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 ↑

Shabbat seems to be exactly the right time to take a break from Brexit and the forthcoming general election. So, today I would like to explore a different pressing contemporary issue. It also happens to be a very ancient issue, featuring centre-stage in the stories from Genesis that we are reading at the moment: Gender.

On the one hand, in the past fifty years, huge strides have been made in gender equality – in the western and northern regions of the world, and on those west-leaning islands in the south of Australia and New Zealand – not least, in the context of mainstream educational provision, ensuring that girls are free to excel in all areas of the curriculum and so can aspire to become, lawyers, doctors, scientists and engineers. On the other hand, there’s a long list of items that tell a very different story: the stubborn tenacity of a ‘pink for girls, blue for boys’ mentality relentlessly promoted in the retail industry; recent revelations about the persistent gender pay gap; the glass-ceiling for women that hangs over most areas of employment still; domestic abuse; the sexual abuse of children; the ongoing menace of sexual harassment and abuse exposed through the #MeToo movement – highlighted in the past two weeks in relation to the Jeffrey Epstein case; the sex-trafficking of women, girls and boys; the persecution of transgender women. All these ‘facts’ about gender relations, make it clear that patriarchal assumptions and practices still rule the day – and the night. And I’m only talking about what continues to go on in so-called ‘enlightened’, ‘progressive’ societies. 

It’s hard not to feel very depressed – and yet reality is more complex than this list of horrors suggests. Yes, male power still persists, but much has also changed. To be more precise: the circumstances of life for those whom the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir referred to as the ‘other’ in her ground-breaking book, Le Deuxième Sexe – The Second Sex, first published in 1949,^[1] haven’t just ‘changed’; women have taken action to change their lives. More of that in a moment.

This week we are reading the parashah, Torah portion, Chayyei Sarah. The parashah begins with the death of Sarah, but the opening words invite us to think about the life of Sarah. We read at the beginning of Genesis chapter 23: Va-yih’yu chayyei Sarah, mei’ah shanah v’esrim shanah v’sheva shanim; sh’nei chayyei Sarah – ‘The life of Sarah was 127 years; these were the years of the life Sarah.’ What does the Torah tell us about the life of Sarah? The tale of the ancestors of the Jewish people begins at parashat Lech L’cha with Avram – as he was called at that point – responding to the call of the Eternal One and leaving his land, his kindred and his father’s house. We read in Genesis 12 (:5): ‘And Avram took Sarai his wife – as Sarah was called then – and Lot his brother’s son…’ Sarah – and Lot – taken. But Sarah proved to be an actor in her own right. When she was unable to bear a child, Lech L’cha tells us at chapter 16 (:2): “So, Sarai said to Avram: ‘Behold now, the Eternal One has restrained me from bearing; go in, please to my handmaid; perhaps I shall be built up through her.’ And Avram listened to the voice of Sarah.” It wasn’t the last time that Abraham listened to his wife’s voice. When as we read in Genesis chapter 21, Sarah finally conceived and bore her own child, Isaac, threatened by the presence of her husband’s first son, Ishmael, in the household, she told Abraham (21:10): ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; the son of this slave woman should not be heir with my son, with Isaac.’ Abraham was very upset. But then we read (21:12): “And God said to Abraham: ‘Let it not be grievous in your sight because of the lad and because of your slave woman; in everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac shall seed be called to you.’”

Sarah was an actor; she was not acted upon. Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid also took action. When newly pregnant, Sarah treated her harshly, Hagar took flight into the wilderness and then chose to return in the certain knowledge that God had listened to her. We read in chapter 16 (:11): “The messenger of the Eternal One said to her: ‘Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son; you shall call his name Yishma’el because the Eternal One has heard your affliction.’” Yishma’el means: ‘God shall hear’.

If there was more time, we could explore the story of Rebekah, which begins in this week’s parashah – arguably, an even more important and decisive actor in the narrative of our ancestors than Sarah – and the tales of Leah and Rachel, too. The stories of women as decisive actors continues beyond Genesis. Generations later, Miriam, the elder sister of Aaron and Moses, entirely independent because she was not married, took a pre-eminent role in the Exodus.^[2] What we learn from these ancient tales is relevant for our understanding of the complexity of gender relations today. Children, by definition, subject to the absolute power of their parents and the decisions their parents make about their lives, may be victims, but grown women are never simply victims, unless they are, quite literally, imprisoned by the circumstances of their lives.

Each year, when Chayyei Sarah is the parashah of the week, I always think of my mother, who died on the Sunday night following Shabbat Chayyei Sarah on 3^rd November 1991 – 27^th Cheshvan, according to the Hebrew calendar. This year, 27^th Cheshvan falls after sunset on Sunday. My mother, who was beautiful and vibrant and had a wonderful contralto singing voice, who could recite huge chunks of Shakespeare and scores of poems off by heart, and became an actor in the Spiro Yiddish Theatre Group, nevertheless, saw herself as a victim. Despite having a strong speaking voice, she never challenged her husband’s tyrannical behaviours, let alone asserted herself in his presence. Having left school when she was evacuated, aged 17, and not gone back, she had no saleable skills in the marketplace. On top of this, having experienced multiple losses during her childhood and then the loss of her first husband during the Second World War, when she was only 19, she had no sense of her own volition. She did leave her marriage for 18 months when confronted with aspects of her husband’s conduct she had not previously been aware of, and went to work in a women’s clothes shop owned by one of her sisters – but then she went back to him when I went off to university in the autumn of 1973. She simply could not manage on her own. In 1984, my father suffered a severe stroke the day after her 61^st birthday that left him paralysed on his right side and unable to speak. Just over six years later my mother died of lung cancer, aged 68. He lived another six and a half years and died on my birthday, aged 83.

My mother was an extraordinary ordinary woman of her time. How many women, who were married after the war and had their children in the 1950s, were able to realise themselves and participate in the world beyond their domestic environment? They were constrained and confined by the social and cultural mores of their time. Perhaps, that’s the greatest change that has taken place in the past 50+ years; women going out to work – and not just for ‘pin money’ – and so, gaining a new perspective on their lives and new ambitions beyond being wives and mothers. Nevertheless, although she saw herself as a victim, my mother did have choices. She chose to go back to her husband. I understand the choice she made and why she made it. But she could have made another choice. It would have been very hard, but she would have been free to walk her own path, however challenging that path might have been.

Of course, the past is the past. But there are lessons to be learned. When we survey the Jewish past, we can find exceptional women who defied patriarchal boundaries – like B’ruria, the wife of 2^nd century Sage, Rabbi Meir, whose scholarship was so remarkable, some of her teachings are even recorded in the Talmud, that early 6^th century compendium of male rabbinic scholarship.^[3] More recently, there was Rabbi Regina Jonas, who was, in her own words, ‘the one and only woman Rabbi’, and was ordained in Germany on 27^th December 1935.^[4] But being an exception, by definition, means singularity. There were no spiritual descendants of B’ruria, or of Regina Jonas. Subsequent generations of rabbis defamed B’ruria and the refugee German rabbis who survived the Sho’ah never mentioned Regina Jonas, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. It took the first generation of women rabbis, ordained in the 1970s and 80s to ‘discover’ these exceptional women.

It is when we think of these exceptional singular women alongside the millions of isolated ordinary women like my mother that we can see that there has been a massive transformation in gender relations – brought about by collective action. From the strike of women workers at Ford Dagenham in 1968 that led directly to the 1970 Equal Pay Act^[5] to the development of the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation movements in the 1970s that established communities of activism that led to significant changes in the lives of women and LGBT people, and in the law in this country – including, the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act^[6], equalisation of the age of consent in 2000^[7], the Gender Recognition Act in 2004,^[8] the Civil Partnership Act which came into force in 2005^[9] and the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act of 2013^[10].

The changes we have seen in the past five decades haven’t just been apparent in the wider society, they’ve also been evident in the Jewish world. In 1991, women rabbis in Britain – there were only 15 of us at the time – set up the Half-Empty Bookcase, a Jewish women’s educational project aimed at increasing the knowledge, confidence and participation of women in congregational life and and promoting Jewish women’s scholarship. Similar initiatives were already taking place at the time United States. Back then, the bookcase of Jewish life was half empty because save for a few exceptional books^[11], 99% of Jewish literature was written by men. Today the bookcase is crammed full of Jewish women’s scholarship. In addition to two books produced by British women rabbis – Hear Our Voice edited by Sybil Sheridan^[12] and Taking up the Timbrel edited by Sylvia Rothschild and Sybil Sheridan^[13] – and my own modest contribution, which includes Women Rabbis in the Pulpit. A collection of sermons, edited with Rabbi Dr Barbara Borts,^[14] there are works by scores of Jewish women rabbis and scholars. One of the most immediate ways to appreciate the scale, breadth and depth of Jewish women’s scholarship today is to pick up The Torah. A Women’s Commentary, edited by Dr Tamara Eskenazi and Rabbi Dr Andrea L. Weiss, which runs to 1350 pages. All the books I’ve just mentioned can be found in the synagogue library.^[15]

So, how do we make sense of the changes we have seen in gender relations, both, within Jewish life and in the wider society, alongside all the examples I mentioned earlier of the persistence of male power and the oppression of women and girls? Perhaps, all we can say is that change takes a long time to be embedded in the hearts and minds and reflexes of people – especially, when many men still have a vested interest in the patriarchal status quo. I think there has to be a complex interaction between individuals taking responsibility for their own lives and engaging with others to participate in collective transformation. Perhaps, if my mother had known at least one other woman, who had left her oppressive marriage and taken action to change her life, they could have supported one another along the way to independence. I remember moving into a bedsit in 1980, in a house owned by a Jewish woman in her 60s, who would only have women as tenants. When she interviewed me for the room, she told me a little bit about her life, including the fact that she had left her husband a few years earlier and gone to live in a bedsit herself. I remember thinking: I should introduce you to my Mum – but I didn’t do it. Perhaps, if I had, it would have made all the difference…

One of the most positive developments of the past few years has been the challenge to the gender binary that underlies the institutionalisation of male power. Perhaps, if, regardless of their biological gender, young people could simply be themselves on their own terms, wearing what they like, expressing themselves in their own ways, exploring their interests without being channelled in one direction or another by the gender-bind, being female or male would not carry with it the same burden of assumptions and expectations. As I mentioned in my Rosh Ha-Shanah morning sermon, I’m proud that the Council of the synagogue endorsed the decision taken by the education committee at the beginning of last year to offer our young people the non-gendered option of B’ Mitzvah alongside Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah. May this congregation always be a beacon of equality and inclusion, celebrating all the different individuals, couples and families who choose to find a home amongst us. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

23^rd November 2019 – 25^th Cheshvan 5780

1. The Second Sex was first published in English by Jonathan Cape in 1953, and subsequently, by Penguin Books in 1972. ↑

2. See chapter 2 of my book, Trouble-Making Judaism (David Paul Books, 2012): Why Miriam Spoke Against Moses: An untold Story. ↑

3. See chapter 3 of Trouble-Making Judaism: B’ruria: A Suitable Case for Mistreatment. ↑

4. See chapter 4 of Trouble-Making Judaism: Fräulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas and the Mysterious Disappearance of the First Woman Rabbi ↑

5. https://tuc150.tuc.org.uk/stories/dagenham-womens-strike/ ↑

6. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1975/65/enacted ↑

7. https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/17270 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1047291.stm ↑

8. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/crossheading/applications-for-gender-recognition-certificate ↑

9. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/33/contents ↑

10. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/contents/enacted/data.htm ↑

11. The first two books to make a mark were: On Women and Judaism by Blu Greenburg (JPSA, 1981) and On Being a Jewish Feminist edited by Susanna Heschel (Schocken Books, 1983) ↑

12. SCM Press, 1994. ↑

13. SCM press, 2000. ↑

14. Kulmus Publications, 2015. ↑

15. Published by Women of Reform Judaism and the Union of Reform Judaism Press in New York in 2008. ↑