A new month began on Thursday evening: the Hebrew month of Elul. Traditionally, Elul is the time when we prepare ourselves for the aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’ that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude on Yom Kippur. The month of Elul lasts 29 days, so, in four weeks’ time exactly it will be Rosh Ha-Shanah, literally, the ‘head’ – rosh – of ‘the year’ – ha-shanah. Falling at the beginning of the seventh month of Tishri, Rosh Ha-Shanah is the high-point of the year, marking the moment, when, six months having passed, the year turns.

Rosh Ha-Shanah marks a turning point, and so, apart from, proclaiming a New Year, the shofar, the ram’s horn, calls us to reflect on our actions, turn our lives around, and return to one another, to our true selves – and to the Eternal: which for some means God; and for others represents a sense of the Transcendent; that which is larger than ourselves and our finite lives. Rosh Ha-Shanah: the first of the ten days of t’shuvah – an intensive period of repentance, that culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, At-one-ment.

So: Elul, the month when the work of repair begins, or rather, we prepare to make the journey of repair. Like the names of the other months of the Hebrew calendar that were derived from our people’s exile in Babylonia, the word, Elul is Babylonian. It originated in the Akkadian word for ‘Harvest’, elūlu, and first appears in TaNaKh^[1], in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Nehemiah, which relates the return of Nehemiah to Jerusalem forty years after the destruction of the city, to oversee the work of repair. Significantly, the month of Elul is mentioned in the context of a verse in chapter six of the Book of Nehemiah stating that ‘[t]he wall was finished on the 25^th of Elul, after fifty-two days’^[2]. Then, later, chapter 8 relates how the Israelites, having settled back into their towns, assembled before the Watergate at the beginning of the seventh month, and listened to Ezra the scribe read ‘the scroll of the teaching of Moses’ – seifer torat Moshe^[3].

The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and King Solomon’s Temple in 586 BCE. When the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BCE, King Cyrus of Persia permitted our ancestors to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. The scene described in the Book of Nehemiah relates to that great rebuilding project. And it also hints at another kind of repair: the repair of the people as they ‘assembled before the Watergate at the beginning of the seventh month’.

In S.Y. Agnon’s marvelous anthology, Days of Awe, we find this story:^[4] “A tale is told of one who sat in study before the zaddik Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna, of blessed memory, and before Rosh ha-Shanah came to obtain permission to be dismissed. That zaddik said to him, ‘Why are you hurrying?’ Said he to him, ‘I am a Reader, and I must look into the festival prayer book, and put my prayers in order.’ Said the zaddik to him, ‘The prayer book is the same as it was last year. But it would be better for you to look into your deeds, and put yourself in order.’” Well, this year the coronavirus pandemic has meant that I have, quite literally, had to spend a great deal of time already putting the prayers for the yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’ ‘in order’; shortening them because since the synagogue remains closed, we are having to hold all the services online, and so need to avoid screen fatigue.

Nevertheless, the tale reminds us of the purpose of aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ten days of return that begin on Rosh Ha-Shanah and conclude on Yom Kippur, and of the unique opportunity that the month of the Elul provides for us to examine our deeds of the past year and resolve to restore our relationships. By the time Rosh Ha-Shanah arrives, there is so little time to make amends. How much more sensible to begin the process in Elul. There is an interesting difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi practice in this regard. In Sephardi tradition, which originated with the Jews of Sepharad – those who lived in Spain and Portugal until the expulsions of 1492 and 1497 – it is customary to recite prayers for s’lichot, ‘forgiveness’ and blow the shofar at the end of shacharit (morning prayer) from Rosh Chodesh (the new moon of) Elul until the eve of Rosh Ha-Shanah. In the Ashkenazi tradition that has its roots in Jewish life in northern and central Europe during the Middle Ages, s’lichot prayers and the blowing of the shofar only begin from midnight on the Saturday prior to Rosh Ha-Shanah. Since this year, Rosh Ha-Shanah falls on Shabbat, S’lichot will be on the previous Saturday night – 12^th September.

Ashkenazi Jews may seem to lose out when it comes to making the best use of Elul as a month of preparation for the yamim nora’im. But there are other Elul traditions to help us prepare. There is the custom of expressing our best wishes to people l’shanah tovah – ‘for a good year’ – both in person, and when writing letters – and these days, emails, tweets, Facebook posts and instagram. This simple practice serves as a daily reminder to ourselves and others that the New Year is approaching. It is also traditional to visit the graves of loved ones during Elul – reminding ourselves of our connection with those who went before us, and the legacy we have received from them. On a more demanding level, Elul is the time to begin the work of t’shuvah; to return to the true path of our lives, to ourselves and to others, to recognise our mistakes and the hurts we have inflicted and make amends.

So: the month of Elul has begun. It signals a new beginning. But it is important to acknowledge that Elul of its self does not bring renewal; it is up to us, as it was up to our ancestors before us, to use the month for this purpose. Disconcertingly, a similar word in the Bible, the Hebrew noun, Elil, means ‘worthlessness’ – as when the prophet Jeremiah railed against the worthless divinations and deceits of false prophets.^[5] Spelt almost identically – except for the difference of a vowel – ‘u’ (shurek) in Elul, ‘i’ (chiriq) in Elil, the words Elul and Elil – the one Hebrew, the other, Babylonian – are not related; although, curiously, in Jeremiah 14:14 Elil is written to look like Elul. But even without this scribal error, the surface similarity between these two very different words teaches us an important lesson: Unless we begin to renew our lives during Elul, the gift of Elul will be worthless.

With the rain and wind of the past week, we know that autumn is fast approaching. A line from one of my favourite Simon & Garfunkel songs comes to mind: ‘August – die she must; the autumn wind blows chilly and cold’. It is no accident that Rosh Ha-Shanah falls at the beginning of the seventh month; the turning point of the year, when the abundance of summer begins to fade. The chorus from another Simon & Garfunkel song captures the sense of loss: ‘And the leaves that are green turn to brown, / And they wither with the wind, /And they crumble in your hand’.

As autumn gathers pace, we won’t be able to do anything about the leaves turning from green to brown and withering with the wind, but we can turn ourselves towards the task of renewal. As Rosh Ha-Shanah approaches, may each one of us find the courage to take our first steps. And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

22^nd August 2020 – 2^nd Elul 5780

1. Acronym for Torah, N’vi’im, K’tuvim – ‘Teaching, Prophets, Writings’ – the three sections of the TaNaKh, the Hebrew Bible. ↑

2. Nehemiah 6:15. ↑

3. Neh. 8:1ff. ↑

4. Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna lived in the 19^th century. Schocken Books, New York, 1965, p. 38. ↑

5. Jeremiah 14:14. ↑

At this time, 2606 years ago, the inhabitants of Jerusalem were experiencing the full force of the Babylonian conquest. The city had been under siege since the winter, and just over two weeks earlier the city walls had been breached. Exhausted and dying of famine, they didn’t know what lay ahead, but they knew they were in the midst of a catastrophe. And then five days later, on the 9th day of the month of Av, King Solomon’s Temple, built over 400 years earlier, was destroyed and the city was finally laid waste.

The tale of that destruction is told in searing detail in the biblical book of Lamentations, known by its first word, Eichah:

Eichah! yash’va vadad ha-ir rabati am.

Alas! How solitary does the city sit that was so full of people.

Jewish memory begins with destruction – churban; a word that also means devastation. On Tishah B’Av, we remember back to that time of catastrophe. Jewish memory also has other beginnings. The journey of Abraham and Sarah and their household from Charan in Mesopotamia, towards the land beyond the Jordan.^[1] The journey of the descendants of our ancestors out of slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness^[2] – again towards the land beyond the Jordan.

We are the Hebrews – Ivrim – from the Hebrew root, Ayin Beit Reish, to pass over or to cross over. From our very beginnings, we have taken journeys and have been forever crossing borders – sometimes of our own volition, sometimes because we were forced out, sometimes because we had simply no other choice but to flee. This Shabbat, we begin reading the fifth and last book of the Torah, D’varim – Deuteronomy – which opens with Moses reminding the people of the journey through the wilderness, as they encamp on the edge of the Jordan, waiting to cross over.

The destruction of King Solomon’s Temple and Jerusalem precipitated another journey – an exile to Babylon (known today as Iraq). But, as it happens, the traumatic exile of 586 BCE, when ‘by the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept as we remembered Zion’^[3], was short lived. In 539 BCE, King Cyrus of Persia defeated the Babylonians and permitted the exiles to return to the land and rebuild the Temple.

But that change in fortunes did not mean that everyone returned. Some of the exiles chose to remain in Babylon. Exiles no longer, they put down roots. By the time the last Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans – the last in a series of conquerors – the Jewish community in Babylon was thriving. And in the course of the next few hundred years, its scholarly academies at Sura^[4] and Pumbedita^[5] became the major centres of Jewish Learning, eclipsing those in the land. The Mishnah, the first rabbinic code of law, edited around the year 200, reflected the work of the academies established in the land following the destruction of the Temple. When we turn to the G’mara, the commentary on the Mishnah by subsequent generations of scholars, the sharp difference between the circumstances of the Jewish communities living in Babylon and in the land is very evident. The Y’rushalmi, the Jerusalem Talmud^[6], chiefly the work of the academies of Tiberius and Caesarea and edited under the difficult conditions of Roman domination around the year 400, is a terse and incomplete 4-volume document, compared to the 63 tractates of the Bavli, edited in Babylon a century later.^[7] Study of the Talumd since then has been predominantly study of the Bavli, rather than of the Y’rushalmi, which is usually referred to only for comparative purposes. Indeed, in the centuries that followed the production of the Bavli, the Babylonian academies continued to be the centres of Jewish learning, producing in time, codes of Halachah, Jewish law.

Why am I telling you all this? Because as we remember our painful history of persecution, segregation, destruction, massacre and expulsion, culminating in the Sho’ah, it’s also important that we remember the flourishing of Jewish life and learning that in some cases, as with the exile to Babylon, followed periods of utter devastation.

And it’s not just a matter of putting the record straight and ensuring that we have a complete picture. The Jewish experience of how we have not only survived but in some important cases managed to flourish after destruction, is also a lesson for humanity. Our experience of journeying, of wandering and flight, which has defined us as a people, has also given us a unique perspective on life and the experience of being alive.

For the past few months, the world has been living in a time of extreme crisis, the coronavirus pandemic; a crisis that has brought society as we know it to a standstill. There’s been no destruction as such – no cities in ruins – but the pandemic has not only resulted in a high death toll – as of yesterday morning, 45,554 people in the UK and 633,122 people altogether around the globe^[8] – it has confined us to our homes, cut us off from our friends and families, closed schools and amenities, including, restaurants and cafés, theatres and cinemas, and all but essential shops, grounded planes and severely limited other forms of public transport. And, as restrictions are eased, with new cases of infection recorded every day^[9] and effective track and trace systems not yet in place, we know it’s not over yet. In fact, we have no idea when it will be over – and whether or not it will ever be over. As we have been adjusting to what has been called ‘the new normal’, we are aware that we may find ourselves living with COVID-19 for a long, long time.

Of course, experiences of this ‘new normal’ vary depending on people’s individual economic circumstances. For example, for those with spacious homes and gardens, being in lockdown has been very different than for those confined to flats that don’t even have a balcony. There are so many other variants, including whether or not one is shielding, living at home or in care, living alone, or with one other person, or with several people in crowded conditions. But for all of us, the continuing coronavirus pandemic means uncertainty. We have always taken for granted that we can make plans for the months or year ahead, but now we find ourselves stymied. Within our own congregation, two b’nei mitzvah dates have already been postponed. Just two weeks ago, a couple I was due to marry on August 30^th reluctantly decided to rearrange their plans – hopefully, for April next year.

So, it’s hard to look forward. And yet, we must look forward. The Jewish people has always looked forward to the future. And now, as individuals, families, communities, as a society, we must look forward to the time beyond the coronavirus crisis. And we must think about, not how we will return to life as it was, but as a new social movement puts it, how we can ‘build back better’. On the Build Back Better Campaign website, we read:^[10]

The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world upside down, exposing major weaknesses in our economy and the deep-seated inequalities of our society that mean the most vulnerable people have been hit the hardest.

But what we do next could change everything. As the world recovers, we have a chance to reset the clock and build back better than before.

We need something new.

We need a new deal that prioritises people, invests in our NHS and creates a robust, shockproof economy that is capable of tackling the climate crisis.

Any coronavirus recovery plan must be built on the following principles:

1. Secure the health and needs of everyone in the UK now and into the future

2. Protect and invest in our public services

3. Rebuild society with a transformative green new deal

4. Invest in people

5. Build solidarity and community across borders

The Build Back Better campaign was initiated, and is currently co-ordinated, by Green New Deal UK, drawing on existing funding from the European Climate Foundation and Oak Foundation. The campaign is run by a steering group that includes, in addition to Green New Deal UK, Medact, Greenpeace, the Greener Jobs Alliance, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the UK School Climate Network (UKSCN), the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Workforce, New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth and 350.org ^[11] ‍

It is heartening to think that these sterling organisations are bringing their experience, skills and vision together. We are invited to join them. You can register to be involved in the campaign by going to the Build Back Better home page.^[12] The point is, as Jewish experience has demonstrated, a crisis, even a catastrophe, can contain the seeds of opportunity. We human beings are essentially creative and adaptable. We have always adapted to changing external circumstances. By drawing on our resources, not least, of optimism, resilience and life-embracing determination, we can build back better.

I am continually inspired by the words of Marge Piercy in her poem, ‘The task never completed’, which is included in the draft Shabbat morning service booklet. Let me quote a few lines from it:^[13]

Incomplete, becoming, the world / was given us to fix, to complete / and we’ve almost worn it out. / … / Every dawn I stumble from the roaring / vat of dreams and make myself up / remembering and forgetting by halves. / Every dawn, I choose to take a knife / to the world’s flank or a sewing kit, / rough improvisation, but a start.

We must make a start, even if we do not know where we are going at the moment. The returning exiles from Babylon made a new start. Those who stayed in Babylon made a new start. Generation after generation, wherever we found ourselves, our people have started over again, and survived and flourished. Even after the utter desolation of the Sho’ah, we have renewed Jewish life – in Israel, and also around the world – not least, in Europe, the epicentre of the attempt to eradicate Jewish life. In 1933, 525,000 Jews lived in Germany. In 1950, there were just 37,000 Jews left.^[14] By 2019, the Jewish population of Germany had increased with immigration from the East to 118,00.^[15] In recent decades, Jewish communities in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, have also come to life again. May we, today, even as the coronavirus crisis continues, find the courage and the spirit to connect with others and to make a start on building back better and repairing the world.

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

25^th July 2020 / 4^th Av 5780

1. Lech-L’cha, Genesis 12:1 ff. ↑

2. Bo, Exodus 12: 37-42, B’shallach, Exodus 13: 17 ff. ↑

3. Psalm 137:1 ↑

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sura_Academy ↑

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumbedita ↑

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

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud ↑

8. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases Deaths by continent as of 24.07.20: Africa: 16,705, Asia: 84,884, America (North and South): 329,918, Europe: 201,444, Oceania: 164 deaths – plus 7 deaths have been reported from an international conveyance in Japan. ↑

9. See the same web-site for recorded cases of Covid-19 by country updated each day. ↑

10. https://www.buildbackbetteruk.org/what-we-want ↑

11. https://www.buildbackbetteruk.org/about-us ↑

12. https://www.buildbackbetteruk.org/ ↑

13. ‘The task never completed’ is included in Marge Piercy’s collection, The Art of Blessing the Day. Five Leaves Publications, 1998 pp. 82-83). ↑

14. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/remaining-jewish-population-of-europe-in-1945 ↑

15. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world ↑

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And let us say: Amen.

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

27^th June 2020 / 5^th Tammuz 5780

1. Korach, Numbers 16-18. ↑

2. Chukkat, Numbers 20:1. ↑

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

4. Sh’mot, Exodus 2:1-10. ↑

5. B’shallach, Exodus 15:19-20. ↑

6. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12:1-2. ↑

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

8. B’ha’a lot’cha, Numbers 12:10 ↑

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

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

11. Bo, Exodus 12: 38. ↑

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah

Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue

9 May l 2020 – 15 Iyyar 5780

1. Emor, Leviticus 23:3. ↑

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

3. Lev. 23:11; 15-16. ↑

4. Lev. 23:20. ↑

5. Pin’chas, Numbers 28:26. ↑

6. Mishpatim, Exodus 23:16. ↑

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