Sermons

What a week it has been. For those twenty-two families, whose loved ones were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at 10:30 PM on Monday evening in the foyer of the Manchester Arena; for the more than one hundred individuals injured, many of them critically, and their families; in a moment of terrifying destruction, their lives changed forever.^[1] Our hearts go out to them all. And we stand together with the courageous and defiant people of Manchester, of all ethnicities and religions, who stand in solidarity with one another and refuse to be terrorised and divided by the nihilistic absolutist ideology that drives young people like Salman Abedi to crush their own capacity for love and compassion, and their own will to live, and kill their fellow human beings so wantonly and indiscriminately.

Of course, none of this is new. These devastating acts of violence fuelled by the same or similar ideology are being perpetrated across the world all the time. And while this phenomenon has proliferated since 9/11, it did not begin with the terrorist attacks of that infamous day. Just think of the decades-long conflict in Somalia and Ethiopia, to take just one example.^[2] But, of course, when such an attack happens here in Britain, and when, like the assaults on July 7, 2005, it is perpetrated by a young person born and brought up in this country,^[3] we can’t simply confine the event to another distant domain far away from our everyday lives. Indeed, it is the very fact that such an attack erupts so horrifically in the midst of our everyday lives that is so terrifying. What could be more everyday than people travelling to and from work on the tube and bus networks, than commuters and tourists walking across Westminster Bridge, than young people attending a concert of their beloved pop idol.

For the past five days, the news and social media has been dominated with the bomb attack in Manchester. Rather than rehearse the main issues and concerns, I would like to approach the sense of horror we feel from another angle by reminding us of a very different incident that took place on Wednesday in the early hours of the morning, when a lorry on the M6 ploughed into a car, killing the five people in it.^[4] Road accidents, train and plane crashes – and on a more modest scale, a tragic domestic accident that sometimes takes place in the midst of a DIY task, or a massive heart attack or brain haemorrhage that kills instantly – all of these different incidents come out of nowhere, destroying people’s lives and the lives of their loved ones forever.

Going about our daily lives is a potentially lethal business. So, what to do? How should we, how do we respond to the awareness that our lives could end or be permanently disfigured at any moment? Some people choose, simply, not to think about it on the basis that we cannot control events that haven’t happened yet. This is a sensible strategy. Others, like to take a rationalistic approach and calculate the probability of a sudden devastating event happening to them or their loved ones on the basis of how infrequent such events are when put in the context of 63 million people in Britain going about their lives every day. This is also a very sensible strategy. Some people, tend to fatalism: ‘If your number is up, it’s up.’ Others, who do step out each day in the awareness of its potential dangers, find it hard to keep anxiety at bay. Some are quite frankly, terrorised by the way in which 24/7 news coverage and social media tends to become obsessively focused with gruesome events.

Life is a wilderness, with potential hazards at every turn. Each one of us is challenged to navigate a way through. This week we turn to the fourth book of the Torah, known in English as, ‘Numbers’. Its Hebrew name, B’midbar, comes from the first word that distinguishes it from all others. The first verse begins: Va-y’dabbeir Adonai el-Moshe – ‘The Eternal One spoke to Moses’ – a phrase repeated thousands of times in the Torah – and continues: b’midbar Sinai – ‘in the wilderness of Sinai’. So: Numbers/B’midbar. The two names tell us different things about the book. On the one hand, it is concerned with the organisation of the people for their journey to the land beyond the River Jordan. On the other hand, the narrative is located in the wilderness. And, significantly, the two dimensions of the book can only be understood in relation to another. It is because the rabble of ex-slaves, were confronted with the challenge of trekking through the wilderness, that it was necessary to organise them into military-type units for their journey. But as it turned out, the unfolding story reveals that the chaos of an unmapped terrain soon overwhelmed all attempts at order, as the people mumbled and grumbled, becoming an unruly mass of rebels.^[5]

It is not easy to keep the wilderness at bay. And yet, each one of us knows that unless we are going to confine ourselves indoors, preferably in a bungalow, preferably one without any gas or electrical appliances, and without any potential trip-hazards – that is, in an empty shell – we must find a way of living in the wilderness. For over six weeks, Jews across the world have been counting the omer each day in acknowledgement of the priestly practice in Temple times, when the priest would wave an omer, a sheaf of grain, from the Shabbat during Pesach for a period of seven weeks.^[6] The rabbinic sages who took responsibility for reconstructing Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, began counting the omer on the second day of Pesach in order to establish a fixed date for the festival that fell on the fiftieth day, the festival of Shavuot, ‘Weeks’. Today is the forty-sixth day of the omer. In May 2004, during a walk through a wood after heavy rainfall, conscious that it was the omer period marking the first journey of our newly-liberated ancestors, as I navigated the obstacles in my path, it seemed to me that my trek was a metaphor for my life’s journey. As it happens, I don’t like walking through woods. I much prefer to be on the top of the hills surveying the landscape. It feels safer being above it all – and it’s easier to work out where I’m going… Anyway, after the walk, I wrote this poem:

The endless journey / no pathways / just a tangle of weeds / and stinging nettles / stumps and burrows / ambushing my feet. / Treading gingerly / wincing as I stumble / no alternative / except to move on / I press ahead / no destination beckoning / just the lashes of the past / at my back / driving me ‘away from here / always away from here / away from here’.^[7] / But there is no escape / despite my zeal and haste / the old familiar terrain / stalking me relentlessly / every footfall that doesn’t slip / finding its twin / congealed in the mud / And yet / going round and round again / I keep stepping out / still hoping / I’ll reach the turning / that leads to Another Country.^[8]

Today, thousands of people are gathering in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv for a demonstration this evening. Organised by Shalom Achshav, ‘Peace Now’, they will be protesting against against fifty years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, following the Six-Day War that began on June 5, 1967. The demonstration is a protest – and it is also a declaration of hope: ‘Two States, One Hope’ is the rallying cry.^[9] Even after decades of conflict, of wars and terror attacks, hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians refuse to give up hope; even those bereaved and injured on both sides, whose lives have been devastated by violence refuse to give up hope. Those Israelis and Palestinians who continue to keep faith with hope offer inspiration to us at this time – in the aftermath of the Manchester bomb, and as we approach the general election on June 8. We do not know what lies ahead and we cannot control the future. But in the face of terror, and in defiance of those determined to sow hatred and division, we can be equally determined to stand together in a spirit of solidarity and hope.

Of course, that is easier said than done. Each one of us has to find our own way of living in the wilderness and navigating its terrors. The challenge before all of us is to live, truly live, fully and deeply, with all the vitality we can muster, with a sense of hopefulness and our antennae alert, both, to the dangers of life, and also to its abundant blessings and joys. One of these blessings is the blessing of community. Community creates a context of meaning and purpose for our lives. Our ancestors, who wandered in the wilderness for forty years knew this. Every generation of our people since has known this. The people of Manchester, made up of a plurality of ethnicities and religions, have demonstrated during this past week what being a community means to them. We know this: the congregation of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue; rejoicing week after week in our rainbow community of diverse individuals and families with different backgrounds, life situations and circumstances. There are no words of comfort that can in any way ameliorate the excruciating pain of those bereaved and injured by that bomb on Monday night. But acts of compassion and solidarity, the building of bonds of community, can enable people over time to find the courage and strength they need to carry on. May we all find the courage and the strength we need to embrace life and one another and to continue our journeys, wherever they may lead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat B’midbar

27^th May 2017 / 2^nd Sivan 5777

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40010124 ↑
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian%E2%80%93Somali_conflict ↑
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33253598 ↑
4. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/24/five-dead-in-motorway-crash-on-m6-near-stoke-on-trent ↑
5. The narratives of grumbling and rebellion begin in the third portion, B’ha’a lot’cha (Numbers 11 and 12), and continue in Sh’lach L’cha (Numbers 13 and 14), and Korach (Numbers 16 and 17). ↑
6. Emor, Leviticus 23: 9-16). ↑
7. A quotation from Franz Kafka. See: http://www.kafka.org/index.php?aid=172 ↑
8. Another Country is the title of a book by James Baldwin – my favourite author, when I was a teenager. It was first published in 1962 and was published as a ‘Penguin Classic’ in 2001. ↑
9. http://peacenow.org.il/en/two-states-one-hope ↑

REMEMBERING YEHUDA AMICHAI, Z”L

During May, we mark the anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, corresponding to 5 Iyyar 5708. It was also in May – on 3 May 1924 – that one of Israel’s greatest poets was born: Yehuda Amichai. Like many of his contemporaries, he was not born in Israel. And, like them, he changed his name. Yehuda Amichai came into the world in Wurzburg, Germany, as Ludwig Pfeuffer. Fortunately, his immediate family made Aliyah in 1936, so they did not endure the full horrors of the Sho’ah. Indeed, as a young man, Yehuda Amichai joined the Palmach, specifically, the Haganah, and then served as a soldier in the British Army during the Second World War. Later he fought in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, in the Sinai campaign of 1956, and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A true son of Israel, he was proud to declare with his chosen name, Amichai: ‘my people lives’.

Yehuda Amichai was also true to his gift as a poet, expressing the complexity of life in this all its shades and dimensions. Passionately patriotic, he eschewed an ‘us’ and ‘them’ binary vision, and his poems express his deep humanity. This Yom Ha-Atzma’ut, as we celebrate Israel, let us take some moments to reflect on the tragedy of the on-going conflict with the Palestinians by seeing it through the eyes of one of Israel’s most distinguished poets. Here are two poems I would recommend:

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion / and on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. / An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father / both in their temporary failure. / Our two voices met above / the Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. / Neither of us wants the boy or the goat / to get caught in the wheels / of the “Chad Gadya” machine. / Afterward we found them among the bushes, / and our voices came back inside us / laughing and crying. / Searching for a goat or for a child has always been / the beginning of a new religion in these mountains.

Jerusalem

On a roof in the Old City / laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: / the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, / the towel of a man who is my enemy, / to wipe off the sweat of his brow. / In the sky of the Old City / a kite. / At the other end of the string, / a child / I can’t see / because of the wall. / We have put up many flags, / they have put up many flags. / to make us think that they’re happy. / to make them think that we’re happy.

Yehuda Amichai was invited by the then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to read from one of his poems at the ceremony at which Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat became joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1994. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli fanatic the following year (4 November 1995). Yehuda Amichai died of cancer at the age of 76 on 22 September 2000. Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be for blessing.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah (published in SJN, May 2017)

We are what we eat! A soundbite – please excuse the pun – but very true.

During the last few decades, obesity has become a growing problem in the more prosperous nations across the world – not least, here in Britain. For quite a long time, the over-consumption of fatty foods was seen as the main problem. More recently, with comparative studies showing that those who live around the Mediterranean, whose diet includes high levels of olive oil, are much healthier than people here in Britain, the government has taken steps to legislate for a reduction in levels of sugar in manufactured foods and drinks. While it has become clear that consuming the right types of fat is very good for us, eating too much sugar is most definitely very bad.

At the same time that levels of obesity have been steadily increasing, in particular, among the poorer sections of the population, a preoccupation with healthy eating has become more evident amongst those with more disposable income. So, quite apart from the increasing identification of food allergies, in particular, concerning wheat and gluten, and aside from those who spend their lives perpetually dieting, more and more people are adopting new so-called ‘healthy eating’ programmes.

And then there is ethical eating. Levels of vegetarianism – Including amongst children – have increased enormously in recent years as people have become more concerned about animal welfare. And even amongst those who are not completely vegetarian, meat is forming a less predominant part of many people’s diets. Further, for those who can afford it, increasing numbers of those who continue to eat meat, as well as those who continue to consume fish, will only eat animal products that are organic and free-range. Of course, in addition to our concerns about other creatures, there are Fairtrade considerations that focus on supporting poorer countries that are dependent on a single crop, like bananas, coffee and chocolate. At the same time, and somewhat in conflict with this particular ethical commitment, there is also increasing concern to buy local and seasonal in order to avoid contributing to the problem of too much air-traffic criss-crossing the globe.

There was a time, when keeping kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, set one apart from everyone else. Nowadays, when invited to a meal at someone’s house, one is bound to be asked about dietary requirements on the assumption that everyone is following one form of dietary regime or another.

Nevertheless, kashrut – from the root, Kaf Shin Reish to be ‘fit’ – remains a very distinctive dietary system. This is because the rationale for it is completely different from the rationale for any other form of diet. In the last section of this week’s Torah portion, Sh’mini, in Leviticus chapter 11, we read about living creatures that may and may not be eaten. They fall into categories: animals that, both, chew the cud and have a cloven hoof may be eaten, but those which have neither of these characteristics, or, only one of them, may not. And so, while the camel chews the cud, it does not have a cloven hoof, so is prohibited. Equally, the pig which has a cloven hoof but does not chew the cud is forbidden. Concerning those creatures that live in the waters, only those that have fins and scales may be eaten; not those that crawl on the seabed. All wild birds are prohibited. All creatures that go around on four paws are also proscribed. All creatures that swarm and crawl on the ground may not be eaten. Creatures that swarm and go around in all fours, but have jointed legs, enabling them to leap may be eaten – which makes locusts and crickets kosher.

In order to understand the regulations concerning which creatures may and may not be eaten we have to look at them in the context of the Book of Leviticus as a whole. From the outset, this third book of the Torah is preoccupied with the sacred. The Hebrew root, Kuf Dalet Shin, from which we derive words such as the noun, kodesh, ‘holiness’, the adjective, kadosh, ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’, and the post-biblical noun, kiddush, the sanctification ritual involving the fruit of the vine, means that which is set apart. And so, in Leviticus, the tribe of Levi is set apart from the other Israelite tribes to perform the service of the sanctuary, and amongst the Levites, the family of Aaron and his sons is set apart for their role as priests. Most importantly, the people Israel is set apart from the other peoples to serve the Eternal One. As we read in the Torah portion, Acharei Mot, at the beginning of Leviticus 18 (:1-5):

And the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: / Speak to the Israelites, and say to them: / I am the Eternal your God. / The ways of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not practice; nor the ways of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you; neither shall you walk in their statutes. /My laws you shall practice, and My statutes you shall keep, to walk in them: I am the Eternal your God. / You shall therefore keep my statutes and my laws, which when the human being – ha-adam – does them, he shall live by them: I am the Eternal

According to the Torah, the Eternal One who is the Creator of the world and all its creatures, including ha-adam, the human being, has entered into a covenant with a particular people amongst humanity, a covenant based on the premise that this people will serve God – rather than serve other gods and follow the ways of other peoples.

So, what has all this got to do with food? Clearly, as we read in parashat Sh’mini, certain creatures that share characteristics in common are set apart for consumption. By following the dietary rules, Jewish people are set apart from others. This is particularly evident in the post-biblical development of the laws of kashrut, where, in addition to the foods themselves, the utensils and dishes they are served in are also set apart. In the first law code in the Torah, Mishpatim, at Exodus 23 (:18), we find the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, which is later repeated in the second version of the dietary laws set out in parashat R’eih, in Deuteronomy 14 (:13). Reflecting, perhaps, an ethical concern for the bond between mother and offspring, this rule was later interpreted as a proscription against eating meat products together with milk products, entailing the use of separate dishes for milk and meat. Curiously, fish with fins and scales that produce eggs and do not suckle their young may be eaten with milk products, but chickens that also produce eggs and do not suckle their young are treated as meat – and as with meat, the blood, which, according to the Torah, may not be eaten, ^[1] is drained away by the method of sh’chitah, ritual slaughter.^[2]

Given that eating is an activity we do more frequently than anything else, the impact of the observance of the laws of kashrut on our relationships with other people and other peoples is profound. Of course, as long as the majority of Jews were forced to live in segregated areas – ghettos – the fact that we followed distinct dietary regulations did not have repercussions for our relationship with others. During the course of the 19^th century, in the process of emancipation, as Jews were liberated from a segregated existence, they were presented with a new challenge: how to live as Jews in the world alongside others. Some Jewish communities chose to continue to live apart, and still largely do so to this day. Some, influenced by the ‘Jewish Enlightenment’ movement, the haskalah, which arose in Germany in the 18^th century, made the decision to lives as Jews ‘at home’ and citizens of the countries where they resided ‘in the street’.^[3] The rise of Progressive Judaism in the early 1800s in Germany was another response to changing social and political circumstances.^[4] Valuing the newly-found autonomy of the individual, the principal distinctive marker of the post-feudal world, Progressive Judaism – which encompasses particular ‘Reform’ and ‘Liberal’ manifestations – has refrained from dictating what Jews should and should not do in their own homes and in their own personal lives. It follows from this that the kashrut policy of progressive synagogues, like BHPS, is confined to our own premises. In this regard, it’s worth noting that this shul avoids the milk-meat issue completely by having a kitchen in which only permitted fish and vegetarian foods are prepared. But just as important, we invite people to bring these foods into the synagogue, and are not concerned with the utensils with which they are prepared at home, or whether or not the home concerned keeps the dietary laws. A progressive approach to kashrut, which encompasses contemporary ethical eating considerations, involves balancing the importance of expressing our unique identity as the Jewish people through our approach to food, with the value of connecting with others, and so, it also includes being able to eat in the homes of those who are not Jewish, and going out for a meal in a restaurant of any description. Fortunately, nowadays, as I mentioned earlier, anyone inviting someone to their home for a meal routinely asks them what they do and don’t eat, and many restaurants now serve a variety of dishes, encompassing vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options.

I’ve mentioned the impact of the emancipation of the Jews of Europe in the 19^th century. But of course, in the midst of the 20^th century, the rise of Nazism suckered by centuries of anti-Jewish hatred in Christian Europe had an impact on Jewish existence of an entirely different kind. Tomorrow evening, Jewish communities across the world will gather to observe Yom Ha-Sho’ah, the day set aside by resolution of the K’nesset, the Israeli parliament, on 12 April 1951, for the commemoration of the extermination of six million Jews and the annihilation of tens of thousands of Jewish communities across Europe.^[5] We continue to live in the shadow of the Sho’ah. The harrowing and devastating events of those twelve long-short years of Nazi rule frame our existence as Jews today. For some Jews, retreat from being Jewish, and a rejection of being ‘different’ seems the only safe and sane option. Sadly, such a response may be seen to give Hitler a ‘posthumous victory’^[6]; there is no need for anyone to attempt to wipe us out, if we are prepared to disappear of our own accord. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those Jews, who choose to live exclusively within the Jewish world, limiting their circle of compassion and concern to the Jewish people. Among the myriad responses in between these two extremes, Progressive Judaism invites us to claim and express our Jewishness with pride, while connecting to others and celebrating our shared humanity. One of the ways we can do this is through a progressive Jewish approach to kashrut. May we be proud of our difference, our unique identity, so that we continue to live as Jews and also eager to engage with others, and participate fully as Jews in the life of the world. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Sh’mini

22^nd April 2017 / 26^th Nisan 5777

1. Because the ‘being’ – nefesh – of the animal is identified with the blood. See: Genesis 9:4 – also: Leviticus 7:26-27 and Lev. 17: 10-14. The fat – chelev – that surrounds the liver and vital organs also may not be eaten: Lev. 7:23-25. ↑
2. Sh’chitah – from the Hebrew root: Shin Chet Tet to ‘slaughter – is the Jewish method of ritual slaughter, involving the slitting of the animal’s throat with a sharp knife. Any animal that dies of itself and is n’veilah – a ‘carcass’ – and, consequently, ‘torn’ – t’reifah – may not be eaten. See: Lev. 7:24, 17:15, 22:8 and Exodus 22:12. ↑
3. In his article, ‘Haskalah. Be a Jew at home and a man in the street’, Rabbi Louis Jacobs mentions the mid-19^th century Russian maskil, that is ‘enlightenment’ thinker, Judah Leib Gordon, who proclaimed ‘the Haskalah ideal: “Be a Jew at homeand a man outside it.”’ http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/haskalah/ See also: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7318-haskalah ↑
4. The most comprehensive account of the development of Progressive Judaism may be found in Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism by Michael A. Meyer (Oxford University Press, 1988). ↑
5. The Hebrew date of Yom Ha-Sho’ah is 27 Nisan. For more information, see: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yom-ha-shoah-holocaust-memorial-day ↑
6. The Jewish philosophe Emil L. Fackenheim, articulated an additional commandment post-Sho’ah: ‘the authentic Jew of today is forbidden to hand Hitler yet another posthumous victory.’ See: The Jewish Return Into History. Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem (Schocken Books, New York, p. 22). ↑

On Wednesday afternoon, three people were killed and 40 were injured, some of them seriously, when a terrorist ploughed the car he was driving into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, and then went on to stab a police officer on duty at the Houses of Parliament.^[1] Sadly, one of the critically injured has since died. Just as on Thursday, refusing to be terrorised, Londoners continued to go about the business of their daily lives, so remembering the dead and injured and the bereaved families in our prayers, today I would like us to focus on the ordinary business of celebrating Shabbat together as a congregation.

So, what are we doing here this morning – and every Shabbat morning? I’m not asking, ‘why are we here?’ – a more complex question, with as many answers as there are individuals sharing this moment. There are at least three possible responses to the question about what we’re doing here: We are meeting together; we are praying; we are engaging in the Shabbat morning service. The first possible response doesn’t explain exactly what we are doing. The second, may not reflect the experience of everyone; praying is primarily a personal matter. The third possible response is more precise: we are engaging in the Shabbat morning service.

Now, it seems appropriate to ask the ‘why’ question: why are we doing this? Of course, there will be personal responses, like, ‘because I enjoy it’, or, ‘because this is how I spend most Shabbat mornings’. How might we frame our collective response? We are here participating in the Shabbat morning service because the synagogue organises weekly Shabbat services, and always has done since its inception in 1935 – indeed, at this particular address, 6 Lansdowne Road for the past 80 years.

But, of course, this synagogue is not alone. Jewish congregations across the country and around the world, of all denominations, hold Shabbat morning services. And while all these thousands of synagogues follow a similar order of service, each denomination produces its own prayer book – known as a siddur, the rabbinic Hebrew word for ‘order’ – reflecting its own cultural milieu, theological perspective and values. But each denomination does not simply have its own siddur for all time. Even Orthodox denominations that are less responsive to social change bring out a new edition of their siddur once in a while. In the case of Liberal Judaism here in Britain, since the movement was founded in 1902, a new siddur has been published every 25 to 30 years to ensure that the content of our services meets ‘the needs of the age,’ as Lily Montagu, one of the founders of Liberal Judaism, put it back in 1899. ^[2]

The siddur we are using today, Siddur Lev Chadash, meaning, ‘prayer book of a new heart’, heralded a major departure from previous Liberal prayer books, when it was published in 1995. On the one hand, it was more traditional than previous incarnations, adopting the traditional structure of Jewish services, and including more Hebrew. On the other hand, it was more radical, using an inclusive gender translation throughout; that is, language that does not speak, either, of God, or of our people, past and present, in exclusive male gender terms. So, gone were the references to God as ‘He’, a ‘father’ and a ‘king’, and to our ancestors, as our ‘fathers’.

But times continue to change and Siddur Lev Chadash no longer feels so up-to-date. So, the process has begun within the Liberal Judaism rabbinic conference towards producing a new siddur. For the first time, the siddur will be co-edited by two women rabbis, Lea Mulstein, Associate Rabbi of Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue, and me. That in itself marks a new milestone. Further, the rabbinic conference siddur group has agreed some crucial innovations, most significantly, that the entire Hebrew text will be transliterated, the transliteration most likely to appear directly to the left of the Hebrew, with the English translation next to it. For many years, it was felt that the inclusion of transliteration would mean that people would be disinclined to make the effort to learn to read Hebrew. The current feeling is that the more familiar non-Hebrew readers are with reciting the Hebrew, the more likely they are to want to learn to read it. Another important change is that the English translation of the prayers will avoid archaic language – and so, for example, the word ‘blessing’ will be used instead of ‘benediction.’ We are also paying attention to the rubrics to ensure that they are less prescriptive. And so, for example options for standing and sitting will be introduced, and italics and musical signs will be omitted, so at any given service, congregations may choose which passages they will recite together and which ones they will sing.

At the moment, we are in the process of preparing a draft of the Shabbat morning service, with a view to circulating it to congregations in January 2018, for use on a monthly basis throughout that year. In this way, congregations will have a chance to get used to it before offering feedback. Meanwhile, we will get to work on the Erev Shabbat liturgy.

I’ve told you a little about the new siddur, which we hope will be published around 2022, but I still haven’t addressed the deeper question of what we are doing when we participate in the Shabbat morning service: what is actually going on when we recite ancient prayers, albeit edited and presented with new settings and translations? One way of beginning to address that question is to take a step back from our preoccupation with the service, and look at what the Torah has to say about the building of the mishkan, the tabernacle in the wilderness. For the past four weeks, following the account of the Revelation of the Eternal at Mount Sinai, each successive parashah (portion) has included material about the construction of the sacred tent in the wilderness, which is variously referred to as mikdash, a ‘sanctuary’, ohel mo’eid, a ‘tent of meeting’, and mishkan, a ‘dwelling’, usually translated as ‘tabernacle’. Let us remind ourselves of the reason given for this sacred dwelling-place. We read in the opening verses of parashat T’rumah:^[3]

V’asu li mikdash, v’shakhanti b’tokham

Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the import of this verse. The dramatic scene of Revelation concludes with Moses ascending the mountain and disappearing into the cloud. As we read in the closing verses of parashat Mishpatim:^[4]

Then Moses went up into the mountain, and cloud covered the mountain. / And the glory of the Eternal dwelt upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day God called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. / The appearance of the glory of the Eternal was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the Israelites. / Moses entered into the midst of the cloud, and went up into the mountain; Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

It’s an evocative description, which turns on one particular phrase: ‘And the glory of the Eternal dwelt upon Mount Sinai’ – Va-yishkon k’vod Adonai al-har Sinai. Throughout the narrative of Revelation, the top of the mountain is the dwelling-place of the mysterious, elusive, ineffable, and yet commanding Eternal One. Nothing surprising about that. Where else would you expect a mysterious presence to reside if not on the top of a mountain wreathed in cloud – which is why where the Torah takes us next seems so remarkable. I repeat: V’asu li mikdash, v’shakhanti b’tokham – ‘Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.’ As long as the Eternal exists only in relation to the Eternal then it makes sense to describe that Eternal aloneness as utterly apart, above and beyond the arena of human endeavour. This state of utter aloneness is beautifully described at the beginning of Adon Olam, the song usually sung at the end of the Shabbat morning service: Adon olam asher malakh, b’terem kol y’tzir nivra – literally: ‘Eternal Lord who reigned alone before every form was created.’ By contrast, when we read the opening verses of the Torah, in parashat B’reishit, it becomes apparent from the narrative that as soon as the Eternal engaged in the work of creation, the lone reign of the Eternal came to an end. From then onwards, the Eternal existed in relation to the Earth and everything on it, and set about trying to establish a reliable relationship with humanity. And so, we read in the third parashah, Lekh L’kha, that after a couple of failed attempts at relating with humanity as a whole – the tales of the flood and the tower of Babel related in parashat No’ach^[5] – the Eternal sent out a call.^[6] The response to that call came from Abraham and Sarah,^[7] and so began the story of the ancestors of the Israelites and their journeys with the Eternal.

The Eternal exists in the nexus of relationships formed when people create community. From a Jewish perspective, the context of community is paramount – which brings me back to what we are doing here today, to this Shabbat morning service. The prayer book that preceded Siddur Lev Chadash was called ‘Service of the Heart, published in 1967. Centuries after the descendants of the Israelites entered the land beyond the Jordan (c. 1250 BCE), the mobile mishkan was replaced by the first Temple in Jerusalem built by King Solomon (c. 970 BCE), with sacrifices offered by the priests on behalf of the people as a service to the Eternal. When the second – and last – Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, avodah, the ‘service’ of the Eternal in the form of animal sacrifice came to be replaced by what the early rabbis called avodat ha-lev, ‘service of the heart’– that is, ‘prayer’^[8] – not personal prayer, but rather, liturgy, the framework of communal prayer. So, when we engage as a congregation in a Shabbat morning service, or in any one of the three services daily services, or a festival service, as we build and rebuild our relationships with one another as a community, we also enable and reinforce the relationship of the community with the Eternal.

This week’s parashah is a double portion, Va-yakheil-P’kudei, which concludes the Book of Exodus with a description of the setting up of the mishkan, following its completion, on the first day of the first month of the second year of the journey in the wilderness. The account closes with the words: ‘So Moses finished the work.’ – Va-y’khal Moshe et-ha-m’lakhah ^[9]– mirroring the language used to describe how the Eternal ‘finished’ the work of creation.^[10] Martin Buber draws our attention to seven correspondences between the first narrative of creation and the account of the building of the mishkan.^[11] As God created the world and everything in it, so it is our task to create community.

But that’s not all. The last four verses of the Book of Exodus echo the verses I quoted earlier from the end of the narrative of Revelation about the Eternal dwelling on Mount Sinai – only the location has shifted:^[12]

The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Eternal filled the tabernacle. /Then Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the cloud dwelt upon it, and the glory of the Eternal filled the tabernacle. / Whenever the cloud was taken up over the tabernacle, the Israelites journeyed on their journeys. / But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey until the day it was taken up. / The cloud of the Eternal was upon the tabernacle by day, and there was fire within it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

Just as the concluding verses of the tale of Revelation tell us that the Eternal dwelt in cloud and fire on the top of Mount Sinai, so as the Book of Exodus closes we have a vision of the Eternal, whose palpable nearness is signalled by ‘the cloud’ – he’anan – that ‘dwelt’ on the tabernacle by day and the ‘fire’ – eish – that burned within it at night. The Eternal: a mystery, and yet, a presence, residing in the midst of the community, and journeying and resting with the people, whose community-building efforts have brought the Eternal down from the fathomless heights into their lives. Every time we consciously gather together as a community, reinforcing our bonds with one another, we also invite the Eternal to dwell in our midst. May the ineffable presence of the Eternal give us strength and courage, hope and purpose on all our journeys through the wilderness of Life. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Va-yakheil-P’kudei

25^th March 2017 / 27^th Adar 5777

1. 22.03.17. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-39355505 ↑
2. The Jewish Quarterly Review, 1899. ↑
3. T’rumah, Exodus 25:8 ↑
4. Mishpatim, Ex. 24:15-18 ↑
5. No’ach, Genesis 6:9-9:17; 111-9. ↑
6. Lekh L’kha, Gen. 12:1. ↑
7. Gen. 12:4-5. ↑
8. See: quotation from the Talmud in the inside cover of the 1967 prayer book:Talmud Bavli, Ta’anit 2a. ↑
9. P’kudei, Exodus 40:33. ↑
10. B’reishit, Genesis 2:1-2. ↑
11. See Studies in Shemot – Exodus by Nehama Leibowitz. WZO, 1983, pp.497-481. ↑
12. P’kudei, Exodus 40: 34-37. ↑

There has been a lot in the news recently about law. As soon as he got into office, President Trump started signing a series of ‘executive orders’ to put his campaign promises into practice. The executive order that has hit the headlines concerns the banning of any immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.^[1] More of that in a moment. But first, what is a presidential executive order? A website providing information from the US government explains that: ‘A presidential executive order is a directive issued to federal agencies, department heads, or other federal employees by the President of the United States… Thirty days after being published in the Federal register, executive orders take effect. While they do bypass the U.S. Congress and the standard legislative law-making process, no part of an executive order may direct agencies to conduct illegal or unconstitutional activities.’^[2] ‘President George Washington issued the first executive order in 1789. Since then, all U.S. presidents have issued executive orders…’ Apparently, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed 3522.^[3]

So, a presidential executive order cannot contravene the American constitution. The particular executive order in question, while banning the entry for 90 days of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, also blocked the entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, and barred Syrian refugees indefinitely. In a disturbing irony lost on President Trump, he issued this particular executive order on Friday, 27 January – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945, and designated as National Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain. The next day, the New York Times reported – and I quote: ‘A federal judge in Brooklyn came to the aid of scores of refugees and others who were trapped at airports across the United States on Saturday after an executive order signed by President Trump, which sought to keep many foreigners from entering the country, led to chaotic scenes across the globe. The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions…’^[4]

The legal challenges have continued. That very same day the American Civil Liberties Union, quoting the Supreme Court, argued that Trump’s executive order, ‘violates “the clearest command of the Establishment clause” [of the American constitution]’, which states that ‘one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another’.^[5] For nearly 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been , as its website puts it, ‘our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.’^[6] By identifying President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from predominantly Muslim countries as unconstitutional, the ACLU is demonstrating that its concern for human rights extends beyond the rights of US citizens. Indeed, since the executive order was issued, the ACLU has been taking up the cases of individual plaintiffs, who have been detained by the US government and threatened with deportation even though they have valid visas to enter the United States, arguing that – and I quote: ‘Their continued detention based only on the executive order violates their fifth Amendment procedural and substantive due process rights as well as US immigration statutes.’^[7]

Isn’t the law marvelous – that is, as long as the legal system in question protects human rights. Hopefully, Trump’s excesses will be curtailed by the American constitution. Meanwhile, here in Britain, the triggering of article 50, and with it, the two-year process of disengagement from the European Union, threatens to involve abandoning a swathe of EU laws related to employment rights. These laws include: paid holidays, equal treatment for part-time workers, rights for new mothers, 18 weeks’ parental leave, equal pay for equal work, limits on how long an employee can be forced to work, employers’ responsibility to keep workers informed, health and safety, workers’ protection if the employer is bought out – and last but by no means least: protection from discrimination on the grounds of religion, sexuality, gender reassignment status, belief, and age. Prior to EU legislation, the UK only enacted laws for race and gender discrimination.^[8] Let’s hope that given the most practical approach to disengagement from the EU is likely to involve as a first step, incorporating EU law into UK law, there is a chance that a majority in the House of Commons will ensure that all employment rights are retained.

This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, which begins at Exodus chapter 21, is largely taken up with detailing mishpatim, ‘laws’; specifically, laws related to slavery, injury, property, and moral behaviour. It is telling that directly following the account of Divine Revelation at Mount Sinai described in last week’s parashah, Yitro, which includes Aseret Ha-Dibbrot, the ‘Ten Utterances’ better known as the ‘Ten Commandments’,^[9] the editors of the Torah inserted a code of law. Even more telling, this insertion turns out to be an interruption, with Mishpatim concluding by returning to the Sinai narrative. We learn that after relating all the words of the Eternal to the people, Moses read Seifer Ha-B’rit, the Book of the Covenant aloud, gaining their consent, before once again, climbing up the mountain.^[10]

The word ‘revelation’ in a religious context refers to the mysterious phenomenon by which the Divine communicates to the human. And yet, in a Jewish context, mystery very quickly gives way to the material. It’s not just that it’s impossible to describe a mystery – the burning bush, that is not consumed by the flames,^[11] the smoking mountain, shuddering with thunder and streaked by lightning.^[12] From a Jewish perspective, the Eternal One breaks into our lives for a very particular concrete purpose: in order to instruct us about how to live as a community and as a society. Apart from the compelling narrative that extends from two accounts of creation through the end of forty years of wilderness wandering, the Torah is packed full of laws that are by definition intended to compel our behaviour and structure and regulate our lives from birth to death, from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. Not surprisingly, the laws we find in Mishpatim and in the other legal codes of the Torah, reflect the ancient Near Eastern context in which they were formulated, with its patriarchal social mores – hence, Mishpatim opens by relating the laws concerning ownership of Hebrew slaves.^[13] On the other hand, the Torah’s legal codes also include laws specifically related to social justice and ethical conduct that transcend time and space. And so, for example, Mishpatim includes this series of rules:^[14]

You shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes. / Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the wrongdoer. / Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear-sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right. / You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the inner-being – nefesh – of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt / Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves. / Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh you shall cease in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and your servant and stranger may be refreshed – v’yinafeish.

Progressive Judaism, a generic term for all the movements affiliated to the World Union of Progressive Judaism,^[15] including Liberal Judaism, has a questioning relationship to the edifice of Jewish law, halakhah, first devised by the rabbinic sages, who drew on the legislation found in the Torah to construct a framework for Jewish life after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.^[16] For Progressive Judaism, the traditions we have inherited, ‘have a vote, but not a veto,’^[17] and individuals are empowered to make ‘informed choices’ about how to live their lives as Jews.^[18] Nevertheless, apart from maintaining a host of Jewish rites in a communal context – not least those associated with Shabbat and the festivals – Progressive Judaism also subscribes to the basic premise of Jewish teaching that what we do matters more than what we think and believe, and that it is our responsibility to engage with our inheritance to meet the needs of Jewish life today. As the Liberal Judaism website puts it:^[19]

Liberal Judaism affirms the dynamic, developing character of our Jewish religious tradition. Questing and questioning, Liberal Judaism is an authentic and modern form of Judaism, rooted in a deep and meaningful engagement with Jewish texts, values, culture and history. We are a movement with a sense of purpose, engaged in community life, study, spirituality and social action. We believe in personal freedom and responsibility and the shared and collective bonds that unite us as Jews and members of humanity.

This Shabbat is designated as Shabbat Sh’kalim because in addition to the weekly portion, we also read a passage at the beginning of parashat Ki Tissa, Exodus chapter 30,^[20] which describes the census taken of males aged 20 years and over, that is, those eligible for military service, which involved each man giving a half shekel for the upkeep of the sanctuary as an atonement offering. Given that there hasn’t been a sacred place in Jewish life for nearly 2000 years, this poll tax has no contemporary relevance. However, demonstrating what it means to have a ‘meaningful engagement with Jewish texts’, for several years now the Friends of Progressive Judaism, have reconfigured Shabbat Sh’kalim as an opportunity to fundraise in support of fledgling and developing progressive congregations, in particular, in Eastern Europe.^[21] Progressive Judaism, Liberal Judaism never stands still.

Mishpatim tells us that when Moses read read Seifer Ha-B’rit, the Book of the Covenant to the people, they responded: na’aseh v’nishma, ‘we will do and we will listen.’^[22] From a progressive Jewish perspective, as we reflect on the teachings we have received in the context of our lives today, we might say nishma v’na’aseh, ‘we will listen and we will do.’^[23] Nevertheless, action remains at the heart of our Liberal Jewish engagement at all levels – at home, in the synagogue, and in the wider society. Currently, the focus of much engagement across the Jewish community here in Britain centres on ensuring that British law, specifically immigration legislation, responds to the desperate need of those fleeing persecution and conflict in search of refuge. Just this past week, prompted by JCORE’s ‘let the children in’ campaign^[24], I posted letters to local MPs and the Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, composed by a group of us here at BHPS, calling on them to urge the government to fully implement the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act,^[25] which committed the government to take around 3000 of the 90,000 loan child refugees in European countries. So far, just 350 children have been brought into the UK. Meanwhile, closer to home, our weekly collection of toiletries and non-perishable foods for local refugees supported by Brighton Voices in Exile continues to meet an urgent need.

No doubt, the reason why Jews have always been disproportionately involved in social justice campaigns is because within Jewish teaching ethical values are codified into law and so linked directly to practice – as demonstrated in the legal code we find in Mishpatim. May we feel inspired by that powerful recipe for action to do what we can to help to resolve the urgent human rights issues of our day. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Mishpatim

5^th February 2017 / 29^th Sh’vat 5777

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/politics/trump-syrian-refugees.html ↑
2. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepresidentandcabinet/a/Presidential-Executive-Orders.htm ↑
3. Ibid. ↑
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html?_r=0 ↑
5. https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/well-see-you-court-why-trumps-executive-order-refugees-violates-establishment ↑
6. https://www.aclu.org/about-aclu ↑
7. Counsel for the plaintiffs in one particular case, Darweesh vs. Trump, includes alongside the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center, the National Immigration Law Center, Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization and the firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. https://www.aclu.org/cases/darweesh-v-trump ↑
8. http://strongerunions.org/2016/02/25/10-workers-rights-brexit-would-risk/ ↑
9. Exodus 20:1-14. ↑
10. Ex. 24:1-18. ↑
11. Ex. 3:2-3. ↑
12. Ex. 19:16-19. ↑
13. Ex. 21: 1-11. ↑
14. Ex. 23: 6-12. ↑
15. http://wupj.org/ ↑
16. The first code of rabbinic law is the Mishnah, edited c. 200 CE. ↑
17. http://www.jewishrecon.org/resource/who-reconstructionist-jew ↑
18. ‘Informed choice’ has been the catch phrase of Liberal Judaism. See my Compelling Commitments: A New Approach to Living as a Liberal Jew (Liberal Judaism, London, 2007). Another version of this paper is published in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism, chapter 10, ‘Compelling Commitments and the Impulse for Engagement’ (David Paul Books, London, 2012). ↑
19. http://www.liberaljudaism.org/who-we-are/what-is-liberal-judaism/ ↑
20. Ex. 30:: 11-16 ↑
21. http://www.fpjie.org.uk/shabbat-shekalim-2017/ ↑
22. Exodus 24:7. ↑
23. See publications cited in note 15 above. ↑
24. http://www.jcore.org.uk/let-the-children-in ↑
25. For details of the ‘let the children in’ campaign, see: Http://www.jcore.org.uk/let-the-children-in Lord Alfred Dubs, who drafted the amendment to the Immigration Act came to Britain on the kindertransport, which brought 10,000 young, mostly Jewish, refugees to Britain from Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s. ↑

A ‘Reality TV’ star has become President of the United States. Is it a joke? When ‘President Trump’ was featured on ‘The Simpsons’ in the year 2000 the spectre was supposed to make us laugh – and perhaps also, to make us think… In an episode, entitled, ‘Bart to the Future’, Bart Simpson is subjected to a scary vision of his life 30 years on, when he is a failed musician, no one wants to hear, and Donald Trump has become President of the United States. Can we ever know what the future holds? Sometimes, absurdities can become realities. CBS News reminded everyone about the episode the morning after Donald Trump declared victory in the Presidential election.^[1] So now, we are not laughing – perhaps because we know that ‘Reality TV’ is for the most part, ‘Fantasy TV’, and Donald Trump is a fantasist, who is now occupying the most powerful political office on the planet. ‘America first’? Donald Trump first. The question is, what will it take for him to feel he has satisfied his megalomania? Is a megalomaniac ever satisfied?

Trump does not appear to be an ideologue, he is far too self-centred to have a vision that is more than a reflection of his own vanity. But he has tapped into the discontent and real suffering of millions of Americans, left behind by globalisation, and managed to persuade them that he is their champion, their saviour. Whether or not he does fulfil any of his promises to the people of the discarded ‘rustbelt’ and to the rural poor, Trump has achieved in their adulation exactly what his ego requires: to be the star of the greatest show on earth – which is probably why he was so determined to promote ‘alternative facts’ about the turnout at his inauguration. Of course, despite the pictures to the contrary, despite the empty viewing stands, as he and his hapless wife, Melania, processed through the streets, in Trump’s view, his inauguration attracted the highest number of attendees in US history.^[2]

If this was really all there was to the election of Donald J Trump as 45^th President of the United States, perhaps it would simply provide a nauseating comment on the dire state of political discourse that such a narcissist, with no experience of public service, could assume the Presidency. But, of course, President Trump is not alone. He has surrounded himself with people of strong convictions, who seem to be committed to a very narrow vision of America – not least, Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, who would re-impose the hetero-normative family ideal on the nation, repeal hard-won LGBT rights, and make abortion a crime once again. And then, let us not forget that the narcissist fantasist is also a successful billionaire businessman, a wheeler-dealer, who is used to getting his own way, and make no mistake, he means business. He has already issued several executive orders to demonstrate his determination to put his campaign promises into practice – which have included an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees entering the country.^[3]

So, although a gift to comedians and cartoonists and late-night TV show hosts, President Trump also poses a threat to the people of the United States, and possibly to the entire world. Perhaps, ‘America first’ nationalism is just a game to Donald Trump, a way of keeping his supporters happy – after all, he only got to be a billionaire by engaging in global capitalism; a crucial ‘fact’ that they seem to have missed. But whether or not he means it, Trump has incited and aroused nationalistic and racist sentiments amongst those who need someone to blame, and boosted the nationalist and racist elements that already exist in American society – like the Ku Klux Klan.

Sounds familiar? Yesterday, was National Holocaust Memorial Day, first instituted by the Labour government in 2001.^[4] The date was carefully chosen: the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army on 27 January 1945. One of the main purposes of the day is, of course, remembrance of the Sho’ah, so that we never forget the Nazi programme to annihilate the Jews of Europe, and in order that we also remember the other groups targeted by Nazi Aryan policy, in particular, the Roma, homosexuals, the disabled, and political opponents. But just as important, the commemoration of the Holocaust each year also highlights genocides perpetrated since 1945, and is supposed to remind us of the need to be vigilant to ensure that we do everything we can to prevent further incarnations of Nazism in the future.^[5] Of course, Trump is not a new Hitler, and it is doubtful that his xenophobia will be translated into genocide – although he relishes the prospect of torturing terrorist suspects^[6] and often speaks of ‘annihilating’ ISIS.^[7] Moreover, the circumstances in which Hitler rose to power, won a democratic election and became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 are not the same circumstances that led to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Nevertheless, there is a striking parallel. Ultimately, as was the case with Hitler in Germany, Trump’s ability to woo those who felt marginalised and left behind, determined the outcome of the election. Without the electoral college votes of former Democratic states like Pennsylvania and Michigan^[8], where as Trump put it in his inaugural address, there are ‘rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape’^[9], he would not have been elected to the office of President. That millions of people in the richest and most powerful nation on earth do not benefit from that prosperity and have been abandoned is a shocking indictment on that society and the much professed ‘American dream’.

In this week’s Torah portion, Va-eira, we find the second instalment in the saga of the Exodus, in which Moses’ encounter with the Eternal at the burning bush in the wilderness is concluded and he returns to Egypt with his mission to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelites from their bondage. A Shabbat sermon would not be complete without a connection being made with the parashah. And so, it is tempting to portray Trump as cast in the same mould as the Pharaoh, who ‘did not know Joseph’^[10] – and indeed, like Pharaoh, who saw the Israelites as a threat,^[11] Trump has demonised minorities, in particular, Mexicans, Hispanics in general, and Muslims, and is determined to execute policies to keep them out. But there is an important difference. Pharaoh did not have to make appeals for public support when he decided to kill all the firstborn Hebrew baby boys.^[12] Pharaoh was an autocrat, with absolute power, presiding over an autocracy. Like it or not, Trump has become President of the United States because he won a democratic election – and he won that election against the odds, even winning states that had previously voted Democrat, because he spoke directly to those who felt they had been ignored by previous administrations, Democrat and Republican. A special Channel 4 report the day before Trump’s inauguration was very telling. Matt Frei spoke to a miner in West Virginia, who voted for Trump although he had always voted Democrat in the past, who told him that Trump had been the first presidential candidate to visit them since JFK.^[13]

While linking Trump to Pharaoh may not get us very far in our efforts to make sense of the Trump phenomenon, our parashah has other important lessons to teach us, when we turn from the powerful to the powerless. After all, the message of Moses’ encounter with the Eternal at the burning bush is all about the slaves. At the beginning of this week’s portion, Va-eira, the Divine Revelation concludes with these promises of liberation:^[14]

“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Eternal, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgements; / And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and you shall know that I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of Egypt. / And then I will bring you into the land concerning which I lifted up my hand to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for a heritage: I am the Eternal.’”

Trump has also made promises. But the comparison here is not between the Divine and Trump – although, no doubt, Trump sees himself as a messiah-like figure. Moses, who unlike Trump, did not have the gift of the gab, who was modest and self-effacing and full of humility, has the task of conveying a powerful message to Pharaoh and to the slaves:^[15] A message that there is a power greater than material power, greater than the mightiest autocrat; a power that ignites and liberates the human spirit. Immediately after this stunning utterance, at the very next verse, we read: ‘Then Moses spoke thus to the Israelites; but they did not listen to Moses because of shortness of spirit – mi-kotzer ru’ach – and because of hard bondage – mei-avodah kashah.’^[16] Those words say all are that needs to be said about what it feels like to be oppressed. But, of course, that is not the end of the story. Ostensibly, Moses had been charged by the Eternal with the task of persuading Pharaoh to free the slaves: ‘Let My people go that they may serve Me’.^[17] However, ultimately, the slaves had to participate in their own liberation if they were to be free. And so, as we read in next week’s parashah, Bo, when it came to the final plague, the death of the firstborn, the only way the Israelites could be saved was by saving themselves – by taking the blood of a lamb and putting it on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, so that the Eternal would pass over their houses and their firstborn would not be killed; hence the inauguration of the Festival of ‘Passover’, Pesach, to celebrate the liberation.^[18]

The slaves went on a journey: a journey from kotzer ru’ach, ‘shortness of spirit’ to confidence; from hopelessness to readiness to be free. Only then, could they journey out of Egypt and through the wilderness to a land in which their descendants would serve the Eternal by establishing a just society. In the story of the Exodus, we are confronted with two visions of power: the self- interested, self-aggrandizing power of Pharaoh that is all about domination and control, and the power of the Divine that empowers the powerless. Living in a democracy and not an autocracy, like any demagogue of the modern age, including Hitler, Trump has appealed to the masses and has manipulated them in order to get hold of the reins of power. It looks like he has won. But meanwhile, there have been Moses figures and Miriams at work; ordinary people, inspired by the values of justice and equality, determined to defend and extend human rights, who reject nationalism and racism, sexism and homophobia.

Some people have dismissed the protest marches led by women that took place the day after Trump’s inauguration on the grounds that they had no discernible goals, and that all they could achieve was momentary publicity and a transitory ‘high’. But that response misses the point entirely. Demonstrating solidarity across races, religions and ethnicities, sexualities and genders, those demonstrations in Washington, where 500,000 people gathered, and in towns and cities across the United States and in many parts of the globe,^[19] conveyed a compelling message. A narcissistic megalomaniac will not improve the lives of the poor and discarded; only people working together can change the world. Perhaps, then in this sense only, Trump’s election has achieved something. By confounding expectations and challenging the political machinery of business as usual, Trump has sparked a reaction, which has reminded people of their responsibility for the society in which they live. May we yet see that sense of responsibility demonstrated by the American people – and by all peoples in every country across the Earth – in the coming year, so that policies fuelled by xenophobia and bigotry are contested. And may the new month of Sh’vat that begins today with its promise of new life as Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees approaches, inspire us with new hope as we face the challenges that lie ahead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Va-eira

28^th January2017 / Rosh Chodesh Sh’vat 5777

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-episode-of-the-simpsons-predicted-a-president-trump/ ↑
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-inauguration-what-did-he-say-a7539831.html ↑
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38781496 ↑
4. http://hmd.org.uk/page/about-hmdt ↑
5. http://hmd.org.uk/ ↑
6. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/trump-talks-torture-of-terrorism-suspects/ ↑
7. Trump has repeated this so many times that a ‘USA Politics Now poll’ on 21 November 2016, asked the question, ‘Do you support Trump annihilating ISIS?’ http://usapoliticsnow.com/live-poll-support-trump-annihilating-isis/ ↑
8. The other states that went Republican: Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohiohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37889032 ↑
9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trumps-inaugural-address-full-text-as-prepared-for-delivery/?utm_term=.bf4123bc06f7 ↑
10. Sh’mot, Exodus 1:8. ↑
11. Ex. 1:9-11. ↑
12. Ex. 1:15. ↑
13. https://www.channel4.com/news/taking-trump-home-to-west-virginia 86% in West Virginia voted for Trump – the highest support for Trump in the election. West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union. Presidential candidate, J.F. Kennedy visited in 1960. ↑
14. Ex. 6:6-8. ↑
15. Ex. 3:11; 4:1; 10. ↑
16. Ex. 6:9. ↑
17. Ex. 9:1 ↑
18. Ex. 12:1 ff. ↑
19. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/22/two-million-protest-against-trumps-inauguration-worldwide ↑

What does the future hold? A perennial question. This year – 2016 – feels like a watershed: as terror continued to reign across Europe,^[1] the European Union referendum campaign culminated in the murder of MP Jo Cox by a far right extremist on 16 June and the Brexit vote a week later; and then came the triumph of a narcissistic demagogue in the US presidential election on November 9 – a day already indelibly marked by two epoch-changing anniversaries: Kristallnacht – the commencement of the Nazi’s violent assault against the Jews of Europe in 1938; and German reunification in 1989.

So, what will 2017 bring? We don’t know. We can never know with certainty what lies ahead. That’s the truth – even at a time when the ‘post-Truth’ politics of Trump has trumped the ‘fact-checkers’. ‘Post-Truth’: the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year; an adjective – and I quote: ^[2]

Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

Of course, for a sense of what might be round the corner, we can read ‘the signs of the times’, including, a traditionalist backlash against social progress in the arena of gender and sexuality and a nationalistic rejection of multiculturalism. We can also draw comparisons with Europe in the late 1920s and the 1930s, when the economic crash precipitated political instability and provided the perfect conditions for far right exploitation of the fears and insecurities of those whose lives had been turned upside down. But despite the similarities, history is not, as the German historian Oswald Spengler argued in The Decline of the West, a tale of endless repetitive cycles.^[3] Rather, each year brings new possibilities and challenges – particularly, in an age of accelerating technological development.

We cannot predict the future. And yet, we continue to try to control the future. Our Torah portion this Shabbat, Chayyey Sarah demonstrates that this human trait has a long pedigree. Chayyey Sarah opens with the death of Sarah, the first female ancestor of the Jewish people.^[4] Abraham proceeds to procure a burial site,^[5] and then, realising that his own days are numbered, he gets on with the business of arranging what will happen after he has died. To this end, he sends his servant on a mission back to Charan, his birthplace, to find a wife for his son, Isaac.^[6]

Shakespeare’s elderly King Lear – currently being brought to life by Glenda Jackson at the Old Vic and Anthony Sher at the Barbican – was also intent on controlling the future in his final days, as with tragic consequences, he carved out his kingdom between his two elder daughters, rejecting his favourite, the youngest, because she did not flatter him enough.

The end of life is a challenging time. Inevitably, whatever our personal circumstances, each one of us, finally, has to let go. And yet, although we cannot hold on to life, and we can’t control what will happen after we die, we do have the opportunity during our lifetimes to touch the lives of others and to bequeath a legacy to those who continue to live after we are gone.

We have been privileged as a congregation to witness this at first hand concerning three members of our congregation, for whom the synagogue was their second home, who died during the past six months: Hans Levy, on 14 June, aged 89; Dennis Hollis, on 9 November, aged 91; and Rose Cannan, just this past Tuesday (22 November), aged 94.

Hans and Rose experienced the horrors of the rise of Nazism in Germany as young people, including Kristallnacht. We are fortunate that both of them shared their stories with us on a number of occasions – indeed, Rose wrote a book about what she went through. Their portraits , drawn by artist, Pauline Lewis, as part of the synagogue’s first Brighton Festival Open House exhibition in 2005, adorn the walls either side of the glass doors of the Shul library upstairs, so their faces will continue to be familiar to us, and, more importantly, to future generations. But, now that they are no longer in our midst, it has become incumbent upon us to recall and share their stories.

Dennis’s life also told a special tale, which may be less well known to some of us. Having joined up to fight Hitler in May 1943, four months before he turned 18, Dennis volunteered for the 12^th Battalion Parachute regiment. On March 24, 1945, his unit parachuted into a field near the Rhine under enemy bombardment. When a party of paratroopers was cut off, it became essential to contact them by radio in order to guide them to the main body, but unfortunately, the only radio was in a glider some distance away. Two volunteers went out to try and bring the radio back. One was killed and the other badly injured. Private Hollis then volunteered and succeeded, as the official citation reads, ‘at great personal risk to himself.’ As a result, the small isolated party was guided back to their comrades and contact with Divisional Headquarters. In response to his bravery, Private Hollis was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal and awarded the prestigious Military Medal.^[7]

Hans, Rose and Dennis have bequeathed their stories to us and reminded us of the sacred obligation of remembrance. But that’s not all. Their personal qualities have also taught us essential lessons about endurance, moral strength, integrity and courage. We need to exercise these qualities now. We need to know that we can endure through harsh times. We need the moral strength to resist demagogic appeals so that we continue to demonstrate solidarity with the persecuted and oppressed. We need to maintain our integrity and continue to express and act on our progressive, inclusive values. We need courage – and as Jess pointed out to me the other day – we are challenged to acknowledge the ‘rage’ in the word courage and summon the courage to transform our rage against injustice into a positive force, powerful enough to eclipse the forces of bigotry and hatred. And just as important, we need to encourage others – to inspire courage in those around us – just as Hans and Rose and Dennis inspired us with their courage. Most important, in tribute to their memory, we need to continue to hope that we will see a better day, even in the face of Brexit and Trump.

Yesterday was the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.^[8] Jewish Women’s Aid in this country, like other similar charities, is determined to work for the day when violence against women will cease.^[9] That campaign is part of a wider struggle directed at eliminating all manifestations of violence and tyranny in every place. Those who are cynical or have given up on the hope of change regard such a goal as idealistic folly. And yet, as soon as we name the ways in which we want to transform the world, change becomes possible.

In Pirkey Avot, the ‘Chapters of the Sages’ appended to the Mishnah, the first code of Jewish law, edited around the year 200, we read:^[10]

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: ‘The world stands on three pillars: Upon ha-din – justice – and upon ha-emet – truth – and upon ha-shalom – peace.’

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel was the father of Rabbi Y’hudah Ha-Nasi, Judah the Prince, who is accredited with editing the Mishnah. His wise aphorism compliments that of Shimon Ha-Tzadik, Simon the Righteous, who is presented in Pirkey Avot as ‘one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly’. We read there that he taught:^[11]

….. ‘The world stands on three pillars: Upon the Torah, and upon avodah – worship – and upon g’milut chasadim –deeds of loving kindness.’

Together, these passages, like the two triangles that form the magein David, the six pointed star, constitute, as I have argued in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism,^[12] a framework for Jewish life. We might also make sense of Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel’s insistence on the pre-eminence of justice, truth and peace in terms of the essential pillars, not just for Jewish life, but for the life of the world. There can be no justice without truth, no truth without justice, no peace without justice and truth. We don’t live in a post-truth era. We live at a time when the notion of truth has lost its bearings. It is our task, as we read in Deuteronomy, to ‘pursue’ justice,^[13] and to anchor truth in that pursuit. It is our responsibility to continue, as the psalmist teaches, to ‘seek peace and pursue it.’^[14]

I mentioned earlier that Abraham was determined to secure a wife for Isaac before he died. On the face of it, Abraham achieved his last wish, and the account of his servant’s mission closes with the image of Isaac taking Rebekah into his mother’s tent, and so being comforted for her loss.^[15] But such a reading misses a crucial part of the story: Rebekah did not leave Charan at Abraham’s bidding; she made her own decision to go, just as he had made the same momentous choice, a generation earlier.^[16] We read that when consulted by her brother and mother, reluctant for her to leave, she responded simply, Eilech, ‘I will go’.^[17] Ultimately, each one of us is confronted with the challenge to seize the moment and to act. As we face the uncertainty of the unknown future, may we be inspired by the endurance, moral strength, integrity and courage of Hans, Rose and Dennis, and be like Rebekah, eager to go, ready to engage in tikkun olam, repair of the world and to rebuild its pillars of justice, truth and peace. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, 26^th November 2016 / 25^th Cheshvan 5777

1. After a series of murderous terrorist assaults in Paris on November 7, 2015 – first, at the Stade de France, numerous bars and restaurants, and the Bataclan theatre – 2016 began with terror attacks against the ‘free speech’ Charlie Hebdo magazine on January 7, 2016; and, and on the 9^th, at a kosher supermarket. On February 14, an attack against a cafe holding a meeting about free speech, where a person was killed, followed by the killing of a Jewish man on security duty and the wounding of a police officer outside a synagogue. On March 22, two deadly attacks in Brussels: at the airport and at a subway station. On Bastille Day, July 14, a lorry was used as a weapon to mow down spectators at the fire display in Nice. Next, it was the turn of Germany, with a train attack at Wurzberg on July 18. Then, on July 22, the fifth anniversary of the massacre of youngsters at a Norwegian Labour Party summer camp, an 18-year-old, suffering with mental illness, killed nine people in Munich before killing himself. Next, on July 24 two more attacks in Germany: a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman with a kebab knife in Reutlingen, and a 27-year-old Syrian refugee blew himself up in Ansbach, injuring fifteen others. On July 26, terror returned to France once more, with a hostage-taking and knife attack by ISIS militants in a Catholic Church in a suburb of Rouen, which resulted in the murder of the 84-year-old priest and the stabbing of several others. ↑
2. ‘Oxford Dictionaries announced post-truth as its 2016 international Word of the Year on 16 November 2016. https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/news ↑
3. First published in German in 1920 as Der Untergang des Abendlandes. https://archive.org/details/deruntergangdesa01spen ↑
4. Genesis 23:1-2. ↑
5. Gen. 23:3-20. ↑
6. Gen. 24:1ff. ↑
7. From an account by Sidney Lipman, published in Sussex Jewish News. ↑
8. https://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/ ↑
9. http://jwa.org.uk/ ↑
10. Pirkey Avot 1:18 ↑
11. PA 1:2. ↑
12. See: Chapter 13, Living as a Jew in a Multicultural Society (David Paul Books, 2012, pp. 233-241). ↑
13. Deut. 16:20. ↑
14. Psalm 34:14 ↑
15. Gen. 24: 67. ↑
16. Gen. 12:4. ↑
17. Gen. 24:58. ↑

During the past week, the draft November diary was circulated for comment and amendment. I noticed that it included two different ways of specifying the time: a.m. and p.m. on the one hand, and the 24-hour clock on the other. Like most people, I favour consistency, so the question arose, which method to use? It looks like there is a consensus to continue with a.m. and p.m.

In recent years, the expression ‘24/7’ has entered the vocabulary to describe the extent to which modern societies are dominated by a non-stop culture that goes on relentlessly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without pause, with no differentiation made between one day and another, one week and another, one month and another, one season and another, one year and another… Just, on and on and on… the hours divested of all meaning, and with no other purpose than to go round and round… In this context, unlike the 24-hour clock, the practice of differentiating between before noon and afternoon provides shape to the day.

So, what of the weeks and the months, the seasons and the years? This week, the cycle of Torah readings begins again with the very beginning – B’reishit. And so we read, in the very first verse of Torah: B’reishit bara Elohim eit ha-shamayim v’eit ha-aretz – ‘In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’^[1] This verse is usually translated, ‘In the beginning’– but that’s not what the Hebrew says. From the perspective of the Torah, creation was an ongoing process, not a specific moment. This idea is reflected in the morning version of the blessing of creation recited after the bar’chu, the call to prayer – and taken a little further. There we read that the Eternal One ‘renews the work of creation continually, every day’ – m’chaddeish b’chol yom tamid ma’aseih v’reishit. Life is dynamic and ever-changing – more of that in a moment.

There are two narratives of creation. The first is concerned with order and is set in time. The second explores what it means to be human.^[2] Today, my focus is on the first account, which proceeds day by day, with a hierarchal presentation of the formation of life, culminating in the creation of humanity. It has an evolutionary quality about it. So, we read of the creation of light and the distinction between light and darkness, the division of the waters below and above, involving the creation of the heavens, the gathering of the waters under the heavens making way for dry land and allowing for the sprouting of vegetation, the creation of the creatures that live in the waters on the one hand, and that fly above the Earth, on the other, the creation of the land animals and insects, and finally, the creation of humanity.

In this progressive account of the development of life, the fourth day – between the sprouting of vegetation and the creation of the fish and the birds – interrupts the order of progress by introducing the sun, the moon and the stars, and relating the role of the sun and the moon in dividing the day from the night, and in marking the seasons, the days and the years. Why this interruption? Wouldn’t it make more sense to include the sun, moon and stars at the beginning of the narrative, along with the creation of light in the darkness? It would make more sense, if the text was concerned only with describing the generation of forms of life. The account of the fourth day, teaches us that life is not simply about content – about this and that form of life – it is also about process.

The first clue to this process lies in the designation of each stage of creation. The first stage concludes: Va-y’hi erev va-y’hi voker, yom echad – ‘And there was evening, and there was morning, one day.’ Note: ‘one day’ – not: ‘a first day’. To say ‘first’ is to imply ‘second’. The initial verse of the Torah is a summary statement: B’reishit bara Elohim eit ha-shamayim v’eit ha-aretz – ‘In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ To fully appreciate the process of life coming into being that follows, the narrative begins with a pre-life state evoked beautifully in the very next verse: ‘Now the Earth was formless and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; with the spirit of God hovering – m’rachefet – upon the face of the waters.’ Martin Buber commented that the image of God here, presented in the feminine, brings to mind a mother-bird hovering over her young.^[3] It’s a lovely image. ’Hovering’ also evokes a state prior to movement: a helicopter, for example, before it takes off or lands. The Divine presence: inhabiting an endless moment; hovering on the brink of time, before setting in motion the journey of life. Scientists talk of ‘the big bang.’ I prefer the poetry of this second verse of the Torah. One day: an eternal day, prior to the dawn of time.

So, time is set in motion: there is a second day, and a third, and so on… And yet, time has no meaning yet: just one day, following another. And so, with the account of the fourth day, we learn, that life is lived in ‘seasons’ and ‘days’ and ‘years’. Later, after the second account of creation, at the end of the story of the first man and woman, we also learn that what lives must die.^[4] The life of each and every living creature is by definition finite.

The beginning of the Torah invites us to reflect on what it means to be alive. And not just the beginning of the Torah: The biblical Hebrew text as a whole is characterised by a curious grammatical feature: the ‘Vav conversive’ that converts a verb in the future tense into the past tense – and vice versa – although most instances are future to past.

The very first instance of this feature is in verse 3 – and it is extremely brief. We read:

Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light’ – Va-yomer Elohim y’hi; va-y’hi or.

The Hebrew of ‘Then God said’ – Va-yomer – is in the future tense; what gives it a past meaning is the addition of the consonant, Vav. Similarly: ‘Let there be light’ – y’hi or – ‘and there was light’ – va-y’hi or. Without the Vav: y’hi or, ‘Let there be light’; with the Vav: va-y’hi or, ‘and there was light’. In verse 3 the reader encounters a specifically Hebraic consciousness concerning time. There is no present tense in Hebrew – just the use of the participle – as in ‘hovering’. And while most of the Hebrew Bible speaks in the past and future tenses – strictly speaking, perfect and imperfect – in the great majority of cases, the converting Vav is used, so that the future is expressed with a verb in the past, preceded by a Vav; and the past is expressed with a verb in the future, preceded by a Vav. A familiar example of conversion from past to future is in the Sh’ma: ‘You shall Iove the Eternal your God’ – V’ahavta eit Adonai Elohecha. Without the converting Vav, ahavta means ‘you have loved’.^[5]

So, what’s going on with the use of the Vav conversive? The way in which the first account of creation concludes provides important clues. As I mentioned earlier, a hierarchical narrative, the pinnacle is reached with the creation of humanity on the sixth day. But in fact, the narrative doesn’t end there. Rather, it concludes with the seventh day. Curiously, if you look in the Chumash, you will see that Genesis chapter 2 opens with the verses concerning the seventh day. But this is not the way Jews read the text. The chapter divisions were the work of Christian scholars. By contrast, Jews read the narrative concerning the seven days of creation without a break between the sixth day and the seventh day.^[6] And so, we learn that a week has seven days. More important, we learn the meaning of this seven-day time frame. We read, concerning the seventh day – and this is the literal, and far from literary translation:^[7]

Then heaven and earth were finished, and all their host. / Then on the seventh day God finished His work, which He had made; and He ceased on the seventh day from all his work which He had made. / Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because on it He ceased from all his work, which God had created to make.

The text is convoluted, but it couldn’t be more emphatic about stating that God, both, finished his work on the seventh day – by creating a day for ceasing from work – and ceased from all the work of creation on the seventh day. The seventh day is then set apart from all the other days, as the Torah uses for the first time the language of sanctification: va-y’kaddeish oto – ‘and [God] sanctified it’. The Hebrew root Kuf Dalet Shin means to ‘set apart’. The Vav conversive is used liberally in these verses. Without it, the verbs would be telling us that heaven and earth ‘shall be completed’, that God ‘shall finish’, ‘shall cease’, ‘shall bless’, ‘shall sanctify’… So, the week becomes the basic unit of Jewish time. But more than this, the designation of the seventh day as a day of ceasing from work interrupts the endless round.

Nevertheless, this does not explain the curious role of this past/future future/past converting Vav. As we try to make sense of it, we could begin with the obvious: that Jewish life is framed by a past to future dialectic. We constantly look back at our experience of slavery, which is recalled twice-daily in the blessing of liberation that follows the Sh’ma, and remembered every Shabbat, and each year at Pesach, the festival that celebrates the Exodus. We are also forever on a journey towards the future, described in the account of the journeys of our first ancestors related in Genesis and through the post-slavery journey in the wilderness, related in Exodus and Numbers. That onward journey is also expressed, powerfully, in the biblical books of the prophets, in the prophetic visions of the future time of wholeness and peace.

And yet, the Torah, and in particular, Deuteronomy, is replete with examples of the significance of the present. And so, the Sh’ma speaks of ha-d’varim ha-eileh asher m’tzavv’cha ha-yom – ‘these words that I am commanding you today.’^[8] Similarly, we read at the beginning of parashat Nitzavim: Atem nitzavim ha-yom, kul’chem, lifney Adonai Eloheychem…’ – You are standing today, all of you, before the Eternal your God.’ ^[9] And further on in the same portion: Ha-mitzvah ha-zot asher Anochi m’tzavv’cha ha-Yom – ‘this commandment that I am commanding you today.’^[10] But the references to ‘today’ are misleading. The invocation of ‘today’ is not an invitation to be in the moment. On the contrary, it is an exhortation to act. When Abraham responded to God by saying, hinneini, ‘here I am’, he indicated his readiness to do the bidding of the Eternal One.^[11] The same is true of Moses, when he responded in an identical manner at the burning bush.^[12] Just as ‘the spirit of God hovering’ was a prelude to the work of creation, so, every moment, every now, is a prelude to action. At the heart of the dialectic between the past and future is the dynamic, ever-changing present.

So, how does the dialectic between past and future relate to life now, in today’s ever-changing present? This October, is marked by three significant anniversaries. First, the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when the residents of the East End prevented Mosley and his anti-Semitic fascist black shirts from marching through their streets on October 4, 1936.^[13] Then: the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising against Soviet tyranny, which began on October 23, 1956, and was swiftly crushed by the USSR.^[14] And finally, today: the 60^th anniversary of the Suez Crisis precipitated by the Israeli assault on Sinai on October 29, 1956, was planned in secret with Britain and France in response to Egyptian rearmament and Nasser’s nationalisation of the Canal.^[15] The conflict around the Suez Canal turned out to be but one ‘crisis’ in a long litany of conflict in the region that continues to this day. Similarly, that momentous day on Cable Street and the Hungarian Uprising have contemporary echoes. Mosley’s brand of fascism in Britain in the 1930s expressed a rejection of foreign immigrants – mostly Jews at the time – and their descendants, and the Hungarian uprising and the violent response of the Soviet Union, precipitated a refugee crisis. Back in 1956, Britain accepted thousands of Hungarian refugees. More recently, the British government seems to have forgotten the importance of welcoming refugees – and the Hungarian government of authoritarian leader, Victor Orban has erected a wall to keep them out.^[16] From a Jewish perspective, the purpose of remembering the past is to learn its lessons and so ensure that we do what we can now to create a better future. That’s why Jewish social justice organisations, like JCORE, are busy campaigning at this very moment on behalf of unaccompanied minors abandoned in Calais.^[17] May the Hebrew Bible’s use of the magical converting Vav remind us that we live in a continuous dynamic present in which now is always the time to act. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom v’Rei’ut

29^th October 2016 / 27^th Tishri 5777

1. Genesis 1:1. ↑
2. For an analysis of the two creation narratives from a feminist perspective, see: Chapter 1 Making Trouble from Day One: Re-Reading the Creation Stories in Genesis, in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012). ↑
3. ‘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). ↑
4. Gen. 3:19. ↑
5. Deuteronomy 6:5. ↑
6. As with all the 54 portions of the Torah, B’reishit is divided into seven sections, corresponding to seven aliyot – the seven ‘call ups’ – to the Torah reading, with the last verses of the seventh section, repeated as the ‘concluding’ verses of the portion, the Maftir, which is linked to the reading from the prophetic books that follows the Torah reading, the Haftarah (‘conclusion’). According to the Ashkenazi (Northern European tradition), the second aliyah is called up at the beginning of the account of the fourth day, the third at the beginning of the account of the sixth day, and the fourth at the beginning of the second creation narrative. According to the Sephardi (Spanish-Portuguese tradition), the first account of creation is read in its entirety as the first aliyah, and the second aliyah begins with the commencement of the second creation story. ↑
7. Gen. 2:1-3. ↑
8. Deut. 6:6. ↑
9. Deut. 29:9. ↑
10. Deut. 30:11. ↑
11. Gen. 22:1. In this narrative, God ‘tested’ Abraham, by telling him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Even before he knew what God would say to him, Abraham’s response was hinneini – ‘here I am’. ↑
12. Exodus 3:4. When the Eternal called Moses ‘out of the midst of the bush’, Moses responded, hinneini – ‘here I am’. ↑
13. http://www.cablestreet.uk/ ↑
14. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/the-hungarian-uprising-of-1956/ ↑
15. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml ↑
16. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/hungary-too-small-viktor-orban-134336547.html http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/09/09/hungary-builds-wall-damon-wnt.cnn http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/hungary-build-border-fence-stop-refugees-160826084509375.html ↑
17. http://www.jcore.org.uk/let-the-children-in ↑

Do you remember the 1971 film, ‘Death in Venice’, directed by Luchino Visconti? Aged 16 at the time, I went to see it with my parents at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair – one of their favourite haunts. I will never forget the shots of the principal character, a writer, played by Dirk Bogarde, his face etched with sadness, leaning on his walking-stick and looking into the distance, as his water-taxi glided through the mist towards the Lido for what turned out to be his last summer. As the film reaches its denouement, and a cholera epidemic sweeps through the fetid waters of Venice, he dies on the beach, his final days caught up in a reverie of infatuation from afar with a beautiful, graceful young adolescent boy.

‘Death in Venice.’ Of course, the film tells a story – told originally by the German author, Thomas Mann, and based on his experience.^[1] But the film does much more than tell that story exquisitely well – through wonderful performances, stunning cinematography and the heart-wrenching tones of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The film also seals an indissoluble connection between ‘death’ and ‘Venice’ in our minds.

I visited Venice for the first time to celebrate my 50^th birthday in 2005. I had to go to Venice. It seemed that I was always being told that I had to go; with a kind of urgency that did not seem to inform other suggestions for places to visit – not even Israel. I had to go, as I was told again and again, because Venice was sinking, dying, vanishing – and would be gone, for certain, within a few years, possibly, within my own lifetime. So throughout my adult life, I knew I had to visit. But of course, I would not dream of visiting in the summer: I could almost smell the stench of the ‘Death in Venice’ plague in my nostrils as I contemplated the thought. And so, my first visit was in early May 2005; a return visit to celebrate our chuppah was at the end of March the following year; and to mark our 10^th wedding anniversary, a special celebratory visit the second week of September this year, when Jess also planned to do some research for her Ph.D. on the embodiment of theology in art.

As a heat wave swept through Europe – reaching British shores, too – it was evident that despite the September date, we would be in Venice during the heat… As it turned out, Venice was both very hot and fresh – with a lovely breeze on the sparkling waters. It was also very much alive. Alive with tourists, whom we largely managed to avoid – even on the packed water buses known as vaporettos – and also alive with locals: shopping, transporting goods up and down the Grand Canal, going about their daily lives and living in Venice.

From the perspective of the tourist, Venice is a breath-taking and magnificent, magical museum and showcase of treasures from the past. But contrary to expectations, people actually live there. We were staying in a hotel on the Grand Canal at San Sta in the Santa Croce district. As tourists packed the restaurants, we discovered a square, where, on one night, the locals brought their dishes and tables for a shared meal, and on another, they danced an Italian version of ballroom dancing. Meanwhile, as we walked the streets, open windows made us aware of laughter and conversations and music; the sounds of people’s lives.

Life in Venice. Yes, it’s true! And the huge revenue from tourism is helping to fund repair and to keep the waters clean. So: good news about this beautiful, watery, car-free city that manages to be both a top tourist destination and home to those who live there.

But, there is also another story to be told; a more complex story about Jewish life in Venice. The old Jewish ghetto is in Cannaregio, on the north side of the city. The word ghetto means ‘slag’, and comes from the Latin, gettare. The Venetians were the first to use the word, but they were not the first to force Jews to live in a segregated area. In 1179, the third Lateran Council of the Catholic Church decreed that Christians should not live together with Jews. And so, Jews in Venice, as in other cities across Europe lived apart from Christians. However, a further step was taken in 1516, when the Jewish area of Venice was surrounded by a wall with two gates, which were locked at night and only opened between sunrise and sunset.^[2]

February this year marked the 500^th anniversary of the Venetian Ghetto. The Jews of Venice remained confined for just over 280 years until following the French revolution of 1789 Napoleon Bonaparte conquered the city in 1797. With the unification of Italy in 1866, the Jews of Venice eventually achieved equal status. However, after Mussolini made a pact with Hitler in the 1930s, the fate of the Jews of Italy like those of the rest of Europe was sealed. When Germany occupied Venice in 1943, around 1200 Jews were living there. Between November 9, 1943 and August 17, 1944 205 people were deported to the death camps, including the Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi. By the end of the war, the Jewish population had actually increased to 1500. 20 years later, half that number resided in the city. Today, the number has fallen to 500.^[3] Meanwhile, excluding the other islands in the lagoon, the city of Venice now has a population of around 60,000.^[4]

Like the rest of Venice, the ghetto remains intact. In recent years, it has become a tourist destination. You can now tour the synagogues, visit a museum, purchase ritual objects, jewellery and works of art, shop for Jewish foods, eat in a Jewish restaurant that serves Israeli cuisine and even attend a beit midrash, a house of study, run by Chabad, the Lubavitch, where services are also held. So, on the face of it, it looks like Jewish life has returned to Venice. But as the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. Just 30 Jewish families now live in the ghetto, and for more information about Jewish life in the ghetto today, the Jewish Virtual library online directs you to Chabad.^[5]

The stark reality of Jewish life in Venice today – as elsewhere in Europe – is that it has not recovered from the Sho’ah. We were forced to confront that reality even more forcibly when we visited Padua, a forty-minute train journey west of Venice. We went to Padua, principally, so that Jess could continue researching icon paintings, and in particular, view Giotto’s frescoes that adorn the Scrovegni Chapel.

While we were there, we visited the ghetto – known today as Quartiere dell’Antico Ghetto Ebraico di Padova – ‘the ancient Hebrew ghetto quarter of Padua.’ In the early 16^th century, the Jews of Padua was forced to live in one area of the city, but it was not until 1601 that the area became a walled-in ghetto, with five gates that were locked at night.^[6] When Napoleon’s troops entered Padua on April 20, 1797, the process of emancipation began and in August of that year, Jews were allowed to live wherever they wished, and the ghetto was renamed Via Libera, ‘Liberty Way.’^[7]

But even during the locked ghetto years, the Jews of Padua enjoyed an exceptional freedom. Padua is home to a renowned university, and was the first university in the world to allow Jews to graduate – and also, incidentally, the first to permit women to graduate.^[8] From 1519 to 1619 around 80 Jews obtained degrees in medicine in Padua – while from 1619 to 1721, 149 Jews graduated as physicians.^[9] These Jews came not only from Italy, but from elsewhere, including Germany and Poland. The Padua Jewish community was also a centre of Jewish scholarship, and later, in the 19^th century, the first rabbinic seminary in Europe to combine secular and traditional Jewish study was established there. Significantly, at times when the Jewish community was under attack from the local population, the forces of law and order came to their aid. In response to rumours that the Jews had helped Buda – Budapest – during the siege by the Austrian and Venetian armies, on 20 August 1644, the local populace rampaged through the ghetto, and certain death by fire was only avoided because of the swift intervention of the army and city authorities. A special Purim di-Buda celebrated each year thereafter was inaugurated on the 10^th of the Hebrew month of Elul to commemorate the rescue of the Jews.^[10]

The Jewish population of Padua was never very large. In 1616 it was 665. In 1931 it was 586. Then, in 1943, Fascist bands burned down the main Ashkenazi synagogue, and from 1943 to 1945, 85 Jews, including Rabbi Eugenio Cohen Sacerdoti, were deported to death camps. By 1948, there were 269 Jews in Padua; by 1970, 220. Today the figure stands at 200. As we discovered, when we visited the Jewish Museum, which included a tour of the only remaining synagogue, although Shabbat services are still held there, they are attended by no more than 30, mostly very elderly Jews.

So, while the main Ashkenazi synagogue, where the museum is now based was destroyed during the Sho’ah – and we saw a film at the Museum that included the moving testimony of the daughter of the Rabbi of that synagogue about the day that it was torched by the mob – the only synagogue that remains in use is also the only one that remains intact. It survived because it was hidden in the upper stories of a house in the ghetto, and so was not a visible target.

In Padua, we were confronted with an uncomfortable truth about Jewish life: visibility and vulnerability to attack on the one hand; invisibility and survival on the other. Despite the fact that the ghetto in Padua is a place on the map and the name is used by the locals – as evidenced by a large banner advertising the Sunday arts and crafts market in the ‘Ghetto Ebraico’ – the 200 Jews of Padua are largely invisible; so invisible that as I walked through the streets, my kippah provoked quizzical looks and stares. Indeed, the only Jews we encountered were visitors to Padua – in the breakfast room of our hotel and at the Jewish Museum. In both places, two of the Jews – Rabbi Michael Marmur, Principal of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and a former chair of the Reform Synagogue that I served as a rabbinic student apprentice – were people I knew! A reminder, if I needed one, that the Jewish world is very small indeed…

Like Venice, although on a smaller scale, Padua is a tourist destination with a constant stream of visitors queuing to view the Scrovegni Chapel. As its fully pedestrianised city centre revealed, it is also packed with locals and students on bicycles going about their daily lives. By contrast, the efforts that have been taken in recent years to remind people that Jewish life was once a feature of both cities, only serves to underline the loss of Jewish life in both cities.

When we recall the Sho’ah, we always speak, quite rightly, of the murder of six million Jews. Visiting Venice and Padua reminded me how of important it is to acknowledge the destruction of tens of thousands of Jewish communities during the Nazi reign of terror. It also prompted me to give thanks for the revival of Jewish life that has been going on elsewhere in Europe, including, in Eastern Europe, during the past 25 years – not least, here at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. As the New Year approaches, and with it the opportunity to renew our lives, may the awareness of the losses of our people, inspire us to redouble our efforts to contribute to the renewal of Jewish life across the world. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom v’Rei’ut

24^th September 2016 / 21^st Elul 5776

1. A novella first published by S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig. ↑
2. http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14667-venice ↑
3. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Venice.html ↑
4. http://www.venipedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demographics ↑
5. Chabad of Venice, Ghetto Nuovo, Cannaregio, Venice, Italy. Phone/Fax: 39-041-715-284. Email: rami770@hotmail.com ↑
6. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15318.html ↑
7. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11843-padua ↑
8. Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Loredan Piscopia, born in Venice in 1646, graduated in Philosophy in 1678. http://venicexplorer.net/tradizione/piscopia.php?hlangs=en ↑
9. ‘Jewish Medical Students and Graduates at the Universities of Padua and Leiden: 1617–1740.’ Kenneth Collins (Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, Vol. 4 (1), January 2013). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3678911/

   ↑

10. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3795-buda-purim-of ↑

Last Saturday evening, a group of us gathered to commemorate Tishah B’Av, the 9^th day of the Hebrew month of Av. It was on the 9^th of Av in 586 BCE that the Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem, along with the first Temple. Significantly, centuries later, the Romans put the second Temple to the torch in 70 CE on the 10^th of Av.

After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the first rabbis transformed the 9^th of Av into Tishah B’Av, a date on the calendar to be commemorated by the Jewish people, for all time. Two further dates connected to Tishah B’Av were also added to the calendar: the 10^th day of Tevet, which falls in the winter, when the Babylonians began laying siege to the city, and 17^th of Tammuz, three weeks before the 9^th of Av, when the conquerors breached the city walls. ^[1]

Tishah B’Av became a fast day, later centring on the reading of Eichah, the Biblical Book of Lamentations, which describes the destruction of Jerusalem in searing detail. Eichah, is one of the Chameish M’gillot, the ‘Five Scrolls’ set aside for reading at particular sacred times. ^[2]

We are most familiar with M’gillat Esther, the Scroll of Esther, read on Purim, which tells the tale of a genocidal plot against the Jews of an ancient eastern empire, and how it was foiled. But as it happens, Purim was not observed by Liberal Jews until a brief liturgy was included in the 1967 edition of the prayerbook, Service of the Heart.^[3] Meanwhile, Tishah B’Av did not enter the Liberal liturgy until the current 1995 edition, Siddur Lev Chadash.^[4]

We don’t have time today to explore the changing Liberal approach to Purim. I will return to this theme next year nearer to the Festival. So what is the Liberal issue with Tishah B’Av? From the outset, continuing to this day, unlike traditional Judaism, Liberal liturgy does not include prayers for the reinstitution of Temple worship. From a Liberal perspective, the system of sacrifice belongs to the Jewish past and has no place in any Jewish future. As it happens, the first rabbis were responsible, in the post-Temple reality in which they found themselves, for replacing Avodah, sacrificial worship with avodat ha-lev, ‘service of the heart’. The 1967 Liberal prayer book of that name includes a quotation from the Talmud, opposite the frontispiece, which defines ‘service of the heart’ as ‘prayer’.^[5] For Liberal Judaism, prayer has replaced sacrifice once and for all. It follows from this stance that if we are not praying for the re-building of the Temple, it does not make sense to mourn the loss of the Temple, either.

The logic of classical Liberal Judaism is faultless. But Liberal Judaism in Britain developed at the dawn of the 20^th century, at a time when it seemed certain that reason had triumphed over superstition and progress was the order of the day. That certainty was pulverised in the trenches of the First World War, and then extinguished in the gas chambers of the death camps, and in every succeeding decade, it became less and less possible to resurrect our faith in human progress.

Against the background of the horror stories of the 20^th century, it should not surprise us that a liturgy for Tishah B’Av was included for the first time in the current 1995 edition of the Liberal prayerbook. Importantly, what we are doing when we observe Tishah B’Av as Liberal Jews is acknowledging our people’s history of churban, ‘destruction’ across the centuries, not simply the destruction of the Temple. And we also mourn for all the peoples destroyed and traumatised across the world. Nevertheless, as we do this, we recognise that although suffering and mourning are universal human experiences, each churban is particular, with its own unique features and impact. In the booklet I put together for commemorating Tishah B’Av, we recall our people’s experiences of churban, one by one, focussing on those events that occurred on or near Tishah B’Av – because, of course, our tormentors were also aware of the date: and so, for example, the expulsion of the Jews of Spain took place on Tishah B’Av in 1492. The booklet also includes those particular events in the wider world that took place during the 20^th century around Tishah B’Av, namely, the outbreak of the Great War at the beginning of August 1914, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The particularity of a single date in the Hebrew calendar, and the particular details of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, recorded in Eichah, the scroll of Lamentations, reminds us to pay attention to each and every churban.

Of course, we know that the history of churban for our people and for other peoples did not end with the close of the 20^th century. For this reason the Tishah B’Av booklet also includes another very particular date that has ushered in a new catalogue of churban in the 21^st century: 9/11; the terrorist assaults on key locations in the United States on 11 September 2001.

As soon as I mention 9/11 I know that almost inevitably, this new 21^st century date conjures up images of that singular day that have become iconic. And also, because of everything that has transpired since 9/11, this most iconic date of the new 21^st century provokes a visceral response in us. The power of a date in the calendar: When we think of 9/11, the sense of sorrowful reflection on the harrowing devastating events of the past, represented by the historic date of the 9^th of Av, is overtaken by our sense of fear and terror, concerning what might happen next…

It seems that the commemoration of Tishah B’Av by Liberal Jews may be here to stay. But there is something else about the traditional Jewish understanding of Tishah B’Av that makes our Liberal Jewish observance of the date distinct. In the three week period from 17^th Tammuz to 9^th Av, the haftarah reading on each Shabbat – that is the reading from N’vi’im, Prophets, the second section of the Hebrew Bible that follows the Torah reading – focuses on the sins of our ancestors that led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians. From the perspective of biblical theology, the calamity that befell the people of Judah was of their own making, and in choosing these particular prophetic passages for reading during this three week period, our sages reinforced this message. Of course, to have explained the destruction in any other way would have been to concede that the conquerors were more powerful than the God of Israel. So, ultimately, the destruction was God’s work, and the three ‘haftarot of affliction’ as they are called, prior to Tishah B’Av predict Divine punishment.^[6] And then, after the punishment has been exacted: the healing; words of comfort and the promise of renewal. The Shabbat after Tishah B’Av is known as Shabbat Nachamu, ‘the Sabbath of Comfort’, because the haftarah, Isaiah chapter 40, begins with these words: Nachamu, Nachamu ami yomar Eloheychem – ‘Comfort, oh comfort, my people, says your God’ (40:1). Verse 2 continues:

Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and declare to her that her (term of) service is complete and that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has taken from the hand of the Eternal double punishment for all her sins.

Today is Shabbat Nachamu and we will read Isaiah chapter 40 this morning, but the words of comfort are not for us – not unless we accept the theological message. The unknown prophet, known as Deutero-Isaiah addressed the Babylonian exiles; his words of comfort were for them. After the destruction of the second Temple, the rabbis, themselves affected by that calamity, moderated the message of punishment and healing for their own generation, with a vision of the Sh’chinah, the presence of God, going into exile with Her people.^[7] But this theology, too, is not our theology. We are the generation after Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Just as it is unthinkable for us to see God’s purposes at work in the death camps and mushroom clouds, we also are less inclined to feel God’s presence with us. For some, God died in Auschwitz;^[8] for others, God hid the His face.^[9] Most of us do not actually get to the point of working out where God was during the Sho’ah. However, of one thing we feel certain: God could not be responsible for the annihilation of so many millions. But if it is unthinkable for us to see God’s purposes at work in Auschwitz, it is also unthinkable for us to see God’s purposes at work in any churban, at anytime, anywhere. So we abandon faith in an almighty God, and submit to the power of men; there seems to be no other choice.

Liberal Jews and others, who can no longer accept traditional theological understandings, find ourselves relating to Tishah B’Av on a historical and sociological level, and have no tools for making sense of churban in any other way. So what are we to do? Of course, we can become atheists. Or, we can apply our scepticism to the binary presentation of God as supreme purveyor of punishment on the one hand, and comfort on the other, and search out the intimations of Divinity in the Jewish source texts that offer other ways of making sense of the spiritual dimension of existence.

One of the most powerful examples of a more elusive God is found in the story of Moses’ encounter at the burning bush, when he was tending his father-in-law’s flock achar ha-midbar, ‘behind the wilderness.’^[10] In a dimension beyond the wilderness, in the midst of a desert bush that burned but was not consumed, a voice: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, ‘I am that I am’: Ehyeh: barely consonantal.^[11] The message to Moses – the message for all of us – is that the Divine is ineffable, and essentially ungraspable; forever beyond. But that does not make the Divine less real. In place of the image of a majestic yet mechanical Super-sovereign omnipotent God, we are offered the possibility of encounter with the Eternal. That is the other message of Moses’ experience ‘behind the wilderness.’ Because the Eternal cannot be grasped does not mean that the eternal cannot be experienced. But we cannot just wait passively for a meeting. The Torah relates that it was only when Moses noticed the unconsumed burning bush and turned aside from his daily tasks that he encountered the Eternal.^[12]

I mentioned a few moments ago that the unknown prophet’s words of comfort in today’s haftarah are not for us. So, where do we find our comfort in the face of churban – the destructions of the past – and the present: right now, two million people in the besieged city of Aleppo are trapped in a devastating churban.^[13] And then, there are our fears concerning what may yet happen in the future? What next for Aleppo? For Syria as whole? For Iraq? Turkey? The list goes on…. Are we capable of feeling comforted in the face of the unknown? From a Jewish perspective, in the absence of the possibility of any kind of certainty about what may happen next, passivity and fatalism are not options. Let us remind ourselves of what is at the heart of Jewish teaching: the obligation to act in the world, despite its terrors. The comfort of knowing ‘all will be well’ is not available to us. In place of that comfort, the responsibility to engage in tikkun olam, to do what we can here and now to work together to repair this broken world – and to do this, in the full knowledge of our limitations and frailties as human beings. We read in Pirkey Avot, the Chapters of the Sages appended to the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200 CE:^[14]

Lo alecha ha-m’lachah ligmor, v’lo attah ven chorin l’hibbateil mimmennah.

It is not for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.

As we continue to live our lives in a torn and uncertain world, may the wisdom of these words encourage each one of us to play our parts in the on-going work of healing and renewal. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

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

20^th August 2016 / 16^th Av 5776

1. See Mishnah Ta’anit 4: 6, 7. Note that the sages identified ‘five calamities that befell our ancestors’ on 17^th Tammuz and 9^th Av, respectively. ↑
2. The Chameish M’gillot are in order of reading: Shir Ha-Shirim, The Song of Songs, a springtime pastoral idyll, in which the young lovers were understood by the sages to represent God and the people Israel, for reading at Pesach; Ruth, which tells the story of the Moabite woman who joined the Jewish people, for reading at Shavuot; Eichah, Lamentations, on Tishah B’Av; Ecclesiastes, Kohelet, a book of Wisdom literature that reminds us that ‘to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven’, for reading at Sukkot; and, finally, Esther, the story of the foiling of the plot to destroy the Jews of the empire of King Achashveirosh, for reading at Purim. At the time of the Mishnah only Esther was read publicly – see Mishnah M’gillah. In the Talmudic period Lamentations was read privately. Ruth, the Song of Songs and Lamentations became part of the liturgy only in post-Talmudic times – see Soferim 14. 3 – edited in the 8^th century . Ecclesiastes is found for the first time in Machzor Vitry – composed by Simchah ben Samuel of Vitry (died 1105), a pupil of Rashi (p. 440): “The entire congregation while seated read the book (seifer) – not scroll – of Ecclesiastes.” For an essay on the Five scrolls, see: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10557-megillot-the-five ↑
3. Published by the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, London, 1967. ↑
4. Published by the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, London, 1995. ↑
5. Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 2a. ↑
6. The three haftarot of affliction, in order: Jeremiah 1:1-2:3; Jeremiah 2:4-28;3:4; Isaiah 1:1-27. ↑
7. Midrash Rabbah, Lamentations 1. 5:22. ↑
8. Richard L. Rubinstein, After Auschwitz: History, Theology and Contemporary Judaism. (John Hopkins, 1992) ↑
9. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust (Ktav, New York, 1973). ↑
10. Sh’mot/Exodus chapter 3: 1 ff. I explore the intimations of Divinity in the Jewish source texts in one of the chapters of the book I am currently writing, with the working title, ‘Beyond Binary Tyranny.’ ↑
11. Gabriel Josipovici, points out that: ‘The phrase, ehyeh asher ehyeh… is as near as we can get in language to pure breath, non-articulation, non-division.’ See: The Book of God. A Response to the Bible (Yale University Press, Yale and London, 1988, p.74). See also: ‘Beyond the Divine Autocrat. Speaking of God Today’ in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, London, 2012). ↑
12. Exodus 3: 3-4. ↑
13. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/syria-west-aleppo-destroyed-crimes-against-humanity-war The UN Refugee Agency (UNRA), Save the Children, Oxfam, Muslim Aid and others have all organised Syria Crisis Appeals. ↑
14. Mishnah, Pirkey Avot 2:16. ↑