Festival Sermons

Erev Yom Kippur 5780 – ‘We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden’

8, October 2019 – 9 Tishri 5780

We have arrived at the final long day of the aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of returning’. It has become commonplace to use the metaphor of journeying. In the context of this most sacred season of the Jewish year, it is completely appropriate. We began nine days ago, summoned by the blasts of the shofar to wake up to our deeds of the past year, examine our lives and our relationships and resolve to make amends and return to the true path of our lives. And now we are here, in this sanctuary together. But we are not only here together. We are here as individuals. We have taken different journeys to reach this day – and now, we will accompany each other as we take our own journeys through the day.

The metaphor of the journey continues to resonate because we recognise that it has a depth of meaning very different from alternative words in the lexicon, like ‘travel’ or ‘transport’, both of which summon up thoughts of the practical aspects of getting from A to B. Think of people travelling on their daily commute, being transported by car or train; the experience of being on a journey completely undercut by the vagaries of traffic jams and signal failures. Do you remember the huge power cut on August 9^th that caused such chaos on the railway network?

By contrast, the journey of Yom Kippur held within the fragile frame of a single day is more profoundly, a journey into eternity beyond time. The day is orchestrated by a series of services, which gives the impression of a clear itinerary. But each service is more like a galaxy in the vast universe. We journey through light years in 25 hours – and yet all the while, the movement we make is entirely internal.

So, where are we going? For each of us, individually, in our own ways, the destination is the New Year and what we will make of it; what we will do with our lives; how we will contribute to the lives of others, to the society in which we live and to the world around us. The Jewish year is marked by sacred moments in time, but each of these moments is rooted in tangible material existence. Tomorrow morning, we will read from chapter 58 of the Book of Isaiah, and be reminded that the rituals of Yom Kippur are not an end in themselves:

Is not this the fast I look for: to release the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain? 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, never to hide yourself from your own kin?

We are called to act. And at this very moment in our lives and in the life of the world, we know that the future of Life itself is at stake. And so, to our other responsibilities – towards the persecuted and oppressed, the marginal and the vulnerable, the poor and destitute – we must add, our responsibilities towards all that lives on this planet, and to the very existence of planet Earth.

It may seem that the notion of our human responsibility for the planet reflects a contemporary pre-preoccupation, but in fact, it’s very old – certainly within Jewish teaching. We read in a collection of midrashim – rabbinic commentary – on the Book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, dated between the 6^th and 8^th centuries:^[1]

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

In his commentary on Psalm 115, verse 6, the 12^th century mediaeval Spanish biblical commentator, Abraham Ibn Ezra, but the challenge more positively:^[2]

‘The heavens belong to the Eternal One, but God has given the earth to humankind.’ This means that we are like God’s stewards on earth, charged to exercise responsibility in God’s name for all that exists.

Ibn Ezra’s comment reflects his understanding of the creation narratives in the Torah. In the first creation story, human beings created on the ‘sixth day’ are presented as the pinnacle of creation, with a licence to exercise ‘dominion’ over all the other creatures of the earth.^[3] In the second narrative by contrast, absolute mastery is circumscribed and transformed into guardianship.^[4] We read:^[5]

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

To serve it and to keep it – l’ovdah u’l’shomrah. Let’s ponder for a moment on that pairing. In a sense, since the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago, humans have worked the earth to death, clearing forests to make way for animal husbandry and the planting of crops. And now, biodiversity that is so essential to the well-being of the planet is threatened further by mass cultivation – in particular, the planting of single crops. But have we ‘served’ the earth? Most of us have only recently become aware of how many different products – including, non-food products – contain palm oil as we’ve learnt of huge areas of forest across the globe being replaced by oil palm trees.^[6] So, it’s not enough to work the earth, we must also serve the earth and take seriously our responsibility for ‘keeping’ it – for maintaining, guarding and protecting it.

As it happens, the responsibility for planting trees is central to Jewish teaching. We read in a 3^rd century collection of rabbinic wisdom called Avot d’Rabbi Natan:^[7]

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

For the early rabbis, the coming of the Messiah would herald in the future time of peace. This teaching from Avot d’Rabbi Natan reminds us rather that we must continue the task of planting every day because we are responsible for creating the future. A story in the collection of midrashim, Va-yikra (Leviticus) Rabbah, edited between the 5^th and 7^th centuries, underlines the imperative of tree-planting for the sake of tomorrow:^[8]

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

We will recall the despotic tyranny of Emperor Hadrian during the Yom Kippur Musaf, ‘additional’ service, when we will remember the rabbinic leaders murdered by the Romans following the crushing of the Bar Kochba revolt against Rome in the year 135 CE. In that context, the plucky determination of this centenarian planter of fig-trees takes on even more significance.

The importance of tree-planting for the early rabbis is also reflected in halakhah, Jewish law. The very first paragraph of the tractate Rosh Ha-Shanah in the Mishnah,^[9] the first rabbinic code of law edited around the year 200 CE, mentions the New Year for Trees – Rosh Ha-Shanah l’Ilanot – alongside other New Years, including the new year for the festivals commencing with the first month of the Jewish year, Nisan, and the New Year for years on the first day of Tishri. The passage references a debate between the Schools of Shammai and Hillel about the actual date of the New Year for Trees. According to the School of Shammai, it should it be the 1^st of Sh’vat. The School of Hillel preferred the 15^th. As with many debates recorded in the Mishnah, the ruling of Hillel prevailed – hence: Tu Bishvat; the 15^th day of the month of Sh’vat.

Tu Bishvat: a date in the Jewish calendar, celebrated each year with the planting of trees – and, since the 16^th century, following the practice of the students of the great teacher of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, Isaac Luria, with the additional practice of a Seder to celebrate the fruits of the land.^[10] So, as we witness the horror of mass deforestation, we have a ready-made festival to spur us on as we consider our responsibility to plant trees on a massive scale. A few weeks ago, one of my God-Sons, Elliot Cohen-Gold, contacted me, asking me to support a new project he had initiated with his older brother, Aaron, to plant one million trees by Tu Bishvat, which will fall this year on 9^th February 2020. On their crowdfunding site, they explain the rationale behind the project:^[11]

– Reforestation has been identified as the #1 most effective and affordable solution for climate mitigation in a peer-reviewed study by scientists in over 15 institutions around the world.

– Trees clean the air we breathe and the water we drink. They also contribute to a stable climate and overall health, support wildlife and biodiversity, and provide a positive social impact.

– Deforestation has increased dramatically around the world. In 2017 alone, the Earth lost 40 football fields worth of forests every SECOND – due to logging, mining, cattle grazing, forest fires, and poor forest management practices. We can’t undo all of that, but we can help in the work of restoration.

– We love trees! They are the pillars of our outdoor adventures, fill us with inspiration, and create stunning landscapes we want to enjoy for many years to come.

As I mentioned in my Rosh Ha-Shanah morning sermon, young people are leading the way as we confront the threat of irreversible climate change and environmental catastrophe. So, I urge you to join the campaign to plant one million trees by Tu Bishvat. You can also make a contribution to planting trees by switching from Google to Ecosia, an Internet search-engine based in Berlin, Germany that donates 80% or more of its profits to non-profit organisations that focus on reforestation.^[12] When I looked on the site as I was writing this sermon last week, the number of trees planted was 69,442,008 – and rising every half second.

Planting trees is essential. Hopefully, this day out of the routine of our daily lives will give us the perspective we need to prioritise our responsibility for the planet. This year marks the 50^th anniversary of Woodstock, the music festival held from August 15-18, 1969 at a dairy farm in Bethel, New York state, 43 miles south-west of Woodstock. Taking place at the height of resistance to the Vietnam War, the festival was billed as ‘An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music.’^[13] To mark the anniversary, BBC 4 screened a documentary, entitled, ‘Woodstock – Three days that Defined a Generation.’^[14] The documentary revealed how many Jews were involved in setting up the festival – and also that Yasgur’s farm was owned and run by Jewish dairy-farming couple, Max and Miriam Yasgur. Half a million revellers descended on the farm, and when the food ran out, locals raided their fridges and larders to feed the young people. And then, on Sunday morning, the Yasgurs supplied milk, so everyone had porridge. Max Yasgur also addressed the crowd saying how good it was that young people had come together for music and to enjoy themselves.

Those three days on Yasgur’s Farm that brought hundreds of thousands of young people out of cities and towns and into the countryside were much more than an anti-war protest. I remember going to see the film of the festival in the early 1970s with my mum, brother and sister. I’ll never forget the performances of Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. But there were a few conspicuous absences in the line-up – several acts simply couldn’t get there because of the roads blocked with cars. One of the performers, who didn’t make it was Joni Mitchell. Watching the festival on TV, she was inspired to write a song, which she premiered a few months later at a concert in Worcester Massachusetts on December 12^th. Joni Mitchell’s song, ‘Woodstock’, captures an essential element of what drew 500,000 young people ‘to camp out on the land’. As the chorus puts it: ‘We are stardust / We are golden / And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.’^[15]

‘We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.’ But not ‘back’, exactly. We cannot go back – we can only go forwards. And we must act now. We must take responsibility for our unique task as humans to be the guardians of the Earth. I would like to close by inviting you to sing ‘Woodstock’ with me.^[16] May the lyrics and our voices lifted in song, inspire us to liberate ourselves from ‘the devil’s bargain’ and do everything in our power to repair the world. And let us say: Amen.

I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road

And I asked him where are you going

And this he told me

I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm

I’m going to join in a rock ‘n’ roll band

I’m going to camp out on the land

I’m going to try an’ get my soul free

We are stardust

We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you

I have come here to lose the smog

And I feel to be a cog in something turning

Well maybe it is just the time of year

Or maybe it’s the time of man

I don’t know who I am

But you know life is for learning

We are stardust

We are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock

We were half a million strong

And everywhere there was song and celebration

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

And they were turning into butterflies

Above our nation

We are stardust

Billion year old carbon

We are golden

Caught in the devil’s bargain

And we’ve got to get ourselves

back to the garden

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Erev Yom Kippur 5780 –8^th October 2019

Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) Rabbah 7:13. ↑
Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164, Spain). ↑
B’reishit, Genesis 1:26-30. ↑
For an examination of the two creation stories, see chapter 1 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012) ↑
Gen. 2: 7; 15. ↑
https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/palm-oil-and-biodiversity ↑
Avot d’Rabbi Natan version B, chapter 31 (3^rd century CE). This text is similar to Pirkei Avot, the ‘Chapters of the Sages’ appended to the Mishnah (3^rd century CE). ↑
Va-yikra (Leviticus) Rabbah 25:5. ↑
Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1 (3^rd century CE). ↑
https://jewcology.org/resources/what-is-the-tu-b-shvat-seder/

Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi (1534 – 25th July 1572). Known as Ha-Ari, meaning, ‘The Lion’. See: Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford University, CA, 2003.

https://jewcology.org/resources/what-is-the-tu-b-shvat-seder/ ↑
https://www.classy.org/team/250434 ↑
https://www.ecosia.org/ ↑
https://www.woodstock.com/ ↑
16^th August. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007n24 ↑
https://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=75 ↑
‘Woodstock’ by Joni Mitchell © 1969; Siquomb Publishing Company. ↑

Rosh HaShanah Shacharit | LET’S START LISTENING TO CHILDREN

30, September 2019 – 1 Tishri 5780

During the past year, there has been much to cause us dismay – even despair – from the ongoing Brexit shenanigans through our growing awareness of the threat of environmental catastrophe. But there have been signs of hope, too. Hope has come in the form of young people taking to the streets to demand action, determined to ensure their future and the future of the planet. 16-year-old Greta Thunberg showed us that, as the title of her collection of speeches puts it, ‘No One is Too Small to Make a Difference’.^[1] And she has made a difference already to our sense of responsibility. Greta Thunberg has spoken to all of us and for all of us with a single clear message: We must act now.

Greta Thunberg and those young people abandoning their classrooms for the streets have been our leaders over the past year – leading the way. And yet, look at how we continue to treat children: the ongoing stories of sexual and physical abuse, including within the family, of female genital mutilation and forced marriages, of child labourers and sex-trafficked teenagers.

There are many complex reasons why many children still endure unbearable suffering, even in an enlightened society, like Britain. Significantly, the two Torah portions set aside for reading on Rosh Ha-Shanah, both tell tales of the powerlessness of children and their suffering. There are two portions because, according to the rabbinic calendar, Rosh Ha-Shanah is observed for two days. So, traditionally, Genesis chapter 21 is read on first day Rosh Ha-Shanah and Genesis chapter 22 is read on the second day. Liberal Judaism only observes one day, but as the machzor, the High Holy Day prayer book indicates, Liberal congregations can choose which portion to read. Here at BHPS, we read them in alternate years. This year, it’s the turn of Genesis 21.

So, what we find in Genesis 21 and 22 and why are these chapters read on Rosh Ha-Shanah? I will begin by responding to the second part of the question. The rabbinic calendar assigns Genesis 21 to the first day because it begins with the birth of Isaac, Sarah’s son with Abraham. Genesis 22 follows on the second day because it focuses on how Abraham’s faith in God was tested when the Eternal told him to sacrifice Isaac – and he passed the test by proving that he was prepared to do it.

But Genesis 21 is not just about Isaac. We read that after Isaac was weaned Sarah, concerned to ensure that Isaac was not displaced by his older brother, Ishmael, urged Abraham to expel Ishmael and his mother, Hagar from the household. Abraham was not happy about it, but he did do it.^[2] And Genesis 22 is not just about Abraham. Isaac had already lost his older brother. How did he feel as he walked alongside his father to the place of sacrifice?^[3] Did he trust that his father would not offer him up to his God? These succeeding chapters in the saga of the first family of the Jewish people – incidentally, also the first family for Muslims and Christians – are terrible and terrifying tales. In both, parents make decisions that have a devastating impact on their children and change their lives forever. Ishmael lost his father and his brother. Isaac lost himself. That’s what subsequent stories about him seem to suggest. Why else was Isaac found wandering in a field at twilight when Rebekah arrived to become his wife?^[4] Why else, having been comforted for the death of his mother by Rebekah’s presence^[5], did he favour his venison-hunting son, Esau, who comforted him with his stews,^[6] and then fail to recognise that Jacob was impersonating his twin when the time arrived for Isaac to give Esau the blessing due to the firstborn?^[7] The text tells us that Isaac was old and his eyes were dim^[8], but it seems that the light went out of his life years earlier when bound on the altar, his father raised his knife ready to kill him.

Tales from the distant past. And yet, children are still thrown out by their parents, children are still subjected to their parents’ absolutist religious convictions. So, is there anything we can learn from the Torah portions set aside for reading on Rosh Ha-Shanah? After all, surely, at the very least, they offer negative lessons in how not to parent.

Let’s begin with that – those negative lessons. A family is experiencing unbearable strain because it is a composite family, involving ‘step’ parents and children. How might the tensions be resolved? Perhaps, as with Ishmael and Isaac, separation is seen as necessary? But who thinks this is the answer? The parents or the children? How would we know – unless the children are consulted. So, what do the children want? Maybe they want different things. But maybe, like Ishmael and Isaac, they have developed a relationship and want to stay together. The point at which Sarah tells Abraham to throw out ‘the slave woman and her son’ because ‘the son of that slave woman is not going to share in the inheritance with my son Isaac’, is when she sees Ishmael ‘playing’ – m’tzacheik.^[9] The verb m’tzacheik is an intensive form of the Hebrew root Tzadi Cheit Kuf to ‘laugh’ which is the meaning of Isaac’s name, Yitzchak, ‘he shall laugh’. What a tragic irony that just when, having been weaned, Isaac could enjoy ‘playing’ with his older brother, Ishmael was expelled, and Isaac was robbed of his laughter.

And what of the second family scenario? A devout man is consumed with his religious convictions to the extent that he is prepared to sacrifice his son to prove his faith in God. We might think that this is very rare. But how many people – in particular, men – are so certain of their political and/or religious beliefs that they will sacrifice their children to ‘the cause’? They might not actually kill them, but they will ensure that the lives of their children are utterly subjected. There are obvious examples: family life amongst religious fundamentalists of all persuasions; family life amongst political radicals and revolutionaries. And there are less-extreme versions of these families, that are nevertheless pernicious. When families demonstrate outside primary schools because they object to their children learning about diverse family structures, including those where the parents are two women or two men.^[10] When families insist on sending their children to denominational schools that teach ‘Creationism’ – the belief that the world was created in six days – and only focus on the teachings and values of their particular faith.^[11] How can one help children in these situations, when their parents have total control over their lives?

Good parenting begins with putting children and their needs first. In fact, in every setting where children are involved – a school, a congregation – for them to thrive, acknowledging and responding to their needs must be our primary concern.

In the past year, an unprecedented number of young people have celebrated their b’nei mitzvah at the synagogue – nine individuals in all. And I’m using the word ‘individuals’ deliberately. The sacred rites associated with becoming b’nei mitzvah may be the same for everyone, but each individual approaches this milestone in their lives completely differently and, importantly, we celebrate each individual as an individual, not as part of a group. In the past year, as we prepared to update our ‘Rough Guide’ to b’nei mitzvah for parents, the education committee made the decision – endorsed by the synagogue council – to include b’ mitzvah as a gender neutral option alongside bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah, so that each young person would know that we were treating them as an individual.

But expanding language is not enough. And so, each individual who goes on the journey towards becoming b’nei mitzvah is empowered to choose which section of the weekly Torah portion they wish to study and is enabled to learn and explore for themselves – both the portion, and what it means for them to be Jewish, to celebrate their b’nei mitzvah, to be part of the synagogue, to leave their childhood behind and to think about embarking on the journey towards adulthood. It is always very heart-warming to find out what young people at the end of their b’nei mitzvah journey feel they want to do in the future to make the world a better place. I could quote from every single b’nei mitzvah student who has addressed that question during the almost 19 years since I became the congregation’s rabbi. But lack of time permits me to quote from just one young person, so here’s what the first b’nei mitzvah student of the year, Leah Churchill, had to say in preparation for celebrating her bat mitzvah almost a year ago on 6^th October 2018, when she read from the first portion of the Torah, B’reishit:

I really care about justice, equality and fairness. I hope that I can contribute to making the world a better place to live in for everyone. I also think consideration for the environment and how we use – and damage – the world is something that’s becoming a more and more vital to think about. I want to join the efforts to make thinking about the environment a part of daily life, so that we connect that we all have a direct impact on the world, and therefore a clear responsibility.

I am grateful to all our young people for their thoughtfulness and commitment. One of the assumptions of traditional societies is that increasing age is associated with wisdom. Of course, it’s important to value older people – particularly, after they cease to be productive members of the society. But it is also essential that we recognise the gifts of young people. They may lack experience, but if enabled to develop their potential, lacking the experience of being worn down by life, their uncontaminated sense of justice and uncomplicated integrity can be a powerful force for good. We have seen this during the past year. We have heard the powerful voice of justice and integrity expressed by Greta Thunberg speaking into the ears of the powerful and articulating the demands of the young, as she addressed numerous fora, including the Climate March in Stockholm on 8^th September 2018, the UN Climate Change conference in Katowice in Poland on 15^th December, the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22^nd and 25^th January 2019,^[12] and most recently, the General Assembly of the United Nations, just last week.^[13] Let’s hear her plea to the adults of the world on behalf of the world’s children, a plea that shines with the clear-eyed perspective of a 16-year-old – the closing words of her address to the UK Houses of Parliament on 23^rd April:^[14]

We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in a society that you have created. We have not taken to the streets for you to take selfies with us and tell us you really admire what we do.

We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis. We children are doing this because we want our hopes and our dreams back.

The impending climate catastrophe apart, so many children increasingly come of age with little prospect of a worthwhile job and decent housing. We must put their needs first. As we read in the Prophet Joel^[15]: ‘Your old shall dream dreams, your young shall see visions’. ‘The old’ tend to ‘dream dreams’ of the past. Surely, the time has come to confront the global mess we are in and set on repairing the world, so that instead of being overwhelmed by visions of doom, the young can be free to generate much-needed visions of hope. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5780 – 30^th September 2019

Penguin Random House, UK, 2019 ↑
Va-yeira, Genesis 21:9-11. ↑
Ibid. Gen. 22: 6, 8. ↑
Chayyei Sarah, Gen. 24:64-65. ↑
Ibid. 24:67. ↑
Tol’dot, Genesis 25:28. ↑
Ibid. 27:18-29. ↑
Ibid. 27:14. ↑
Va-yeira, Gen. 21:9-10. ↑
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/26/birmingham-anderton-park-primary-muslim-protests-lgbt-teaching-rights ↑
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jul/17/creationist-groups-approval-free-schools ↑
The book of Greta Thunberg’s speeches, No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, also includes addresses to Extinction Rebellion’s ‘Declaration of Rebellion’ in Parliament Square in London on 31^st October, the European Economic and Social committee on Civil society for reEUnaissance in Brussels on 21^st February, the Goldene Kamera Film and TV Awards in Berlin on 30^th March, the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 16^th April, the Extinction Rebellion rally at Marble Arch in London on 23^rd April and the UK Houses of Parliament also on the same day. ↑
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/23/greta-thunberg-speech-un-2019-address https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXywZ8mLaRY ↑
See No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, pp. 67-68. ↑
3:1b ↑

Erev Rosh HaShanah | AS THE DECADE OF PEH – THE ‘MOUTH’ BEGINS

29, September 2019 – 29 Elul 5779

As the sun set this evening, the Hebrew year ended – and also a decade came to a close: the 5770s. This evening, a new decade begins with the year 5780. As many of us are aware, the Hebrew year date reflects the chronology in the Torah going back to Creation. We know that the world wasn’t created 5780 years ago, but the date reminds us to consider the world, this planet Earth.

In Hebrew, the date is represented by Hebrew consonants. The consonant for ‘80’ is the 17^th letter of the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet: a Peh. Interestingly, Peh also means ‘mouth’. If you look at the letter Peh you will see that it looks like the profile of a face, with a nose and a mouth and a dagesh; a ‘dot’ for an eye.

Thinking of the decade of the 70s that has just ended, the consonant for ‘70’ is an Ayin, which means ‘eye’. So, from an ‘eye’ decade to a ‘mouth’ decade. Before I say more about that, let’s stay for a moment with Peh, the mouth – because the mouth is the most essential practical feature of our bodies – and not just for our human bodies. For babies, human and animal alike, life begins with our mouths; our wide-open mouths: crying out as we come into this world, then sucking hard on the breast for nourishment. And this is true, even for babies that are born blind or deaf and who grow up unable to speak.

The fact that 70 is represented by the letter Ayin, meaning, ‘eye’, and 80 is represented by the letter Peh, meaning ‘mouth’ is not significant in itself. But human beings are meaning-makers, and the change of decade invites us to make meaning as we face the unknown future. And so, this evening as a new year and a new decade begins, I would like to invite us to reflect on the Ayin and the Peh.

Let’s begin with the Ayin, with the eye and what it beholds. A decade ago, in my Rosh Ha-Shanah morning sermon for 5770, on 19 September 2009, I spoke about visiting the Eden Project in Cornwall and what I saw there. Already, ten years ago – and long before that – scientists had seen the extent of climate change and the impact on the planet. The Eden Project and other similar initiatives urged us to see, too: to open our eyes. Since then, surely, we have had a surfeit of seeing. We have watched news reports of extreme weather events around the globe – including, in this country, where just this past July, the UK recorded its hottest day since records began, and there were also flash floods across northern England, where a reservoir dam was even damaged, causing a widespread evacuation.^[1] We have watched David Attenborough’s ‘Blue Planet’ documentaries and seen the plastic waste polluting the oceans and killing the fish. And then, we have gone to the supermarket, and seen, as if for the first time, our shopping trolley pileup with items wrapped in plastic.

What more do we need to see before we are convinced of the need for change? Eighty years ago, a new century in the Hebrew calendar dawned at Rosh Ha-Shanah: 5700 – less than two weeks after the Second World War broke out.^[2] What haven’t people witnessed during the past 80 years? The loss of life and utter devastation caused by that war. The murder of one third of the world Jewish population and the destruction of tens of thousands of Jewish communities in the course of a few short years. Stalin’s purges and Pol Pot’s massacres. Biafra. Bosnia. Rwanda. Each place a watchword for unfathomable horrors. War after war. Genocide after genocide. Terrorism gone global. Meanwhile, the relentless exploitation and despoliation of the planet.

So now: 5780. The decade of Peh, the mouth. As for some of the other letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Peh has a final form, used at the end of a word.^[3] This final form is known as sophit meaning ‘end’. Will the decade of Peh mark the beginning of the end? This past year, the climate scientists gave us just twelve years to take radical action to reduce our impact on the planet before climate change becomes irreversible.^[4]

It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. We can feel helpless. Powerless. And yet, we have power; a power within us, imperceptible and yet strong. We can begin to acknowledge that power by pausing and breathing; breathing slowly and deeply, so that we are aware of nishmat chayyim, the breath of life within us that fills our mouths. We read in Psalm 81 (:10):

I am the Eternal your God Who lifted you out of Egypt. Widen your mouth and I will fill it.

In parashat Yitro, the Torah portion that includes the Revelation at Mount Sinai, we are presented in Exodus 19 with a captivating image of the Eternal lifting the Israelites out of Egypt on Eagle’s wings.^[5] But what of the concluding phrase of this verse: ‘Widen your mouth and I will fill it’? I mentioned a few moments earlier the wide-open mouths of babies. Maybe, some of us long to be babies again; well- cared-for babies with mouths open wide to receive nourishment. As it is, as we enter the decade of Peh, the ‘mouth’, we find ourselves in a world where ranting populist leaders would fill our mouths with their malevolence. What is worse: President Trump spewing his stupidities, or hearing the crowds he incites roaring their hatred in unison? Trumped-up narcissistic leaders who exploit their power are bad enough. What’s going on when people avidly drink in their falsehoods, with mouths open wide to receive the venom and spread the poison? The era of ‘fake news’ is a time when lying has become a vicious virtue, toxic and all-pervading. Even the visual evidence – like the paltry attendance at Presidents Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 – can be annihilated by lies. And, of course, we don’t have to look across the pond. We have our own tamer version right here in the ongoing Brexit fiasco. Lies. Lies. And more lies. The country is split, and each side demonises the other. Meanwhile, an Eton and Oxford-educated egoist, fond of spouting classical allusions, spins his fantasies of reclaimed sovereignty and future greatness, and people desperate to be revived and find new hope gulp up the dubiously concocted cocktail.

So, what to do? Like the Israelites who cried out from their bondage, let us widen our mouths to protest fake news and xenophobia and the destruction of our beautiful blue planet. But more than this, let us ensure that our cry of despair becomes a call to action. This past Shabbat, the Torah portion was Nitzavim. Nitzavim begins at Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 9 with the remaking of the covenant with the descendants of the slaves at the end of the forty years of wilderness wandering. It includes this marvellous passage, which we will read again on Yom Kippur (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 the matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it – ki-karov eilecha ha-davar m’od; b’ficha u’vilva’vcha la’asoto.

The matter is very near to us in our mouths and in our hearts to do it. But before we consider what we must do, let us pause for a moment to reflect on the perspective offered to us in this evocative passage: the perspective from heaven and from across the sea. Hinneinu – here we are in this synagogue, in this city, on this island between heaven and sea. All life came from the sea and now, incrementally, we are destroying life in the sea. We inhabit a planet that revolves around a sun in a solar system that is a tiny particle in a galaxy that is an infinitesimally small speck in the vast universe. July marked the 50^th anniversary of the moon-landing that culminated in Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot, Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon on 21 July 1969 and collecting 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to earth.^[6]

Maybe, one day, scientists will build bases on the moon out of moon-dust and launch rockets from the moon to Mars and settle there, too. But the solutions to our problems here on Earth do not lie out there. Again: ‘The matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

And we can do it. If we work together. Let me quote from another Psalm – Psalm 90, verse 10;

The years of our life are seventy, or even with strength, eighty; yet their span is toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

What are we alive for, if not to struggle to make the brief span of our lives as meaningful and worthwhile as possible – for own sakes and for the sake of our precious planet? A passage on the human lifespan in Pirkei Avot, the Chapters of the Sages, appended to the Mishnah, quoting this verse, identifies eighty as the year of ‘strength’ – g’vurah.^[7] An individual needs strength to live to eighty and to live beyond eighty. In this year of 5780, in the decade of Peh – the mouth – that lies ahead, may we all find the strength, individually and collectively, to speak out and take action to repair our broken world. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5780 – 29^th September 2019

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/whaley-bridge-dam-collapse-flooding-live-toodbrook-reservoir-weather-evacuation-a9033146.html ↑
Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah in 1939 was on 14 September. WWII began on 3 September. ↑
The other Hebrew consonants that have a form used at the end of the word are: Kaf, Mem, Nun and Tzadi. ↑
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17948832/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report

http://www.blue-growth.org/Climate_Change.htm

https://www.theccc.org.uk/tackling-climate-change/the-science-of-climate-change/ ↑
Exodus 19:4. ↑
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11 ↑
Pirkei Avot 5:24. The Mishnah was edited around the year 200 CE. ↑

Pesach Sermon 2019 Celebrating Pesach and Acknowledging Oppression and Destruction Today

20, April 2019 – 15 Nisan 5779

When my Exploring Judaism classes turn to the theme of Pesach, we always begin with the story of the Exodus that is related in the Torah. That story itself begins with the brave midwives Shifrah and Pu’ah who resisted Pharaoh’s genocidal decree and saved the lives of the new-born Hebrew baby boys.^[1]

Reading the Torah‘s account, we are reminded of the central role played by people in the Exodus – not least, the mother and sister, who saved the new-born baby boy in their family by weaving a basket, tarring it to make it waterproof, and placing it in the reeds of the river.^[2] When Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket, the baby’s sister even had the foresight to offer to find a Hebrew woman to breastfeed the baby, and fetched her own mother.^[3] At the end of this mini-tale, we learn the baby’s name – Moses.^[4] We don’t find out the sister’s name until years later when the slaves have passed through the divided waters of the Sea of Reeds. At that point we learn that she was called Miriam and that she was a prophet.^[5]

So, Shifrah and Pu’ah, Miriam and Moses’ mother; she was called Yocheved – but you have to look in the chronology of the Levite family given in the Book of Numbers to discover that.^[6] Then, of course, there was the role played by Moses himself in the liberation of the slaves. Brought up in the Egyptian court, going out one day he saw a taskmaster beating a slave, and in his rage, killed him.^[7] Taking flight, Moses then found himself in the land of Midian, where he soon married Tzipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian and became a shepherd.^[8] That might have been the end of the story, but one day when shepherding the flock, Moses led them achar ha-midbar, ‘behind the wilderness’, where he turned aside to see a strange sight: a bush burning that was not consumed by the flames.^[9] Had Moses failed to notice the burning bush, the Exodus might never have taken place. As it was, apprehended by a mysterious presence, Moses returned to Egypt on a Divine mission to persuade Pharaoh to liberate the slaves.^[10]

Pharaoh took a lot of persuading. The Hebrew slaves took a lot of persuading. Indeed, we read in the second portion of the Book of Exodus, Va-eira, that when Moses returned to Egypt and told the slaves that they were to be liberated, they would not listen to him ‘because of shortness of spirit’ – mi-kotzer ru’ach.^[11]

But then, finally, even the slaves took action to save themselves – indeed, that was the challenge of the final plague: the death of the firstborn. Protected in the land of Goshen by the onslaught of the plagues of flies, cattle disease, boils, hail, locusts and darkness,^[12] had the slaves not demonstrated their readiness for freedom by putting the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and lintels of their houses so that the final plague would pass over them,^[13] they would have lost their firstborn, too – and the courage of Shifrah and Pu’ah, Miriam and Yocheved would have been in vain. But the slaves accepted the challenge, and so, the liberation began – and, appropriately, the festival that celebrates the great Exodus from Egypt was named ‘Passover’, Pesach in Hebrew.^[14]

I’ve summarised a story that many of you will know quite well. As I said it is a story that is related in the Torah. You will not find it in the Haggadah, the ‘telling’, initially composed by the early rabbinic sages and included in the Mishnah, the first code of rabbinic law edited around the year 200. The traditional Haggadah does not mention any of the human actors. Taking its cue from a key verse in the Torah, there is only one hero-liberator in the Haggadah and that is the Eternal One – as we read in Exodus chapter 13: ‘You shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘It is because of what the Eternal did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ ^[15]

The Haggadah ensures that the story told by parents to their children, from generation to generation, is about the great liberating acts of the Eternal. And yet, there is another message hidden in the Haggadah; a message about human courage and resistance; about what it means to tell the tale of the Exodus and to be inspired to identify with the story. And so, we read in the Haggadah a terse passage related in a rather obtuse way about five Rabbis, who gathered in B’nei B’rak – which is situated slightly inland a little north of the modern city of Tel Aviv. We read:

There is a story about Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar son of Azariyah, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon. They once held a Seder at B’nei B’rak. They went on talking about the Exodus from Egypt all that night, until finally their students came and said to them: ‘Masters, it is now time to recite the morning Sh’ma!’

Significantly, this passage is included in the Haggadah directly after one that inaugurates the telling of the Exodus tale. We read:

Avadim hayyinu l’Pharaoh b’Mitzrayim – We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Eternal One our God brought us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. And if the Holy One who is Blessed had not brought out our ancestors from Egypt, then we and our children and our children’s children would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Even if we were all wise, all of us discerning and all of us learned and well-versed in the Torah, it would nevertheless be our obligation to relate the Exodus from Egypt. And the more one discusses the Exodus from Egypt, the more praise one deserves.

So, yes, even rabbis are obligated to tell the Exodus tale. But these particular five rabbis may have been doing more than that. The clue that something else was going on is conveyed at the end of the passage, when their students intervened by reminding them that it was time to recite the morning Sh’ma. Clearly, the rabbis had been up all night. But why did they need reminding that it was time to recite the morning Sh’ma? And what were their students doing outside? Perhaps, those five rabbis were not simply relating the story of the Exodus from Egypt. If the five of them did, indeed, gather for the Seder that night, it’s very likely that they were plotting rebellion against the Roman occupation that had become even more tyrannical since the destruction of Jerusalem and the last Temple in 70 CE. And so, the students were stationed outside like guards, and as soon as dawn broke, they had to make sure that their teachers stopped plotting and turned to the usual ritual of the morning and recited the Sh’ma. That rebellion, led by rabbis, did take place and is known as the Bar Kochba Revolt. It lasted from 132 to 135 CE until it was crushed by the forces of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and hundreds of rabbis were put to death. ^[16]

So, why is this passage in the Haggadah? Why does it feature in the midst of a version of the Exodus that focuses exclusively on the Eternal One? After all, apart from specifically naming five individuals, it describes events that took place over 1400 years after the Exodus. We cannot know for certain why the passage is included, but as we read it each year, we can find a message in it for us and for every generation that fulfils the obligation to tell the story of the Exodus. The point of retelling the story generation after generation is not simply to remember what happened back then, but to connect the tale of liberation with what is happening now, in our own lives. It seems that those five rabbis gathering in B’nei B’rak, inspired by the Exodus story, conspired to challenge Roman domination and liberate their people. And so, the passage speaks to us and challenges us to do the same; to find inspiration in the ancient tale and challenge oppression and persecution in our own day. That brief passage is a message that it is our duty not only to retell the story, but to act.

Encouragingly, the extent to which that message is being heeded is reflected in the multiplication of versions of the Haggadah that draw out the implications of the Exodus for the issues that afflict contemporary society, including, modern slavery, racism and xenophobia, tyrannical regimes, the persecution of LGBT+ people, the oppression of women, the plight of refugees and asylum seekers, the destruction of the environment and climate change.

And so, in recent years, new symbols have been added to the Seder plate in an effort to connect the Exodus story with what’s going on in the world today. These include: an orange, an onion, olives, a red chilli and shoelaces. Since these new symbols may be unfamiliar to many of us, I’m going to say little about each one in turn.

The orange is the oldest of the new additions and the most complex. Let me quote from the passage I’ve included in the Haggadah supplement for the shul communal Seder:

Dr. Susannah Heschel tells the story of the genesis of this new ritual in the 2003 book, The Women’s Passover Companion (JPL). It all started with a story from Oberlin College in the early 1980’s … about a young girl who asks a Rebbe what room there is in Judaism for a lesbian. The Rebbe rises in anger and shouts, “There’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate.” ^[17]

Though Heschel was inspired by the idea behind the story, she couldn’t follow it literally. Besides the fact that it would make everything – the dish, the table, the meal, the house – un-kosher for Passover, it carried a message that lesbians were a violation of Judaism itself, that these women were infecting the community with something impure. So, the next year, Heschel put an orange on the family seder plate, “I chose an orange because it suggests the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.”

The symbolism grew to include people who feel marginalized from the Jewish community: the widow, the orphan, women’s issues in general, but solidarity with the gay and lesbian Jewish community was at the core.^[18]

An onion is a much more recent innovation. In fact, I don’t think many people know about it. I discovered it via a very close friend of mine who lives in Jerusalem, who learnt about it from a friend of hers, Nicky Lachs, who is a member of a modern Orthodox congregation in the city. Nicky writes:^[19]

I add an onion to the Seder plate. Why??? After hearing a shiur by Rabbi Aviyya Ha-Cohen who claimed (using fascinating linguistic analysis) that King’s Solomon’s sin was enslaving his workers – and in effect, forgetting the message of our own slavery in Egypt, I decided that it is not enough that the symbols on the Seder plate just remind us that we were once slaves. We should also have something symbolizing the fact that people are enslaved around the world today. I chose the onion for several reasons – but the main one is just that the onion is a basic but non-noticed ingredient of many food-stuff just as those that are exploited/ abused/ enslaved are the ones who hold up the economy, but remain unseen…

So: the humble onion, which also represents the layers involved in modern slavery. And By making us cry, hopefully, it prompts us to acknowledge the millions of enslaved workers, including, children, who make the products we use every day

Putting olives on the Seder plate brings the issue of acknowledging injustice into the arena of Jewish life. As I put it in the Haggadah supplement:

Sadly, in recent years, the destruction of Palestinian olive trees by Israeli settlers has been destroying the hope of a just peace between two peoples whose roots in the land that divides them are deeper even than those of the most ancient olive tree.

The olives on the Seder plate remind us that we cannot celebrate our ancestors’ liberation from slavery in Egypt without acknowledging that today the Palestinian people are not yet free.

I learnt about the red chilli on the Seder plate from Lianna Etkind, a young woman who grew up in Liberal Judaism. Lianna emailed me two weeks ago about Extinction Rebellion Jews and their campaign against climate change. Extinction Rebellion Jews have issued an invitation this Pesach:^[20]

The UN IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] say we have 12 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5°. Even half a degree more will be disastrous for people, animals and the environment.

At your Seder place a chilli pepper on the plate to remind us of the burning earth. As we tell the Pesach story and consider our current liberation struggles, let us open ourselves to the signs of the climate catastrophe, and find inspiration to take action.

I found out about putting shoelaces on the Seder plate, when I opened an email a few days ago from Tikkun, the Network of Spiritual Progressives in the United States.^[21] Shoelaces are a reminder of the plight of refugees and asylum seekers. The person who has come up with the idea is a certain Rabbi David Leipziger Teva. Reflecting on the anti-immigration policy generated by the Trump administration, he explains:

In thinking about the 92,607 migrants and refugees who in March of 2019 alone were detained after crossing the US Mexico border, I was struck by the fact that one of the first things that our US Customs and Border Patrol (USCBP) does is force these tired and vulnerable people to remove their shoelaces. Apparently, anything, even the shoelaces of young children, considered “nonessential and potentially lethal” is confiscated. How ironic, distasteful and shameful that such an inexpensive, low tech and highly efficient piece of string that guided these migrants through deserts and rivers must be personally unlaced and surrendered to a tax payer funded USCBP agent.

So: five symbols of our broken world to add to the Seder plate. As we immerse ourselves in the story of our ancestors this Pesach by eating the unleavened bread that is both ‘the bread of affliction’^[22] and the bread of freedom,^[23] may the orange and the onion, the olives, the red chilli and the shoelaces remind us to challenge the forces of oppression and destruction in our own time. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

15^th Nissan 5779 – 20^th April 2019

Sh’mot, Exodus 1:8-22. ↑
Ex. 2:1-3. ↑
Ex. 2:7-9. ↑
Ex. 2:10. ↑
B’shallach, Ex. 15:20-21. ↑
Pin’chas, Numbers 26:56. ↑
Sh’mot, Ex. 2:11-12. ↑
Ex. 2:15-22. ↑
Ex. 3:1-3. ↑
Ex. 3: 4-4:20. ↑
Va-eira, Ex. 6:9. ↑
Ex 8:18. After the first three plagues of blood, frogs and lice, the Israelites dwelling in the region of Goshen were protected from the plague of flies and next five plagues. ↑
Bo, Ex. 12:1-13. ↑
Ex. 12:27. ↑
Ex. 13:8. ↑
A question arises as to whether Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus would have been at the gathering in B’nei Brak because he had been excommunicated by the other rabbis for his very singular opinions (Baba Metzia 59b). So, it is possible that the Haggadah passage is describing an idealised reunion. On the other hand, it is equally possible that the rabbis would have come together, despite the differences between them, provoked by the Emperor Hadrian’s decision to build a pagan temple in Jerusalem and rename the city Aelia Capitolina (Axelrod, Alan. Little-Known Wars of Great and Latin and Impact. Fair Winds Press, 2009). See also: The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kochba War, 132-136 by Menahem Mor. Brill Reference Library of Judaism, 2016. For a brief account of the Bar Kochba Revolt, see Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience In History by Robert M Seltzer, pp. 248-249. Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1980. ↑
This story also inspired the title of Rebecca Alpert’s book, Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (Columbia University Press, New York, 1997). ↑
From Anita Silvert, a freelance teacher and writer, living in Northbrook, USA http://www.juf.org/news/world www.anitasilvert.wordpress.com. Anita Silvert adds: “It wasn’t a navel orange; it had to have seeds to symbolize rebirth, renewal. And spitting out the seeds reminds us to spit out the hatred and ostracization of LGBT people in our community, and others who feel prejudice’s sting. The orange is segmented, not fragmented. Our community has discrete segments, but they form a whole. The symbolism of the orange may have expanded, but its origins are clearly from a desire to liberate an entire segment of our community from their painful mitzrayim – ‘narrow’ place.” ↑
Nicky Lachs’ explanation is included in the BHPS Haggadah supplement ↑
See @ARJews on Facebook. See also retelling of the 10 plagues with reference to global warming and the destruction of the environment: www.facebook.com/xrjews/ ↑
‘Shoelaces on Seder plate or Easter dinner table–to remember the refugees & asylum-seekers’. Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, email 14.04.19. ↑
See: The Haggadah: Ha lachma anya di achaly avhatana b’ar’a d’mittzrayim – ‘This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt’. Apart from the Hebrew word for Egypt, the rest of the passage is in Aramaic. ↑
Unleavened bread – matzah – is considered the bread of freedom because it represents the haste in which the slaves left Egypt: They were in such a hurry that there was no time for their dough to rise (Bo, Exodus 12: 34 and 39). ↑

Chanukkah sermon – Not by Might

8, December 2018 – 30 Kislev 5779

How did the minor festival of Chanukkah get to be so big? I will return to this question, but first, it’s important to acknowledge that when the rabbinic sages referred to Chanukkah as a minor festival, they meant it in the sense that it wasn’t a biblical festival. The major festivals are those that are recorded in the Torah: Pesach, which celebrates the Exodus, the first fruits festival of Shavuot, ‘the day of blasting’ (later known as Rosh Ha-Shanah), Yom Kippur, that’s the Day for Atonement, the late harvest festival of Sukkot, and Sh’mini Atzeret, which concluded the autumn festivals.^[1] That was the festival calendar in biblical times – with a gap of almost six months over the late autumn and winter into early spring.

So, by definition, Chanukkah is a minor festival. Unlike the regulations governing the biblical festivals, there is no prohibition on work for any of the minor festivals.^[2] Daily life goes on as usual with the addition of special rituals; in the case of Chanukkah, the nightly eight-day ritual of lighting the nine-branched M’norah, which became known as a Chanukkiyyah distinguish it from the seven-branched Temple M’norah.^[3]

Chanukkah commemorates the cleansing and rededication^[4] of the Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE by the Maccabean freedom fighters during their guerrilla campaign against the oppressive Assyrian Greek empire. So, why does the festival last eight days? The simple answer to this question is found in the Second Book of Maccabees (10:6-8):

They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing in the manner of the feast of Sukkot, mindful of how but a little while before at the festival of Sukkot they had been wandering about like wild beasts in the mountains and caves. That is why, bearing thyrsi and graceful branches and also palm leaves, they offered up hymns to God who had given them success in purifying the Divine place of worship. They decreed by edict and confirmed by vote of the entire nation that the Jews should celebrate these days every year.

A straightforward explanation for the eight-day celebration. But the books of the Maccabees were excluded by the sages from the canon of the Bible and so most people are not familiar with them. Why were they excluded? Because the Hasmonean priestly family that led the struggle became corrupt once they assumed the reins of political power in 140 BCE with the re-establishment of an independent Jewish state.^[5] As the famous adage puts it: ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.^[6]

In place of the more mundane reason for an eight-day festival, the rabbinic sages promulgated the story of a miracle, which is recorded in the Talmud, in the tractate Shabbat (21B). Significantly, the Talmud was edited around the year 500, that is, almost 650 years after the events of 164 BCE. We read:

Mah Chanukkah? What is the reason for Chanukkah? For our sages taught: on the 25^th day of Kislev commence the days of Chanukkah, which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden.^[7] For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils in it, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, which contained sufficient for one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought and they lit the lamp with it for eight days. The following year these days were appointed a festival with [the recital of] Psalms of praise [Hallel] and Thanksgiving.

So, according to the sages, Chanukkah is an eight-day festival because, miraculously, one day’s supply of oil lasted for eight days. On the same page of the Talmud we find a discussion of how the nightly lighting inaugurated to celebrate the miracle should be conducted. Should all the lights be lit on the first night, and then successively reduced day by day? This was the view of Beit Shammai, the disciples of the sage, Shammai. The matter was resolved in favour of Beit Hillel, the disciples of the sage, Hillel: An additional flame should be added on each successive night because ‘we promote in [matters of] sanctity but do not reduce.’ And so, we celebrate Chanukkah by increasing the light night by night. More of that in a moment.

What was the rabbinic rationale for promoting the miracle story? We find it in the reading set aside by the rabbis for the first Shabbat of Chanukkah.^[8] The passage is from the prophet Zechariah, and begins by describing the seven-branched Temple M’norah. It then goes on to make this glorious statement (4:6):

Lo v’chayil v’lo v’cho’ach ki im-b’ruchi amar YHVH tz’va’ot.

Not by valour, nor by might, but by My spirit, says the God of heaven’s hosts.

The word chayil is principally used in the TaNaKH, the Hebrew Bible, of soldiers in battle.^[9] Ko’ach means might in the sense of ‘strength’. Samson, for example, is described as having ko’ach.^[10] The word ru’ach, by contrast, a feminine noun, means ‘spirit’, ‘breath’, or ‘wind’. In the second verse of the Torah we read, for example: ‘Now the earth was unformed and void – tohu va-vohu – and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the waters’ – v’ru’ach Elohim m’rachefet al-p’nei ha-mayyim.^[11] The philosopher and biblical commentator, Martin Buber likened ‘the spirit of God’ to a great mother-bird hovering over her young in the nest.^[12]

So, what do we learn from the biblical text chosen by the sages to convey the message of Chanukkah? The Maccabees may have won a military victory, but it was a triumph of the spirit that made the rekindling of Jewish life possible. But more than this, the central message of Zechariah is that valour and strength do not – cannot – accomplish this. Again:

Lo v’chayil v’lo v’cho’ach ki im-b’ruchi amar YHVH tz’va’ot.

Not by valour, nor by might, but by My spirit, says the God of heaven’s hosts.

This powerful statement raises an important question: When oppression and tyranny reign, how can we create change and transform society? When I was a sociology undergraduate at the London School of Economics in the mid-1970s and a member of the International Marxist Group, I shared the commonly-held revolutionary socialist belief that the oppressor never gives up their power without a fight. Of course, the French Revolution of 1789 was the model for violent insurrection. But look at what followed: the tyranny and narcissism of Louis the 16th was replaced by Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. And the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 also involved massive bloodshed, which continued through the dictatorship of Stalin. The past hundred years have seen many more violent revolutions – which for the most part have only replaced one form of tyranny with another. By now, we must have learnt, surely, that violence only begets violence.

But the problem isn’t just that violence does not achieve justice – look at Northern Ireland, look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – but our understanding of how we create change is based on a false dichotomy. We think that all we have is a binary choice between evolution and revolution; between minutely gradual change that takes aeons to achieve and total apocalyptic transformation. Given that choice, in the face of oppressive regimes, I for one would go for revolution – minus the violence – every time. But generating change is not a matter of evolution or revolution; it’s about taking steps, real steps for change. It’s about the day by day work of creating change. Seventy years ago, on 10^th December 1948, in the shadow of the Sho’ah and in response to the havoc wreaked by two world wars in less than fifty years, the United Nations, which was established in New York on 24 October 1945, promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration set a new standard for the nations based on the acknowledgement that each and every human being, wherever they live, whatever their ethnicity, religion, culture, gender, sexuality, physical or mental ability has equal rights. The Torah, which includes texts that go back 3000 years, puts it more simply using sacred language: the human being, regardless of gender, is created b’tzelem Elohim – ‘in the image of God.’^[13] The implications of this awareness were explored by the early rabbis. We read, for example, in the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200:^[14]

Why was the human being created singly? A human sovereign has coins stamped out in a press and they all look alike. But the Holy One Who Is Blessed [Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu] stamps each of us in the imprint of the first human, and no two human beings are the same.

A paradox: We are all essentially the same; we are all different. The concept of human rights is rooted in the notion that we are one human race and the practice of human rights depends on the recognition that all the ways in which we are different from one another are equal and demand equal treatment.

One of the chief architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the French Jewish lawyer, René Cassin. The Jewish human rights charity, René Cassin, based in Britain has adopted his name to remind us of the Jewish links with the Universal Declaration. I’m very proud that one of our young people who grew up here at this shul, Hannah Swirsky, is now working as Campaigns Officer for René Cassin. With her colleagues, Hannah is engaging in the day by day work needed to make human rights a reality – including in the UK, which as a René Cassin briefing paper puts it, ‘is currently contravening its own Home Office guidance with the practice of indefinite detention of asylum seekers’; adding that ‘the UK is the only European nation not to have a time limit on detention.’^[15]

To return to my original question: How did the minor festival of Chanukkah get to be so big? A cynic would say that the minor festival of Chanukkah got so big under the influence of the commercialised extravaganza that Christmas has become. If this is the reason, it’s rather ironic, given that the Maccabees were also fighting against the assimilation of their fellow Jews to Greek culture.^[16] Not being of a cynical disposition, I like to think that Chanukkah has become so important because as technological developments make us increasingly conscious of what is happening across the globe, we are increasingly determined to increase the light; to muster the spirit of hope we need to engage in the work of tikkun olam, repair of the world.

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut

8^th December 2018 – 30^th Kislev 5779

See Emor, Leviticus chapter 23 for the biblical festival calendar. ↑
The minor festivals include the New Year for Trees on Tu Bishvat, the 15th day of the month of Sh’vat (Mishnah Rosh Ha-Shanah 1:1), Purim, which tells the story of a victory against anti-Semitism recounted in the biblical book of Esther, and Tishah B’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av, which commemorates the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and of the last Temple in 70 CE by the Romans. On Tishah B’Av, observances include the reading of the biblical book of Eichah, Lamentations, which describes the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. ↑
The first description of the M’norah is at T’rumah, Exodus 25: 31-39. The lighting is prescribed at T’tzavveh, Exodus 27: 20-21. ↑
Chanukkah means ‘dedication’. ↑
See Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (Macmillan Publishing, New York, 1980), pp. 178-183. ↑
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, the first of Baron of Acton, a Liberal peer in the second half of the 19^th century, who was also an English Catholic historian, politician and writer. ↑
See Ta’anit 9, the ‘Scroll of Fasts’, a work of the ta’anim, the ‘teachers’, the generation of scholars whose teachings are recorded in the Mishnah, the first code of rabbinic law, edited around 200 CE ↑
The passage from Zechariah is read after the weekly Torah reading as the haftarah, the ‘concluding’ scriptural reading, which like all haftarot (pl.) is taken from the second section of the TaNaKH, the Hebrew Bible, N’vi’im, ‘Prophets’. If Chanukkah begins on a Shabbat, then there are two Shabbatot in Chanukkah. The haftarah reading set aside for the second Shabbat is: First Kings 7:40-50. ↑
For example, see Joshua 1:14. ↑
Judges 16:6 ff. ↑
B’reishit, Genesis 1:2. ↑
‘People Today and the Jewish Bible: From A Lecture Series’ by Martin Buber (November 1926) pp. 4-21 in Scripture and Translation by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, translated by Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox (Indiana University Press; Indianapolis,1994. ↑
B’reishit, Genesis 1:27 ↑
Sanhedrin 4:5. ↑
http://www.renecassin.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Refugees-in-Focus.pdf ↑
See Seltzer, 1980, pp.155-158. ↑

SUKKOT PRAYER FOR THE SUFFERING PEOPLES OF THE WORLD

23, September 2018 – 15 Tishri 5779

SUKKOT PRAYER

FOR THE SUFFERING PEOPLES OF THE WORLD

During this festival of Sukkot, may the fragile sukkah that recalls our ancestors’ forty-year sojourn in the barren wilderness, remind us of our obligation to assist the poor and the homeless, those in flight from persecution, and all those across the globe experiencing oppression, anguish, grief, loss, hardship and humiliation at this time.

Let us pause in the midst of our sacred celebrations to think, in particular, of the people of Syria – those trapped in war-torn cities and those who have become refugees – and also to remember the persecuted Rohingya Muslims exiled from Myanmar, now living in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

PAUSE FOR REFLECTION

Just as we wave the lulav in all the directions and so acknowledge the earth around us and Eternity beyond us, may we also to reach out to other peoples in distress wherever they live, contribute to the alleviation of their suffering, and commit ourselves to the sacred task of tikkun olam, repair of the world.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

SUKKOT PRAYER

FOR THE SUFFERING PEOPLES OF THE WORLD

PAUSE FOR REFLECTION

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Yom Kippur morning sermon: What makes the Jewish state Jewish

19, September 2018 – 10 Tishri 5779

We have gathered here today on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to mark a sacred moment that has been commemorated by the Jewish people for over 2000 years since the period of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

For the past 45 years, Yom Kippur has also been the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.^[1] Less than two weeks ago on the 13^th September, it was the 25th anniversary of that momentous handshake between the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat that was supposed to be the beginning of the end of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.^[2] Meanwhile, this year is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the modern State of Israel and last year was the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War and subsequent occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. How many more anniversaries will pass before a resolution to the conflict is finally achieved?

My niece, Bella, who was born sixteen days after President Clinton facilitated that famous handshake on the White House lawn wants an answer to this question. Having spent time helping with the refugee crisis on Lesbos three years ago, and then gone on to work with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Bella is about to embark on an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS, London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, where her special subjects will include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

My response to Bella is that we must never lose hope. We must never say that the situation will never change because change is always possible. Nevertheless, the twists and turns of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not yet transformed the lives of Israelis and Palestinians for the better. Amongst the most significant developments of the past thirty years has been the phenomenon of popular Palestinian uprisings – from the first intifada in 1987, through the second intifada in 2000 that followed the failed peace process and acceleration of settlement-building, through the unrest in the Gaza Strip today. Sparked by the move of the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,^[3] the past few months have seen continuous protests in Gaza, involving mass gatherings at the border and retaliation by the Israeli army, resulting in scores of deaths, including the deaths of ordinary protesters alongside Hamas activists.^[4] This, in turn, has led to a new wave of rocket attacks and subsequent Israeli reprisals.^[5] The cycle of violence grinds on.

Meanwhile, here we are in Britain, a congregation of Jews, living as a minority. What can we do about events far away and beyond our control, which have nothing to do with our lives? We can’t do very much – but we can think and reflect – which is, after all, the main purpose of our being here on Yom Kippur. We can – and we must – think and reflect about Israel; not least because we have been reminded in recent months that Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories, and also towards the 1.7 million Palestinians who live in Israel^[6], is predicated on the Israeli government’s understanding of Israel as a Jewish state. So, what does it mean to say that a country or a congregation is Jewish? Our Jewish congregation is home to many non-Jews and the Jewish state is also home to many non-Jews. One of the far-right parties that has emerged in Israel in recent years is called Yisrael Beytenu. Founded in 1999, Yisrael Beytenu translates as ‘Israel Our Home’. According to the vision statement of Yisrael Beytenu, published on their website, the party is guided by ‘three basic principles’: “1) Unity of the Nation, 2) the State of Israel as the National Homeland of the Jewish people, 3) No Citizenship Without Allegiance.”^[7] Israel has a multi-party system, so Yisrael Beytenu is one of many. However, its leader Avigdor Lieberman has held several ministerial roles, including, Deputy Prime Minister, and since 2016, he has been Minister of Defence. And so, the agenda of this far-right party has been for some years now at the heart of the Israeli government. Further, with the passage of the Nation State Bill into a law, entitled, ‘Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People’, the ‘three basic principles’ of Yisrael Beytenu have become the law of the land.

Of course, many Israeli political parties and national organisations committed to pluralism oppose the ‘Basic Law’, which was adopted with some amendments by the 120-seat Knesset on 19^th July, with 62 voting in favour, 55 against, and 2 abstentions.^[8] Significantly, the clause dealing with ‘the Capital of the State’, declares that Jerusalem ‘complete and united’, is the capital of Israel. In this way, the law not only officially relegates Israeli Palestinians to second-class status, but has ramifications for Palestinians living in the Palestinian territories, by legally enforcing the de facto treatment of Palestinian East Jerusalem as integral to Israel.

Clearly, from the perspective of the Basic Law, a Jewish state is one that privileges the Jewish people. Needless to say, this understanding of Israel as a Jewish state is at odds with its claims to be a democratic state in which all citizens have equal rights and responsibilities. It also contradicts a major clause of Israel’s Declaration of Independence:^[9]

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

So, according to the Declaration of Independence, the founding statement delivered by David Ben Gurion on 14 May 1948 that established the modern State of Israel, a Jewish state is one that treats all its citizens equally. Echoes of other independence declarations going back to the establishment of the United States of America in 1776, resonate in this clause. But the clause is not just the product of a modern, enlightenment consciousness. Let me quote a key phrase again: ‘The State of Israel … will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.’ In that phrase, we see the fusion of two understandings of what it means to say that Israel is a Jewish state: that it is the State of the Jewish people and that it practices Jewish values. The haftarah we read on Yom Kippur, from the second part of the Book of Isaiah proclaims these values. As we read it today, let us imagine the prophet addressing the Jewish people today (58:1-7):

Cry aloud, do not hold back, let your voice resound like a trumpet; declare to My people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins. / True, they seek Me daily, and say they long to know My ways, as if they were a nation that did justly and had not forsaken the precepts of their God. They ask of me just laws and long to be near to God. / When we fast, you say, ‘why do You pay no heed? Why do we afflict ourselves, and You take no notice?’ Because on your fast day you think only of your business, and oppress all your workers! / Because your fasting leads only to strife and discord, and hitting out with cruel fist! Such a way fasting on this day will not help you to be heard on high. / 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 look for: to release the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every cruel chain? / Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to cloth them, and never to hide yourself from your own kin?

Of course, the imperative of justice is not only found in the words of the prophets. The opening statement of Israel’s Declaration of Independence refers to ‘the eternal Book of Books’ bequeathed by the Jewish people to the world. In that ‘eternal Book of Books, the Hebrew Bible, we find many statements about justice – including in K’doshim, the Holiness Code, Leviticus chapter 19, at the heart of the Torah, from which we will read this afternoon. In addition to the declaration, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Eternal’ (19:18), the Holiness Code also states, ‘You shall not oppress the stranger … you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Eternal your God’ (19:34).

When I was a child, and getting into scrapes, my mother taught me to make a particular declaration when challenged as a way of letting her know that I was being completely truthful: ‘on my Jewish word of honour’. And so, I learnt that being ‘Jewish’ means being honest and honourable. What did Avigdor Lieberman learn when he was growing up? The chief architect of a vision of the Jewish state that is completely devoid of Jewish values, migrated to Israel from Moldova in the Former Soviet Union in 1978 at the age of 20. A large proportion of the early Jewish immigrants to Israel also came from what was then the Russian Empire. One of these, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, brother of the well-known Bible scholar and educator, Nehama Leibowitz, was born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia) in 1903 and settled in Jerusalem in 1935. It would be an understatement to say that Yeshayahu Leibowitz had an entirely different outlook from that of Avigdor Lieberman. An Orthodox Jew all his long life – he died in 1994 at the age of 91 – Yeshayahu Leibowitz lived up to his name: ‘Yeshayahu’ is the Hebrew for ‘Isaiah’. This particular Isaiah was a true modern prophet of Israel. Indeed, he was one of the first Israeli thinkers to recognise that the occupation that ensued after the 1967 Six Day War, would have a terrible impact on the ethical fibre of Israel if it continued. This is what he wrote in his essay on ‘The Territories’ published just a year later, in 1968:^[10]

A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret police-state, with all that implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab quislings on the other. There’s also good reason to fear that the Israel Defence Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.

I mentioned that Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an Orthodox Jew. The notion that a Jewish state should adhere to Jewish values is not a progressive idea. Jewish teaching about the land beyond the Jordan from the Bible onwards makes it clear that the nation must be rooted in the practice of justice. Indeed, the practice of justice is the nation’s principal purpose and if it is not rooted in the practice of justice, it will not endure. That is the message of the Torah and of the prophets – of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Micah, in particular – again and again. ^[11] A verse in the book of Deuteronomy puts it very succinctly: ‘Justice, Justice you shall pursue – Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – so that you may live and inherit the land that the Eternal God is giving to you.’^[12] It is also the message of history. The last independent Jewish state before the current one was the Hasmonean state that was established in 140 BCE after the defeat of the Assyrian Greeks. The Hasmonean state was short-lived, succumbing to Roman rule in 63 BCE. On the surface, it simply looks as though a small state was overcome by a massive empire. But the internal dynamics of the Hasmonean state tell a different story: a story of division and hatred, and of a leadership that became arrogant and corrupt.^[13]

When the Knesset passed the ‘Basic Law: Israel and the State of the Jewish People’, I tweeted my response using the hashtag, #notinmyname. The Jewish state is not just another country far away. Israel is maintaining a ruthless occupation of conquered land and subjecting 21% of its own citizens to second class status in the name of all those who identify as Jewish. If we want Israel to return to its founding ideals and be a refuge for Jews in flight from persecution and a beacon of Jewish ethical values, we must all say, not in my name.

Israel can be a Jewish state in the deepest sense of the word Jewish. Amongst the forty-nine nations of the world where Islam is the dominant religion^[14], the vast regions of the world where Christianity predominates and the fifteen nations where it is the state religion^[15] – including, England – the nations where Buddhism or Hinduism is the majority faith, the multireligious and officially nonreligious nations, Israel can be as the new Basic Law puts it, ‘The Nation-State of the Jewish people’. But it can only be ‘The Nation-State of the Jewish People’ if it practices Jewish values – or, as Israel’s Declaration of Independence puts it, if it ‘is based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.’ In order to become this kind of Jewish state, it must extend equal rights to all its citizens and end the occupation.

It may feel impossible to imagine that Israel could become this kind of Jewish state. But the assertion of the ethical teachings of Judaism has always gone hand-in-hand with the determination to make what seems impossible possible by putting those ethical teachings into practice. One of the foremost Israeli champions of a just resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians, Uri Avnery, the founder and leader of Israel’s peace movement, Gush Shalom,^[16] died on 20 August in the midst of a period of huge demonstrations held in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, against the ‘Basic Law’.^[17] In his tribute to Uri Avnery, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, wrote:^[18]

Avnery devoted himself entirely to the struggle to achieve peace between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people in their independent state, as well as between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World. He did not get to the end of the road, did not live to see peace come about. We – the activists and supporters of Tikkun magazine, as well as the members of Gush Shalom as well as very many other people who were directly and indirectly influenced by him – will continue his mission and honor his memory.

Jews have always looked ahead to a better world – not a better world in the hereafter, but rather one that we build here on Earth. May our experience of observing this Yom Kippur inspire us and renew our spirits, so that we are ready to support and contribute to the efforts of all those, both in Israel and the Diaspora, who are working to make the Jewish state worthy of its name.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5779 – 19^th September 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War ↑
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/13/newsid_3053000/3053733.stm ↑
http://www.theweek.co.uk/jerusalem/90266/why-the-us-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-is-so-controversial ↑
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/50-of-dead-in-gaza-protest-were-hamas-activists-says-hamas-official-1.6094899 ↑
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45124357 ↑
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel ↑
http://www.beytenu.org/the-vision-of-yisrael-beytenu-israel-our-home-2/ ↑
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/the-knesset/basic-law-israel-as-the-nation-state-of-the-jewish-people-approved-by-knesset-62-55/2018/07/19/ ↑
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-declaration-of-the-establishment-of-the-state-of-israel ↑
Published in: Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State. Harvard University Press, 1992. pp. 225, 226. ↑
See for example, Amos, chapter 9, which states that the Eternal One has no special preference for Israel, and will, indeed, destroy ‘the sinful nation’. ↑
Shof’tim, Deuteronomy 16:20 ↑
See: Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History by Robert M Seltzer, chapter 4, the Hellenistic diaspora and the Judean Commonwealth to 70 CE, pp. 178-184. Macmillan publishing, New York, 1980. ↑
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world ↑
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country ↑
http://uriavnery.com/en/ ↑
https://972mag.com/tens-of-thousands-of-druze-protest-for-equality-in-tel-aviv/137069/ https://www.opednews.com/articles/Equality–100-000-demon-by-Joseph-Zernik-Civil-Rights_Israel-180805-652.html ↑
Tikkun E-Newsletter, 20.08.18. ↑

Erev Yom Kippur sermon: The wisdom of ceasing

18, September 2018 – 9 Tishri 5779

We have arrived at Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur feels to me like an anchor. It’s as if I’m a boat that sails out of the harbour each year into the stormy seas of life. And then, rather battered and in need of repair, just in time, the yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’ that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah, draw me back into harbour once more. But it’s not until that Yom Kippur anchor drops, holding me still for a day, that I know my year’s journey has ended and I can draw breath and rest.

Yom Kippur is a day of ceasing. Our lives are relentless in their ceaseless motion, 24/7, as the saying goes. But is one day of ceasing out of 365 days of continuous activity enough?

Of course, it’s not strictly true that we never cease. Each day is punctuated by a period of sleep – although most of us don’t get quite enough of it. Sleeping is ceasing. Previous generations, who lived before the invention of electricity, were invited to sleep each night with the onset of the dark. We live in very different times. And it’s not just that we can switch the lights on. For the past few decades, many people have had TVs in their bedrooms, and in more recent years, there’s been the lure of ever-glowing smart-phones, tablets and lap-tops, too. I don’t know when the expression ‘switching off’ came into common usage, but nowadays, the need for switching off has become quite literal – and urgent. After all, for many of us, even holidays, while officially breaks from work, do not interrupt our incessant engagement in keeping the wheels turning. Of course, some of our devices, may be used on holiday as aids to rest, like the Kindle for reading a book, or the tablet for playing a game or watching a film. But more often than not, keeping our devices switched on, means we are ourselves are always switched on – and open to the ceaseless chatter and clatter of social media and the 24 hour news cycle. And if we have email on our smartphones, there’s always the danger of taking a peak, and at the very least, noticing and being disturbed by the steady accumulation of missives in our inbox …

It is difficult to switch off on holiday – unless you make sure you completely get away from it all; preferably, to somewhere where the radio signal is poor. I can recommend walking along the Pembrokeshire coastal path in the far west of Wales. But then, there is Shabbat. Apart from the nightly opportunity to cease, we don’t have to wait a whole year to cease for a whole day. Shabbat is our weekly opportunity to get off the treadmill. The wisdom of Jewish teaching – going right back to the tales of the beginnings of life – tells us that working must be accompanied by ceasing. The two, go hand-in-hand. We read at the conclusion of the first creation narrative:^[1]

Va-yishbot ba-yom ha-sh’vi’I mi-kol m’lachto asher asah.

God ceased on the seventh day from all the work that God had done.

God ceased: Va-yishbot. The Hebrew root is Shin – Beit – Tav. We are more familiar with the noun, Shabbat. Work is essential; creativity is at the heart of what it is to be human. The first creation story tells us that after each day of creative activity God pronounced that it was ‘good’ – tov – and after the sixth day that it was ‘very good’ – tov m’od. Well, the same could be said for the wondrous works of human creative endeavour. However, in order to work creatively and productively, and to act for good in the world, we must cease. According to Jewish teaching, we must cease, not just once a year, but on the seventh day of every week. And when it comes to Shabbat, ‘ceasing’ is not the end of the matter despite the finality of the term. The song we associate with Kiddush on Shabbat morning – V’sham’ru – is part of a Torah passage about Shabbat.^[2] Referring to the Eternal One, it concludes with the phrase: U’va-yom ha-sh’vi’i shavat va-yinnafash– ‘Then on the seventh day, [God] ceased and was re-beinged.’^[3]

Ceasing allows each of us the chance to refresh our inner being. We may be familiar with the noun, nefesh, usually translated as ‘soul’. In the context of the biblical world-view in which there is no division between body and soul, nefesh is ‘being’. The first account of creation in the Torah relates that every animal – and not just the human – is a nefesh chayyah, a ‘living being’.^[4] Significantly, the Shabbat commandment we find in Exodus^[5] and Deuteronomy^[6] states that a household’s domestic animals are also entitled to cease from their work.^[7]

All living beings that work require rest. But this is rather theoretical. Shabbat may be a weekly oasis, when we can cease from all our activities of the working week and renew ourselves. But the reality is that we rarely visit this weekly oasis of ceasing. And so, we arrive at Yom Kippur, exhausted and depleted, in desperate need of ceasing big time. If we are serious about it and give ourselves to the day, Yom Kippur does not disappoint. Known as Shabbat Shabbaton, ‘the Sabbath of Sabbaths’, Yom Kippur is our annual opportunity to cease in the most comprehensive meaning of the word: not only to cease from work, but to cease from eating, drinking, sexual intimacy – all the ways in which we actively engage in our daily lives. Yom Kippur is the best daily life detox you can find: a day of complete ceasing.

And just because it is a day of complete ceasing, Yom Kippur presents a huge challenge to each one of us. So, right now, as the day stretches before us, in this profound moment of ceasing, in the absence of work and of any distracting activities, we are confronted with ourselves. How will we respond? Will we be in this deep moment or will we try to escape? Will we look into ourselves or will we look away? Difficult questions. Of course, the machzor, the High Holy Day prayer book that is our guide through the day may be helpful as we attempt to respond – or, may become just another source of distraction. After all, it’s possible to simply spend the day reading and singing our way through this rather marvellous collection of prayers and poems and passages of wisdom without pausing to reflect and focus inwards.

But then again, even if Yom Kippur seems to be just another way of keeping ourselves busy, the day is wiser than that and the words and the music combine to reach the parts of ourselves we try to avoid – especially, when they are repeated over and over. Gradually, if we stay here and allow the hours to dissolve away, that combination of words and music can take us to the deepest place of ceasing – ceasing that is not merely about stopping. When we cease, really cease, then we can unlock and open and let go – of the past year, of hurts and fears, resentments and disappointments – of all the detritus of the year that has passed that acts like a malevolent fuel stoking the engine of our lives with activity that is not simply about the imperative to be endlessly active, but is more about the impulse to crush ourselves and others in an effort to obliterate the pain of living.

Of course, generally, none of this is conscious. As we cease, we release ourselves from the prison of our habitual ways of being. And this unique day of ceasing has the potential to facilitate our release because, paradoxically, through all the prayers and services, it holds us so closely. And so, held by the exquisite structure of the day that moves us, emotionally, spiritually and physically, our ceasing from the daily round can release us from our mental strangleholds, too, without us making a conscious effort.

Yom Kippur can do all these things. But we need to let it happen – which means, we need to let down our guard, give up the urge to control, allow our resistance to crumble, and let go. Seven years ago, after rescuing a sparrow from one of my cats, and watching it miraculously revive and then fly away, I wrote a poem about Shabbat in which I articulated my caution about ceasing and also imagined the impact it might have on me. I wrote of ‘Letting go / reluctantly / awkwardly / gingerly / so-softly / timidly / releasing / my self / my soul / fluttering / from its cage / hesitant / fearful / beating crumpled wings. / Then / slowly / reviving / breathing deeply / expanding / filling with song / circling / swooping / diving / flying / soaring / learning to live / again.’ May this day of ceasing, release and revive each one of us so that we may renew our lives and resolve to practice the wisdom of ceasing in the year ahead.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Erev Yom Kippur 5779 – 18^th September 2018

B’reishit, Genesis 2:2b. ↑
Ki Tissa, Exodus 31: 12-17. ↑
Ditto: 31:17c. ↑
B’reishit, Gen. 1:21. ↑
Yitro, Ex. 20:8-11. ↑
Va-etchannan, Deuteronomy 5:12-15. ↑
Yitro, Ex. 20:10: ‘your cattle’. Va-etchannan, Deut. 5:14: ‘your ox’, ‘your ass’, ‘your cattle’. ↑

Rosh Ha-Shanah sermon: Doing Human: How humanity’s creative impulse could make our species extinct

10, September 2018 – 1 Tishri 5779

Have you watched the TV serial HUM∀NS? First broadcast on Channel 4 in 2015, the third series finished in the early summer. HUM∀NS, written with an upside down ‘A’, is sci-fi, but it is set in the very near future, just around the corner… Indeed, everything about the setting looks just like life today, except that robots have been created to do what humans don’t want to do, both on the domestic and work fronts. Called, ‘synths’ the robots look exactly like humans, but their heads move very slowly, they are nourished by electrical charge rather than by food, and when injured, leak turquoise blue liquid rather than blood. And of course, the synths have extraordinary powers, both intellectual and physical. The focus of all three series is on the social, cultural and psychological impact of the creation of the synths, and in the last series, in particular, on the ethical issues that arise when, as a result of a complex accidental re-programming, the synths awaken to full consciousness, which means that they now have feelings. At the moment that the synths become conscious, which involves becoming aware of their enslavement to humans, there is an outbreak of extreme violence that results in the deaths of tens of thousands of humans. In response, the authorities decide that the synths must be eliminated. But the synths have human advocates, in the form of a particular synth-owning family, who challenge the plan on the basis that conscious synths feel pain, both emotional and physical. What ensues is a struggle to defend the rights of the synths in the face of the planned genocide. Needless to say, the synths themselves do not all respond in the same way to their predicament. Some of them, want to reach out to humans believing that humans and synths can live peacefully together. Meanwhile, others, arguing that humans have proved themselves to be bent on domination and exploitation, become terrorists.

If you haven’t watched HUM∀NS, I’m sure it sounds very far-fetched. But is it? Right now, teams of scientists and technologists around the world are dedicating huge amounts of resources and ingenuity to the development of artificial intelligence and robotics. Is it far-fetched to suggest that given the astonishing extent of technological development over the past century, that there won’t come a time – and perhaps that time might arrive sooner than we think – when we reach the point of being able to create synthetic humans that are almost/just like us? So, what would the consequences be for society? We take it for granted that we control the things we make. What would it feel like to live in a society in which biological humans control synthetic humans? How would we justify our domination and exploitation, when the objects of our control look like us? And what if, in the process of refining synthetic humans, robots with programmed intelligence develop a consciousness that mirrors our own?

But the issue is not only about the emergence of a new binary between biological humans and synthetic humans. There is an even larger question for us to address concerning technological developments transforming our very nature as human beings. During the past 30 years, our technological wizardry has resulted in a stupendous acceleration, which has seen, for example, a mobile phone morph into a mini computer. And soon, it may be possible to do away with external devices altogether by inserting microchips into humans. Who would have thought that when we first invented the aeroplane and so found a way of transcending our biological limitations as a species destined to get from place to place by running on our two upright legs – rather slowly we might add, compared to other creatures – our zeal for extending our powers might result in being able to transcend our biological nature – and even our biological needs – altogether? Perhaps, for example, food scarcity might be solved by the invention of synthetic nutrients. And perhaps, the hazards, pain and trauma of childbirth might one day be overcome by incubating the foetus in an artificial womb. Could it come to pass that the unique creative abilities that mark out homo sapiens as a species, rather than our capacity for destruction might, in the end, result in our making ourselves extinct?

Since the Great War a century ago, and following the Sho’ah, the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the accumulating evidence of our devastating impact on the environment, people have expressed increasing concern about humanity’s capacity to destroy the planet. For the most part, that concern has focused on the way in which we have harnessed our technological capacities for destructive purposes. And frequently, the preoccupation with humanity’s destructiveness has been linked with the notion that while our technological abilities have evolved, our inner drives remain as irrational as they were thousands of years ago. But maybe, we should be equally preoccupied with humanity’s boundless capacity for creative invention.

Of course, there are many theories about what it is to be human. Interestingly, Jewish teaching offers important insights. As the havdalah ceremony at the end of Shabbat reminds us, when we light the multi-wicked candle and say a blessing for the lights of the fire, and so demonstrate the first creative act after the day of ceasing from work, fire has, both, creative and destructive possibilities. We can use it to heat our homes and cook our meals, and we can also harness it for destruction. Jewish teaching focuses less on the nature of being human and more on what humans do for good or ill. As we see in the first creation narrative in the Book of Genesis, God is less Being than Doing: creating the world in a series of acts, expressed repeatedly, with the Hebrew root, Ayin – Sin – Hei, to ‘do’ or to ‘make’. As Rabbi David Cooper puts it, God is a Verb.^[1] This first account of creation, speaks of God creating the human b’tzelem Elohim – ‘In the image of God’.^[2] So, just as God created the world through a series of actions, human beings, created in the Divine image, act on the world. And as we act on the world, we have the capacity, both, to create and destroy in equal measure. This Jewish perspective on what it means to be human actually meshes with what scientists have said about human evolution. What distinguishes homo sapiens from our great ape relations is our ability to use our hands. And so, the first human ancestors worked out how to make fire and fashion tools and weapons – and also covered their cave dwellings with paintings.

The human ability to creatively transform our environment is graphically illustrated in the story of the Tower of Babel, recounted towards the end of No’ach, the second parashah – portion – of the Book of Genesis (chapter 11). Significantly, when people came together to build a tower that would scale the heavens, they made it out of bricks, rather than stone. We read: ‘They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly”. And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar. Then they said: “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with his top in heaven”’^[3] While stone comes directly from the earth, bricks, are made by humans out of the earth, specifically, out of clay, sand and lime, which is fired. The city, the tower; when the first humans emerged out of caves and began to build dwellings, they began to fashion a built environment, and to have an impact on the natural world. Of course, even a garden, by definition, represents human mastery over the natural environment.

During the past year, we have been painfully aware of the devastation caused by the fire that incinerated Grenfell Tower in North Kensington in London on 14 June 2017, resulting in the deaths of 72 people and an ongoing tragedy for the survivors, who were made homeless, their families and the local community. Almost exactly a year after the Grenfell Tower fire, the Glasgow School of Art, a stunning building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was consumed by fire^[4] – the second fire in four years,^[5] except on this occasion, the conflagration was so intense that it has damaged the school beyond repair. The two edifices couldn’t be more different – the one, an ugly emblem of the worst of social housing and bad planning, the other a testament to our human capacity for creating beauty. In both cases, the fire that brought such destruction was not deliberately ignited, but in both cases, the respective enquiries will no doubt demonstrate that responsibility lies in the hands of people, who failed in one way or another to do what was necessary to safeguard the buildings. On the surface it may seem as if the doing human is always presented with a binary choice, between creation and destruction. But reality is more complex. Our capacity as doing beings to act on the world means that we have to bear responsibility for all our actions, constructive and destructive, and for the outcomes, sometimes unintended, of everything we do.

In a short while, we will hear the blasts of the shofar, the ram’s horn. Significantly, the shofar is not a musical instrument. Like a trumpet or a flute, it creates sounds with human breath, but unlike these and other wind instruments, it is not crafted by human hands, and it is devoid of keys and stops. All that it takes to sound the shofar is breath – nishmat chayyim, ‘the breath of life’ that as we read in the second creation story in Genesis brought the first human to life.^[6] Even more important, although an individual blows the shofar, the mitzvah, ‘commandment’ or obligation, associated with the shofar is not the blowing and making of the sounds, but rather the act of listening: Blessed are You, Eternal One our God, whose commandments make us holy and who commands us to listen to the voice of the shofar – lishmo’a kol shofar. So today, on Rosh Ha-Shanah, harat olam, ‘the birthday of the world’, as on Shabbat, we are called to cease from our work, to cease from doing and making in order to listen. We are called to listen, not as our creaturely cousins prick their ears to listen out for prey or predator, but rather to listen to the voice that is beyond our human occupations and preoccupations, the wordless voice of a ram’s horn that not only recalls our past as a people and heralds the future, but also summons us to be present now in this moment. How might we ensure that our creative capacity to transcend our biological limitations doesn’t in the end render our species extinct? Some might argue that all we can do is devise stringent legally binding regulations and controls. The blowing of the shofar suggests another way. Perhaps, if we pause to listen, if humanity pauses to listen, we might hear the breath that whispers and rasps within us every moment of our lives and rediscover the ancient wisdom contained in the Torah: that doing is, paradoxically, inextricably bound up with ceasing; and that there can be no work without rest and no rest without work. As we mark the New Year, may we listen deeply and breathe deeply and learn to cease as well as to act. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

Rosh Ha-Shanah Shacharit 5779 – 10^th September 2018

God is a Verb. Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by Rabbi David A. Cooper. The Berkley Publishing Group, New York, 1997. ↑
Genesis 1: 27. ↑
Genesis 11:3-4a. ↑
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-44507189 ↑
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/26/glasgow-school-of-art-fire-foam-canister-report ↑
Genesis 2:7. ↑

Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah sermon: Anti-Semitism and Jews Hating Jews

9, September 2018 – 29 Elul 5778

The sun has set and a New Year has just begun. Before we can look forward and move forward, we must look back and reflect on the year that has now passed. There’s been a lot in the news about anti-Semitism during the past year. In particular, here in Britain in connection with the Labour Party. How odd it has been, day after day, to switch on the radio, TV, or go on the Internet and find one story after another about anti-Semitism. Over the summer, the focus was on the Labour Party’s new Code of Conduct on Anti-Semitism and its departure from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition that has gained almost universal acceptance across the world.^[1] Why did the Labour Party decide to depart from this definition? The reason why the IHRA definition was not adopted by the Labour Party revolved around examples of anti-Semitism included in the IHRA definition that related to Israel. In case you are not familiar with these examples, they include – and I quote: ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavour’, ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’, ‘Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterise Israel or Israelis’, ‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’, ‘Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel’.

As you may be aware, I was one of 68 rabbis from across the denominational spectrum, who wrote a letter to the Guardian challenging the Labour Party’s failure to adopt the IHRA definition.^[2] Like several of the signatories, I am also a member of the British Friends of Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israel-based organisation that defends the rights of Palestinians, and in particular, challenges house demolitions. I’ve also been a Labour voter for 45 years. Ten days after that letter was published, I wrote my own letter to the Guardian – which wasn’t published. I decided to write because I felt that for all the words written, spoken and shouted about the issue, it had not been made clear that the reason why the IHRA definition and its examples was not adopted by the Labour Party is because of a particular view of Israel and Zionism. Let me quote from my letter:

The Labour Party’s departure from the IHRA working definition in respect of anti-Semitic responses to Israel fails to challenge the persistent view held by certain sections of the Labour Party that Israel is by definition an imperialist state, and by extension, that Zionism is a racist ideology.

This view, which refuses to acknowledge that the rise of political Zionism was a Jewish response in the late 19th century to a new form of racist anti-Semitism, and that national self-determination was understood by Herzl and others as a solution to that anti-Semitism, demonstrates a complete disregard for Jewish experience, and, consequently, is a form of anti-Semitism.

As we know, last week the Labour Party National Executive Committee, which is the body responsible for determining Labour Party policy, took the decision to adopt the IHRA definition in full, with the addition of a statement that – and I quote: “This will not in any way undermine freedom of expression on Israel or the rights of the Palestinians.” Was this additional statement necessary given that the IHRA definition does not prevent criticism of Israel? The longer statement suggested by Jeremy Corbyn, which was not adopted, gets to the heart of the issue. This is what he wanted the Labour Party to say – and I quote: “it should not be considered anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact, or to support another settlement of the Israel Palestine conflict.”^[3]

I’ve read the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and I have also read the Labour Party’s code on anti-Semitism prior to the adoption of the IHRA. I’ve also listened to endless commentary on the BBC – principally, Radio 4 and BBC 2’s Newsnight – and various commentators from both sides of the argument, and yet, in my view, no one has yet identified the central issue. If the Labour Party wishes to bridge the gulf between these opposing sides – and let us not forget that there are Jews on both sides of the argument – what is required is acknowledgement that the rise of the Zionist movement in the late 19^th century was a direct response to the rise of a new virulent form of racist anti-Semitism in Europe, and that the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was a direct consequence of the murder of half the Jews of Europe in the Sho’ah. To do justice to both peoples, all that is required is for the Labour Party to acknowledge these ‘circumstances around’ the ‘foundation’ of Israel. Only those determined to maintain a binary view of the issue – so plainly played out in the pro-Palestine versus pro-Israel demonstrations that were held during the NEC meeting on 4^th September – could argue with this statement; my suggested version: ‘The creation of the State of Israel as a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people, following the unprecedented horror of the murder of half the Jews of Europe, had an unintended discriminatory impact on the Palestinian people. It should not be considered anti-Semitic to challenge Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians – both in Israel and in the occupied territories – as racist.’ On 29^th November 1947, the United Nations adopted resolution 181 (II)^[4] to partition the disputed land into two states, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. If the Labour Party is a true friend of the Palestinian people then what they should be doing is campaigning vigorously for the establishment of a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, which is what the majority of Palestinians want.

So, the Labour Party has some more work to do. But I haven’t decided to speak to you about this issue this evening as we embark on a New Year simply to rehearse a concern close to our hearts that has dominated the headlines. In my view, there is something even more problematic at the core of this. It makes me feel rather queasy that Jewish life is barely visible in Britain, except when anti-Semitism rears its ugly head, or an Israeli government action grabs the headlines – as it did during the summer concerning the military response to the protests in Gaza^[5] and also the recently enacted Nation State Law^[6], which has legalised the treatment of Israeli Palestinians as second-class citizens. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my Jewishness defined, either, by anti-Semitism, or, by the actions of the Israeli government.

So, here we are, on the threshold of the New Year – the Jewish New Year. As we prepare to make a new beginning, each one of us is challenged to consider what being Jewish means to us and, perhaps, ask ourselves some questions – like: In what ways do I identify as a Jew? In what ways do I live as a Jew? Is being a Jew central to my life, or simply, one of the many facts about me? If we don’t want to be defined by anti-Semitism or by the actions of the Israeli government, then each one of us needs reflect on how we define ourselves.

It’s not easy to face a challenge. And it’s even harder than those questions might suggest. That’s because something else has become very evident during the past year in the midst of the heated discussions about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and that’s the phenomenon of another form of Jew hatred: Jews expressing hatred towards other Jews.

Sadly, it’s not a new phenomenon. The early rabbis explained that the last Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE as a consequence of sinat chinam, ‘groundless hatred’ that had fomented between the different factions of Jewish life at that time.^[7] Interestingly, the phenomenon of Jews hating Jews does get spoken about, but mostly by Jews who justify their hatred of other Jews on the basis that the Jews they hate are self-hating Jews, who seek the destruction of the Jewish people – in particular, because they don’t tow the Israel right or wrong party-line, but rather are committed to a just and equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the summer, Jews spewing hateful abuse about other Jews came to a head, following the decision of some young Liberal and Reform Jews to attend a ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ event on 16 May^[8] that was held in response to Israeli military action that involved the killing of 62 Palestinian protesters. One young person, in particular, a youth leader whose family are members of a Reform synagogue in North London, was subjected to extremely hateful outpourings, and eventually the decision was taken by the Movement for Reform Judaism that she could not take up her place as a youth leader on the RSY-Netzer Israel tour.^[9]

I’m pleased to say that Liberal Judaism reached out to her and offered her a place on the LJY-Netzer Israel tour instead.^[10] But that’s not to say that LJ has been immune from the climate of hostility generated in the aftermath of the Kaddish for Gaza. In fact, although it was not official LJ policy, I was warned off saying my prayer for peace between Israelis and Palestinians during the Shabbat morning service I led with my co-editor colleague Rabbi Lea Mühlstein of Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue at the LJ Biennial conference^[11] on the basis that reading the prayer – which, incidentally, is included in the draft Shabbat morning service we were using – might antagonise some people who were angry about Liberal Jews participating in the Kaddish for Gaza.

As I mentioned a moment ago, the expression of antagonism between Jews is not a new phenomenon. As the saying goes, ‘two Jews three opinions’, and we Jews tend to express our opinions rather vehemently. But the issue is not just about arguments between Jews and between groups of Jews. The entire structure of the Babylonian Talmud, edited around the year 500, takes the form of argument and the lengthy presentation of different viewpoints, followed by the majority decision taken. The problem centres on the crystallisation of particular points of view as ‘right’ which are then set against other points of view regarded as ‘wrong’. The mainstream Jewish community – that is the organised cross-denominational Jewish community – often adopts this binary approach, most frequently in the context of Israel. Meanwhile, those Jews who oppose what is seen as the Jewish establishment, also often adopt a binary approach. In other words, both sides of this Jewish argument seem to be saying the same thing: ‘we are right and you are wrong.’ Of course, it’s not an equal match. The established Jewish community represents the majority – that is Jews who are affiliated to synagogues and other mainstream Jewish organisations – and this only serves to fuel the grievance of the minority, who are unaffiliated or disaffiliated, and see themselves as marginalised.

Nevertheless, for both sides, the attitude seems to be, either you are for us or you are against us. And woe betide you, if you pick the wrong side, because you will be seen, either, as a self-hating-Jewish-traitor, or a supine-Jewish-establishment-apologist. Of course, the wisest thing to do is not take sides, but rather, investigate what is actually going on and, above all, reconnect ourselves with our values as Liberal Jews, who are working for a ‘world’ which ‘stands’, as we read in Pirkei Avot, the collection of the wise aphorisms of the early rabbis, ‘on Justice [ha-Din], and on Truth [ha-Emet], and on Peace [ha-Shalom].’^[12]

I could move to a conclusion now, but there’s something else that needs to be said about anti-Semitism itself, not just about the debate about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and Jews hating Jews. In August, Jess and I went to Edinburgh. While we were in that stunning city, we chose a rainy day to visit the National Galleries of Scotland. The contemporary art collection is divided into two buildings and in ‘Modern Two’, we visited the exhibition of the works of German expressionist painter, Emil Nolde, entitled, ‘Colour is Life’. Reading the panel introducing the exhibition, we learnt that Nolde had been a member of the Nazi party, but had then fallen foul of the Nazis, who condemned his art as ‘degenerate.’ Having the impression that Nolde had rejected Nazi ideology, nothing could prepare us for we found in room 3, which was dedicated to his ‘religious paintings.’ The introductory panel described him as a ‘passionate’ Christian, and then we saw a painting of the crucifixion, entitled, ‘Martyrdom III’, with the crucified Christ in the background, and four other figures, depicting the chief priests and elders referred to in the Gospels,^[13] two of whom, facing one another in the foreground, appeared as ghastly anti-Semitic caricatures. We felt extremely shocked. Reading the accompanying panel, the anti-Semitism reflected in the images was mentioned, but we felt that it was described rather than challenged.

We decided to make a complaint. Fortunately, we were taken very seriously. The manager spent some time with us in the library, and took copious notes. In addition to listening carefully, his notetaking also included our suggestions for what needed to happen in order for the public to be warned about the anti-Semitic content of the painting, and for the message to be clearly communicated about the link between such anti-Semitic caricatures and anti-Jewish persecution that continues to this day. The same day, he copied us into an email he had written to those involved in the exhibition, including the Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland. The next day we received an email from the Director-General, Sir John Leighton. To cut a long story short, Sir John kept us regularly informed, sending us the amended texts for the panels in question, for the website^[14] and other publicity materials, and for new warning notices at the ticket office and at the entrance to the exhibition. Within three days all the actions we had suggested had been taken.

Anti-Semitism was a reality in the past and remains a reality today. It finds expression in art and culture, Christian Scripture, Islamist radicalism, right-wing movements everywhere – and on the left, where it principally takes the form of demonisation of Israel as a racist state. So, what is anti-Semitism? The central motif of anti-Semitism that distinguishes it from other forms of racism is the identification of ‘The Jews’ as the malevolent perpetrators of every evil from the killing of Jesus through Capitalism, Communism and Imperialism – depending on the perspective of the Jew-hater or Jew-hating group. Will anti-Semitism ever end? An unanswerable question. So, where do we go from here? What hope is there that the New Year may be any different from the old one? Well, it certainly won’t be any different if we don’t make a difference. And we can make a positive difference to the world in which we live. For one thing, we can work to eradicate anti-Semitism and all forms of racism. But to have any chance of making a difference on any matter each one of us needs to take time to inform ourselves, reflect, draw on our personal resources of integrity and courage, and then take steps to do what we can to promote justice, truth, and peace in our homes, in our communities, in the wider society and across the globe – and yes, in connection with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. May this be our New Year’s resolution. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue, Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah 5779 – 9^th September 2018

On the Jewish Voice for Labour website you can find a document that compares the Labour code on anti-Semitism with the IHRA definition – side by side:
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/app/uploads/2018/07/ANTISEMITISM-IHRA-and-LP.pdf See also:

https://labour.org.uk/members/my-welfare/my-rights-and-responsibilities/coc-antisemitism-and-other-racism/

https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/press_release_document_antisemitism.pdf ↑
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/16/labour-party-must-listen-to-the-jewish-community-on-defining-antisemitism ↑
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45414656 ↑
https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253 ↑
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44124556 ↑
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44881554 ↑
We read in the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 9B): ‘Why was the first sanctuary destroyed? Because of three things which prevailed there: idolatry, immorality, bloodshed. But why was the second sanctuary destroyed, seeing that in its time they were occupying themselves with Torah, mitzvot and the practice of tz’dakah? Because therein prevailed hatred without cause [sinat chinam]. This teaches you that groundless hatred is considered as of even gravity with the three sins of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed altogether.’ ↑
https://www.facebook.com/events/371596950027114/ ↑
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/reform-judaism-sorry-for-hurt-it-caused-dropped-kaddish-for-gaza-participant-1.467627 ↑
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/kaddish-gaza-nina-morris-evans-israel-tour-liberal-reform-ujia-1.467237 ↑
30 June 2018. https://issuu.com/liberaljudaism/docs/online_programme ↑
Pirkei Avot 1:18. Pirkei Avot, ‘The Chapters of the Sages’ is appended to Seider N’zikin, the fourth ‘order’ of the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited c. 200 CE. ↑
Matthew 27. ↑
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/emil-nolde-colour-life ↑

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