Shabbat morning sermon ‘Hidden from History’

Apart from being a book of teaching, the Torah is packed with riveting stories. And amongst those amazing tales, a yawning gap. So, last Shabbat, the story of the rebellion of Korach, Datan, Aviram and On against the leadership of Moses and Araon.[1] This Shabbat, the narrative returns at Numbers chapter 20 in parashat Chukkat with the death of Miriam, 38 years later.[2]

The Shabbat before last, we read that two years into their journey, the people learnt that they would wander in the wilderness for forty years and die there. Influenced by the evil report brought by ten of the twelve tribal leaders following their reconnoitre of the land beyond the Jordan, the entire generation that had shrunk from the prospect of entering the land, were destined to perish in the desert.[3]

But then, not one word about happened during those long years. Why? A clue lies in another gap in the narrative. How is it that the eldest sibling of the three sibling leaders of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings is largely absent from the Torah tales?

After taking steps with her mother to save her baby brother from Pharaoh’s genocidal decree, the ‘sister’ of Moses – unnamed in that story [4] – disappears completely from the narrative until she turns up after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds years later. Just two tantalising verses portray vividly her leadership. We read at Exodus chapter 15:[5]

Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. / Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Eternal, for God is highly exalted. Both horse and driver God has hurled into the sea.”

So, a name and a status: Miriam is a prophet – n’vi’ah – and a dramatic show of her charisma. But then, Miriam disappears from the narrative once again, and only appears two years later in the fourth book of the Torah, B’midbar, Numbers, where, having been linked with Aaron in Exodus 15, she takes the lead in rebelling with him against the leadership of Moses. We read at Numbers chapter 12:[6]

Miriam spoke [Va-t’dabbeir] – and Aaron – against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married: for he had married a Cushite woman. / And they said [Va-yom’ru] ‘Has the Eternal indeed spoken only by Moses? Has God not spoken also to us?’ And the Eternal heard it.

But Miriam’s challenge to Moses was not just about his leadership. Let’s return to that first verse: Va-t’dabbeir Miryam – Miriam spoke – feminine singular. Miriam was the principal objector to Moses’ marriage to the Cushite woman – sometimes translated as ‘the Ethiopian woman’. Why? And who was the Cushite woman? The Rabbinic sages identified her as Tzipporah – the daughter of the priest of Midian[7], whom Moses had married after taking flight from Egypt after killing a task-master, who was beating a slave. So, why would it have taken so long for Miriam to object to Moses’ marriage to Tzipporah?

In the past few weeks, since the brutal racist killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, the Black Lives Matter movement has come to the fore again. It would be very easy to conclude that Miriam’s objection to Moses marrying the Cushite woman was racist – a reading reinforced superficially, perhaps, by the tale going on to say that she is punished with a case of leprosy described as her skin becoming ‘like snow’.[8]

But if we really believe that black lives matter such superficial readings must be rejected. Let’s not forget those 38 missing years in the Torah narrative. Just imagine that Miriam, who after all, according to the Torah record did not have a husband,[9] objected to Moses’ marriage because the Cushite woman was her woman.[10] Perhaps, Moses married the Cushite woman in order to try and break up the relationship? And perhaps, he didn’t succeed and the relationship continued?

Of course, we can never know. But the lacuna – the gap – in the text challenges us to use our imaginations. And by us, I mean in particular, ‘us’ as progressive Jews, who do not believe that the Torah is literally the word of God dictated by the Eternal to Moses at Mount Sinai. As progressive Jews, we have a responsibility to consider how the Torah got to be written. Critical scholarship of the Bible has revealed that the Bible was recorded and redacted – that is, edited – over hundreds of years. And of course, those responsible for recording and redacting were men.

The Black Lives Matter movement is also exposing the extent to which the story of the past has been written by men; men with the power and the resources to create a record that reflects their version of the past. And not only a written record: all those monuments and statues to white men who became powerful by exploiting black people torn from Africa; all those buildings built with the profits of the slave trade.

The record, both written, and crafted out of metal and stone, has been created by the oppressor not the oppressed. So, what do we do about it? It’s not enough to demolish statues and put plaques on buildings – although it would make a difference to the established record, if every building built by the profits of persecution carried a plaque saying as much. It’s not enough to protest and to go on marches to express our outrage. All these acts, however tangible they seem, are ultimately, ephemeral.

We have to write the record of our lives ourselves – all of us; of all genders and sexualities, cultures, ethnicities, colours, classes and religions. We have to take photographs and make films, paint pictures and carve sculptures. Just think of those lost wilderness years; the lost record of our ancestors – the descendants of Jacob and Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah; and the descendants of the erev rav, the mixed multitude who went out of Egypt with them.[11] Lost because the stories were not written down and transmitted. In the 1970s, in the early days of what became known as the ‘second wave’ of feminism, British feminist historian, Sheila Rowbotham, titled her account of ‘300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight Against It’, Hidden From History.[12] Meanwhile, the Jewish lesbian feminist American poet, Adrienne Rich, spoke in her collection of essays, On Lies, Secrets and Silence, of women having been ‘“gaslighted” for centuries’.[13] In this age of social media and so many plural ways of telling our stories, let’s make sure that we write them down and create artefacts – and transmit our own records of our experiences to future generations.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

27th June 2020 / 5th Tammuz 5780

  1. Korach, Numbers 16-18. ↑

  2. Chukkat, Numbers 20:1. ↑

  3. Sh’lach L’cha, Numbers 13-15. See, in particular: Num. 14:28-35. ↑

  4. Sh’mot, Exodus 2:1-10. ↑

  5. B’shallach, Exodus 15:19-20. ↑

  6. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12:1-2. ↑

  7. Sh’mot, Exodus 2:11-22. For the sage’s identification of the Cushhite woman as Zipporah, see, for example, Talmud, Mo’eid Katan 17b ↑

  8. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12:10 ↑

  9. Uncomfortable with her unmarried status, the sages married Miriam off to Caleb (Sh’mot Rabbah 1:17), who together with Joshua, did not join in the rebellion following the tribal leaders’ reconnoitre of the land (Numbers 13:30 and 14:6-9). ↑

  10. For my extended treatment of the untold story of Miriam, see Chapter 2 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012; 3rd reprinting, 2019, pp. 73-90) ↑

  11. Bo, Exodus 12: 38. ↑

  12. Hidden From History. 300 Years of Women’s Oppression and the Fight Against It by Sheila Rowbotham (Pluto Press, 1974). ↑

  13. On Lies, Secrets and Silence. Selected Prose, 1966-1978 by Adrienne Rich (W.W. Norton & Co, 1979). ↑

Forgetting Miriam: A commentary on Parashat Chukkat

What do we remember? What do we forget? Memory is tricky. We don’t so much remember what happened to us as tell stories of our past. It’s not that we are making it up. When we weave our tales out of the fabric of our past lives, we are making meaning; trying to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going – and, most crucially: who we are.

What is true for individuals, is also true for communities. When we open the Torah, for example, we find the stories that have been transmitted orally and then recorded. Of course, telling tales is not the same thing as writing them down. Recording is a more deliberate act. As progressive Jews, who do not believe that the Torah is literally the word of God dictated by the Eternal to Moses at Mount Sinai, we have a responsibility to consider how the Torah got to be written. Then, of course, after the writing, comes the editing. Critical scholarship of the Bible has revealed that the Bible was recorded and redacted (edited) over hundreds of years.

Until forty years ago, biblical scholarship, like scholarship in general, was mostly a male enterprise. Since then, the work of women rabbis and feminist biblical scholars in general, has revealed that whoever was involved in telling tales of the past, recording and redacting was mostly in the hands of men.

This is nowhere more evident than in the story of Miriam, which concludes in this week’s parashah, Chukkat, after a 38-year lacuna – gap – in the narrative (Numbers 20:1):

The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Tzin, in the first month; and the people dwelt in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.

The first month – that is the first month of the fortieth year. Thirty-eight years have elapsed since the story of the rebellion of Korach, Datan, Aviram and On related in last week’s parashah, and this is all that the Torah has to say about the death of the eldest of the three sibling leaders of the Exodus!

The brevity of the passage is made all the more apparent when we compare it with the eight-verse account of the death of Aaron (Numbers 20:22-29), which concludes (20:29):

When all the congregation saw that Aaron had expired, they wept for Aaron thirty days, the whole house of Israel.

Similarly, when Moses dies (Deuteronomy 34:8):

The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab, thirty days.

So, what about Miriam? Why no mention of a thirty-day mourning rite for her? Significantly, no sooner has Miriam died and been buried, then we read in the very next verse (Numbers 20:2):

There was no water for the congregation: so, they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.

The rabbinic sages, puzzled by the absence of any reference of mourning rites for Miriam, made a connection between these two events: the death of Miriam and the lack of water. From this crucial conjunction emerges the rabbinic legend of the Miriam’s Well that sustained the people, providing them with the water they needed to survive, throughout the forty years that they wandered in the wilderness. (Talmud, Ta’anit (9a):

Israel had a well in the desert in Miriam’s merit.

The sages filled in the missing pieces of the Miriam story, and brought out the significance of the role she played as a leader. And so, noting that when her name is mentioned for the first time, she is also called a prophet, n’vi’ah (Exodus 15:19-20), they found evidence of Miriam’s powers of prophecy in the first Torah tale where she is introduced as the sister of the baby Moses, assisting their mother in saving his life (Exodus 2:1-10) (Talmud, M’gillah 14a).

However, the sages were limited by their own imagination, and failed to do justice to the key text at the heart of the Torah’s account of Miriam; Numbers chapter 12, which begins (12:1-2):

Miriam spoke [Va-t’dabbeir] – and Aaron – against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married: for he had married a Cushite woman. / And they said [Va-yom’ru] ‘Has the Eternal indeed spoken only by Moses? Has God not spoken also to us?’ And the Eternal heard it.

Both Miriam and Aaron had reason to be aggrieved concerning their baby brother’s special relationship with the Eternal. However, since Aaron already had a significant leadership role, we can imagine that as the marginalised elder sister, Miriam had even more reason to object to the pre-eminence of Moses. Certainly, the last verses of Numbers 12 make it clear that Miriam alone was punished – with a temporary plague of leprosy (:9-10). But the opening Hebrew word of Numbers 12 suggests that it was principally Miriam who objected to Moses marrying the Cushite woman: Va-t’dabbeir – ‘She spoke’.

So, why did Miriam object? Significantly, there is no mention in the Torah of Miriam being married – making her unlike any other female character in the Torah. Uncomfortable with her unmarried status, the rabbis married Miriam off to Caleb (Sh’mot Rabbah 1:17), who together with Joshua, did not join in the rebellion following the tribal leaders’ reconnoitre of the land (Numbers 13:30 and 14:6-9).

Moses was already married, of course, to Tzipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian (Exodus 2:15-22). For the rabbis, the Cushite woman mentioned in Numbers 12 was Tzipporah (Talmud, Mo’eid Katan 17b). But that doesn’t explain Miriam’s belated objection. Perhaps, Miriam objected to Moses’ marriage because the Cushite woman whom he had married, was her woman?

We can only speculate. Indeed, taking our cue from the sages who created tales in response to gaps and puzzles in the text, the 38-year lacuna in the Torah narrative invites us to use our imaginations. Perhaps, the gap in the record was motivated by the need to censor the story of Miriam’s relationship with the Cushite woman? Certainly, when we assess everything that is related about Miriam in the Torah – just 31 verses in all – we are left with the curious fact that the eldest of the sibling leaders of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings barely gets a mention.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

LJ E-Bulletin

June 2020 / Tammuz 5780

1025 words

SJN | Leaders | June 2020

LOOKING FOR GOOD LEADERS – Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah – June SJN

June – the first of the summer months. As I write this a month earlier, I expect that the continuing coronavirus crisis will mean that June feels more cloudy than sunny this year, whatever the weather.

Interestingly, if we turn to the Torah, this year’s cycle sees three portions that include major wilderness rebellions featuring in June: B’ha’alot’cha, Sh’lach L’cha and Korach.

B’ha’alot’cha concludes with Miriam’s rebellion against Moses’ exclusive leadership (Numbers 12). Sh’lach L’cha opens with the leaders of the twelve tribes undertaking a reconnoitre of the land beyond the Jordan and the subsequent rebellion of ten of the tribal leaders, whose ‘evil report’ sparks major dissension in the camp (Numbers 13-15). From the very first words of the story, Korach focuses on the challenge of the first cousin of Moses and Aaron, and of Reubenites, Datan, Aviram and On, to the leadership of Moses and Aaron (Numbers 16-18).

All three narratives share a single theme: discontent with the established leadership on the part of those who were leaders or would-be leaders themselves.

In recent years, alongside the major themes of the news – the financial crisis, the global refugee crisis, ecological catastrophe and climate change, Brexit, and now the coronavirus pandemic – there has been a concern with leadership, and in particular, with leadership that is perceived to be poor and inadequate to meet these complex challenges.

The past year has seen leadership contests in both the Conservative and Labour parties. Meanwhile, in Israel, the continuing leadership crisis has been played out in a succession of inconclusive general elections, and in the United States, the struggle to find a Democratic presidential candidate to challenge President Trump in the presidential election due in November has led to a safe choice that might see Trump winning a second term.

What makes a good leader? It’s hard to answer this question when there are so few examples of good leadership. Surveying the world scene, one figure stands out: The Prime Minister of a tiny nation on the edge of the world: Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. The leadership she gave when two mosques in Christchurch were attacked by a far-right extremist on 15 March 2019, revealed outstanding leadership qualities: the ability to meet challenges head-on, to communicate clearly, to connect with people, to be compassionate and caring, as well as determined and decisive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern Jacinda Ardern has displayed similar qualities in the way that she has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic, ensuring that, as of 1 May, according to the New Zealand Ministry of Health, of a total of 1,479 cases (1,132 confirmed cases and 347 probable), only 208 were active and only 19 people in all had died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_New_Zealand

For me, Jacinda Ardern, who, incidentally, is the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand and turns 40 next month (26.07), is a modern-day Miriam: with the ability to do exactly what is needed and above all, to lead with confidence and authority.

So, what about the leadership of Moses? The narratives in the Torah reveal that he was a reluctant leader, ever-ready to call on the Eternal One for assistance in a crisis, with a quick explosive temper. And if the absence of Miriam in the Torah narratives is anything to go by, there can be little doubt that Moses failed to draw on his elder sister’s leadership qualities to help him deal with the unruly people he was leading. And yet, Moses had an essential leadership quality that most leaders lack: modesty. He didn’t think he had all the answers. He was not puffed up with his own power and status. On the contrary, Moses understood that his role, above all, was to shepherd his people through the uncharted wilderness. As we continue to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, we could certainly do with more leaders like Jacinda Ardern – and wouldn’t it be marvellous if a leader emerged who had the modesty and devotion of Moses.

BHPS Sermon – Commitment – Shavuot, 30.05.20

Hinneinu – Here we are, over nine weeks into the coronavirus crisis lockdown, unable to gather together in the synagogue. We have managed very well with our streamed services, but today, as we mark Shavuot, the fact that we are unable to congregate acquires an additional and deeper poignancy. Jewish teaching puts a major emphasis on community: the Israelites, who fled slavery in Egypt, together with the erev rav, the ‘mixed multitude’ that made the dash to freedom with them, became a community, the people Israel, when they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai.

The people Israel. Often referred to as kol adat b’nei Yisrael: ‘the entire congregation of the Israelites’[1]. Reading Torah, similar phrases are repeated, reminding us of this collective entity that discovered what it meant to be a people as they wandered for forty years through the wilderness.

The people moved together, acted together. But the Book of B’midbar, Numbers, which we began reading last Shabbat, draws our attention, again and again, to the individuals that made up the people. From the opening verses that list the names of the leaders of the twelve tribes onwards, a host of individuals, and with their names and their stories – or at least, some of their stories. We encounter the individuals whose stories stand out.

In next week’s parashah, B’ha’alot’cha, at Numbers chapter 12, we gain an insight into the eldest of the sibling leaders of the Exodus, Miriam, who barely appears in the Torah, and whose name is only mentioned for the first time, following the crossing of the Sea of Reeds on dry land, back in parashah B’shallach at Exodus chapter 15.[2] There, in two short verses that focus on Miriam leading the women in dances with timbrels and song, we learn three particular things about her: her name, that she is designated as the sister of Aaron, and that she is a prophet, n’vi’ah. But then, Miriam disappears completely from the narrative, until she turns up in an extraordinary chapter that kicks off a series of portions, in which the names of individuals are at the heart of each story.

And so, in parashat B’ha’alot’cha, Miriam – and to a lesser extent Aaron – challenge their younger brother’s exclusive relationship with the Eternal. Then, in the next parashah, Sh’lach L’cha, we discover that of the twelve tribal leaders sent out to reconnoitre the land beyond the Jordan, Joshua and Caleb alone show courage and determination.[3] Finally, in the parashah that follows, Korach, who gives his name to the portion, the first cousin of the sibling leaders, along with Datan, Aviram and On, the leaders of the tribe of Reuben, foment rebellion against Moses and Aaron with the words: ‘You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation, all of them, are holy, and the Eternal One is in their midst; so why do you lift yourselves above the assembly of the Eternal One.’[4]

Ki chol-ha-eidah, kullam k’doshim – ‘For all the congregation, all of them are holy’. With these words, the rebels assert not that the congregation as a collectivity is holy, but that all of them – each and every member of the congregation – is holy. Throughout the Torah, the people, the congregation, is referred to in the singular. Most of us will be familiar with the principal statement of Jewish belief: Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Elohein, Adonai echad – ‘Listen! Israel: The Eternal is our God; the Eternal is one.’[5] Listen! – Sh’ma! is a second person singular imperative. Again, and again and again: Israel; a single entity.

But then, at key moments, the singular ‘you’, becomes plural – which brings me back to the festival we are celebrating today, Shavuot, ‘Weeks’, reinvented by the early Rabbis as z’man matan Torateinu – ‘the season of the giving of our Torah‘. We read in the parashah, Yitro, in the opening verses of Exodus 19, prior to the account of the Divine Revelation on Mount Sinai:[6]

Thus, you should say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I have done to Egypt, and how I lifted you up on eagle’s wings and I brought you to Myself. And now therefore, if you indeed listen to My voice and you keep My covenant, then you will be to me a treasure from among all the peoples, for all the Earth is Mine’.

The ‘you‘ addressed is plural: ‘You have seen’ … ‘I lifted you up’ … ‘I brought you‘ … ‘If you indeed listen … ‘and you keep’… ‘you will be’ … And then, the aseret ha-dibbrot, ‘the ten utterances’, better known by the Christian designation, ‘the Ten Commandments’, that follow in chapter 20 are all couched in the singular you: in this moment of encounter with the Divine, all the ‘yous’ addressed in the plural become a single ‘you’: the people.

And yet, crucially, the scene of Revelation concludes at the end of the next parashah, Mishpatim, which details a code of mishpatim – laws – with the sealing of the covenant with the people that once again acknowledges their plurality:[7]

Moses took the book of the covenant and read in the ears of the people, and they said, ‘all that the Eternal One has spoken we will do and we will listen’– Va-yom’ru: kol asher-dibbeir Adonai, na’aseh v’nishma.

The people entered the covenant with the Eternal as a community together, but the obligation to keep the covenant rested – and rests – on each individual. We will act. We will continue to listen. Each one of us.

And so, we read at the beginning of parashat Nitzavim, in Deuteronomy chapter 29, in a narrative set at the end of the forty years of wandering, we find a statement addresses to the generation who did not stand at Mount Sinai. A preamble to their entry into the covenant, it begins:[8]

You are stationed today, all of you, before the Eternal your God.

Attem nitzavim ha-yom, kul’ chem lifnei Adonai Eliheichem.

You – plural – are stationed – plural – all of you – plural – before the Eternal your God – plural.

Needless to say, for all the plurality of the plural ‘you’, it is in the masculine plural – just as the singular ‘you’ is in the masculine singular. The Torah is written by men, and addresses men. Nevertheless, as we read the Torah today for ourselves in the context of our own lives, we can include ourselves, our diverse selves in all our diverse genders in that plurality. Interestingly, this week’s parashah, Naso, acknowledges that it was not only men who felt addressed by the call to commitment. We learn in Numbers chapter 6 [9] that individual women as well as individual men, would take it upon themselves to consecrate themselves to the Eternal, by explicitly uttering a vow of consecration – neder nazir – to set themselves apart for the Eternal. The adoption of the neder nazir required each individual concerned to take it upon themselves to abstain from drinking wine and any other intoxicant, let their hair grow, and refrain from any contact with a dead person, even their father, or mother, or siblings.

Significantly, while the Torah reading set aside for Shavuot, aseret ha-dibbrot, ‘the ten utterances’, emphasises the singularity of the people, another scriptural text that is read on Shavuot, focuses on the individual. The early rabbis set aside five books from K’tuvim, the ‘Writings’, the concluding third section of the TaNaKh[10], the Hebrew Bible, for reading as separate scrolls on five particular dates in the calendar.[11] The most well-known of these five books or ‘five scrolls’ – chameish m’gillot – is the Book of Esther, read on Purim. The Book of Ruth, read at Shavuot, relates how a Moabite woman, following the death of her husband, decided to leave her home and go with her mother-in-law Naomi to Judah. That Ruth made this choice was remarkable enough. She also gave voice to her choice. Ruth’s declaration to Naomi is one of the most powerful passages in the whole of the TaNaKh, and, arguably, the most beautiful and heart-felt expression of commitment ever articulated. We read in chapter 1:[12]

Entreat me not to leave you, and return from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God; / where you die, will I die, and there will I be buried; thus, shall the Eternal One do to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you.

It may seem paradoxical that the covenant between the Eternal One and the people Israel is at its heart a commitment made by each and every individual. Of course, the marking of the transition from childhood to adulthood tells us this: at the age of 13 for boys, and, traditionally 12 for girls, an individual commits themselves to the mitzvot, the commandments. In Progressive communities that commitment is taken on by the bar or bat mitzvah on equal terms at the age of 13, and in this particular progressive community, Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, the option of b’mitzvah, ensures that gender equality also encompasses gender inclusion. The reality is that even in an intensely, communally-focused community, everything comes down to the individual and the choices each of us makes.

Having distinguished between texts that use the singular texts that use the plural, there is a particular passage in the Torah, couched in the singular, which clearly addresses, not the singular people, but the individual. It’s one of my favourite Torah teachings, so I make no apology for sharing it once again. We read in parashat Nitzavim, Deuteronomy chapter 30:[13]

For this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too wonderful for you, nor too remote. / It is not in heaven that you need to say, ‘who will go up for and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it?’ / And it’s not across the sea, that you need to say, ‘who will cross the sea for us and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it?’ / Rather, ha-davar is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.

I have not translated ha-davar because it can be translated in at least two ways – as ‘the word’ and as ‘the matter’. Ha-davar; the word, the matter – and, in our current context of such great uncertainty, perhaps, the guidance we seek. The verses tell us that ha-davar is not remote from us; it is held within us; in our mouths and in our hearts. We are not re-enacting a glorious spectacle today. However much our imaginations may be stimulated and engaged by the images of the quaking mountain shrouded in cloud and smoke and fire. We recall the dramatic events of Mount Sinai back then in order to inhabit as fully as possible this moment, right now.

So: Hinneinu – Here we are. Of course, we aren’t actually here together. But each of us, wherever we are and whatever our particular circumstances, has chosen to log on and to connect; to be in this moment together, although we are physically apart. May each of us find courage and inspiration in this shared moment to commit ourselves to the Eternal and to one another. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

30 May 2020 – 7 Sivan 5780

  1. See, e.g., K’doshim, Leviticus 19:2. ↑

  2. B’shallach, Exodus 15:21-21. ↑

  3. Sh’lach L’cha, Numbers 13-15. ↑

  4. Korach, Numbers 16:3. ↑

  5. Va-etchannan, Deuteronomy 6:4. ↑

  6. Yitro, Exodus 19: 3-5. ↑

  7. Mishpatim, Exodus 24:7. ↑

  8. Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 29:92. ↑

  9. Naso, Numbers 6:1-21. ↑

  10. TaNaKh: Torah, N’vi’im (Prophets), K’tuvim (Writings). ↑

  11. Arranged in the TaNaKh in the order of reading, the other books are: Shir ha- Shirim, the Songs of Songs read at Pesach, Rut, Ruth, read at Shavuot, Eichah, Lamentations, read at Tishah B’Av, and Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, read at Sukkot. ↑

  12. Ruth 1:16-17. ↑

  13. Nitzavim, Deut. 30:11-14. ↑

MARKING TIME DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS Shabbat sermon

What has happened to time during this coronavirus pandemic? A number of people have said to me that they find themselves forgetting what day it is. For those not working and staying at home, in the absence of the routines that structure their lives, days seem to merge without differentiation. Only the daily death toll reminds them that time is passing; not the number itself, but the accumulating total.

For the passing days to be marked by death, rather than by life, is shocking. Of course, the world over, people die every day – always – and every day, new lives come into the world. Every day. And every day, right now, there are myriad signs of new life all around us as spring reaches its blossoming zenith.

Nevertheless, it is much harder to mark time when we spend most of our days in our domestic domain, separated from others beyond our immediate household. This week’s Torah portion, Emor, sets out at Leviticus chapter 23, the festival calendar as celebrated in Temple times. Importantly, it begins with Shabbat, the mini weekly festival that serves as a model for all the festivals of the year. We read:[1]

Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete cessation [Shabbat Shabbaton], a holy convocation [mikra kodesh]; you shall do no manner of work; it is a Sabbath to the Eternal in all your settlements.

When we read this verse about Shabbat, we learn that the seventh day is set apart from the other six days of the week by two key features: The cessation of work and the sacred gathering together of the community. The root meaning of Shabbat is to ‘cease’, and the expression Shabbat Shabbaton by the repetition of the root [Shin Beit Tav] conveys the sense of an absolute ceasing. Meanwhile, the words, mikra kodesh, sometimes translated as ‘sacred occasion’ convey much more than this. ‘Sacred convocation‘ is a more accurate translation, conveying the root meaning of mikra [Kuf Reish Alef], to ‘call’: ceasing from work, however absolute, is not sufficient; observing Shabbat involves a sacred calling of the community to gather together.

As we read on in Leviticus chapter 23, we discover that these twin-features of Shabbat are also at the heart of all the festivals, beginning with Pesach in the spring, followed by the offering of ‘first fruits’ in the early summer, and culminating in the sacred days of the seventh month: the day of ‘blasting’ – t’ru’ah; the day of Atonement [Yom Ha-Kippurim]; the seven-day festival of Sukkot; and the concluding ‘eighth’ day – Sh’mini Atzeret. Each festival is described as mikra kodesh, and work is forbidden.

Incidentally, in Temple times, the day of conclusion marked by Sh’mini Atzeret not only marked the end of the autumn Festival period, but also indicated a kind of shutting up shop for the winter, until the onset of spring and the inauguration of the new cycle once again with the arrival of Pesach. The other festivals we may be familiar with in between these sacred days – in particular, Simchat Torah, marking the completion of the annual Torah reading cycle[2], Chanukkah, the festival celebrating the rededication of the Temple in 164 BCE, Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, and Purim, centring on the reading of the biblical Book of Esther – were all inaugurated after the destruction of the last Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.

Leaving aside the thorny issue of whether or not most Jews work on Shabbat and the biblical festivals, it is clear that during this coronavirus crisis, it has been impossible to gather together to celebrate Shabbat. At this very moment, I am leading the service in an empty synagogue, accompanied only by one member of the congregation, Oshik, who has kindly volunteered to look after the technical side of streaming our Shabbat and festival services during the lockdown. At the end of the service, Oshik will tell me how many people were watching – and I know that that number will include members and friends of the congregation, who were not only watching, but participating – reading and singing with me, using the hardcopy or PDF of the Shabbat morning service, and following the scriptural readings, either from their own Chumash, or by using the PDFs circulated by email.

So, we are connected together in time, but not in space – which has actually been a major theme of the life of the Jewish people ever since we no longer lived together in one land and made pilgrimage to the Temple to mark the sacred days of the year. For almost 2000 years, the Jewish people have lived all over the world, our daily lives – and even some of our Jewish practices – influenced by the cultural contexts of the societies around us. Gathered together in communities, we have not shared space as a people, but rather, only sacred moments in time – albeit, impacted by the time-zone differences across the globe. This sense of sharing sacred moments in time has been heightened since the coronavirus crisis – even to the extent that families living several time-zones apart, celebrated the Pesach Seder together. One of my closest friends, who lives in London, and whose family live in Vancouver, with one nephew in Japan, working out the time differences, shared a Seder that started at 3 PM in Vancouver, 11 PM in London and 8 AM in Tokyo.

So, Jewish life is marked by sacred moments in time. But what about the time in between? The time between Shabbat and Shabbat? The time between Festival and Festival? Interestingly, there are two time-periods in the Jewish year, when we mark the days ‘between’, day by day: during the aseret y’mei t’shuvah, ‘the ten days of returning’ that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude on Yom Kippur, and right now, between Pesach and Shavuot.

At first sight, marking one day after another seems straightforward – by definition – but when it comes to the period between Pesach and Shavuot, the daily marking of time takes on a deeper resonance. The passage in this week’s parashah, Emor, concerning this period, relates that on the day after the Sabbath – which in the context is the Sabbath of Pesach – the priest would wave a sheaf – an omer – of grain, and that on the day after the seven cycles of seven days of counting the omer, on the fiftieth day, there would be ‘a new meal offering to the Eternal’.[3] There is no mention directly of a festival. A few verses further on, there is a reference to ‘the bread of first fruits’ – lechem ha-bikkurim[4] – and elsewhere in the Torah, the day that became known as Shavuot, meaning ‘Weeks’, is referred to as Yom Ha-Bikkurim, ‘The Day of First Fruits’[5], and Chag Ha-Katzir, ‘The Feast of the Harvest’.[6]

Significantly, the festival is not given a date in the Torah. All we know is that it takes place on the fiftieth day, following the seven weeks of the counting of the omer. After the Temple was destroyed, and it was no longer possible to bring offerings of the first fruits of the harvest, the early rabbis reinvented the festival as z’man matan Torateinu, ‘the season of the giving of our Torah’, by situating the seven weeks in the context of the Torah narrative of the journey of the ex-slaves through the wilderness, from Egypt to Sinai. They also fixed the date by interpreting the word ‘Sabbath’ in the phrase ‘You shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath’ to mean from the day after the first day of the festival. Since Pesach begins on the 15th of Nisan, counting seven weeks from the 16th ensures that the fiftieth day falls on the 6th of third month, which became known as Sivan.

To this day, in the absence of the Temple and the priesthood and offerings, Jews still count the omer. Counting the omer is not just the survival of an ancient practice, it is also a celebration of the power of marking time during a very special time-period. After all, the omer days don’t just link two festivals in the Jewish calendar; the accumulating days have a power of their own: seven cycles of seven. Indeed, to bring out the power of the seven cycles of seven, we don’t simply count in days, but also in weeks. And so, as we say in the traditional formulation of the daily counting: ‘Today is the thirtieth day of the omer, making four weeks and two days of the omer’.

Perhaps, during this ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we might find it helpful to mark the passing days, at least, until Shavuot by counting the omer each day. But what then? Should we continue to count the passing days? As a child, I remember counting the days until the end of the school year. How many of us have done that! Counting days only works when there is certainty about the goal.

And so, we are being challenged to do more than mark time in this crisis. We are being challenged to make our days meaningful even when on the surface one day may look very much like another. We can do this by creating regular routines, like exercise, listening to and playing music, reading, playing games, participating in online classes and discussion groups, pausing for coffee-times and tea-times – and by making mealtimes special, by trying out new recipes and sitting at the table. Towards the end of Emor, we are reminded that each day during Temple times, the priests would bring pure olive oil and light the m’norah, the seven-branched lampstand, so that it would burn as a regular light – neir tamid.’[7] Through our daily routines, we, too, can mark each day with the light of our lives.

As with all ancient peoples, there is a circular quality to Jewish time; from week-to-week, from month-to-month and from year to year, the cycle turns. However, Jewish time also has a dynamic impulse that continually erupts through the cycle. On Shabbat, we share the greeting, ‘Shabbat shalom’, and look forward to a future time of peace. At Pesach, towards the end of the Seder, having retold the story of the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, we fill an additional cup of the fruit of the vine and set it aside for the prophet Elijah, the prophet whose role it is to herald the coming of the Messiah – or the messianic age depending on your perspective – and we open the door in anticipation of his arrival.

Jewish time is a spiral, and whether or not we feel it, our lives are spiralling, too. Yesterday, was the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe. We were not able to have mass gatherings, but many of us did step outside of our homes for a special tea and looked across to our neighbours and exchanged greetings. The images of those door-step and front-garden celebrations shared in the news are very powerful, reminding us that even when we are at home, we are participating in the life of the world. And just as we held past and present together in that moment, so too, we can acknowledge our present difficult circumstances and recognise that the future is in our hands. The days are not passing in vain, and while what is lost can never be recovered and those who have died will not be moving on with us, what we have learned and continue to learn during this crisis, day after day, will enable us to shape the days to come.

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

9 May l 2020 – 15 Iyyar 5780

  1. Emor, Leviticus 23:3. ↑

  2. The festival of Simchat Torah was introduced after the annual reading of the Torah was established. In traditional communities Simchat Torah is held on the day after Sh’mini Atzeret. In progressive communities, it is held on Sh’mini Atzeret. ↑

  3. Lev. 23:11; 15-16. ↑

  4. Lev. 23:20. ↑

  5. Pin’chas, Numbers 28:26. ↑

  6. Mishpatim, Exodus 23:16. ↑

  7. Lev. 24: 1-4. See also: T’tzavveh, Exodus 27:20-21. ↑

EARNING FROM OUR ANCESTORS’ EXPERINCE OF LIBERATION DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Chag Samei’ach everyone and welcome to this Seventh Day of Pesach morning service.

I hope that you have all been enjoying Pesach despite the restrictions imposed due to the need for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Seventh Day Pesach morning service is marked by two distinct elements: the chanting of the songs recorded in the Torah, in the Book of Exodus, that were sung by the Israelites after crossing through the divided Sea of Reeds on dry land,[1] and the Yizkor service in remembrance of our loved ones who have died.

Before we turn to the Torah, I will pause to reflect on the significance of these elements for us today – but first we begin our service by singing:


Hal’lu, Hal’lu, Hal’lu-Yah! [Praise! Praise! Praise! Praise the Eternal!]

…………………………………………..

So, Pesach is drawing to a close. Both, the Torah and the Haggadah recited at the Seder, urge us to identify with the Exodus story. Have we found ourselves doing this over the past week?

In my Pesach morning sermon, I suggested that as we endure the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we have something to learn about endurance from the slaves who endured slavery for hundreds of years.

So, have we something to learn from the story of their liberation from slavery?

Liberation is such a powerful word. The thought of freedom is so uplifting. What about the experience? The account we find in the Torah suggests that just as slavery imposed unbearable hardship, suffering and anguish, freedom entailed its terrors, too. The terrors of the great unknown beyond the confinement of the house of bondage. No sooner had the slaves fled Egypt, then with the Egyptians in hot pursuit behind them, they encountered a barrier: The Sea of Reeds. The Torah‘s account suggests that it only took a miracle wave of Moses’ staff for the waters to part. By contrast, the rabbinic versions found in the midrash suggest that it took human courage: in one commentary, the waters didn’t part until one brave individual, Nachshon ben Amminadav ‘leapt first into the sea and plunged into its waves’.[2] Another suggests that it wasn’t until the people were wading in the waters up to their noses, that the waters parted.[3]

The moment of panic and terror as the slaves faced the sea is beautifully captured in Ruth Sohn’s poem, ‘The Song of Miriam’, included in the draft Shabbat morning service of the new Liberal Judaism prayer book.[4] Let me quote a few lines from it:

In a moment of panic

My eyes go blind.

Can I take a step without knowing a

Destination?

Will I falter

Will I fall

Will the ground sink away from under me?

The song still unformed –

How can I sing?

To take the first step –

To sing a new song –

Is to close one’s eyes

and dive

into unknown waters

for a moment knowing nothing risking

all –

But then to discover

The waters are friendly

The ground is firm.

And the song –

the song rises again.

Out of my mouth

come words lifting the wind.


Once the fugitive slaves had crossed the sea, they faced the terrors of the barren desert, where water and food were in such short supply.[5] Nothing evokes freedom better than the uncharted wilderness and nothing is more terrifying.

And then, there is the underside of liberation: The human cost incurred when tyranny is defeated. Throughout history, it has only been on rare occasions that an authoritarian social order has been toppled peacefully – think of the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 – after all, those in power want to hold onto their power. And so, too, in the struggle against Egypt, three thousand years earlier. The Torah recounts that it took ten plagues to bring Egypt to its knees[6] – but there was one more blow to come – the drowning of Pharaoh’s chariot-riding army as the waters came crashing down upon them. The songs of triumph led by Moses and Miriam praised the Eternal One for finally defeating Egypt, but significantly, rabbinic reflection on their exaltation, expresses a very different Divine perspective. We read in the midrash:[7]

At that time the ministering angels wanted to sing a song of praise to the Holy One, ever to be Blessed; but the Holy One ever to be Blessed restrained them, saying: “My creatures are drowning in the sea, and you would sing before Me!”

And so, during the Seder, when reciting the ten plagues one by one, we dip our little finger in the cup of the fruit of the vine, and diminish our cup of joy, by spilling a droplet for each plague.


It feels uncomfortable to be chanting these exultant songs of triumph over a stricken enemy, however oppressive, during a regular seventh day Pesach morning service. This year, as the death toll of the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of abating yet, it feels excruciating. People die every day across the world, of course, when there isn’t a pandemic. Indeed, on average over 153,000 people die every day – that is 56 million people every year.[8] But this year, this moment that we are living through is not average. Most people – excluding, doctors and nurses, religious ministers and funeral directors – do not usually encounter death, unless it affects them personally: a loved one, a friend, a fellow congregant. The coronavirus crisis has meant that all of us are being made aware of death on a daily basis, as the evening news presents us with the gruesome figures. And behind the statistics, we know that each death represents a unique, irreplaceable individual. And so, we cannot speak of death right now except in hushed tones.

And then, like the slaves facing the sea, we don’t know what will happen next. We are afraid for ourselves and for our loved ones. And the only good thing about the fear we feel is that, hopefully, it will strengthen our resolve to maintain social distancing and keep safe for as long as is necessary.

So, what should we do with the songs of Moses and Miriam? However uncomfortable they may make us feel during this exceptional time of the coronavirus pandemic, in acknowledgement of our history, and what it took for ancestors to be free, we will still include them in this Seventh Day Pesach service.

And then we will conclude – perhaps with a greater sense of immediacy this year – with Yizkor, the memorial service. The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us, if we needed reminding, that life is finite; that our loved ones will die one day; that we will die one day. We might wonder why we need to be reminded of the reality of death during a festival that is supposed to be a celebration? Perhaps, so that we may pause during our celebration to drink deeply from our cup of joy, appreciate our many blessings and value life with more intensity. There is also a lesson to be learnt from this conjunction of joy and sorrow from the opposite perspective: that at times like this coronavirus crisis, when we are being forced to drink deeply from the cup of sorrow, we should also pause to acknowledge the joys of life all around us, displayed in the beauties of nature, in the kindness and generosity of strangers, and in the loving gestures of our families and friends and neighbours. The Hebrew word for life, chayyim, is plural; it encompasses everything that it is possible to experience. Just as, on this Seventh Day of Pesach we acknowledge death, let us awaken to a new day tomorrow, and even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, give thanks for life.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

7th Day Pesach Morning Service

15 April 2020 – 21 Nisan 5780

  1. B’shallach, Exodus 15:1-21. ↑

  2. Mechilta to B’shallach, Sh’mot/Ex. 14:22. ↑

  3. Sh’mot Rabbah 21:10. ↑

  4. Siddur Shirah Chadashah (‘Siddur of a New Song’), p. 16a/b. The name, is a quotation from the g’ulah/redemption blessing in ‘The Sh’ma and its blessings’ section that is a feature of evening and morning services. ↑

  5. See the continuation of B’shallach, Sh’mot/Ex. 15:22-17:7. ↑

  6. Recounted in Exodus chapters 7-12. ↑

  7. Babylonian Talmud, M’gillah 10b. ↑

  8. https://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/world-death-clock.asp ↑

Learning from our ancestors’ experience of slavery during the coronavirus crisis

Chag samei’ach – and welcome to this first day of Pesach morning service. Chag samei’ach means ‘a joyful festival’. Chag samei’ach is an invitation to rejoice, even if we are not feeling very joyful as the coronavirus pandemic continues. Chag samei’ach is an invitation to enter into another dimension, and allow ourselves to celebrate the gift of life.

In the midst of the service, I will pause for us to reflect on what we can learn from the Exodus story for this time of extraordinary crisis, but first, let us turn to the service and begin by singing together, wherever we are:

Hal’lu! hal’lu! hal’lu! … Hal’lu-Yah! [Praise! Praise! Praise! Praise the Eternal!]

…………………………………………………….

So, we have arrived at Pesach: the festival celebrating the Exodus of our slave ancestors from Egypt – what the rabbis coined: z’man cheiruteinu – ‘The season of our freedom’.

Pesach celebrates the defining moment of the Jewish people, recalled also every Shabbat – the weekly day of freedom – and every evening and morning in the blessing of liberation that follows the Sh’ma, when we sing extracts from the song sung by the Israelites after they had crossed the Sea of Reeds on dry land.

But Pesach is special, of course. For seven days, as we eat matzah, we re-enact the moment of freedom; the moment when the slaves fled Egypt in such haste, the dough in their kneading bowls had no time to rise.[1] For seven days, we are the newly-liberated slaves, eager to be free.

Well, that, at least, is the theory of it. How about the practice? My question is not about how Jewishly observant we are. I’m wondering: how do we, in the context of our own lives, manage to identify with the Exodus story?

Here we are, right now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. In my article in the April issue of This Month, I suggested that ‘it feels like we are being afflicted by a deadly plague and must stay in our houses until it passes over’.

We are not in the Exodus time yet – we are still in Egypt.

So, what can we learn from our ancestors’ experience of being slaves – for hundreds of years?

As it happens, the Torah says very little about our ancestors’ experience of being slaves. But what it does tell us is significant. We read that, afraid that the alien people residing in the region of Goshen, might become too mighty and numerous and pose a threat to Egypt, the new Pharaoh that ‘did not know’ Joseph forced them into slavery, making ‘their lives bitter with hard servitude, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field’.[2] We read that Pharaoh commanded the midwives, Shifrah and Pu’ah to kill the new-born baby boys – and that they resisted Pharaoh’s decree.[3] We read that a mother and sister – unnamed in the story – saved the new baby boy in their household, by making a waterproof basket for him and placing it in the reeds of the river.[4] We read about that now grown-up baby boy – named Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter when she found him in the bulrushes[5] – killing a taskmaster he found beating a slave and then fleeing to Midian, where he met and married Tzipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian.[6]

These are familiar stories. Less familiar is the one we read straight after this at the end of Exodus chapter 2 (23-25):

And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the King of Egypt died; and the Israelites sighed from the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry for help went up to God from the bondage. / And God heard their groaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. / And God saw the Israelites and took notice of them.

The language of the Bible is very spare. Unlike common English usage, there is a tendency in Hebrew to repeat the same roots – the three consonants that form the basis of verbs, nouns and adjectives – again and again. And yet, in this passage, we find a multiplication of roots describing the anguish of the slaves: they sighed (va-yei’an’chu), and they cried out (va-yizaku), and their cry for help (shavatam) went up to God, who heard their groaning (na’akatam).

So, what’s going on here? The passage is not simply multiplying language, it is describing a process: the slaves sighed, then they cried out, then they cried for help with such intensity that their cry went up to God, then God heard their groaning, remembered the Divine covenant with their ancestors, saw the Israelites and took notice of them. So, what does this suggest? That God had forgotten the covenant? That God had not seen the Israelites during all the years of their enslavement? That God had not noticed them?

The key to understanding the passage lies in the event described in the first phrase: the death of the King of Egypt. This passage doesn’t just pose challenging questions about God’s absence or indifference during centuries of slavery, it says something challenging about the nature of slavery: that it is so all-consuming, such a constant and perpetual reality in the lives of those enslaved, year after year; that it is only when there is a major upheaval in the social fabric – in this case, the death of the Pharaoh – that the people are stirred out of their torpor, their numbness and stupor. So, at first, all the slaves could manage was to sigh, then they mustered themselves to cry out, then their cry transformed into a call for help so powerful that it pierced the heavens.

We can learn many things from this passage and its evocation of the overwhelming experience of slavery. Most importantly, at this time, as we endure the coronavirus pandemic, we can learn about endurance. We have not yet reached the moment when there is a major development with the potential to change the course of the onward march of the coronavirus pandemic – although, the experience of China, gives us hope that that moment will come. Until then, those who are not essential workers, have to stay put indoors – apart from a daily walk and essential visits to the shops – and wait it out. Spring is burgeoning, so we must find new ways to enjoy it and relish the signs of life we see through our windows. Pesach is here, but the season of our liberation – z’man cheiruteinu – has not yet arrived. No renewal for us. Not yet. The numbers of those dying are still rising. The suffering continues. And so many people, not only have to endure confinement to their homes, they have to endure that confinement alone.

In Hebrew, ‘endurance’ and ‘suffering’ are expressed by the same word, seivel. Let us take courage from the endurance of our slave ancestors and help one another to endure by continuing to reach out to each other and supporting those in greatest need. And as we eat matzah this Pesach, let’s remind ourselves that before it became the bread of freedom, it was as the Haggadah tells us, ha lachma anya – ‘the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt’. And when this terrible time has passed – and it will pass; that is the core message of the Exodus story – we will renew our lives and the world around us. May we find within ourselves the savlanut, the patience – a word that is related to seivel – to wait, hopefully and expectantly, for that moment. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

First Day Pesach Morning Service

9 April 2020 –15 Nisan 5780

  1. Sh’mot, Exodus 12:39 ↑

  2. Ex. 1:8-14. ↑

  3. Ex. 1:15-22. ↑

  4. Ex. 2:1-4. ↑

  5. Ex. 2:5-10 ↑

  6. Ex. 2:11-22. ↑

PREPARING FOR PESACH IN THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Shabbat Shalom and welcome to the third streamed Shabbat morning service from the sanctuary at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue.

This Shabbat is called Shabbat ha-Gadol – ‘The Great Sabbath’ – echoing, the reference to the ‘great’ day ahead proclaimed by the prophet Malachi, whose prophecy is read as the haftarah, the ‘concluding’ reading on the Shabbat before Pesach.[1]

Pesach, the great festival that celebrates the Exodus of our ancestors from Egypt, begins this year on Wednesday evening. So, after this day of ceasing and rest, there will be just four days left to prepare for it: to clean out our kitchens, remove chameitz, leavened products – and if possible, donate our unused items to refugees – get matzah and the items we need for the Seder plate, and do some Pesach baking.

Well, that at least is the usual plan. But this year is not a usual year. Jews are a remembering people. We remember all the twists and turns of our journey over millennia. Everyone and every people across the world will remember this extraordinary year when the devastating coronavirus pandemic utterly disrupted our daily lives and our usual routines.

So, perhaps, many of us will not be able to get hold of matzah and our Seder plate will be sparer than usual.

And then, there is the Seder itself. ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ The opening words of the four questions traditionally recited by the youngest at the Seder will take on a very particular resonance this year. The shul’s gathering, which usually sees 80 people fill this sanctuary on the first evening of Pesach, like communal s’darim the world over has been cancelled. Families and friends, too, will not be sitting around the Seder table together.

Thank goodness for the wonders of technology, which will enable people who have access to it to gather together virtually. But let us spare a thought for those who don’t have laptops, smart phones and tablets, and wouldn’t know how to use them if they did – many of whom are also over 70 and alone in their homes.

Those of us who are able to gather virtually, could adopt the tradition of leaving a place empty at our table for the guest who is unable to join us, and pause during the Seder to think of them.

So, Pesach has not been cancelled – many people will be having a Seder, albeit, across the ether. In recent years a number of new items have been added to the Seder plate. So, alongside the karpas, a green vegetable, maror, bitter herb, charoset, a sticky, sweet concoction, beitzah, a roasted egg, and z’ro’a, a lamb bone – or vegetarian equivalent – we may also place other symbols to express our sense of solidarity with all those who are oppressed today and our commitment to tikkun olam, repair of the world. These include: an orange, as a beacon of the inclusion of LGBTQI people, shoe-laces to remember the plight of refugees, olives to acknowledge the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a red chilli to evoke the climate change emergency.

Our Seder plates will be very full. Can we find space for one more item? What symbol will we add to our Seder plate this year in recognition of the coronavirus pandemic? Maybe, just as we leave a place empty at the table to remind ourselves of those who are isolated in their homes, so we should leave an empty space on the Seder plate as a symbol of ‘social distancing’ and ‘self- isolation’, these new terms that actually represent real hardship and distress.

A unique Pesach experience awaits us – one I’m sure we hope will never be repeated. Meanwhile, it is Shabbat. One of the important lessons of the coronavirus crisis is that we must try to do whatever we can, each one of us, to extract as much joy as possible – despite the challenging circumstances we find ourselves in – out of each and every day. So, let us now enjoy, the gift of Shabbat.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Ha-Gadol

4 April 2020 – 10 Nisan 5780

  1. Malachi 3:4-24. ↑

PESACH DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Spring has arrived, and as April begins, the first month of the Jewish year, known in the Torah as Aviv, Spring (Exodus 13:4), is already one week in.

But this is a very strange spring, the spring of 2020–5780. As the natural world is budding into new life all around us in bright, vivid colours – green and yellow, blue and pink – an invisible force, the coronavirus that is spreading across the world, is also alive amongst us.

Stranger still, for Jews across the world, in the midst of the month of Aviv – known better by its Babylonian name, Nisan, the festival of Pesach that recalls the liberation of our ancestors from slavery will begin.

How will we celebrate Pesach this year? This is a practical question – given that we may find it hard to source matzah and maror and cannot congregate together around the Seder table – either in the synagogue or at home – because households continue to be in isolation. It’s also a spiritual and emotional question – since it’s hard to feel that there is something to celebrate right now.

As we ask these practical and spiritual/emotional questions, let us remember this central teaching of Pesach, set out in the Torah in the context of the commandment to eat matzah and exclude leaven (Ex. 13: 6-8):

You shall tell [V’higgadta] your child on that day, saying: “It is because of what the Eternal One did for me, when I went out of Egypt.”

This verse is repeated in the Haggadah, in the retelling of the Exodus story first crafted by the early rabbis. Generation after generation, ‘from Egypt until now’ (Numbers 13:19), in all circumstances – in times of segregation and persecution, and in times when Jewish life and creativity flourished – Jews have celebrated Pesach and identified with the story; even when consigned to the gruesome landscape of ‘planet Auschwitz’.*

How? Why? It is appropriate that we ask questions. After all, it’s the four questions of the Haggadah, traditionally recited by the youngest at the seder table, that prompt us to engage in the ritual of the Seder.

We might imagine that the generations before us were able to celebrate Pesach even in terrible and terrifying times because they had more faith than we have. That may be true. But perhaps, the reasons are deeper: those who went before us knew about survival against the odds and they knew that survival in the midst of anguish and suffering depended on maintaining a spirit of hope.

Our ancestors were slaves for more than half of the 430 years that that they sojourned in Egypt (Ex. 12:40). While acknowledging this, the rituals of the festival of Pesach focus on their liberation. Matzah, as the Haggadah tells us, is ‘the bread of affliction’ – and it is also the bread of freedom, recalling that after the final tenth plague, the slaves were so eager to leave Egypt, there was no time for the dough in their kneading bowls to rise (Ex. 12:39).

That last plague, the death of the first born, was more than the final blow against Pharaoh and Egypt. The slaves only escaped that deadly plague because they had the courage to mark out their houses, so that it would pass over them – that’s what ‘Pesach‘ means: ‘Passover’ (Ex. 12: 21-23-).

Today, in April 2020 – Aviv/Nisan 5780, it feels like we are being afflicted by a deadly plague, and must stay in our houses until it passes over. But the Exodus story and the Festival of Pesach remind us that whatever we have to endure, we will be free of it.

And more than this: as with the slaves, we have the opportunity to learn what it means to be free; to be free of the excessive materialism and compulsive consumption that has driven this coronavirus plague across the earth. Let’s not call it a ‘virus’, let’s name it for what it is: a travel bug, proliferating across the globe, because that’s what those living in the most prosperous nations have become accustomed to do; to use our prosperity to travel around the world, consuming as many new, exotic experiences as we can.

The coronavirus crisis will pass and we will emerge out of our homes, bereaved and traumatised – and also full of gratitude for the gift of life and grateful to all those who did what they could to save lives. And more than this: having done everything we could to make life bearable for ourselves and others – to reach out and connect across the ether, to help those more vulnerable than ourselves – we will be determined to live in new ways; to share with others and to care for one another and the world around us.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

*This expression was coined by the Jewish philosopher, Emil L. Fackenheim (“The Holocaust and Philosophy.” The Journal of Philosophy, Volume 82, Issue 10, Eighty-Second Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, Oct. 1985, p. 511).

THE FESTIVAL OF MATZOT – Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah – SJN, April 2020

Rituals and symbols play a very important part in Jewish life. Pesach is a wonderful case in point. All those symbols on the Seder plate: karpas (green vegetable), maror (bitter herb), charoset (chopped nuts, apple and kiddush wine), beitzah (roasted egg), z’ro’a (roasted lamb-shank bone).

The most powerful symbol of all is the item that’s not on the Seder plate, and has its own unique role in the Seder – and in the festival as a whole: matzah.

In an important sense, matzah is the defining symbol of Pesach. We read in parashat Emor (Leviticus 23 :6) that matzah actually gives its name to the festival: Chag Ha-Matzot, ‘The Festival of Unleavened Bread’. Strictly speaking, the word Pesach, evoking the final and tenth plague against Egypt, when the Eternal One ‘passed over’ – pasach – the houses of the Israelites (Bo, Exodus 12:27), is the name given to twilight on the evening before (Lev. 23:5); recalling the sacrificing of lambs by each household. It was only because the slaves marked their doorposts and lintels with blood, that the final plague passed over them (Ex. 12:3-13).

Thus, the Israelites participated in their own liberation. They also showed their readiness for freedom, when they fled Egypt so quickly their dough had no time to rise (Ex. 12:39) – hence the significance of matzah as the bread of freedom to be eaten throughout the festival (Ex. 13:6). Only by removing leaven and eating matzah can the descendants of the liberated slaves indicate our identification with the Exodus.

But then, in the Haggadah, the rabbis’ re-telling of the Exodus story, matzah is referred to as lachma anya, which both means, both, ‘the bread of affliction’ and ‘the poor bread’. There’s a very dramatic moment in the Seder, when the leader uncovers the plate on which there are three matzot, breaks the middle matzah (and then hides the larger part of it as the afikomen – the Greek word for ‘dessert’ – to be found by the children after the meal). Holding up the plate, the leader declares in Aramaic – the vernacular of the time: ‘Ha lachma anya … This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.’

So, how can matzah, simultaneously, be the bread of freedom and the bread of affliction? Because those who are oppressed are challenged to struggle for their own liberation. Of course, that is a tall order. We only have to think of those enslaved in the world today. How do the enslaved break their chains? Struggling for liberation involves garnering the courage and determination to gather the broken pieces of our battered selves together – hence that broken matzah ‘between’. It also demands the active assistance of others. In the Haggadah, the Eternal One is the lone hero. In the Torah we find the midwives, Shifrah and Pu’ah, who saved the baby boys from Pharaoh’s genocidal decree (Sh’mot, Ex. 1:15-22), and the sibling-leaders, Miriam, Moses and Aaron. May the Exodus story and the humble matzah that we will eat throughout the festival, inspire us to challenge slavery and persecution in every place. Chag Pesach Samei’ach!

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