Rabbi Danny's Blog

Sermon: Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772 - In a world where no-one can be super-human, we need to be humans who are super!

2011-10-31T09:03:00.001-07:00

Faster than a speeding bullet.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Is it a bird, is it a plane.
No … it’s a nice Jewish boy.

It may surprise you all to know that Superman is Jewish. I am not trying to claim him as one of our own in the way that we like to find Jewish roots for every celebrity. The man of steel is really Jewish.

The two creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, grew up in the Jewish community of Cleveland in the first half of the twentieth century. And they drew upon the experiences of an immigrant Jewish community to create a Jewish hero who could be embraced by American society, and ultimately the world.

Superman and the American Jews of the 1940s shared defining characteristics. They were immigrants who had come to America from a foreign world; his world was Krypton, ours was Eastern Europe. Superman’s entire family and race had been wiped out by a disaster of epic proportions, his home was destroyed. For the Jews witnessing the Holocaust, they watched as their home communities were devastated and their families killed.

And just like the American Jewish community, Superman sought to find a way to assimilate, and become a part of American society. He assumed the identity of Clark Kent as a way of fitting in, and it was only in secret that his true identity could be revealed. He shed the clothing of Krypton, and assumed the look of a shy and insecure American journalist. Like many Jews, he also hid his Hebrew name. On Krypton, Superman was not Clark Kent, he was Kal-El, a beautifully symbolic name, which is derived from the Hebrew, ‘Kol El’ meaning either ‘All is God’, or ‘The voice of God’. It is in the line of names which includes Israe-El, Micha-El, Gavri-El and my own Dani-El.

I like to think of Superman as Kol-El – The Voice of God. He was sent to Earth to remind us of God’s message, and to help us hear God’s still small voice in the world. Superman’s core values are Jewish values; he pursues truth, justice and the American way. Truth and Justice may seem obvious as Jewish values, but if we take the American way to represent the words of the Declaration of Independence ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ we can again see that Judaism is present.

When Superman was sent to earth by his parents; his father said to him about us: ‘They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason, above all-their capacity for good-I have sent them you.’ Superman was sent to earth to help bring out the good in us, to help us to be the best we can be, and to make this world a better place.

However, Superman is only able to accomplish his purpose on earth when he stays true to his heroic identity. The ‘S’, emblazoned on his chest, and the cape are not the costume, they are his true essence. The costume which Superman dons is the two piece suit of Clark Kent and the cowardice which accompanies it. He is unique amongst the Superheroes; Spiderman is really Peter Parker, and Batman is really Bruce Wayne – they conceal their humanity and assume a costume to be heroes. Superman, on the other hand, strips himself of his heroic qualities to become human; heroism is his nature, humanity is his costume.

This is the disturbing truth concealed in the Superman stories; when the man of steel looks at human society, he sees us as weak, cowardly and unheroic. Clark Kent is his attempt to assimilate into this culture. We require a saviour from Krypton to save us, as we are incapable of saving ourselves. In a comparable vein, neither Peter Parker nor Bruce Wayne are heroes; they need to conceal their human identity, and don a mask, so that they may behave in a heroic way as Spiderman and Batman respectively.

Why can’t humans be heroes? Why do comic book creators require that their heroes come from distant planets or conceal their humanity in masks and costumes? Why is it so unbelievable that humans are capable of heroism?

When we look at the world around us, it is disturbing to see just how similar our reality is to the fantasy created in comic-books. After all, it is our reality on which the fantasy is based. In today’s society, it is easy to spot the villains; it is much harder, however, to locate the heroes. This past year we have witnessed gunmen going on rampages in Tuscon, where Congressowman Giffords was shot, in Carson City and in several other places across the country. We are still suffering the after effects of the greed which brought the global economy to a standstill. And we have listened as the voices of bigotry and hatred have grown louder, both in the Middle East and closer to home.

If this is what humanity has become, is it any surprise that we require a superhero to come down from a distant planet to save us? If this is what humanity has become, is it any surprise that humanity and heroism are adversarial terms instead of interchangeable ones? If this is what humanity has become, is it any surprise that human nature is often used as an excuse for someone’s negative qualities rather than their positive ones?

In a world where no-one can be super-human, we need to be humans who are super.

Superheroes present us with a magic solution for the problems and ills within society. It is highly reminiscent of the messianic idea which dominated Judaism from the destruction of the Second Temple through to the birth of Reform Judaism. Our ancestors accepted their situation as oppressed, humiliated and landless because they accepted an idea that a Messiah would eventually come and save them. They accepted an imperfect world, and more significantly, they accepted their powerlessness to change it. They waited for their Messiah to come, and we are still waiting.

Reform Judaism said something different. We rejected the idea that a Messiah would come and save us, and instead we developed an understanding of a Messianic Age. This time would not come about as a result of God or an external superhero.
Instead, we will be the builders of a Messianic Age.
We will be the masters of our destiny.
We will not wait for the world to become a better place; we will begin the work of making our world better.
The wait for a Messiah encouraged passivity; the need for a Messianic Age is a call to action. We need to hear the call, and we need to respond!

Becoming humans who are super, and repairing the entire world may appear like quite a daunting task, but we achieve it one good deed at a time. The Jewish idea of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, is built upon the idea that every positive action, no matter how small, helps to make the world a better place, and takes us one step further on the path to fixing our broken planet. Mitzvot are accumulated, and they grow beyond what could initially have been imagined.

Fred Scarf and Shiri Gumbiner met in Study Hall in 2004 during their freshman year of High School in California, and they soon became best friends, going everywhere together. They had plans for the future, and were looking forward to eventually attending their High School prom together. When they met Shiri had already been diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, and despite the aggressive treatment she received, she passed away that August, when she should have been preparing for her sophomore year.

Fred wanted to do something to honor the memory of his friend, but as a 15 year old he was uncertain about where to start. In a Barnes and Noble, he stumbled across a book: “How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation.” Despite the fact that this seemed like an impossible goal, he also realized it would be the perfect way to honor Shiri. During that year he divided his time between homework and filling in the mountain of paperwork required to set up a 501c3.

His initial aim was to raise money to fund research into finding a cure for osteosarcoma, and he did this by selling t-shirts, which simply said: ‘I’m fighting bone cancer by wearing this shirt’. But he soon realized there were other ways that he could make a difference, and honor the memory of his friend. Shiri was never able to attend her High School Prom, and Fred knew that many other teenagers were also missing out on this opportunity. So in 2007, he set about organizing a prom for teens with life-threatening illnesses, giving these patients an opportunity to enjoy that special night that everyone looks forward to and remembers. At the first prom, there were 16 teenagers. At the most recent prom, held at the Madame Tussauds Museum in California, hundreds of young people attended, many of them taking time out from their treatment to be there.

In 2008 Fred was a recipient of a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award, and in 2010 he was recognized as one of CNN’s heroes. Fred wanted to honor the memory of his friend and to help other people in a similar situation. He started out small and he has made a tremendous difference in the lives of hundreds if not thousands of young people. He is a human who is super, offering a heroic example we can seek to emulate.

Rabbi Shimon ben Zoma asks the question in Pirkei Avot: ‘eyzeh hoo giboor?’ ‘Who is a hero?’ And he answers; the hero is the one who suppresses his evil inclination, the yetzer harah. I agree with Shimon ben Zoma, but I would phrase my answer slightly differently. The hero is the one who maximizes his good inclination, the yetzer tov.

We are heroes when we pursue what is good and right. We are heroes when we act courageously in the pursuit of justice. And we are heroes when we help to make the world a better place. When it comes to heroism, we always have a choice. Superman could have hidden his powers, or used them for sinister purposes; instead he chose to be a hero. He chose to follow his good inclination and use his powers to fight for what is right. We need to make the same decision, behaving in a way which is worthy of our best qualities.

I would like to clarify that I am not suggesting that we need to be perfect or infallible; on the contrary, many of our heroes were far from it. Moses, who like Superman was destined to be a guiding light, leading the Israelites to freedom, certainly had his flaws. He tried to avoid God’s call, at times he lacked faith, he was insecure, absent from his family and had a tendency to lose his temper. But Moses overcame his shortcomings to find the good within them; I believe it was Moses’ imperfections that helped make him the person that he was and helped him lead us to be the people we would become.

Even Superman, our Jewish man of steel, was fallible. When exposed to Kryptonite he became weak and frail, and he would on occasion succumb to his anger and seek revenge. But every day was a new day to make it right; every day was another opportunity for heroism to triumph. Being super and heroic does not mean being perfect in an imperfect world; being super and heroic means trying to make our imperfect world a better place. To be superhuman is an impossibility. Such a thing does not exist, nor should it exist. But to be a human who is capable of super acts – therein lies a word of possibility.

In a world where no-one can be super-human, we need to be humans who are super.

When Abraham received his call from God, he was told ‘Lech Lecha’ – ‘Go forth!’ This enigmatic phrase called on him to undertake a journey to an unknown destination. But it also called on him to discover himself, as the Hebrew could also be translated as ‘go to yourself.’ To be the Patriarch of the Jewish people, he did not simply have to journey to a promised land; he had to discover the promise within.

This Rosh Hashannah, as we begin our Jewish new year, I am committing to undertake my own Lech Lecha. Just like Abraham, I do not know the destination to which I am journeying, but I know how it begins. It begins with the internal journey; it begins with self-reflection. I will take time to discover what is inside me, who I am and who I want to be. Then I will attempt to begin the journey towards heroism.

Abraham did not undertake his journey alone; he had a community to support him. Looking out at all of you, my new community; I ask, who will join me? Who will join me on this journey of Lech Lecha? Who will search within themselves to discover the courage, righteousness, and heroism that exists within us all? Who will join me to try to make a difference one mitzvah at a time, until together we can save the world. Together we can ascend Sinai, the mountain of our human potential, reaching up to the stars; rather than looking up to them for salvation.

This coming year, how will we change the world? Whom will we protect? What are we willing to fight for?

The story is told of a man who came up to Heaven, the angels asked him questions about his life and the way he lived. As the final question one angel asked him: ‘Do you have any scars?’ The man was puzzled and thought for a moment before responding ‘No, none that I can think of.’ The angel looked at him and said: ‘So was there nothing worth fighting for?’

The story does not mean that we have to go out into the world ready for a physical fight, but it does suggest that we should be prepared to ‘fight for what is right’ and be prepared to bear the emotional scars and bruises. Humanity is something worth fighting for. Being a hero is not always easy, and it can be difficult to make a difference, but we must be prepared for the struggle.

This new Jewish year, we must fight to make humanity worthy of heroism. We must fight to make humanity synonymous with heroism. We must fight to make humanity heroic.

Kal-El, a nice Jewish boy from Krypton, was endowed with super powers. He chose to use these super powers for the good of humanity, and so he became Superman. Each one of us has the power to be a superhero; each one of us has been endowed with gifts to make a heroic contribution to society. If we can do this, then we will not need a super-human to come and save us, for we will have saved ourselves, saved each other, and in turn, helped save the world.

In a world where no-one can be super-human, we need to be humans who are super.

Shana Tova.

Two Minutes of Torah: Noach - Many languages or just one

2011-10-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

In my family, my sister and I have very few complaints about the way that our parents raised us. I still regret the fact that I never got the Millennium Falcon, but over the years I have come to terms with this loss. The one major complaint, which continues as a subject of heated debates, is that fact that my parents did not bring us up bilingually. My mother’s first language is Hebrew and my father’s is English; so we were perfectly positioned to be fluent in both. But for reasons, which are still discussed, and as a result of the scholarship of the day, we were raised only speaking English. I have developed a comfort with Hebrew over the years; but I really wonder what might have been different had I really been bilingual. For one, it would have made my rabbinical studies significantly easier…

While in my family we tend to blame my mother for not speaking to us in Hebrew, perhaps we should really blame those people who decided to build the Tower of Babel. For it was as a result of their endeavor that God filled the world with a multiplicity of languages. And this eventually led to the early 1980s, and my upbringing with just one language.

Following on from the story of the flood it is not so surprising that the people of the time said ‘come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky’ (Genesis 11:3). However, according to the text, the building project was not motivated by a desire to survive a potential future natural disaster, instead they desired: ‘to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world’ (Genesis 11:3). This anonymous group of people was united by their common language and their common goal.

From the text it is evident that God was less than pleased by the prospect of the world uniting together as one, to build a tower with its top reaching up to the heavens. When reading the text it almost appears that their ability to build this tower will be symbolic of their ability to achieve anything they desire, a situation, which God is eager to prevent. The solution to this problem appears to be the common language and so God says: ‘Let us, then, go down and confound their speech’ (Genesis 11:7). Following the introduction of a diversity of languages God ‘scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth’ (Genesis 11:8), causing exactly the situation they sought to avoid. But then the place receives a name ‘Babel’ (Genesis 11:9), something which they had aspired to.

The story poses a whole variety of questions: Why was God scared by the potential of all humanity working together? Do we understand the introduction of different languages as a punishment or as a method to stop human cooperation? And what does God gain by scattering humanity across the planet?

We can imagine what the world would be like with all of humanity united by one language, but this appears to run contrary to God’s plan. Perhaps the clue is in the story which immediately precedes the Tower of Babel. The story of Noah reasserts the fact that we are all descended from the same source; all of us are the children of Noah, as we were all the children of Adam and Eve. And yet God does not desire a world of uniformity and conformity; God wants a world filled with difference and diversity.

The image at the end of the story of Noah is that of the rainbow, a natural phenomenon, where seven different colors come together to form something so much more beautiful and awe-inspiring than the mere sum of its parts. A red or orange bow in the sky would look nice, but a rainbow with seven distinct colors is something spectacular. Perhaps the rainbow is not just the sign of the covenant with Noah, but also the symbol of what humanity could achieve when embracing our differences alongside our similarities.

It is easy to work with, befriend and support people who are like us. The challenge is to work with people who are different, to befriend the stranger and to support people from different races, religions and cultures. Then we will not worry about building towers; we will instead celebrate our combined rainbows.

Sermon: Shabbat Bereishit - Any price is to high, and any price is worth paying

2011-10-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

I know that it might not be cool to admit, but I enjoy the Star Trek movies, and even the television series. I wouldn’t classify myself as a Trekkie; I can’t recall details from every episode, I don’t speak any Klingon, and I struggle to do the Vulcan salute, based on our own hand shape for the Priestly blessing. But I like the stories, characters, and I actually think there is a lot that we can learn from those brave men and women who boldly went where no man had gone before.

As many of you will know Captain Spock, from the Planet Vulcan, was noted for his dedication to living his life by logic and reason, with no allowances for emotional responses. In one of the movies, when he himself is about to die, there is a moving exchange with his close friend and commanding officer, Admiral James T. Kirk. With Spock accepting the fact that he is about to die, he reassures Kirk: ‘were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’. There is no arguing with the Vulcan logic.

And yet in the next installment of the movie series, Kirk and the crew of The Enterprise risk their ship, their careers and their lives to save Spock. And in the poignant moment where the two friends are reunited, Spock is unable to understand why they have come back to rescue him. To that question Kirk simply responds: ‘Because the needs of the one … outweigh the needs of the many’. Human emotion, devoid of logic and reason, can sometimes alter the balance between what should be done, and what must be done.

For the people of Israel, and Jews around the world, this debate between logic and emotion has been played out in the case of the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 convicted terrorists.

On Tuesday last week, as we prepared for the celebration of Sukkot, it was announced that a deal had been signed between the Israeli Government and Hamas for the release of Gilad. When I first heard the news I was overwhelmed with joy and excitement. I could honestly not focus on any of the work at hand, and instead found myself compulsively searching the internet looking for stories and articles, desperate for every piece of information, which would further prove that the reports were true. At the same time there was a part of me that remained hesitant and unconvinced, fearing that something would derail the initiative. I experienced a sense of excitement marked by suspicion, hope mixed with fear.

As that week progressed it became increasingly clear that the exchange would go through and that Gilad would finally be returning home. And at the same time we learnt about who would be moving in the opposite direction. Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who drove a suicide bomber to the Sbarro Pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, which killed 15 people out for lunch. The perpetrators of the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, Abed el-Aziz Salha and Rami Ibrahim were also on the list. And Abed al-Hadi Ganaim who in 1989 seized control of the 405 bus and drove it of a cliff, killing 16 of its passengers. As the list of the 477 prisoners to be exchanged in the first stage of the transfer was made public, there was resentment at the price being paid, anger over punishments going unserved, and fear as to what these murderers and terrorists may do in the future.

And then on Tuesday morning we awoke to pictures of Gilad Shalit as he began his walk to freedom. He was recognizable as the young man in the picture which was on our bimah until Wednesday; but he looked paler and almost emaciated. He walked hesitantly, but for many who had feared that this day would never come it was simply a relief to see him alive and free. We shed tears of joy for a son being reunited with his parents. We celebrated Israel’s commitment to bringing every child home. And we watched the embraces which he received from the Prime Minister, the Chief of Staff and finally his parents.

And at the same time we were forced to watch the scenes from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where terrorists and murderers were given a heroes welcome. We listened as the crowds celebrated their triumph and called for more Israeli soldiers to be kidnapped to free other Palestinian prisoners. And I wondered about what hopes there are for our shattered peace process.

It is not logical that 280 people serving life sentences should be released from prison unrepentant and unreformed. It is not logical to release terrorists who have been responsible for death and destruction, providing them the opportunity to kill and maim again in the future. And it is not logical that one person’s life is worth the lives of 1,027 others.

When looked at through the eyes of logic, this is a terrible deal. It encourages terrorists to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. It allows murderers to go free to kill again. And it sends a message that what cannot be achieved by negotiation can be gained by force.

But it is not always about what is logical. Sometimes the logical course of action is the wrong course of action. Sometimes it is about the heart ruling the head. Sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

In this week’s Torah portion of Bereishit we read about the creation of the world, and how we are all descended from Adam and Eve. The Rabbis were fascinated by the idea that the whole of humanity descends from one single human being, and they interpreted these verses in a variety of directions. In one interpretation, the Jerusalem Talmud suggests that we are all descended from one human being so as to teach us that whoever destroys a soul, it is as though that person destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is as though that person saved the entire world. Within Jewish tradition, while it is important to save as many lives as possible, the saving of a single life is given a supreme value, equivalent to saving the entire world. Gilad Shalit was that single life, saved by the Government of Israel in a deal, which despite many many grave reservations, brought him home safe and sound.

On October 7th 2000 three Israeli soldiers: Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawaid were abducted across the Lebanese border by Hezbollah terrorists disguised as UN soldiers. Their cause was adopted by the British Jewish youth movements, who campaigned tirelessly for information about their fate, and for their release. At that time Haim Avraham, the father of Benny travelled tirelessly around the world meeting with Jewish groups, Synagogues and politicians to campaign for the release of his son. I had the opportunity to meet him on several occasions, and these encounters left an indelible mark.

Haim and his family were trapped in an unbearable situation, not knowing the fate of their son, and whether he was dead or alive. They clung to a hope that Benny would return to them safe and sound, but they worried about how he might be suffering at the hands of Hezbollah and they feared that he may already have been killed. He was stuck in a state of limbo, unable to move forward with his own life, without knowing about the fate of his son. When a soldier is killed, the family is informed and able to begin the process of mourning. But Haim, despite losing his son, could not grieve or mourn; the uncertainty left him trapped in a situation of daily despair, anguish and mental torture.

Almost three and a half years after his son was captured, a deal was agreed between Hezbollah and Israel. Over four hundred prisoners were released in exchange for the bodies of Adi, Benny and Omar. And finally Haim Avraham could begin to mourn for the loss of his son.

According to Jewish law this imperative to redeem captives is a mitzvah rabba – a commandment of great importance. In the Talmud it explains the reasoning behind this by teaching that captivity is worse than famine, the sword or death, because it encompasses all of these three punishments. And it is not just the captive who suffers these trials, but everyone who cares for him is also afflicted by pain and suffering. Redeeming the captives was so significant that Maimonides said that money intended for feeding or clothing the poor should be diverted and used instead for redeeming captives. And it was even permissible to sell a Torah scroll if the money raised would help bring people back home.

This week the State of Israel fulfilled this imperative and brought Gilad Shalit back home. We are filled with joy at the sight of Gilad back with his family, but we know that Israel has paid a heavy price to buy his freedom.

In his article about the release of Gilad Shalit, Rabbi Avi Weiss drew our attention to the contrast between the words of Ecclesiastes and the interpretation of the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai.

In Ecclesiastes we read that famous passage: ‘A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven… A time for killing and a time for healing… a time for weeping and a time for laughing… a time for love and a time for hate, a time for war and a time for peace.’ Ecclesiastes imagines a world of ‘either-or’, a world in which there are set times for different emotions, we do not simultaneously love and hate, but independently and separately we experience our emotions.

Yehuda Amichai takes issue with the words of Eccelsiastes, in his poem: ‘A Man in His Life’, he writes.
‘A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose.
Ecclesiastes was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,’

We do not experience our emotions independently. There are times in our lives when we love and hate, when we laugh and cry. Life is not black and white; it is a rainbow of colors and shades, blended and mixed together in different proportions at different times throughout our lives. The release of Gilad Shalit is one of those moments when we feel the stark contrast between positive and negative emotions. We celebrate and we mourn, we are filled with joy and regret; there is hope and there is fear.

The Jewish wedding is a reminder of this important lesson. At the end of the ceremony, a moment of supreme joy, as we celebrate two people who have committed themselves to each other in love; a glass is broken as a reminder that our world is still broken. The shattered glass is a highly potent symbol, once broken it cannot ever be repaired. On the occasion of Gilad’s release the broken glass represents the hundreds of lives shattered by terrorists who have been granted their freedom. We experience joy and sadness.

And yet on Tuesday I was so very proud to be a Jew and to be a Zionist.

On Tuesday Israel made a statement about the type of country she is. A country which cares so deeply for human life that it is willing to release 1,027 terrorists to save one of its children.

On Tuesday Israel demonstrated that commitment which she has to every single one of her children, all of whom are required to serve in the army to defend the Jewish State. There was something so powerful about watching Staff Sergeant Shalit first saluting Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Chief of General Staff, only to be embraced by them moments later. This was not about rank or status it was about the joy the entire country felt at the return of their son.

We cannot know the consequences of releasing 1,027 terrorists from Israeli prisons, and if history is any guide the majority of them will in all likelihood return to their violent struggle.
But for now we can celebrate the fact that Gilad Shalit is back home. Today we can enjoy our first Shabbat services for over a year without his picture on the bimah. And tonight Gilad has celebrated Shabbat with his family for the first time in over five years.

Any price which Israel was forced to pay was always going to be too high, but any price was always going to be worth paying.

In the international media Israel will often be accused of having a disproportionate response to acts of terror. This week we saw the real inequality and imbalance present in Israeli society; we saw that Israel disproportionally values the life of each and every one of her citizens.

This week we saw Israel fulfilling the dream that she would serve as an Or LeGoyim, a light unto the nations.

This week I am especially proud to be a Zionist and a member of the Jewish family.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bereishit - In the Beginning

2011-10-21T10:46:00.001-07:00

The age old question has always been; what is our purpose here on earth? Could the answer be found in the very first Torah portion?

At the beginning of Bereishit’s second story of creation, there is a sense in which the world is waiting for humans to be created. The world lies barren 'because the Eternal God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no human to till the soil' (Genesis 2:5). The idea that there is no point to a complete creation without humans to nurture the land gives human beings a great deal of purpose, accompanied by a great deal of responsibility.

Humanity is effectively the key which unlocks creation. This idea stands in stark contrast to the first creation story, which has a fully functioning world before man and woman are created. We are the final act of creation, and the world appears to be fully functional with or without us.

Yet in the second story of creation, not only are we humans important for the functioning of the earth, but we are also literally a part of it: 'the Eternal God formed man from the dust of the earth' (Genesis 2:7). The very name for the first man, Adam, comes from the Hebrew word adamah, which means earth. We come from the earth, and our presence on the earth enables it to flourish.

Though God ‘planted a garden’ (Genesis 2:8), we were the ones created to till its soil. There is a sacred partnership that exists between us and God from the very beginning of creation. It is not just our bodies that were made in the image of God, but the purpose of those bodies as well – we were created to be God’s partners here on earth, to complete the divine act of creation.

According to the Talmud, this partnership is renewed each and every week when we recite the Vayechulu (Genesis 2:1-3). Words in prayer are obviously important, but we must ask ourselves: what are we doing to fulfil our part of the partnership?

Each one of us should ask whether our presence on earth serves to help with the completion of God's creation – Tikkun Olam (repairing the world); or whether our presence is the reason the world needs to be repaired?

In the Talmud, this very subject is debated by Hillel and Shammai, who conclude that it would have been better if we were not created. One need only pick up a newspaper to read about the ways in which we are harming God’s creation rather than tending to it, damaging our environment rather than caring for it, and destroying nature rather than nurturing it.

As we once again return to the story of creation in Bereishit, we have an opportunity to reconnect with our original purpose here on earth. In a week, the Hebrew month of Cheshvan begins, which has been reclaimed as Jewish Social Action Month. With an entire month devoted to social action and Tikkun Olam, there is no better time than now to act upon our obligation, and reclaim the honour of truly being God’s partner in the ongoing work of creation. So we can no longer ask; what our purpose is, but rather if we are fulfilling it?

Blogging Elul - Judaism, a religion of preparation

2011-09-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

The month of Elul has now begun, and with it the countdown towards Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. One of the striking features of Judaism is the way in which preparation forms an important part of our calendar and general religious observance.

In most religions the call to prayer marks the beginning of the formal service. The muezzin ascends the minaret and sings the words of the adhan calling Muslims to the Mosque for the service to begin; and the bells ring out to mark the beginning of Church services. However, in Judaism the Barechu – which is our call to prayer, appears in the midst of the service. In our morning service, the prior sections of birkat hashachar – the morning blessings and pesukei dezimra – the passages of song, prepare us for the formal call to prayer, when we rise to enter into God’s presence. And according to the Mishnah (Berachot 5:1) The pious men (hasidim harishonim) of old used to wait an hour before praying in order that they might concentrate their thoughts upon their Father in Heaven.

The 49 days of the Omer, which we begin counting on the second night of Pesach, are a way of preparing ourselves for the festival of Shavuot and the giving of Torah. Our ancestors in the wilderness did not immediately reach Mount Sinai for God’s revelation, and our calendar recreates this with the Omer, as we count towards the festival of Shavuot. We move from the physical freedom, which we acquired at Pesach, to the spiritual freedom, which we acquire with Torah on Shavuot. Each night we recite the blessing for the Omer and we count, so as to consciously mark the move and transition from Pesach to Shavuot.

And before we come to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we have the month of Elul. All too often when we have jobs which need to be done we wait until the last minute to do them. In the lead up to Yom Kippur our jobs are teshuva – repentance, tefilla – prayer and tzedakkah – charity (deeds of righteousness), all of which avert the evil decree. Rather than waiting until Yom Kippur we have the ten days from Rosh Hashanah, and the thirty days of Elul to begin work on these tasks. Each day of Elul we sound the shofar, which calls us to attention and reminds us that Yom Teruah - the day of the Shofar (another name for Rosh Hashanah) is approaching and that we should begin preparing for the High Holy Days today.

With all of this preparation it is interesting to note that Pesach, is the only Torah festival with no obvious lead up (even for Sukkot we begin our work immediately at the end of Yom Kippur, putting the first nail into our Sukkah). Perhaps this element of the calendar is a reminder that our ancestors were forced to leave Egypt in such a rush that there was not even time for the bread to rise. And so our calendar includes no obvious time for preparation.

Through Elul our calendar is urging us to do what we can today to prepare for our High Holy Day festivals, and to not wait until tomorrow. Before we know it Rosh Hashanah will be upon us, and rather than the marathon of Elul, we will have the sprint of the Ten Days of Repentance (and eventually just the 25 hours of Yom Kippur). As Hillel used to say: “If not now, when?”

Two Minutes of Torah: Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 5:1-24) - It's our Covenant

2011-08-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

While I have no specific memory of the event, I love the idea that, together with all Jews of every generation, I stood at Mount Sinai when God gave us the Ten Commandments. We were also all witness to God’s revelation; and by reclaiming the Sinai experience as our own we include ourselves in the community who actually accepted God’s laws and commandments.

One may consider that this midrashic idea began in this week’s Torah portion. Standing on the banks of the Jordan, about to enter the Holy Land, Devarim is essentially Moses’ farewell address to the people, and a history lesson recounting the previous forty years. And this week he recalls the Sinai experience, although here he speaks of a place called Horeb (a subject for another Dvar Torah).

Having gathered the Israelites together Moses declares: ‘Adonai made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our parents that Adonai made this covenant, but with us, the living, every one of us who is here today’ (Deuteronomy 5:2-3). At first glance this may seem reasonable enough, and it provides an appropriate preamble for the recollection of the Ten Commandments. The only problem is that there is a potential factual inaccuracy.

The Israelites stood at Sinai (Horeb) and God did speak to us there; however (aside from the later midrash) it was not the same community which now stood on the banks of the Jordan. After the spies gave their false account of the Promised Land, God decreed that ‘they shall not see the land which I swore to their ancestors’ (Numbers 14:23) – Moses even recalled this event in last week’s Torah portion (Deuteronomy 1:35). The community about to enter Israel was the next generation; at most they were children when God revealed Godself at Sinai. They were certainly not the generation who publicly declared: ‘Naaseh venishmah – we will do and we will listen’ (Exodus 24:7).

Despite this, Moses explicitly makes it clear that the covenant was not made with that previous generation, but that it was a covenant ‘with us, the living’. On the one hand this was a statement to the people about to enter the Land of Israel; they too stood at Sinai and made the covenant with God. But it was also an eternal statement which could be read by each generation anew. And today, as we read Vaetchanan, we hear Moses’ words that the covenant was made ‘with us, the living’. We therefore also stood at Sinai, as the midrash suggests, witnessing God’s revelation firsthand. Despite no actual memory of the event, we remember that we too were signatories to the covenant with God.

This week’s Torah portion appears to begin midway through a story as Moses continues ‘I pleaded with Adonai at that time, saying “…Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan…’ (Deuteronomy 3:23-25). The portion division reminds us, as we read Vaetchanan, that Moses will not be joining us in the Promised Land. Despite leading us from slavery to freedom, Moses will not lead us indefinitely. We must be prepared to take ownership of our destiny and our covenant with God. We possess this ability because, even if we don’t remember it, we stood at Sinai, and the covenant was not made with our ancestors, but it was made with us. Knowing this we can journey together into the Promised Land.

Two Minutes of Torah: Korach (Numbers 17:6-26) - The Wilderness in 2011

2011-06-23T10:20:00.001-07:00

In the midst of a year it is hard to tell exactly how it will be remembered in the future. And while 2011 has brought many big new stories, it is likely that this year will be remembered for the protests and revolutions which spread across the Middle East. This year has already seen the overthrow of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, while in Yemen, Syria and Libya, dictators cling to power amidst continued protest and revolution. Across these countries, the people were united in their calls for a democratisation of their political system and the introduction of free and fair elections, alongside a variety of other reforms.

It is therefore interesting to read this week’s Torah portion of Korach against the backdrop of this news story. The man for whom the parasha is named is traditionally considered to be one of the Torah’s real bad guys. The Rabbis taught in the Talmud that from the time when God created the world, God knew that Korach was going to be trouble, and on the eve of that first Shabbat, following the six days God had spent creating the world, as one of the final ten things to be created, God create the mouth of the earth to swallow up Korach (Pesachim 54a). God knew in advance that this man was going to be trouble, and prepared an appropriate punishment for him at the very beginning.

There is something tragic about Korach. When we read about his challenge to Moses, it is hard to see what he did that was so wrong. He challenged Moses and Aaron, saying to them: ‘You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Eternal is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Eternal’s congregation?’ (Num 16:3). In our modern context, we could almost read Korach’s challenge as a call for a democratisation of the Israelite political order, he might well have been one of the people taking to the streets in 2011.

However, we might wonder what Moses and Aaron had done to warrant a challenge from Korach and his followers. While Korach’s call may sound reminiscent of the calls on the Arab streets this year, it is clear that Moses and Aaron cannot be compared to the Middle Eastern dictators. In fact during this episode one could argue that Moses and Aaron demonstrate once again why they were so well suited to lead the Jewish people.

Twice in this Torah portion God calls on Moses and Aaron to remove themselves from the community so ‘that I may annihilate them in an instant’ (Num. 16:21 and 17:10). The first time as the community stood behind Korach at the Tent of Meeting, waiting to see whom God would choose. And the second time after Korach and his followers had been swallowed up by the earth (and destroyed by fire), when the Israelites complained that Moses and Aaron had brought death upon the community.

With all that the Israelites had done to try and test Moses since he assumed the leadership of the community, one might have forgiven him, had he simply stepped to one side and allowed God to destroy the people. We could have understood if these two final incidents were the proverbial straws which broke the camel’s back, and led Moses to finally despair of his charges.

Instead the response of Moses and Aaron is the same on both occasions: ‘And they fell on their faces’ (Num. 16:22 and 17:10). Even when facing a potential mutiny, they did not resort to violence, and instead protected the people from God’s potentially devastating decree. They risked their own lives, opposing God and defending the people.

Moses and Aaron were worthy leaders because they defended their people, even when the people were in the process of challenging their authority to lead. And as God unleashed a plague on this rebellious group, ‘Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire in it from the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly to the congregation, and make an atonement for them; for anger has come out from the Lord; the plague has begun’ (Num. 17:11). It is hard to imagine the dictators of 2011 protecting their people in the midst of their protest, or not seeking retribution in its aftermath.

Moses and Aaron did not deserve the challenge which Korach brought. They defended the people, setting aside their own personal interests, to make sure that the people were protected and saved when threatened by God. They may not have been democratically elected by a majority of the Israelite population, but they provided a leadership which prioritised the people’s needs above their own. And in the way they behaved, they provided a model of leadership which people across the world can appreciate.

Two Minutes of Torah: Shelach Lecha (Numbers 14:1-19) - Fear of the Unknown and Faith

2011-06-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

From 1993 until 2007 a significant part of every summer revolved around RSY-Netzer and the programme of events they offered (Shemesh, Israel Tour and Kayitz-Netzer). I was a chanich (participant), a madrich (leader), a rosh (head of camp), and then I spent several more years filling any role which was needed. It therefore might come as something of a surprise that I threw something of a fit the night before my first RSY-Netzer experience. I had said previously that I wanted to go on summer camp, but as it became real I was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of spending two weeks away from home with a group of strangers.

It wasn’t the summer camp specifically; it was more about a fear of doing something new. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like change, isn’t keen on surprises, and would quite happily stay at home (or at least within a 5 mile radius) most of the time. In my family my sister is the adventurous one, travelling all over the world and searching out new experiences; while I am much happier going to places I already know.

I can therefore sympathise with the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, who were petrified about the prospect of advancing on the Land of Israel. After the spies gave their account of the land: ‘the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night’ (Numbers 14:1). They were so frightened by the prospect of the inhabitants of the land that ‘they said to one another, ‘Let us head back for Egypt’ (Numbers 14:4).

The ten spies gave an account of the land which terrified the people, warning them of the ‘giants’ living there, and the futility of any attempt to conquer the land. However, with or without the spies report, it is likely that the people would still have been fearful of this unknown land and the mysterious inhabitants within it. They were so frightened that they preferred the certainty of slavery in Egypt, rather than the mystery of the land promised by God.

It was only Joshua and Caleb, who stood up before the people and offered an alternative report: ‘The land we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If pleased with us, Adonai will bring us into that land’ (Numbers 14:7-8). They were not concerned about the inhabitants of the land, they had faith that God would deliver them into the land, which had been promised to them.

When people step into the unknown it is important to remember that God is with us wherever we travel. With a little faith in God, Caleb and Joshua were confident that the people would be able to conquer the unknown land, and at the same time conquer their fear of the unknown.

This community was unable to overcome their fear and so they were never able to enter the Promised Land, dying in the wilderness. They serve as a cautionary tale for all of us. With a little bit of faith in God the unknown can become a little less scary, and we can reach our own Promised Land.

2 Religions, Separated by 1 Messiah (My Dorchester Abbey Sermon)

2011-06-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

As a Rabbi, I feel incredibly honoured to have been invited to speak to you today by my dear friend David Gifford, and I want to thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you today.

My training to become a Rabbi involved time in England, Israel and America. While in the United States, I was introduced to Winston Churchill’s humorous observation, that Britain and America are ‘two countries divided by one language’. As I consider the relationship between our two religions; I wonder if I could adapt his words and claim that we Jews and Christians, are two religions divided by one Messiah.

At the core of our two traditions we share the Five Books of Moses, we both adhere to the 10 Commandments as centrally instructive, and we all believe in the one God. The major difference, at least originally, appears to be over the question of the Messiah.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, who was a keen advocate of interfaith dialogue, suggested that we Jews and Christians should stop worrying about our different beliefs in the Messiah. And when, in the future, the Messiah eventually comes, we can simply use the popular chat up line: “Do you come here often?” to find out if this is his first or second visit.

For Jews there has been a hope and expectation that a Messiah will one day come to earth, and on that day the world will be redeemed by God. This was such an important belief within Jewish tradition that it was included in the 13 articles of faith articulated by arguably the greatest Rabbi of all time, Moses Maimonides, he claimed: ‘At the end of days, an anointed one will come redeeming those who wait for God to save.’

However, over the years the Jewish expectation for the Messiah to arrive has diminished. And while the door is opened in anticipation every Passover for a messenger to announce the coming of the Messiah, very few really expect to find Elijah standing at the door. This lack of belief in the immanent arrival of the Messiah was such that a popular story developed.

In a small Russian Jewish village, the community council decided that they should pay a poor Jewish peasant, one ruble a week to sit at the town’s entrance, to be the first person to greet the Messiah when he arrived.
The man’s brother came to see him, and was puzzled about why he had accepted such a low-paying job.
“It’s true,” the poor man responded, “the pay is low. But” he added, “the job is permanent.”

Whether the Messiah is coming for the first or second time, both of our religions share a belief that the Messiah will one day come, and together we wait for that day.

If you will permit me a moment, I would like to offer my rabbinic understanding of the passage which was read today from the Book of Acts. The people around Jesus appear eager to experience the re-establishment of the Kingdom to Israel, or at least to know when it might be. I am sure all of us would like to witness the coming of the Messiah, and if not witness it; at least know when to expect his arrival. But to this request Jesus responds: ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.’ There is frustration that the date is not for humans to know, but there is also consolation as God will be responsible for sending the Messiah at a specific time in the future.

This situation is not so different from the one we find ourselves in today. We believe that the Messiah will come, but we have no idea when that coming will be. The challenge is what to do while we wait.

And to this the passage offers us a telling response. The two men dressed in white, standing beside the people, instruct them: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.’

I understand these men as telling the people, stop looking up at the sky waiting for the Messiah to come down to you. The Messiah will come, but waiting passively for his arrival will neither accelerate his coming, nor make the world worthy for him to redeem it. These two men recognised that the danger of the messianic ideal was that people would wait passively for the saviour, rather than working to help save themselves and the world in the interim.

While we wait for a Messiah to come, we cannot be absolved of our responsibilities to the world in which we are currently living.

In the first century Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, who is generally considered to have been the saviour of Judaism when the Second Temple was destroyed, taught: ‘If you should happen to be holding a sapling in your hand when someone comes to tell you that the Messiah has arrived; finish planting the sapling, and only then go and greet the Messiah.’ There is an element of caution over false messiahs, but more significantly there is a reminder that even with a Messiah we have an obligation to the world in which we are living.

One of the most important ideas which Reform Judaism highlighted within Jewish tradition is the concept not just of a Messiah, but of a Messianic Age. This idea suggests that rather than waiting for a Messiah to come down from Heaven to save us, we should be working to redeem this world, and make it a world fitting for a Messiah, rather than a world which requires a Messiah.

In both of our religious traditions we have many texts which tell us about what the redeemed world will look like. In Judaism, one of the central prayers, the Aleinu, paints a picture of what God’s kingdom on earth will look like: ‘Soon let us witness the glory of Your power; when the worship of material things shall pass away from the earth, and prejudice and superstition shall at last be cut off; when the world will be set right by the rule of God, and all humanity shall speak out in Your name, and all the wicked of the earth shall turn to You.’

With the picture of what the redeemed world looks like, we need to listen to those men of Acts who told us to stop ‘gazing up into heaven’ and instead we need to work today to redeem our world.

In Judaism this idea of working to make the world a better place is given the term: ‘Tikkun olam’ translated either as ‘healing the world’ or ‘repairing the world’. When we look around at the world in which we live, it is clear that this world is not perfect, this world is not complete, this world needs our help. And in this way we are called upon to be active in making the world a better place rather than waiting for a Messiah to save us.

The idea of repairing the whole world may at first seem rather daunting, but we are not called upon to complete this work on our own. Instead we are simply asked to play our part and to help in the way which we are able to. No two people in this Abbey can repair the world in the same way because no two people are the same. We have to consider our individual skills, our passions and the way in which we can make a difference.

Together our small individual actions will accumulate to have an impact beyond what we initially could have imagined. Within Judaism there is an idea that the observance of every good deed matters and the Rabbi I mentioned earlier, Moses Maimonides, used to say; imagine the world is balanced on a scale between good and evil. With a single action you have the power to tip the scale for good and for evil.

Like Moses we may not see the Promised Land towards which we are journeying, but as the Rabbis of old taught, lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, velo atah ben chorine lehitpatel mimena – It is not your duty to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.

As Jews and as Christians, we can be the builders of a Messianic Age.
We can be the masters of our destiny.
We will not wait for the world to become a better place; we will begin the work of making our world better.
The wait for a Messiah can encourage passivity; the need for a Messianic Age can be a call to action. We, collectively, need to hear the call, and we need to respond!

And perhaps when we have taken responsibility for making this world a better place, maybe then the Messiah will come down to help us in our task. While we Jews and Christians wait for the Messiah to come we need to be active in making his job easier. We need to create a world which is not crying out in need of a Messiah, but rather a world which is worthy of God’s anointed.

Preaching at Dorchester Abbey

2011-06-06T10:25:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I was invited to preach at Dorchester Abbey in Oxford (www.dorchester-abbey.org.uk - it is a truly beautiful Church and well worth a visit if you are in the area). This was the first time I had been invited to speak in a non-Jewish religious service, and I was deeply honoured; especially as this service was also honouring my dear friend David Gifford, the CEO of the Council of Christians and Jews (www.ccj.org.uk). The community was so very welcoming, and I look forward to visiting again in the future.

Here are three observations:

1. Taking a moment for a private blessing, amongst the clergy, before we began the service was a very powerful experience for me. The blessing allowed us to mark a break in time between the rushing around to make sure everything was ready, and the beginning of a religious service. I certainly entered the prayer space in a different frame of mind as a result of the moment the clergy shared together.

2. The music was magnificent. Dorchester Abbey has a wonderful choir, and having the opportunity to sit alongside them, served to really elevate my prayer experience. Having been back in England for the last 2 years I have not heard prayers/hymns/anthems sung in English during services, and I really do feel the experience of singing in one's native language is very powerful. And perhaps we should consider singing more English prayers in the British Reform Movement - just a thought. My favourite piece of music was 'For the Beauty of the Earth' by John Rutter, (you can listen to a version of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMkj4_H8WM).

3. I know I am not the first Rabbi to preach in a Christian service, but it was a first for me. And it is a wonderful statement for how far Jewish-Christian relations have progressed in the last 50+ years that Rabbis may preach in a Church, and Reverends may preach in a Synagogue. We are two different religions, but we do both spring from the same root, and the opportunity to pray together, learn together and simply talk together is so very important. Signing the book at the Abbey which records all preachers who have given sermons there was especially meaningful, as I wrote Rabbi alongside my name, and wondered about what my great grandparents would have thought about this experience.

I guess the last thing to say is thank you to David, and the Clergy and community of Dorchester Abbey (and my mum for coming with me).

I will be posting the sermon I delivered tomorrow.

Extracts from my farewell sermon

2011-06-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

On the 3rd June I delivered a sermon at the farewell service for Micol and me at West London Synagogue. If you would like to receive the full sermon please send me an e-mail.

A colleague recently shared with me the anecdote that: ‘Non-Jews leave, but don’t say goodbye; while Jews say goodbye, but never leave.’ Having researched this matter a little bit further, I discovered something called “The Jewish Goodbye”. It's when you start your goodbyes and end up walking out the door a minimum of 30 minutes later. The amount of time increases exponentially depending on how many other Jews there are in the room.

With this in mind, the goodbye which Micol and I are beginning are going to be really Jewish; for as we have our farewell service today, we will take almost four more weeks to actually leave. I guess that with a congregation of over 1600 Jewish families, an exponential time increase is only to be expected...

In this week’s Torah portion amidst a whole range of commandments and instructions we receive the words of the Priestly blessing. These words which we use to bless our children, to consecrate a marriage and to conclude our services, are found here first. We ask for God’s blessing, protection and grace, before asking God, with our final words, to grant us shalom – peace and wholeness.

This Torah portion feels especially appropriate for our farewell service. As a child, sitting in the pews, often down there on the left hand side, I received these words as a blessing from the Rabbis of my youth, Rabbis Hugo Gryn and Jackie Tabick. And as a Rabbi myself, I have taken my place upon this bimah, sharing these words with my community, as they were once shared with me.

The Priestly blessing was articulated in the Torah as a way of linking us to God. But on another level it serves as a way of linking us to each other, to generations who went before us, and generations not yet born. These words have been an ever present for our people since they were given to us in the Torah.

The beauty of this blessing is not just in the words, and not just in the connection to other generations; there is a beauty in the intimacy which it envisages. We ask for God not just to bless us, but we ask for a moment where we can see God’s face. God’s face will be lifted up to us, and God’s face will shine upon us. Only then, with the experience of God, face-to-face, can we conclude our service, taking that moment with us as we leave the comfort of the community.

As we prepare to say Shalom to our time at West London Synagogue, I certainly feel that in saying goodbye we will be less whole, leaving behind a community which has become our family. But we take with us hundreds of shining faces who have become a part of our lives and we are more complete because of the relationships we have formed.

Yet, at the same time, shalom is not forever! While today we say shalom, as ‘goodbye’, we look forward to saying our shalom of ‘hello’ in the future. The Priestly blessing returns each time we come together in the synagogue for a service, and just like the priestly blessing we look forward to returning in the future. And so I will end with these parting words: Shalom Chaverim: ‘Hello friends’, ‘Goodbye friends’ and ‘Peace friends’.

Two Minutes of Torah: Naso (Numbers 6:1-21) - Living Life to the Fullest

2011-06-03T09:26:00.001-07:00

Growing up at West London Synagogue one of the songs which was very popular in my youth was about five constipated men in the Bible. The song began with Cain, who was not able; he was followed by Moses, who took two tablets, then Bilaam, who couldn’t shift his ass, Samson who brought the house down and Solomon who sat for forty years. Each verse played with an element of that character’s story to imply a trouble with bowel function. Like many young boys at the time I was most fascinated with the character of Samson. With his flowing hair and superhuman strength, he was the Bible’s answer to He-Man (sorry if that reference dates me), and I was intrigued by this Biblical superhero.

It was only later in life that I began to realise that this man was actually a far more complex character than I had ever imagined. Samson turned out to be a far more flawed character than I had ever realised as a child. What I also learnt was that Samson is often considered to be the Bible’s most famous example of a Nazirite (even if he was not particularly good at adhering to the laws which accompanied that status).

In this week’s Torah portion the laws for the Nazirite are given by God to Moses. This person utters a vow to become a Nazirite (something that Samson never did) and are then committed that, ‘they shall abstain from wine and any other intoxicant’ (Numbers 6:3), ‘no razor shall touch their head’ (Numbers 6:5) and ‘they shall not go in where there is a dead person’ (Numbers 6:6). These three obligations form the bulk of what it meant to be a Nazarite, and were observed for a fixed period of time.

At the end of a person’s time as a Nazarite (they would specify the time when making the vow) a number of sacrifices were required. ‘The priest shall present them before the Eternal and offer the sin offering and the burnt offering’ (Numbers 6:16). While one may expect sacrifices of celebration and praise of God, it is striking that amidst the Nazarites sacrifices was a sin offering. This requirement makes it clear that the Nazirite way of life was not required, or possibly even desired, by God, and so needed an offering of atonement at the end of the period.

For us the presence of the sin offering may serve as a reminder that Judaism is not a religion which expects its adherents to ‘afflict’ themselves or live in a monastic way to serve God. Instead Judaism is a religion which wants us to celebrate life and to enjoy life to the fullest. We do not need to follow the excesses of Samson, but we need to find a way to enjoy living our lives. The Nazirite sacrificed his or her full enjoyment of life for a set period of time, and was required to atone for this sin.

We no longer have the Priestly system to make the Nazirite vow, but we can ensure that we live our lives in such a way so as not to require a sin offering at their conclusion.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bamidbar (Numbers 1:44-54) - The Equality of Numbers

2011-06-03T06:51:00.001-07:00

At the moment we are conducting a survey of our West London Synagogue young adults so that we can try to gain some insight into how successful our programme of events has been (so far the results do look good). I have been told that there is a magic number we need to aspire to, which will give us a significant enough sample group to make some statements based on our results. The survey is anonymous, and so all I can look at is numbers on the screen. Each person is a number. I know their gender, year of birth and a variety of other facts about their religious upbringing and their Jewish involvement, but I do not know who they are. In replacing names with numbers an element of each person’s identity is lost.

In reflecting on people becoming numbers the song from Les Miserables comes to mind as Javert and Jean Valjean sing against each other. For those of you who are not familiar with the musical, Jean Valjean was a prisoner who escaped and Javert is the man who has taken on the task of finding him. As they sing together Javert keeps asserting the Jean Valjean should be known by his number 24601, suggesting that he is unworthy of having a name, remaining an eternal prisoner in his eyes. In contrast Jean Valjean asserts his name rather than accepting the label of a number. In this way, when we think of people as numbers it is often in situations where people are imprisoned or considered unworthy of having a name.

This week’s Torah portion is all about numbers (hence the English name of this Biblical book) as Moses and Aaron conduct the census. God’s initial instruction to Moses was: ‘Take a census of the whole Israelite company by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head’ (Numbers 1:2). While the instruction requires the listing of names, the names are not given and instead we receive a set of numbers.

After going through the numbers of each tribe we read the conclusion: ‘All the Israelite males, aged twenty years and over, enrolled by ancestral houses, all those in Israel who were able to bear arms – all who were enrolled came to 603,550’ (Numbers 1:45-46). Considering this only accounts for the adult males, one can only imagine how many Israelites actually left Egypt, and what their caravan must have looked like as they journeyed through the wilderness.

While we may feel uneasy with the idea of recording people as numbers rather than by their names, there is an equality which comes from the process of the census. Apart from tribal affiliation there is no distinction made between any of the men who were counted. We know nothing of them as individuals, there is no distinction between rich or poor, powerful or weak; they are all Israelite men.

What is also significant is the fact that each man counts and is counted.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:30-46) - Our Planet needs a Rest

2011-05-19T15:15:00.001-07:00

Growing up in RSY-Netzer we would often have programmes and sessions relating to the subject of the environment, and our role in protecting and caring for it. On these occasions a text from Greenpeace became very popular as an educational trigger. Rather than thinking of the world as 4,600 million year old, we were asked to consider our planet as if it was a person of 46 years of age. We know nothing of the first seven years of this person’s life; while dinosaurs and the great reptiles only appeared one year ago, when the planet was already 45.

‘Mammals arrived only 8 months ago and in the middle of last week. Man-like apes evolved into ape-like men and at the weekend the last ice-age enveloped the earth. Modern man has been around for four hours. During the last hour man discovered agriculture, the industrial revolution began a minute ago and during those 60 seconds of biological time modern man has made a rubbish tip of paradise.’

The Greenpeace text always made for uncomfortable reading, and challenged us to consider our actions in this world, and the way in which it might impact on our environment. When we fill up our car with petrol, when we switch on the lights at home, when we turn up the heat we rarely think about the consequences to the natural world, we think about our own needs. Our behaviour is legitimate and understandable, but at the same time Greenpeace challenges us to consider the impact of our actions.

This week’s Torah portion begins in the midst of a gruesome account of what will happen to us if we disobey God’s commandments. As it states: ‘I will act against you in wrathful hostility; I, for My part, will discipline you sevenfold for your sins’ (Leviticus 26:28). As part of this punishment the land is to be laid desolate, the cities shall be ruined and the people will be scattered across the world (Leviticus 26:33).

And while we are suffering, the land will receive much needed sustenance: ‘Then shall the land make up for its Sabbath years throughout the time that it is desolate and you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land rest and make up for its Sabbath years. Throughout the time that it is desolate, it shall observe the rest that it did not observe in the Sabbath years while you were dwelling upon it’ (Leviticus 26:34-35).

The text does not tell us that we are punished for neglecting the Sabbatical year, we are simply told the consequences if ‘you do not obey Me’ (Leviticus 26:18). However, it seems that there is an expectation that if we are breaking God’s laws, then this would include the commandment for the land to rest every seven years. While we are punished, the land will be allowed to rest and flourish, without our intervention.

It is painful to admit that our current stewardship of this planet has not been as successful and as nurturing as we might have hoped. We could argue about the extent to which we have made a ‘rubbish tip of paradise’, but the sentiment appears to be justified. The Sabbatical year was a safeguard amongst God’s commandments, a way of protecting the environment, and curtailing our abuse at least once every seven years.

While I doubt a Sabbatical year is enforceable today, it is clear that the world could do with some help. As the Greenpeace text tells us, if the world is 46 years old, then ‘a human life in this timespan lasts a mere 18 seconds. Let’s not waste anymore precious time’. With this small amount of time at our disposal, we cannot wait for a Sabbatical year, and with Hillel’s words we should be inspired to act for ‘if not now, when?’

Two Minutes of Torah: Behar (Leviticus 25:19-38) - The 'Commoner' and the Prince

2011-05-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

While watching the Royal wedding, both on the television and twitter, I was struck by the number of times that Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, was described as a ‘commoner’. In terms of coverage, one of the major features of the marriage was the fact that Prince William had chosen to marry someone who was not of noble birth. The wedding was a reminder of the fact that British society contains a landed upper class, born into status (and often wealth) as a result of family history and lineage.

However, while the media may have described Kate as ‘commoner’, she has clearly not emerged from poverty, with a family though not aristocratic, are certainly financially very secure and well off. The status of ‘commoner’ today includes a vast range of people, including some who are super-wealthy and others who are homeless on the streets of our cities. While we have a landed aristocracy in Britain, we also have a significant population who have nowhere to live and no place to sleep.

In many western societies there is a growing gap between the wealthiest and the poorest ends of society. In a report from 2010 Britain was ranked seventh in the world in terms of the gap between rich and poor. This week’s Torah portion puts in place a corrective to ensure that the gap between the extremes would never be allowed to grow too wide in the Promised Land.

God says specifically ‘The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine, you are strangers and sojourners with me’ (Leviticus 25:23). While land may be bought and sold, the Torah makes clear that in reality no-one can truly own the land, and so no sale of land can ever be permanent. Alongside this the Torah makes clear the laws for redeeming land which may have been sold in the past, allowing family members to buy back property which had to be sold due to trying circumstances.

However, when the land cannot be bought back there is still an added safeguard: ‘that which is sold shall remain in the hand of the person who bought it until the Jubilee Year, and in the Jubilee it shall go out and return to original owner’ (Leviticus 25:38). The Jubilee Year provided a safety net within the society so that no-one could be indefinitely impoverished; everyone was protected so that once every 50 years their property would be returned. Israelite society was constructed in such a way as to ensure that no-one could be left languishing forever; everyone would eventually be caught and supported.

In our society while there is today some social mobility, the situation one is born into is still the greatest predictor on where they will find themselves fifty years later. As the Government’s own report from 2010 stated: ‘the evidence we have looked at shows the long arm of people’s origins in shaping their life chances, stretching through life stages, literally from cradle to grave.’ People can rise up while others fall down, but for the overwhelming majority their situation at birth will largely define their place at death.

Kate Middleton proves what the fairytales always knew; the regular girl can become a Princess. But she is still the exception, not the rule. We need to embrace and adapt the idea of the Jubilee Year to ensure that the poorest members of our society are protected. Not in terms of the specific return of land, but the assurance that no-one will be left to languish with no support or sustenance from society. The Jubilee Year was not a law for a Promised Land, but a law which enabled us to build the Promised Land; we must aspire to build such a land wherever we live today.

Two Minutes of Torah: Emor (Leviticus 22:26-23:16) - The Importance of Time Off

2011-05-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

For the people of Britain it’s been a good couple of weeks. First we had the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which allowed us four days out of the office, a fitting end for the festival of Pesach. And then thanks to William and Kates’ decision to get married on a Friday, we received another holiday bonus, with Friday for the wedding (and I might add it was a wonderful ceremony) and Monday as the May Day Bank Holiday. I don’t think it is any coincidence that over that period of time, everyone appeared to be in an good mood. Now I realise that the unseasonal excellent weather also contributed to the rising happiness index, but I am in no doubt that the long weekends had a lot to do with the smiles on everyone’s faces.

Quite often we fall into the Monday-Friday routine, which sees us lurching from weekend to weekend, essentially ‘surviving’ the working week, so that we may have two days of respite, before beginning the cycle all over again. I don’t know about you, but I was very ready to accept three-day working weeks and four-day weekends as the model for life from now on.

However, we should not be complacent about simply having one day off each week, let alone two. One of my favourite Shabbat readings is by the author Francine Klagsbrun; she shared the experiences of her father, a Russian immigrant to America at a time when there were no labour laws (I’ve shared it here before). She recalls him saying: ‘People worked long hours, seven days a week, without rest. But imagine, more than three thousand years ago the Bible commanded that all work stop for an entire day every single week, and not only for the ancient Israelites but for all who lived among them, including slaves. And not only for people, but for animals as well. What a revolutionary practice that was.’

In this week’s Torah portion, as God introduces the Jewish calendar: ‘Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: “These are My fixed times, the fixed times of Adonai, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions’ (Leviticus 23:2). Before moving to look at the festivals themselves God reaffirms the obligation of Shabbat: ‘On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion’ (Leviticus 23:3).

While we may grow complacent of Shabbat as a day off from work and a festive occasion, we should not lose sight of the importance of the day, and the fact that it is an ordained holy day from God. It is at the beginning of the festive calendar. Shabbat in many ways forms the basis for the other festivals, which adapt the Shabbat obligations for their specific contexts.

Alongside Shabbat the other festivals (just like our British Bank Holidays) provide us with an opportunity to break the routine of the regular calendar with ‘sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time’ (Leviticus 23:4). Succot and Pesach sit exactly six months apart, and between them, in both directions we have a variety of festive days to make sure that the calendar’s routine is broken up at regular intervals.

On a weekly basis Shabbat provides us with a day of rest, and at regular intervals our festivals provide us celebratory occasions. At this time of the year as we move from Pesach to Shavuot, our anticipation for this next festival can hardly be contained, and perhaps this is the reason why we count the Omer, providing a channel for our excitement to build as we prepare to celebrate.

But in case Shavuot seems too far away, or if the next Bank Holiday is not soon enough, Shabbat appears each and every week to ensure that the cycle of work is broken once every seven days. I guess it’s lucky that it didn’t take God ten days or more to create the world.

Two Minutes of Torah: Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:23-37) - Loving ourselves to love others

2011-04-28T06:53:00.001-07:00

‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18) is such a popular commandment that it has become known as “The Golden Rule”, with versions of it existing across virtually every religious tradition. Hillel, when pressed by a student interested in converting to Judaism, reformulated it as ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn’ (Talmud Shabbat 31a). Both formulations contain the important concept of treating others in the way that you yourself want to be treated; however, the Biblical verse also contains an important instruction for how we should relate to ourselves. If we are instructed to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ then it requires us to not just love the other, but also to love ourselves.

The formulation of the commandment therefore possesses within it an important instruction for the way in which we relate to ourselves before we are able to be in relationship with others. We need to be secure in ourselves, positive about ourselves and ultimately love ourselves if we are going to also love others.

While this commandment may be challenging for the way it calls on us to relate to ourselves, it does not require us to stray too far from our comfort zone as it asks us to love our neighbour. In its most literal sense this might refer to the people we live alongside, and in a broader sense it may be members of a shared place or community, but it is likely to be people we share something in common with.

In contrast several verses later we are offered a slightly different commandment, which may be considered far more challenging. ‘And if a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. But the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself…’ (Leviticus 19:33-34). This may seem to be a somewhat harder commandment to follow as it challenges us not just to love ourselves, and not just to love those people who are like us, but it calls us on us to love the ‘other’, the person who is different. We don’t just need to avoid treating them in ways we would not want to be treated, but we need to actually love them.

The progression of Leviticus 19 allows us to engage first with love for ourselves and love for our neighbour, before then requiring us to expand our circle and love the stranger. And just in case there was any doubt about why we should be following this commandment the end of the verse states: ‘…for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am Adonai your God’ (Leviticus 19:34). It is our experience of having been strangers which is given as the first reason for following this commandment. And just in case that was insufficient alongside it we are reminded that this instruction comes from Adonai.

And this is not the only time we are commanded to love in our Torah. We are also instructed: ‘Love Adonai your God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:5). While this instruction appears in a different Book of the Torah, we may already be achieving this through the Leviticus instructions. As each one of us is created in the image of God, with the Divine spark within us, when we love our neighbour and the stranger we also love God. We are challenged to recognise and love the Divine spark in our neighbour and the stranger, but we must also recognise it in ourselves. When we truly love ourselves, we can then love our neighbour, the stranger and ultimately God.

Two Minutes of Torah: Acharei Mot (Leviticus 16:1-17) - The Sounds of Silence

2011-04-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday evening we have been studying the Book of Job in the WLS adult education class (you can join us at 8:30pm when we resume on the 4th May). It has been a wonderful experience to read this fascinating book alongside a great class, always finding new meaning and interpretations within the text. On a weekly basis we have all been struck by the inability of Job’s friends to offer any solace, and their amazing ability to make the situation worse with their ‘words of comfort’. In the light of Job’s complete suffering one is left thinking that it would have been better if the friends had not opened their mouths at all. Silence would have been better than these ‘words of comfort’.
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As children we are often told: “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all,” and perhaps someone should have shared this pearl of wisdom with Job’s friends. Sometimes there are no words to say; in the face of suffering silence can be the best option.

In this week’s Torah portion Aaron is facing up to the loss of his two sons, Nadav and Avihu, who were consumed by fire when they approached the Tabernacle with strange fire (Leviticus 10:1-2). It is hard to imagine the suffering which Aaron had endured witnessing the death of his sons while serving the God whom he served as High Priest. The first words of the portion demonstrate that this event was still fresh in the mind of Aaron and possibly the community as we read: ‘And Adonai spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron’ (Leviticus 16:1).

God recognises that in the aftermath of the death of one’s children, any words of comfort will be unsatisfactory, and instead God therefore moves immediately to the articulation of a ritual. ‘Aaron shall come into the holy place with a young bullock for a sin-offering and a ram for a burnt-offering’ (Leviticus 16:3). Following from this we are then told about the ritual of the two goats, one to be sacrificed to Adonai and the other to be cast out for Azazel (Leviticus 16:7-8), the ritual for the Yom Kippur sacrifice of atonement.

One may consider God to be rather callous by laying down a ritual, rather than offering Aaron any words of comfort. But on the other hand God’s continued relationship and engagement with Aaron may be symbolic of the fact that God was there for him, with no words offered, because no words would have been sufficient.

People mourn in different ways, and we always need to be conscious of what the individual mourner needs, rather than thinking about what we want to provide as the comforter. For Aaron the ability to move from loss to a task may well have been the best way for him to begin to move on from the death of his sons.

The silence also came from Aaron, who was unable to speak. Immediately after his sons’ death the text tells us: ‘And Aaron was silent’ (Leviticus 10:3); in the aftermath of this tragedy, he was unable to utter any words. It was only when he felt compelled to speak on behalf of his sister (Miriam) who had been afflicted by leprosy, that Aaron spoke to Moses his brother, pleading on her behalf (Leviticus 12:11-12). Through the loss of his sons Aaron lost his speech, but with the return to ritual service, Aaron found a way to continue.

At the end of this chapter we read: ‘And he [Aaron] did as Adonai had commanded Moses’ (Leviticus 16:34). We do not know what Aaron thought, we do not know how he felt, but we do know that after the tragedy he had suffered, he was able to continue with his life. Through the silence and the ritual he found a way to continue.

Two Minutes of Torah: Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-20) - Alms for an Ex-Leper

2011-04-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

I am rather fond of the Monty Python boys and their brand of comedy, and while it might sound strange I rather enjoy the way that they make fun of religion and religious sensibilities. It is therefore unsurprising that I particularly enjoy their film the ‘Life of Brian’. While some may consider it sacrilegious, I think it provides a humorous take on what first century Israel might have been like, and how religions developed there. In one of the scenes we watch as lepers beg for money from passers-by and Michael Palin’s character hops around requesting: ‘alms for an ex-leper’. In response to the question who cured you? He explains: ‘Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes. Cures me. One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by your leave. “You're cured mate.”’

The leper in ‘Life of Brian’ draws on the New Testament and the suggestion that Jesus could miraculously cure leprosy. In Matthew 8:1-3 after completing his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus touched a leper, curing him of his disease. To read both the TaNaKh and the New Testament, one would imagine that this was a rather widespread disease in the Biblical period. In this week’s Torah portion we do not read of an individual miraculous cure, instead we read ‘the Torah of the leper in the day of his cleansing’ (Leviticus 14:2).

The leper at this point no longer has the disease of the skin, but this does not automatically mean that he or she is ready to return to the camp; instead there is a purification ritual for the leper. The first part involves: ‘two live pure birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff, and hyssop to be brought for the one to be purified’ (Leviticus 14:4). And after this part of the ritual ‘the one to be purified shall wash those clothes, shave off all hair, and bathe in water – and then shall be pure’ (Leviticus 14:8).

However, although this then permitted entry into the camp, the person was still forbidden from entering his or her tent for seven days; and on the eighth day a further sacrificial ritual was required involving lambs and flour. At the conclusion ‘the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the meal offering on the altar; the priest shall make expiation for that person, who shall then be pure’ (Leviticus 14:20).

In the discussion of these rituals there is no suggestion of a miracle leading to the cure of leprosy and the person’s purification. But with the sacrifices involved one might consider a deeper understanding of what was actually happening. Perhaps we can liken the first ritual involving birds and the shaving of hair to a medical procedure, which was intended to ensure that the disease had been removed from the body. After this course of treatment, there was then a further ritual, which involved the lambs and the offering of a sacrifice, marking the conclusion and successful recovery from the disease.

Implicit in the inclusion of a sacrifice at the end of the treatment is an acknowledgement of thanks to God for the cure and the recovery. While we may no longer offer sacrifices, there is something powerful about a ritual which marks the end of an illness and a return to full health. We say a prayer for healing for those members of our community who are suffering or ill, but we do not recite a prayer to celebrate their recovery from illness. The Birkat HaGomel (on page 241 in the MRJ Siddur) is a prayer which is traditionally recited after a life-threatening experience, offering an opportunity to thank God for survival. And perhaps we need to supplement this with a prayer for recovery from illness, which may not have been life-threatening, but is equally worthy of note and prayer.

It is also worth noting that the leper was not rushed back from his or her sick bed, and went through an eight day process before being permitted to assume a full role back in the society. In part this may have been due to the societal concerns about the transmission of the disease, but it also meant that the ex-leper had an opportunity to readjust and reacclimatise back into society. Perhaps if the leper in the ‘Life of Brian’ had been allowed this ritual, rather than receiving a miraculous cure, he might have adjusted better upon his return to health and society.

Two Minutes of Torah: Tazria (Leviticus 13:47-59) - Sick Clothing

2011-04-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

As we continue through the book of Leviticus, this week we break from the focus on sacrifices and move to the subject of impurity, skin disease and bodily discharges. Often the Jewish calendar allows us to combine the Torah portions of Tazria and Metzora, so that in one single Shabbat we are able to read both of these passages. However this year, as we add an additional month for the Jewish leap year, we have a fortnight in which to read all about purification after childbirth, leprosy, more leprosy and purification required after human discharges. As you can imagine these are not my favourite Torah portions.

When discussing the disease of tzaraat, or leprosy as it is commonly translated, one of the interesting features is the fact that the disease afflicts both a person’s skin and a person’s clothing: ‘The garment also where the disease of leprosy is, whether it is a woollen garment, or a linen garment’ (Leviticus 13:47). The disease is not even limited to bodies or clothing, as it is possible for the walls of a house to be affected by leprosy as well (Leviticus 14:34-45).

The fact that leprosy could affect houses and clothing suggests that it could not have been limited to leprosy (Hansen’s disease) as we know it today (a fact backed up by Encyclopaedia Judaica).

One of the most famous cases of leprosy in the Tanakh affected Moses’ sister Miriam, she was struck down after Aaron and she had been talking about Moses’ Cushite wife. The text tells us: ‘Miriam had become leprous, white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous’ (Numbers 12:10). In this context leprosy appears as a punishment for Miriam, directly caused by God. This idea appears to be supported by building leprosy, as it states: ‘When you come to the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the disease of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession’ (Leviticus 14:34).

If we view leprosy as a punishment from God, then it may be understandable for a person to be afflicted with it, but it seems stranger for clothes and buildings to suffer as well.

In the ancient world when the garment was diseased the priest shut up the garment for seven days, and then checked if the disease had spread (Leviticus 13:50-51). Today if we found a garment with the ‘disease’ I imagine we would throw it straight in the washing machine, and then consider it fully cleansed.

For us today the idea of diseased garments need no longer apply to a disease that is ‘reddish or greenish in the garment’ (Leviticus 13:49). Instead we may consider garments to be diseased based on the way that they are made. Clothes created by underage workers might be considered diseased. Garments which are made by people in unsafe conditions may be considered afflicted. And outfits which use harmful chemicals may be considered leprous.

In our modern world perhaps we need to look for the disease before we buy the item of clothing, viewing it as something which needs to be eradicated through our shopping rituals, rather than a seven day purification ritual. If we use our purses and wallets to demonstrate our displeasure with certain practices in the fashion industry, perhaps we can then purify our garments of the leprous disease.

Two Minutes of Torah: Shemini (Leviticus 10:1-15) - The Dangers of Sacred Space

2011-03-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have a very complicated relationship with the Kotel (the Western Wall in Jerusalem). When I was in Jerusalem for my gap year, and a friend in England was seriously ill, I went to the Kotel to pray and to place a note in the wall, asking for her recovery. I believed that there was a special significance to that place and that a prayer placed in the cracks of that wall could make a difference. Later that same year I returned to the Kotel on Shavuot with a group of Reform and Conservative Jews, so that we could celebrate the festival in an egalitarian community. As we stood there we were shouted at, had stones thrown at us, and required the protection of the police to ensure our safety.

I feel a connection to the Kotel as part of the support wall of the plaza upon which the Temple once stood. But at the same time I do not like the fact that it has essentially become a Haredi synagogue, in which my Jewish practice is not welcome. This relationship is further complicated by the fact that I also feel uneasy with the tension which exists between the Jewish and Muslim communities in relation to the sacred space of the Temple Mount.

Sacred space holds a power over us on a theoretical level, but as we read in the Torah it may also be dangerous. When Moses approached the burning bush, encountering God for the first time, he was told: ‘Do not come any closer; take off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground’ (Exodus 3:5). Precautions had to be taken before stepping onto the sacred ground.

In the wilderness, the Tabernacle represented portable sacred space, and it too was a dangerous place to enter. ‘Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange fire before Adonai, which God commanded them not. And there went out fire from Adonai, and devoured them, and they died before Adonai’ (Leviticus 10:1-2). The text does not explain exactly what the brothers did, but the strange fire which they brought to the Tabernacle led to their death.

Some have suggested that it was the nature of the fire which caused the punishment, while others have proposed that they were somehow in an unfit state to approach the Tabernacle with an offering for God. The text is not clear; however, it does clarify that whatever they did, it was not commanded by God. They behaved in a way which God had not requested, and their punishment was to be consumed by the very substance they had brought to the Tabernacle – fire.

Nadav and Avihu were consumed, literally by the fire, but perhaps also metaphorically by their devotion to the sacred space of the Tabernacle. As Priests they were among the select group of people serving in the Tabernacle, and yet this was not sufficient, they had to find a way to be close to the sacred space, even when God did not require it. They did not worship in the way which had been commanded, and instead they brought strange fire to God, fire which then consumed and killed them.

The passion and zeal which is often expressed around the Kotel and the Temple Mount may be considered the strange fire of our generation. People treat the place in a way which God never commanded, and I would imagine that God does not welcome it. This strange fire of today, just like the strange fire of Nadav and Avihu, is dangerous, with the power to consume and destroy us. We must be careful that we are not consumed by the idea of a sacred space or holy ground. As a Jewish people we have survived for almost two thousand years without a Temple, and we have found ways of bringing God into our midst and into our communities without requiring one specific concrete structure. Our survival is testimony to the fact that we have learned the lessons of Nadav and Avihu.

Two Minutes of Torah: Tzav (Leviticus 7:22-38) Why Kosher?

2011-03-18T09:19:00.001-07:00

In my American Jewish history class, the teacher, Dr. David Kaufman, shared the joke about the modern Jewish family who don’t have two sets of plates and utensils, but instead have three sets. As is expected they have a set for milky foods and they have a set for meaty foods, but they also have a third set for the treif (non-Kosher) food. I am not sure whether any Jewish family keeping separate plates for milk and meat, actually keeps another set for treif food, but it reminds us that today the Kashrut rules people follow are not necessarily what they once were.

What we eat is an important concern within the Torah, and we receive a variety of rules and regulations at different points relating to what animals we can and cannot eat, and also in relation to the parts of the animal which we should and shouldn’t eat.

While next week we will read about the various animals which are kosher. In this week’s Torah portion we are told about two parts of the animal which we are forbidden to eat. First we read: ‘Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no kind of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat’ (Leviticus 7:23). And then ‘Moreover you shall eat no kind of blood, whether it is of bird or of beast, in any of your dwellings’ (Leviticus 7:26).

Within the Torah laws are divided into two categories: mishpatim and chukim. The mishpatim are the laws for which we can discern a rational explanation, frequently in relation to creating an orderly society. In contrast the chukim are laws for which there is no rational explanation, we cannot be sure why God commands us to behave in the way specified. Kashrut belongs to this category of chukim, for which no explicit reasons are given in the Torah. For example at no point does it say, ‘you shall eat animals who chew the cud and who have split hooves because they are good for you’ we are simply told that these are the animals which are classified as kosher.

People will often try to discern reasons for the laws of kashrut as a way of explaining, or even justifying, them. And it is clear that with the two regulations in this week’s Torah portion we can detect good reasons for following the laws. Today we know that fatty foods are generally considered to be unhealthy and bad for us. And we can also understand a prohibition against blood, which is the source of life. The prohibition against fatty foods may be considered practical, while the exclusion of blood is ideological.

Some would argue that the kashrut laws are written in the Torah, and therefore we follow them without question or hesitation, with no need for a reason or justification.

For me the kashrut laws quite simply make me conscious of what I eat. From the time when I bought lunches in the school cafeteria, I have been aware that my decision of what to eat, and what not to eat, was related to my Jewish identity. The very existence of kashrut laws makes sure that whenever we eat we are reminded that we are Jewish. The specifics of the laws are not as important, as is the awareness which they encourage. Just as the tzitzit is supposed to be a reminder of the commandments throughout the day, the kashrut laws are simply a reminder of Jewish identity.

And on a secondary level the kashrut laws make us aware of what we eat. We cannot indiscriminately buy food; we have to check that the food is kosher. Today perhaps that exploration should not just be for non-kosher ingredients, but also for non-kosher means of production and farming. We can expand our definition of kashrut, not into three sets of plates, but rather into food which is kosher both in ingredients and production. We can decide what to eat based on both requirements. Then we can truly achieve a kashrut which is practical and ideological.

Reflections on the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

2011-03-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Watching the images on the television over the last few days, it has, at times, felt like I was watching a film. What was happening was so hard to comprehend that I imagined it was the creation of a Hollywood special effects department, rather than the awesome force of nature in full flow.

A natural disaster like this happens, and we cannot help but remember how limited our power on this planet really is. We may have split the atom, sent people to the moon and cloned animals, but nature has a way of reminding us of how limited our power really is. There was something especially surreal about watching a nuclear power station, which despite the positive uses of the technology is also a reminder of man's ultimate destructive weapon, being destroyed by a natural disaster. Nature was reminding us of our place on this planet.

When we witnessed the Indonesian Tsunami of 2003/4 I could not help but think about the words of Psalm 93:3-5, which we recite in our Shabbat liturgy:

'Almighty, the floods may storm, the floods may storm aloud, the floods may storm and thunder. But even above the roar of great waves, mighty breakers of the ocean, supreme is the might of the Creator. The proofs You give are very sure, holiness is the mark of Your house, God, as long as time endures' (translation from Forms of Prayer 2008).

The Psalm acknowledges the potentially awesome destructive power of water, with the tsunami possibly the ultimate example of the floods storming and thundering. However, it also offers us a glimmer of hope because God is supreme above the great waves and all of the power which the oceans possess. The challenge for us is where to see the proofs which God gives in the aftermath of such an enormous natural disaster.

Why did God create a world in which tsunamis were possible? Why must people suffer at the hands of nature's power? Why must there be natural disasters in our world?

It is impossible for us to provide any answer which will satisfy the magnitude of these questions. But we must also acknowledge that God created each one of us in God's own image, possessing a divine spark. The way in which we respond to tragedy is the way in which we see the proof of God. Our actions now, to help those whose lives have been shattered by this tragedy, are the way in which God's presence in the world endures.

In the days after a natural disaster we must prick up our ears to hear the still small voice of God; it may be hard to perceive it, but the still small voice is out there. Through our actions hopefully we can find a way to amplify it so that all might hear it.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayikra (Leviticus 2:7-3:18) - The Power of a Touch

2011-03-11T07:14:00.001-08:00

I know that some people have ethical issues with zoos; but as a child I loved London Zoo. I thought it was one of the best places in the entire city, filled with an amazing selection of animals. I enjoyed watching them from a distance, or through wire fences, my favourites were the sea lions and the gorillas. But I was also fond of the children’s zoo (I think that is what the section was called) where you could walk amongst the animals. I always wanted to touch them and to stroke them, but I was also nervous about how they might react to physical contact. These goats and sheep were far less exciting than some of the other species in the zoo, but there was something exciting about the opportunity to actually touch an animal, it established a connection I could never have with the sea lions and gorillas.

This week’s Torah portion involves animals, although rather than being observed and enjoyed, they were being offered up as sacrifices according to the laws of the Tabernacle (and later the Temple). Leviticus shifts our focus away from the stories of Genesis and Exodus, moving immediately into the laws of the sacrifices expected of the people. Throughout the Book there are a multiplicity of sacrifices articulated and explained, with a variety of rules and animals necessary for the fulfilment of each one. As modern readers of the Book, and its laws, we may feel uncomfortable as we read the descriptions of the slaughter of animals as a means to worship God.

The section which we actually read begins innocently enough with the meal offering ‘baked in the frying pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil’ (Leviticus 2:7). However, it is soon dealing with the subject of animal sacrifices in relation to what is required for a peace offering. The description of the process including the slaughter, and the ritual ceremonies around the blood and entrails is enough to make a vegetarian queasy. Blood is sprinkled, kidneys and livers are cooked all in order of producing ‘an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour to Adonai’ (Leviticus 3:5).

We may feel uncomfortable at the need for an animal to be killed so that God can enjoy a pleasant odour. However, there is one element which appears in the process of the animal sacrifice for a peace offering. Before killing the animal at the door of the Tent of Meeting, it states: ‘And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering’ (Leviticus 3:2). The animal is not just killed, but a physical connection is established between the Priest and the animal in advance of its slaughter. This may appear as scant consolation for the animal which will soon be finding itself the main course in a barbecue for God, but it must have been significant for the Priest and his relationship to the animal.

Through the act of laying hands on the animal’s head, it was in one sense consecrated for God, sanctified for its use as a sacrifice. But in another sense it ensured that the Priest performing the sacrifice had established a physical connection with the animal. This was no longer a completely random animal; this was an animal which had been touched by the Priest; an animal with whom the Priest had established a physical link.

As I read about the sacrifices and feel uncomfortable with the fact that God required animals to be killed and burnt as a way of relating, and praying, to God. I like to think that the laying on of hands was a way of making sure that there was a pause and a moment of recognition that life would be lost in the course of this process. I know that in the zoo as soon as I touched the animal a different relationship was established, and I like to think that this happened for the Priest as well. We all know that physical contact creates a different relationship from just observing someone (or something) from a distance. The physical touch ensured the Priest never forgot the awesome responsibility literally in his hands; towards the animal, the people and God.

Two Minutes of Torah: Pekudey (Exodus 39:1-20) - Living in a Material World

2011-03-04T09:14:00.001-08:00

At the beginning of this week the world went Oscar crazy, as people around the world watched to see who would be the big winners. The primary focus of the evening was primarily on the films, the actors and the hundreds of men and women behind the scenes. But the second focus was on the clothes which all of the celebrities were wearing. On Monday morning on the BBC website, alongside the report about the winners and losers, there was a “picture special” about what the women were wearing. It was not just the outfits which were mentioned, but also the designers; Natalie Portman wore a Rodarte dress, Amy Adams was in a L’Wren Scott dress and Anne Hathaway, among other outfits, wore a Valentino gown. I don’t know who any of the designers are, but I do know that the Oscars are a time of the year when you don’t just wear the dress, you essentially wear the designer.

It seems appropriate that at the end of this week we read in our Torah portion about one of the most elaborate outfits ever designed. ‘Of the blue, purple, and crimson yarns they also made the service vestments – as Adonai had commanded Moses’ (Exodus 39:1). Aaron and his sons had to look the part when they were going to serve in the Tabernacle; everyday clothes were not appropriate, a special outfit was necessary. There were various elements which were important as parts of the High Priest’s outfit, and the stones in the breastplate ‘corresponded to the names of the sons of Israel: twelve corresponding to their names’ (Exodus 39:14).

While in the specific section we read this Shabbat the names of the designers are missing (except for Adonai, the supreme designer) at the very beginning of the Torah portion we are once again reminded of the people behind this wonderful outfit. ‘Now Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, had made all that Adonai had commanded Moses; at his side was Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, carver and designer, and embroider in blue, purple, and crimson yarns and in fine linen’ (Exodus 38:22-23).

The Torah portion of Pekudey and the Oscars are reminders that there are people behind the clothes that we wear; in both cases they emphasise the designers, who put their names on the outfits, but we should also not forget that for every Rodarte, L’Wren Scot and Bezalel creation, there are a whole variety of other people involved in creating the clothing. Just as the Oscars celebrates those behind the camera as well as the more famous people in front of it.

The breastplate, which the High Priest wore, was a reminder of the entire Israelite community, whom the High Priest was representing and serving, but it can also be considered the label representing all of the people who were involved in creating his clothing. The whole community of Israel was invited to make donations to the Tabernacle project, and those who had the correct skills were involved in the creation: ‘and all the skilled women spun with their own hands’ (Exodus 35:25). The breastplate was a prominent way of thanking the entire community for their hard work.

Bezalel and Oholiab should be rightly celebrated as the leaders of the project, but we should also remember that the entire Israelite community pitched in to help. And perhaps when we buy an article of clothing today we should note the designer, but also try to make ourselves aware of the other people behind the scenes: the people who did the stitching, the dyeing, the weaving and a variety of other tasks. Making sure that we purchase clothing from places where they get the credit (or at least the salary) which their work deserves.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Vayakahel (Exodus 35:20-35) - Those who really can ... teach

2011-02-27T03:03:00.001-08:00

Recently I was registering for an internet website, and as is often the way with these sites, there were a number of security questions. For this particular portal I was asked the name of my favourite actor or actress, my favourite film, and my favourite teacher. For the first two answers I had to take a bit of time to think about my answer, but with the final question there was not a moment of hesitation, I carefully wrote down the name “Mr. Judd” (I won’t tell you the other two answers just in case you are ever trying to hack into my system).

Mr. Judd was the debating and public speaking teacher at my secondary school. I wanted to get involved with debating from my first year at the school; I enjoyed the challenge, but while I was enthusiastic, I had a lot to learn. Together with Mrs Gleeson they moulded me into a competent public speaker and debater – in the process they also helped me to grow and develop into a much more confident young man. I have a lot to thank them both for. While at school I often wondered what had compelled Mr. Judd to become a teacher, in my eyes he could have done anything he had wanted, and I was always curious about what had made him want to be a teacher.

Our society can often be quite cruel to those who decide to pursue a career in teaching, the regular (and grossly unfair) refrain is: ‘those who can do, those who can’t teach’. I am not sure who we have to ‘thank’ for this line, but I feel that absolutely no gratitude is due. I am also conscious of the fact that the title Rabbi is about being a teacher.

In this week’s Torah portion we begin the task of building the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and we are introduced to Bezalel, the man who will lead the building project. ‘And Moses said to the people of Israel, See, Adonai has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah’ (Exodus 35:30). This is the second time when we read about Bezalel as the man who will actually be in charge of building the Tabernacle.

Both in Exodus 31 and Exodus 35 the choice of Bezalel appears to be as a result of the divine gifts which God has given him: ‘And God has filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in every kind of workmanship’ (Exodus 35:31, with almost the exact same text in Exodus 31:3). Bezalel has a gift from craftsmanship, and as a result he is an appropriate choice for the construction of God’s dwelling place on earth.

However, in this week’s Torah portion, when Bezalel is about to actually begin the work of building the Tabernacle, we learn a new fact about him: ‘And God has put in his heart that he may teach’ (Exodus 35:34). Bezalel was not just chosen because of his craftsmanship ability, but also because he would be able to teach others. Bezalel was selected because he would be able to engage the entire Israelite community in the project by sharing his skills and knowledge as a teacher.

Bezalel shows that those who can do, but those who really can teach. He demonstrates for us an ability not just to be skilled but to rise up to the next level of sharing his gift with others, and imparting knowledge to the community. I think Mr. Judd was a lot like Bezalel; he shared his skills for debate and public speaking so that others could follow his good example, and learn from his experience.

We need to pursue a new turn of phrase: ‘Those who can do, and those who really can teach.’

Two Minutes of Torah: Ki Tissah (Exodus 32:7-20) - The Reluctance to Lead

2011-02-18T03:56:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I was at the cinema watching the Oscar nominated, BAFTA award winning film, The King’s Speech. It was a truly wonderful cinematic experience, and I really recommend that everyone takes an opportunity to go and see it. I just want to focus on one element of the film, which struck me. Now it will come as no surprise to anyone that the film includes the story of the abdication of King Edward VIII and the accession to the throne of King George VI. Through this part of the story it was striking to see the reluctance of George to become the King; he wanted to help his brother to remain King.

I am sure that many of us have wondered what it might be like to be the Monarch, in our fantasies I am sure that it involves living in the lap of luxury and being waited on hand and foot by an impressive staff. The idea of being the Monarch, or maybe at least a minor Royal, sounds exciting, but in the film we see that King George VI was happy to remain a Prince, and avoid ascending to the top job.

This week in our Torah portion Moses has the opportunity to become the undisputed main man of the Israelites. As he sat atop Mount Sinai with God; the Israelites down below had constructed a golden calf, which they had proceeded to worship in place of Adonai. It is unsurprising that this excited the wrath of God, who had recently redeemed the people from Egypt and given them the Ten Commandments, which explicitly stated: ‘You shall not make for you any engraved image … you shall not bow down yourself to them’ (Exodus 20:4-5).

On Mount Sinai God said to Moses: ‘now therefore let me alone, that my anger may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation’ (Exodus 32:10). Moses stood on the brink of receiving the patriarchal promise, to become a great nation, and as such to establish his own people as the chosen people. It would have meant the end of the Children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the beginning of the Children of Moses.

However, Moses refused to accept God’s offer, and instead countered by asking how this action would be viewed by the Egyptians, who had witnessed God’s power. And then asking God to ‘remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever’ (Exodus 32:13).

At this moment we see in Moses’ reluctance to supplant the Patriarchs, a part of the reason why he was so well suited to be the leader of the Israelites. He did not for a moment consider the opportunity to become the outright leader of his own people, his own great nation. Instead he immediately sought to protect the people he was leading and to remind God of the promises which had been made with the Patriarchs.

Moses had assumed the position of Israelite leader reluctantly, and here, despite the opportunity of receiving one of God’s ultimate promises, to become a great nation, Moses declines, putting the interests of the people above his own. King George VI was reluctant to become the Monarch, preferring to serve his country from the King’s side, but he was ultimately forced to succeed his brother. Moses has been forced to become the Israelite leader, but here he stood firm and ensured that ‘Adonai repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people’ (Exodus 32:14).

At this point Moses once again demonstrated why he was the perfect choice to lead the Israelites and stand alongside Avraham Avinu (Abraham our father) as Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our teacher).

Two minutes of Torah: Tetzaveh (Exodus 28:28-29:9) - Kissing the Israelite Badge

2011-02-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

When Fernando Torres recently signed for Chelsea Football Club, a number of Liverpool supporters went out onto the streets and burned shirts with Torres’ name emblazoned on the back. For them these shirts had become valueless the moment that he put pen to paper on a contract with a rival football team. Whatever a person might think about the rights and wrongs of the Torres transfer, I was struck by a comment he made in his first Chelsea press conference; he said he did not kiss the Liverpool badge and he would not kiss the Chelsea badge. ‘Some people like to kiss the badge. They can do it. I only want to score goals and do my job and achieve all the targets the team has.’

I remember my first Liverpool football shirt and the pride which I took in the shirt, in its colour and especially the club badge upon it. The badge is the club’s logo, but it is more than this. The badge represents the football club and its community; it is about the history and the players who have worn the shirts with pride. And it is about the supporters who pay their hard earned money to wear the shirt and support the club. This is the same across all sports in each and every country.

Following on from the design of the Tabernacle in last week’s Torah portion, this week we read about the uniform which the High Priest will wear when serving God as the peoples’ sacred emissary. ‘And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and an embroidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle, and they shall make holy garments’ (Ex. 28:4). The elaborate and ornate clothing ensured that there would be something awesome about the sight of the High Priest; his outfit would reflect the stature of his position. We can imagine that when he put on the decorative items, he was made aware of the fact that he served God.

But of all the various items described, the most striking for me is the breastplate, as it states: ‘And Aaron shall bear the names of the people of Israel in the breastplate of judgement upon his heart, when he goes to the holy place, for a memorial before Adonai continually’ (Ex 28:29). The High Priest’s clothing ensured that he was not just aware of the fact that he served God, but also of the fact that he represented the people. The entire Israelite community was not just on his clothing and therefore in his mind, but it was directly upon his heart.

Of all the different elements of the High Priest’s outfit I think that the breastplate is his equivalent of the club badge. The breastplate is the item which embodies the people and through that the religion, the history and even God.

I am not sure whether the High Priest ever kissed the breastplate as part of the ritual in either the Tabernacle or the Temple, but I am struck by the symbolism of the breastplate. In our Jewish community, which is all too often characterised by fractures and divisions, the breastplate offers us a glimpse of a situation where the entire Israelite community could be united together.

I do not seek a return to the sacrificial system of the Temple and the position of the High Priest, but I do want to return to the breastplate. I want us to find a way in which we can recreate what the breastplate symbolised, and then together as one Jewish family, maybe then we can kiss the badge.

Two Minutes of Torah: Terumah (Exodus 25:23-40) - Home v Synagogue

2011-02-02T09:48:00.001-08:00

In the lead up to Rosh Hashannah and Pesach a gentle negotiation always takes place in my parents’ home. The fact that they will be hosting an erev Rosh Hashannah dinner and a Pesach seder is not up for discussion, that is a non-negotiable. The debate is always about how many people can be hosted comfortably around the table. My mother seems to believe that our dining room possesses a ‘ Tardis’-like quality and will expand to fit everyone who is invited. On the other side my father wants to make sure that every guest has enough space both to their right and their left. A compromise is always found and the festivals are always celebrated around the dining room table in their home.

When I began working at WLS, our family erev Rosh Hashannah practice was challenged, as I was expected to be present in the synagogue for the service. Growing up, I must confess, I had never been to a service at the synagogue on erev Rosh Hashannah because that was an element of the festival we celebrated at home. We were always in synagogue for the morning service, but the evening was marked around the dining room table. Thankfully, since working at WLS, dinner was delayed and a way was found for me to be both at the synagogue and at home. However, it did demonstrate the potential rivalry between our two Jewish centres: the home and the synagogue.

This week we read the description of how the Tabernacle will be built and what items and utensils will be required within it. Amongst the items to be constructed we are told: ‘you shall also make a table of shittim wood; two cubits shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height’ (Ex. 25:23). This is the dining room table of the Tabernacle, and eventually the Temple. The accompanying vessels leave us in no doubt about its purpose: ‘And you shall make its dishes, and its spoons, and its covers, and its bowls, to cover it with; of pure gold shall you make them’ (Ex. 25:29). This is certainly an ornate (and expensive) set of crockery and cutlery, but at its core, this is what it is.

We all know the power of sharing a meal with someone as a way of getting to know them and finding out more about them. Inside the Tabernacle there was a table across which God could be encountered, and upon it there was always to be bread; ‘and you shall set the bread of display upon the table before me always’ (Ex. 25:30). This essentially gave the image of a laid table ready for the people and God to share a meal at any time both day and night.

The synagogue rituals of our festivals are important, but the celebrations in the home, especially those which take place around the table, also present us with an opportunity to gain a glimpse of the Divine. One of the wonders of Judaism is the way in which our religion has survived despite the absence of a Temple, which at one time was viewed as a necessity for Jewish observance. The survival of Judaism was because the synagogue was not the only successor to the Temple, we also made the home into a sacred space.

Rabbi Lionel Blue wrote that in the absence of a Temple: ‘The father became a priest, and mother a priestess, and the dining-room table an altar … In the world of rabbinic Judaism, the synagogue emphasised doing and knowing, but the home was concerned with being, with memory, and experience (To Heaven with Scribes and Pharisees, p.38).

As we read about the items and utensils from the Tabernacle we can see the way in which they are shared between the home and the synagogue. Today, Judaism exists in the home and the synagogue, both spaces are necessary for a full and complete Jewish life. When my mother and father debate erev Rosh Hashannah and the Seder they are involved in a dispute lashem shamayim – in the name of Heaven, finding a way to make the home and the dining room table into sacred space.

Two Minutes of Torah: Mishpatim (Exodus 22:20-23:13) - 'You were strangers...'

2011-01-29T10:45:00.001-08:00

During last year’s General Election, many of us watched as the leaders of the three main political parties participated in three live television debates for the first time. I found it to be compulsive viewing, as we watched the three men vying for the keys to Number 10 Downing Street, debating and disagreeing on the key political questions. The divisions between the parties were clear on almost every issue, except for one. It seemed that on the subject of immigration there was a general agreement that there were too many immigrants coming into Britain, and the only disagreement appeared over whose policy would most effectively stem the flow. I was disheartened by the tone of the debate as this important issue was discussed.

Whenever immigration is discussed I cannot help but remember the fact that the British Jewish community was only readmitted just over 350 years ago. Most of us are the descendants of immigrants who arrived here from Eastern Europe sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century. We were the immigrants people were complaining about just over four generations ago.

The tendency to pursue a policy which oppresses the immigrant, or the stranger, may be one of the reasons why throughout the Torah we are reminded that we were strangers in Egypt, so that it will influence our behaviour. In this week’s Torah portion we read: ‘You shall not wrong a stranger, nor oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Ex. 22:20), and then twenty verses later we are told: ‘Also you shall not oppress a stranger; for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Ex. 23:9). None of the other commandments are restated in such a clear way, so close together.

In Torah there is a belief that not a single word is superfluous, and so it is striking to us that in such close proximity this commandment is repeated, with virtually the same words and language.

The repetition of the commandment suggests two things to us. First of all it makes it clear that this is an important instruction, one that requires reiteration to make sure that it is not ignored. God was unwilling to take the chance that this commandment would be lost in a Torah portion, which contains fifty-three separate commandments. But on a secondary level, the need to repeat this commandment might reveal something about the way we are often inclined to treat the stranger. Maybe our ‘natural’ reaction is to oppress the stranger or to wrong him, and so we need to be told twice that this is inappropriate and against God’s will.

The way in which immigration was treated in the British General Election is not unique, similar debates have raged across the world, most notably this past year in both America and France. It seems that there is a strand of anti-immigrant feeling, which permeates through many societies. It was probably also present in the Israelite community, which is why the commandment had to be restated.

We are commanded not to oppress the stranger and not to wrong him, not just because it is the right way to behave, but because we ‘were strangers in the land of Egypt’. One of the formative experiences of the Israelite community is the experience of having been strangers in a strange land. And it is not just our ancestors who were strangers. Every year at the Seder we imagine that we too were in Egypt, we too were slaves - we were the strangers.

In our recent history and in our ancient history we have experienced the life of an immigrant. We have moved from land to land seeking a place where we could settle and call home. We must never forget the formative experience of our direct, and more distant, ancestors. We ‘know the heart of the stranger’, we remember what it was like to be an immigrant, and we must act in a way which honours these memories and experiences.

My Sermon - 15th January: Preparing for Holocaust Memorial Day

2011-01-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

On the 6th March 2008, Leon Greenman died in a hospital in North London.
I am not sure how many people here will have heard of this man.
Leon was a regular visitor to the Jewish Museum in London. It was there that I would see him, a very elderly man, walking slowly across the courtyard of the Sternberg Centre in Finchley to the museum entrance.
Once in the museum, Leon would meet with groups of British children to tell them of his experiences in the Holocaust. He would sit quietly at the end of the gallery, patiently answering their questions.
So who was this man?
Leon Greenman, was the only Englishman to have been held at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
His wife Else, and son Barney did not survive.
After he was liberated from the camp he returned to London. Then, in the 1960s, he decided to dedicate his life to the fight against fascism and to telling his story. It was with this purpose that he would visit the Jewish Museum, recounting his experiences to thousands of visitors.

And now that Leon Greenman and so many of the other survivors are dead, who will tell the school children about the Nazi atrocities? Who will continue his fight against fascism? And who will continue to tell our peoples’ story?

On the 27th January across London there will be events to mark the National Holocaust Memorial Day. People will join together for services, film screenings, readings, dialogues and a variety of other events, marking the day when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Allied forces.

Each year the number of events to mark this day increases, while the number of survivors present decreases.

With the passage of time, it is inevitable that there are fewer survivors left to tell their stories and share their experiences with the next generation. As one journalist wrote of Leon Greenman: “Looking through the eyes of a single victim is an immensely powerful way to learn about the Holocaust.” Now that Leon is gone, how will the story be told?

When I was growing up, I remember meeting survivors at almost every Holocaust education program I was involved in. On visits to my grandparents in Tel Aviv, seeing numbers tattooed on people’s arms was a regular occurrence. (pause) I cannot remember the last time I saw a person with numbers tattooed on their forearm. (pause)

Remembering is an important activity for us Jews. The verb for remember, zachor, appears 169 times in the Hebrew Bible. We are constantly being commanded by God to remember. We are told to: ‘Remember that you were strangers in Egypt.’ ‘Remember the days of old.’ ‘Remember the seventh day to keep it holy.’ Judaism, put simply, is a religion of memory.

This week in our Torah portion we remember the Exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the See of Reeds. This was such an important event for us to remember that the Rabbis inserted a line from the song into our daily liturgy. After the Shema, both in the morning and the evening, we recite mi chamocha baelim Adonai, mi kamocha nedar bakodesh, norah tehilot oseh feleh – God who is like You among the gods people worship. Who, like You is majestic in holiness, awesome in praise, working wonders! They placed the line there so that every day, twice a day, we would remember when our ancestors crossed the Sea of Reeds journeying from slavery to freedom.

As Jews we do not simply remember as individuals, we remember as a community, and we all bear the responsibility of that communal memory. Their story is our story.

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, in a section which we did not hear this morning, we read: ‘the people of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.’ As the Israelites were rushing to leave Egypt, and escape before Pharaoh changed his mind, Moses remembered the promise which was made in a previous generation. He remembered that Joseph had made the Israelites swear that they would carry his bones with them, when they left Egypt.

And so, throughout the entire Israelite journey in the wilderness, alongside their possessions, and the Ark of the Covenant, they carried with them the bones of Joseph. The bones provided a physical link to a generation which had long since disappeared, but lived on in the memory of the people. And when they finally settled in the land of Israel, they buried the bones in land which had been bought by Jacob.

We do not carry any literal bones with us today, but we carry the memories of the generation which have gone before us.

What is our relationship to the generation of survivors? It was not until the 1960s that most survivors felt able to tell their stories, and now, forty short years later, we are running out of time to hear them. Leon Greenman is but one example of a frightening reality: the generation of survivors is slowly but surely disappearing.

We are at a turning point in the way that we relate to the Holocaust. Eventually it will be the story and experiences of a generation that is no longer with us. How can we engage with the Holocaust in our 21st century context? How will we teach about the Holocaust without the survivors to guide us? How can we ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are not lost?

If we are to honor the memory of the Holocaust, it is in two areas that we must begin to build relationships.

We must recognize that now, more than ever, time is of the essence. The recording of survivor testimonies for future generations is clearly important. But everyone in this room knows that hearing from a survivor in person is far more powerful than any video screen. We can hear from these people now, while we have the chance, or we can watch them as ghosts on a video screen. We should ensure that everyone in our communities, in youth movements, Jewish societies, schools and synagogues, is given the opportunity to hear personally from a survivor, before it really is too late.

We should also develop a new form of Holocaust testimony. We should write down our experiences of meeting with Holocaust survivors, so that in the future, when all we have are images on a screen, we can accompany them with our own personal experiences. We can tell our students, how we heard the survivor speak candidly about the hardship of life in the camps, how tears welled in their eyes as they remembered loved ones who were lost, and how there was quiet resolve in their voices as they told us to fight intolerance of all kinds. We can, and we must, safeguard the stories of the survivors, so that through us future generations will also feel a direct connection to the events of our peoples’ past. So that through us, the voice of the survivor lives on. So that through us, the survivors will never truly disappear.

But there is also another lesson which we must take from National Holocaust Memorial Day. We must remember the Holocaust, but we must also learn the lessons from other genocides in Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovena, Rwanda and Darfur. In the future, when we are unable to hear from survivors of the Holocaust, we should be building relationships with survivors from Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur, inviting them to speak to us, so that we can hear their stories. We must be clear to educate that no two genocides are the same, but the lessons of the survivors’ pain, of the perpetrators’ wickedness and of the ability of people to survive are instructive. Through these experiences, we must join the fight against contemporary genocides, so that the lessons we learn lead us to action on behalf of those who are suffering and oppressed today.

At West London Synagogue on the evening of the 26th January we will mark National Holocaust Memorial Day, with a conversation between Rabbi Debbie and Fiyaz Mughal from Faith Matters. It will explore the untold story of the Holocaust, exploring the role of Muslims who saved Jews

In Israel, the National Holocaust Museum is called Yad Vashem, with a name taken from Isaiah 56:5, which says: ‘And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons or daughters; I will give them a yad vashem, an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.’ Isaiah is describing more than a memorial; he is talking about a yad vashem, a hand and a name. We must remember the names of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, and we must continue to tell their stories. But at the same time, with our yadaim, with our hands, we must now take responsibility for fighting to prevent future genocides and to make sure that the Holocaust is remembered in a way that brings meaning to the next generation. What better memorial can we build for the countless victims whom we never knew, for the survivors who will be no more and for Leon Greenman, a man who dedicated his life to help others remember?

Two Minutes of Torah: Yitro (Exodus 18:24-19:13) - Uniting the Jewish Community

2011-01-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

The often retold Jewish joke suggests that a Jewish man was stranded on a desert island. He was alone there for twenty years until he was finally found and rescued. As he showed his rescuers around the island he came to a building made of palm fronds, coconut shells and woven grass, which he introduced as his synagogue. A little later on his tour they came to a similar looking building made of palm fronds, coconut shells and woven grass. The rescuers asked him why he had built a second synagogue; he smiled at them and said, “This synagogue, I wouldn’t set foot in it if you paid me.”

We Jews are often portrayed as a fractious community, which we can be; and we are caricatured (often by ourselves) as always having ‘two Jews and three opinions’. With so much division in the wider Jewish world, it can sometimes be hard to keep sight of all those things which unite us and bring us close together as a single people.

In this week’s Torah portion we have one of those moments; as we stood together as a community at Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God. Before we stood together at the mountain listening to God’s words, we were asked by God through Moses, if we would faithfully keep the covenant; and that in return we would be God’s treasured people, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex 19:3-6). Our response was unconditional: ‘All of the people answered together, saying: “All that Adonai has said, we will do”’ (Ex 19:8).

At that moment the entire Israelite community was united in word, deed and purpose. Together we all pledged to enter into a covenantal relationship with God, and to accept the laws of the covenant which God would subsequently place before us.

However, we did not arrive at Sinai immediately after leaving Egypt. We had to journey together as a community both physically and spiritually. Before we could stand together as a united people, ready to enter into a covenant with God, we required the intervention of Yitro, Moses’ father-in-law. Yitro observed the way that Moses was running the camp and judging all of the cases, and told his son-in-law, ‘the thing that you do is not good’ (Ex 18:17). He advised him to set judges over smaller groups amongst the people, so that they could assume responsibility for the smaller cases, and Moses could focus on the more significant ones.

We read: ‘And Moses chose able men from all Israel, and made them chiefs over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens’ (Ex 18:25). We can often overlook this moment as a precursor for standing together at Sinai; but by following Yitro’s advice, Moses changed the nature of the Israelite community. Moses ensured that the people began to feel an investment in their future, not just as members of the community, but also as leaders of the community. Together the people assumed these leadership roles and recognised that they too were responsible for the future of the Israelites.

With this added investment in the people’s shared future, only then could we stand together at Sinai, and only then could we have a moment when: ‘All of the people answered together’ (Ex 19:8).

In our fractious Jewish community it would be good if we could all remember that we share a responsibility for the future and fate of the entire Jewish people. With this mindset, perhaps we could find a way to work together, understanding our shared destiny, and finding a way to once again stand together at Sinai, and once again answer together with one voice.

Two Minutes of Torah: Beshallach (Exodus 14:26-15:27) - From Miriam to Debbie

2011-01-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

Music has a tremendous power to move us emotionally and to bring memories and feelings flooding back. Debbie Friedman (z”l)’s Shema has that power over me. No matter where I hear it, and in what context, if I close my eyes, I am sitting in a field, somewhere in Britain, on an RSY-Netzer (Shemesh) summer camp. I’ve sung this prayer all over the world, but it always transports me back to Shemesh, and the wonderful weeks of summer spent with friends.

The music that accompanies our prayers has a special power both for us, and according to Hasidism, for God. According to Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady; ‘There are gates in heaven that cannot be opened except by melody and song’. When we sing our prayers, we don’t just elevate our own souls, but we reach up to God in a way which words on their own cannot.

In this week’s Torah portion we journey back to our people’s original song; when the entire Israelite community united in song with Moses and Miriam after the crossing of the Reed Sea. One can imagine the joy which gripped the Israelites as they realised that they were truly free from their Egyptian taskmasters. As the waters settled, the Israelites could believe that the land of their oppression was finally behind them.

This was the moment of redemption from Egyptian slavery and it was a moment to be remembered, and experienced, throughout the generations. ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and Adonai freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm’.

After reciting the Shema, both in the morning and evening, we recite a prayer which asserts the truth of God’s sovereignty and power. And in the midst of this prayer, as we remember our redemption and delivery from Egypt we recite: Mi chamocha baelim Adonai, mi kamocha nedar bakodesh, nora tehilot oseh feleh - ‘God, who is like You among the gods people worship! Who, like You, is majestic in holiness, awesome in praise, working wonders!’ (Exodus 15:11).

When the Rabbis were developing our liturgy, they wanted to make sure that twice a day we would transport ourselves in song to that time when we first sang together the line of Mi Chamocha in praise of God. Although this prayer is generally read, when we come to this line, in almost every community with whom I’ve prayed, the congregation joins together in song, just as we did the first time it was recited.

When we consider the communal power of song, I have always been struck by the contrast between the song of Moses and the song of Miriam. When Moses and the Israelites began their song, they started: ‘I will sing to Adonai, for God has triumphed gloriously’ (Exodus 15:1). Despite the communal nature of the entire community singing, each person sang as an individual, ashira – I will sing. In contrast when Miriam began her song with the women she responded: ‘Sing to Adonai, for God has triumphed gloriously’ (Exodus 15:21). She called on all the women to join together, with the Hebrew word for ‘sing’, shiru, the plural imperative form. This was not an individual prayer; this was a communal prayer to be sung as a community. This was Miriam’s moment. It was at this point that Miriam assumed her position as a leader of the Israelite community. She became our first song leader, the person who guided us and supported us to give voice to the song of our hearts and the words of praise for God.

This week, we lost our generation’s foremost song leader, Debbie Friedman. She led a generation to sing, and through her music brought people closer to Judaism and to God. She was a worthy heir to the legacy of Miriam as she too helped us join together in song. They both helped people find their voices so that they could join together in song and in prayer. And they provided us with words and melodies to elevate our prayers and reach ever closer to God. Debbie and Miriam both called us to shiru l’Adonai – to sing unto God.

This Shabbat as we read Parashat Beshallach, when we come to the Song at the Sea we will be asked to stand. As we stand in our synagogues across the world, it will be as though we are once again standing on the banks of the Sea of Reeds. The special melody for the Song at the Sea will further help to transport us out of the synagogue to that moment of redemption. The music will elevate us in that special way which only song can.

While the tradition asserts that we all experienced the Exodus firsthand, none of us actually have personal memories from which to draw. But on this Shabbat, we can remember our movement’s own spiritual leader, our prophetess of song, Debbie Friedman, who helped us find our voices, to find our melodies and to sing unto God; she helped lead us from silence to song. The Song at the Sea teaches us that music has a power which survives long after the words and tunes were originally recited. Music is a special gift that we receive, and on this Shabbat, we can celebrate the gift received from Moses, from Miriam and from Debbie.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bo (Exodus 11:1-21:10) - Let's start at the very beginning

2011-01-05T05:54:00.000-08:00

I imagine that most of us have never questioned why the Torah begins with the Book of Bereishit (Genesis) and why the Book of Bereishit begins with the story of creation. After all this book of Torah begins with a very powerful opening line: ‘In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth’ (Gen 1:1), setting the scene for all that will follow. With stories which will take place on the earth, it is good to know from the very beginning that it was created by God. God as the creator of the Heaven and earth is the context for everything else which will follow.

And yet, there are those who have questioned why the Torah chose to begin with the creation of the world. Rashi, arguably the leading Torah commentator of all time, began his commentary on Bereishit by writing: ‘Said Rabbi Isaac, the Torah did not need to start there, rather it could have started with “this month shall be to you”’. If we were to follow this advice we would have skipped the story of creation, the flood, the stories of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and the first nine plagues in Egypt. And we would have begun midway through this week’s Torah portion.

This week, as we stand on the brink of the tenth plague and our Exodus from Egypt, ‘And Adonai spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying “This month shall be to you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you”’ (Ex 12:1-2). It as at this moment that we begin the counting of time and the definition of a calendar; this month (which will later be known as Nissan) is the first month of the year.

But the significance is not just in creating a calendar, it is also the moment of the first communal command: ‘Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house’ (Ex 12:3). This is the moment when God commands the Israelites to mark the doorposts of their homes with lamb’s blood so that they will be passed over, when the Egyptian firstborn are killed.

We can re-read Rashi’s question as asking why we do not begin with commandments and why we need all of the preceding stories? Rashi eventually answers the question by saying that we begin with creation because it proves that God created the world, and therefore means that God is permitted to give land to whichever people God chooses, and so Israel are the rightful possessors of the Promised Land. Rashi fails to consider what happens when a person does not accept the divinity of the Torah, and the proof it therefore offers.

However, we might also argue that without the preceding stories and narratives, the statement: ‘This month shall be to you…’ would be meaningless as we would have no context for the trials and tribulations which brought the Israelites down to Egypt.

The power of this moment should not be lost. As the Israelites stand on the brink of the Exodus, when they will emerge out of slavery into freedom, before they can become free people they begin to mark time. We should not underestimate the significance of counting, and recording, time. As slaves their time was not their own, the Egyptians defined every area of their existence, and the passage of time therefore lost all meaning, as days merged together, united by hardship and suffering.

As free people they would be able to define their own time. It was therefore not just the first month of the year, but also the first month of their new existence as free people. This might not be the moment at which Torah should begin, but it is a significant moment on our people’s journey. And as we look through the pages of our diaries and calendars, we should remember that the ability to mark time is a gift we receive as former slaves who are today free.

My Sermon - 31st December - 2010 in Review

2011-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

2011 starts tomorrow with all of the exciting promise that a new year brings. When a new year begins I always think back to the feeling I had at school when I would begin a new exercise book. All of the pages were empty, waiting to be filled, and the potential of what would go on those pages filled me with excitement and anticipation. I was known on occasion to write in especially large letters, or draw particularly big pictures just so that I could get to that new book a little bit quicker.

Today, I no longer have a school exercise book, but I do carry around a small notebook with me, and I still get excited when one notebook is filled and a brand new notebook begins. However, before I can begin the new notebook, I have to review the old notebook for information that I need to carry forward, and cannot be left on the pages of a book, in a drawer in my office.

Before we can truly begin 2011, we need to review 2010 and consider what lessons and experiences we will be taking with us into the new year.

Personally, there are a number of images and stories, that I will carry with me from 2010 into the new year.

I feel that we have to start in the Gulf of Mexico. In previous years, we had witnessed oil spills, such as the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster of 1988 and the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989. But the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 was of a markedly different scale. We saw pictures and films as millions of barrels of black liquid leaked out into the Atlantic ocean. And we watched as BP and the U.S. appeared powerless to stem the flow. It was over twelve weeks until they were able to finally plug the leak.

The American news highlighted the fact that a British company was to blame, some in Britain blamed the American made oil rig – and the world agreed that it was an American and BP problem. Many were shocked, and numerous people feared the effect it would have on them. But the problem and thus the solution, was not their problem.

In addition to the manmade disasters that characterized 2010, there were a number of devastating natural disasters as well. In January, Haiti was struck by an earthquake which left 200,000 dead and one and a half million homeless. And then in July, monsoon rains caused flooding in Pakistan, which spread across an area the same size as England, affecting over 20 million people.

What was striking was the contrast in the way that the international community, and especially the wealthier nations, responded. For Haiti there appeared to be an outpouring of support as money came in to help the country care for the victims and begin the work of rebuilding. But when Pakistan came calling, the international community was far slower to respond. In the first month the UN only received 20% of the relief funding they requested. Some people talked about disaster fatigue, while others raised questions about whether there were some latent anti-Pakistan feelings. These two tragedies demonstrated the ability of the international community to intervene positively, and also to stand idly by.

But in both of these cases, there was still an overarching feeling that it was not the world’s problem – it was not our problem. Sure we sent some money in the beginning, wrote a cheque that was out of sight, out of mind. But how many of us know the current state of those two countries now?

So much of this year, was about protecting ourselves, taking care of our own. Surely we have enough problems without having to care about somebody else’s? It’s a much easier way of life – but also so much emptier. Yet, not all is lost. There was one event that occurred this year – one that brought the world together and offered a glimpse of a more compassionate, caring and united world.

The entire international community was united on one day in October as we watched the inspiring rescue of 33 Chilean miners from an underground prison. We watched as a capsule was sent down into the depths of the earth, and we bore witness to the rebirth of each one of the 33 miners as they emerged out of the darkness and into the light. Across the world everyone was watching and listening; and the following day it was the lead story across the globe. For once there was a good news story for the entire world to celebrate.

In a way that was worthy of the worldwide attention, the meticulously planned rescue was a truly international effort. A U.S. company supplied the drilling technology that broke through to the miners. NASA donated a high-calorie liquid diet. An Austrian company made the capsule's winch-and-pulley system. And there were numerous offers of help from every corner of the globe.

We can say with complete confidence that if the world had not united and taken responsibility for the lives of these 33 men, the outcome would have been very different. But the world came together and said: ‘These are my brothers, these people are my people.’

2010 may have seen a lot of hardship, numerous disasters, ongoing wars and potential ones, but in those two months of uncertainty, 2010 saw a global community that instead of saying ‘it’s their problem,’ firmly stood by each other and said, ‘this is our problem.’

With every advance in technology our world is becoming a smaller place and we need to adjust our priorities and our attitudes accordingly.

It seems appropriate that when Time Magazine were choosing their Person of the Year for 2010 they selected Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and creator of Facebook. According to Time Magazine, he won the award: ‘For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them, for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives’

Facebook has many uses, but at its core it is a way for people to stay in touch, 24-7, no matter where in the world they live. Over half a billion people are now a part of the Facebook community, and it continues to grow. People can argue about the positives and negatives of this social network, but it is another thread which is holding the global community together.

Now that we are all connected through a wireless network, we need to connect through a common interest in the well being of our global family and the shared responsibility we have for one another.

As we move into 2011, with all of the opportunity and promise, which it possesses; we must learn the lesson of 2010 that we are all members of one global family. As a family we must be prepared to care for each other, help each other and celebrate with each other.

Let’s make it our resolution to turn the Jewish mandate: kol Yisrael aravim zeh bazeh – all Israel is responsible for one another, into kol haolam aravim zeh bazeh – all the world is responsible for one another. If we can begin this new year as fully committed members of the global community we will be able to make 2011 a Happy New Year for everyone.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Vaera (Exodus 6:29-7:18) - Magic or Miracle

2010-12-31T02:11:00.000-08:00

As a child I really loved magic. I would always be transfixed as I watched magicians on television performing tricks which seemed impossible and inexplicable. As a child there was something amazing about these men who could read minds, guess the correct cards, and even saw a woman in half. I believed that the woman was really sliced in half and I believed that she was then magically stuck back together. These men who performed these feats, were magical and mysterious, possessing special powers (or so it seemed), and I was in awe of the way in which they appeared to make the impossible possible, always glued to the television screen when they were on.

As children we watch magic and we enjoy the illusion, without any awareness that there is actually any form of illusion involved. As we get older we slowly realise that the magic is not always all that it seems. The practitioners are still very skilled performers able to trick us into believing, but the belief in a pure magic (for want of a better term) disappears.

In this week’s Torah portion we read about the difference between magic and miracles, as Aaron duels with the magicians of Pharaoh’s court. God tells Moses and Aaron: ‘You shall speak all that I command you; and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh’ (Exodus 7:2), preparing them for their first encounter with the ruler of Egypt on behalf of God and the Israelites. And God appears to understand that the two brothers will need some form of proof that they really do have Divine backing: ‘When Pharaoh shall speak to you saying; “show a miracle”; then you shall say to Aaron, take your rod and throw it before Pharaoh and it shall become a serpent’ (Exodus 7:9).

We already know that God is about to bring the ten plagues upon Egypt and to part the sea so that the Israelites might cross; and we might feel that God could have begun with a bigger miracle for Aaron. However, it turns out to be perfectly appropriate for the situation.

Aaron did exactly as God had commanded him, and threw down his rod, which became a serpent (Exodus 7:10). But then, ‘the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments; for they threw down every man his rod, and they became serpents’ (Exodus 7:11-12). However, before we begin to doubt the supremacy of God, or spend too long questioning how the Egyptians were able to perform an equivalent miracle, the text tells us: ‘but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods’ (Exodus 7:12).

This was a society in which there could be a form of duel between sorcerers and magic. In this encounter, while the power remains with Pharaoh and the Egyptians, it is clear that God’s powers are far greater than anything they can create.

In our modern world the link between magic and religion has all but been broken, and we do not think of modern day magicians as having a power over the Divine and supernatural forces. But even modern magic has not forgotten the fact that all real miracles and magic emerged originally from God.

The word that magicians use: ‘Abracadabra’ has at its source the Hebrew abareh kedaber – I will create as it is spoken. This can be seen as a link to God’s very first miracle when the word was created simply by God’s words, ‘God said let there be light, and there was light’ (Genesis 1:3). God’s miracles do not involve any illusion, God is able to speak and the miraculous happens. Every time a magician says ‘Abracadabra’, whether they know it or not, they acknowledge that at its root all magic and miracles originate with God.

Two Minutes of Torah: Shemot (Exodus 3:1-22) - God has a name

2010-12-23T03:21:00.001-08:00

Growing up in my orthodox Jewish primary school, the word God was never written on the board, on handouts, or anywhere in the school; it was always G-d. It was as though the three letters G-O-D written together had a certain sacredness, which meant that we were never able to write it down ourselves. And for many years of my life I would only write G-d. I imagine that it was at some point in my youth movement days with RSY-Netzer when I began to question why I was unable to write down G-O-D. It seems that it originates with the sacredness of the Hebrew name for God, which is Yod-Hay and Vav-Hay (even there I feel I can’t place the letters together).

The Hebrew name of God, which we read as Adonai, is considered so sacred that it is not written or read, and in Orthodox circles it is referred to as Adonai in prayer and Hashem (The Name) or Adoshem when referred to in study. The sacredness of this name is such that when using Hebrew letters for numbers: aleph = 1, bet = 2, yud = 10, etc. the number fifteen is not yud-hay (10+5) it is tet-vav (9+6) and sixteen is not yud-vav (10+6) it is tet-zayin (9+7). This significance is transferred to the word God, which is not a sacred name, it is not even a translation of this word; it is the English word which is used to refer to the Divine.

In this week’s Torah portion we gain an insight into the name of God, when Moses is first introduced to the Hebrew Deity. After witnessing the miracle of the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-4), and having been instructed; ‘I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt’ (Exodus 3:10). Moses’ first concern is with his inadequacy for the task which God has set before him, a worry which recurs throughout the beginning of Moses’ story. However, his second question is about God’s name; after claiming that he has been sent by the God of their ancestors, Moses imagines that the people will say: ‘What is his name, what shall I say to them?’ (Exodus 3:13).

Before considering God’s answer it is a fascinating concern for Moses to have. Why does he imagine that the Israelites’ first question will be about the name of God? Moses appears to imagine that knowledge of the name of God will be the test which the people will place before him, seeking proof that he truly is God’s messenger. Knowledge of someone’s name suggests a level of knowledge about that person, and it appears that in the case of the Divine it works in a similar way.

God’s enigmatic answer to Moses is: ‘Ehyeh asher ehyeh’ (Exodus 3:14), which can most accurately be translated as ‘I will be that I will be’. It is not really a name in the conventional sense, God does not say ‘My name is Yud-Hay and Vav-Hay’; offering something which appears to be more of a designation than an actual name. God follows this by saying: ‘You shall say to the people of Israel, I WILL BE has sent me to you’ (Exodus 3:14).

At first glance this may appear frustrating as we seek to know the true name of God. However, there is something very powerful about the designation ‘I will be that I will be’. God cannot be confined to a single name, and simply is, God exists as the ‘I Will Be’ to be referred to by various peoples in whatever language, and with whatever name they see fit. In England, when we talk about the Divine we use the word God, the same word which is used by our Christian cousins. And in Arab countries the Jews use the Arabic for God, using the word Allah, the same as our Muslim cousins.

God may appear to the various monotheistic religions by many names, and for each religion the name itself may hold a certain sacredness. But above the specifics of a single name there is God, the Divine, which simply exists. The Israelites do not really need to know God’s specific name, they simply need to know that God exists – the same God which we all worship in our own ways, using our own names.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayigash (Genesis 45:8-28) - Getting over the bumps in the road

2010-12-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

Spending the second year of my rabbinic programme in Israel was probably the single best decision I have ever made. I was able to build wonderful friendships with my fellow students. I was taught by inspirational teachers who made the subjects come alive and led me to deeper and further study. And most importantly, I met a young American girl, studying for her Jewish Education Masters, who would become my wife. All in all it was a very successful year.

However, many of the factors which led me to decide to spend my second year in Israel were beyond my control; and in the preceding years there were several times when I questioned whether I had made the right decisions for myself. Through various trials and tribulations I wondered about the paths not taken, and the opportunities not explored. It was hard for me to accept that I was on the right path until I found myself in Israel for that very special year, and I realised that this had been the plan for me all along.

I like to imagine that Joseph had similar feelings about the way his life had worked out. When he was thrown into the pit by his brothers (Genesis 37:24) we can picture the arrogant young boy begin to doubt that his destiny really would involve the adulation, which his prior dreams had foretold. As a slave being taken away by the Midianite traders (Genesis 37:28) Joseph must have begun to see a future which would be filled with hardship and struggle, with no more elaborate coats or paternal favouritism.

And while things looked up for Joseph briefly while he prospered in the house of Potiphar (Genesis 39:2), these good times were short lived as he was sent to prison after the alleged attempt to seduce Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:20). In prison Joseph could have given up, but he continued to work hard, finding favour with the prison warden (Genesis 39:23).

Ultimately as we all know Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and was placed in charge of the entire land of Egypt (Genesis 41:41). So that when his brothers came to buy food they stood before him and they bowed down low asking him, as their master, to permit them to buy food to take back to Canaan. Joseph as Pharaoh’s number two, was able to realise that all of the challenges along his journey had been intended to bring him to that specific point, so that he could say to his brothers: ‘it is not you who sent me here but God who made me a father to Pharaoh, a lord of all his household, a ruler of the whole land of Egypt’ (Genesis 45:8).

Joseph did not blame his brothers for selling him into slavery, a path which ultimately led him as low as a prison in Egypt. Instead he saw that it was all part of God’s plan. The hardships were necessary so that he could reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

When we are in the midst of a difficult situation it can be hard to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, let alone see it. But we can remember the story of Joseph and his experiences. Along the way I am sure that at various points he cursed his brothers, and maybe even questioned God, but at the end he was able to see the higher purpose, towards which he had always been travelling. It was not a direct road, and there were many bumps along the way, but Joseph made it. And he therefore serves as an example for us to overcome challenges along the paths of our lives, looking forward to a positive future.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Mikeitz (Genesis 42:1-23) - Overprotective Parents

2010-12-02T14:22:00.001-08:00

I remember the first time my sister and I were allowed to walk to the newsagents on our own. In our childhood home we lived around the corner from a small shopping strip which was the place we went to buy sweets and chocolate. The distance door-to-door could not have been much more than 100 metres; but for us it was an epic journey. It was epic not because of the distance, but because of the independence and freedom which we were being given.

Knowing my parents, especially my mother, I am sure that they were at least a little bit nervous letting us so far out of eye-sight and without supervision. But we were growing up and it was time for us to be allowed to go to the newsagents on our own. What I did not know at the time was that as my sister and I walked hand-in-hand to the shop, my father followed slightly behind, keeping us in eyesight almost all of the time. We felt like we were being granted our independence, while our parents kept a watchful eye.

Jacob was an overprotective parent, but only in relation to one of his children.

When the land of Canaan was suffering from the severe famine, which had impacted the entire region, there was still food in Egypt. Jacob heard about this and told his sons: ‘I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; get down there, and buy for us from there; that we may live, and not die’ (Genesis 42:2). So he sent ten of his sons to Egypt, Joseph was already presumed dead, but ‘Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, Jacob sent not with his brothers; for he said, Lest perhaps harm befall him’ (Genesis 42:4).

It is hardly surprising that Jacob was so protective of Benjamin, who was after all the baby of the family. He was also Rachel’s son, Jacob’s favourite wife, who had died while giving birth to him. And after the disappearance of Joseph (who Jacob believed to be dead), he was the only remaining connection for Jacob to Rachel. We can therefore understand why Jacob may have been particularly protective of Benjamin.

However, as every parent knows, there is a time when children need to be allowed to make their own way and to become independent of their parents. For my sister and I this began with a secretly supervised trip to the newsagents, and it was the first stage in our attainment of independence and the road to adulthood.

Benjamin could not be coddled and protected forever. Joseph was the catalyst who told his brothers: ‘If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in the house of your prison; you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses. But bring your youngest brother to me’ (Genesis 42:19-20). He required Benjamin be brought down to Egypt so that he could see his full-brother alive and well. But at the same time he also forced Jacob to recognise that Benjamin had grown up and had to be trusted to journey, with his brothers, down to Egypt. The quest to Egypt was vital for the survival of the family, as they were sure to need more grain. It was crucial for Simeon who was left behind as collateral until Benjamin was brought. And it was necessary for Benjamin as an opportunity to grow up and leave his father’s house.

Jacob did not follow a few paces behind to make sure that Benjamin was safe on the journey, but he did have nine other sons who were with him, and could ensure the security of his favoured child. In the journey to Egypt all of the brothers were forced to grow up, leaving the security of their father, and entrusting their fate into Joseph’s hands.

It was also a test for the brothers. How would they deal with the favoured son this time? Would he face a similar fate as Joseph, sold into slavery and separated from his family? Or would the brothers show that they were siblings who were prepared to assume responsibility for each other outside of Jacob’s home, ignoring his favouritism and the challenges which it presented.

It was at that moment, when they were all freed from the parental house, that the brothers could truly be reconciled making peace with each other.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayeishev (Genesis 39:1-18) - Joseph has the X-Factor

2010-11-27T13:58:00.000-08:00

Last year a survey was conducted of families to discover what children’s career aspirations were. Amongst five to eleven year olds, the most popular careers are now: sports star, pop star and actor. This contrasts significantly with the findings 25 years ago, which had teacher, banker and doctor at the top of the list. Our society has become obsessed with celebrities, they are always on the front page of the press, and they are lead items on radio and television broadcasts. With such a degree of prominence, it is little wonder that children aspire to be famous. The cult of reality television is also often blamed by many experts for this change in culture, as these programs present a ‘get famous quick’ path to fame and fortune. Many children assume they just have to sing in front of Simon Cowell to be handed a recording contract, pots of money and a paparazzi following.

At one point it seemed that Joseph was destined for a life of fame and fortune. At the very beginning of the Torah portion Joseph was having dreams where sheaves of corn bowed down to his sheaf, and where the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed down to him (Genesis 37:5-9). There was already a tension between Joseph and his brothers, because of their father Jacob having a favourite (Genesis 37:3), and these dreams only served to deepen the divide between the siblings. Things got so bad that the brothers decided to sell Joseph to Ishmaelite traders (Genesis 37:28), lying to their father that Joseph had been killed (Genesis 37:32).

At this lowest point, one might imagine that Joseph would have done anything to regain his former status, and at the very least elevate himself out of servitude. In Potiphar’s house Joseph was once again highly regarded, and Potiphar ‘made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand’ (Genesis 39:4). It seemed like Joseph’s stock was once again rising.

But then Mrs. Potiphar took a shine to Joseph: ‘And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me’ (Genesis 39:7). Now Joseph may have feared for his position if he did lie with his master’s wife, but he must also have feared for his position if he refused her. And despite his initial refusal, she proved to be persistent, asking him everyday to lie with her. Surely for Joseph it would have been easiest to acquiesce to his mistress’s demands, and continue to serve his master in the house. Successfully serving Potiphar and satisfying his wife, it is likely that his star would have continued to rise.

Ultimately, Potiphar’s wife grabbed hold of Joseph’s clothing (Genesis 39:12) and then claimed to her husband that Joseph had in fact tried to seduce her (Genesis 39:17). Once again Joseph found himself at rock bottom, as he was placed in prison by Potiphar (Genesis 39:20). And yet Joseph never gave up, he became the senior prisoner working with the keeper of the prisons and once again did not let adversity stand in his way.

Joseph provides an example of how one needs to keep persevering to reach to the top and attain ones dreams. There was no Egyptian reality television show to elevate him to superstardom and instead he had to rely on his God-given talents, hard work and a little bit of luck, being in the right place at the right time.

When we read the story of Joseph we read the story of someone who attained celebrity and stardom not through some quick fix, but with a lot of hard work and setbacks along the way. The arrogant boy was forced to become a man, and along the way he set an example for all of us to emulate; a far more important example than many of today’s so-called celebrities.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayishlach (Genesis 33:1-20) - The Reinvention of Esau

2010-11-18T03:36:00.000-08:00

In my childhood Darth Vader was in many ways the ultimate bad guy. George Lucas managed to create a villain who looked the part, sounded the part and even acted the part. He was the Emperor’s right-hand man, and as such he was involved in all the villainy which took place under the evil galactic Empire. And then, in ‘Return of the Jedi’, the final film in the original trilogy, Darth Vader redeemed himself. (I cannot believe that there is anyone who is reading this that has not seen the film, but in case you are in the category, skip down to the next paragraph). As Luke is being overpowered by the Emperor, Darth finds the ‘good’ which Luke sensed within him, and he emerges as the hero of the Trilogy, the one who ultimately defeated the Emperor. When the Star Wars prequels came out, over two decades after the original films, we gained further insight into why Darth Vader behaved the way he did, and why he ultimately redeemed himself.

When we look for our bad guy in the Bible, Esau would definitely be featuring in our ‘Top Ten’. From the moment of conception ‘the children struggled in her womb’ (Genesis 25:22), and there was enmity between Esau and Jacob, who would be the founders of two separate nations. The Rabbis developed an idea of Esau as the ultimate bad guy. On the one-hand he was the founder of Edom, which became associated with Rome, and the Romans, who destroyed the Second Temple, and ultimately with Christianity, the rival religion at the time of the Rabbis. The Talmudic Rabbis even referred to him as ‘the wicked Esau’ (Megillah 28a).

However, despite Jacob’s fears about a reunification with his brother in this week’s Torah portion, Esau’s behaviour appears to be anything but wicked, as the brothers are reunited. ‘Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept’ (Genesis 33:4). This does not seem to be the behaviour of a man who was ‘wicked’. Esau even hoped to join with Jacob’s community, he requested: ‘Let us start on our journey, and I will proceed at your pace’ (Genesis 33:12). And, the two brothers even came together to bury their father Isaac (Genesis 35:29), the last time they were together.

It is true that Esau did at one point want to kill his brother, harbouring a grudge and claiming: ‘Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob’ (Genesis 27:41). However, we have to remember that this declaration came after Jacob had stolen the paternal blessing from his brother, causing the ‘wicked’ Esau to weep aloud (Genesis 27:38).

When we read this week’s Torah portion we see the relationship between Jacob and Esau in a completely different light, and we see Esau as a brother who, despite the wrongs done to him, is willing to forgive and attempt to rebuild the sibling relationship. There is a power in the moment when ‘he kissed him’ (Genesis 33:4). The text in the Torah has dots above it, which allowed for the Rabbis to interpret the deeper meaning of the text. In Genesis Rabbah 78:9, Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar said that the dots demonstrate that Esau kissed him with all his heart. However, Rabbi Yannai taught that the dots symbolise the fact that Esau wished to bite Jacob.

Rabbi Yannai viewed Esau as a bad guy and was unable to alter his perspective, despite evidence to the contrary. He would probably have maintained that Darth Vader was still a bad guy, despite the fact that he ultimately redeemed himself, saving his son and contributing the downfall of the galactic Empire.

Esau often gets a bad press from the Rabbis, and especially as a result of his association with Edom, Rome and Christianity. But just as our relationship with Christianity has changed over the last fifty years, perhaps it is also time to change the way we view Esau. Maybe it is time for us to focus on Esau the man who was wronged by his brother, but provides us with an example of how family love can overcome sibling rivalry and tension. Esau may not be one of the Patriarchs, but as one of our ‘uncles’ we can learn a lot of lessons from him. We have to remember that underneath Darth Vader’s mask it was always Anakin Skywalker.

Torah for Today - Why we should wear the poppy

2010-11-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

(This article was originally published in the Jewish News on the 11th November 2010)

At this time of year, as we approach Remembrance Sunday, poppies can be seen everywhere. It becomes a part of the uniform for everyone involved in public life and appearing on the media. And across the country many people will not leave the house without first affixing a poppy to their lapel. There is something very compelling about the way in which this campaign unites British society as we remember those people who gave their lives to protect this country and the values Britain upholds.

On the 11th November 1918, The Great War, as it was then known, came to an end as the armistice between Germany and the Allies came into effect. This moment marked the end of a war which had raged for over four years and claimed millions of lives on battlefields across Europe. In the fields of Northern France and Flanders after the guns had fallen silent there was a barren wasteland, on which the poppy was one of the only plants growing.

The wearing of a poppy is usually traced back to two poems. The Canadian military doctor, John McCrae wrote the famous poem In Flanders Field, which contained the moving line: ‘We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields’. In response to that poem the American Moira Michael wrote We Shall Keep the Faith, in which she committed: ‘And now the torch and poppy red we wear in honor of our dead’.

As Jews we are well aware of the importance of remembering. In the Tanach, the verb for remember, zachor, appears 169 times. We are constantly being commanded by God to remember. We are told to ‘remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt’, ‘remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’, and ‘remember the days of old’. We know the importance of memory, and when we participate in the ceremony and symbols of Remembrance Day we participate in the national memory, we remember together with all other members of British society.

In the Shulhan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 367, we are told that we should bury the non-Jewish dead, and comfort their mourners, so that we follow the ways of peace. Even then the responsa literature recognised that we did not live in an exclusively Jewish society, and that within this context we have an obligation to all members of society. In this situation, we mourn together with the members of the society in which we live. On Remembrance Day all of British society is united in mourning regardless of religion, and the poppy is an outward symbol of this.

If one were looking for reasons to be concerned about wearing the poppy, one might want to consider it in the context of the laws of hukkat ha-goi (laws or customs of the gentiles). The interpretation of Vayikra 20:23 ‘And you shall not walk in the manners of the nation’ means that we are forbidden from following customs which are associated with idolatrous practices or form a part of non-Jewish religious ritual. However, the poppy is a symbol which has no religious context, it is a national symbol, and as such it is not prohibited by this law.

During this time of year I am proud to wear my poppy as a member of British society and as a member of the British Jewish community. When I wear the poppy I think about the millions of men and women who gave their lives defending Britain and the values which Britain represents. I think about the fact that I am privileged to be a Jew in a society where I am free to practice my religion, and I remember that this is a privilege which has been defended and fought for by others who came before me, the vast majority of whom were not Jewish, but their sacrifice has given me, and others, religious freedom. And I am proud of the Jewish servicemen and women who stood shoulder to shoulder with all other members of British society answering the call to defend Britain and making the ultimate sacrifice.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayetze (Genesis 29:12-30) - God help the mister...

2010-11-12T04:34:00.001-08:00

One of the rituals which I really enjoy at the Jewish wedding is the bedeken ceremony. Before the bride and groom come to the chuppah (marriage canopy) they have a private moment (sometimes with family or friends) where the groom checks that it is the correct woman under the veil. I appreciate being a part of this quiet and intimate moment between bride and groom, before they are surrounded by their community. Whenever I officiate at that ritual there is always a giggle when I ask the groom to check that it is the correct bride under the veil. There is something almost ridiculous about assuming that a veil could completely hide the identity of a person, and lead to a mistaken marriage.

The origin most often cited for this wonderful ritual is this week’s Torah Portion, when our Patriarch Jacob managed to make the mistake of marrying the wrong woman.

The love between Jacob and Rachel is beautiful in the way that it is described. After seeing her at the well, we read that he ‘kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept’ (Genesis 29:11). There was a powerful connection between the two of them from the very beginning. And after striking the deal with Laban to work for seven years, to earn Rachel’s hand in marriage, we read ‘Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days, because of the love he had for her’ (Genesis 29:20).

Everything appears to be pointing towards the happy ending of Jacob and Rachel marrying and beginning a family together, when Laban intervenes, and on the night of the marriage brings the older sister Leah to Jacob, tricking him into marrying the wrong woman. Somehow the veil was thick enough because Jacob only realised his mistake the following morning, when he challenged Laban: ‘why did you deceive me?’ (Genesis 29:25).

In terms of Jacob this may seem to be an appropriate punishment. After all, Jacob is the same person who tricked his father into believing he was his brother Esau, and thus fraudulently gained his father’s blessing. He pretended to be his sibling to gain the blessing, and now he has been tricked into marrying the wrong sibling. It is also worth considering that Rebecca, who was the orchestrator of Isaac’s deception, as she told Jacob ‘your curse, my son, be upon me’ (Genesis 27:13) is Laban’s sister; these two siblings seem quite similar in their willingness to deceive others.

With Esau and Jacob we saw competition between siblings, with Laban and Rebecca we saw siblings who were willing to deceive those around them, but with Leah and Rachel we have a completely different model of the sibling relationship.

Rachel had found the man of her dreams, Jacob was the man she wanted to marry, ‘she ran and told her father’ (Genesis 29:12) after meeting him. And Jacob reciprocated in his love for her. The text does not tell us what happened between Rachel and Leah when Laban came to them and told them that it would be inappropriate for the younger sister to marry before her elder. We have no account of Rachel breaking down in tears, we read nowhere of the sisters arguing with their father; all we have is the fact that Laban ‘took his daughter Leah and brought her to him [Jacob]’ (Genesis 29:23).

For Leah to have been able to deceive Jacob until the morning, so that he thought he had married Rachel, a veil would not have been sufficient (as bedeken always proves). She must have been able to behave in the same way as her sister; she would have needed to know secrets about the relationship and their interactions. Rachel must have been complicit in helping Leah to trick Jacob. Rachel was willing to lose the man she loved to save Leah the embarrassment of seeing her younger sister get married first.

For most of the book of Genesis we have very challenging sibling relationships beginning with Cain and Abel. But here, when we have sisters, we see a different way for siblings to treat each other. We see a love between siblings which is absent elsewhere. Leah and Rachel do not fall into the trap of sibling rivalry; they offer a model of sisterly love.

Two Minutes of Torah: Toldot (Genesis 26:12-29) - The Rebound Patriarch

2010-11-05T09:37:00.001-07:00

In one of my earlier jobs, my arrival coincided with the Chief Executive moving on to take on new challenges in another sector. There was a great deal of disappointment surrounding this man’s departure as he was highly respected within the community, and had really helped to elevate the organisation within the community. In the couple of weeks in which we overlapped I found him to be an impressive orator, very charismatic and generally a good guy. His successor really did have ‘big shoes to fill’. And in many ways it is not surprising that this new CEO’s tenure was rather short-lived, as the organisation failed to adjust to a new man at the helm. In relationship terms he was a ‘rebound Chief Executive’ and paved the way for a new person to come in and establish themselves as the longer term successor.

Following a larger than life personality can be a daunting challenge, and often the immediate successor is doomed to failure as their predecessor’s shadow looms large. This happens in business, it happens in relationships and I would suggest it also happens in the Torah.

Isaac is our rebound Patriarch, sandwiched as he is between Abraham and Jacob. Abraham is the person with whom God first made the covenant, and Jacob is the man who becomes Israel, after whom we are named. Isaac sits in between the two and holds on to the baton for only a few chapters before passing it on to his son.

This week our Torah portion begins with the birth of Esau and Jacob, and it concludes with Isaac’s blessing of Jacob as his successor in God’s covenant. Isaac only has one section in which he is the centre of attention, and not the son of Abraham or the father of Jacob. And yet in these few verses he offers us an important lesson in contrast to either his father or his son.

According to the text Isaac was a successful farmer: ‘he sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And Adonai blessed him, and the man became rich’ (Genesis 26:12-13). However, his success created envy amongst the Philistines, and they blocked up the wells which had been dug by Abraham’s servants (Genesis 26:14-15). Isaac was faced with a difficult choice: he could have fought to reassert his claim over the land and the wells; Avimelech, the king, even acknowledged ‘you are mightier than we’ (Genesis 26:16). But instead Isaac chose the path of peace, and simply moved his flock and his family to new pastures.

However, despite his continued success in the well digging business, the locals were still resistant towards him, and ‘the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdsmen’ (Genesis 26:20), disputing the ownership of the wells. This was not the end of Isaac’s struggle, and for a third time he dug wells, and for a third time the locals challenged him, and caused trouble. And yet, rather than fight, each time Isaac simply moved his community and looked for a new place to establish himself and his family.

Finally, he was able to dig a well, which he named Rehovot, and there was no fighting or strife with the locals, and Isaac declared ‘now Adonai has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land’ (Genesis 26:22).

One could view Isaac as weak, lacking the stomach for a fight or to stand up against a local bully. However, the benefit of his strategy is present in the text. Following his successful resettlement, God appears to him and offers him a blessing (Genesis 26:24). This blessing is followed by the return of King Avimelech, the man who had first requested Isaac to uproot and leave. This time there is no suggestion of a fight, and instead Avimelech requests ‘let us make a covenant with you’ (Genesis 26:28). Isaac’s approach yields a peace treaty with his former rival, and concludes with a feast, where the two were able to eat and drink together (Genesis 26:30).

Isaac’s story is not as exciting as that of either Abraham or Jacob; it lacks the action and the excitement of our other Patriarchs. But Isaac, in his own quiet way, as our middle Patriarch, offers a path which brought blessings and peace.

Throughout his life Isaac faced challenges from within his family and from outside. But throughout his life he found ways to build bridges and avoid conflict. He did not fight, not because he was weak, but because he possessed an inner strength. It took bravery and courage to survive the Akedah at the start of his life, and it took bravery and courage to uproot his family each time. And in the end, this rebound Patriarch’s bravery and courage were rewarded with the ultimate blessing of peace.

Two Minutes of Torah: Chayyey Sarah (Genesis 24:1-26) - Finding an appropriate partner

2010-10-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

We Jews are obsessed about matchmaking. There is a popular stereotype of the Jewish mother who is always trying to find a wife for her eligible sons, but actually this is a community wide activity. Our Jewish sport is setting people up. We’ve even developed a scoring system, so that according to Jewish folklore, when you score a hat-trick (having made three matches which end in marriage) you automatically guarantee yourself a place in Heaven. And this sport even has professionals, as Shadchanim (matchmakers), go around arranging shidduchim (matches) within the Jewish community (in our modern world if you visit www.shiduchim.com it will link you to an Orthodox Jewish dating site).

We have our first matchmaker in this week’s Torah portion, as Abraham entrusts his senior servant (usually associated with Eliezer of Damasek) with the task of finding a wife for Isaac. Abraham made Eliezer swear an oath ‘that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac’ (Genesis 24:3-4). For Abraham the national identity of his son’s future wife is paramount – this may effectively be the first time a Jewish parent said: ‘I want to find a nice Jewish girl for my son,’ or words to that effect.

However, Eliezer recognised that there would be more to making a successful marriage, than a shared ancestry, and so once he had reached the well outside the city of Nahor, he made a deal with God about the type of woman he was looking for. ‘Let the maiden to whom I say, “Please, lower your jar that I may drink,” and who replies, “Drink, and I will also water your camels” – let her be the one whom You have decreed for your servant Isaac’ (Genesis 24:14). Eliezer essentially asks for a sign from God about the woman whom Isaac should marry, but through the sign he also says something about her character. An appropriate wife, in Eliezer’s opinion, is a woman who will be generous to strangers and even to their animals.

Abraham was concerned by nationality, above all else, but Eliezer, the first Shadchan, reminds us that it takes more than a shared identity to make a marriage work. To fulfil Abraham’s request, Eliezer could have brought back a variety of girls from Abraham’s homeland, and in the style of a Shushan beauty contest, he could have found a wife for Isaac. But rather than pursuing a scatter gun approach, Eliezer looked a little bit deeper, and found a prospective partner for Isaac, who had an appropriate soul and spirit.

Rebecca is a very interesting choice as a wife for Isaac. On the one hand she is a woman from Abraham’s homeland, and a member of his extended familial tribe. But we may assume that she had no idea of the covenant, of which Abraham and Isaac were both a part, and so we can also imagine that she was the first woman who converted to Judaism when marrying her husband.

We might consider that when Jewish folklore set the bar at three couples for a place in Heaven, it was setting the bar rather low. But those of us who have tried to ‘set people up’ and act as the Jewish matchmaker, know that it is not always easy. We often go by appearance or profession, without looking more deeply at whether two people will really be suited. Eliezer looked more deeply, and when the couple were introduced, ‘Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, he took Rebecca as his wife, and he loved her’ (Genesis 24:67). We know that Eliezer was at least one third of the way to Heaven.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vayera (Genesis 19:1-21) - The Real Sin of Sodom

2010-10-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

What picture comes to mind when we hear the names Sodom and Gomorah?

These cities have become symbols of wickedness, depravity and general abusive behaviour. And their names are forever associated with any place which is deemed to have descended into evil. We can all think of examples of modern day cities which have been labelled as Sodom or Gomorah. The most common association in our contemporary society is with Las Vegas, as can be seen in the portrayal of Sodom in the film ‘Year One’ and can be read about in many articles about our modern day ‘sin-city’.

From almost the first reference in Torah, we know that Sodom is destined for destruction. ‘And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where before Adonai destroyed Sodom and Gomorah’ (Genesis 13:10). To leave no doubt as to why the cities were destroyed the text specifies ‘the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners before Adonai’ (Genesis 13:13). However, it offers no description of the wickedness or sin perpetuated by the people. And no additional information is given when God informs Abraham of the decision to destroy the cities: ‘because the cry of Sodom and Gomorah is great, and because their sin is very grievous’ (Genesis 18:20).

In this week’s Torah portion we gain some limited insight into the type of cities which they were, through the visit of the 2 angels. When Lot greets them he appears concerned for their safety and urges them to stay in his home (Genesis 19:3). And almost immediately the house is surrounded by the men of the city who inquire about the visitors and demand ‘bring them out unto us, so that we may know them’ (Genesis 19:5). The Hebrew is ambiguous and the request to ‘know them’ may, in the Bible, be a reference to sexual relations. The mob therefore offers another insight into the undesirable nature of the city.

Despite these Biblical references, the Rabbis decided that the sin of Sodom was something different. In Pirkei Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers) there are a series of verses which divide society into groups and categories. One of them states:
‘There are four types of people: One who says, "What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" – this is the common type, though some say that this is the type of Sodom. One who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine" – they are an ignorant person. One who says, "What is mine is yours and what is yours is yours" – this is a saintly person. And one who says, "What is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine" – they are a wicked person’ (Pirkei Avot 5:13).

We might have expected that the Rabbis would have equated the behaviour of the ‘wicked person’ with ‘the type of Sodom’, but instead they suggest that the ‘common type’, saying “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours”, is associated with Sodom. This is a striking statement about what a sinful city is like; it is not a den of depravity and vice, it is a place where people are only concerned with their own possessions and well-being.

Sodom was punished for being the ‘common type’. Rather than looking for extreme examples as our modern day Sodom and Gomorah; perhaps we should look at our own cities, and the places where we live. Wherever people are only concerned about their own possessions and well-being – it could be Sodom; where people ignore the community and focus only on themselves – it could be Gomorah. With this understanding we can challenge the sin of Sodom and Gomorah, not just in extreme examples, but in ourselves and our own cities; and perhaps this is the lesson which the Rabbis wanted to teach.

The father of IVF finally has the fame his name deserves

2010-10-17T06:11:00.001-07:00

(This Article was originally published in The Jewish News on the 14th October)

Last week, for a couple of days, Professor Robert Edwards became one of the lead stories across the British press. Most newspapers dedicated significant column inches towards celebrating the achievements of the man known as the ‘father of IVF’. I have to be honest, before last week I had not heard of Professor Edwards, but by the end of it I had a basic understanding of his research, and can tell you that more than four million children have been born worldwide as a result of his groundbreaking work. In reading about this man, his perseverance and dedication to his quest is something highly admirable. And his is definitely a name I will now remember.

Professor Edwards was the first recipient of a Nobel Prize for 2010. Since him, five other awards have been granted.

The Nobel Prize is a world-renowned award given to people for work in a variety of fields including literature and peace. Many recipients of the Prize, such as Professor Edwards, have fascinating stories to tell about their work and research, and they are worthy recipients of recognition and admiration. In many cases, they are people who may have remained anonymous outside of their field, were it not for the Nobel Prize, which has undoubtedly made their names more widely known. There is one name, however – the most recognised name associated with the prize – which was already very famous before it became associated with the prize itself.

That name is Alfred Nobel.

On the 13 April 1888, Alfred Nobel awoke to discover that he had died. Or at least that is what one French newspaper reported, as it carried an obituary for the inventor. More shocking than seeing his name in the obituary was the description Nobel found within it. The tribute stated: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” It also carried the line: “The merchant of death is dead”. Alfred Nobel’s shock on reading about his demise was not limited to the obvious fact that he was very much alive. He was also shocked, and deeply distraught by the way in which his life and his name were destined to be remembered.

As it turns out, the French newspaper got the wrong Nobel. It was actually Alfred's brother, Ludwig, who had died the previous day. This unfortunate accident turned out to be quite fortuitous as Alfred Nobel gained something few of us ever receive: an insight into the way we would be remembered after his death. Needless to say he was less than excited about the prospect of being known as 'The merchant of death'.

He was given an extra eight years, until his actual passing on 10 December 1896, to change the way that the world viewed and remembered him. In his last will and testament the bulk of his estate was left for the establishment of prizes in the sciences, literary works, peace, and now economics. Alfred Nobel is still the inventor of dynamite, but today his name is first and foremost associated with prizes awarded to the great and good in society. His name is therefore forever linked with celebrated Nobel Prize winners including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yitzhak Rabin, Elie Wiesel and now Professor Edwards.

This week, as we read the story of Lech Lecha, when God made the initial call to Abraham, we read about the promise that Abraham received, which included within it the line: ‘I will make your name great’.

Included within the pledge that Abraham will be the founder of a great nation is the idea that Abraham will also possess a great name.

This was a promise about the type of person Abraham would become and the way in which he would be remembered. It was not about a literal name, but rather the reputation which would accompany his name – something he would earn for himself through his life and his actions.

Professor Robert Edwards has a great name in the Abrahamic sense, because of his important work and research in the field of medicine, helping millions of people to create life. The Nobel Prize did not make his name great, it simply gave his name the fame it deserved.

Through his will, Alfred Nobel changed his name from one associated with dynamite and death to one which is now linked to the words scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author and pacifist. We can’t all endow millions to establish trusts and ensure our legacies. But through our words, our behaviour and our actions, we can gain for ourselves names which we can be proud of.

We may never achieve the fame which accompanies the receipt of a Nobel Prize, but it is within our control to fulfil our Jewish birthright of establishing for ourselves a great name.

My Sermon - 15th October - The Good News from Chile

2010-10-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

There are certain events which unite a community. Then there are some events which unite a nation. And occasionally there are events which transcend boundaries and unite the world.

This week we witnessed one of those events.

From the early hours of Wednesday morning, through into Thursday, the world was united. Across the globe, in every continent and every country, we were captivated by a single story. We were transfixed by a single miraculous event.

We watched the inspiring rescue of 33 Chilean miners from an underground prison, which had threatened their lives and their sanity. We watched as a capsule was sent down into the depths of the earth, and we bore witness to the rebirth of each one of the 33 miners as they emerged out of the darkness and into the light.

For a period of just over twenty-four hours no matter where you were in the world, we were all on the same side; we were all hoping and praying for the same outcome, we were united in anticipation.

There was nervous trepidation at first, as we watched the capsule descend and rise; uncertain as to whether it would be able to fulfill its heroic mission. Then, as the capsule bore fruit, rescuing those first few miners, the mood changed to one of anticipation, would this story really have a happy ending? And as the number of miners on the surface grew, the atmosphere became one of charged excitement. Watching the embrace between Chile’s President and the thirty-third man out, Luis Urzua, was a moment of joy, relief, excitement, celebration and gratitude all rolled into one.

Each one of us will have one image or picture which will stay with us from those miraculous 24 hours. I will remember the sight of the daughter of Richard Villarroel Goody, the twenty-eighth miner out. She stood holding her Chilean flag, barely able to contain her excitement at seeing her father again after over two months. As his harness was removed you could hear her calling out, and then we watched as father and daughter embraced, holding onto each other with an intensity we probably can never fully understand.

The topographer, Maria Valdes, whose careful work back in August was crucial in locating the miners, and discovering that they were still alive, said yesterday that the rescue was 75% engineering and 25% miracle. None of us who watched the rescue could fail to acknowledge the miraculous dimension to the proceedings in Chile. The miners were in isolation, without confirmation of life or death for 17 days, and they survived underground for 69 days. It was a miracle they survived, it was a miracle they were found, and it was a miracle that all 33 were rescued alive. Human ingenuity and engineering played its part, but we should have our eyes open to the miracle which we have witnessed.

This is a miracle in which humanity and God played their part together, as the perfect partners. The miners prayed together. Out of the depths they called out to God, and God answered. Ricardo Villaroel, described how the experience of being in the mine renewed his faith in God, he said: ‘I never used to pray, here I learned to pray. I got closer to God.’ Another miner, Jimmy Sanchez, wrote in a letter prior to his rescue: ‘There are actually 34 of us, because God has never left us down here.’ We should see God’s face in the background of this miraculous story, but we should also see the shining beacon which can be humanity.

This was a moment which united the world, across the globe people gathered together to watch and listen to news of the miraculous rescue of the Chilean miners. All too often our news is a depressing drumbeat of negative stories and gloomy incidents. We read about the rise in unemployment and a shaky economy, we see pictures of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we watch as floods and tsunamis rob people of their homes, and we witness the destructive force of man.

But this time we got to watch a good news story, we got to watch a story about rescue and relief, rather than death and destruction.

And we watched it along with the rest of the world. On Thursday morning there was really only one story. Here in Britain, the Daily Telegraph ran with the headline: ‘The Miracle of San Jose’, according to the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant: ‘Hardly anyone had ever heard of the San Jose mine beforehand but now it's the centre of the world’. The South China Morning Post proclaimed: ‘Prayers, Tears and Jubilation’, and according to Germany’s Die Welt, ‘Nearly a billion people followed the rescue by internet, on the radio or the television’.

In a way that was worthy of the worldwide attention, the meticulously planned rescue was a truly international effort. A U.S. company supplied the drilling technology that broke through to the miners. NASA donated a high-calorie liquid diet. An Austrian company made the capsule's winch-and-pulley system. And there were numerous offers of help from every corner of the globe.

Why were we in London so concerned with the plight of 33 miners over 7,000 miles away on the other side of the world?

I think that all of us have grown tired and disillusioned with our regular diet of bad news and depressing storylines. The rescue of the Chilean miners allowed us to gain a glimpse of something else. It allowed us to watch a good news story, one which brought us tears of joy, and not sadness. It was a story in which we could take pride in our human achievements, rather than recoiling at human failure and frailty.

We recognised the value of each life, and in the faces of those miners we saw our own fathers, brothers, cousins, nephews, friends and relatives. We recognised the common humanity which we all share. Our eyes were opened to the spark of God present within all of us.

For a moment the world was not divided by colour, creed, race or religion, we were united by our common humanity.

Last week in our Torah we read the story of Noah, and we read about the rainbow which God placed in the sky as a sign of God’s covenant with all of humanity. After the flood and the apocalyptic destruction of virtually the entire world, God placed a rainbow in the sky as a sign that God will never destroy the world again, and as a symbol of the covenant between God and all of humanity – not just one religion or another – but with each and every one of us.

The rainbow brings together seven different colours, creating a whole, which is significantly more spectacular and beautiful than the sum of its parts. It is representative of the different elements which make up the human race. We come in all shapes, sizes, colours, creeds, religions and races. Each group possesses an individual beauty, but it is together that humanity is truly spectacular and awe inspiring.

The rainbow was the symbol for a united humanity in the Torah, and this week 33 miners became our modern sign that this dream is still possible.

This week we watched 33 miners emerge from darkness into light, and as a world we waited together, we watched together and we celebrated together. The rescue was a miracle, but so too was the way in which we gained a glimpse into the potential we have to come together, putting aside petty divisions and disagreements to share in the successes and accomplishments of the whole human race.

On this desolate patch of Chilean desert, in a place called Camp Hope, we were given a clear message: Human life is precious and we must all be united in saving and preserving it. This week as we saw the world united, we gained a glimpse of the messianic age. It is now our task to take the experiences of this past week forward and to build a world in which we are united not just in the face of adversity, but in the faces of each other.

Two Minutes of Torah: Lech Lecha (Genesis 15:1-21) - Where do babies come from?

2010-10-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

“Where do babies come from?”

According to popular culture, parents live in perpetual fear of their children asking this question. It seems likely that the unease over giving an adequate answer was part of the reason why parents in Victorian England would tell their children: “the stork delivers them.” I guess if you’re not going to tell them the truth, it’s as believable as anything else. The image of the stork delivering babies is very prominent in popular culture; I am especially fond of the stork who delivered the baby elephant, Dumbo, to his mother in the famous Disney film.

However, despite our unease, we all know that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby. And ultimately parents need to have a frank conversation with their children, teaching them the truth about where babies come from. This knowledge makes Sarai’s absence from Genesis 15 very striking, as God and Abram discuss his lack of an heir.

When the Torah first introduced us to Abram and Sarai we were told ‘Sarai was barren, she had no children’ (Genesis 11:30). This fact has therefore been in the background throughout Abram’s story. When God said to Abram: ‘unto your seed will I give this land’ (Genesis 12:7) we were that there was no child to inherit the promise. Similarly, when God promised ‘and I will make your seed as the dust of the earth’ (Genesis 13:16) we know there is no seed. Only in Genesis 15 does Abram finally raise the issue of childlessness with God; ‘”My Lord Adonai, what will you give me, seeing I am childless and the steward of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said: “behold to me you have given no seed”’ (Genesis 15:2-3).

There is no mention of Sarai or her barrenness in this discussion. Abram specifically does not say: “we are childless” or “to us you have given no seed.” He ignores the fact that Sarai also had no children to love, care for and nurture. It is as though God, not the stork, will deliver a baby to Abram, with no need for Sarai to be involved.

The promise which Abram receives therefore speaks only to him. When God declares: ‘none but your very own issue shall be your heir’ (Genesis 15:4) Sarai is not mentioned; she is given no similar pledge that she will become a mother. It is little surprise that following this deal, struck between God and Abram, Sarai comes and offers Abram her maidservant Hagar (Genesis 16:1-3), so that there will be the chance for Abram to have an heir.

One cannot begin to imagine how Sarai must have felt; unable to provide Abram with a son, she invites another woman to share her husband’s bed so that he may have an heir. After the encounter between God and Abram it is little surprise that our Patriarch voices no opposition and simply ‘listened to the voice of Sarai’ (Genesis 16:2). The stork will not bring them a child, instead Hagar will provide Abram with the heir he has yearned for, his firstborn son Ishmael.

Abram neglected to consider the feelings of his wife Sarai, as he pursued his dream of having a son. The repercussions of this act come later in the narrative, when Sarah (by this time her name has changed) gives birth to her son Isaac, and very soon after demands that Abraham (his name was also changed) expel his firstborn son Ishmael and Hagar, the mother of his firstborn (Genesis 21). Sarah does not worry about Abraham’s feelings, and the relationship between father and son is irreparably broken – the next time they are mentioned together is when Ishmael, together with Isaac, bury their father (Genesis 25:9).

My Sermon - 9th October - Be Fruitful and Multiply

2010-10-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

“Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.” These are the words of the author Emma Bull, and I am really keen on this idea. As a person of faith I agree with Albert Einstein that coincidence is Gods way of remaining anonymous. We may see the connection of events as accidental, but really there is something behind the apparent random occurrences. I am not sure if it was God or the editors of various news media, but Monday threw up a wonderful coincidence, which was just too good to ignore.

Those of us who were watching, or listening, to the news on Monday could not have missed the lead story across the networks, as cuts to child benefit became the day’s major headline. On the second day of the Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced that families with one parent who is a high rate tax payer, would no longer receive child benefit. The press grew very animated as they reported and discussed the rights and wrongs of this new policy. I am not about to offer a political perspective, I was just fascinated by the story which followed, and as I’ve been married for less than 2 years, there is time before I need to offer my personal opinion.

On the same day, the second item on most news broadcasts involved Professor Robert Edwards and his receipt of the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Professor Edwards was honoured for his work researching and developing IVF treatment to help people who have struggled with fertility to have a child. According to the reports there are over four million people in the world today, born as a result of his pioneering work and the successes achieved by Professor Robert Edwards.

If this was not coincidence enough, our Torah reading today began with the verse: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”’ This command was first given to the animals, then to Adam and Eve, and now it is shared with Noah and his family. The creator of In Vitro Fertilisation, who has helped millions to be fruitful and multiply, has been honoured as we read about this command in the Torah, while raising those children has become more expensive for some. A coincidence indeed!

In the Torah, at no place when we are told to be fruitful and multiply are we told what to do with the children once we have given birth to them. In the context of the story of Noah it seems that simply having lots of children will fulfil the obligation – the earth will be replenished. We may have hoped for more guidance about what to do once a baby is born. What are our responsibilities once we have children? How should we raise our children? And what responsibilities do we have to other people’s children?

In the Talmud, which unfortunately only concerns itself with the man and his son, we are told: ‘Our Rabbis taught: The father is obligated in respect of his son, to circumcise him, to redeem him (if he is a firstborn), to teach him Torah, to take a wife for him, and to teach him a craft. Some add to this list that he must teach him to swim too.’ The list is indicative of the Rabbinic understanding of what a child requires from their parents, and about how they must be raised.

It is first of all clear that a religious identity is crucial, and while the text only mentions circumcision, one can assume that this is symbolic of parents sharing their religious heritage with their children. The next parental responsibility is education, specifically in this context the education of Torah. I like to think that the Torah provides us with a moral and ethical code by which we should live our lives, and so in this way, the Rabbinic instruction is about raising children to be responsible, positive, valuable members of society.

Having raised a good Jewish boy, it is then in Jewish parents eyes, or dare I say Jewish mothers eyes, the time to find him a partner, a Jewish partner of course. And according to the Talmud it is clear that this is the parents responsibility as well. I am not sure how keen children are on their parents acting as match maker, but it is almost inbuilt into our Jewish DNA, we try to match-make the whole time, be it for family members, friends, or even people we hardly know. As a community we take this responsibility very seriously – in our modern context, I wonder how many parents pay for their children’s J-Date registration, so that they can surf the internet looking for a Jewish partner.

The education does not stop there, and the child must be taught a craft, or a trade, so that in turn they can become self-sufficient and ultimately financially independent of their parents. All of these obligations would appear to be very logical and important for helping children to grow up. And then the text adds an additional opinion, which supplements the list with the need to teach a child to swim. Maybe this is about giving children the tools to protect themselves from potentially dangerous situations. Or maybe it reminds us that we must also have fun with our children, and not everything needs to be serious with a specific purpose.

But what if there are no parents to fulfil these obligations? At this point according to the Talmud the responsibility falls upon the entire community. When there are no parents we all share a responsibility in raising the children, and I would suggest even when there are parents we still share that responsibility as members of the same community and society.

Whatever a person might think about the rights or wrongs of the recently announced policy, which will cut child benefit; the existence of child benefit makes a statement about society and the way we relate to other people’s children. Child benefit is a statement by the government that we are all invested in the raising of children. We all have a responsibility to contribute to help families raise their children. And one can assume that ultimately we, society, will all benefit from raising the next generation in an appropriate way.

The famous African quote suggests that it takes a village to raise a child.

Child benefit is one way that the village can help to raise a child, but I would suggest we need to be much more hands on in helping each other to raise the next generation. Our society has become individualised and privatised in almost every sphere, and parenting is no exception. While I am not denying that parents bear the primary responsibility for raising their own children, each one of us also has a responsibility and obligation. As a community we have a responsibility not just for our own children, but for the children of this community.

Eleven hours after Moses Goodrich was born in January 2009, his mother died. His grieving father Robbie did not know how he would raise his son, and he was especially concerned that he would be unable to fulfil his wife’s wish of having her son breastfed. He ordered $500 of frozen breast milk as he prepared to care for his newborn son. The next day a friend called and offered to breastfeed Moses, within weeks there were 25 women who had taken responsibility for raising and feeding Moses. He did not have a mother to raise him, but he had a community.

People come together in times of need to help with the responsibilities of raising children. We need to come together at all times to help each other to be the most accomplished parents we can be, and to raise children who are caring, educated, know right from wrong, and who will, themselves, make a contribution to community and to society.

One way that we, as a community, already do this is by investing in our Religion School to provide our children with a good Jewish education. The Synagogue has prioritised our children’s education and has invested to make sure that they are taught Torah by wonderful teachers in a great environment.

But Torah education is just one of the responsibilities the Talmud lays out for parents and their children. We also need to provide them with a connection to their religious heritage – we need to bring them into the synagogue and encourage them to be a part of our prayer community. We have reintroduced the monthly Birthday Kiddush to celebrate the children, but we actually need to welcome them every week. Occasionally this might mean accepting a little bit of noise from our youngest children, but this seems like a small price to pay for fulfilling our religious responsibility towards them.

In this week’s Torah portion we are told to be fruitful and multiply. The important work of Professor Robert Edwards, which was honoured this week, helped to make this a possibility for millions of people. And in the same week the financial support for raising children was reduced. We need to fill that financial gap with our hard work, our involvement and our action. We all share the responsibility of raising our children – we don’t have villages to raise a child, but we have synagogues, and in this community we don’t need to just bless our children with our words, we can also bless them with our actions. And the impact of our actions will be heard further and louder than our words ever could be.

Two Minutes of Torah: Noach (Genesis 9:1-17) - The Many Colours of the Rainbow

2010-10-08T04:04:00.001-07:00

I do not remember many specific lessons from my primary school experience, but the mnemonic devices we were taught have stuck with me. For the four directions of the compass I always recall ‘Never Eat Soggy Wheetabix’ and ‘Naughty Elephants Squirt Water’. And for the colours of the rainbow I have never forgotten: ‘Richard Of York Gained Battles In Vain’, or my teacher Mrs Rose’s own creation: ‘Run Over Your Grandma Because It’s Violent’ (it’s a little peculiar, but it clearly worked as a memory tool).

The mnemonic device is useful for learning the order of the colours of the rainbow, but knowing the colours and actually seeing a rainbow is something completely different. Over the weekend while listening to the Ryder Cup coverage on the Radio, the golf reporting was temporarily interrupted as the presenter tried to describe the beautiful rainbow he was witnessing at Celtic Manor. He was so moved by this vision of nature that he actually suggested a poet would be best equipped to describe it.

The first recorded rainbow is the one shown to Noach by God as a symbol of their covenant: ‘I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between me and the earth’ (Genesis 9:13). There was something redemptive about that first rainbow and all it represented. The flood, which Noach experienced, was a cataclysmic event, which brought the earth to the brink of destruction. Noach, his family, and the animals from the ark, were the surviving remnant of a destroyed planet.

Having saved Noach and his family, God enters into a new covenant with humanity. This includes the prohibition against eating live flesh (Genesis 9:4), the law against shedding another person’s blood (Genesis 9:6) and the instruction to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 9:7). The rainbow is a reminder of the covenant which god entered into with Noach, not just for us, but also for God, who will see the rainbow: ‘And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh’ (Genesis 9:15).

We often focus on the covenant between God and Abraham (mentioned from Genesis 15:18), as this is our particular birthright as Jews. We often forget that there was first a covenant with all of humanity, and no particular group or religion. In Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 we are told that the entire world was created from Adam so that no person would say my father was greater than yours. Just in case there was any doubt, the story of Noach provides the same function, so that we are all descended from Adam and Eve, through the line of Noach.

The Torah makes a wonderful statement about God’s relationship with all of humanity by asserting a universal covenant before focussing on a specific one. God is in a relationship with all human beings, not one or other specific religious or ethnic group. And the rainbow is the perfect symbol to represent that covenant.

The rainbow brings together seven different colours, creating a whole, which is significantly more spectacular and beautiful than the sum of its parts. It is representative of the different elements which make up the human race. We come in all shapes, sizes, colours, creeds, religions and races. Each group possesses an individual beauty, but it is together that humanity is truly spectacular and awe inspiring.

I know that whenever I see a rainbow I am frozen in my tracks, stopping to admire the beauty of God’s creation. We don’t get to see them everyday, and the weather conditions have to be just right to create one; but there are few things in nature as beautiful as the rainbow, and there are few things in the world as beautiful as humanity coming together in love and unity.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bereishit (Genesis 3:1-21) - Don't Get Your Fingers Burnt

2010-10-01T03:42:00.000-07:00

In one episode of the television comedy ‘Samantha Who’, the title character says: ‘You know that thing about touching the plate after the waiter tells you its hot, the most exciting time is that moment right before you touch it; after that, you're just an idiot sitting in a restaurant with a burnt finger.’ I am that idiot! If the waiter or waitress tells me the plate is hot, then I feel like I have to touch it, just to check. When the plate is sizzling I can usually resist, but at all other times, without thinking, I extend my finger just to confirm exactly how hot the plate really is.

God is a little bit like the waiter when God places Adam in the Garden of Eden and offers him an extensive menu of food, which he is able to enjoy ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat’ (Genesis 2:16). There is one exception; in the midst of the garden was the forbidden tree: ‘of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2:17). It is not clear if death is a direct, inescapable consequence of eating from the tree, or a punishment which will be delivered by God. However, one can imagine that this ‘special’ tree in the midst of the garden was a subject of fascination and temptation.

It is into this context that the serpent began to cause trouble. We should remember that God spoke to Adam, and not to Eve, so rather deviously it is Eve that the serpent approaches to tempt with the tree in the midst of the garden. Eve does at least know of a commandment relating to the tree: ‘It is only about fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said: “You shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die”’ (Genesis 3:3). In Eve’s mind the fruit of the tree cannot be eaten, but it also must not be touched – an addition to God’s original prohibition. The fascination with the tree had grown from what was originally intended.

The serpent seizes the opening and challenges Eve: ‘You are not going to die, but God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad’ (Genesis 3:4). We all know the rest of the story as Eve ate from the tree, and then offered it to Adam. Together they both realised that they were naked – as the serpent had said the tree opened their eyes, giving them newfound insights and awareness.

However, the relationship between God and Adam and Eve was irreparably changed. There is a sense of outrage in the words which God spoke; God appears shocked that the humans would disregard the commandment he had given them. And among the consequences Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, but not before ‘God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife’ (Genesis 3:20). The relationship was changed, but it was not broken.

In many ways this foundational story in our text is a story of maturation and growth. Adam and Eve begin as children in the Garden of Eden with everything provided for them; this is not the life which was intended for them. By eating the fruit they make a choice; they choose to disregard an instruction from God and act independently. The action is their own and the consequences are their responsibility, but so too is the independence. In eating the fruit Adam and Eve assert their independence in the same way that a teenager does in relationship to his or her parents.

For me the ‘hot’ plate set before me is an irresistible temptation. I wonder if when God was placing the tree in the midst of the garden God knew that it would be an almost irresistible temptation. Perhaps God knew that at some point Adam and Eve would challenge God’s authority and eat from that tree. Maybe that was all God’s plan, for at that moment God would know that Adam and Eve were ready to be freed from Eden, and given the independence to look after themselves, and be sent out into the big wide world. God was still saddened that his creations had ‘grown up’ and were ready for a new, different relationship; but God also knew that the time had come for them to stand on their own two feet and leave the nest.

Two Minutes of Torah: VeZot HaBracha (Deuteronomy 34:1-12) - Passing on the Baton

2010-09-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Parashat VeZot HaBracha
Passing on the Baton
(Deuteronomy 34:1-12)

Throughout my teenage years I was involved with RSY-Netzer (the Reform Jewish youth movement), and while at university I assumed various leadership roles in the movement. It was somewhat inevitable that when I completed my studies I went to work for RSY. The position was for one year. There were four of us, and we had just 365 days in which to run the movement. Following that we would hand over to the next cohort of office workers and our time in the youth movement would be at an end.

I had a great year. But as we reached the summer and my departure grew imminent there was a sense of frustration about what I had yet to achieve. I was not entirely ready to hand over and break my connection. It was not easy to say goodbye.

This week, in the final portion of our Torah, we have the ultimate goodbye as Moses bids farewell to the Israelites. Moses has known for sometime that he will not enter the Promised Land, and it is now that his separation from the Israelites, the people he has led for the last forty years is completed. The solitary walk up Mount Nebo marks his physical separation from the people – his community, with just God beside him. 'Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land' (Deuteronomy 34:1).

It is hard to even imagine what Moses thought as he looked out upon the Promised Land, the land he had been journeying towards, the land he would not enter. What regrets did he have? What business was still unfinished? What dreams were yet to be fulfilled?

I like to think that from the top of Mount Nebo Moses looked forwards but also backwards. He looked down at the Israelite camp and the people he had led from slavery to freedom. He gazed upon the dwelling places of Israel and admired the progress they had made since leaving Egypt. He admired the community he had helped to build.

We may feel sympathy for Moses, but we know that the journey did not end with his death. As the Torah makes clear; 'now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom' (Deuteronomy 34:9). Moses had to pass the baton on to the next generation to continue the journey to the Promised Land. It is the same for all of us, eventually the baton is passed and the next generation assumes the mantle of leadership. It is not easy stepping back or stepping aside, but it is part of the cycle of life.

Two Minutes of Torah: Nitzavim-Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9-28) - Responsibility for the Future

2010-09-02T03:52:00.001-07:00

There is a famous native American proverb: ‘We do not inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.’ I have always been taken by this proverb and the idea within it. We are currently the guardians of the world, but we are also links in a chain which stretches backwards and forwards. Often this is stated in connection to the environment and the way in which we use and abuse the natural world. But it extends beyond that; with the massive government borrowing, which has taken place to combat the global economic downturn, we have debts which will be paid off by our children, and many commentators have talked about mortgaging our futures.

At my age I find myself in an interesting transitional stage. I used to relate to this proverb as one of the children from whom the world is borrowed. But as my friends begin having children, I am increasingly aware that I am part of the group currently possessing the world and borrowing it from our children. And as such I am beginning to relate differently to the world and my role in it.

In this week’s Torah portion we have a Jewish version of the proverb, as God reaffirms the covenant with the people, on the eve of entering the Promised Land. The text stresses that everyone was present, standing before God: “your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer” (Deuteronomy 29:9-10). However, it also includes: “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, 14 but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day” (Deuteronomy 29:13-14). The covenant reaches back to Abraham, but also includes future generations who will ultimately uphold the covenant and join it.

These future generations were not present at the agreeing of the covenant, they were unable to suggest any amendments or changes, their parents and their parent’s parents made the commitment for them – and essentially for us.

Today, while we may not be entering into covenants with God, we are the guardians of the Jewish tradition, and we will eventually pass our Judaism on to future generations. As inheritors of a Reform Jewish tradition we have the ability to engage and challenge what it means to be Jewish. My parents were born into a Judaism which lacked female Rabbis and was not fully egalitarian, by the time I was born there were women Rabbis, and increasing openness to all members of society regardless of gender or sexual orientation. What will the Reform Judaism that we pass on to our children look like?

We will never forget where we have come from, and we will respect and honour our traditions. But at the same time we must be true to our name Re-forming Judaism when it is necessary and important. This is not a covenant which we only make with God, it is a covenant which we must make with each other as members of our community, ensuring that we will protect our heritage so that we can be proud of what we pass on to our children.

The decisions we make will have implications for generations not yet born, and will determine what type of a Jewish community our children are born into. If we consider our Judaism as something we simultaneously inherit from our ancestors, while also borrowing it from our children we will be able to fashion a dynamic and engaging Reform Judaism.

My Sermon - 28th August - My father was a wandering Aramean

2010-08-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

We currently have a Prime Minister who appears very British. David Cameron went to Eaton, he was educated at Oxford University, and he can even claim to have Royal blood as he is a direct descendant of King William IV and his mistress. He would pass any test of Britishness.

But Prime Minister Cameron also has Jewish immigrants in his family tree. His great great grandfather, on his father’s side was Emile Levita, a German Jew, who arrived in England in the 1850s, gaining citizenship in 1871. As the Government seek to tighten immigration controls, I cannot help but wonder whether David Cameron’s great great grandfather would have been allowed in.

And in the interests of political impartiality; our Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is married to a Spaniard, and his mother is from Holland. And the leading candidate in the Labour leadership election, David Milliband, has a Belgian born father, and Polish born mother, as does the candidate currently in second place, his brother Ed.

In the lead up to the General Election, my wife and I took great pleasure in watching the leadership debates, and hearing about the various policies of our three main political parties. They disagreed on many issues, and there appeared to be a lack of common ground on most things, except when the subject of immigration came up. As they discussed this topic, they seemed united in their calls for tighter limits and stricter checks. The main disagreement centred on whose policies would best achieve caps on the total number of immigrants entering the UK, yet they all seemed to be in agreement that there were too many people wanting to, and entering, our country. Both my wife and I were disappointed as we listened to all three men, one of whom would become Prime Minister.

Just over a year ago we went through the process of obtaining a visa, so that my wife, could come and live here. Despite the fact that we were married, had jobs waiting for us, and could prove our income, the process still took over three months, and definitely served to raise my blood pressure on more than one occasion. And just last week, a close friend who has been living here for 4 years, received her Masters here, has a job, and pays taxes, was told that she would not be able to stay because she does not have enough points according to the system introduced since the election. It appears that she simply does not make enough money to satisfy the requirements. It seems that the borders are open, but only if your bank balance is big enough.

Although I was born in England, my mother was an immigrant to this country from Israel, and my grandmother was an immigrant, coming here from Germany after Kristallnacht, and initially staying in one of the West London Synagogue hostels. I am sure that virtually every one in this room fits into one of the following categories: a) you emigrated here, b) you have a parent who emigrated here, or c) you have at least one grandparent who emigrated here. We are members of the West London Synagogue of British Jews, but we weren’t always British; we have all been immigrants since Jews were readmitted to Britain.

‘My father was a wandering Aramean, he went down to Egypt with meagre numbers, and settled there, and there he became a great and very populous nation.’ This verse in this week’s Torah portion, is a reference not just to one person, but to our ancestors; Abraham was a wandering Aramean, and Jacob went down to Egypt. We are all, as the Jewish people, collectively, the descendants of wanderers and immigrants, both in our ancient past, and in our more recent history.

This week’s Torah portion instructs us that as we enter the land of Israel, and bring the first fruits – a symbol of the fact that we have not just arrived there, but settled there – we should recite the line: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean…’ Just as we became settled, we reminded ourselves of our immigrant past, and the experiences of our ancestors.

With no Temple and no state in the land of Israel, this line was nonetheless preserved, by its use in the Passover Seder, so that every year we remember ‘My father was a wandering Aramean’ at one of the central festivals within our calendar. The entire Passover Seder is an interactive, educational event designed to instil in us the sense that we were slaves in the land of Egypt, and that we fled from there to the Promised Land.

Remembering our history is not just about knowing where we come from, but it is also about knowing where we are going, and how we will behave in light of our experiences.

One of the most often quoted verses in our Torah is taken from Leviticus: ‘Love you neighbour as yourself, I am Adonai your God’. This is known as the Golden Rule, for it stretches across the religious divide, and each tradition has its own version. Yes this verse is unquestionably important, but we rarely quote the verse a few lines down in the passage which states: ‘But the foreigner, who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am Adonai your God’. We are not just told to love our neighbours as ourselves, we are told to love the foreigner, the stranger, the immigrant as ourselves.

This commandment was necessary because often the “other” is an easy scapegoat for the majority within society. We Jews have often been on the receiving end; we have been persecuted as foreigners and strangers – suspected and mistrusted by the host societies in which we have settled.

Immigrants are an easy scapegoat for a society because they are different. They may look different, they might sound distinctive, and they may behave in a foreign way. In this way, the immigrants are a noticeable other, and as such, an easy target to blame for many of the problems in society.

Different societies may target different foreign groups, but the fear and the suspicion is the same. In Arizona, legislation has been introduced to allow the stopping and searching of people who look like they might be an illegal immigrant. This law will indiscriminately target all Latinos, whether they have arrived lawfully or illegally. In France, President Sarkozy has turned his attention to gypsy travellers as a group which must be targeted and expelled. And in Britain, as the Labour leadership contest heats up, once again the candidates are seeking to be the toughest standing against immigration; with the two Eds, Milliband and Balls, both claiming that Labour lost the last election, in part because they were not tougher on immigration.

For us Jews, the Torah is unambiguous: We were strangers in the land of Egypt, and we know what it is like to be an immigrant – oppressed, scapegoated and presecuted.

We can list the differences between the contemporary situation and the historical situation of our ancestors. And we should distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. But it is almost universal that people migrate in search of a better life for themselves and their families. And it is clear that the overwhelming majority of immigrants are positive contributors to the societies in which they settle. Just yesterday, the Business Secretary Vince Cable commented on the need to recognise that immigrants are an important factor in business recovery and economic growth.

As a Jewish community, we have settled and established ourselves as an important part of British society. But we must always remember that one need not look too far back into our history to find common experiences with the immigrants of today.

There is a building in the East End of London which symbolises the repetitious nature of the immigrant story. This building on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street was built in 1742, as a Huguenot chapel, called La Neuve Eglise, by French Hugenots who had come to England fleeing persecution. In 1898, the building was consecrated as the Machzikei HaDath, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue by Jews who had come to London from Eastern Europe. And in 1976, it became the London Jamme Masjid, serving the local Bangladeshi Muslim community.

First a Chapel, then a Synagogue, now a Mosque. If that isn’t telling of the composition of British society, then I don’t know what is.

We must never forget where we have come from as a community. Our father was a wandering Aramean, and virtually all of us can find an immigrant experience in our more recent histories. We were the immigrants of yesteryear, and we need to remember our experiences when we enter into the debate about immigration today. The multicultural nature of British society is one of the things which we should embrace and celebrate. We are beneficiaries of that society, as was the great great grandfather of our Prime Minister. We must never forget where we came from, and as such we must treat others as we would want to be treated.

Bayom hahu – on that day, when we can all treat each other with compassion and acceptance, regardless of race, religion or nationality.

Bayom hahu – on that day, when we can embrace one another as brothers and sisters, each of us members of one human family.

Maybe, just maybe, that will be our ultimate Exodus from Egypt, and entry into the Promised Land.

Two Minutes of Torah: Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1-19) - Knowing where we come from

2010-08-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

I was born in England, the same country as only one of my grandparents. All four of my grandparents were born in different countries with different experiences. My mother’s mother was born in Romania, to a very Zionist family, who moved to Israel while she was still a very young baby. My mother’s father was born in Israel, after his family had made aliyah from Austria. My father’s mother was born in Germany, leaving there after Kristallnacht and moving to England, to stay in one of the WLS hostels. My father’s father was born in England – just like me.

The geography of the Jewish community has changed significantly in the last 150 years. Our centres have shifted from Europe to America and Israel. I am sure that I am not unique amongst my generation in having four grandparents born in four different countries. We Jews have always been travellers, moving cities and countries at regular intervals.

‘My father was a wandering Aramean, who went down to Egypt’ (Deuteronomy 26:5). In this week’s Torah portion, as we stand on the brink of settling the land of Israel, we are given instructions about what to do when we enter the land. We are instructed to bring our first fruits to the Priests (Deuteronomy 26:2-3), and then we are told to recite the line about our Aramean ancestry.

We say this line for ourselves, to remember where we came from, but we are also instructed: ‘you shall recite if before Adonai your God’ (Deuteronomy 26:5). God, who has witnessed our story, also stands as a witness to our remembrance of our history. It is important that we know our own story, but it is also important that we share it.

‘My father was a wandering Aramean…’ may sound familiar because we recite it annually at our Passover Seder. This passage, originally intended to be recited when entering the Land of Israel, was moved into the liturgy of Passover. It was considered so important that it was included and recited on an annual basis.

Passover is an annual opportunity to remember our people’s story. One of the main elements of the Seder is the education of our children; it is structured as an interactive lesson about our experiences in Egypt and beyond. Through the Seder we all learn about our people’s story, how we were slaves in Egypt and how God freed us; leading us towards the Promised Land.

Through the Seder we learn our collective Jewish story. Perhaps we should also introduce a separate family Seder for grandparents and others, to share our family stories and history. Ideally it will be interactive and engaging; but most importantly it will be personal and real, providing a tangible connection to our own family histories. We know that our father was a wandering Aramean, but we also need to know about our grandparents and where our individual families come from.

I would like to be able to share stories with my children, about their great grandmother who was born in Romania and moved to Israel, about their great grandfather born in the pre-State land of Israel, about a great grandmother who fled from Germany, and about a great grandfather born in England, just like me. I will have a responsibility to educate my children through the Passover Seder about our people’s history. But through a family Seder I will also have a responsibility to educate them about their great grandparents, and our family.

Two Minutes of Torah: Ki Tetze (Deuteronomy 21:20-22:7) - Finding your fellow's ox

2010-08-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a house with cats. From the time I was 6 or 7 there has always been a cat in my parent’s house; first Sally, then Tiger, then Lucky, and currently Simba and Nala (I was in a Lion King phase when we got them). The cats have always been free to come and go as they pleased; generally coming for food or to be stroked, and then going soon after.

However, in the last several years a new cat on the block has caused trouble, fighting with Simba and Nala; and on one occasion sending the later to the vet. We have a zero tolerance policy towards this neighbourhood bully and whenever it approaches we chase him away, occasionally using the hose, a water pistol, or whatever is to hand. I realise he is someone else’s pet; but as far as we’re concerned he’s a vicious bully and a thug.

It is easy for a person to consider their own pets wonderful and the animals of others to be a nuisance. We may invite the owner round for tea and biscuits, but we are often less excited when their four legged friend crashes the party.

The portion of Ki Tetze begins as though it cannot sit still; jumping from subject to, often tenuously related, subject every few verses. In one of those leaps it comes to the subject of another person’s animals. ‘If you see your fellow's ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your fellow’ (Deuteronomy 22:1). One can imagine that this instruction could play havoc with a person’s day, but it is the nice thing to do. One can liken it to responding to one of those lost dog posters stuck on the lamppost (it’s funny that it’s always a lost dog, and cats never seem to go missing).

However, the Torah portion continues: ‘If your fellow does not live near you or you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your fellow claims it; then you shall give it back to him’ (Deuteronomy 22:2). The Torah does not institute a lost an found centre for ox, sheep and donkeys; instead the individual who finds the animal is required to provide it with room and board until it is claimed. Suddenly that other person’s animal becomes your problem.

The Torah appears to be aspiring to a society in which no-one ever says: ‘It’s not my problem’, or stands idly by when an animal is missing. It is not just concerned with animals, and clarifies ‘do the same with his garment’ (Deuteronomy 22:3). By using the example of animals the Torah portrays an extreme case, suggesting that it is therefore a rule for all lost property. It’s much easier to keep hold of a sweater until it is claimed, rather than an ox.

For the person who finds the animal I imagine that this system may have been a little frustrating. But for the person who lost the animal it must have been a very reassuring law to have in place.

The Torah reminds us of the fact that we do not live in isolation, we live as part of a community, a neighbourhood; a society bigger than just us. Our world has become quite individual-orientated, and people inhabit their small spheres, unconcerned about the wider world beyond their boundaries.

Two Minutes of Torah: Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18-17:13) - The Pursuit of Justice

2010-08-10T02:36:00.001-07:00

One of the real joys of being a Rabbi at West London Synagogue is the opportunity to teach on Jewish Preparation (our conversion course). It is wonderful to accompany people as they embark on their Jewish journey and join our community. Through this experience I have become increasingly aware of a certain ‘Jewish vocabulary’, which we use without translation. This vocabulary involves words which we all know the meaning of, but which are completely foreign to anyone from outside the community.

The most prominent word from this group is without a doubt the word ‘Tzedakkah’. In the Jewish community we don’t talk about ‘giving charity’, we talk about ‘giving Tzedakkah’. We don’t have charity boxes or collection tins, we have Tzedakkah boxes. Throughout the High Holy Days we talk about Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedakkah averting the evil decree; when we translate it we will talk about Repentance, Prayer and Tzedakkah.

Part of the reason for there not being a translation for Tzedakkah is the fact that there is no adequate translation for this word. It comes from the root tzedek, meaning justice, and so Tzedakkah is really about the pursuit of justice in this world. One way of achieving this is through charity, but it is not the only way.

This week’s Torah portion begins with an emphasis on the importance of tzedek – justice. Judges are to be appointed ‘and they shall govern the people with due justice’ (Deuteronomy 16:18). However, justice is something which is expected from all the people. The famous instruction in this week’s Torah portion is: ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue it, so that you may thrive and occupy the land which Adonai your God is giving to you’ (Deuteronomy 16:20). Justice is not something which exists purely in the judicial realm, it is something which all of us must engage with and aspire to.

The repetition of the word tzedek – justice, is striking; serving to emphasise the word’s importance. However, I think that the relationship to justice is more striking. It does not instruct us to be just, it does not say create a just society, instead it says that we must pursue justice. Justice is something we aspire to, something we seek to achieve, and something which we must chase. There is an urgency and immediacy to a pursuit – we run after something, seeking to capture it and possess it. The need for a pursuit also suggests that achieving justice is neither easy, nor simple; it requires work and effort from all of us.

In a Torah portion which is called Shoftim – Judges, we are all reminded that we have a role in pursuing justice and in building a just society. We cannot rely on the courts to offer a corrective for injustice in our society; we must be active in preventing injustice, before the courts are required to intervene.

Because Tzedakkah is one of those words which we never use in translation, it is one of the first words we must teach on the Jewish Preparation course. Teaching the word is important, but pursuing its meaning is a task which can, and should, define a person’s entire Jewish journey.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Re'eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-12:10) - The Price of Freewill

2010-08-05T08:23:00.001-07:00

In our Jewish tradition, one of the things which is always said to distinguish us from the angels is the fact that we have freewill. We have a choice. We can choose to obey God’s laws and commandments, or we can choose to ignore and reject them. Humanity’s possession of freewill is therefore one of the key things which defines us, distinguishing us from angels and also the other animals, who act without the same autonomy.

In this week’s Torah portion God offers us an incentive related to the way in which we behave. The choice appears simple enough; blessing on one side and curse on the other. ‘Blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Eternal your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Eternal your God’ (Deuteronomy 11:27-28). God sets up a clear system of reward and punishment. If we obey God’s commands we will be blessed, and if we disobey we will be cursed.

It would be a simple world if this system actually worked. The Torah portion appears to suggest that good people will prosper and bad people will suffer as a result of God’s intervention. Unfortunately we rarely see a thunderbolt from the heavens striking down those who are evil, and we often see good people suffering. Rabbi Harold Kushner considered this problem in his celebrated book: ‘When bad things happen to good people’ - the evidence from the world around us challenges God’s system.

There is something appealing about a world in which evil is punished and good is rewarded. The problem is that all too often our world feels unjust, and God’s system appears to be broken.

God gave us the gift of free will so that we have the choice. As God will say later in Deuteronomy: ‘I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life’ (Deuteronomy 30:19). Each one of us can choose, and we may choose life; but unfortunately we have no power over what any other person may do. As John Donne famously wrote: ‘No man is an island’. Our worlds are interconnected, and we prosper and suffer not just as a result of our own actions, but also due to the actions of others.

A world with God rewarding and punishing us based on our actions cannot function simultaneously in a world where we all have free will. There is a choice: reward and punishment or free will.

Free will defines us as humans, created in the image of God with an ability to make choices, and choose to do the right thing, or do the wrong thing. I want to live in a world where people have free will. It is a world in which there will unfortunately be injustice, hurt and suffering. But at the same time it is a world in which people choose to do the right thing, in which people help each other, and help to make the world a better place.

We do not follow God’s laws as automatons, we make a choice. We may not always feel the blessing in this world. We may hope that in the world to come there will be a settling of scores. But at the same time when we follow God’s commands; when we pursue justice, help others and make the world a better place, we may not receive a blessing, but we become a blessing. And in becoming a blessing we fulfil Abraham’s legacy ‘through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ (Genesis 12:3).

Two Minutes of Torah: Ekev (Deuteronomy 9:1-19) - What would Supernanny do?

2010-07-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

With the limited number of channels available to us on freeview, I have started watching ‘Supernanny’ on an occasional basis (there really is nothing else on at that time in the morning). On the TV programme Jo Frost visits families who are struggling with their children. She spends a short time observing, and then she offers suggestions and strategies on how to be better parents and help the children to grow and develop. All too often the problems in the home revolve around discipline; whether it is a lack of, or poor methods of discipline. The majority of Jo’s time seems to be dedicated to helping the parents to develop better strategies for both rewarding and rebuking their children.

The right words, strategy and technique nearly always see the family transformed as relationships improve, with Supernanny proudly watching as the parents put into practice what they have learnt. I watch it and worry about the type of parent I will be, while also fascinated by the way that the use of ‘rewards and punishments’ serve to educate the children.

I wonder what Supernanny would say about the way that Moses speaks to the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion. As they are on the eve of entering the Land of Israel, Moses makes sure to let them know that they are not receiving this land as a reward for good behaviour; ‘it is rather because of the wickedness of those nations that the Eternal is dispossessing them before you’ (Deuteronomy 9:4). The other nations misbehaved, so they are being punished, and as a result we will be the beneficiaries. And if this was not clear enough: ‘It is not because of your virtues and your rectitude that you will be able to possess their country, but it is because of their wickedness’ (Deuteronomy 9:5).

There is no positive reinforcement for the Israelite’s behaviour, instead there appears to be a threat hanging over them – possession of the land is temporary, depending on appropriate behaviour. The wickedness and evil of the Israelites is then restated by Moses in the following verses, as the story of the golden calf, and other incidents, are retold.

It is true that the Israelites had been a difficult people for Moses to lead through the wilderness, and there is no denying that they sinned and transgressed along the way. But one wonders if this is the best method for handling their ill discipline, and problematic behaviour.

I have this image of Supernanny sitting across the table from Moses as she replays him clips from his dealings with the Israelites. I can almost hear her suggesting to him that there are other ways in which he could offer the same message, ways which would encourage, rather than discourage. I think that she would have suggested that Moses needs to also look for positives when talking to the Israelites, and not to focus exclusively on their faults. I am also certain that she would remind him to criticise the behaviour and not the Israelite people.

At this point one can imagine that Moses had reached his limits with the Israelites. They were going to enter the Promised Land, while he would die without crossing the Jordan. This awareness might go some way to explaining his behaviour, although it does not excuse it. Instead, as we read about the chastisement of the Israelites we can reflect on our own relationships, and the way that we give feedback, criticism and even rebuke.

Perhaps this interaction was further evidence of the fact that it was time for Moses to pass the mantle of leadership on to Joshua, who would be able to handle, and discipline, the people in a more appropriate way.

Two Minutes of Torah: Vaetchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-4:14) - I've Been to the Mountaintop

2010-07-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last summer, while Micol and I were driving across America, we stopped for a few hours in the city of Memphis. We knew that we did not have time to spend the night there, but we wanted to see the National Civil Rights Museum. This museum is located at the Lorraine Motel, the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and we felt a responsibility to visit and learn more about the American civil rights movement. It was a tremendously powerful experience, and the story of Dr. King was especially moving. He led the civil rights movement, but he never saw the final fruits of his labour.

On the 3rd April 1968, the day before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech where he said: ‘We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.’

His prophecy that day was two-fold. Yes, he said, his people would reach the promised land, but no, he would not be there to reach it with them.

The mountaintop to which Dr. King was referring could have been Pisgah, the mountain which Moses ascends in this week’s Torah portion (Deuteronomy 3:27). Moses led the Israelites from slavery to freedom, out of the land of Egypt and towards the Promised Land. But Moses was not permitted to enter.

Our Torah portion begins with Moses telling the people: ‘I pleaded with the Eternal at that time … Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan’ (Deuteronomy 3:23&25). The text makes it clear that Moses remained unhappy with God’s decree that he would not enter into the Promised Land. The one consolation which Moses is offered is to climb up Mount Pisgah and ‘gaze about, to the west, the north, the south, and the east. Look at it well, for you shall not go across yonder Jordan’ (Deuteronomy 3:27).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses both led their people to freedom, both climbed the mountaintop, and both were prevented from reaching their promised land.

The difference between them lies in the way in which they approached their destiny. Moses appeared unable to accept his fate; he was angry with God, with the people and most of all with his situation. Dr. King accepted his fate with grace and dignity; he accepted that the journey to the promised land was about more than any one individual. For Dr. King, guiding his people to freedom took precedence over achieving freedom himself. He did not get there, but through his work and his legacy, his people reached the promised land.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had the benefit of learning from Moses’ example. He could read the Bible and about the Israelite successes both under Moses’ leadership and after his death. He could read about the way in which Joshua continued Moses’ legacy; leading the people into the Promised Land. From the Bible, Dr. King gained an insight into the future, and the fact that the journey would continue without him. And with that awareness, he was able to accept his destiny, and continue to shape the destiny of his people.

Both Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made the world a far better place for future generations. They did not see the full fruits of their labour, but we are able to experience the richness of their legacy everyday.

If only English football could find a manager like Moses

2010-07-18T10:26:00.001-07:00

(This article was published in the Jewish News 15th July 2010)

Another World Cup has come to an end, and we have four years to wait until Brazil 2014.

By any measure it has been a disappointing competition for the England team, as our ‘golden generation’ meekly surrendered in the Round of 16. However, over in Europe, the whole of Spain has been united in euphoric celebration of their first World Cup success – I know that I’m not supposed to covet, but I am a little jealous of the Spanish nation who will continue to rejoice for many days, months and years to come.

As a Jewish community we got to watch our co-religionists Benny Feilhaber and Jonathan Bornstein represent the United States, disproving the commonly held assumption about Jews and sport.

However, there is more for us to take away from South Africa 2010, and the way that events transpired offer us important lessons for our Jewish community.

I’m no football expert, but it seems clear that England suffered from a lack of team spirit, and a culture of individualism. We have world class players, but they failed to combine to create a world class team (and we weren’t the only ones, just look at France and Italy). In contrast Spain battled through with each player demonstrating a commitment to his colleagues and country.

In the wilderness, despite the entire Israelite community being divided along tribal lines, we moved forward together as the Children of Israel. The twelve tribe squad flourished when able to work together and, for forty years, passed undefeated through the wilderness, defeating all comers on our journey to the Promised Land, our own special prize.

All too often today we have a fractious Jewish community divided along ethnic lines, political lines and religious lines. We focus on our individual place and our individual community rather than the Jewish people. All too often we divide internally along various lines and forget the important teaching: ‘All Israel are responsible one for another’ (Talmud Shavuot 39a).

Last month I was privileged to be a delegate at the World Zionist Congress, one of the most impressive elements of the Congress was the way that it brought together Jews from across the globe representing virtually every position within the Jewish community. There was something wonderful about the way Jews came together with a common purpose and identity.

Returning to the less than wonderful England team, it is also clear that we suffered from a lack of real leadership. Rio Ferdinand’s injury on the eve of the competition was unlucky, but there appeared to be no obvious leader on the field, and our leader on the sideline failed to deliver. Again we need only look to the Spanish and the way that they were led on and off the field by Vicente del Bosque and Iker Casillas - that’s another part of the reason why they’re World Champions, and we are not.

Back again to the wilderness, and we had an undisputed leader. Moses was the man who led us out of slavery and brought us to the edge of the Promised Land. Despite setbacks along the way (most notably when he was effectively sent off and told he would not enter Israel – Bamidbar 20:12) he always picked himself up and continued to lead from the front. And as he reminds us in this week’s Torah portion, he also selected other leaders from amongst the tribes to help and support him (Devarim 1:9-18).

Moses is in many ways a model leader, always putting the needs of the community above his own. It was never about personal gain for Moses, it was always about the Israelites and what was best for them. He is an example for anyone who seeks to assume a leadership position within our Jewish community, and he could also have a lot to teach Fabio Capello and the boys, although I am not convinced he would favour the Christmas tree formation.

The England team will have to wait until 2014 to try and win the World Cup again, but for us in the Jewish community, we can learn the lessons of their failure, and try to emulate the teamwork and camaraderie of the tribes in the wilderness, under the leadership of Moses, who succeeded in leading our people to victory.

Two Minutes of Torah: Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-21) - Knowing your limits

2010-07-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

When I went off to university I was really excited about all of the possibilities and opportunities which were available to me. And I tried to take advantage of them as much as possible. I played football and hockey, I got involved with the Israel society, I helped organise the summer party, I went to all of my classes, I got all of my papers in on time, and I even found time to stay very involved with RSY-Netzer. I had a great time juggling everything. I loved being busy (I still do), but I had bitten off more than I could chew. As the final term of the first year approached, it all got a bit much, and I dropped a couple of balls. Thankfully there were no serious repercussions, but it taught me an important lesson about knowing my limits.

Ever since that first time I have tried to be more disciplined about what I take on, and conscious of what I can and cannot manage. I am sure I am not the only person who has struggled with taking on too much. On this subject, Moses once again provides a very important role model for us.

When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt he assumed responsibility for virtually every area of civic life. And he was busy from morning until night. When his father-in-law Yitro saw him judging all of the people, all day, he made the simple assessment: ‘The thing that you do is not good’ (Exodus 18:17). Moses accepted the advice and delegated responsibility amongst the people. It was only once this had been done that Moses could lead the people to Mount Sinai, where they would receive the Ten Commandments and enter into the covenant with God, until then he just hadn’t been able to find the time.

Deuteronomy contains within it Moses’ final speech to the Israelite people. In many ways it is a farewell address reminding the people of what has gone before, with lessons for the future. We might have expected the speech to begin with Egypt, or the crossing of the sea, or maybe even the Ten Commandments. Instead Moses began somewhere else.

Moses’ oration to the people begins with the people leaving Horeb (another name for Sinai) to continue their journey to the Land of Israel (Deuteronomy 1:6). Having laid out the journey the next thing Moses said to the people was: ‘I spoke to you at that time, saying: “I am not able to bear you myself alone”’ (Deuteronomy 1:9). Moses first words acknowledge his limitations, recognising that he was unable to lead the people by himself.

As Moses retells the story of the delegation of power and the selection of leaders the one thing missing is the involvement of Yitro. In Exodus Yitro offered Moses advice, which prompted the delegation of power; in Deuteronomy Moses’ father-in-law is conspicuous by his absence.

We may feel aggrieved on behalf of Yitro after his exclusion from the retelling of the story But as is the case throughout Deuteronomy, Moses is attempting to teach the people a lesson; a lesson for life when he will no longer be the leader. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Yitro, who can suggest that we have taken on too much and offer a strategy for improving the situation. Most of us have to rely on ourselves.

Moses offers an example of self-reflection and honesty about his own limits. He is a model of a person who considers the work before him and acknowledges that it is simply too much. Moses teaches us to know our own limits; not to rely on Yitro (or someone else), but to know what we can and cannot do. This is the lesson which the Israelites need on the eve of entering the Land of Israel, and it is a lesson which we can learn from many generations later.

Two Minutes of Torah: Matot Masey (Numbers 34:1-18) - 'British Jews' or 'Jewish Brits'

2010-07-08T05:15:00.001-07:00

Parashat Matot Masey
‘British Jews’ or ‘Jewish Brits'
(Numbers 34:1-18)

Almost every year on RSY-Netzer’s Shemesh summer camp there would be a programme all about identity. During this session we would be asked to consider whether we are ‘British Jews’ or ‘Jewish Brits’. How did our Jewish and British identity fit together? Where were the areas of conflict? And which identity was most important in our self-definition? The debate in the programme was always interesting, and people would offer different answers based on their own life experience and perception of their dual identity.

Initially I liked to say I was a ‘Jewish Brit’; the Jewish part came first, as the defining feature of my identity, and was followed by my nationality. As I grew through the movement I used to say I was a ‘British Jew’; the Jew is the noun, and the British part is an adjective describing it. Today I would say I am British and Jewish and I am a Brit and a Jew simultaneously. There is no necessary conflict between the two, and the interaction of these two elements of my identity has defined me as the person I am today.

We can imagine that the Israelites had no such problems of dual identity. They were all Israelites, united by their shared journey to the Promised Land. But while the Israelites formed a unified whole, they were still divided into different groups – the twelve tribes. Each person had a tribal identity and an Israelite identity.

In this week’s Torah portion, as the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land, the division of the tribes is emphasised. The boundaries of the land, which Israel will inhabit, are described first (Numbers 34:2-12), and then the text explains that it will be divided amongst the tribes. ‘This is the land which you shall inherit by lot, which Adonai commanded to give to the nine and a half tribes’ (Numbers 34:13). Although all of the Israelite tribes left Egypt together, their shared journey will culminate in a divided land, split up between nine and a half tribes.

They will conquer the land together, as it belongs to them all; but they will inhabit it according to their tribal associations. The text itself makes an important statement by laying out the boundaries of the entire land before focussing on the idea of individual tribal allocations. It is a unified land, even though it will be divided amongst the tribes.

It is striking that two and a half tribes will not be receiving an allotment in the Promised Land. Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, have already received their land allocation on the other side of the Jordan (Numbers 32). However, as part of this agreement they committed: ‘We will pass over armed before Adonai into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance on this side of the Jordan may be ours’ (Numbers 32:32). Despite not receiving a share in the Land of Israel these two and a half tribes committed to participate in the fight to conquer it as a result of their shared Israelite identity. They knew that they would not share in the spoils of war, but they recognised that they had an obligation to the entire Israelite community.

The challenge of dual identity is therefore one which has been around the Israelites from the day we left Egypt (if not before). What is significant is the way in which the tribes found ways to be united, while remaining independent; cooperating despite different rewards. As ‘British Jews’ or ‘Jewish Brits’ our challenge is to make sense of our dual identity, so that we can contribute both to the Jewish community and British society. We flourish when both are flourishing, and we suffer when either one is in distress. We do not have to decide on what the label will be, we just have to commit to recognising our dual loyalty, and working to be a positive influence on both.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-26:4) - The Rabbis offer a hidden critique

2010-07-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have long been troubled by the end of the film: ‘Bend it like Beckham’. Throughout the film there are numerous storylines about the challenges of an Indian girl playing football in England. There is a clash of cultures between the dominant British culture, which accepts a girl playing football, and an Indian family who have a specific view of what the women should be doing. Jess, the star of the film is the girl caught between her wishes to play football, and her parents’ desire for her to conform to a certain set of expectations. Alongside this problem, Jess also has a very complicated relationship with her non-Indian coach; fearing her parents’ response if she ever brought home a non-Indian boyfriend. At the very end of the film, as she is about to fly away, she kisses the coach, and tells him that they will find a way to make it work.

The film offers the romantic, Hollywood ending, as the characters appear destined to find a way to make their interfaith relationship work – and there is something so artificial about it. This girl, who has struggled about how her Indian identity should influence her life, ends up appearing to leave it behind completely in her pursuit of a football career, and in her relationship with the coach. The complexity, the difficulty of the situation is lost in the search for the ‘right ending’.

Pinchas, for whom this week’s Torah portion is named, offers one way of dealing with interfaith relationships (one which is highly problematic). At the end of last week there was a developing problem of Israelite men entering into relationships with Moabite women. Pinchas took matters into his own hands and drove a spear through Zimri, an Israelite prince, and Cosbi, a Midianite woman (Numbers 25:7-9). This week, Pinchas is praised for his actions by God: ‘he has turned my anger away from the people of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them’ (Numbers 25:11). He also receives the honour of having a Torah portion named after him.

How do we make sense of this? And how do we understand this act of violence and the apparent praise it appears to receive from God? On a basic reading the story of Pinchas appears as a very clear statement against intermarriage, or even interfaith relationships. We have to engage with these difficult stories in our sacred texts.

The break between the Torah portions of Balak and Pinchas is particularly peculiar. Last week’s Torah portion could easily have finished with the verse: ‘And Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way’ (Numbers 24:25). As a Torah portion it would have perfectly encapsulated the story of Balak, beginning and ending with it. Instead, an additional ten verses were included so that we finished by reading about Pinchas’ murder of Cosbi and Zimri.

I would suggest that when the Rabbis were dividing the Torah into portions, they were also uncomfortable with this story, and the message it contains. They therefore chose to add this difficult story onto the end of a Torah portion all about Balak, so that it would essentially be lost at the end. On another level, it means that God’s praise for Pinchas is read out of context, and separated from the unpleasant action, which heralded it. The Rabbis divided the Torah so that we might forget the terrible actions of Pinchas when we read about God’s praise for him.

However, we are still left with the problem that Pinchas receives the honour of having a Torah portion named after him. In the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) the other two men to have had a Torah portion named after them are Korach and Balak. Neither are particularly positive figures. Korach was swallowed up by the earth after attempting a rebellion against Moses’ leadership, and Balak was the Moabite king who feared the Israelites and tried to have them cursed. When Pinchas has a Torah portion, in Numbers, named after him, it appears that this is part of a rabbinic critique, both of him and his actions, placing him alongside Korach and Balak.

This is not the Hollywood ending of ‘Bend it like Beckham’, but the Rabbis ensured that God’s words were not the final word in the story of Pinchas, when we dig deeper we find a hidden critique to which we can relate.

Two Minutes of Torah: Balak (Numbers 22:2-20) - Different ways to God

2010-06-23T10:07:00.001-07:00

My Saba (Israeli grandfather) likes to tell stories and parables. One of my favourites is about three men who all lived together in the same village, and wanted to find a mythical well in the midst of a deep, dark forest. They all set out separately, following their own specific route through the forest. Each man succeeded in reaching the well right in the heart of the forest. When they returned to the village, they all told the other villagers about the route which they had taken to get to the mythical well. And the three of them began to argue about whose route to the well was best. They kept arguing about their individual routes, convinced that their way was the only way. They never talked about the well, they only ever argued about the route to get there.

For my Saba this story is a critique of the three Abrahamic faiths. We all trace ourselves back to Abraham, and we all follow the same, one, true God. The problem is that we have, over centuries, been consumed by arguing about the right way to God, rather than talking about what we should be doing in the service of God.

I find it interesting to consider the way we Jews refer to Adonai in the different countries in which we live. Here in England, we call Adonai ‘God’ or ‘Lord’. These terms, or names, are equally fitting in a Church context, we pray to the same God and share the English name we use. In the Muslim countries of the Middle East, the Jewish communities did not use the term ‘God’ or ‘Lord’, they called Adonai, ‘Allah’ – the Arabic name for God. These names are a reminder that while the routes may be different, the destinations are the same.

In this week’s Torah portion, it is easy to get distracted by angels, talking donkeys, and the introduction of the line ‘Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael’ – ‘How good are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel’ (Numbers 24:5). To do this is to miss the significance of Bilam.

The Israelites are no longer an anonymous mass; they have become a force in the area. And as a result of the Israelite’s military successes, the Moabites have become frightened. Balak, the king of the Moabites, fearing for his people, sends for Bilam to come and ‘curse this people’ (Numbers 22:6). In the ancient world curses were powerful things to be feared and it is no surprise that this is Balak’s first line of offence. What is surprising is the fact that Bilam was not a random, foreign prophet; he was a man who had a relationship, and connection, to Adonai.

Bilam asks God’s permission before agreeing to the Moabite request to curse the Israelites. He asks the Moabites to wait the night and ‘I will bring you word again, as Adonai shall speak to me’ (Numbers 22:8). This is not some random pagan deity, this is Adonai, the God of the Israelites. And Bilam has a conversation with God (Numbers 22:9-12), a conversation which continues throughout the Torah portion.

Ultimately, despite travelling to meet Balak, Bilam is unable to curse the Israelites. It is an interesting story, but the overall narrative is not particularly advanced. I like to think that Bilam, in the midst of our most sacred book, serves as an important reminder that there is more than one way to have a relationship with God. Bilam teaches us that there is more than one way to the source; we do not have a monopoly on the truth. We have our way, but there are others. And we should concentrate on the well, rather than the route to get there.

World Zionist Congress - Ending with 2 Hatikvahs

2010-06-18T00:58:00.000-07:00

So the World Zionist Congress is now over, and it seems that we managed to leave Jerusalem just as the city was being overrun and shut down (the journey to Tel Aviv still took an extra 40+ minutes).

The last day of the WZC is primarily about the resolutions, and the votes which are held on all of them. The resolutions which have passed through the committee stage tend to advance relatively easily through the whole Congress. However, according to the antiquated WZC rules, a person can call for a Votum Separatum, which means that a rejected motion will still be voted on in the whole Congress, with the proposer generally speaking on its behalf at the beginning.

For the group which I had been involved in, considering Zionist Education, there were 2 Votum Separatums on resolutions, which we had voted against. They were important items for us, and we had to make sure that they were defeated again, thankfully we were successful.

During the voting it was clear that the pluralist, liberal parties had a majority of the votes on virtually all matters. And as members of the Orthodox right grew frustrated, towards the end of the session, a number of them invaded the stage to stall proceedings, and to sing Hatikvah. I do not think this was the Zionist dream Herzl had wanted us to pursue. And it provided a very disappointing picture: our way or no way.

The disappointment of this spectacle, was tempered by two young Australian delegates, one from Habonim Dror, and one from Bnei Akiva. They took the stage and explained how they find ways to work together, even when they disagree; providing a wonderful model of pluralism. Hopefully it will be their voices leading our next generation.

This was a disappointing recitation of the Hatikvah - a moment when the song was used to divide, rather than unite. But at the very end of the Congress, when we all stood together to sing Hatikvah, I felt a link back to the first Zionist Congress when this song was adopted as our anthem. It was a powerful moment.

There were highs and lows during the course of the Congress. But despite all of that, there is something very inspiring about being a delegate at the same Congress, which Herzl founded in 1897. A lot has changed over the previous 113 years, much has been achieved and there is much left to do. We need to be worthy heirs to Herzl's vision; advancing the continued development of a pluralist, Jewish, democratic state.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Chukat (Numbers 20:1-21) - Two strikes and you're out

2010-06-17T04:36:00.001-07:00

Being the leader can often be a thankless task. If you are doing a good job no-one thanks you – it’s expected. But if things start going wrong everyone has a gripe and a complaint. One of the things I used to love about flying El Al to Tel Aviv was the spontaneous applause, which always broke out, when the plane touched down on the Israeli tarmac. The pilot and crew had done nothing more than their jobs required, but the passengers wanted to say thank you.

We never hear the Israelites thank Moses for his hard work leading them from slavery to freedom, and bringing God’s presence into the camp. But when something goes wrong they love to complain. Moses is generally a great leader, and he deals well with the people’s complaints, but this week he slips up. It is in the context of his mistake that he truly demonstrates his real greatness and the challenge of being a leader.

Our Torah portion begins with the death of Moses’ sister Miriam (Numbers 20:1). There is no explanation and no period of mourning for her brothers or the community. Instead the people complain (what’s new there?) They come to Moses to moan about the lack of water (the rabbinic Midrash suggests that a well followed Miriam throughout the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness). No-one offers Moses any sympathy, or condolences for his loss; he is expected to get on with his job and respond to another Israelite complaint.

Moses pointedly does not utter a single word. He simply goes with Aaron, his brother and fellow mourner, to fall before God at the Tabernacle. And God responds, as always, with a solution for Moses: ‘Take the rod … and speak to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth water’ (Numbers 20:8).

It is understandable that Moses would be upset. Upset about his sister’s death, upset that he has been unable to mourn, and upset by another Israelite challenge. He voices his frustration calling the people ‘rebels’ (Numbers 20:10) and then he gives expression to his exasperation, striking the rock twice (Numbers 20:11), rather than talking to it. He could be forgiven for this little outburst, for this show of frustration.

He resisted the temptation to lash out at the people. He continued to fulfil his leadership role. He took his frustration out on an inanimate object, striking the rock to give expression to his hurt, anger and exasperation. God had told him to take the rod with him, placing temptation in his path. And significantly water flowed from the rock. But the punishment is immediate; as God tells Moses and Aaron: ‘you shall not bring this people into the land’ (Numbers 20:12).

The punishment appears excessive. Moses has been pushed and prodded by this people ever since Egypt. And although he was probably emotionally unstable after his sister’s death, there is no sympathy. Leaders are held to a higher, almost unattainable, standard, and they suffer when they fall short.

Moses would be forgiven for giving up and resigning on the spot; leaving God and the people alone together. Instead, it is at this moment that Moses marks himself apart as a truly outstanding leader. He does not appeal to God or the people. Instead he sends messengers to the king of Edom (Numbers 20:14) so that the Israelite journey can continue. It is a journey which Moses will not complete, but he puts his personal feelings aside and focuses solely on fulfilling his leadership role.

Although he will not reach the Promised Land, Moses puts the needs of the community above his own. He will not be the pilot who will land in Israel, but he certainly deserves applause.

People can be hungry for leadership, Korach provides our ancient example (Number 16:1-20) and there are too many contemporary ones to name. But Moses demonstrates the truth of the line in Spiderman: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. In slipping up, Moses demonstrates his own greatness and his exemplary leadership. In his lifetime he never received the peoples’ thanks, but when he died the children of Israel wept for thirty days (Deuteronomy 34:8), and perhaps when he ascended to heaven the angels gave him the round of applause he so richly deserved.

World Zionist Congress – Catching up and the Voting

2010-06-17T01:15:00.001-07:00

So for the last two days with all of the meetings (and the lack of a reliable free wireless source in the hotel or the convention center) and various other things which have been going on, it has been impossible to get onto the internet to update the blog – I am sorry.

To bring you up to speed, I have been in and out of meetings for the last two days. Some of them specifically relating to our Arzenu group (and the Reform movement), and in others which have been as a part of our combined faction with Labour and Meretz. It’s been exhausting, as our meetings have begun at 7:30, and we have been working through until the late hours.

It has been eye-opening to see the way that Zionist politics works, and it has been especially interesting to see the ways in which different groups vote together on some issues, and in opposition on other matters.

Last night we also had the opportunity to hear President Shimon Peres and the Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat, as we celebrated 150 years since Herzl’s birth.

Right now, as I update the blog, we are voting in the resolution session, as the motions which were debated yesterday are being confirmed by a vote of all the delegates present at the World Zionist Congress. Right now a lot of the motions involve the rights of all streams of Judaism, and it is wonderful to watch as these motions, which we support, are being passed.

World Zionist Congress – Catching up and the Voting

2010-06-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

The World Zionist Congress – Being part of a world movement

2010-06-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

In our joint faction meeting with Labour we heard today from representatives of our groups from across the world.

In Britain we Reform Jews are a minority within a minority – it can be difficult and sometimes demoralising. Being part of the Arzenu delegation at the World Zionist Congress is a reminder that we are part of an international movement, with members spread across the world. We have allies and supporters around the globe, and we need to find ways to work more closely together and to strengthen our bonds and cooperation. It is always refreshing and inspiring to see Reform Jews from across the globe.

We all face a range of different challenges and problems as a result of our different national contexts. But there are some challenges and problems which we all face together. Through cooperation and the sharing of ideas we can face the future together, and continue to advance the international message of Reform Judaism and Reform Zionism.

The World Zionist Congress – Arzenu, Labour and Meretz

2010-06-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we had the first meeting of our new faction for the Congress. Our Arzenu group have spent the last few years negotiating with Labour to form a coalition, and more recently Meretz have joined us. This means that we will together be the largest group at the Congress, and it will further increase the influence we have.

This will be important for the work of the Zionist institutions, however, it is equally, if not more important in relation to what it means for our place in Israeli society. We in the Reform movement remain a small percentage within Israeli society, but we are the largest international stream of Judaism, and it is important that our voice is heard within Israeli society. With Labour and Meretz we share a broad vision of a Jewish democratic state, at peace with her neighbours, and built on values of social justice and pluralism. It is a partnership which is built on strong ideological foundations.

We in Arzenu have to use our voice, and strength, within the World Zionist Congress to help our Israeli Reform movement. Through this agreement we now have a formal partnership with two parties within the Israeli Knesset, which can only help in the further establishment and legitimisation of our movement here in Israel.

The World Zionist Congress - It's complicated...

2010-06-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we had a really interesting discussion about the different ways in which our national Reform Zionist bodies responded to the flotilla incident. Different countries had felt the need to respond in different ways, with different agendas determining that response. I was very aware that my response to the flotilla (see the sermon below) was very much a response to the British national context. It was not about speaking to a Reform Jewish community, it was about addressing the issue for a Reform Jewish community against the backdrop of the British media's negative portrayal of Israel.

The difficulty which we face revolves around what we do when we don't agree 100% with the position, or approach, of the Government of Israel. Do we voice complete support publicly out of a sense of responsibility? Or are we comfortable to stand up and criticise?

I think it is important to always remember that our movement is the heir to the prophetic tradition. When we see injustive we have an obligation to speak out against it. But in the case of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the flotilla, the issue is far too complex to offer 100% support or to criticise.

For those of us who live in the Diaspora we have to recognise that our children are not drafted into the army, our families do not live in daily fear of Hamas rockets, and no world leader is calling for the destruction of the country in which we live. And therefore we can attempt to influence Israel, we can offer help and we can try to support her. But at the end of the day she has to pursue a just and safe path for her and her citizens - and when she falters, we have to be there to help pick her up.

I keep thinking about Herzl's words (appropriately as it is 150 years since his birth) 'Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah' - 'If you will it, it is no dream'. As Reform/Progressive/Liberal Zionists, we have a dream for the State of Israel - secure in its borders, at peace with her neighbours, a Jewish democratic state, and a country which serves as a shining light for the rest of the world. Our job is to help her citizens and Government to pursue that dream and vision.

The World Zionist Congress - How does the Diaspora impact upon Israel

2010-06-12T13:26:00.001-07:00

In the car to Jerusalem, an Israeli friend and I spent the journey discussing (arguing) about the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel. She just wanted us, in the Diaspora, to make the point that Israel has a right to exist. For me that did not go far enough; we in the Diaspora should be doing more than that. We need to be the front line of Israel's PR defence. We didn't agree on this issue, but we did agree it's complicated, and it left me once again thinking about the role of the Diaspora in relation to Israel.

It was a very appropriate conversation on the way to the Arzenu pre-WZC conference.

As I arrived at Beit Shmuel and saw the international group that had gathered together it was a reminder of the fact that Israel can serve as a source of unity for the Diaspora.

The first session I participated in was on the subject of the impact the Diaspora has on Israel and Israel on the Diaspora. Listening to the groups present their varied perspectives, it was clear to me that it is a two way street and it is important that we allow, and ensure, the traffic flows smoothly in both directions. We in the Diaspora are stronger for having a State of Israel and hopefully we in turn strengthen our shared Jewish homeland - and maybe that impact is enough.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Korach (Numbers 16:1-19) - The art of complaining

2010-06-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

When I was first flying back from Los Angeles to London I booked an American Airlines flight via New York. I was less than thrilled about the marathon journey which would get me home. At LAX airport everything appeared fine. We boarded the plane and waited, and waited … and waited. It was then that we were told to disembark due to an onboard problem. As we sat in the airport terminal it got later and later, and I realised I would miss the last connection to London. I ventured up to the American Airlines desk and called Micol to tell her about the situation. She was very clear to me about how I should complain; be polite, firm and fair (she’s seen me get upset before). I followed her advice and found myself reseated on a direct flight to London, in first class, and I was very happy.

This week Moses has to deal with another complaint. It might seem like the Israelites have been complaining ever since we crossed the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 14). At Marah the water was bitter (Exodus 15:23-27), at Sin they complained that there was no food (Exodus 16:1-4), and they’ve continued complaining almost every step of the way.

This week the complaint is not from the entire congregation; instead Korach, the man who gives his name to the Torah Portion, steps forward, together with a group of 250 Israelite leaders, to voice their dissatisfaction. The whole thing gets of to a bad start as ‘they rose up before Moses’ (Numbers 16:2). They did not ‘come before Moses’ or approach him, ‘they rose up’ as though preparing for a confrontation. It is the same verb which is used when the angels set of to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16), a worrying precursor.

Korach’s complaint may have had some underlying legitimacy: ‘You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you lift up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?’ (Numbers 16:3). After all, it is not the first time we have heard that Moses was overworked and overburdened.

The last person to have a Torah portion named after himself was Yitro, who came before Moses and said to him: ‘The thing that you do is not good. You will certainly wear away, both you, and this people who are with you; for this thing is too heavy for you; you are not able to perform it yourself alone’ (Exodus 18:17-18). The sentiment is not so far removed from Korach’s, however, its delivery and the intention behind it is completely different.

Yitro offered Moses critical feedback so that he would be able to do his job better, and serve the Israelite community more effectively. Korach rose up before Moses out of self-interest, and with an agenda for his personal aggrandisement. While his message that Moses was overburdened may still have been correct, he delivered it as an aggressive criticism, rather than a piece of constructive feedback. Korach allowed his personal agenda to overshadow his point and permitted his anger to silence the core message.

Korach’s reward for his insubordination was to be swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 16:32). A new punishment was devised for this man, who challenged Moses’ right to leadership. He may well have been correct that Moses was overburdened, but he shared his complaint in such a way as to deny himself any legitimacy. In contrast Yitro’s feedback leads to an entire reorganisation of the judicial system.

I don’t think I would have been swallowed up by the earth if I had complained more aggressively or more vehemently to the American Airlines assistant, but I am sure I would not have been upgraded to first class. There is a way to complain and there is a way not to complain. Korach was unfortunate not to have Micol whispering in his ear, before he brought his challenge to Moses, things might have turned out very differently.

My Sermon - 5th June - The Real Peace Activist (A response to the Gaza Flotilla)

2010-06-06T02:20:00.000-07:00

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. The place: A Halloween party in Stanmore. The date: The 4th of November, 1995.

We were standing on the street outside when someone said that the Prime Minister of Israel had been killed. As a friend and I talked about it, we assumed that it must have been an Arab terrorist who had murdered Yitzhak Rabin. He was the man pursuing peace, so it was only logical that the forces of violence and hatred would have tried to stop him. It did not even enter our minds to consider the possibility that it would have been another Jew. We were so used to looking for the enemy on the outside, that we never thought to consider the enemy amongst us, or even the enemy within.

How different the world might be today if Yitzhak Rabin, the warrior for peace, the man who signed the Oslo accords with the Palestinians and made peace with Jordan, had not been murdered on the streets of Tel Aviv almost 15 years ago.

Yitzhak Rabin is my hero; for the man he was, for the man he became and for the dream he envisioned and sacrificed his life pursuing.

Yitzhak Rabin wanted to be a water engineer, but at the age of 16, he was handed a gun and called upon to defend his family, his people and the fledgling state of Israel. In 1967, he was the army Chief of Staff when Israel achieved its miraculous victory in the Six Day War. He was a member of the Government when the Yom Kippur War was waged. He embodied the Israel Defence Force and the military struggle to create and protect the State of Israel.

And yet, when the opportunity for peace presented itself, he rushed to put down his gun. In the words of the Prophets he was ready to beat his sword into a ploughshare and turn his spear into a pruning hook. He was ready to become a soldier for peace. He twice stood on the White House lawn to shake the hands of his former enemies; first with Yasser Arafat in 1993 and then with King Hussein of Jordan in 1994.

On November the 4th, at that fatal peace rally in Tel Aviv he addressed the gathered masses:
I was a military man for 27 years. I fought so long as there was no chance for peace. I believe that there is now a chance for peace, a great chance. We must take advantage of it for the sake of those standing here, and for those who are not here - and they are many.

I have always believed that the majority of the people want peace and are ready to take risks for peace. In coming here today, you demonstrate, together with many others who did not come, that the people truly desire peace and oppose violence. Violence erodes the basis of Israeli democracy. It must be condemned and isolated. This is not the way of the State of Israel.

Yitzhak Rabin was prepared to fight to defend the Jewish people and the State of Israel when fighting was necessary. And he was ready to transform that struggle into one for peace when the opportunity presented itself. He was a true rodef shalom, a pursuer of peace – a real peace activist.

This week has been a difficult one for those of us who love Israel. It’s been a difficult week for those of us who truly pray for peace and pursue it. And it has been a difficult week to be Jewish.

The media like to see things in black and white, with an oppressor and a victim, with a right and a wrong. The conflict is described as being between Israelis and Arabs, or Israelis and Palestinians. And when one listens to the radio phone-ins, this quickly descends into a conflict labelled as one between Jews and Muslims. Make no mistake, as Dr. Martin Luther King warned us, anti-Zionism quickly descends into anti-Semitism; and as anti-Zionist rhetoric reaches new heights, we have to be cautious about the threat to our own community.

But the media are mistaken; they are wrong and I would go so far as to say they are fanning the flames of conflict. The Middle East dispute is not between Jews and Muslims, or even Israelis and Palestinians. It is a conflict between those who want peace and those who want war; between those who accept Israel’s right to exist, and those who wish her wiped of the map; between activists for peace and enemies of peace.

Yitzhak Rabin pursued peace with both his words and his actions, clearly placing himself on one side of the divide. Unfortunately, this week we have seen the forces of violence and hatred portraying themselves as champions of peace. The members of the IHH, who led the flotilla, have been labelled by the media as peace activists. It grates every time I hear it, but then why should I be surprised when the members of Hamas and Hezbollah are called fanatics, rather than terrorists.

The Turkish based IHH, is also known as the ‘Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief’. With such a name, one would assume that it would be filled with lovers and pursuers of peace. These were the people who set sail for Gaza to bring aid and relief to the Palestinians who are in a very real sense suffering. Before even considering the events of earlier this week, it is important to realise that the IHH have long been suspected and accused of having very real links with extremist terrorists. If the aim was really to bring much needed aid and supplies to the people of Gaza, surely the offer of taking them via Ashdod should have been acceptable – and we should not forget that for 5 of the 6 boats, it was. If the aim was really peaceful protest, then a convoy of ships stranded several miles from the coast of Gaza could have created a very powerful picture for the international media.

The aims of the members of this boat were never peaceful.

Now, I will be the first to admit that Israel could have, and should have, dealt with the situation better. Israel should have recognised the public relations trap into which they were walking. Israel needed to find another way to deal with the flotilla.

But in five out of six boats, a peaceful solution was found. In five out of six boats, the passage of the aid was prioritised over PR. In five out of six boats, the forces of peace triumphed. In one boat, violence erupted. Had the Israel Defence Force wanted to really attack this boat, there would have been many more than nine dead. Israel naively boarded this boat looking for a peaceful solution, and they were hijacked by the forces of war and violence.

This was not a boat of peace activists. It is an insult to the great peace activists of the 20th century to label these people as peace activists. Mahatma Ghandi, Vaclav Havel, Martin Luther King Jr, Anwar Sadat, Desmond Tutu, Yitzhak Rabin - these were peace activists. They could be judged by their words and their actions, as both spoke their truth. These people’s actions betrayed their true nature and their true intentions.

Israel made mistakes and Israel is not completely blameless; but the media’s oversimplification is upsetting, negligent and dangerous.

Today, Israel is vulnerable and isolated as she faces an existential threat from the unholy trinity of Hamas, Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad. The Iranian regime continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons while their leader publicly declares that Israel is a stain which must be wiped of the map. Hezbollah, which has labelled Israel a cancerous entity, continues to amass weapons on Israel’s northern border, preparing for another conflict. And Hamas develops its weapons capabilities to strike deeper and further into Israeli territory.

These groups are the enemies of Israel. These groups are the enemies of peace. These groups spread violence and bloodshed. And most significantly, these groups are also the enemies of the Palestinian people.

In recent years, the contrast between the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip and the Fatah-controlled West Bank is striking. Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction have rejected violence as a way to reach a solution to this conflict, and they have prospered. Over the last three years, the West Bank has flourished as a result of international aid, improved Palestinian security and the resulting reduction in Israeli restrictions. While the people of Gaza continue to suffer under the oppressive Hamas regime, which would rather score PR points than actually help its people.

This week, with all that has happened, peace may seem to be a very distant, almost unattainable dream. But we must remember what Yitzhak Rabin, the real peace activist, told us when he signed the Israeli-Palestinian declaration of Principles.
Our inner strength, our high moral values, have been derived for thousands of years from the Book of Books, in one of which, Koheleth, we read:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.

We must recognize our enemies; exposing the opponents of peace, the proponents of war, and the activists of violence. And they exist among both the Israelis and the Palestinians. But at the same time, we must find the real peace activists from across the political and religious spectrum. We must unite with them and we must work with them to fulfil Rabin’s vision, to achieve peace and security for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the entire Middle East, so that one day we can finally turn our swords into ploughshares, our spears into pruning hooks.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr preached:
We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

May we all be true peace activists, pursuing a just and lasting peace for our peoples and for all the world. Ken yehi ratzon – may it be God’s will.

Two Minutes of Torah: Shelach Lecha (Numbers 13:25-14:10) - Fear of the Unknown

2010-06-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

I find making decisions quite difficult; so much so that I have a reputation as a bit of a procrastinator (possibly even indecisive) amongst my friends. The place where this is most clearly exhibited is when I have to book a plane ticket. I will do almost anything possible to avoid finally clicking the button which confirms my booking. I make excuses about the price, the time, anything and everything just to delay the inevitable. And frequently it ends up costing me money, as prices rise while I dither and delay.

This irrational behaviour does not come from a fear of flying, or any specific concern relating to booking a holiday. My paralysing fear is of the unknown. How can I book a flight for several months from now, and know that nothing is going to come up which is going to make this booking a mistake. Maybe I should be flying earlier, perhaps the next day would be better, and how can I know any of this so far in advance of the event?

Fear can be a paralysing emotion. Concern about the unknown and the unpredictable consequences can stop people making any progress or moving forward. It is for this reason that Franklin D Roosevelt famously said: ‘we have nothing to fear but fear itself’. He may well have been right, but it can be difficult to put his advice into action.

This week the spies bring back their report about the Land of Israel; and the people are offered two conflicting accounts. Calev assures them: ‘Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it’ (Numbers 13:30). In contrast the other spies (except for Joshua) warn: ‘We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we … The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers’ (Numbers 13:31-32). The people follow the majority report and yearn to return to Egypt, rather than venturing forward to the Land of Israel.

The Israelites are often condemned for their lack of faith. After experiencing the Exodus from Egypt, and having witnessed the giving of Torah at Sinai; surely they should have recognised that nothing was too difficult for God. They should have trusted God and Calev’s report.

But why is it so surprising that they are frightened? Why should we be shocked at the fact that the Israelites are anxious about conquering the Land of Israel? They were scared by the report they received, they were frightened by the prospect of war and they feared what lay ahead. They knew the land of Egypt, they had grown used to life in the wilderness and they were simply afraid of the unknown. When the people say: ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt’ (Numbers 14:2), this is not a literal request. Instead they are asking for the certainty and security of a life without changes, without a journey into an unknown land.

I would love to think that I would have been a dissenting Israelite, cheering for Calev and Joshua (the other spy to offer a positive report), looking forward to the fulfilment of God’s promise. But I am honest if enough to admit that as someone who is paralysed with fear about booking an airline ticket, I would probably have been happier with the certainty of the wilderness than the mysterious Land of Israel. This would not have been due to a lack of faith; instead it would have been because of fear.

At the Pesach Seder one of the central messages is that WE were slaves in Egypt, and WE were freed by God. We share in the Exodus experience of our ancestors, and perhaps we should also say that WE were among the generation who were too scared to advance upon the Land of Israel. In stating this out loud we acknowledge the fact that we too were once paralysed by fear, and may be again. But we have the benefit of hindsight, and the ability to know that it was truly a land flowing with milk and honey, a land which we were able to conquer and settle.

From this experience we can acknowledge that Roosevelt was correct and that there really is nothing to fear but fear itself. We can learn the lesson of our wilderness experience and try to subdue our fears of the unknown in the future so that we can all reach our own promised land.

Two Minutes of Torah: Behaalotecha (Numbers 9:15-10:13) - It’s like riding a bike

2010-05-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting gifts I received for my Bar Mitzvah was a brand new mountain bike. As a child I loved cycling round the block, and when I was at university for three years I cycled everywhere with my trusty mountain bike. It feels like I have always been riding bikes, so much so that I can’t actually remember my dad teaching me how to ride a bike. But I imagine, as difficult as it was for me to learn, it was harder for him.

I am sure that he ran alongside me, holding me up as I pedalled; while he supported me, balanced me and made sure I did not fall. And eventually he must have released his grip, and trusted me to cycle on my own. He had to let me go to allow me to really pedal and balance unsupported. And he had to accept the risk that I might fall. Teaching a child to ride a bike requires a moment where the parent steps back and allows the child to cycle independently. It must be a tremendously difficult moment as the parent has to let go.

I often imagine that our relationship with God can be likened to a parental relationship. Today, we are riding our bicycles as God stands off to the side. This is not to say that God is absent, or does not care. Rather God watches, smiling as we cycle forward and weeping when we fall.

The way that our relationship with God has developed can be seen when we read the stories in our Torah. In this week’s Torah portion the Israelites journey from Sinai begins, and God is clearly at the front, supporting and leading the people. ‘At a command of Adonai the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of Adonai they made camp: they remained encamped as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle… On a sign from Adonai they made camp and on a sign from Adonai they broke camp’ (Numbers 9:18&23). God appears unwilling, or unable, to allow the people to move forward on their own. Like the parent holding the bicycle while the child pedals. God led us through the wilderness and we followed.

There is certainly something appealing about this Divine relationship. It would be nice to have God guiding and directing us. We would not need to make any real decisions; instead we could rely on a sign from God to tell us exactly what we should do. And if we transgressed one of God’s commandments we could have expected an instantaneous punishment (we just need to read the story of Korach in two weeks time, when he is swallowed up by the earth – Numbers 16:1-35).

But that situation would be akin to riding a bike, if not with a parent’s support, then at least with two stabiliser wheels connected to the back. There comes a time when the parent has to let go, and the child has to pedal forward independently. We live at a time when God has let go, and we have to live independently. The spoon fed generation of the wilderness behaved in a way which reflected their situation. They were constantly complaining when they went without food or water for a day or two at a time, expecting everything to be provided for them. They were overly reliant on God; we have attained some form of independence.

The relationship with God is never broken, but we are allowed to live our lives with freedom of choice and an ability to discern for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. We may make mistakes, and we may lack the certainty of a direct connection to God. But we are being treated like adults (the very thing children so often appear to desire), and we are being entrusted with tremendous gifts: the gifts of independence, freedom and choice. God trusts us to exercise them appropriately and God hopes that we will continue to move forward, making progress, because after all it’s just like riding a bike.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Naso (Numbers 5:1-16) - Caring for the sick

2010-05-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

In the summer of my second year at rabbinic school I spent a week volunteering at the North London Hospice as part of my pastoral training. The hospice, unexpectedly, was a truly inspiring place. I watched as volunteers, nurses and doctors brought honour and dignity to the final weeks of peoples’ lives. The hospice was a place of care and compassion, a haven for people who were ill and suffering. There was no trepidation about coming into contact with people who were sick, no shadow hang over the place, and everyone was treated as independent adults.

One of the most striking experiences came on the final day when I joined a social worker on her visits to people who were not full time patients in the hospice. At the first old age home we visited, a carer met with us and said to us in a whisper: “she has cancer”. This woman could not bring herself to say the ‘c-word’ out loud, as though the word itself were a threatening disease. It was in stark contrast to the hospice itself, where all diseases, illnesses and ailments were spoken of in normal tones. The patient and the disease were not feared, they were treated.

A disease may not be contagious, but people may still be fearful of the patient, not just the word. In this week’s Torah portion the people are commanded: ‘take out off the camp every leper, and every one who has a bodily discharge, and whoever is defiled by the dead … that they defile not their camps’ (Numbers 5:2-3). In this context the leper, suffering from a disease is expelled from the camp – not necessarily the best way to encourage a full recovery.

Leprosy, bodily discharge and contact with the dead may appear as three unrelated occurrences. When viewing this Biblical commandment, we have to recognise that these three situations are related to impurity. All of these conditions would cause a person to be ritually impure and therefore spread this impurity. It is not a reference to leprosy as a disease; it is considering leprosy solely as an impurity.

When considering leprosy as a disease we have other obligations for the way in which we treat the sick. The Siddur, combining Mishnah Peah 1:1 and Shabbat 127a, states: ‘These are the things whose interest we enjoy in this world, while the capital remains for us in the world to come … visiting the sick’. This command is so important that we are rewarded for it twice – once in this world and once in the world to come.

Our Torah portion tells us to expel the leper from the camp, while we are rewarded for visiting the sick. Although they seem to contradict each other, they can function together. The law concerning leprosy refers to a disease which was considered to be a ritual impurity and transmissible. We need to be cautious about contagious diseases, but we must still visit the sick. Our visits, treating the patient with honour and dignity, can help to bring healing and comfort. We cannot and must not simply send them out off the camp to be forgotten and ignored.

The hospice taught me an important lesson about not allowing my fears of an illness or disease to effect the way that I treat the patient.

The law concerning leprosy was about ritual purity, which related to service in the Temple. We must consider that being fit to serve in the Temple was not just about external purity, but also about internal purity – the way we behave. Visiting the sick is a way of elevating our internal purity, and acting in a holy way, fitting of service for the Temple.

Two Minutes of Torah: Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-19) - Everybody Counts

2010-05-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

When we lived in Los Angeles, one of our favourite restaurants was called C&O. It was a very popular restaurant and it was always necessary to book in advance. The problem was that even with a booking, a party would not be seated until every single member of the group was present. We would worry about one particular friend who was invariably late and so risked our entire booking; even if every other person had arrived on time. I am sure there was some sensible business reason for this policy, but for me the message was, and is, that everybody counts.

The fourth book of the Torah begins with a similar message. God instructs Moses: ‘take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of names, every male by their polls; From twenty years old and upwards’ (Numbers 1:2-3). We may struggle with the sexist nature of this census, excluding the women, or the purpose of it, which seems related to an ability to wage war (Numbers 1:3). However, as always we have to recognise the context (including its problems) and seek the lesson within it.

This is essentially the first instruction following the dedication of the Tabernacle. It was dedicated on the first day of the first month in the second year after the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 40:17), and this command was given on the first day of the second month of the second year (Numbers 1:1). With the Tabernacle erected, and God dwelling in the midst of the Israelite community, the next task was to count the people.

In our modern Judaism the importance of each individual persists with the laws of minyan. Ten adult Jews are required in order that all of the prayers can be recited. With only nine people at a service there should technically be no Barechu, no Kedushah in the Amidah, and no Kaddish. Ten people are needed, and if a single one is missing the community is incomplete and unable to fulfil its complete religious function.

We may think that it is all a “game” of numbers, people are essentially tally marks to reach a minyan or count an army. But the Hebrew goes further; it specifically says bemispar shemot – with the number of names (Numbers 1:2). The census is not just about counting the adult males; it is also about recording their names. People are more than just numbers, there are names – each individual is significant and unique. When Abraham was originally blessed by God, the promise that he received was: ‘I will make your name great’ (Genesis 12:2). Having a name is an important piece of what makes us unique individuals.

The census is made up of names and numbers – and both elements are crucial in community. When I led an RSY-Netzer Israel Tour we would have the participants ‘number off’ each time we boarded the bus. Each person had their own number and they would call them out, in order, so that we knew everyone was present. If one number was missing, the count was broken and we recognised our community was incomplete and we could not proceed (thankfully we never lost anyone). To count, all numbers are needed – each one is important and necessary.

But at the same time people are not just numbers; a community is made up of unique individuals. Each person has a name and is more than just a number. We did not refer to our Israel Tour participants by their numbers; we knew them by their names, by their stories, interests and passions. It is the balance between the two, numbers and names, which creates community.

We must always remember that if one person is missing, or if one person is anonymous, our community is incomplete.

Two Minutes of Torah: Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:47-26:13) - The power of nature

2010-05-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

In the space of my lifetime I find it amazing to think how far technology has advanced. As a child I remember once a week we used to gather around the phone for a crackly conversation with my grandparents in Israel. It was expensive and the quality was poor. Today, I switch on my computer and I can have a conversation with my grandparents, which includes live video and costs me nothing. I remember a world before the internet and one without mobile phones, let alone blackberries and Iphones. Advances in technology have made things which we only dreamed about possible. Is there anything we humans cannot do?

And then, a virtually anonymous volcano in Iceland begins erupting and we humans are reminded just how powerless we are in the face of the awesome force of nature. European flights were brought to a standstill and there was nothing we could do about the volcanic ash filling the atmosphere. All of our technological know how and scientific innovations were no match for the power of the natural world. For several days the skies were empty as nature reasserted herself.

In our modern, technologically advanced world we can often forget our relationship with, and reliance upon, nature. Our Biblical ancestors were well aware of the power nature held over them. In this week’s Torah portion, God spells out what will happen to the Israelites if they follow the laws and observe the commandments (Leviticus 26:3). The reward begins with nature: ‘I will give you rain in its season, and the land will increase its yield and the trees of the field will give their fruit’ (Leviticus 26:4). This was the ultimate prize which God could provide; the people were rewarded with nature’s bounty.

Today, in our concrete cities, we often forget about our relationship with nature. We do not feel the direct connection to the earth and the natural world in the way that our ancestors did. Our ancestors prayed to God and hoped that they would receive nature’s gifts. We still do this in the second paragraph of the Amidah. In autumn and winter we pray: ‘making the wind blow and the rain fall’, asking for the natural world to provide for the earth’s needs; but do we really think about what this request really means?

The volcano in Iceland was a stark reminder to our urban society that all of our progress can be brought to a stand still by the power of nature.

This week’s Torah portion sets up a very clear relationship of cause and effect. If the Israelites observed God’s rules, they would be rewarded with nature’s bounty. We may reject this conception of reward and punishment, but we can all recognise that there is a relationship between our actions and the natural world.

From the very beginning of creation we have had a responsibility for the natural world. Adam and Eve were commanded to till the earth and tend to it (Genesis 1:28), while Noah ensured the survival of all life on this planet (Genesis 6:8-9:22). There has always been a triangular relationship between God, the natural world and the people. God created the world and we were given a role within it. By protecting nature and our planet we serve God. If we can fulfil this task then surely we will be rewarded with a natural world which will provide for us.

Reading our sacred texts and remembering the way in which our ancestors related to nature can serve an important role in influencing the ways we live our lives today. The Icelandic volcano reminded us of nature’s power. I would not suggest that this was a Divinely ordained punishment, rather it seems that our planet was offering us a warning and reminder. By obeying God’s commandments perhaps we can receive a natural reward.

Two Minutes of Torah: Parashat Emor (Leviticus 21:1-15) - Family Comes First

2010-04-30T07:40:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of the Jewish Ethics GCSE course there is a question about the relevance of laws and texts which are over 2,000 years old. In the class there is always a fascinating discussion about how significant these laws are. There is an attachment to our Jewish tradition and heritage, but they are also aware of the fact that some laws no longer feel relevant. We can all recognise that elements of Judaism remain applicable, while there are others laws and obligations which we would seek to discard. The laws of shiva and mourning appear to be some of the most relevant, pertinent and important guidelines we have.

The Jewish mourning cycle is arranged around distinct periods of time: from death to burial, the seven days of shiva, the first 30 days of shloshim and then the regulations of the initial year. The demarcated periods of time allow for the mourners to gradually adjust to life without their loved ones and slowly return to everyday life.

In this week's Torah portion the Priests are instructed not to defile themselves by a dead body (Leviticus 21:1). This is in many ways a contribution of the purity laws, as a dead body makes a Priest impure and therefore unfit to serve in the Temple. However family comes first, and the Priests are told "But for his family [he may be defiled] for his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, and his brother, also for a virgin sister, close to him because she has not married, for her he may defile himself" (Leviticus 2:2-3).

To be a Priest and work in God's holy Temple means to come into the presence of God, and be close to the Divine; for the Biblical Israelites it is the most important task possible, and yet even for this the priest should prioritise family.

In the midst of all of these laws and obligations for serving God we are reminded that family takes precedence. From this list the Rabbis developed the mourning obligations for all Jews. The people for whom the Priests become impure are the family members we mourn for.

Earlier in the Book of Leviticus, during the Holiness Code, two of the Ten Commandments were restated. In Exodus, when we stood at Mount Sinai, Shabbat was Commandment Four (Exodus 20:8-11) and honouring parents was number Five (Exodus 20:12). In the Holiness Code we are instructed: "a person should respect their mother and father and keep my Shabbatot" (Leviticus 19:3). When commanded at Sinai we must keep Shabbat and honour our parents, when we are attempting to be holy, family comes first.

Religion, especially the priestly sacrificial system, can often be characterised as cold and austere. Here, with the laws of mourning, we are reminded of the humanity and compassion which is present within Judaism. Laws and commandments are important, but family comes first.

Two Minutes of Torah: Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:23-37) - After death speak holiness

2010-04-23T04:51:00.001-07:00

For all of the sacrifices and uncomfortable reading which we have in the Book of Leviticus (last week was all about menstrual blood and leprosy), in the middle of this Book we find the Torah portion of Kedoshim. And there we find the holiness code; one of those sections of Torah which we Reform Jews love to read. It is here that we read of our obligation to be holy as an emulation of God (Leviticus 19:2). Here too we have the instructions to leave the corner of the vineyard for the poor (Leviticus 19:10), the obligation not to curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind (Leviticus 19:14), and most famously we have the law: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18). Kedoshim is a glorious Torah portion.

The Torah itself is divided 54 portions, and the Jewish year regularly includes anything from 50 Shabbatot up to 55 Shabbatot,[1] which means that in weeks like this one (and last week) we have a double Torah portion.

While we will be reading a section at WLS for the portion of Kedoshim, it is also the Torah portion of Acharei Mot. This first Torah portion begins: ‘And Adonai spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons’ (Leviticus 16:1) and it contains more sacrificial laws and a list of sexual offences. The name of the Torah portion comes from the link which we have with the death of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu, which took place a few chapters earlier (Leviticus 10:1-3).

It means that this Shabbat is Acharei Mot, which means ‘after death’ and Kedoshim, which means ‘holiness’. It is strange to read this two Torah portions side by side as they contain very different subject matter. And yet when their names are placed together we read: ‘After death, holiness’. When this is added with next week’s Torah portion we have ‘Acharei Mot Kedoshim Emor’, which as a sentence can be translated as ‘after death speak holiness’. The names of these three Torah portions provide us with an important lesson when dealing with death.

As a religion, we require that the mourners recite Kaddish with a minyan present, to prevent them from slipping into silence in the face of personal loss and tragedy. We do not allow the mourner to withdraw physically or verbally. Instead, tradition requires that three times a day, the mourner appears in public and speaks. We recognize that in the face of suffering and loss, it is often very hard to say anything. One can view the entire Jewish ritual connected with death and loss as a way of supporting the mourner and giving them time to grieve, while simultaneously ensuring that they do not, and cannot, slip into silence and solitude.

The challenge is that it can sometimes be difficult to approach someone who is mourning. We, as the friends and family, don’t know what to say, and we fear that our words will never suffice. But with very few words we can show a person that we do care. We might find it hard to speak to someone after they have suffered a bereavement; but if we keep in our mind this instruction: ‘after death speak holiness’, we will find words which will provide comfort. The words themselves are not as important, as the fact that we are speaking them. There is sacredness in our words when they are used to comfort and console, this is the holiness which we are instructed to speak after death.

[1] The Hebrew calendar follows a lunar cycle, and 7 times every 19 years an extra month is added so that festivals remain at the correct seasons, this is why people will often say ‘Rosh Hashannah is early this year’ because it can be anywhere from the beginning of September into October.