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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

Shabbat Ha-Gadol

4 April 2020 – 10 Nisan 5780

1. Malachi 3:4-24. ↑

Shabbat Shalom everyone. Welcome to the second streamed service from the sanctuary of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. For those of you have the those of you have the Siddur booklet – or the PDF – I will be announcing pages, so please join in.

But first, a few words.

During the past week, individuals and communities have been doing everything we can to help and support one another through the coronavirus crisis. People have been creating WhatsApp groups for their street and sharing resources, and putting ‘Hello’ notes the letterboxes of neighbours, and offering to pick up shopping, get urgent supplies or post mail for those are self-isolating, and also to call them if they’d like a chat. These notes – you may have seen or used them yourself – include the name of the person making the offer, where they live locally, and their phone number.

Here at BHPS, several people have volunteered to make phone calls to our vulnerable members – and to go shopping for those in need. And with the Festival of Pesach just around the corner, one of our members, has offered to source matzah and deliver it. If more people volunteer, it will be possible to phone everyone who is a member or friend of the synagogue to see how they are.

Meanwhile, across the country, community groups have been gathering volunteers, and in response to the ‘Your NHS Needs You!’ call for volunteers to deliver medicines, drive patients to doctors’ appointments and make phone calls to check on people isolating on their own, as of yesterday, almost 700,000 people have responded.

How wonderful that as social distancing becomes the norm, we are finding all these ways to reach out and support each other. Last week, we finished the second book of the Torah, the Book of Exodus, which concludes with the setting up of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle in the wilderness.^[1] The scroll is always raised after the Torah reading, and when a book is completed, as we are raising the scroll, we say the words: Chazak! Chazak! v’nitchazeik – ‘Be strong, be strong and let us strengthen one another.’ During the past week, all of us, whether or not we heard that challenge, have responded to it. As the coronavirus crisis has deepened, we have been strong and we have strengthened one another.

This week, a new book of the Torah has opened, the Book of Leviticus^[2], so-called because the first few portions of the book focus on the sacrificial system conducted by the priests of the tribe of Levi in Temple times. The last Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman occupiers in 70 CE – just fifty years short of two thousand years ago – so we might wonder what we might learn from reading about the ancient sacrificial cult. Indeed, the sacrifices strike us as very alien, and even for those who are not vegetarians or vegans, the images they conjure up of animals slaughtered and blood splattered, quite repugnant.

But there is something we can learn from the account of the sacrifices offered in Temple times. Just think of those words ‘sacrifice’ and ‘offering’. Our ancient agricultural forebears made a real sacrifice as they brought their gifts from their herds and their flocks.

After the Temple was destroyed, the early rabbis replaced the Divine service of sacrifice – Avodah – with Avodat ha-Lev, Service of the heart, that is, prayer.^[3] Prayer is a beautiful way of addressing and connecting with the Eternal and reaching into our spiritual depths. But however ardent and sincere our prayers, to offer words in place of livestock is so much easier, so less demanding and costly – indeed, words cost us nothing at all, except our time.

Which brings us back to this moment, this ongoing coronavirus crisis. Perhaps, people are doing a lot more praying at this time, more praying than usual – and, perhaps, those who are not used to uttering prayers, find themselves doing so. But during the past week, alongside private prayers and the billions of words buzzing across social media, there has been a proliferation of material offerings, as people do what they can to reach out to those in need, to support their isolated neighbours and to connect with each other.

Before we begin the service and turn in the midst of it to the first portion of the Book of Leviticus, I would like to remind you of the closing image with which the Book of Exodus concludes following the setting up of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle: an image of the Eternal One as a cloud dwelling upon it; a cloud that only moved on, when the people continued on their journey.^[4] As we to endure through this coronavirus crisis, as we do what we can to help and support one another, the presence of the Eternal One is with us – and will remain with us when the crisis is over and we continue our journeys. In the meantime, let us take courage and say to each other: Chazak! Chazak! v’nitchazeik – ‘Be strong! Be strong! And let us strengthen one another.’

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

28 March 2020 – 3 Nisan 5780

1. P’kudei, Exodus 40. ↑

2. The Hebrew name is taken from the first word: Va-yikra – ‘Then He called’ – referring to the Eternal One, and connecting the beginning of Leviticus to the concluding section of the Book of Exodus. As with the naming of the other books of the Torah, the Hebrew name of the book is also the name of the first portion of the book. ↑

3. Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 2a: ‘What is this service of the heart? [avodah shehi b’leiv] You must say: it is prayer [t’fillah]. ↑

4. Ex. 40:34-38. ↑

So, the UK has left the EU. Let’s look at those acronyms for a moment. The ‘United Kingdom’ that encompasses England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Oh! what a complex morass of stories spanning centuries, underlie that conflict-ridden alliance. The ‘European Union’; formed in 1993, the EU was preceded by the European Economic Community that was established by the Treaty of Rome of 1957. The EU – now minus the UK – encompasses 27 nations, spanning from the Republic of Ireland in the west to Poland in the north east and Cyprus in the south east.^[1]

The debate over the past three and half years since the Brexit referendum has been dominated by the binary anthem, played over and over again: ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’? ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’? I haven’t conducted any research, but my gut feeling is that the majority of Jews voted ‘Remain’. Why? I would guess one reason could be that having wandered all over the world for millennia, we like the idea of ‘freedom of movement’. Another reason: having been defamed and persecuted for millennia – a major spur to our constant movement – we feel strongly about equality and the execution of justice in all areas, including the economic arena, and so are in favour of the European Court of Human Rights and EU employment legislation.

After all, Europe wasn’t always like this. For hundreds of years, Jewish life in Europe was circumscribed by the strictures of mediaeval Christian regimes that restricted our movements, forced us to wear identifying emblems and items of clothing, like special hats, prevented us from owning land, entering the skilled guilds or professions, and confined us to walled ghettos whose gates were locked after sunset. And, if that wasn’t enough, we were subjected to violent attacks at Easter time and periodic massacres – for example: in the Rhineland in 1096, perpetrated by Christian Crusaders heading east to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslim caliphate^[2]; and the Chmielnicki massacres of the Jews of eastern Poland and Lithuania that took place during the Cossacks’ uprising of 1648-1657.^[3]

And then of course, there were the attacks on Jewish teaching. Throughout the Middle Ages, Christian authorities staged ‘disputations’ aimed at disproving Judaism.^[4] In 1239, Pope Gregory issued a letter to every ecclesiastical authority in France demanding the confiscation of Jewish books on the first Saturday of Lent, March 3, 1240. He subsequently ordered the heads of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in Paris to burn the books at the stake. The kings of France, England, Spain and Portugal received similar instructions. Two years after the disputation staged in Paris in June of that year, 24 wagon-loads of books were burnt. Attacks on the Talmud, specifically, continued over the next centuries. The last public burning of the Talmud – one thousand copies in all – took place in Poland, in Kamenets-Podolski in the autumn of 1757.^[5]

So, violent attacks against Jews and the destruction of Jewish teaching. The notorious Spanish Inquisition, established by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1478, combined the two themes: Jews were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or death.

Finally, when the Jew-hating tormentors had exhausted all options: the expulsions of their Jewish populations – often on several occasions from the same place. Between 1100 and 1600, Jews were expelled from Crimea, Silesia, France and Provence, England and Wales, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Sicilia, Sardinia, Tunis, Naples and the Papal States. The most well-known expulsions were from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497, following the reunification of Spain orchestrated by Isabella and Ferdinand.^[6]

Of course, even in the most hideous circumstances, Jewish communities across Europe lived the cycle of the Jewish year and continued to study and expound the Bible and the Talmud. And for those who did not live within Christendom, life could even be rather wonderful. By contrast with conditions in northern Europe, Jewish existence in Muslim southern Spain from the 10^th through the 12^th century blossomed into a ’Golden Age’ of cultural sharing and borrowing and creativity.^[7]

And then, the development of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, beginning in the 17^th century, signalled a change in fortunes for the Jews of central Europe. Nevertheless, it took cataclysmic events to force change. It was in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789 that over the course of the 19th century Jews were liberated from a segregated existence, and given equal rights, most importantly, the right of citizenship wherever we lived – that is, for the first time, the right to be French or German or British, and so on.^[8]

But we know that that wasn’t the end of the story. There were other developments in the course of the 19^th century. Anti-Judaism morphed into anti-Jewishness. Consequently, it was no longer possible to escape the calumny of being Jewish by converting to Christianity. According to the new ‘race science’, Jews were, essentially, a demonic and evil race. We could not be civilised and sanitised. Hence, in the 20^th century, in the aftermath of the abdication of the German Emperor towards the end of the First World War and the economic crash in the late 1920s, when a scapegoat was needed, the Jews, those erstwhile Christ-killers, became the prime target in the new National Socialist campaign in pursuit of Aryan purity.^[9]

You know what happened next. Europe became a mass grave. How ironic that with the extension of the European Union eastwards, the EU has managed to include most of the sites of the mass murder of half the Jews of Europe in the Sho’ah.

Of course, for those who came here as refugees from Nazism – and my Dad came here from Vienna via South Africa – Europe was their home. When I was growing up in Finchley, North London, home-life followed the rhythms of life in Vienna, complete with Sunday afternoon kaffee mit schlagobers – coffee with whipped cream – accompanied by the sonorous tones of Richard Tauber on the turntable.

But let’s not be romantic about Europe. Certainly, the continent boasts magnificent architecture and spectacular art. But while Michelangelo was painting those beautiful frescoes on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome (between 1508 and 1512), Jews were an alien, hated, feared and persecuted people living a segregated existence – and soon to be expelled. In fact, there were two expulsions from the Papal States, in 1569 and 1593, respectively.^[10]

So, Europe has not exactly been a haven for the Jews. But is the UK any better? The history of Jewish life in England, in particular, suggests not.^[11] Some Jews probably made their way to these shores at the time of the Romans, but the first significant immigration was from France with William the Conqueror in 1066. Before too long, Jews were the object of fear and hatred, expressed in the most extreme form in ‘blood libel’ accusations – which were also a feature of anti-Jewish persecutions across Europe. Alongside accusations of well-poisoning and desecration of the communion host, the myth that gave rise to what came to be known as ‘blood libel’ was the notion that Jews make matzah – unleavened bread – out of the blood of Christian children.

The first blood libel accusation took place in Norwich in 1144, when the Jews of Norwich were accused of ritual murder after a boy named William was found dead with stab wounds in the woods. A certain Thomas of Monmouth made the claim that every year an international council of Jews convened at which they chose the country in which a child will be killed at Easter. Similar accusations were made in Gloucester (1168), Bury St Edmonds (1181) and Bristol (1183). And then, in 1189, a deputation of Jews attending the Coronation of King Richard the Lion Heart was attacked by the crowd. Not long after, On March 16, 1190, 150 Jews in York were attacked and then massacred when they took refuge in Clifford’s Tower. A century later, King Edward The Confessor expelled the Jews of England on All Saints Day, November 1, 1290. The edict of expulsion has never been revoked, but during his brief rule, Oliver Cromwell invited the Jews of the Netherlands to come over to England, and Jewish life became re-established on these shores from 1656 onwards.

There were further chapters to come. When Jews began to immigrate to these shores in large numbers in flight from pogroms in the late 1890s, fear of an alien invasion led to the enactment of the first anti-immigration legislation in Britain, the Aliens Act in 1905.^[12] When German Jews sought refuge from Nazism, between two and three thousand were interned as aliens on the Isle of Man.^[13] Famously, ten thousand Jewish children – a fraction of the over one million children murdered – were saved on kindertransports^[14] – but not their parents and other relatives.

So, for Jews, both life on the continent of Europe and life on this island has been marked by persecution and hatred – and continues to be complex. Jewish experience simply doesn’t fit easily into the ‘Remain’/’Leave’ binary divide. In both Britain and in Europe, we have made our home and we live as an ever-vulnerable minority. And more than that, by definition we transcend the binary divide between this island and the continent, both physically, and just as important, in terms of our values. In this week’s parashah, Mishpatim, we find the first code of law in the Torah, including laws on worship, serfdom, the treatment of strangers, the vulnerable and the needy, injuries, property, economic and moral behaviour. Fashioned for life in the land across the Jordan, like the aseret ha-dibbrot, ‘the ten utterance’s, known as the Ten Commandments in last week’s parashah, Yitro, the laws we find in Mishpatim are not defined by a particular geographical area – and indeed, the narrative setting is the wilderness. Rather, they have international application.

And we are an international people: the Jews, the Israelites; our oldest name is the ‘Hebrews’ – ivrim – from the Hebrew root, Ayin Beit Reish, to ‘cross over’. The most defining characteristic of this international people is the physical fact that since Abraham and Sarah set out on their journey away from their land, their kindred and their family home,^[15] we have crossed borders and settled in different lands. And if one of the reasons that so many Jews voted ‘Remain’ was because of a commitment to freedom of movement, then the Jewish experience of wandering across the world demonstrates that the principle of freedom of movement should be applied globally.

So, how should we express our Jewish internationalist values in post-Brexit Britain? In particular, how should we express our Jewish and internationalist values as a congregation in post-Brexit Britain? By speaking out against nationalism and xenophobia. By challenging immigration policies designed to keep out the poorest migrants and by championing the cause of refugees. By supporting efforts to ensure that the UK continues to adopt environmental, food-safety and animal welfare regulations in relation to the import of food products into this country. By campaigning for the re-establishment of the Human Rights Act that has been progressively dismantled over the past ten years. In short, by doing everything we can as individuals, as a community and as citizens of this nation to act on our global responsibilities towards the planet, including, all its inhabitants, and every living thing that lives here with us.

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

22^nd February 2020 – 27^th Sh’vat 5780

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union ↑

2. See Jewish People, Jewish Thought. The Jewish Experience in History by Robert M Seltzer (CollierMacmillan, London, 1980), Chapter 7 Mediaeval Jewry to 1500. ↑

3. See Seltzer, Chapter 10, Jews and Judaism in the Early Modern Period (Sixteenth to Mid-Eighteenth Centuries). ↑

4. Seltzer, Chapter 7. ↑

5. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/burning-of-the-talmud ↑

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews ↑

7. Seltzer, Chapter 7. ↑

8. Seltzer, Chapter 11 The European State and the Jews, 1770-1880. ↑

9. Seltzer, chapter 14 The Onslaught of Modernity: Jewish History from 1880 to the Present. ↑

10. See note 6. ↑

11. for the classic account, see A History of the Jews in England by Cecil Roth (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1978). ↑

12. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Edw7/5/13/contents/enacted ↑

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Isle_of_Man ↑

14. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport ↑

15. Lech L’cha, Genesis 12:1). ↑

When I travelled to Australia last March to speak at the 25th Jewish LGBT+ World Congress in Sydney,^[1] I went on a special mini-bus day-trip to the Blue Mountains situated eighty miles north-west of the city. When we think of mountains, we often imagine massive ranges of rock. By contrast, the beautiful Blue Mountains are covered by densely packed trees and are called ‘blue’ because of the mist of moisture that hovers over this elevated forest.

On the way, we visited a wild life park, where all the unique creatures that are associated with the largest island on earth can be encountered up close. It was a real thrill to see hopping kangaroos and diminutive flat-billed platypuses, to stroke baby wallabies and to gaze at koala bears sitting in eucalyptus trees, munching away. I have to admit that before we left, I visited the souvenir shop and bought a small cuddly koala bear for Jess.

I think you know where I’m going with this, but first let’s turn to the Torah. Last Shabbat we began reading the Book of Exodus – Sh’mot – with its tales of the enslavement of our ancestors to Pharaoh in Egypt, their remarkable liberation, and the beginning of their wilderness wanderings, dramatically shaped by their encounter with the Eternal at Mount Sinai.

The first major turning point in the story comes with Moses’ personal encounter with the Eternal – not on the top of a mountain, but rather, as we read in Exodus chapter 3, verse 2, at the foot of a mountain, at the burning bush that was not consumed by the flames.

The burning bush. As soon as I say those words at this time, our minds turn from a middle eastern desert scene over 3000 years ago to the burning bush fires that have been raging in southeast Australia – including, in the Blue Mountains. There, of course, the burning bushes have been consumed – and the fires have also consumed every living thing around them: koalas, kangaroos, wallabies. After three consecutive years of summer droughts, the raging fires have burned everything in their wake – and the blue, green, multicoloured landscape has been replaced by grey, charred remains.

We are shocked and horrified. The sight of wounded, traumatised koalas, their burnt paws wrapped in bandages so painful and distressing. But we have done this. Of course, not us, personally. But our wanton consumerism and profligate attitude to everything we consume; so much of it, so quickly dispensed with and disposed of as we move onto the next must-have item. But are we really to blame? After all, none of us one day decide to behave like this. We have been lured and trained by a global economy dedicated to profit that has harnessed every form of media, including, the World Wide Web, to stimulate our wants and then transform our wants into needs – and all in the name of the pursuit of happiness and the illusion of freedom that is actually a form of slavery.

Let’s return for a moment to the burning bush Moses encountered. Nothing much grows in the desert. The bush – the Hebrew word is s’neh – was a thorn-bush; compact, low-lying and rugged; perfectly suited for the super-dry desert conditions. The miracle of the story appears to be that bush burned but was not consumed by the flames. The real miracle was that Moses noticed. Just imagine: Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s flock in the blinding light and heat of a desert day. Perhaps, he was wearing a cloth over his head, but he certainly didn’t have sunglasses. So, how come Moses noticed that ubiquitous desert resident, a lowly thorn-bush? We read at Exodus 3, verses 1 to 3:

Now Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock behind the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, to Horev / Then the messenger of the Eternal appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. /Then Moses said: ‘I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.’

The ‘messenger’ of the Eternal – malach Adonai – often translated as ‘angel’, could only appear to Moses because he looked, because he turned aside from his shepherding, because he allowed himself to be apprehended.

The burning bush that Moses encountered came with a message to liberate the slaves. He was presented with a gigantic task, but the signpost to the great mission Moses was called on to perform was so subtle, he could so easily have missed it; he could so easily have not seen it and just walked on by. And if Moses had just walked on by, he would have continued to live out his days as a shepherd in Midian and the Exodus of the slaves might never have happened. And we wouldn’t be here to retell the tale.

But then, perhaps, had Moses failed to notice, after a while he would have been shown a bigger more obvious sign, one that he simply could not ignore. The burning bush fires in south-eastern Australia proclaim to us that we have missed all the singular burning thorn-bush signs of climate change and impending ecological disaster. So, is it too late to turn aside and notice? Have we missed our chance to take action and save the planet?

In this week’s Torah portion, the parashah Va-eira, which begins with a continuation of Moses’ encounter with the Eternal at the burning bush, we learn that persuaded to return to Egypt by four-fold promises of liberation, when Moses relayed the promises to the slaves, they were not prepared to listen. We read at Exodus chapter 6, verse 9:

Moses spoke thus to the Israelites, but they would not listen to Moses because of shortness of spirit and because of hard bondage – mi-kotzer ru’ach u’mei-avodah kashah

Is it surprising that after hundreds of years in servitude, the slaves could not take in the message that they were going to be liberated? So, prosperous as we are, what’s our excuse? Of course, unlike the message that Moses tried to deliver to the slaves, the one that we have refused to receive decade after decade is terrifying and doom-laden. And so, we have seen fit to bury our heads in the sand.

In the context of the prospect of ecological catastrophe, that saying isn’t just a cliché. On the contrary, it’s very apt. The longer we continue to bury our heads, the deeper and more widespread the sand will become. After all, we face not only raging fires and other consequences of extreme weather events, but also the increasing desertification of the planet.

There are understood to be eight major causes of desertification:^[2]

1. Overgrazing
2. Unsustainable agricultural techniques
3. Deforestation
4. Unsustainable water management
5. Overpopulation and overexploitation of natural resources
6. Urbanisation and the development of tourism
7. Famine, poverty and political instability
8. Climate change

And the effects of desertification become progressively devastating:^[3]

1. Vegetation is damaged or destroyed
2. Soil becomes infertile
3. Soil erosion gets worse
4. There is increasing vulnerability to natural disasters
5. Sources of drinking water become polluted
6. There is a rise of famine, poverty and social conflicts – which leads to another effect:
7. Mass migrations – and then in time:
8. Collapses of civilisations – and the
9. Extinction of species

Isn’t it amazing how much we now know about humanity’s destructive impact on the planet, and yet we continue to do so little? The enormous challenge of achieving global cooperation in the face of vested interests and resurgent nationalism cannot be underestimated. So, what can we do? Of course, we can reduce our own carbon footprint at home and in our communities – including, here at BHPS. We can also take collective action. The Torah relates that it took ten plagues – a concerted assault on Egypt – but eventually, not only was Pharaoh persuaded – the slaves were, too. As we read in the parashah Bo, Exodus chapter 12 (:39-41), after a sojourn of 430 years, they fled in such haste, there was no time for their dough to rise. The significance of this small detail is easily missed. It speaks of sudden flight, but also of the settled life that preceded the Exodus. The slaves inured to their slavery, not only toiled each day, they also went about the ordinary tasks of daily life; rearing children and baking bread. But finally, they knew they had to break free.

So, how long will we continue to go on with business as usual before we act? At the World Economic Forum at Davos this past week, Prince Charles, long-time green advocate, launched his ‘sustainable markets initiative’ for 2020 – the ‘super-year for kickstarting action.’ He presented a whole raft of suggestions for ‘putting people and planet at the heart’ of a sustainable economy and concluded with these words: ‘The only limit is our willingness to act and the time to act is now.’^[4]

The message is positive: we can avert disaster. It’s up to us. I’m going to conclude by turning again to the cute cuddly souvenir koala. If we don’t act soon to stop the damage we are doing to the planet, then in the future, assuming that a remnant does survive, all they will have to console them and remind them of the richness and beauty of their blue planet gone grey, will be cuddly toy versions of koala bears and all the other creatures that used to roam and make their home with us. So: let us take note of all the signs around us of ecological emergency and summon all our resources of intelligence, ingenuity, courage, will and hope to act now. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

25^th January 2020 – 28^th Tevet 5780

1. March 21-24 2019. I gave the opening keynote: ‘Hinneinu: Here We Are: LGBT+ Jews Celebrating All Our Voices and Repairing the World’. http://www.rabbiellisarah.com/category/lectures/ ↑

2. https://greentumble.com/causes-and-effects-of-desertification/ ↑

3. Ditto ↑

4. BBC News 24 Live broadcast, 22.01.20, 1.40 pm G.M.T ↑