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OF WORDS AND THINGS AND THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ACT | Shabbat Morning sermon

When groups of non-Jews visit the synagogue, they often ask me how I would sum up what is distinctive about Judaism and Jewish life. Well, Jews very rarely get together without food being part of the proceedings. But then, we’re not entirely unique in this respect. Jews are also very family-orientated. But then again, so are people from other religions, ethnicities and cultures. What I usually say in response to this question is that Jews have a love affair with books – not just with one book, the Torah, but with many, many books; and that what we have done for millennia is generate book after book after book.

Five years ago, Israeli writer Amos Oz and his daughter, Fania Oz-Salzberger, who is a historian, published a wonderful book, entitled, jews and words.[1] Let me share with you their opening paragraphs:[2]

Jewish continuity has always hinged on uttered and written words, and expanding interpretations, debates, and disagreements, and on a unique human rapport. In the synagogue, at school, and most of all in the home, it has always involved two or three generations deep in conversation.

Ours is not a bloodline but a textline. There is a tangible sense in which Abraham and Sarah, Rabban Yohanan, Glikl of Hameln, and the present authors belong to the same family tree. Such continuity has recently been disputed: there is no such thing as a “Jewish nation”, we are told, before modern ideologues deviously dreamed it up. Well, we disagree. Not because we are nationalists. One purpose of this book is to reclaim our ancestry, but another is to explain what kind of ancestry, in our view, is worth the effort of reclaiming.

We are not about stones, clans, or chromosomes. You don’t have to be an archaeologist, an anthropologist, or a geneticist to trace and substantiate the Jewish continuum. You don’t have to be an observant Jew. You don’t have to be a Jew. Or, for that matter, an anti-Semite. All you have to be is a reader.

So, at the heart of Jewish life: books and reading. This week, we open a new book of the Torah; the fifth and final book. It is known to most people as Deuteronomy; a name derived from the late Latin word, Deuteronomium, which is itself derived from the Greek, Deueronomion, literally,’ second law’; a combination of deuteros, ‘second’ and nomos, ‘law’.[3] This Latin/Greek name tells us that this final book includes a repetition of laws found elsewhere in the Torah. According to the biblical account, the book was discovered during the reign of King Josiah of Judah in 628 BCE,[4] although critical analysis suggests that it was may have been composed at that time as part of a campaign by Josiah to return his backsliding people to obedience to God.

The Hebrew name of the book, D’varim, like the names of all the books of each of the 54 portions of the Torah, recalls the first word that distinguishes the book and the portion that bears the same name. So, the first verse begins: Eilleh ha-d’varim asher dibbeir Moshe el-kol-Yisraeil b’eiver Yardein… – ‘These are the words which Moses spoke to Israel beyond the Jordan.’ D’varim – singular, davar – means ‘words’. Curiously, it also means, ‘things’. More of that in a moment.

As Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger remind us, Jewish life is saturated with words. Of course, first and foremost we think of texts: the Torah, the Mishnah, its companion, the Tosefta, the Talmud – both the Jerusalem and Babylonian versions – the numerous collections of midrashim – the commentaries on the Torah – and the various law codes created in order to make it easier to access the rules and regulations embedded in the Talmud, which, especially in its Babylonian edition, is a complex multi-vocal document. [5]

So many texts! No wonder, so many Jews wear glasses! But before words were written down, they were simply spoken. Significantly, the Hebrew root for ‘reading’, Kuf Reish Alef also means, ‘calling’. At the very beginning of the Torah, the first account of creation comes to life, when ‘the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters’, becomes a voice: “God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. / And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called to the light ‘Day’ and called to the darkness, ‘Night’. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”[6] It is very easy when we read these words to miss the fact that the voice that uttered, ‘Let there be light’, also uttered the names ‘Day’ and ‘Night’. Again: ‘God called to the light, ‘Day’ and called to the darkness, ‘Night’.’

Throughout the Torah, speaking is paramount, and the transmission of the laws is primarily related in the form of speech – starting, famously, with what we know as ‘the Ten Commandments’, described more accurately in the Hebrew as Aseret Ha-Dibbrot, ‘the Ten Utterances’. Aseret Ha-Dibbrot begin with this phrase: Va-y’dabbeir Elohim eit kol-ha’dv’arim ha-eilleh, leimor… – ‘Then God spoke all these words, saying: …’ [7]

We encounter our tradition via texts, but it was many centuries before words were committed to writing. And even then, texts were written by scribes, those with the skill to read and write, on parchment in the form of scrolls. Ordinary people only had access to these texts by listening to them being read to them – that is, called out to them. The Book of Nehemiah records that after the return from Babylon, that is c. 538 BCE, following the repair of the walls of Jerusalem, Ezra the scribe, who was also a priest, gathered the people together at the Watergate in Jerusalem, on the ‘first day of the seventh month’, where he read to them from seifer Torat Moshe – the book of the Torah of Moses.[8] Let me quote from the text, which relates how Ezra ‘called’ out the book to the people:

Then Ezra the priest brought the Torah before the assembly – ha-kahal – both men and women, and all that could discern to listen, on the first day of the seventh month. / And he read from it before the broad place, which is before the Watergate from first light until midday, in the presence of the men and women, and of those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Torah. / And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood which had been made for the purpose…

Perhaps, it was there in that moment that the tradition of the public Torah reading and the sermon began!

I mentioned earlier that d’varim also means ‘things’. At first sight, ‘words’ and ‘things’ seem utterly different. But when we think about the relationship of spoken words with text in Jewish tradition, we can see that words and things are inextricably related. First, there’s the obvious point that there is a thingy-ness about words, particularly when they are written down and become glossy ink on parchment – are illuminated, as in the mediaeval haggadot.[9] Words also have a power that can match material force. This is most evident when words are used to express curses. In ancient times, the utterance of curses virtually conjured up the grisly consequences described. In fact, in Orthodox communities to this day, the power of the curses in the Torah are considered so potent still that when they form part of the Torah reading, as they do in parashat Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy chapter 27, the Torah reader rushes through them in an undertone.[10] So much for the English saying that ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’!

There is also a deeper sense in which words – or rather the breath that infuses them – is tangibly connected with the materiality of the world. As we read in the second account of creation: ‘Then the Eternal God formed the human – ha-adam – out of the dust of the ground – ha-adamah – and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life – nishmat chayyim – and the human became a living being – nefesh chayyah.’[11] As the first creation narrative makes clear, the other creatures are also living beings.[12] But unlike the other creatures, human beings use the breath of life to speak. And so, just as Genesis chapter 1 relates that God speaks the different elements of creation into existence, we read in Genesis chapter 2 that the first human called out – Va-yikra – the names of all the animals in the quest to find a companion.[13] But it was to no avail. In designating their names, the human exerted power over the animals, and so in the very act of naming, failed to find a suitable companion.

Even more significant than the way in which the Torah describes the breath of the Divine materialising in the human, bringing the red mud of the ground to life, the numerous rules and regulations set out in the Torah – and repeated again in the book of Deuteronomy/D’varim – establish the indivisible connection between words and deeds. Every command is by definition a form of words to be translated into acts – both ritual and ethical. This is the whole purpose of ha-d’varim, ‘the words’ of the Torah, and in particular, of those articulated in the final book. And so, we read in verse 3 of the book: ‘And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month that Moses spoke to the Israelites according to all that the Eternal had commanded him to them.’ God spoke to Moses who spoke to the people, exhorting them to fulfil the commandments. In next week’s parashah, Va-etchannan, we find the second version of the Aseret Ha-Dibbrot, ‘the Ten Utterances’,[14] and also the paragraph that begins, Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad – ‘Listen! Israel: The Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One.’[15] A declaration of the oneness of the Eternal, this passage which has been included in the liturgy – both for recitation at home and in the synagogue – is a call to action; action which begins in the home, in particular with the teaching of children, and continues outside in the street.

There is no doubt that Jews are intoxicated with words and passionate about books, but reading and studying is supposed to galvanise us to act – at home, in the community, and in the wider world. This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised sexual acts in private between two men over the age of 21.[16] It was an important first step, which has been followed in more recent years by further steps leading to full equality for LGBT people in Britain. Meanwhile, in 75 countries, homosexuality is still illegal,[17] and LGBT people face discrimination and persecution. Indeed, in Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, those found guilty of homosexual acts face the death penalty, while in Nigeria and Iraq, LGBT people are executed even though the law does not require it.[18] In most of these places, religious texts are often used to justify oppressive practices – indeed, in some Jewish and many Christian denominations, the two biblical verses that proscribe sex between two men are still used in this way.[19] In recognising the inextricable connection between words and deeds in the Torah, it is also important for us to remember that our Jewish tradition of generating multiple interpretations eschews fundamentalist readings. As we read the Book of Deuteronomy/D’varim over the next few weeks and celebrate our gloriously rich tradition of words, let us also acknowledge our responsibility as Liberal Jews to continue to re-examine and develop Jewish teachings in the context of contemporary issues and concerns, and in the interests of extending human rights and increasing justice and peace throughout the world. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat D’varim, 29th July 2017 / 6th Av 5777

  1. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2012. ↑
  2. Ibid., pp.1-2 ↑
  3. www.etymonline.com ↑
  4. Josiah succeeded his father, Amon c. 638 BCE, when he was only eight years old (2 Kings 22:1). The discovery of seifer ha-Torah, ‘the book of the Torah’ by Hilkiah, the High Priest ten years later is recounted at 2 Kings 2:8ff. ↑
  5. I’ve mentioned the main examples of rabbinic literature. The Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, was edited c. 200 CE. The Tosefta (meaning, ‘addition’ or ‘supplement’), contains material supplementary to the Mishnah, and was edited around the same time. The Jerusalem Talmud (Y’rushalmi) was edited c. 400 CE. The Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) was edited c. 500 CE. The collections of midrash – both halakhic, focussing on legal sections of the Torah, and aggadic, focussing on the narratives of the Torah – are numerous and span several centuries, from c. 200 through the Middle Ages. The codes of law began to be developed from the 600s CE by the Geonim, the heads of the academies in Babylonia. The last code, accepted as authoritative throughout the Jewish world, once a mappah, ‘table-cloth’ of ‘glosses’ reflecting Ashkenazi (northern European) minhagim (customs) had been added by Ashkenazi authority, Moses Isserles, is the Shulchan Arukh (‘Prepared Table’) written by the Sephardi authority, Joseph Caro, and first published in 1565. ↑
  6. B’reishit/Genesis 1:3-5. ↑
  7. Mishpatim/Exodus 20:1. ↑
  8. Nehemiah 8:7:73b-8:8. ↑
  9. For example, the Golden Haggadah, created around 1320, in or near Barcelona, which may be viewed at the British Library http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/golden.html ↑
  10. Ki Tavo/ Deut. 27:11-26. ↑
  11. B’reishit/Genesis 2:7. ↑
  12. B’reishit/Genesis 1:20-21. ↑
  13. Be’eishit/Gen. 2:20 ↑
  14. Va-etchannan/Deut. 5:1-18. ↑
  15. Va-etchannan/ Deut. 6:4-9. ↑
  16. http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/sexual-offences-act/ ↑
  17. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/where-is-it-illegal-to-be-homosexual-and-which-is-the-most-deadly-country-to-be-gay-10355338.html ↑
  18. Ibid. ↑
  19. Acharei Mot/Leviticus 18:22 and K’doshim/Lev. 20:13. ↑

REMEMBERING RABBI LIONEL BLUE, Z”L

The tribute I gave in honour of the late Rabbi Lionel Blue, Z”L, at the Erev Pride Erev Shabbat service held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London.

This evening, at our erev Pride Erev Shabbat service, I have been invited to pay tribute to Rabbi Lionel Blue, zichrono livrachah, may his memory be for blessing, who died on December 19, 2016. Lionel often attended this annual service, and was for us all, in particular, for the members of the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group, the father-figure for Rainbow Jews.

I have been asked to speak about Lionel this evening because I knew him for over thirty years. I first met Lionel towards the end of 1983, when I was thinking about applying for the rabbinic programme at the Leo Baeck College. At that time Lionel, who was ordained in 1958, nine years before homosexuality ceased to be illegal in Britain, was not just the first gay Rabbi in Britain, he was the only gay Rabbi. Perhaps there were others, who hadn’t spoken publicly about being gay. Lionel had – at least in the context of his interfaith work. In 1981, he gave a lecture about being ‘Godly and Gay’ to the Gay Christian Movement.[1]

As it happens, in a sense I only met Lionel by accident. A meeting with another teacher at the college, concluded with the words: ‘I think it might be an idea for you to go and see my colleague, Lionel Blue; he’s quite good at detecting hidden talent.’ And so, I did – and we hit it off immediately. Having both been Marxists in our student days – he at Balliol College, Oxford, me at LSE – we discussed our journeys since that time, and as we spoke together, it became clear that he had been an outsider who had become an insider, and that was something I wanted, too.

So, that meeting turned out to be momentous. In particular, in view of the fact that I wasn’t the only lesbian feminist to decide to apply to the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme. At the week of interviews in February 1984, the college was confronted by two lesbian feminists: Sheila Shulman and me. Sadly, Sheila, Zichronah livrachah, died on 25 October 2014, shortly after we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our ordinations. Back in 1984, the progressive movements that sponsor the college were sceptical about the acceptability of lesbians as rabbis, so, when we embarked on our rabbinic studies in October, we were both put on five-year probation – that is, we were told that we could be asked to leave at any point during the five-year long period of rabbinic training.

Lionel became my tutor. But he wasn’t the kind of tutor, who arranged formal appointments with you in his office – which happened to be at the Reform Beit Din, which he served as Convenor. And so, towards the end of my first term, Lionel informed me that in January he was going to take me to a weekend retreat for Catholic novice nuns at Spode, a Dominican Priory, where he wanted me to lead Erev Shabbat at the dinner table.

It was a lot to get my head around. I knew, of course, that Lionel was deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, but I didn’t quite understand the connection between a retreat for young novice nuns and making Shabbat. The thought of it all gave me a headache: what could I, a lesbian feminist, aged 29, whose journey into the rabbinate was as much political as spiritual, have to say to 18-year-olds, so certain of their faith that they were prepared to make a lifelong commitment, involving vows of chastity, poverty and obedience? But that wasn’t my only problem. My experience of Erev Shabbat was limited to lighting the candles. I did not know any of the other blessings. Fortunately, Rabbi Barbara Borts, who had supported my application to the College, made me a tape, and I spent part of the winter break, learning to sing them all.

The retreat experience turned out to be just as unnerving as I had anticipated, with the young women gazing at me in bewilderment with their clear eyes. Their ardent fervour made me think – which is exactly what Lionel hoped it would do. But that wasn’t all that gave me pause for thought. Virtually teetotal, I was rather taken aback by the amount of alcohol consumed by the monks in the Priory bar each evening, as they joked and chatted together. And I’ll never forget how Lionel inducted me into my first experience of Christian prayer within a religious community. Before we went into our first service, he said to me: ‘Now, it’s completely up to you how much you join in with. I love a good hymn.’ As Lionel put it on several occasions, ‘Judaism is my religious home, not my religious prison.’

Lionel continued to challenge me during those five years. I also challenged him. Having experienced being gay during the long, difficult years before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ensured that sex between two adult men in private was no longer a crime, he couldn’t quite understand why I insisted on being so open about my sexuality. He felt that everything would be so much easier for me, if I didn’t ‘make such an issue of it’. Nevertheless, although Lionel didn’t quite know how to handle an outspoken radical feminist lesbian, he supported me steadfastly throughout my training, and when I asked him to ordain me, he beamed and said, yes.

In addition to being my tutor, Lionel also took the second-year rabbinic students for a weekly session on ‘prayer’, which proved to be an eclectic introduction to the teachings of a number of key influences on his thinking, including, in particular, Simone Weil, a French philosopher and political activist, who died in 1943, aged 34. Born Jewish, Simone Weil later converted to Catholicism and became a mystic, practising a fierce asceticism.[2] We read excerpts from a collection of her writings, Gateway to God. Two short quotations – one from a publication of her First and Last Notebooks,[3] the other from her book, Gravity and Grace[4] – sum-up what Lionel was trying to teach the rather worldly rabbinic students, who sat around him: ‘Attention is the rarest and purist form of generosity’; and: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ Lionel wrote some beautiful prayers, which adorn the prayer books of Reform Judaism,[5] but more important, he was able to pray with all of who he was – emotionally and bodily as well as spiritually.

Why am I telling you about Lionel the teacher of prayer, who found inspiration as much in Christian spirituality as in Jewish teaching, this evening at this celebration of LGBTQ Jewish life? Because I think that if we are going to really understand Lionel’s contribution, it’s important for us to acknowledge that he wasn’t just a gay icon to us, as he wasn’t just the gentle voice of wisdom to the millions who listened to his Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ on Monday mornings, as they faced the week ahead. Lionel reached into the depths – the depths of his own heart; the depths of the hearts of others. He embraced his sexuality and he also embraced his spirituality. He revelled in the joys of the flesh and loved nothing better than to be in his kitchen conjuring up a delicious spread, and he was also able to inhabit utter stillness. In the 1990s when I was Director of Programmes for Reform Judaism, I organised with Lionel and another colleague, Rabbi Howard Cooper, a series of three annual weekend retreats. During these retreats, we spent a full hour each day, just sitting in silence with one another. Most people found it incredibly challenging, but Lionel was just simply in his element.

Lionel taught us to be all of who we are. That is his chief legacy. And to see our sexuality as a gift for ourselves and for the world. In his 1981 lecture, ‘Godly and Gay’, Lionel spoke of a ‘gay vocation’. Let me quote from this section of his address:[6]

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Through gay people God heals some of the divisions of the world. The difficulties and rejections which gays experience transcend the division of race, religion, colour and class, as any gay gathering can show. In this country, where class is so entrenched, this is truly a wonder. I’ve seen Arabs and Jews brought together, Germans and Poles, conservatives and communists. It was attraction, not ideology, which provided the occasion and brought some understanding and the seed of love. Authoritarians do not care for gays. They do not like their straying habits.

God can also use gays to heal some of the scars of a sexist society. It is natural to hate being persecuted, it is supernatural to hate being the persecutor even more. We should thank God, that though straights have burnt gays in the past, and still threaten stoning and occasionally practice it, gays have no desire to retaliate in kind. In my own experience, many hurt heteros turn to gays, for they bring no threat, only healing. So God’s work is done through them. Gays can build a bridge of understanding and sympathy between the sexes if they’re allowed to, and if they are willing to come out of their own ghetto.

During the past thirty-six years since Lionel spoke these words, the vocabulary of sexuality and gender has expanded beyond ‘gay’ to encompass lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex. Moreover, Rainbow Jews, at least, have come out of the ghetto. 20% of the combined progressive rabbinate in Britain is now LGBTQ+,[7] and alongside Civil Marriage equality, LGBTQ+ Jewish couples can now marry under a chuppah in Liberal and Reform synagogues – and those in mixed relationships can have blessing ceremonies in Liberal shuls. More recently, through Liberal Judaism supported projects such as Twilight People,[8] we have begun to acknowledge the experience of transgender people. But, importantly, when Lionel spoke to that Gay Christian Movement gathering in 1981, he wasn’t just making a plea for equality and inclusion, he understood that the experience of being LGBTQ+ was a special gift we can offer to the wider society.

Lionel always spoke from his heart, his soul and his gut; from his experience as a gay man, as a Jew, and as a human being who connected with other human beings wherever they were. A person with the capacity to reach out the hand of friendship to others, in particular, to the wounded and the broken, Lionel didn’t just do this in his public work. He was incredibly hospitable. Wayfarers and friends were always welcome to the home he shared with his beloved, Jim, Zichrono livrachah, who sadly died in June 2014, shortly before the erev Pride Service that year. Completely unpretentious, Lionel was honest and real. He was also full of humour, and would have chuckled at the thought that his obituaries in the print editions of The Times and The Guardian, would appear directly after those devoted to Zsa Zsa Gabor, who died the day before he did, with whom he shared a birthday – and who, like him, had had a formidable Jewish mother.[9]

As we remember Lionel today and feel sad that he is no longer amongst us, let us also take a moment to smile and laugh and give thanks for his wisdom, his example, and for the many gifts of himself that Lionel shared with us and with others. Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be a source of abundant blessing for all our lives. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7th July 2017 – 14th Tammuz 5777

  1. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
  2. 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
  3. Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
  4. A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
  5. See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
  6. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
  7. As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
  8. http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
  9. Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

This evening, at our erev Pride Erev Shabbat service, I have been invited to pay tribute to Rabbi Lionel Blue, zichrono livrachah, may his memory be for blessing, who died on December 19, 2016. Lionel often attended this annual service, and was for us all, in particular, for the members of the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group, the father-figure for Rainbow Jews.

I have been asked to speak about Lionel this evening because I knew him for over thirty years. I first met Lionel towards the end of 1983, when I was thinking about applying for the rabbinic programme at the Leo Baeck College. At that time Lionel, who was ordained in 1958, nine years before homosexuality ceased to be illegal in Britain, was not just the first gay Rabbi in Britain, he was the only gay Rabbi. Perhaps there were others, who hadn’t spoken publicly about being gay. Lionel had – at least in the context of his interfaith work. In 1981, he gave a lecture about being ‘Godly and Gay’ to the Gay Christian Movement.[1]

As it happens, in a sense I only met Lionel by accident. A meeting with another teacher at the college, concluded with the words: ‘I think it might be an idea for you to go and see my colleague, Lionel Blue; he’s quite good at detecting hidden talent.’ And so, I did – and we hit it off immediately. Having both been Marxists in our student days – he at Balliol College, Oxford, me at LSE – we discussed our journeys since that time, and as we spoke together, it became clear that he had been an outsider who had become an insider, and that was something I wanted, too.

So, that meeting turned out to be momentous. In particular, in view of the fact that I wasn’t the only lesbian feminist to decide to apply to the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme. At the week of interviews in February 1984, the college was confronted by two lesbian feminists: Sheila Shulman and me. Sadly, Sheila, Zichronah livrachah, died on 25 October 2014, shortly after we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our ordinations. Back in 1984, the progressive movements that sponsor the college were sceptical about the acceptability of lesbians as rabbis, so, when we embarked on our rabbinic studies in October, we were both put on five-year probation – that is, we were told that we could be asked to leave at any point during the five-year long period of rabbinic training.

Lionel became my tutor. But he wasn’t the kind of tutor, who arranged formal appointments with you in his office – which happened to be at the Reform Beit Din, which he served as Convenor. And so, towards the end of my first term, Lionel informed me that in January he was going to take me to a weekend retreat for Catholic novice nuns at Spode, a Dominican Priory, where he wanted me to lead Erev Shabbat at the dinner table.

It was a lot to get my head around. I knew, of course, that Lionel was deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, but I didn’t quite understand the connection between a retreat for young novice nuns and making Shabbat. The thought of it all gave me a headache: what could I, a lesbian feminist, aged 29, whose journey into the rabbinate was as much political as spiritual, have to say to 18-year-olds, so certain of their faith that they were prepared to make a lifelong commitment, involving vows of chastity, poverty and obedience? But that wasn’t my only problem. My experience of Erev Shabbat was limited to lighting the candles. I did not know any of the other blessings. Fortunately, Rabbi Barbara Borts, who had supported my application to the College, made me a tape, and I spent part of the winter break, learning to sing them all.

The retreat experience turned out to be just as unnerving as I had anticipated, with the young women gazing at me in bewilderment with their clear eyes. Their ardent fervour made me think – which is exactly what Lionel hoped it would do. But that wasn’t all that gave me pause for thought. Virtually teetotal, I was rather taken aback by the amount of alcohol consumed by the monks in the Priory bar each evening, as they joked and chatted together. And I’ll never forget how Lionel inducted me into my first experience of Christian prayer within a religious community. Before we went into our first service, he said to me: ‘Now, it’s completely up to you how much you join in with. I love a good hymn.’ As Lionel put it on several occasions, ‘Judaism is my religious home, not my religious prison.’

Lionel continued to challenge me during those five years. I also challenged him. Having experienced being gay during the long, difficult years before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ensured that sex between two adult men in private was no longer a crime, he couldn’t quite understand why I insisted on being so open about my sexuality. He felt that everything would be so much easier for me, if I didn’t ‘make such an issue of it’. Nevertheless, although Lionel didn’t quite know how to handle an outspoken radical feminist lesbian, he supported me steadfastly throughout my training, and when I asked him to ordain me, he beamed and said, yes.

In addition to being my tutor, Lionel also took the second-year rabbinic students for a weekly session on ‘prayer’, which proved to be an eclectic introduction to the teachings of a number of key influences on his thinking, including, in particular, Simone Weil, a French philosopher and political activist, who died in 1943, aged 34. Born Jewish, Simone Weil later converted to Catholicism and became a mystic, practising a fierce asceticism.[2] We read excerpts from a collection of her writings, Gateway to God. Two short quotations – one from a publication of her First and Last Notebooks,[3] the other from her book, Gravity and Grace[4] – sum-up what Lionel was trying to teach the rather worldly rabbinic students, who sat around him: ‘Attention is the rarest and purist form of generosity’; and: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ Lionel wrote some beautiful prayers, which adorn the prayer books of Reform Judaism,[5] but more important, he was able to pray with all of who he was – emotionally and bodily as well as spiritually.

Why am I telling you about Lionel the teacher of prayer, who found inspiration as much in Christian spirituality as in Jewish teaching, this evening at this celebration of LGBTQ Jewish life? Because I think that if we are going to really understand Lionel’s contribution, it’s important for us to acknowledge that he wasn’t just a gay icon to us, as he wasn’t just the gentle voice of wisdom to the millions who listened to his Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ on Monday mornings, as they faced the week ahead. Lionel reached into the depths – the depths of his own heart; the depths of the hearts of others. He embraced his sexuality and he also embraced his spirituality. He revelled in the joys of the flesh and loved nothing better than to be in his kitchen conjuring up a delicious spread, and he was also able to inhabit utter stillness. In the 1990s when I was Director of Programmes for Reform Judaism, I organised with Lionel and another colleague, Rabbi Howard Cooper, a series of three annual weekend retreats. During these retreats, we spent a full hour each day, just sitting in silence with one another. Most people found it incredibly challenging, but Lionel was just simply in his element.

Lionel taught us to be all of who we are. That is his chief legacy. And to see our sexuality as a gift for ourselves and for the world. In his 1981 lecture, ‘Godly and Gay’, Lionel spoke of a ‘gay vocation’. Let me quote from this section of his address:[6]

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Through gay people God heals some of the divisions of the world. The difficulties and rejections which gays experience transcend the division of race, religion, colour and class, as any gay gathering can show. In this country, where class is so entrenched, this is truly a wonder. I’ve seen Arabs and Jews brought together, Germans and Poles, conservatives and communists. It was attraction, not ideology, which provided the occasion and brought some understanding and the seed of love. Authoritarians do not care for gays. They do not like their straying habits.

God can also use gays to heal some of the scars of a sexist society. It is natural to hate being persecuted, it is supernatural to hate being the persecutor even more. We should thank God, that though straights have burnt gays in the past, and still threaten stoning and occasionally practice it, gays have no desire to retaliate in kind. In my own experience, many hurt heteros turn to gays, for they bring no threat, only healing. So God’s work is done through them. Gays can build a bridge of understanding and sympathy between the sexes if they’re allowed to, and if they are willing to come out of their own ghetto.

During the past thirty-six years since Lionel spoke these words, the vocabulary of sexuality and gender has expanded beyond ‘gay’ to encompass lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex. Moreover, Rainbow Jews, at least, have come out of the ghetto. 20% of the combined progressive rabbinate in Britain is now LGBTQ+,[7] and alongside Civil Marriage equality, LGBTQ+ Jewish couples can now marry under a chuppah in Liberal and Reform synagogues – and those in mixed relationships can have blessing ceremonies in Liberal shuls. More recently, through Liberal Judaism supported projects such as Twilight People,[8] we have begun to acknowledge the experience of transgender people. But, importantly, when Lionel spoke to that Gay Christian Movement gathering in 1981, he wasn’t just making a plea for equality and inclusion, he understood that the experience of being LGBTQ+ was a special gift we can offer to the wider society.

Lionel always spoke from his heart, his soul and his gut; from his experience as a gay man, as a Jew, and as a human being who connected with other human beings wherever they were. A person with the capacity to reach out the hand of friendship to others, in particular, to the wounded and the broken, Lionel didn’t just do this in his public work. He was incredibly hospitable. Wayfarers and friends were always welcome to the home he shared with his beloved, Jim, Zichrono livrachah, who sadly died in June 2014, shortly before the erev Pride Service that year. Completely unpretentious, Lionel was honest and real. He was also full of humour, and would have chuckled at the thought that his obituaries in the print editions of The Times and The Guardian, would appear directly after those devoted to Zsa Zsa Gabor, who died the day before he did, with whom he shared a birthday – and who, like him, had had a formidable Jewish mother.[9]

As we remember Lionel today and feel sad that he is no longer amongst us, let us also take a moment to smile and laugh and give thanks for his wisdom, his example, and for the many gifts of himself that Lionel shared with us and with others. Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be a source of abundant blessing for all our lives. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7th July 2017 – 14th Tammuz 5777

  1. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
  2. 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
  3. Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
  4. A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
  5. See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
  6. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
  7. As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
  8. http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
  9. Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

This evening, at our erev Pride Erev Shabbat service, I have been invited to pay tribute to Rabbi Lionel Blue, zichrono livrachah, may his memory be for blessing, who died on December 19, 2016. Lionel often attended this annual service, and was for us all, in particular, for the members of the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group, the father-figure for Rainbow Jews.

I have been asked to speak about Lionel this evening because I knew him for over thirty years. I first met Lionel towards the end of 1983, when I was thinking about applying for the rabbinic programme at the Leo Baeck College. At that time Lionel, who was ordained in 1958, nine years before homosexuality ceased to be illegal in Britain, was not just the first gay Rabbi in Britain, he was the only gay Rabbi. Perhaps there were others, who hadn’t spoken publicly about being gay. Lionel had – at least in the context of his interfaith work. In 1981, he gave a lecture about being ‘Godly and Gay’ to the Gay Christian Movement.[1]

As it happens, in a sense I only met Lionel by accident. A meeting with another teacher at the college, concluded with the words: ‘I think it might be an idea for you to go and see my colleague, Lionel Blue; he’s quite good at detecting hidden talent.’ And so, I did – and we hit it off immediately. Having both been Marxists in our student days – he at Balliol College, Oxford, me at LSE – we discussed our journeys since that time, and as we spoke together, it became clear that he had been an outsider who had become an insider, and that was something I wanted, too.

So, that meeting turned out to be momentous. In particular, in view of the fact that I wasn’t the only lesbian feminist to decide to apply to the Leo Baeck College rabbinic programme. At the week of interviews in February 1984, the college was confronted by two lesbian feminists: Sheila Shulman and me. Sadly, Sheila, Zichronah livrachah, died on 25 October 2014, shortly after we celebrated the 25th anniversary of our ordinations. Back in 1984, the progressive movements that sponsor the college were sceptical about the acceptability of lesbians as rabbis, so, when we embarked on our rabbinic studies in October, we were both put on five-year probation – that is, we were told that we could be asked to leave at any point during the five-year long period of rabbinic training.

Lionel became my tutor. But he wasn’t the kind of tutor, who arranged formal appointments with you in his office – which happened to be at the Reform Beit Din, which he served as Convenor. And so, towards the end of my first term, Lionel informed me that in January he was going to take me to a weekend retreat for Catholic novice nuns at Spode, a Dominican Priory, where he wanted me to lead Erev Shabbat at the dinner table.

It was a lot to get my head around. I knew, of course, that Lionel was deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, but I didn’t quite understand the connection between a retreat for young novice nuns and making Shabbat. The thought of it all gave me a headache: what could I, a lesbian feminist, aged 29, whose journey into the rabbinate was as much political as spiritual, have to say to 18-year-olds, so certain of their faith that they were prepared to make a lifelong commitment, involving vows of chastity, poverty and obedience? But that wasn’t my only problem. My experience of Erev Shabbat was limited to lighting the candles. I did not know any of the other blessings. Fortunately, Rabbi Barbara Borts, who had supported my application to the College, made me a tape, and I spent part of the winter break, learning to sing them all.

The retreat experience turned out to be just as unnerving as I had anticipated, with the young women gazing at me in bewilderment with their clear eyes. Their ardent fervour made me think – which is exactly what Lionel hoped it would do. But that wasn’t all that gave me pause for thought. Virtually teetotal, I was rather taken aback by the amount of alcohol consumed by the monks in the Priory bar each evening, as they joked and chatted together. And I’ll never forget how Lionel inducted me into my first experience of Christian prayer within a religious community. Before we went into our first service, he said to me: ‘Now, it’s completely up to you how much you join in with. I love a good hymn.’ As Lionel put it on several occasions, ‘Judaism is my religious home, not my religious prison.’

Lionel continued to challenge me during those five years. I also challenged him. Having experienced being gay during the long, difficult years before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 ensured that sex between two adult men in private was no longer a crime, he couldn’t quite understand why I insisted on being so open about my sexuality. He felt that everything would be so much easier for me, if I didn’t ‘make such an issue of it’. Nevertheless, although Lionel didn’t quite know how to handle an outspoken radical feminist lesbian, he supported me steadfastly throughout my training, and when I asked him to ordain me, he beamed and said, yes.

In addition to being my tutor, Lionel also took the second-year rabbinic students for a weekly session on ‘prayer’, which proved to be an eclectic introduction to the teachings of a number of key influences on his thinking, including, in particular, Simone Weil, a French philosopher and political activist, who died in 1943, aged 34. Born Jewish, Simone Weil later converted to Catholicism and became a mystic, practising a fierce asceticism.[2] We read excerpts from a collection of her writings, Gateway to God. Two short quotations – one from a publication of her First and Last Notebooks,[3] the other from her book, Gravity and Grace[4] – sum-up what Lionel was trying to teach the rather worldly rabbinic students, who sat around him: ‘Attention is the rarest and purist form of generosity’; and: ‘Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’ Lionel wrote some beautiful prayers, which adorn the prayer books of Reform Judaism,[5] but more important, he was able to pray with all of who he was – emotionally and bodily as well as spiritually.

Why am I telling you about Lionel the teacher of prayer, who found inspiration as much in Christian spirituality as in Jewish teaching, this evening at this celebration of LGBTQ Jewish life? Because I think that if we are going to really understand Lionel’s contribution, it’s important for us to acknowledge that he wasn’t just a gay icon to us, as he wasn’t just the gentle voice of wisdom to the millions who listened to his Radio 4 ‘Thought for the Day’ on Monday mornings, as they faced the week ahead. Lionel reached into the depths – the depths of his own heart; the depths of the hearts of others. He embraced his sexuality and he also embraced his spirituality. He revelled in the joys of the flesh and loved nothing better than to be in his kitchen conjuring up a delicious spread, and he was also able to inhabit utter stillness. In the 1990s when I was Director of Programmes for Reform Judaism, I organised with Lionel and another colleague, Rabbi Howard Cooper, a series of three annual weekend retreats. During these retreats, we spent a full hour each day, just sitting in silence with one another. Most people found it incredibly challenging, but Lionel was just simply in his element.

Lionel taught us to be all of who we are. That is his chief legacy. And to see our sexuality as a gift for ourselves and for the world. In his 1981 lecture, ‘Godly and Gay’, Lionel spoke of a ‘gay vocation’. Let me quote from this section of his address:[6]

If gay people examine their lives, they can thank God for many things which they can use for the growth of goodness within them, and for the well-being of others.

Through gay people God heals some of the divisions of the world. The difficulties and rejections which gays experience transcend the division of race, religion, colour and class, as any gay gathering can show. In this country, where class is so entrenched, this is truly a wonder. I’ve seen Arabs and Jews brought together, Germans and Poles, conservatives and communists. It was attraction, not ideology, which provided the occasion and brought some understanding and the seed of love. Authoritarians do not care for gays. They do not like their straying habits.

God can also use gays to heal some of the scars of a sexist society. It is natural to hate being persecuted, it is supernatural to hate being the persecutor even more. We should thank God, that though straights have burnt gays in the past, and still threaten stoning and occasionally practice it, gays have no desire to retaliate in kind. In my own experience, many hurt heteros turn to gays, for they bring no threat, only healing. So God’s work is done through them. Gays can build a bridge of understanding and sympathy between the sexes if they’re allowed to, and if they are willing to come out of their own ghetto.

During the past thirty-six years since Lionel spoke these words, the vocabulary of sexuality and gender has expanded beyond ‘gay’ to encompass lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex. Moreover, Rainbow Jews, at least, have come out of the ghetto. 20% of the combined progressive rabbinate in Britain is now LGBTQ+,[7] and alongside Civil Marriage equality, LGBTQ+ Jewish couples can now marry under a chuppah in Liberal and Reform synagogues – and those in mixed relationships can have blessing ceremonies in Liberal shuls. More recently, through Liberal Judaism supported projects such as Twilight People,[8] we have begun to acknowledge the experience of transgender people. But, importantly, when Lionel spoke to that Gay Christian Movement gathering in 1981, he wasn’t just making a plea for equality and inclusion, he understood that the experience of being LGBTQ+ was a special gift we can offer to the wider society.

Lionel always spoke from his heart, his soul and his gut; from his experience as a gay man, as a Jew, and as a human being who connected with other human beings wherever they were. A person with the capacity to reach out the hand of friendship to others, in particular, to the wounded and the broken, Lionel didn’t just do this in his public work. He was incredibly hospitable. Wayfarers and friends were always welcome to the home he shared with his beloved, Jim, Zichrono livrachah, who sadly died in June 2014, shortly before the erev Pride Service that year. Completely unpretentious, Lionel was honest and real. He was also full of humour, and would have chuckled at the thought that his obituaries in the print editions of The Times and The Guardian, would appear directly after those devoted to Zsa Zsa Gabor, who died the day before he did, with whom he shared a birthday – and who, like him, had had a formidable Jewish mother.[9]

As we remember Lionel today and feel sad that he is no longer amongst us, let us also take a moment to smile and laugh and give thanks for his wisdom, his example, and for the many gifts of himself that Lionel shared with us and with others. Zichrono livrachah – May his memory be a source of abundant blessing for all our lives. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Erev Pride Erev Shabbat Service

Liberal Jewish Synagogue

7th July 2017 – 14th Tammuz 5777

  1. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay. The Fourth Michael Harding Memorial Address, Gay Christian Movement, London, 1981. ↑
  2. 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943. See Haaretz, 24 August 2015: This Day in Jewish History, 1943 ‘God Isn’t Dead, He’s Silent’: Simone Weil Dies, Very Young. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.672507 See also: Susan Sontag’s review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil (translated by Richard Rees, Oxford University Press) in The New York Review of Books, 1 February 1963. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/ ↑
  3. Translated by Richard Rees (Oxford University Press, 1970). ↑
  4. A ‘Routledge Classic’. First published in 1952. ↑
  5. See, in particular, Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook (RSGB, London, 1977) and Vol. 3, Days of Awe (RSGB, London, 1985). ↑
  6. Rabbi Lionel Blue, Godly and Gay, 1981, pp. 6-7. ↑
  7. As of 2017, 17 LGBTQ+ rabbis have been ordained under Leo Baeck College auspices: Lionel Blue (1958), Sheila Shulman, Z”L (1989), Elli Tikvah Sarah (1989), Indigo Jonah Raphael [Melinda Michelson Carr] (1996), Alex Dukhovny (1999), Erlene Wahlhaus, Z”L (1999), Michael Pertz (2000), James Baaden (2001), Irit Shillor (2002), Shulamit Ambalu (2004), Judith Levitt (2009), David Mitchell (2009). Judith Rosen-Berry (2009) Anna Gerrard (2011) Rene Pfertzel (2014) Emily Jurman (2015), and Daniel Lichman (2017). A further 4 LGBTQ+ rabbis, ordained elsewhere, have served/serve the British Jewish community: Mark Solomon, Roderick Young, Ariel Friedlander, and Hillel Athias-Robles, who is now in New York. ↑
  8. http://www.twilightpeople.com/ ↑
  9. Zsa Zsa Gabor: 6 February 1917 – 18 December 2016; Lionel Blue: 6 February 1930 – 19 December 2016. ↑

The Left, Israel/Palestine and Anti-Semitism: Changing the Conversation

I participated in a meeting meeting in Central London on 28.06.17 about ‘The Left, Israel/Palestine and Anti-Semitism: Changing the Conversation.’ It involved members of Jews for Justice for the Palestinians, Independent Jewish Voices and the Jewish Socialist Group. I contributed to a panel of three speakers. The other speakers were Julia Bard of the JSG and Dr Brian Klug, who teaches Philosophy at St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford.

Good evening everyone, and thank you for inviting me to participate in this meeting. I would like to contribute to our discussion about how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by inviting us to think about how we might move away from a binary approach to the issues. In the interests of the Palestinians, who have been subjected to occupation for the past 50 years, all those who want a just resolution to the conflict are challenged to acknowledge that such a resolution will only be achieved on the basis of justice, peace and security for both peoples.

In the interests of avoiding binary conceptions, I would like to start by reminding us of the variety of Jewish responses to the conditions of Jewish existence in the late 19th century, when Zionism emerged as a political movement in Europe in response to anti-Semitism. For Theodore Herzl and other exponents of political Zionism, the establishment of a Jewish state was the only solution to the persistence of anti-Jewish persecution in the diaspora.[1] Nevertheless, there were at that time three major alternative approaches:

Many orthodox groups remained committed to life in the Diaspora and opposed Zionism because as they saw it, the redemption of Zion was dependent on the Divine will and the coming of the Messiah.

Jewish Socialism, as articulated by the Bund – shorthand for the General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia – rejected Jewish nationalism in favour of international socialism.

Progressive Judaism argued that the people of Israel best fulfils the prophetic vision of being ‘a light unto the nations’[2] by living amongst the nations.[3]

So, Jews spoke with many voices – and we continue to do so. While Jewish Socialism’s opposition to Jewish nationalism has remained fairly constant since the late 19th century, approaches within Orthodox and Progressive Judaism have become more diversified – for the most part in response to the 1967 Six Day War. And so, the past 50 years has seen ultra-Zionist religious zealots holding sway among the West Bank settlers, and the development of Progressive Zionism, which at one end of the spectrum is reluctant to publicly criticise Israeli policy, and at the other, is actively involved in challenging the occupation and campaigning for a two-state solution.

Jewish life is nothing if not extremely complex! That complexity has its roots in complex, multifaceted Jewish experience. It also has its roots in Jewish teaching. Jewish teaching is multi-vocal. Look at a page of the Mikra’ot G’dolot, the ‘great commentaries’ on the Hebrew Bible, or a page of the Babylonian Talmud, and you will find a host of interpretations and perspectives. Literalism and fundamentalism are anathema to Jewish teaching. As the saying goes, two Jews, three opinions. This has always been the way of Jewish life.

And so, there are many Zionisms, just as there are many expressions of Judaism and Jewish identity. Varieties of Zionism within ‘Zionism’, with different goals and different approaches to the Palestinians.

But before I say more about that, I would like to approach the question of how we can change the conversation concerning the left, Israel/Palestine and anti-Semitism by acknowledging an issue that precedes the Left’s exclusive presentation of Zionism as colonialism; an issue rooted in Christian anti-Semitism and in Christendom – that is, Christianity wedded to imperial power, which was the outcome of Roman Emperor Constantine converting to Christianity in the early 300s CE.[4] Seen through the lens of historic Christian supremacist triumphalism, the Christian case against Judaism has been presented by a set of binary oppositions: Jewish law versus Christian love; Jewish justice versus Christian mercy; Jewish particularism versus Christian universalism. In reality, however, Jewish teaching embraces law and love, justice and mercy, particularism and universalism: a particular piece of land and the whole world. And so, just as the Jewish people is part of humanity, the particular bond between the Jewish people and the land forms an integral part of the Torah, of the unique history of the Jewish people and of Jewish identity for many Jews.[5] Jews are a people of the world and a people connected to a particular land. Both. Contrary to popular myth, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE by the Romans, Jews continued to live in the land, where the rabbis reconstructed Jewish life and teaching for a post-Temple era, culminating in the production of the Jerusalem Talmud, which was edited around the year 400.[6] Moreover, a remnant continued to live there, mostly in Jerusalem, during the succeeding centuries. Meanwhile, vibrant Jewish life continued in other centres of Jewish existence – in particular in Babylon, present-day Iraq, where the Babylonian Talmud was edited around the year 500. Down the centuries, Jews have lived in practically every corner of the earth, including in the land.

The Left’s demonisation of Israel reflects, both, the failure to acknowledge the roots of Zionism in Jewish experience, and the failure to acknowledge the complex diversity of Jewish points of view and the diversity of Jewish life.

Now I would like to say something more about plural Zionisms, which are an expression of this diversity. The first Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897. In 1925, largely in response to the Arab riots of 1921, Vladimir Jabotinsky established the Revisionist movement. An open split occurred at the 14th Zionist Congress in August 1925 between Jabotinsky’s confrontational approach towards the Arab inhabitants of the land, and the approach represented by Chaim Weitzman and others. At the Congress, Chaim Weizmann declared: [7]

In true friendship and partnership with the Arabs we must open the Near East to Jewish enterprise… Palestine must be built in such a way that legitimate Arab interests are not impinged upon in the slightest…- we must take Palestine as it is, with its sands and stones, Arabs and Jews as they are. That is our work. Anything else would be deception… We shall rise or fall by our work alone.

Another delegate at the Congress, Arthur Ruppin, expressed the need to acknowledge the Arab inhabitants of the land and work in partnership with them in even stronger terms:[8]

… there is the possibility… to establish in Palestine a community where both nations, with no ruling advantage to the one, nor oppression of the other, shall work shoulder to shoulder in full equality of rights towards the economic and cultural development of the country.

Arthur Ruppin became a founder member of Brit Shalom, ‘Covenant of Peace’, an organisation with a binational approach to Zionism, which held its first meeting in his house in mid-November 1925. Martin Buber, Robert Weltsch, Hans Kohn and Hugo Bergmann were also founder members. The clearest articulation of Brit Shalom’s form of Zionism is in the ‘open letter’ that Martin Buber wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939 in response to Mahatma Gandhi arguing that, and I quote, ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs’. Let me quote from the letter. Buber wrote:[9]

I belong to a group of people who from the time Britain conquered Palestine have not ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab.

By a genuine peace we inferred and still infer that both peoples together should develop the land without the one imposing its will on the other…. We considered it a fundamental point that in this case two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…

… We considered and still consider it our duty to understand and to honor the claim which is opposed to ours and to endeavor to reconcile both claims.

The continuing conflict, which included Arab riots in 1929 and 1936, marginalised the stance taken by Brit Shalom. Nevertheless it’s binational state platform was adopted by Mapam, the leftist United Workers Party in the 1940s, and in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the emergence of the Peace Now movement, once again brought different conceptions of Zionism to the fore, and in the years that followed there has been proliferation of groups concerned with working together with the Palestinians towards coexistence.

Some years ago, JfJfP asked me for a quotation from Jewish teaching to include in JfJfP literature. I chose this verse from the parashah – Torah portion – Shof’tim, Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 20: Tzedek, tzedk tirdof – ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’ Pithy and powerful this statement says so much in three short Hebrew words. In Hebrew syntax, the verb usually comes first. Here, the word ‘justice’ precedes the verb, and repeated for further emphasis, teaches that it is impossible to pursue justice for one side without pursuing justice for the other. The choice of verb, however, is equally important: tirdof – ‘you shall pursue’. Justice is so hard to achieve, we have to go after it. At the same time, we have to recognise that acknowledging, as Buber puts it, that ‘two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin which cannot objectively be pitted against one another and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just, which unjust…’, securing a just resolution to the conflict – either in the form of two states or one – will involve compromises on both sides in order to achieve peaceful coexistence.

In view of a complex reality in which there are many Zionisms, but one ongoing persistent problem, namely, the occupation and the continuing dispossession of the Palestinians, the task must be to pursue – to borrow that expression from the Torah – a just resolution of the conflict. In place of the overwhelming predominance of non-constructive anti-Zionist rhetoric and demonisation of Israel, what is needed now, as Sam Bahour and Tony Klug argue, is that, either, the occupation is dismantled, so that an independent State of Palestine can be established, or, the lands occupied by Israel are incorporated into Israel and equal citizenship rights granted to the Palestinians.[10]

Finally, in my article recently published in the American Jewish journal, Tikkun, in the special issue, ‘Israel’s Occupation at 50’, taking as my starting point that anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitic, I offer three criteria for identifying an anti-Zionist position as anti-Semitic:[11]

First: the unilateral rejection of Jewish nationalism alone among the nationalisms of the world, and the targeting of Zionism for special condemnation.

Second: this exclusive preoccupation with Israel and demonisation of the Jewish state becoming enmeshed with historic anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power.

Third: the presentation of Zionism as a form of European colonialism without any understanding or recognition of how the Zionist movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was a response to the rise of a new malevolent form of racist anti-Semitism in Europe.

For the Left to engage in a new kind of conversation about Israel/Palestine, one that does not get enmeshed in anti-Semitic tropes, a starting point would be recognition of the conditions of Jewish life in which political Zionism emerged.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

  1. See Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaaat (The Jewish State), first published in 1896, a year before the inaugural meeting of the Zionist Congress in Basle. ↑
  2. Isaiah 47:6. ↑
  3. The non-Zionist stance of early Progressive Judaism is expressed, for example, in paragraph 5 of ‘The Pittsburgh Platform’ of 1885: ‘We recognize, in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect, the approaching of the realization of Israel s great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.’ http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/platforms/declaration-principles/ ↑
  4. Emperor Constantine reigned from 306-337 CE. ↑
  5. From the moment that Abraham and Sarah set off on a journey to a land that the Eternal promised to ‘show’ them (Genesis 12:1) until the time when their descendants completed their journey through the wilderness and camped on the eastern border of the Jordan in readiness to cross over into the land (Numbers 36:13), the land frames the Torah narrative.↑
  6. The work of the first generations of rabbis, the tanna’im, ‘teachers’ led to the creation of the Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200 CE. ↑
  7. Protocols of Fourteenth Zionist Congress, pp 328-329, translated by Hagit Lavsky, and cited in Lavsky, Hagit, German Zionists and the Emergence of Brit Shalom, translated from the Hebrew, reprinted in Reinharz, Jehuda and Shapira, Anita eds. Essential Papers on Zionism, New York University Press, 1996, pp. 664. ↑
  8. Ibid. cited in Lavsky, p. 664. ↑
  9. From: Martin Buber’s ‘Open Letter’ to Gandhi Regarding Palestine (February 24, 1939) in Arthur Hertzberg, ed.,The Zionist Idea. (Jewish Publications Society, 1997), pp. 463-464.↑
  10. See: ‘Israel Can’t Have It Both Ways. Recognize Palestine or Grant Equal Rights’ by Sam Bahour and Tony Klug, Tikkun, October 26, 2015 http://tikkun.dukejournals.org/content/30/4/26.full See also: ‘A Never Ending Occupation: The End of Hope?’ by Tony Klug, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1692 and ‘After 50 Years: Save Israel, Stop the Occupation’ by Izhak Schnell and Daniel Bar-Tal, The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol.21 No.3, 2016 / The Dual Legal System http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1690 ↑
  11. ‘When anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism and Zionism becomes anti-Palestinian’, Tikkun, Volume 32, No., 2, Spring 2017, pp. 59-62. ↑

Shabbat morning sermon | What Makes a Good Leader

To say that there’s been rather a lot in the news lately about leadership is a huge understatement. In just three weeks, in the wake of the third horrific terrorist attack in as many months on 3rd June, the General Election on the 8th, the devastating conflagration that destroyed Grenfell Tower block and claimed the lives of at least 79 people on the 14th, and the terror assault against worshippers leaving the Finsbury Park Mosque just last Monday night, Theresa May no longer looks the ‘strong and stable’ leader of her election campaign mantra, even to Tory party supporters, while radical Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has become the people’s hero of the hour way beyond left-wing circles.

So, what makes a ‘good’ leader? When I asked myself this question, I came up with rather a long list of qualities. Yes, strength and stability – and also: flexibility, initiative, good judgement, including the ability to prioritise, understanding, courage, tenacity, endurance, dynamism, resourcefulness, decisiveness, integrity, vision, inspiration, empathy, compassion, humility, the capacity to forge and maintain relationships, the ability to enable others and act as a role model. It’s a rather long list – and I’m sure there are other leadership qualities that I may have missed. No doubt, some of them seem to contest with one another. Is it possible, for example, for a leader to be stable and flexible? Yes, because providing stability is the overall frame within which a good leader operates, while flexibility is an essential reflex in response to the ever-changing realities of life. Stability may also seem at odds with dynamism. But, while stability is needed in order to weather the turbulence of unpredictable events, dynamism is required in order to avoid complacency and the coagulation of a rigid status quo. Quite possibly, it is completely unrealistic to expect all of these attributes to coalesce together in every ‘good’ leader. Perhaps, only a truly great leader would demonstrate all of them – and the truth is, it’s impossible to think of anyone past or present, however ‘great’, who did not lack some important leadership qualities. A great leader is, after all, also simply a flawed human being, like the rest of us, with a complex mix of character traits.

In this week’s Torah portion, Korach, the issue of leadership takes centre stage, as certain individuals with leadership pretensions challenge the authority of Moses and Aaron. Significantly, the eldest of the three sibling leaders of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, Miriam, whose own challenge to the leadership of Moses, in particular, was the theme of the closing part of the Torah portion of two weeks ago[1], is completely absent from the story. So, the leadership battle that ensues is a contest between men, instigated by Korach, the first cousin of the sibling leaders, whose Levite family of K’hat, as we learn in the first portion of the Book of Numbers, having been given the responsibility of carrying the most sacred vessels of the Tabernacle, were not allowed to touch them.[2] Only their priestly cousins were permitted to do that.

Of course, the crucial difference between the contest instigated by Korach together with his fellow rebels of the tribe of first-born Reuben, who were aggrieved by their displacement by the tribe of Levi[3], and the leadership contests that we are familiar with today, is that the biblical model of leadership is completely undemocratic. The authority of the three sibling leaders rested on their divine appointment. Perhaps, Korach may have won the election if the leadership contest had been put to a public vote. But then again, perhaps not. Consumed with resentment, the only leadership quality Korach displayed was the ability to whip up the resentment of others. So, what of Moses and Aaron? The narrative relates that aware of the danger of the moment and yet certain of the authority invested in him by the Eternal, Moses displayed courage and decisiveness, and without hesitation met the rebels’ confrontation with his own challenge. To give you a flavour of Moses’ response, here are two verses from his eight-verse invective (Numbers 16:6-7):

This do: take your censers, Korach, and his company; / and put fire in them, incense before the Eternal tomorrow; and it shall be that the man whom the Eternal chooses, he shall be holy; you take too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi.

Interestingly although Korach’s grievance was motivated by his resentment concerning Aaron’s monopoly of the priesthood, Aaron’s role in the incident was confined to following the instructions of Moses, who in turn was instructed by God. The parashah then concludes at Numbers 18 by reiterating the priestly responsibilities of Aaron and his sons. Strictly speaking, Aaron was less a leader and more a functionary. And yet, Aaron did have his leadership moment. It was during the time that Moses was on Mount Sinai communing with the Eternal for forty days and forty nights.[4] As we read in the Book of Exodus in parashat Ki Tissa, Aaron had been left with the responsibility of managing the people on his own – again, no mention of Miriam – and they were threatening to become unmanageable. We read at Exodus chapter 32 (1-5):

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together against Aaron, and said to him: ‘Get up, make us a god who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’ / Then Aaron said to them: ‘Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.’ / And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. / And he took from their hand, and fashioned [the gold] with the engraving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is your god, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ / And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron proclaimed, and said: ‘tomorrow shall be a feast to the Eternal .’

 

What do we make of Aaron’s leadership in this incident? It seems that the high priest, whose sole function it was to preside over the sacred sacrificial ritual of the sanctuary became a skilled trouble-shooter. But while he managed to redirect the people’s energies away from rebellion, didn’t Aaron also compromise his integrity? He was certainly responsible for provoking Moses to lose his equilibrium, as in an instant at the sight of the people dancing around the molten calf, Moses smashed the two tablets of the covenant in his fury.[5] From the time, he slew the taskmaster, who was beating an Israelite slave[6] through the wilderness wandering years, an impulsive temper always threatened to be Moses’ undoing.[7]

So, what of Miriam, who is entirely absent from the narrative? With just 29 verses in all telling the story of Miriam in the Torah[8], it may seem difficult to assess her leadership qualities. And yet the few occasions when she does appear all seem to centre on her abilities as a leader. In the first narrative, where she is the unnamed sister of the baby Moses, it was Miriam’s initiative in standing guard when Moses’ mother placed him in the basket amongst the reeds of the river, that ensured that she was on hand to approach Pharaoh’s daughter, when the Princess discovered the basket. Further, the big sister’s initiative combined with chutzpah, courage and resourcefulness, when she offered to find a wet nurse for the baby – and then brought along the baby’s mother.[9] In the second narrative, it takes just two verses to tell us that Miriam, now named, was a prophet – n’vi’ah – and to describe how singing a song of triumph, she inspired the women to dance with timbrels through the divided Sea of Reeds.[10]

The longest narrative concerning Miriam – 16 verses – related in parashat B’ha’a lot’cha, which we read two weeks ago, focuses on how Miriam, and to a lesser extent, Aaron challenged Moses’ authority. The passage provides an occasion for describing Moses’ exceptional relationship with God and his special qualities of humility[11], but it also tells us so much about Miriam. Again, there is her initiative – and also her courage. The story begins: Va-t’dabbeir Miryam v’Aharon b’Moshe: Va-t’dabbeir – feminine; ‘Then Miriam spoke – and Aaron, against Moses’. Even more telling is how the story ends. When Miriam alone was punished – with a dose of leprosy – and excluded from the camp for seven days, the people’s regard for her is made abundantly clear. We read: ‘The people did not journey on until Miriam was brought in again’[12].

Finally, when after a lacuna of thirty-eight years in the narrative, the Torah relates Miriam’s death in the first month and fortieth year[13], her importance to the people is made powerfully apparent in what happened next. The text goes on: ‘Then there was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.[14] It is this conjunction of Miriam’s death with the people’s unrest for lack of water that gave rise to the rabbinic legend of Miriam’s Well, which accompanied the Israelites throughout their journeys in the wilderness and dried up when she died.[15]

Repeatedly, both Moses and Aaron struggled to deal with the people’s complaints and distress. Arguably, the most important quality required of a good leader and a key test of their leadership is their ability to bring people along with them. On the basis of the scant – but nevertheless, pertinent – information about Miriam in the Torah, it appears that she may have been the most able of the three sibling leaders in this regard. Perhaps, Theresa May might not have lost her credibility and the respect of so many people in the past few weeks had she behaved more like Miriam, combining initiative, inspiration, resourcefulness, decisiveness and courage with a talent for engaging with people.

Nowadays, politics seems more and more like a series of ‘tales of the unexpected.’ So, just as Prime Minister Teresa May seems to have failed crucial leadership tests recently, Opposition Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, seems to have risen more successfully to the challenge. Let us hope that over the months to come, whatever the circumstances and twists and turns of events, those who are our elected representatives prove themselves able to provide the leadership that is needed. And with the complex Brexit process day by day moving closer to the end of March 2019 deadline, let us also hope that those at the helm of political life, work out a new model of cooperative leadership, combining their differing leadership talents to address the tasks that lie ahead. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Korach

24th June 2017 / 30th Sivan 5777

  1. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12. ↑
  2. B’midbar, Numbers 4:15-18. ↑
  3. B’midbar, Num. 3:44-51. Parashat Korach opens by mentioning the names of all the rebels, supplying their lineage: ‘Korach, the son of Yitzhar, the son of K’hat, the son of Levi’; ’Dathan and Aviram, the sons of Eli’av, and On, the son of Pelet, the sons of Reuben’ (Num. 16:1). ↑
  4. T‘rumah, Exodus 24:18. Ki Tissa, Ex. 32:1 ff. ↑
  5. Ex. 32:19. ↑
  6. Sh’mot, Ex. 2:11-12. ↑
  7. In the end, it was Moses’ rage at the people, following Miriam’s death, when he failed to affirm the Eternal in their presence that precipitated the Eternal to declare that he and Aaron would not bring ‘the assembly’ into the land beyond the Jordan (Chukkat, Numbers 20:12). How Moses and Aaron demonstrated their lack of faith and failed to sanctify the Eternal is not made clear. The rationalist Spanish mediaeval commentator, Abraham ibn Ezra, argued that it was because Moses struck the rock twice, when told by the Eternal to ‘speak’ to the rock in order to bring out water (Num. 20:8) – on the basis that the only way to ‘speak’ to a rock is to strike it, so once would have been okay. ↑
  8. In addition to the 29 verses in the Torah that constitute the story of Miriam, there’s a reference to her in the context of an injunction concerning the plague of ‘leprosy’ (Ki Teitzei, Deuteronomy 24:8-9), and a chronology that lists the three children of Amram and Yocheved, where she is mentioned last (Numbers 26:58-59). ↑
  9. Sh’mot, Exodus 2:4-8). ↑
  10. B’shallach, Ex. 15:20-21. ↑
  11. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12:3; 6-8. ↑
  12. Ibid., 12:15b. ↑
  13. Chukkat, Num. 20:1. ↑
  14. Ibid., 20:2. ↑
  15. See, for example, the Talmud, tractate, Ta’anit, which deals with ‘fasts’, which were frequently related to drought: ‘Israel had a well in the desert in Miriam’s merit’ (Ta’anit 9a). ↑

Prayer following Terrorist Attack, Manchester Arena, 23.05.17

Prayer following Terrorist Attack, Manchester Arena, 23.05.17

This Shabbat our thoughts are with the people of Manchester, and all those affected by the horrific suicide-bomb attack at the Manchester Arena on Tuesday evening, which targeted young people, including children.

In particular, our thoughts go out to the family and friends of the 22 people killed and over 100 people injured – and to all those, who sustained injuries, which in some cases have been severe and life-changing.

Let us take a moment to reflect.

The terrorist assault on Tuesday has shattered the lives of those killed and injured and their loved ones. Let us pray that the bereaved and maimed find the courage and the support they need to carry on.

We may feel powerless in the face of hate-fuelled violence, but we have a responsibility to ourselves to refuse to allow terror and fear to overwhelm us. Let our response to the terrorist’s murderous deeds be an affirmation of life and of our capacity as human beings to reach out towards others with compassion. Standing in solidarity with the people of Manchester, may we be inspired by their example of courage to defy the cowardly forces of hatred and division and to continue to build bonds of friendship between those of all ethnicities and religions and between all the different communities that constitute our rainbow nation.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagofue

Shabbat morning sermon | 28th May 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat B’midbar

27th May 2017 / 2nd Sivan 5777

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

MAKING MEANING IN THE WILDERNESS: A COMMENTARY ON B’MIDBAR

MAKING MEANING IN THE WILDERNESS: A COMMENTARY ON B’MIDBAR

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah – LJ E-Bulletin, May 2017

As we read the Torah every week, each one of us is challenged to read it in the context of our own lives; from a perspective that is shaped by our passions, concerns and values. That is what it means to be a Liberal Jew: to link ourselves as individuals living now to the traditions we have inherited; to find ways of making sense of our inheritance, so that it speaks to us and informs our shared task of creating community. The challenge can seem quite formidable – in particular, when we read the third book of the Torah, Leviticus, which focuses on the sacrificial system of worship practised by our ancestors. And yet, the struggle to grapple with texts that seem alien to us can be very fruitful. We can, for example, explore the juxtaposition between the ethical rules set out in Leviticus 19 and the sexual prohibitions that occupy chapters 18 and 20, in our efforts to formulate a much-needed inclusive approach to sexual ethics for our lives today.[1]

This week, we turn to the fourth book of the Torah and discover that we are in territory that seems more amenable to meaning-making. The metaphor of ‘territory’ is very apt. Like all the books of the Torah, this fourth book has an English name and a Hebrew name. In English, Numbers. In Hebrew, B’midbar. While the English name encapsulates one of the book’s main concerns, the Hebrew name derives from the first differentiating word. The first verse begins: Va-y’dabbeir Adonai el-Moshe – ‘The Eternal spoke to Moses’. I haven’t counted the number of times this phrase is repeated, but the sum must be in the several thousands. The verse then continues: … b’midbar Sinai – ‘in the wilderness of Sinai’. The word, b’midbar is what makes this new book stand out. And it is not only the books of the Torah that are named in this way. The first portion of B’midbar is also known as B’midbar – and the same goes for the first portion of the other four books of the Torah: Genesis/B’reishit, Exodus/Sh’mot, Leviticus/Va-yikra, Deuteronomy/D’varim. The name of each one of the fifty-four portions of the Torah derives from the first distinctive word.

Significantly, the English and Hebrew names of the fourth book of the Torah seem poles apart: Numbers/B’midbar. While, the book is preoccupied with the organisation of the tribes for their journey from Sinai to the land beyond the River Jordan, the Hebrew name reminds us that this journey was not a straightforward march towards a destination. The people are in the wilderness; a wild unmapped territory. B’midbar takes us back to Exodus/Sh’mot – indeed, right back to Sinai, where the rabble of ex-slaves – including, both, Israelites and erev rav, a ‘mixed multitude’[2] – had stood at the foot of the quaking mountain, entered into a covenant with the Eternal, and become a people. So, now the people needs to get organised. But, again, they are in the wilderness.

Midbar is based on the Hebrew root, Dalet Beit Reish, to ‘speak’, from which another noun, davar, meaning, both, ‘word’ and ‘thing’ is also derived. The letter Mem at the beginning of midbar simply locates the word as a noun of place. And yet, it reminds us of another Mem, the preposition, mi, ‘from’ (minus the necessary dagesh – dot – in the next letter). So, let’s depart from the p’shat, the plain meaning for a moment, and imagine that midbar could be read as ‘from’ – in the sense of ‘without’ – ‘a thing’; that is, nothing: midbar; ‘nothingness’. Of course, a wilderness is not empty. If it is a desert, it’s a mass of rocks, sand and dust. If it is a jungle, it is packed with dense vegetation. What both a desert and a jungle have in common is that they are largely ‘wild’, untamed places, alive with wild creatures; unfit for human habitation. They are also notoriously difficult to navigate – which brings us back to ‘Numbers’: the organisation of the tribes for their march to the land beyond the Jordan, with which the fourth book of the Torah begins. At the end of the book, the last portion, massei, charts massei v’nei Yisrael, ‘the stages of the Israelites’ on their journey through the wilderness. The singular noun, massa, ‘stage’ is based on the Hebrew root, Nun Sameich Ayin, to pull out, or up, to set out, to journey. At the end of the journey, it is possible to look back and discern the stages of the journey. But between Sinai and the eastern bank of the Jordan: wilderness; a wilderness in which the people wandered for forty years. Indeed, their wilderness wanderings such a mystery that the story jumps from the second year to the end of the fortieth year; not a single word said about the thirty-eight years in between.[3]

So, what might we learn from Numbers/B’midbar that is meaningful for our own lives as Liberal Jews today? On 11 June, we will gather at Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue for a ‘Day of Celebration’, packed with learning sessions and activities concerned in different ways with the question: Is Liberal Judaism Political Judaism? To be ‘political’ is to grapple with issues of power and responsibility and engage actively in the wider society and the world around us. That is exactly what Liberal Jews do. Life is a wilderness. It is our task, like our ancestors before us, to build community and put our ethical values into practice; to find pathways through the wilderness.

985 WORDS

  1. See, for example, ‘Towards an Inclusive Sexual Ethic’ in my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012, pp.177-185). ↑
  2. See Exodus 12:38. ↑
  3. B’midbar relates a series of rebellions that took place in the second year after the departure from Egypt, and which concluded with the revolt of Korach, Datan, Aviram (Numbers 16-18). The narrative then resumes at Numbers 20, with the death of Miriam in the first month of the fortieth year. ↑

We Are What We Eat | Shabbat morning sermon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Sh’mini

22nd April 2017 / 26th Nisan 5777

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

Why is Pesach this year different from all other years?

How is Pesach this year different from all other years?

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah – LJ E-Bulletin, Pesach 2017/5777

How is Pesach this year different from all other years? On all other years, we recall that our ancestors were slaves in the land of Egypt. On all other years, we celebrate our liberation and the blessing of being a free people.

Of course, that’s not all we do: As Liberal Jews, we acknowledge the destructions experienced by our people between then and now, not least, the Sho’ah. And we also, express our outrage that people are still enslaved in the world today, and recognise the plight of refugees, fleeing tyranny, persecution and war.

But this year is rather different. 2017, is indelibly marked by significant anniversaries that changed the course of Jewish history in the 20th century. And so, this year, we look back 100 years to the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 that stated that: ‘His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine a national home… It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.’[1]

We also recall the United Nations vote on 29 November 1947 that secured agreement on a partition plan, paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel, and remember the Six Day War that began on 5 June 1967, and which concluded with victory for Israel and the occupation of the land beyond the ceasefire ‘Green Line’ agreed at the end of the 1948 War of Independence.[2]

Yes, this year is a very particular year for commemoration. So, how does this relate to Pesach? The Six-Day War was one of the shortest wars in human history, but fifty years on, its consequences remain unresolved. Since 1917, and in particular since 1947, the great project to establish a homeland for the Jewish people has been inextricably connected with the hope that in finding a home, the Jewish people would live in peace with its neighbours. Sadly, we know that Israel does not yet enjoy peace. We also know that the Jewish ethical values expressed in the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, signed on 14 May 1948,[3] have run aground in the continuing conflict with the Palestinian people that despite the peace process in the 1990s has not yet seen the establishment of a sovereign State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, alongside the sovereign State of Israel.

Given the deadlock and the imminent arrival of all these significant anniversaries, an initiative has recently been established by an Israel-Diaspora Partnership ‘to save Israel and stop the occupation.’[4] Too often we get caught up in a binary trap of being, either, pro-Israel, or pro-Palestine. But we don’t have to choose between Israel and Palestine; in this year of anniversaries, we are challenged to support, both, Israel and Palestine. SISO has put out this ‘Call’ to Jews across the world:

As we approach June 2017, 50 years of Israeli military control over the Palestinians, Israel stands at a crossroads. The present situation is disastrous.

The prolonged occupation is inherently oppressive for Palestinians and fuels mutual bloodshed. It undermines the moral and democratic fabric of the state of Israel and hurts its standing in the community of nations.

Our best hope for the future – the surest path toward security, peace, and prosperity – lies in a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will result in establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel.

We call upon Jews around the world to join with Israeli partners for coordinated action to end the occupation and build a new future, for the sake of Israel and the generations to come.

SISO has just published a Jubilee Haggadah in Hebrew and English versions, so-called because its message, echoing the Torah’s proclamation of a jubilee [yoveil] in the fiftieth year after seven cycles of seven, is to ‘proclaim freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants.’[5] As SISO put it, the Jubilee Haggadah ‘links the feast of freedom with the need to free both Palestinians and Israelis from 50 years of occupation.’ People are welcome to order copies and/or download a free digital version.[6]

In the Jubilee Haggadah, orthodox Rabbi Michael Melchior, formerly, a member of Knesset, Minister of Social and Diaspora Affairs, and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, reflects:[7]

‘Now that we have returned to the Land by the grace of God, and are privileged to move through all of the Land of Israel and to settle in it, we have to protect ourselves and to safeguard our security — but not to base our existence on life by our sword. We are tested by our ability not to rule another people by “force”, but to live here by “My spirit”. In other words, to build a model society.

If in Egypt we became foreigners who were denied all rights to existence, liberty and land, and in this lay the root of our subjugation, we must not do to others what we ourselves hate.

Just ten weeks after the end of the Six Day War, Amos Oz wrote:[8]

We were not born to be a people of masters. “To be a free people” — this wish must awaken an echo in our hearts so long as we have not lost our humanity. We are condemned now to rule people who do not want to be ruled by us. Condemned, not merry and euphoric. The shorter the occupation lasts, the better for us, because an occupation is inevitably a corrupting occupation, and even a liberal and human occupation is an occupation.

So, how is Pesach this year different from all other years? Because this year, we connect the story of our ancestors’ liberation from tyranny with our commitment to the liberation of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples today from the tyranny of a brutalising 50-year-long impasse. Surely, the time has come to ‘proclaim freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants.’

1002 words

  1. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-middle-east-1917-to-1973/the-balfour-declaration-of-1917/the-balfour-declaration-of-1917/ ↑
  2. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-israel-war-of-independence ↑
  3. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Guide/Pages/Declaration%20of%20Establishment%20of%20State%20of%20Israel.aspx ↑
  4. – https://www.siso.org.il/ ↑
  5. Leviticus 25:10. ↑
  6. http://nif.org/sisohaggadah ↑
  7. p. 25. ↑
  8. Davar, 22 August 1967. In the Jubilee Haggadah, p. 6 ↑

Shabbat morning sermon | FROM THE TABERNACLE TO THE SYNAGOGUE: ENABLING THE ETERNAL TO DWELL IN OUR MIDST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Va-yakheil-P’kudei

25th March 2017 / 27th Adar 5777

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