Tu Bishvat

Bare winter trees
branches etched
into the sky
frost crunching
underfoot
then deluges
of wind-driven rain
drenching every step.

And yet
signs
of rebirth
snowdrops
poking through
the weathered detritus
of long-gone autumn
and at the full moon
Tu Bishvat
the 15th day of Sh’vat
Rosh Ha-Shanah La-Ilanot
New Year for The Trees
reminding me – us
that in every buried root
the sap is rising
new life is stirring
in a few short weeks
Winter
will give way
to Spring.

Elli Tikvah Sarah

CHANUKKAH CANDLE-LIGHTING DEDICATIONS 2023 – 5784

  • We dedicate the 1st flame to the people of Tibet, a proud nation that was annexed by China in 1951, and remains subject to Chinese authority.
  • We dedicate the 2nd flame to the Muslim Uyghurs, and the other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang province of China, who are being subjected to ethnocide – cultural genocide – involving arbitrary detention, political indoctrination, suppression of religious practices, forced labour, forced sterilisation, contraception, and abortion.
  • We dedicate the 3rd flame to the 25,000 Muslim Rohingya people murdered by the military forces of Myanmar in 2016-17, in addition to the 36,000 who were thrown into fires, the 116,000 beaten, the 18,000 women and girls subjected to sexual violence, and the more than 1 million forced to flee, mostly to Bangladesh.
  • We dedicate the 4th flame to the 580,000 people, including 306,000 non-combatants, killed in the Syrian Civil War that has involved the destruction of the ancient cities of Aleppo and Homs, the forcible displacement of 14 million Syrians, and caused 7 million to flee as refugees.
  • We dedicate the 5th flame to the over 150,000 people killed in the Yemeni Civil War, and more than 227,000 people who have died of ongoing famine and lack of healthcare facilities as a consequence of the war.
  • We dedicate the 6th flame to the 10,000 people killed and up to 12,000 injured in the war between rival factions of the military government of Sudan, the 4.8 million who have been internally displaced, and more than 1.3 million who have fled the country as refugees.
  • We dedicate the 7th flame to the people of Ukraine following the Russian invasion of 24 February 2022 that has resulted in tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of military casualties, 8 million Ukrainians being internally displaced, and more than 8.2 million fleeing the country, creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
  • We dedicate the 8th flame to the people of Israel and Palestine, caught up in a cycle of violence following the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, which has included wars of annihilation launched against Israel by its Arab neighbours, and since 1967, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the expansion of illegal settlements, the active dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians, and campaigns of terror on the part of extremist Palestinian groups in response. In particular, we dedicate the 8th flame to the memory of the 1400 people massacred by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023, the 240 adults and children taken hostage, and the thousands of Gazans killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a consequence of Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas.

Elul

*Elul

Elul
the moon
between
seasons
North
and South
between
the fierce intensities
of Summer and Winter
between
the winds of change
that stir Autumn and Spring
the moon
between
nature’s rhythms
that shines
as it waxes and wanes
a solitary beacon
in the night
searching us out
insinuating pale light
into our minds’
tight crevices
revealing us
to ourselves
in the space
between
the old year
and the new
reminding us
to turn
inward
to listen
to our hearts’ broken beat
of hurts and regrets
to turn
outward
to those around us
to all that lives and breathes
and prepare
for the work of renewal
the repair of our relationships
our communities
our world.

Elli Tikvah Sarah

*Elul: The sixth month of the Jewish year, which precedes the ‘High Holy Days’ of the seventh month, Tishri.

WHAT (RATHER THAN ‘WHO’) IS A JEW?

Wandering
Jew
‘Rootless
Cosmopolitan’[1]
Descendent of ha-Ivrim
‘the Hebrews’
those eternal ‘border-crossers’
forever moving

from place to place
for whom
place
is ever-mobile.

The tent-tabernacle
pitched and dismantled
at every staging post
in the stony wilderness
where place
shifted with the winds.

And then
after the sojourn
in the land
after the place of the Eternal
fixed in stone
was destroyed
sacred place
mikdash
reconfigured as
a cornucopia of
words
mikdashyah[2]
sacred scripture
accompanying
the people
on all our journeys

ever since
the ever-renewed
ever-renewing 
place of nourishment

and meaning.

Displaced
Jew
in a world of
the post-industrial
post-colonial
post-Sho’ah
post-Modern
misplaced
I find my place
in ancient tales
in words
crafted
and re-crafted
translated
into deeds
that beat out the rhythms of

the days and weeks
the months and years
that celebrate the blessings
of every day
that make of each moment
a place
a call to
‘Choose Life’
‘Pursue Justice’
‘Seek Peace’
‘Loosen the fetters of evil
undo the bands of the yoke
liberate the oppressed
tear apart every chain
feed the hungry
provide refuge for the homeless
clothe the naked
satisfy the afflicted.’[3]
today

every day
without delay.


Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. See: https://www.rbth.com/history/327399-stalin-versus-soviet-jews Also: Gelbin, Cathy S and Gilman, Sander L., ‘Rootless Cosmopolitans: German Jewish Writers and the Stalinist Purges’ in Cosmopolitanisms and the Jews. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. ↑

  2. Mikdashyah: The name given to certain mediaeval Spanish Hebrew Bible Codices. ↑

  3. Deuteronomy 30.19; Deut. 16.20; Psalm 34.14; Isaiah 58.6-7; 10. ↑

A RESPONSE TO THE MASS PROTESTS IN ISRAEL

Tishah B’Av 5783

People gathered
in defiance
from winter to summer
Democracy’s
sentries of

Hope
with flags held high
on the streets
of Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem
flags
and fires now

aflame
in the summer heat.

Burning beacons
of Ha-Tikvah
‘The Hope’[1]
‘to be a free people
in our land
the land of Zion and Jerusalem’[2]?

Or the last embers of
The Hope
burning?
The Hope soon to be extinguished?
turned to ashes
like the Temples of old?

After all
Democracy

died
in the heady haze of

the ‘Six-Day’ triumph[3]
Israel
saved
from its enemies

long-lost
in the hard facts
of domination

on the ground.

The ‘Green Line’ crossed

the West Bank occupied[4]
by pioneer settlers
turned armed guards
of their fortress settlements
but still stalking 
on the wild side
the descendants of survivors of

pogroms
visiting fire

on another displaced people
who also long

to be a free people
in their land.

Where will it end?
When will it end?
Kinah[5]
let us lament
let us tear our clothes
let us sit on the ground
and scoop ashes
on our heads
let us mourn
the loss of innocence.

And then
seizing Hope
once more
take to the streets
with a call for
Democracy-free-of-occupation
Equality
Justice
Peace
Security
for both peoples
and also
for the land
beloved

of both peoples
‘a land of wheat and barley

and vines and fig trees

and pomegranates

a land of olive oil and honey’

‘Then each person
(each Israeli each Palestinian)
shall sit under their vine
and under their fig tree
and none shall terrorise them’.[6]

Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. Ha-Tikvah is the title of Israel’s National Anthem. ↑

  2. The last phrases of Ha-Tikvah. ↑

  3. 5-10 June 1967. The ‘Six-Day War’ between Israel and the coalition forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. ↑

  4. 1949 ceasefire line that assigned the ‘West Bank’ of the River Jordan to the Kingdom of Jordan. ↑

  5. Kinah is the Hebrew word for ‘lamentation’. Kinot, ‘lamentations,’ are recited on Tishah B’Av. ↑

  6. Quotations from: Deuteronomy 8:8; Micah 4:4. ↑

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE WORLD

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE WORLD

Rosh Ha-Shanah; the Jewish New Year. But there’s nothing very new about it. The COVID-19 pandemic continues. The world will not be free of it until all the world’s peoples are vaccinated. When will that be? Meanwhile, devastating floods and raging fires. Climate catastrophe is not a future threat it is a present danger.

As Jews across the world mark the second New Year during the pandemic, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States looms just days away. The word ‘anniversary’ suggests the simple marking of an event in the past, but as we all know, that day of destruction inaugurated the so-called ‘war against terror’, which has been continuous ever since.

Somehow, over 70 years after the establishment of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II and the Sho’ah, the Nazi Holocaust,[1] the nations of the world have still not found ways of dealing with conflict that don’t incite more conflict, and generate more death and devastation.

And yet, in recent decades, we have been exposed through the media to a new discourse that speaks of everything in global terms. And there is no doubt that Brexit and the persistence of nationalism apart, we are increasingly global citizens, beset by global economic crises and threatened by global climate catastrophe and ecological disaster – and more recently, the global coronavirus pandemic. And then, as the sites of oppression and conflict proliferate, there is the global refugee crisis. Wave after wave of refugees; some finding themselves caged in camps, others risking their lives in flimsy boats to get to safety. And now, Afghans desperate to flee following the withdrawal of American and British forces and the resurgence of the Taliban and ISIS.

Bombarded by incessant images of chaos and destruction from across the globe, has this new ‘global’ consciousness impacted on our understanding of the world and our place within it; our sense of responsibility for the Earth and towards one another?

I mentioned the Jewish New Year. Rosh Ha-Shanah, literally, the ‘head of the year’, has several names. One of these tells us that it is ‘the birthday of the world’ – harat olam. Significantly, the Jewish calendar does not begin with Abraham and Sarah, the first ancestors of the Jewish people, but rather with the creation of the world. On Rosh Ha-Shanah, when a new year begins, its date reflects the chronologies listed in the Torah, going right back to B’reishit, Genesis. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the world is, literally, 5782 years old as of this New Year. But the ‘birthday of the world’ reminds us to consider our lives and the present realities of life today in the context of the very beginnings of Life itself.

Importantly, the Hebrew word for ‘world’, olam, does not simply designate a particular globe in the firmament. It can also be translated as ‘universe’. The very first verse of the Torah states: B’reishit bara Elohim eit ha-shamayim v’eit ha-aretz – ‘In beginning God created the heavens and the Earth’ (Genesis 1:1). Note: not ‘In the beginning’, which would be ba-reishit in Hebrew; the creative force is an ongoing process. The six-word blessing formula also reflects the understanding that the Creator is the ‘Sovereign of the universe’ –Melech ha-olam: ‘Blessed are you, Eternal One, Sovereign of the universe’. And olam does not just denote the vastness of space. In another liturgical formulation, olam expresses the corresponding concept of ‘eternity’, as in the phrase, l’olam va-ed, ‘forever and ever’[2].

Rosh Ha-shanah is the ‘birthday of the world’; a commemoration of the birth of the universe; a portal to eternity.

We are not simply situated on a globe, a planet, the Earth. At night we can gaze at the sky and know that the lights twinkling in the blackness are stars and galaxies billions of light-years away.

At the Jewish New Year, we acknowledge the beginning of space/time and are challenged to acknowledge our responsibility as guardians of this small spinning planet in the vast universe – our only home.

Yes, our only home. Space exploration in the past 50+ years has revealed astonishing information about the solar system in which the Earth is located. In his wonderful TV series, ‘The Planets’, Professor Brian Cox combined intelligibility with eloquence as he spoke about the findings of the space missions that have extended to the furthest reaches of the solar system[3].

The images beamed back to Earth of these distant worlds are incredible: the red rock vistas of Mars; the magnificent rings surrounding Saturn. Yes, there are signs of water on Neptune and Uranus. And the research of University of Cambridge astronomers has suggested recently that “ocean-covered” ’Mini Neptunes’ detected beyond the solar system “with hydrogen-rich atmospheres” “may soon yield signs of life”[4]. So, perhaps, it may be possible one day for human beings to walk on Mars, and even live there in special constructions sealed from the hostile atmosphere. Perhaps it may even be possible to travel beyond the solar system. But life as we know it, life in the open air, breathable life beyond the Earth, in the company of other living creatures, oxygenated by trees and vegetation, is not possible. And if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, scientists have not yet detected a single minute murmur[5].

The Earth is our only home. We must begin to address the consequences of our misuse and abuse of it before it’s too late and learn to share it. As a new year begins, may we all resolve to work together to share and repair the world.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

September 2021 / Tishri 5782

  1. The United Nations was officially established by 51 countries on 24 October 1945. http://www.un.org ↑

  2. As in the second verse of the Sh’ma: Baruch sheim k’vod malchuto l’olam va-ed, ‘Blessed be [the] Name whose glorious majesty is for ever and ever’; a liturgical response inserted after the first verse of the biblical text (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). ↑

  3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p07922lr/the-planets ↑

  4. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/26/mini-neptune-beyond-solar-system-may-soon-yield-sign-life-hycean-exoplanet-cambridge-astronomer ↑

  5. ‘Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence’: https://www.seti.org/ ↑

Sermon conversation with Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein, President of Liberal Judaism

Elli to Andrew:

Andrew: It is an honour for me to share this dialogue sermon with you. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Breaking Down Walls’, as Liberal Judaism continues to explore ways of making our movement as inclusive as possible. After a lifetime of service to Liberal Judaism, you are President of the movement, and having been a complete outsider as a lesbian and a feminist when I was ordained 32 years ago, I have just retired after serving Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue for 20 years. So, we are an interesting pairing for a sermon conversation!

I think it would be good to confound any binary assumptions about us, so I would like to begin by asking you to share the ways in which you feel you have been an innovator as well as a guardian of the tradition in Liberal Judaism.

Andrew:

Thanks Elli; in some ways we are so different, but we both have a deep passion for Liberal Judaism and I hope that Liberal Judaism will always be a tolerant home, as I think it has been, for Jews holding different views on many positions. I suppose I am now seen as an insider but originally, I felt an outsider coming from Birmingham and, I’ll be honest, never feeling completely accepted by the then London hierarchy. But I supposed I toned down my Brummie accent and got involved. The rabbi of my childhood and youth was Bernard Hooker and Birmingham Liberal Synagogue of those days was classic Liberal…85% English services, no head coverings or tallus’s, and deepdown I’m still an old-style Liberal Jew.

What does that mean? As a guardian I think it means not adopting customs just because “they are traditional”, for there are also Liberal Jewish traditions to respect. For instance, I think it makes much sense to honour the key statement of our religion, the Shema, by standing for it. I’m not happy when the full Amidah is said silently, forgetting that “traditionally” it is then repeated out loud. I would never omit the Kaddish or not read the Torah scroll, because there was only 8 people present. I could never understand why it was treife to sing a Psalm in English when one has just read one in the vernacular. And as well as guarding the values of Liberal Judaism in the UK & Ireland, I have been privileged to work over the past 40 years in helping Progressive Judaism to thrive on the European continent, especially the Former Soviet Union. And here I have tried to insist that patrilineal or equilinial descent is the only ethical definition of Jewish status.

But that does not mean that Liberal Judaism should not be innovative and reconsider its attitude to traditions earlier Liberal Jews abandoned. The late great Rabbi John Rayner rediscovered Tikkun Leyl Shavuot and Selichot services and I reckon his rediscovering led to Orthodox communities reintroducing them. And though, as a child we said, Happy New Year I am more comfortable saying Shanah Tovah or Gut Yontif. Times change and Liberal Jews who never want to change are not Progressive.

The aspect of my rabbinate that gives me most satisfaction was Kadimah Summer School Sharon & I founded – 50 years ago. And it was there that we introduced Birkat Hamazon after each meal (I’ll be honest and say except breakfast …still asleep!). Nowdays there would be a riot if it was missed out. We introduced Havdalah that for many is the most moving moment of a Conference and I note that during the pandemic many congregations have an online Havdalah when they never had one before. Strange really that such a touchy feely ritual works on line…for this we must thank the Debbie Friedman lai lais.

I could talk about liturgy, a real test of the changing nature of Liberal Judaism, again aiming to be inclusive and up to date. I was honoured to be part of two generations of changes : removing thee’s and thou’s and then the Lord and gendered English, and now learning to say Berucha At Shechina and Mecheletet Chaim. But let me wrap up with the thought that our founder Lily Montagu is associated with the phrase Prophetic Judaism……if I have any influence left, I think it vital we stress both words…prophetic, yes, fighting for social justice, inclusion, equality. But we must also stress the need for Judaism, for ritual, prayer, Shabbat observance, study and peoplehood.

Andrew to Elli:

I’m not sure I have answered your question, but maybe you can give me your answer: how do you feel? You’ve certainly been an innovator and broken down many walls and given the lead on so many contemporary issues as well as making us think about our relationship with God with your Compelling Commitments and so a guardian too?

Elli:

I think that for me the powerful need for inclusion that brought me into the rabbinate has always involved a combination of being a guardian and an innovator. I felt compelled to actively engage in my Jewish life and in the life of the Jewish community, both, because as the child of a Viennese refugee, I took to heart Emil Fackenheim’s additional commandment, not to give Hitler a posthumous victory[1], and because rather than continuing to live on the margins, I wanted to find a way of including myself, and others, who felt and were excluded – lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people (we didn’t use the acronym LGBT back then) – in the life of the Jewish community. I remember my final interview at Leo Baeck College and the chair of the Committee, Rabbi Sydney Brichto, sounding perplexed and rather irritated, asking me how it was that as a lesbian and a radical feminist, I was so traditional?

Hitler didn’t just destroy 6 million individual Jewish lives, Nazism destroyed tens of thousands of Jewish communities. After the Sho’ah we have a responsibility to revive Jewish communal life; but not by going backwards or mimicking Orthodox Judaism. We are not Orthodox; we are Liberal, and so committed to responding to the needs of the age, as Lily Montagu put it[2], and to the needs of people. The only way we can genuinely ensure a vibrant Jewish life and a vibrant, living Liberal Judaism is, in the spirit of the parashah, T’rumah, at Exodus chapter 25[3], by inviting individuals on their journeys to bring their precious gifts together, their unique qualities and skills, for the development of the community, so that Jewish communal life encompasses all our lives and all of who we are in all our glorious diversity.

And of course, the content and the tone and colour of that communal life needs to be Jewish. What do I mean by Jewish content? That we draw on the Torah and rabbinic literature as we create new interpretations that inform our practice as Liberal Jews. And Jewish tone and colour? That we incorporate traditional as well as contemporary liturgical melodies and rituals as we interweave the heritage we have received, with the materials of our lives today.

During the 32 years that I have worked as a rabbi, I have met with scores of individuals, who, approaching the synagogue because of their longing to belong and feel included, wanted to engage in Jewish learning and live Jewishly. More than anything else, it has been listening to the stories of individuals and their desire to participate as themselves in the life of the congregation that has propelled much of the innovation that I have introduced: my weekly Access to Hebrew and Exploring Judaism programmes, the diversification of Shabbat services, including a monthly Beit Midrash Shabbat morning service focussed on the parashah, the empowerment of lay readers to lead services in their own way, the invitation to the congregation to sit or to stand as they choose and as they are able. And so, for example, when we rebuilt the synagogue, as an eco-friendly, inclusive space, we decided not to have a bimah to ensure maximum accessibility, both, physical and psychological. For me, inclusion has always involved enabling all those who wish to be included to live as Jews, as Liberal Jews, committed to equality and justice for all, who are nourished and sustained by Jewish teaching and practice.

Elli to Andrew:

So, Andrew, what lessons do you think can be drawn from our practice as a rabbinic guardians and innovators for enabling Liberal Judaism to be a truly inclusive movement?

Andrew to Elli:

Listen to all of our members, both the radicals and the dinosaurs like me.

But let’s end with the path that we both encourage… our Jewish tradition… the Sedra… the Festival code in this week’s parashah, Emor… a reminder that in our Judaism practice: we celebrate with the community but also as individuals within it.

Elli:

Yes, Andrew, we return, as Jews always do to the weekly Torah portion that structures Jewish liturgical life and reconnects us week after week, year after year, in an eternal cycle, to the source of Jewish teaching and practice: the Torah.

How fitting, as you say, that this week’s parashah is Emor, where we find in Leviticus chapter 23, the festival cycle as observed in Temple times, and are reminded that Shabbat is the first festival, the model for all the others: mikra kodesh, a ‘sacred convocation’; literally, a sacred ‘calling’ of the community together, which is what all the festivals are about: the community gathering, as we are doing today.

Of course, a calling of the community together assumes that we gather in one place. Nevertheless, the calendar of sacred days is fundamentally, just that: it’s a cycle of time. Today, on Shabbat, and throughout the conference, the community, the family of Liberal Judaism, is and will be sharing sacred moments in time. And yet, as we do so online, we are in different places, and that is important because it reminds us of our diversity; it reminds us that we are called to acknowledge and honour the different spaces that we occupy in our lives; our different backgrounds and circumstances, our different experiences and ways of being in the world. And so, we are called, not so much to break down walls as to open doors; the doors of the chambers of our hearts; the doors of our synagogues – and to set up a metaphorical tent, a mishkan, that extends across space and encompasses us all.

Shared ‘sermon’: Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein and Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Liberal Judaism Biennial, Shabbat Morning Service

1st May 2021 – 19th Iyyar 5781

  1. Emil L. Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History. Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem, chapter 2, The 614th Commandment, pp.19-24. Schocken Books, 1978. ↑

  2. Lily Montagu, ‘Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today’. Jewish Quarterly Review, 1899. ↑

  3. Exodus 25:1-9. ↑

THE PRACTICE OF INCLUSION

Introduction: Why a radical feminist Jewish lesbian decided to train for the Rabbinate

Good evening everyone. Thank you, Nigel for inviting me to speak to you all this evening. I’m going to begin with a sobering backdrop to our lives and take you back briefly to that devastating time over 75 years ago.

One third of the world Jewish population was murdered and tens of thousands of Jewish communities across Europe were destroyed in the Sho’ah, meaning ‘devastation’, ‘ruin’ or catastrophe’, which is the preferred Jewish designation of the Holocaust[1]. The Nazis also persecuted and murdered the Roma people, disabled people, gay men, lesbians and nonconforming women, as well as communists and socialists. The child of a mother, whose parents fled pogroms in the Russian Pale in 1905, and a father whose own father was incarcerated in Dachau concentration camp after Kristallnacht in November 1938, after I came out in 1978 and became active in the Women’s Liberation Movement and Lesbian Feminism, as a Jew living in the shadow of the Sho’ah, I began to realise that a vibrant Jewish lesbian life couldn’t be forged out of those horrors…

And then, it became obvious to me that I needed positive reasons for being Jewish when, in the aftermath of Israel’s first Lebanon war in 1982, the media reacted with anti-Semitic tropes that included depicting Prime Minister begin as Hitler. Disappointingly, the feminist media, represented by the WLM weekly newsletter, the monthly magazine, Spare Rib and Outwrite, the black feminist newsletter jumped onto the bandwagon. Fortunately, Jewish feminists had already began to connect and I was part of a Jewish Lesbian group, which meant that I was not dealing with this hostile atmosphere on my own. And so, in the company of other Jewish lesbians, rather than be defined by anti-Semitism, I started to explore what it meant for me to be a Jew.

My Jewish education having stopped, aged 8 ½, when my brother became bar mitzvah, I decided to go to Liberal Judaism’s Montagu Centre in central London and learn to read Hebrew. That was the beginning of my rabbinic journey. Very quickly, I went from novice Hebrew reader to applicant for the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme, starting in autumn 1984.

It was just as well that I became absolutely determined to do what I could to contribute to making Jewish life more egalitarian and inclusive because the next five years were almost impossibly challenging. But I wasn’t alone. Another lesbian, Sheila Shulman, who sadly, died in 2014, not long after we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our ordinations, also decided to embark on the rabbinate at that time. We both belonged to the same Jewish Lesbian group, but hadn’t said a word to one another about it. Clearly, it was meant to be. Except that the Jewish world, even the progressive Jewish world, wasn’t quite ready for two ‘out’ lesbians. We were both put on probation for the full five years of the programme – the usual probation period is one year – and were told that we could be asked to leave at any time if the two progressive movements that sponsored the college, Liberal Judaism Reform Judaism, felt that their constituent congregations were not prepared to accommodate us. Fortunately, the first gay rabbi in Britain, Lionel Blue, became my tutor, and he and other key teachers offered both Sheila and I enormous support. I was very honoured to be ordained by Lionel on 9 July 1989.

Working as a lesbian rabbi in the mainstream Jewish community

When I first began working as a rabbi, I experienced a lot of challenges in my efforts to ensure equality and inclusion for LGBT+ people, particularly, around the issue of trying to secure same-sex marriage.

Back in 1989, Lionel, Sheila and I were the only LGBT rabbis in Britain. Following ordination, Sheila co-founded with a group of other lesbians, Beit Klal Yisrael, a synagogue which has been a beacon of inclusivity in the Jewish community ever since. Meanwhile, I became rabbi of the mainstream Reform synagogue that I had served as a rabbinic student in my fifth year.

I’m not going to recite the litany of homophobia and persecution I have experienced in the early years of my rabbinate – which included a small group lobbying to oust me from that first post. The good news is that since I became part of Liberal Judaism in 1998, beginning with a two-year stint at Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation and then going on to the just over 20 that I have been rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, the involvement of LGBT+ rabbis – now 20% of the progressive rabbinate – has generated a major transformation in Jewish life. In 2000 Liberal Judaism established a rabbinic working party on same-sex relationships, including two LGBT+ rabbis: Rabbi Mark Solomon, who grew up in Sydney and left the orthodox rabbinate for Liberal Judaism in the early 1990s – and me. Liberal Judaism has been championing the rights of LGBT+ people ever since. In December 2005, LJ published the first fruits of the working party, a booklet of commitment ceremonies to coincide with the Civil Partnership Act coming into force.[2]

LJ then went on to support the campaign for equal marriage. In the past few years, LJ has also provided a home for a series of LGBT+ projects: ‘Rainbow Jews’, exploring the heritage of LGBT+ Jews; ‘Rituals Reconstructed’, creating opportunities for LGBT+ Jews to develop our own rituals; ‘Twilight People’, a multifaith transgender initiative; and ‘Rainbow Pilgrims’, which focuses on the lives of LGBT+ migrants and asylum seekers who come to the UK.[3]

A lesbian rabbi at Brighton Hove Progressive Synagogue

So: a very positive story of LGBT+ inclusion within Liberal Judaism over the past 20 years. But this evening, I’ve been asked to focus on my experience of working to make Brighton and Hove Progressive synagogue a place of welcome inclusion for LGBT+ people.

When I left the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain over the issue of same-sex marriage in July 1997, there was as a vacancy at BHPS, so, thinking that It would be nice to live in the LGBT-friendly atmosphere of Brighton and Hove, I applied. But at that time the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues that came to be called Liberal Judaism, wasn’t any more hospitable, and I wasn’t invited for an interview.

Thankfully, the following summer the congregation I had served as a rabbinic student in my fourth year, Leicester Progressive, offered me a weekend-a-month position, which felt very supportive. I then left London to live in Brighton in March 2000, and when the post at BHPS became vacant again in July 2000, I put in another application. Fortunately, with the help of the Executive Director of Liberal Judaism at the time, Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh, who had persuaded the synagogue leadership to speak to me, after an initial conversation, I was interviewed – by the entire council, the governing body of the synagogue, as it happened. The notion of appointing a lesbian feminist as Rabbi seen as potentially extremely controversial, the council decided to make the decision themselves, rather than take the proposal to a general meeting of the members of the congregation, so I got the job.

2000-2001

In my first year as Rabbi of BHPS, half a dozen members chose to resign their membership rather than have a lesbian as a rabbi. Fortunately, I also received much support from the Council and its officers. After each resignation, the then president of the congregation would call me up and reassure me that I had the support of the Council and that I shouldn’t take it personally, Bear in mind, that each resignation meant a membership subscription fee lost.

So, that first year was challenging. Thankfully, I enjoyed the support of the majority of the congregation, so, I found my feet. I also found that the congregation was willing for us to take a journey together.

2001-2004

Because of my experience as a lesbian on the margins of the Jewish community, the principal priority of my rabbinate has always been the inclusion of people on the margins: in particular, LGBTQI+ people, but also patrilineal Jews, Jews in mixed relationships, women, who had not received a Jewish education as children; people who for one reason or another were unaffiliated or had disaffiliated

And so, as soon as I began at BHPS, I established weekly Access to Hebrew and Exploring Judaism programmes. At the AGM in 2001, the decision was taken to diversify Sabbath services to make them more appealing to a wider range of people. In September 2002, we held our first outreach event on a Sunday morning, headlined as: ‘Are you Jewish or Jew-ish?’ Advertising in the local press and on BBC Radio Sussex, we had no idea how many people would cross the threshold. 70 people – Jewish, Jew-ish and non-Jewish – showed up! Another important change was the council’s decision to adopt a Hebrew name: Adat Shalom v’Rei’ut, ‘Congregation of Peace and Friendship’ – a name that reflected the welcoming, nurturing ethos of the synagogue – and also to give the monthly newsletter a name that reflected this ethos: Open Door.

2005-2011

With inclusion firmly on the agenda, in 2005, after participating in two Sunday mornings of homophobia training, conducted by my partner – now my spouse – Jess Wood, in her capacity as Director of Allsorts Youth Project. the council adopted Liberal Judaism’s policy on the inclusion of LGBT+ individuals and couples and took the decision to allow same-sex ceremonies to be held in the synagogue. Indeed, in March 2006, Jess and I had the joy of celebrating our wedding with the synagogue packed to the rafters. In due course, the council also followed Liberal Judaism’s lead in supporting and endorsing Equal Marriage.

In addition to these changes, I asked the council to look at its publicity materials, and suggested changes that would state that the congregation welcomes people on the margins, including LGBT+ people, people in mixed relationships, patrilineal as well as matrilineal Jews, and so on. And so, in addition to revamping the synagogue web-site, a new attractive synagogue leaflet was created – at a time when paper communications were still important.

Needless to say, before too long more people, who had hitherto lived on the margins, including LGBT+ people, started attending services and study sessions and other events.

2011-2021: The last ten years

And then, with growing awareness of the marginalisation of trans people, the council’s plans in 2011 to rebuild the synagogue as a totally accessible space encompassed installing an all-gender accessible toilet downstairs and an all-gender toilet upstairs – with requisite signage – proclaiming loud and clear that when we say ‘all are welcome’, we really mean it.

The rebuilt synagogue was inaugurated on Sabbath of the festival of Chanukkah, on 12 December 2015. In 2017, one of our members, who had become bar mitzvah with me at the synagogue celebrated her transition as a Trans woman, with a special ceremony during a Shabbat morning service. Then in 2018, very significantly, the council unanimously endorsed the Education committee’s proposal to offer each 12-year-old the option of preparing to become bar, bat, or non-binary gender b’ mitzvah, rather than continue to assume their gender identity.

Meanwhile, the synagogue began to connect with the LGBT+ calendar of the city. I had already participated over the years in LGBT+ History Month, and other LGBT+ community events, by giving talks and sharing panels, and had also participated in Trans Pride. So, the decision was taken to host a Sabbath evening meal with blessings, songs and reflections on the eve of Brighton Pride 2016. Open to our own congregants, it was also open to anyone who wished to attend. The event was so successful that until the pandemic struck, eve of Sabbath shared meals have been held on the eve of Pride each year through 2019. At one of these, cis ally, Rabbi Janet Darley, came to speak to us and showed a film of the special LGBT+ Seder meal held each year at her congregation, South London Liberal Synagogue.

In addition to the annual eve of Pride event, the new building has hosted exhibitions created by the various Liberal Judaism LGBT+ projects I mentioned earlier, including, Rainbow Jews, Rainbow Pilgrims, and Rituals Reconstructed.

Creating an inclusive congregation

I have focused on the journey to inclusion of one synagogue. What does it take to make a synagogue – or a church, or a mosque, or a temple – a place of welcome and inclusion?

My 20-year experience with BHPS suggests a number of key factors:

  • That the larger movement to which the particular congregation belongs makes inclusion and equality a priority, and takes action to demonstrate that commitment.
  • That the spiritual leader of the congregation is fully committed to making inclusion and equality a priority.
  • That the lay leadership of the congregation is prepared to work with their spiritual leader to make inclusion a reality.
  • That congregants themselves are prepared to open their hearts to welcome others into their midst. 

With all these elements in place, it is possible to transform the culture of a congregation. And let’s remember, that when we are talking about creating a culture of welcoming and inclusion, people don’t approach our congregations as categories, they are individuals, with their own lives and stories and journeys. Being welcoming and inclusive, comes down to how we treat each and every individual who comes knocking at the door, or who sends a message to the website or an email to the office.

I would like to close by sharing with you one of my favourite passages from the Torah – which is at the beginning of the Book of Exodus chapter 25, and introduces a theme that takes up most of the rest of the book; the building of the mishkan, the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 25:1-8):

The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying: /Speak to the Israelites, that they take for Me an offering; from everyone whose heart makes them willing you shall take my offering. / And this is the offering that you shall take from that which is theirs: gold, and silver and brass; / and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, / and rams’ skins dyed red, and sealskins and acacia-wood; / oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense; / onyx stones, and stones to be set, for the cape and for the breastplate. / Then let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

The Jewish people has not had a physical sacred place, a mishkan, a tabernacle, a Temple, for almost 2000 years since the Romans destroyed the last Temple in 70 CE, but, nevertheless, there are very important messages in these verses for our lives today. That individuals contribute voluntarily. That each person brings their own special gifts for the creation of community. That participation involves enhancing the community with our personal contributions. That the Eternal One dwells amongst the people when every individual offering is included. I’ve been fortunate to spend the last 20 years of my rabbinate at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. In the past two decades the congregation has gone on a journey to becoming an inclusive congregation. As I prepare to retire in a few days’ time, just prior to my 66th birthday on Monday, my hope is that before too long all congregations of every faith and culture will find ways of accepting and embracing the gifts of LGBTQI+ people and all those who seek to contribute to communal life.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Sexuality, Gender and Faith Group

Zoom meeting, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 at 7.30 pm

  1. Holocaust means ‘burnt offering’, suggesting that the murder of the Jewish people had a sacred quality to it. Alternatively, Sho’ah, found in the Hebrew Bible, e.g. in Isaiah chapter 10, verse 3, more directly suggests the impact: ruin, desolation. ↑

  2. Covenant of Love. Service of Commitment for Same-Sex Couples. Liberal Judaism, London, 2005. ↑

  3. See: https://www.liberaljudaism.org/what-we-do/lgbtqi-projects/ ↑

Shavuot: Z’man Matan Torateinu –

Shavuot: Z’man Matan Torateinu –

‘The season of the giving of our Torah’

The voice of
the Eternal
that spoke

in thunder
on Mount Sinai
overwhelmed
by another thunder
the roaring howl of
war
Eternal teachings
shrouded
in clouds of

dust
hidden
under mountains of

rubble
a wilderness of

shattered

homes
schools
hospitals
no one
and nothing
can stand
in this wasteland
the people of Gaza

caught

between oppressors
trapped

starved
crushed

the remaining hostages

holed-up

underground

deserted.


Still
there are
witnesses
who know

the Eternal teachings

by heart

and practice them

who understand
that the words of
the Eternal

are eternally

present 
commanding

demanding

even when
concealed
evaded

denied:

Love your neighbour

as yourself[1]

Learn to do

good

seek Justice

defend

the oppressed[2]

Seek

Peace

and pursue it[3]

A stranger

you shall not

oppress

for you know

the nefesh

(the inner-being)

of the stranger[4]

Love

the stranger

as yourself[5]

Justice

Justice

you shall

pursue.[6]

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. Leviticus 19:18. ↑

  2. Isaiah 1:17. ↑

  3. Psalm 34:14. ↑

  4. Exodus 23:9. ↑

  5. Leviticus 19:34. ↑

  6. Deuteronomy 16:20. ↑

A People Forged in the Wilderness

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

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

The Eternal spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

North West Surrey Synagogue

31st May 2025 / 4th Sivan 5785

 

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

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

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

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

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

  6. https://www.rhr.org.il/eng ↑

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

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

  9. https://cfpeace.org/about-en/ ↑

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

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

  12. https://hiasjcore.org/what/ ↑

  13. https://ecojudaism.org.uk/ ↑

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

Another Pesach

Another Pesach
arrives
but
no Passover
the memory of
liberation
overtaken by
another god
the fortress state
and its henchmen
a state of
perpetual war
the blood of
the massacred
on October 7
desecrated
the young blood of
the nation’s defenders
sacrificed
on the altar
of the right
of might
the remaining hostages
abandoned
empty spaces
at seder tables
never
to be filled.


Meanwhile
in Gaza
a people
doubly-oppressed
from within
and without
crushed
blood
shed
cries out
from the rubble
no doorposts
no lintels
to offer a sign
no provisions
left
not even
the bread of affliction
much less
the bread of freedom
nowhere
to flee.


Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Nisan 5785/April 2025

WHAT IS ‘PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM’? – ‘Thought’ on T’tzavveh, PJ E-Bulletin

This week’s parashah, T’tzavveh opens with a significant phrase: ‘You, you shall command [Attah t’tzavveh] the Israelites’ (Exodus 27:20a). While the Torah relates many engaging stories, it is also the repository of the mitzvot, ‘commandments’, that define the relationship between the Jewish people and God. The grand narrative of the Exodus from Egypt may be understood, simply, as a tale of liberation from oppression. However, the message, continually repeated, as Moses tries to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelite slaves, is more challenging: ‘Thus says YHWH, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go that they may serve Me – Shalach et-ammi v’ya’avduni”’ (Exodus 9:1). The Israelites were liberated from the tyranny of Pharaoh in order to serve a more powerful Master.

While the teachings of the Torah concern every aspect of domestic, social, economic and political life, their foundation is the service of God. After the destruction of the last Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, the centrality of Divine service continued through Rabbinic Judaism, which established the framework for Jewish life in the form of the halachah, the system of law articulated first in the Mishnah, edited around the year 200 CE. Whether or not one is a student of Rabbinic literature, every Jew who participates in Jewish rites is reminded of the obligation to serve God each time we recite a blessing which includes the words, ‘… asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivvanu l…’ – ‘… who makes us holy with His commandments and commands us to …’ (literal translation).

We are at a crucial moment in the history of Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism in Britain, as the two organisations negotiate a merger with the goal of becoming a single entity, ‘Progressive Judaism’, a name that directly reflects the global movement to which both LJ and MRJ are affiliated: the World Union of Progressive Judaism, founded in 1926 at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London (https://wupj.org/about-us/history/).

What is Progressive Judaism? There is no single answer. However, there is a clue in the word ‘Progressive’. Progressive Judaism is not only, like Orthodox Judaism, a response to Modernity, to the consequences of intellectual Enlightenment and political Emancipation. Progressive Judaism provides a framework for working out how to live Jewishly in a rapidly changing modern/post-modern world; an attempt to re-interpret and re-engage with our Jewish inheritance in the context of the needs of the present. In the past fifty years since Rabbi Jacqueline Tabick became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, Progressive Judaism has been in the forefront of change in the British Jewish community, to the extent that, today, 50% of the progressive rabbinate is female, and 20%, LGBTQ+. Just as important, from its inception in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, Progressive Judaism has acknowledged that individuals – and not just communities – have a role in defining and perpetuating Jewish life. As a consequence, ‘informed choice’, rather than the notion of being simply ‘commanded’ has been the hallmark of Progressive Judaism.

But, of course, Jewish life depends on individuals choosing to contribute to building and maintaining community. More than twenty years ago, I first set out what I call the compelling commitments that frame the choices we make (‘Bridging Choice and Command’, MANNA Essay, MANNA, No. 78, Winter 2003). At this critical juncture in the history of the two progressive movements in Britain, when we are trying to work out what it means to be ‘progressive’, I offer these ‘compelling commitments’ as a contribution to our reflections. Emerging out of our on-going experience they are not set in stone, but at their heart, we find these three – each one with a particularist and a universalist dimension:

Compelling Commitment One: Embracing Jewish Teaching and engaging with knowledge in the wider world

The commitment to nurture and cultivate our own Jewish lives and the life of the Jewish people as a whole, by continuing to learn and engage with the Torah, with our Jewish stories, teachings and traditions, and by participating in the various ritual acts, which celebrate Life with Jewish flavours, colours and tones.

And: The commitment to engage with the accumulating wisdom of the world, to study and to learn about the major developments in human knowledge, and to find ways of ensuring that the developing wisdom of humanity in all its dimensions connects with and informs Jewish teaching.

Compelling Commitment Two: Sustaining the Jewish Community and repairing the world

The commitment to honour both those that have gone before us and those who are yet to be born, by becoming links in the chain of the generations of our people, and by maintaining, restoring and re-creating Jewish communal life in Britain, in Israel, and throughout the world.

And: The commitment to love not only our neighbours, but also the stranger in our midst; to liberate the oppressed, protect the vulnerable, and support the fallen; to pursue justice and to seek peace; to participate in the great task of Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world.

Compelling Commitment Three: The Eternal is our God and The Eternal is One

The commitment to explore the meaning of existence, to journey, to search, and to listen out for the voice of the Eternal, who calls each Jew to become part of Am Yisrael, the people who ‘struggle with God’, and to strive to sanctify Life each day through our actions and our relationships.

And: The commitment to acknowledge that the Eternal is One, and to work together with all the peoples of the world to recognise the essential unity of existence in all its diversity.

Unlike the traditional understanding of the ‘commandments’, these ‘compelling commitments’ offer a framework for our lives, without spelling out exactly what each and every Progressive Jew should be doing each and every moment of the day. It is the responsibility of each one of us to decide for ourselves, and in relation to those around us, how to put our sense of commitment into practice. [999 words]

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

This week’s parashah, T’tzavveh opens with a significant phrase: ‘You, you shall command [Attah t’tzavveh] the Israelites’ (Exodus 27:20a). While the Torah relates many engaging stories, it is also the repository of the mitzvot, ‘commandments’, that define the relationship between the Jewish people and God. The grand narrative of the Exodus from Egypt may be understood, simply, as a tale of liberation from oppression. However, the message, continually repeated, as Moses tries to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelite slaves, is more challenging: ‘Thus says YHWH, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go that they may serve Me – Shalach et-ammi v’ya’avduni”’ (Exodus 9:1). The Israelites were liberated from the tyranny of Pharaoh in order to serve a more powerful Master.

While the teachings of the Torah concern every aspect of domestic, social, economic and political life, their foundation is the service of God. After the destruction of the last Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, the centrality of Divine service continued through Rabbinic Judaism, which established the framework for Jewish life in the form of the halachah, the system of law articulated first in the Mishnah, edited around the year 200 CE. Whether or not one is a student of Rabbinic literature, every Jew who participates in Jewish rites is reminded of the obligation to serve God each time we recite a blessing which includes the words, ‘… asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivvanu l…’ – ‘… who makes us holy with His commandments and commands us to …’ (literal translation).

We are at a crucial moment in the history of Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism in Britain, as the two organisations negotiate a merger with the goal of becoming a single entity, ‘Progressive Judaism’, a name that directly reflects the global movement to which both LJ and MRJ are affiliated: the World Union of Progressive Judaism, founded in 1926 at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London (https://wupj.org/about-us/history/).

What is Progressive Judaism? There is no single answer. However, there is a clue in the word ‘Progressive’. Progressive Judaism is not only, like Orthodox Judaism, a response to Modernity, to the consequences of intellectual Enlightenment and political Emancipation. Progressive Judaism provides a framework for working out how to live Jewishly in a rapidly changing modern/post-modern world; an attempt to re-interpret and re-engage with our Jewish inheritance in the context of the needs of the present. In the past fifty years since Rabbi Jacqueline Tabick became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, Progressive Judaism has been in the forefront of change in the British Jewish community, to the extent that, today, 50% of the progressive rabbinate is female, and 20%, LGBTQ+. Just as important, from its inception in Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, Progressive Judaism has acknowledged that individuals – and not just communities – have a role in defining and perpetuating Jewish life. As a consequence, ‘informed choice’, rather than the notion of being simply ‘commanded’ has been the hallmark of Progressive Judaism.

But, of course, Jewish life depends on individuals choosing to contribute to building and maintaining community. More than twenty years ago, I first set out what I call the compelling commitments that frame the choices we make (‘Bridging Choice and Command’, MANNA Essay, MANNA, No. 78, Winter 2003). At this critical juncture in the history of the two progressive movements in Britain, when we are trying to work out what it means to be ‘progressive’, I offer these ‘compelling commitments’ as a contribution to our reflections. Emerging out of our on-going experience they are not set in stone, but at their heart, we find these three – each one with a particularist and a universalist dimension:

Compelling Commitment One: Embracing Jewish Teaching and engaging with knowledge in the wider world

The commitment to nurture and cultivate our own Jewish lives and the life of the Jewish people as a whole, by continuing to learn and engage with the Torah, with our Jewish stories, teachings and traditions, and by participating in the various ritual acts, which celebrate Life with Jewish flavours, colours and tones.

And: The commitment to engage with the accumulating wisdom of the world, to study and to learn about the major developments in human knowledge, and to find ways of ensuring that the developing wisdom of humanity in all its dimensions connects with and informs Jewish teaching.

Compelling Commitment Two: Sustaining the Jewish Community and repairing the world

The commitment to honour both those that have gone before us and those who are yet to be born, by becoming links in the chain of the generations of our people, and by maintaining, restoring and re-creating Jewish communal life in Britain, in Israel, and throughout the world.

And: The commitment to love not only our neighbours, but also the stranger in our midst; to liberate the oppressed, protect the vulnerable, and support the fallen; to pursue justice and to seek peace; to participate in the great task of Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world.

Compelling Commitment Three: The Eternal is our God and The Eternal is One

The commitment to explore the meaning of existence, to journey, to search, and to listen out for the voice of the Eternal, who calls each Jew to become part of Am Yisrael, the people who ‘struggle with God’, and to strive to sanctify Life each day through our actions and our relationships.

And: The commitment to acknowledge that the Eternal is One, and to work together with all the peoples of the world to recognise the essential unity of existence in all its diversity.

Unlike the traditional understanding of the ‘commandments’, these ‘compelling commitments’ offer a framework for our lives, without spelling out exactly what each and every Progressive Jew should be doing each and every moment of the day. It is the responsibility of each one of us to decide for ourselves, and in relation to those around us, how to put our sense of commitment into practice.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

DEDICATING THE FLAMES OF CHANUKKAH (5785-2024)

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

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

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

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

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

History

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

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

How to Kindle the Flames of Chanukkah

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

Dedicating the Flames of Chanukkah

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

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

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

Blessings, Prayer & Song

Light the ‘servant’ candle, then recite:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recite only on the first night:

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

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

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

After the candles are lit, say:

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

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

Then, sing Ma’oz Tzur:

מָעוֹז צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי לְךָ נָאֶה לְשַׁבֵּחַ

תִּכּוֹן בֵּית תְּפִלָּתִי וְשָׁם תּוֹדָה נְזַבֵּחַ

לְעֵת תָּכִין מַטְבֵּחַ מִצָּר הַמְנַבֵּח

אָז אֶגְמוֹר בְּשִׁיר מִזְמוֹר חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ

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

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

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

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

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

B’reishit: Becoming an Earthling and Embracing Coexistence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This blessing also has practical implications for the treatment of other creatures, and for the harnessing of the green life of the planet to human needs. For example, from a Jewish perspective, the dietary laws which are rooted in binary teaching concerning what may or may not be eaten, initially set out in the Book of Leviticus chapter 11, have been reframed in some circles to reflect ecological considerations. Kashrut, a noun based on the Hebrew root Kaf Shin Reish, means that which is ‘fit’. In recent years Jewish definitions of food fitness have expanded to include our responsibility for animal welfare and the environment, with organic, local, and free-range food production, and the need to protect species diversity, becoming major priorities.[1]

The observance of Shabbat provides another opportunity for practising coexistence. Caught up in the 24/7 culture of contemporary life, it is hard to set aside a day of complete cessation. But perhaps, as we face ecological devastation and climate catastrophe, as we count the cost of near-global industrialisation and reckless consumerism, as we begin to acknowledge our domination of all other life forms on the planet, as we run out of breath, we may begin to see in Shabbat an invitation to take a breath and rediscover ourselves as earthlings, and equally important, to give the Earth a rest, too. 1000 words

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

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

Simchat Torah 5785

‘We will dance again’
Defiance
From the pit of
Loss
Grief
Mourning
The night of
Dancing
Eclipsed
By a dawn of
Blood.

And now
The cycle has
Turned
One year on
Are we ready
To dance
Again?

The joy of Life
Does not yet
Lift our feet
Too much life
Lost
The impulse for Joy
Stolen
With the captives
Then
like them
Abandoned
In the long ache of
Waiting
Waiting.

But perhaps
Recalling our ancestors’
Long treks through
Every wilderness
We can
Rejoice
In the Torah
Rooted
Resilient
Through every raging
Uprooting storm
Grasp
Our ‘Tree of Life’
In our arms
And let our broken hearts
Beat out a dance?

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Yom Kippur 5785

Yom Kippur 5785

Yoma
‘The Day’
Out of the
Daylight of
Every day
A cave of a day
Glowing
In the white-blank
Glare
Of Eternity
Drawing us in
To its mysteries
Searching
Us out in its
Fierce gaze
A spotlight
Into our souls.

And yet
Even in the harsh
Light of scrutiny
Yoma
The Day
Shadowed
By the freight of
The past
The Day
Out of time
Burdened
By times
Furrowed in fear
And trembling
Trapped
In an attic
In a cellar
In a ghetto
Crammed with deportees
In a camp
Cloaked
With the soot
And stench
Of smoking chimneys
In bomb-shelters
When sirens roared
Enemy attack
In the midst of
The sacred rites.

And now
This past year
That began
In depravity
Massacre
Violation
On October 7
The call to
‘Choose Life!’
Hollowed out
By the
Howl of
Death
Destruction.

And
In the rock of The Day
That has survived
With all its burdens
Preserved by our
Fidelity
To its hallowed
Purpose
Cracks
Fissures
That can only
Be sealed
By our commitment
To choose
Life
Once again.

Sukkot 5785

Festival of ‘Tabernacles’
And ‘Ingathering’
Season of
Temporary
Shelters
Set up in fields
At harvest time
This year
Reaping
The harvest of
Twelve months of
Destruction.

Burnt-out
Homes in
Shattered
Kibbutzim
Village-islands of
Collective
Life
Labour
Democracy
Their
Surviving
Battered
Inhabitants
Scattered
To live
Temporarily
Elsewhere.

And
In another
Elsewhere
Flimsy tents
Temporary
Shelters
In the rubble
Ruined
Homes
Schools
Hospitals
Open to the elements
Their battered inhabitants
Wanderers
In the wilderness of
Concrete and dust
Carrying their lives
On their backs
As they bear the pain of
Endless
Displacement.

And all this
Devastation
Defying
The ever-present
Gaze of
The Eternal
Summoned
By our hands
Grasping
Palm-branch
Willow
Myrtle
Fragrant etrog
And waving
Nature’s bounty
In all directions
East
South
West
North
Heavenwards
And towards the
Gasping
Blasted
Earth.

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