedication’, is an eight-day festival which celebrates freedom from oppression with the kindling of flames each night. The Hebrew date of Chanukkah is the 25th of the month of Kislev. This year, it begins after sunset on December 25th.

History

In 167 BCE, the Jews of Judea rose up in revolt against the oppressive regime of the Seleucid Emperor, King Antiochus IV. The revolt was led by Judah the Maccabee (‘Hammer’), the eldest son of Mattathias, the priest of Mod’in. In 164, Judah and his followers recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been turned into a pagan shrine, cleansed and rededicated it, and re-lit the seven-branched candle-stick, the M’norah. The event was marked by an eight-day celebration, resembling the Festival of Sukkot (‘Tabernacles’), which they had missed.

In later centuries, the early rabbis taught (Talmud: Shabbat 21b) about the miracle of a supply of Temple oil only sufficient for one day that lasted for eight days in order to emphasise that the triumph was ultimately spiritual: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit declares the God of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

How to Kindle the Flames of Chanukkah

The principal ritual of Chanukkah concerns the kindling of flames by a ‘servant’ candle (shamash) on a nine-branched Chanukkah M’norah, night after night for eight nights: one flame on the 1st night, two on the 2nd, three on the 3rd, and so on. The candles are placed from right to left, and lit from left to right to give pride of place to the candle for each day. Ideally, the lit Chanukkah M’norah should be put in the window, in order to proclaim the miracle. Whether or not one believes in ‘miracles’, the accumulating flames of Chanukkah celebrate the miracle of the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of tyranny and persecution.

Dedicating the Flames of Chanukkah

As we recall our ancestors’ struggle against tyranny by kindling light, we invite the gathering flames to inspire our own struggles against oppression and injustice.

This year, almost fifteen months since the horrors of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, we dedicate our nightly kindling to all those whose lives have been devastated in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, in the hope that the violence will soon cease, and that all those who have been bereaved, injured, and traumatised, will be enabled to rebuild their lives in Peace and Freedom.

  • We dedicate the 1st flame of Chanukkah to the 251 people taken hostage and 1200 massacred by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. We think in particular of the 38 children, 364 young people murdered at the Nova Music festival, the kibbutzniks slaughtered in twenty-one kibbutzim – including 90 members on Kibbutz Be’eri alone – and the 71 foreign nationals.
  • We dedicate the 2nd flame of Chanukkah to the more than 35,000 Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas.
  • We dedicate the 3rd flame of Chanukkah to the almost 100 Israeli civilians killed since October 7, 2023, including fourteen hostages in Gaza, and thirty-three additional hostages thought to be dead.
  • We dedicate the 4th flame of Chanukkah to the 1.6 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza, living in tents, without sufficient food, and under constant threat of bombardment.
  • We dedicate the 5th flame of Chanukkah to the 135,000 people displaced in Israel, including 60,000 in the North.
  • We dedicate the 6th flame of Chanukkah to the more than 500 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by settlers and the IDF soldiers since October 7, 2023.
  • We dedicate the 7th flame of Chanukkah to the 3,960 Lebanese killed during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hezbollah during the autumn of 2024.
  • We dedicate the 8th flame of Chanukkah to the 101 Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

Blessings, Prayer & Song

Light the ‘servant’ candle, then recite:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל חֲנֻכָּה

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech ha-olam a-sher ki-d’-sha-nu b-mitz-vo-tav v-tzi-va-nu l-had-lik neir Cha-nu-kah.

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of Chanukkah.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁעָשָׂה נִסִּים לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְאִמוֹתֵינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-olam she-a-sa ni-sim la-avo-tei-nu v’i-mo-tei-nu ba-ya-mim ha-heim baz-man ha-zeh.

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors in those days, at this season.

Recite only on the first night:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה

Ba-ruch A-tah Ado-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-olam she-heche-ya-nu v-ki-y-ma-nu v-hi-gi-a-nu laz-man ha-zeh.

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Sovereign of the universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season.

After the candles are lit, say:

Ha-nei-rot ha-la-lu a-nu mad-li-kin al ha-ni-sim, v-al ha-t-shu-ot, v-al ha-nif-la-ot, she-a-si-ta la-avo-tei-nu. V-chol sh-mo-nat y-mey cha-nu-kah ha-nei-rot ha-la-lu ko-desh; v-ein la-nu r-shut l-hish-ta-meish ba-hem, e-la lir-o-tan bil-vad, k-dey l-ho-dot l-shim-cha al ni-se-cha, v-al nif-l-o-te-cha, v-al y-shu-o-te-cha.

We kindle these lights in remembrance of the wonderful deliverance you performed for our ancestors. Throughout the eight days of Chanukkah, these lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make use of them, but only to look at them, so that their glow may move us to give thanks for Your wonderful acts of deliverance.

Then, sing Ma’oz Tzur:

מָעוֹז צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי לְךָ נָאֶה לְשַׁבֵּחַ

תִּכּוֹן בֵּית תְּפִלָּתִי וְשָׁם תּוֹדָה נְזַבֵּחַ

לְעֵת תָּכִין מַטְבֵּחַ מִצָּר הַמְנַבֵּח

אָז אֶגְמוֹר בְּשִׁיר מִזְמוֹר חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ

Ma-oz tzur y-shu-a-ti, l-cha na-eh l-sha-bei-ach
Ti-kon beit t-fi-la-ti, v-sham to-dah n-za-bei-ach
L’eit ta-chin mat-bei-ach, v-tzar ha-m-na-bei-ach
Az eg-mor b-shir miz-mor Cha-nu-kat Ha-miz-bei-ach [X 2]

Refuge, Rock of my salvation, to You our praise is due.

Let Your house become a house of prayer and thanksgiving for all peoples.

When by Your will bloodshed ends and enemies cease to scream hate:

Then we will shall celebrate with joyful song the true dedication of Your altar.

THE CALL OF T’SHUVAH, T’FILLAH, AND TZ’DAKAH by Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Yom Kippur Shacharit 5785, 12.10.24

Since I retired at the end of April 2021, I’ve written a book with the title, Judaism Beyond Binaries. I began my exploration by identifying ‘threes’ in the Torah and Jewish teaching generally, in an effort to confront binary thinking and practice. In my Kol Nidrei sermon, I explored a refrain of threes that expresses the purpose of Yom Kippur in the form of a plea: ‘forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement’ – s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu. This morning, I want to talk about another powerful refrain of threes that frames the entire journey of the yamim nora’im, these ‘awed days’ that began on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude today on Yom Kippur: T’shuvah, ‘Return’, T’fillah, ‘Prayer’, and Tz’dakah. ‘Deeds of Justice’.

The call to T’shuvah, T’fillah, and Tz’dakah is a feature of a mediaeval piyyut, ‘poem’, known by its first two words, U’n’tanneh Tokef. We will recite this poem at the beginning of the Musaf, the ‘additional’ service. Emphasising the supremacy of God as Judge, Arbiter, Expert and Witness,[1] and the fragility of mortal humanity, the language of U’n’tanneh Tokef is poignant. It is also intimidating, reminding us that the Judge before whom each one of us stands, ‘writes and seals, records and recounts the deeds of every human being’ and decrees a judgement. Nevertheless, there is a message of hope, the hope that we will act to mend our ways, expressed with this simple statement: U’t’shuvah, u’t’fillah, u’tz’dakah ma’avirin et-ro’a ha-g’zeira, ‘But return, prayer and just deeds annul the evil decree’. T’shuvah, t’fillah and tz’dakah: this is the threefold challenge set before us.

We start with T’shuvah. There is sense of urgency. We will not automatically be absolved at the end of Yom Kippur. On the contrary, as we read in the Mishnah, tractate Yoma (8.9):

One who says: I shall sin and repent [v’ashuv], sin and repent, they do not afford that person the opportunity to repent [t’shuvah]. [If one says]: I shall sin and Yom Ha-Kippurim[2] will atone for me, Yom Ha-Kippurim, does not effect atonement. For transgressions between a person and God Yom Ha-Kippurim effects atonement, but for transgressions between one person and another, Yom Ha-Kippurim does not effect atonement, until they have appeased their friend.

The import of this teaching from the Mishnah is that t’shuvah is a task that requires effort. T’shuvah is usually translated as ‘repentance’, but the root Shin Vav Beit means to ‘turn’, or ‘return’. The word ‘journey’ has been overused in recent years, but the process of acknowledging our misdeeds and taking steps to make amends involves a journey.

T’shuvah involves recognising that we have strayed off the path of our lives, or taken a route that has led to a cul-de-sac, and that we need to turn around and return to our path. Turning around does not mean going back: we cannot go back; the past cannot be undone. We can only move forwards. When we turn and move towards the path and then find it again, we discover that we are further along. We have learnt from our experiences. In making the effort to turn and return we have become more self-aware, admitted our errors and mistakes, and acknowledged how and why we came to lose our way.

Returning to the path of our lives is only a beginning. As the passage in the Mishnah quoted above makes clear, t’shuvah entails putting things right in relation to those whom we have harmed or wronged, and rebuilding our relationships. But t’shuvah is elusive. Those who approach it in a mechanical fashion, ticking off items on the list, will not experience the sense of renewal it offers. T’shuvah requires commitment not drive. It is not possible for us to speed our way back to the path of our lives, or find easy fixes to rebuilding trust with those whom we have hurt. In the awareness of personal frailties, all we can do is put one foot in front of another, tentatively, and feel our way along, and approach others with contrition and humility.

T’shuvah, ‘Return’ – and T’fillah, ‘Prayer’. What is prayer from a Jewish perspective? The root of t’fillah, Pei Lamed Lamed means to intervene, interpose, arbitrate, judge, intercede. Jewish prayer takes the form of liturgy, set prayers, mostly written hundreds of years ago.[3] The majority of these prayers are not actual prayers in the commonly accepted understanding of the word. Most are peons of praise to God in the form of blessing. There are blessings connected with thanksgiving, and acknowledgement of God for the gifts we enjoy that nourish us and enrich our lives, and blessings concerning actions that we are commanded to perform, like lighting candles.[4]

Petitionary prayer is largely confined to thirteen blessings recited on weekdays in the middle of the Amidah, the central ‘standing’ prayer, which consists of nineteen blessings all together.[5] Apart from the option of adding a personal prayer to the blessing for healing, the themes of the petitionary blessings are fixed, and include requests for understanding, repentance, forgiveness, justice. On Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, the liturgy is even more extensive and includes special prayers, like Avinu Malkeinu, which addresses God as ’our Parent and ‘our Sovereign’. The tone of these prayers is utterly supplicatory. For example, the concluding verse of Avinu Malkeinu, which we find so moving when we sing it:[6]

Our Parent, our Sovereign, be gracious to us and answer us, for there is little goodness in us; treat us with justice [tz’dakah] and lovingkindness [chesed], and save us.

Interestingly, ‘to pray’, l’hitpalleil, is a reflexive form. Reflective forms express an action in relation to ourselves. In the context of praying, this is very significant. We assume that to pray is to address God, but l’hitpalleil suggests that when we pray, we also address ourselves. Of course, some people never pray. Some only pray in desperate situations, their prayer a plea for help: Please God, please help me! Others, only pray during the ‘awed days’ when prayer becomes a lifeline, a means of personal repair. Whatever the reason any one of us may find to pray, and whether or not prayer is familiar, alien, or irrelevant at other times of the year, what we are doing when we pray during these ‘awed days’ is, essentially, interrogating ourselves. To pray, l’hitpalleil, is to open our hearts and to acknowledge our frailties, and needs for love, compassion, support, affirmation, forgiveness. To pray is to give thanks for the gift of life, and all the ways in which our needs are met. To pray is to acknowledge that each of us has the potential to shape and transform our lives. To pray is to recognise that in order to transform our lives, we must also be prepared to let go and move on, and trust that we can renew ourselves and our relationships.

T’shuvah, ‘Return’, and T’fillah, ‘Prayer’ – and Tz’dakah, ‘Deeds of Justice’. The focus of the ten-day t’shuvah journey is for us to make amends for our misdeeds, and so receive at the end of this sacred day of Yom Kippur, forgiveness and atonement. But that goal is only a beginning. Jewish teaching is concerned with the work of renewal and repair for the sake of the future. The journey of t’shuvah reaches beyond the gift of forgiveness and atonement to tz’dakah, to the task of practising righteousness and justice after the yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’, are over.

Tz’dakah is usually translated as ‘charity’, but the root of the word charity is the Latin caritas, which conveys a different meaning from the root of tz’dakah, Tzadi Dalet Kuf, to be ‘just’. Caritas centres on the feelings of love that move us to feel compassion for others and to take action to support them, both materially and emotionally. Related to the word tzedek, ‘justice’, Tz’dakah focuses on the imperative of just action.[7] Emotions cannot be compelled, so righteous acts that are dependent on our feelings are useless. We may feel moved to help others, but we may not. Tz’dakah, by contrast, is a commandment. It is our obligation to put right what is wrong in relation to the poor, including the homeless, those who are oppressed and persecuted, and the most vulnerable groups in society, identified in the Torah, specifically, as the sojourner, the orphan and the widow.[8]

In Isaiah chapter 58, the Yom Kippur morning haftarah, the ‘concluding’ reading from scripture, which we will read shortly, the unknown prophet of the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah who addressed the exiles in Babylon in the 6th century BCE,[9] decries observance of the rituals of Yom Kippur that are not accompanied by acts of righteousness. We read (58.5-7):

Is this the fast I look for? A day of self-affliction? Bowing your head like a reed, and covering yourself with sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Eternal One? / Is not this the fast I choose: to release the shackles of wickedness and untie the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free and to break off every yoke? / Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin?

The prophet’s words recited on Yom Kippur morning are just as relevant to contemporary society as they were 2500 years ago. But they do not simply address the community as a whole. It is the individual who fasts, afflicts themselves, and engages in the rites of Yom Kippur. The call of Isaiah 58 is to the people Israel, and also to the individual, to each one of us, to act against oppression and destitution. So, each one of us is challenged to ask ourselves: how will I respond? I know that I live in a world in which injustice is rife. What will I do about it? The ten-day t’shuvah journey will conclude in a few hours’ time, and then it is every individual’s task to harvest the fruits of our repentance with acts of tz’dakah.

U’t’shuvah, u’T’fillah, u’tz’dakah has been the framing refrain of aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’, for hundreds of years.[10] We recite these words, as we recite all the words of the yamim nora’im liturgy, year after year. And yet, each year we find ourselves in a different place. This past year we have been living in the shadow of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath. What do these words mean to us this year? How do the obligations they encapsulate resonate with us today on Yom Kippur, less than a week after the October 7 anniversary? We have felt so overwhelmed by despair and hopelessness these past twelve months. The call of tz’dakah, in particular, reminds us that feeling devoid of Hope, we must, nevertheless, act. Indeed, those Israelis and Palestinians who continue to work together to create a better future are crying out for Jews in the diaspora to support their efforts.

To give you just one example. On September 1, I attended a zoom gathering organised by the British Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, an organisation that encompasses rabbis across the religious spectrum, who put their commitment to human rights into practice, in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza.[11] There were three speakers, orthodox Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel, conservative Rabbi Amirit Rosen, and Rabbi Michael Marmur of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. All three spoke powerfully, but I was particularly taken by Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel, whose voice was truly prophetic. Ordained in 2019 and the first woman to be elected to an orthodox religious Council, in addition to being involved in Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel is also a member of Machshom Watch,[12] the group of women who go to checkpoints – machshom means ‘checkpoint’ – and monitor what goes on there. She is committed to speaking out because, as she put it, ‘orthodox voices seem to be backing the war.’ She called what they are doing, chillul Ha-Sheim, a ‘desecration of the Divine Name’, ‘because’, as she put it, ‘the Torah is being used to sanctify war.’ Here are some extracts from Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel’s powerful address at that zoom meeting:

Vengeance goes nowhere. We are supposed to value life above all, to value peace above all… We are systematically destroying a people, their livelihoods, their future… It’s totally forbidden to engage in this kind of warfare, as if we were in the times of Joshua… The only kind of Jewish state we can have must be aligned to democracy, equal rights for all… Since 1967, Religious Zionism has changed into religious messianism, the notion that the land is sacred, and that every inch must belong to the Jews. Messianism is a turning away from Zionism. This is fundamentalism. You cannot read the Bible literally. You must read it in the context of the needs of the present and the future. Does this fundamentalism support life or drag us into death? The role of religious leaders in general is promote the values of freedom and justice. We have to scream from the rooftops… We must speak Truth to Power.

The courage of Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel, Rabbi Amirit Rosen, and Rabbi Michael Marmur, and all the rabbis involved in Rabbis for Human Rights, who stand in front of bulldozers to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes by the IDF, who accompany Palestinians in their olive groves to prevent settlers uprooting their trees, who advocate for Palestinians in the courts, is tz’dakah in action. Of course, we are not there on the ground. But we can support their work, and the work of the many organisations that are determined to continue the struggle for Justice and Peace. Coexistence organisations like Standing Together,[13] Women Wage Peace,[14] the Parents’ Circle Bereaved Families Forum,[15] and Combatants for Peace[16] – not forgetting the wonderful village in no man’s land of Jews Christians and Muslims, which inspired the Hebrew name of this congregation: Neve Shalom, Wahat al-Salaam, ‘Oasis of Peace’.[17] May the call of t’shuvah, t’fillah and tz’dakah, revive our spirits, and be a source of inspiration when the sun sets on this unique day, and we step out into the challenges of the new year that lies ahead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5785

12th October 2024 / 10th Tishri 5785

  1. This is the translation of the Hebrew text in Machzor Ruach Chadashah, 2003, p.141. ↑

  2. Yom Ha-Kippurim is the name for Yom Kippur in the Torah. See: Leviticus 23.27. ↑

  3. The rabbinic sages devised the first post-biblical prayers, but it was not until the 9th century that the first complete prayer book was written: Seider Rav Amram, the work of the head of the Babylonian Talmudic Academy of Sura at that time, Amram bar Sheshna. For an in-depth exposition of the development of Jewish okayprayer, see: Elbogen, Ismar, Jewish Liturgy. A Comprehensive History, Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1993 (first published in German in 1913. See note: 14). See also: Hoffman, Lawrence A., The Canonization of the Synagogue Service, Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. ↑

  4. For an accessible guide to Jewish prayer, including the types of blessings, see: Hoffman, Lawrence A., The Way Into Jewish Prayer, Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000. ↑

  5. The Amidah (meaning, ‘standing’) is the central prayer of Jewish worship, traditionally recited while standing. The thirteen petitionary blessings are not recited on Shabbat because it would be inappropriate to petition God while enjoying God’s gift of rest. In place of the thirteen petitions, a blessing for Shabbat is recited. The thirteen petitions consist of six that are personal, six that are communal, and a final one, asking God to listen to our prayers. ↑

  6. See: Machzor Ru’ach Chadashah, 2003, p.74, for a slightly different translation. ↑

  7. One of the most important pronouncements about justice in the Torah is in Deuteronomy 16.20: Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, ‘Justice, justice, shall you pursue’. ↑

  8. Significantly, the word tz’dakah is used in relation to restoring the garment of a poor person given in pledge (Deuteronomy 24.10-13). The code in Deuteronomy 24 also mentions all three of these categories of vulnerable people (Deut. 24.17 to 22). See also: Leviticus 19.9-10 and 19.33–34. ↑

  9. Isaiah 1.1 speaks of ‘Isaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezikiah, kings of Judah’. Isaiah 6.1 mentions Isaiah’s call to prophecy in the year that King Uzziah died (742 BCE). While chapters 1-39 belong to the period when Isaiah prophesied. Chapters 40 to 66 are later in origin, the work of a Second (Deutero) Isaiah. Sometimes chapters 55-66 are seen as the work of a Third (Trito) Isaiah. ↑

  10. The first prayer book to include prayers for the festivals is Machzor Vitry composed by French scholar, Simchah of Vitry, c. 1055 – c. 1105 https://www.sefaria.org/Machzor_Vitry?tab=contents ↑

  11. https://www.rhr.org.il/eng ↑

  12. https://www.machsomwatch.org/en/node/51914 ↑

  13. https://www.standing-together.org/en ↑

  14. https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il/en/about/ ↑

  15. https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/about_eng-2/ ↑

  16. https://cfpeace.org/about-en/ ↑

  17. https://wasns.org/about/ ↑

THE OBLIGATION TO CHOOSE LIFE AND ACT by Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Erev Yom Kippur, 5785, 11th October 2024

We have arrived at Yom Kippur, a day in sacred time, set apart from all the other days of the year. We have gathered together in a place, which for twenty-five hours is set apart from all the other places we inhabit in our daily lives: our homes, workplaces, schools, universities, shops, streets and parks. Of course, for most of us here, it is a familiar place, the congregation’s home. But today, even this familiar place in which the community gathers each Shabbat, becomes another place, etched in Eternity. The Talmudic tractate dedicated to Yom Kippur is called Yoma, the Aramaic word for ‘the day’. Yoma: the singular day out of time and space.

We have gathered here, not simply to be here, but to do something; to complete the journey we began on Rosh Ha-Shanah, the journey of t’shuvah, of ‘return’; to ourselves, to others, to the ultimate ‘other’, the Eternal One. Yom Kippur is the final destination of our journey, marked by five staging posts in the form of five services: Erev, ‘evening’, known by the first words of the passage that marks the service out: Kol Nidrei; Shacharit, ‘morning’; Musaf, ‘additional’; Minchah, afternoon; and N’ilah, ‘closing’. As we move from stage to stage, we also pause to remember those who are no longer with us. In progressive congregations, Yizkor, the memorial service is held just prior to N’ilah. In orthodox congregation, Yizkor is observed at the end of the morning.

These staging posts help us to navigate through the day as we engage in the task of Yoma, the task of making confession for our wrongs and misdeeds, and seeking forgiveness.

‘Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement’, s’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu. The words of this liturgical refrain punctuate the day. A refrain that takes the form of a plea. Significantly, although the focus is on the individual, the plea is couched in the first-person plural. This is also the case in all the passages of confession we will repeat today. The catalogue of sins arranged alphabetically and known by its first word, Ashamnu, begins: Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, ‘We have offended, we have dealt treacherously, we have robbed’.[1] We will be studying this alphabetical text during the break between the additional and afternoon services. Similarly, the refrain that precedes each confession in another liturgical arrangement is also in the first-person plural. It begins: Al cheit shechatanu l’fanekha, ‘For the sin we have committed before You.’[2] Actually, the word ‘sin’ does not really capture the Hebrew. Strictly speaking, cheit, the word that gets translated as ‘sin’ expresses the kind of error we commit when we miss our way.[3] But that doesn’t mean that the errors we commit are not grievous. The text of the Al Cheit makes it clear that, even the ordinary errors we make that we may feel inclined to excuse in ourselves, are serious and require our repentance.

Today we stand together and make confession together, even though the responsibility to go on this journey devolves on each one of us. So, why do we make our confession in the first-person plural? Why this communal act of solidarity, which in practice involves individuals confessing to misdeeds that we may not have personally committed? There are at least three reasons for confessing our sins in the first-person plural. First, amongst the congregation, there may be individuals who have committed those misdeeds. Second, confessing to wrongs we haven’t committed as individuals is an acknowledgement that we could have committed them. Third, as each one of us makes our confession, we do so, not simply because we are Jews and that’s what Jews do on Yom Kippur. The ‘we’ on this sacred day out of time and space embraces humanity, and so we confess to misdeeds that encompass the wrongs that humans are capable of committing. Although each one of us is on our own personal journey, confession in the first-person plural expresses our shared predicament as frail human beings who go astray.

S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kappeir lanu. ‘Forgive us, pardon us, and grant us atonement’. There are several poignant melodies for this phrase that is traditionally inserted between each three-line verse of the Al Cheit. Each melody is designed to move us and open up our hearts. But what does the threefold refrain imply? Human beings need forgiveness. Each one of us needs to feel forgiven so that we can let go of the past and move on. But Jewish teaching makes it clear that the we can only be forgiven if we repent, and do what we can to make amends. We are also challenged to forgive others. In fact, if we fail to forgive someone who has sought our forgiveness three times, we are the ones in the wrong (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot T’shuvah, 2.9).

But forgiveness on Yom Kippur takes on a deeper resonance. Having engaged in the process of t’shuvah, and having done what we can to repent and seek forgiveness from those we have harmed, each one of us is seeking forgiveness from the Eternal One. More than forgiveness, we are seeking pardon. The Hebrew, m’chal lanu, ‘pardon us’, expresses a blotting out or wiping out; an annulment.[4] But how can we be seeking an annulment, in other words, a cancellation of our misconduct? Because, ultimately, Yom Kippur represents the drawing of a line under all that has gone before, so that each one of us can start the New Year afresh. The Hebrew, kappeir lanu, ‘grant us atonement’, literally, means ‘cover us’. We read in the Torah that the Ark was covered with a kapporet, a ‘covering’ of gold.[5] The goal of Yom Kippur is a covering over of our misdeeds of the past year. They do not disappear, or evaporate, they are not conjured away by the rituals of Yom Kippur; they are covered over.

But what does this mean in practice? As we go on our journeys today and engage in our personal search for forgiveness, pardon and atonement, this unique day carries the hope of a new beginning. But this hope begs many questions: How do I make a new beginning? What should I do with the covered-over wrongs committed during the past year? Store them away? Bury them? How do I go about accepting that they are covered over, and move on? The clue to working out answers to these questions lies not only in the root meaning of kippur, as ‘covering’, but also in the process of the yamim nora’im, ‘awed days’. The covering over of the deeds of the past year depends on what what we do before the gates close[6] on Yom Kippur; on our heartfelt desire for pardon and forgiveness. This in turn, involves fidelity to the demands of t’shuvah, return. The ten days of reflection which began on Rosh Ha-Shanah will have done their work if at the end of Yom Kippur we can say: I will find a way of moving forward because I have addressed my mistakes and misdeeds of the year that has passed.

Decoding the language and purpose of the yamim nora’im, literally the ‘awed days’, is not the same thing as really taking to heart what it means to take responsibility for our misdeeds – and also, more generally, for what we do, and what we fail to do. Saying ‘we’, and really meaning ‘we’, means, for example, that in the face of the violence and persecution we witness every day on our TV screens and devices, we cannot distance ourselves from the perpetrators by demonising them and regarding them as inherently evil and entirely different from us. On the contrary, we are challenged to acknowledge that even those who commit the most heinous atrocities are human beings, like us. The Torah portion we will read tomorrow morning from Deuteronomy chapter 30, includes a powerful challenge that reminds us that each one of us has the potential to act for evil or for good. We read (30:15;19):

See! I have set before you today, life and good, and death and evil … I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you, life and death, the blessing and the curse, therefore, you shall choose life – u’vacharta ba-chayyim – so that you may live, you and your descendants.

Today. Every day – and in particular, this particular today, when we have the time and the space to reflect on our lives, and make a conscious choice to choose life and good, rather than death and evil. This also involves choosing compassion and justice, rather than hatred and persecution, the ways of peace, rather than violence and destruction.

And our responsibility doesn’t end there. Immediately before the verses I have quoted from the portion that we will read in the morning, we are presented with another challenge (30:11-14):

For this commandment, which I command you today is not too complex 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?’ / Neither is it 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 matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it – ki karov eilecha ha-davart m’od; b’ficha u’vilvav’cha la’asoto.

‘For the matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it’. You can’t get much nearer than ‘in your mouth and in your heart’. But being in our mouths and in our hearts is not the end of ‘the matter’. The point is to act. In August, we witnessed people in towns and cities across the UK, including here in Leicester,[7] taking out their frustration about economic hardship and the housing crisis on migrants and refugees and their Muslim neighbours. In some instances, angry mobs attacked mosques and hotels housing migrants and refugees. In response, ordinary people came together to protect those under attack. For example, ‘Together’, an interfaith coalition supported by Hope Not Hate, organised a solidarity event outside Southport Mosque. Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen represented Progressive Judaism at the gathering, standing alongside more than a dozen Imams, and also spoke to a BBC reporter about the imperative of spreading ‘a message of love and connection’ in the face of hatred and division.[8] Rabbi Robyn, together with Rabbi Warren Elf, also took part in a solidarity visit to the Khizra Mosque in Manchester.[9]

If we don’t act, we risk standing by while those who choose hatred, visit their bigotry on some of the most vulnerable in our midst. Of course, acting carries its risks, too. But what is the alternative? Stasis? The choice remains before us. Let us find our courage in the much-quoted wisdom of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: Kol ha-olam, kullo, gesher tzar m’od, v’ha-ikar lo l’phacheid k’llal – ‘All the world, all of it, is a very narrow bridge, but the essential thing is never to be afraid’.[10] On this sacred day, set apart from all other days of the Jewish year, we are challenged to take steps into the unknown future. May we support one another as we begin our journey.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation

Erev Yom Kippur 5785

11th October 2024 / 10th Tishri 5785

  1. See: Machzor Ruach Chadashah, p. 197. ↑

  2. See: Machzor Ruach Chadashah, pp. 198-200. ↑

  3. There are many words for ‘sin’ in the vocabulary of Yom Kippur. See: Machzor Ruach Chadashah, p. 164, for ‘A Vocabulary of Sin’ based on A Guide to Yom Kippur by Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs, London: Jewish Chronicle Publications, 1957, pp.75ff. ↑

  4. The Biblical Hebrew root is Mem Chet Hei. In Rabbinic Hebrew: Mem Chet Lamed. ↑

  5. The kapporet that covered the Ark was a slab of gold, 2.5 cubits by 1.5 cubits. See: Exodus 25.17-22 ↑

  6. The liturgy for Yom Kippur is arranged into five services, plus Yizkor, a Memorial Service: Evening [Erev], known by its opening passage, Kol Nidrei; Morning [Shacharit]; Additional [Musaf]; Afternoon [Minchah]; and Closing [N’ilah]. Of these services, only N’ilah is exclusive to Yom Kippur. The central imagery of the ‘Closing’ service is of gates closing, conveying a sense of urgency that the congregation’s pleas for forgiveness and pardon will be accepted. This is expressed liturgically – and here is the literal translation: ‘Open for us a gate, at the time of the closing of the gate, for day has turned [ki phanah yom], the day is turning [ha-yom yiphneh], the sun is setting, let us enter Your gates’. The root for ‘turn’ in this passage is Pei Nun Hei. See Machzor Ru’ach Chadashah, p. 424, for a more poetic rendering of the Hebrew. ↑

  7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72441k4xlqo ↑

  8. https://www.liberaljudaism.org/2024/08/faith-leaders-stand-together-against-extremism/ ↑

  9. https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/jewish-communities-offer-solidarity-to-muslim-counterparts/ ↑

  10. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/494107?lang=bi ↑

PRO-ISRAEL AND PRO-PALESTINE by Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5785, 3rd October 2024

Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Congregation

We have gathered here this Rosh Ha-Shanah morning to mark the New Year for years. What will the New Year bring? We are concerned about the future for so many reasons – not least, because of the ongoing catastrophe of October 7 and its aftermath. But before we can look forward, we must look back, reflect on the past year, and consider the legacy of past years. Engaging in this process also includes interrogating the most precious and sacred legacy bequeathed to us, the Torah. I will turn to our Rosh Ha-Shanah portion in a moment. But first, let me begin with an experience I had ten years ago now.

In 2014, after a SodaStream Store opened in Brighton – SodaStream being an Israeli eco-company with its factory in the West Bank – the local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign staged a picket.[1] Inevitably, a section of the local Jewish community decided to undertake a counter-protest. One Shabbat afternoon, after finishing my teaching, I went into the store to find out how the staff were dealing with the protesters. Doing so, involved walking through the two camps; the one waving Palestinian flags, the other waving Israeli flags. After I left, I decided on a strategy: to step between the binary. And so, I ordered both flags. I also created a placard for wearing front and back, with the words Anti-Israel, Anti-Palestine, crossed out in favour of Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine. The following Shabbat, I returned to the EcoStream store, where I attempted to speak to both sets of protesters. I’m sure you can guess the reaction of both sides. Those bearing Israeli flags, could only see that I was holding a Palestinian flag. Those holding Palestinian flags, could only see that I was holding an Israeli flag.

I love Israel, which I first visited as a 23-year-old in 1978, and I’m also deeply committed to the Jewish values of justice and peace. So, for me, there is no contradiction between being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. On the contrary. From my perspective as a Jew who has dedicated their life to the Jewish people, taken Jewish ethical teachings to heart, and does what I can to practice what I preach, being pro-Israel involves being pro-Palestine. We read in the book of Deuteronomy: Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof, ‘Justice, Justice you shall pursue’ (16:20). Justice for Israel and Justice for Palestine. Pursuing Justice, demands acknowledging the right of both sibling peoples to be treated justly.

Sibling peoples. The tragic irony of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there are so many similarities in the historical experiences of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples; both marginalised and persecuted, both exiled and dispersed. Of course, the establishment of the modern State of Israel empowered the Jewish people, while the Palestinians’ longing for self-determination continues to be thwarted by an Israeli government that is determined to crush their aspirations. The as yet unresolved conflict between sibling peoples goes back to Abraham. In the Torah portion we read this morning from Genesis 21, the two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac are separated from one another because Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is determined that Ishmael, the product of the union of Abraham with her Egyptian servant, Hagar, ‘shall not inherit with my son, with Isaac’ (21:10b). Abraham’s sons divided because inheritance cannot be shared.

But this is not the whole story. When God told Abraham, to listen to Sarah’s voice, ‘because in Isaac seed shall be called to you’ (21:12b), God added: ‘and also the son of the slave woman I will place as a nation because he is your seed’ (21:13). Two sons of Abraham. Two inheritances. And Ishmael’s mother, Hagar also received this Divine message. We first meet Hagar in Genesis 16, when unable to bear children, Sarah – at that time called Sarai – implored Abraham – at that time called Abram – ‘go, I pray you, to my servant; it may be that I am builded up through her’ (16:2b). The first recorded surrogacy arrangement went disastrously wrong. Once Hagar was pregnant, Sarai was jealous of her and treated her harshly. Hagar’s response was to flee to the wilderness. There a messenger of God found her by a fountain of water, and spoke with her. Enquiring why she was there, Hagar told the Divine messenger that she was in flight from her mistress. The Divine messenger then urged her to return, telling her that her seed would be greatly multiplied, and that she would bear a son and call him Ishmael, ‘because the Eternal has heard your affliction’ (16:11). Ishmael in Hebrew, Yishma-Eil, means ‘God shall hear’. These promises are repeated in an abbreviated form in our Rosh Ha-Shanah Torah portion Genesis 21, where we read that when banished with her son to the wilderness, a Divine Messenger called to Hagar from heaven, and told her that God ‘has heard the voice of the lad where he is’ (21:17b), and ‘will make him a great nation’ (21:18b).

So, two brothers divided in order to ensure that the inheritance due to Isaac as the son of Abraham and Sarah was not shared. But Ishmael was also due an inheritance. Given that the Torah relates the account of our beginnings as a people, it is remarkable that Hagar is given a voice, and that the text makes it clear that, as Abraham’s son, Ishmael was also the heir of a Divine inheritance. But this is indeed what the text says. And it’s not only a story in the Torah that is read as part of the annual Torah-reading cycle. Genesis 21 is the traditional portion for the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah. Liberal Jews only mark one day, so Genesis 22, traditionally the portion for the second day, is often the Liberal portion of choice, although nowadays, many congregations read the two chapters in alternate years. Liberal practice apart, Genesis 21 is read today in orthodox congregations the world over, including by fundamentalist Jewish settlers on the West Bank. Determined to keep what they understand to be ‘Biblical’ Israel for themselves, and seeing themselves as ‘Torah-true Jews’, fundamentalist settlers ignore not only the ethical teachings of the Torah, they also ignore those parts of the story of our ancestors that don’t reinforce their supremacist narrative. Of course, this has been the situation since Israel’s victory in the 1967 ‘Six Day War’, and the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank of the Jordan fifty-seven years ago. But now we are in the midst of the crisis precipitated by the Hamas massacres in southern Israel on October 7. That horrifying assault which included the murder of 1200 people and 250 more being taken into captivity into Gaza, has left Israelis deeply traumatised, and the retaliatory war that followed, continues to have devastating consequences for the people of Gaza. And not only for Palestinians in Gaza. The tightening of the IDF grip in the West Bank combined with an escalation in settler violence has made the lives of all Palestinians unbearable.

We all know this, of course. But where will it lead? Separated as children, the Torah relates that Isaac and Ishmael did meet again. We read in Genesis 25 (8-10):

Abraham expired, and died in a good old age, full of years; and was gathered to his people / Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of a Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre. / The field which Abraham purchased from the children of Heit; there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.[2]

Sarah died first, then Abraham. Do we have to wait for the passing of another generation before steps are taken back from the brink and towards a just and peaceful resolution? How many more people have to die?

One of the ways I try to remain positive in the face of the ongoing catastrophe is by looking beyond the abyss of the present to a possible future in which a confederation of states, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, work together for their mutual benefit. A few years ago, I attended a New Israel Fund breakfast meeting with representatives from Friends of the Earth Middle East, an organisation that encompasses Israel, Palestine and Jordan, and is based in Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, and Amman, respectively.[3] One of the major initiatives of Friends of the Earth Middle East is around water, and indeed, the organisation regards climate change with its attendant water shortages as a major contributor to regional insecurity.[4] Water knows no national boundaries. With the river Jordan reduced to a trickle, all three nations face the threat of drought with apocalyptic consequences, if they don’t cooperate together to conserve and share water.

The philosopher Martin Buber, best known for his book, I and Thou,[5] was passionately committed to a version of Zionism in which both peoples thrived on the land.[6] Buber articulated the essential equality between the Israeli and Palestinian claims to the land in an open letter that he wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939 before the outbreak of the Second World War. Buber wrote to Gandhi in response to Gandhi’s position that ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs.’ Let me quote from Buber’s letter:[7]

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.

Eighty-five years have passed since Buber wrote that letter. Despair, generated by the horrors of October 7, and the devastation wrought on Gaza and its people by Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas, may make us feel that it could take another eighty-five years, at least, for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples to commit to a plan that is capable of reconciling their mutual claims to the land ‘between the river and the sea’. But today is Rosh Ha-Shanah. A new year has begun, and we are challenged to revive the spirit of Hope within us. The early rabbis regarded Rosh Ha-shanah as harat olam, the ‘birthday of the world’.[8] Indeed, the new year date, 5785, takes us back to the birth of the world on the basis of the chronologies in the Book of Genesis. Of course, the world did not come into being 5785 years ago, but the fact that we begin our calendar, not with our first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, but rather with Creation, reminds us that our God is, as the traditional blessing formula puts it, Melech ha-olam, ‘Sovereign of the universe’; the One God of all peoples. May the universalist message of Rosh Ha-Shanah inspire us with a vision of a future of justice and peace, so that we may continue the work of tikkun olam, repair of the world, in the year that lies ahead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. https://palestinecampaign.org/case-sodastream/

    https://brightonpsc.org/campaigns-2/brighton-says-no-to-israeli-settlement-business-in-our-town-the-ecostream-campaign/ ↑

  2. See Genesis 23: 1-20 for Sarah’s death and Abraham’s purchase of the cave. ↑

  3. https://www.ecohubmap.com/company/NGO/friends-of-the-earth-middle-east/ktvmz1co ↑

  4. https://www.globalnature.org/bausteine.net/f/6036/crossingthejordan.pdf?fd=2

    https://ecopeaceme.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/climate-change-a-new-threat-to-middle-east-security-same-title-as-above-but-above-is-just-a-word-document-this-one-is-a-publication.pdf ↑

  5. Buber, Martin, I and Thou. First published in 1923. First translated from German into English in 1937. A centennial edition, with a translation by Ronald Gregor Smith, was published in 2023 by Simon and Schuster. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-and-Thou/Martin-Buber/9780743201339 ↑

  6. Together with Judah Magnes, the Chancellor of the Hebrew University and others, in 1921 Martin Buber founded an organisation called B’rit Shalom, which argued for a bi-national homeland See: A Land of Two Peoples, Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, ed., Paul R. Mendes-Flohr (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). ↑

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

    ↑

  8. ‘This day is the birthday of the world’, ha-yom harat olam, is the first phrase of a passage recited during the blowing of the shofar (‘ram’s horn’) in the Musaf ‘additional’ service on Rosh Ha-Shanah. The passage first appears in Seder Rav Amram (II, 114), the first prayer book, which was published in the 9th century. The Babylonian Talmud, tractate Rosh Ha-Shanah 10b-11a, includes a discussion of the New Year as the anniversary of Creation.

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