‘HOME’ – Rosh Hashanah 2025

We are home.

But it is not just literal. Here in the unfinished walls and floors, carpets not yet down and wires still loose. Here are still the memories and experiences that makes this place home. We spend our whole lives desperate for home. For the feeling of belonging and recognition. Home is that belonging and we think of our Monty Bixer whenever we say that. But it’s not necessarily always peaceful or unified. Homes are notoriously complicated and the dynamics therein. There will always be difference and challenge.  And therefore, it’s undeniable that who is in the home is just as important as the walls and roofs that lovingly hold them.  So, who are we as a congregation now after this year?

When the sanctuary is built in the book of Exodus God makes this surprising suggestion to the Israelites-

Asu li mikdash v’schachanti b’tocham.

Make me a sanctuary that I might dwell among you all. (Ex 25)

Amongst you not in it.

So who are we as we return to this building after a year of so much?

If we sat here now and cried together it might be all we need. It has been quite a time for us, as Jews and as people. But today is Hayom Harat Olam, another name for Rosh Hashanah which means not just the birthday of the world but the conception of it and with that we recommit and re-dream and re-envisage. And that includes how to be in our new home. And how to feel part of it and belong here.

Anthony and I were married a few weeks ago. [NB As a rabbi what a ludicrous time to do so in the shadow of the HHDs, but actually I am glad I did because the memories are so fresh]. We stood under the chuppah that we had constructed with our own hands-the canopy of four tallitot, each of ours, and from the oldest and youngest in our families-my dad and our youngest son. It symbolised the home we’ll be constructing, the sides open and welcoming to all-informed by all the generations that make up family. For sure it won’t always be easy or quiet but it will be open and expansive and spacious enough for all of us, all of our different opinions and disagreements.

And I think of that here for us today. All of our generations, all of our people, all of our stories, all our hopes, all our opinions. So many opinions.

We have negotiated the challenge of dissenting polarised views for almost 2 years, and of course much longer. And I must, as so many of my colleagues will, speak to this today. So, I want to imagine a Shabbat dinner table full of dissenting but loving family. Around the table are all of us. Radically different but empathetic towards each other’s experiences of of trauma, fear, shame and responsibility. Rabbi A J Heschel, whom you know I love, famously said we don’t need text books we need text people-people who inspire us in their courage and interest. So I want to place and seat a few of those text people around our table. To help us take stock, and learn from each other as a congregation today. ^[1]

We have two dear friends of mine Miriam and Kitty, both Holocaust survivors, Harry an old time member of FPS, Isaiah a Conservative rabbi refugee from Kristallnacht and prominent Jewish historian. Gidon, a Reform rabbi and Member of the Knesset as well as Lea, mother of a murdered hostage. Me and all of you are there as well. A radical dinner party like the artist Judy Chicago created in the 1970s but now we are wrestling with what it means to be Jews in the diaspora right now.

We arrive and we sit down around this large table. Use your imagination it is very large. We offer kiddush and hamotzi people start to drink and the challah is broken and passed as we welcome each other and introduce our stories.

Miriam is 90, was a Hungarian hidden child and so miraculously survived the Shoah. She tells her story of ending up here in London. “I’m still a Jungian analyst and I see patients from my couch on my iPad.” She tells of the film about her Holocaust experiences after having made tapestries of her dreams. “I am terrified and traumatised since October 7th 2023, I find it hard to talk to my Iraqi neighbour. I see Anti Semitism on the streets even though I don’t go out anymore. It’s like it’s 80 years ago and I am afraid. Israel as the haven it was in 1948 must remain so. We need it. We cannot criticise it.”

Kitty, also 90 a Hungarian Jew who was saved as a child. She too ended up here in London and became an engineer, a pioneer for women in the industry and a few years ago, in her words, became an accidental Holocaust educator. Kitty finds herself in a radically different space and says to us, “ My experience of cruelty, fear and persecution has created a different response. I am angry and concerned and worry no-one is heeding the never again ‘lesson. I can’t bear the harm that is being perpetuated. If I could, I would march with fellow Holocaust survivors. This can’t be right.”

Next to her is Harry, a long time FPS member dedicated to the Jewish community here, and in Israel. “1967 was a critical moment for me and my identity I even remember the call from the Bimah that Yom Kippur of 1974.” He tells us. “ My Jewish heart is animated and informed only by love, loyalty and acceptance of Klal Yisrael and the trauma Israel has sustained. I can’t bear to hear those who criticise Israel and raise their voices for that cause.” We nod and welcome him.

Across from him is Lea, the mother of a murdered hostage who from the beginning of that poignant masking tape worn daily to chart the days passing has advocated for the Palestinians as her fellow sufferers, and the problems she sees in the assault on Gaza-an assault that violated a code she had always believed in. She campaigns hard, daily for the return of every last hostage, alive or dead to their families and homes. She starts talking; and tells us about Rav Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and his teaching ‘if a halakcha— a decree of Jewish law — contradicts our moral sense, that “tension indicates that we have misunderstood the halakhah, because the Torah is paved with mercy, with peace, with kindness.”

She pleads with us all to oppose the violent extremism we are seeing.

“The salty, tasty extreme is comforting.’ She says, “It’s fun, and sometimes it even feels righteous. But it’s not”. She bangs her glass on the table and says in her gentle voice. “Give us back our children. It’s enough. And it’s enough in Gaza, enough devastation enough humiliation and enough death for everyone.” Even in her grief she tells us she is begging her government to say sorry, to fellow hostage parents and to her fellow Palestinian grieving parents in Gaza and in the West Bank. She begs us Jews in the diaspora to express outrage too. “We are not what we say, we are not what we think, and we are not even what we believe. In this life,” she tells us all, “we are what we do.” Her words are powerful and courageous.

Harry with great sensitivity, and in distress interrupts. “Israel is allowed to do what it needs. We must support it unconditionally. That is the role of the Jewish community. Am Yisrael Chai. For always, in all situations at all times..” Miriam nods approvingly. Kitty disagrees. “No state can behave with impunity. How can we have gone through as a people the suffering we know and be so blind now? Every Jew and Israeli I know understands there must be conditions. How can I let my grandchildren see us standing idly by?”

Lea nods sadly and passes a piece of challah to MK Gidon the Reform rabbi who takes his Judaism and his role as parliament member seriously. He’s never visited FPS but he’s really pleased to be here. He asks Harry, “What could Israel do that would cause you not to support it?”. Harry was silent for a moment before looking at him and answering, “Nothing.” Again we nod as we listen to him.

Gidon quotes Isaiah the prophet who we read last Shabbat.

For the sake of Zion, I will not be still; for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be silent (62:2) “Why are you silent he asks us? I want to tell you that I was pulled out of a Knesset sitting because I challenged the idea of there being no innocents in Gaza. No, I cried. No. Last time people spoke like that it was us as the victims. I told my fellow Members of Parliament, to push through our trauma and fear to be brave and just and call out the extremism of our government.” And then he reminded us that he asked visiting rabbis in February (I was one of those eleven who were with him) “lead your communities-speak out rail against the extremism on both sides. Call for moderate leadership. There are partners waiting. And this effects all Jews.”

It is deeply affecting for us all hearing these Israelis speak like this.

Isaiah. 89 years old rabbi, scholar and professor of Jewish history, having never spoken out on anything political before he now turns to Kitty and Miriam fellow survivors, and with great sadness in his voice says that chilul hashem -the desecration of Go’d’s name is taking place in Gaza, and on the West Bank and therefore by Judaism. “If we don’t speak out now it might be too late.” He says to us all. Heartbreakingly for him he compares the silence, complacency, and support by many Jewish religious leaders to the silence of Christian theologians and religious leaders in 1940s Germany. It is shocking to hear him a traditional Jew say these things.

Everyone talks and is moved to be there. We listen and we hear each other’s distress. But I am quiet. I am thinking of Achad Ha Am the nineteenth century philosopher -he of more than the Jews have kept Shabbat –Shabbat has kept the Jews, and his essay on the rabbi as Prophet or Priest. The prophet leads communities with courage, wisdom and prescience and the priest is guided by the responsibility to hold everyone intact. The truth is I am both. Every single day. Deciding whether to speak. I snap out of my thoughts as Harry asks me, “Rabbi, what do you think?” And I know that in all conscience I must talk.

I talk of beloved family in Israel. Of their experiences. And I also share the words from the midrash Esther Rabbah (8:6) “What is the meaning of ‘you keeping silent?’ if you are quiet and do not advocate for your people now, your destiny will be to be silenced for all eternity. Why? Because you had the opportunity to speak out in order to do good in your lifetime and you did not.” I talk of the horror of 7th October how it has triggered and traumatised so many. And how I feel and honour that pain we all share. I tell the table that Torah is heavy with strong ethics of war of avoiding moral injury. From destruction of [olive] trees to the way we behave to prisoners of war to the belief that the ends never justify the means. Of not hating the Egyptian because we were once that person in Egypt hated as a stranger. I share how much there is in Tanach that teaches us inconvenient truths. -“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink…He who oppresses the needy insults his Maker, but he who is kind to the needy honours God.‘(Proverbs 25 &14)

I talk of holding pain and responsibility, and how aware I am of the Jewish moral code to walk carefully the line between victim and victimiser. I mention the verses from Leviticus we’ll read on Yom Kippur tell us to be blind and neutral in justice -to ensure all have the same access to being human. I talk about ongoing violence in the West Bank from settlers and police that makes coexistence impossible where no-one is held accountable and Israelis despair and are frightened themselves by it even they watch the suffering of their Palestinian neighbours just wanting to live a safe and dignified life. I tell everyone that I visited the West Bank and that I saw it, we rabbis were even attacked by Settlers. I share words of thoughtful scholars who talk of the spiritual crisis in Judaism. And how this could threaten its very heart as the ethical voice that it has been since the age of Israel’s Prophets. I discover we seem all to be worried for and about our young peoples’ disappointment and alienation from their Judaism. We all are leaning in to our responsibility together to witness what we have seen.

We sit quietly. Someone pours more wine. Sometimes, I say, the binding nature of Klal Yisrael, the trauma we see in each other beloved family, fellow Jews lifts us up and sometimes it silences what Rav Kook suggested, is the moral tension we see. I don’t want my/our beloved Judaism to be a casualty alongside everything and everyone else.

The conversation pauses, (the table seems to be thinking). My children are there and some of their LJY Netzer friends. They’re angry with me for not having said enough. And some of you around the table are angry with me for having said too much. We eat roast chicken from my grandmother’s recipe and I make a beautiful leek tart for the vegetarians. And we are happy to be in our home, around the table however tense the chat is. And then we get up from our Friday night dinner-some prepare to drive others home. We wish each other well and say good bye but first we look around at the table at who was there. As serious as we are, we have been inspired.

This is the blessing I wish for Hutton Grove and our returning community in one of the most wretched times in recent Jewish history and certainly the global world. I pray for and believe we can sit round this metaphorical table in our renewed home. Our Mikdash Me’at, small sanctuary which is how synagogues and homes have been referred to as they replaced Temple. No-one ever said a home is homogenous and easy. One of the most useful phrases for this moment is tribal epistemology. The notion that what people know is linked inextricably to the group they identify with. That’s why facts so true to some feel abundantly untrue, even false to others. We are fractured and truth is so polarised and different. But we don’t give up, we continue to follow our own moral compass and remain open to learning and listening.

This is your home, even if you think differently from me and from others round this table and synagogue. I feel great admiration and concern for all of you. Every single one of you whose heart is conflicted, thoughtful and concerned. This is your home. I think we can do this-round a dinner table and here in our synagogue, acknowledge our different views and be here. Baruch HaYodea Razin is a beautiful expression Blessed is the one who knows secrets. Our views, our hearts our opinions are our own. Yet we are here together.

Now I ask you to look around our sanctuary here. The uplift of our roof and windows. The people you are sitting with. We believe in our future of raising our children to be just, confidant and engaged Jews and for our synagogue to continue with strength. You have given funds, and time, you have showed up and cared for each other. You have organised and designed and built and worked hard to hold us intact as a community.  So that now our new windows are flooding light into this sanctuary and our dreams are beaming out from them. In Torah we are told different people brought different elements to the Mishkan-the Sanctuary project. There was the need for soft fabric and also harsh strength to hold it up with poles and hooks, shelves and edges. Communities, like sanctuaries, are built out of difference. We need it all and looking out at you all today. We are doing just that.

I have learned we are more than the sum of our parts and our views. As Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself ;

Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

We can disagree profoundly and still see the menschlikeit shining from each other as we sit round this table, walk the corridors of this house and find our place again. Because we all have a place here. Synagogues -our synagogue must bring us together and give us the opportunity to think, reflect, be guided, and sometimes to be challenged.

Nachaman of Bratzlav famously called on his community in the worst of times. “Gevalt, Yidden! Do not despair. Gevalt, Yidden, do not despair.”  It is clear we have not done so here at FPS. We have been optimistic and hopeful. To have looked forward with the courage we have had through these days is simply astonishing.

We have always said our home will be a house of prayer for all people-it’s written above the front door. And that is us. We are courageous, kind and complicated. FPS belongs to us all. Every generation. Every colour and stripe of perspective and I am just the rabbi of this generation who has been blessed to lead you and I will bring that delicate balance of prophet and priest with me and my own balance of painful conscience and concern. We can talk and we can debate and we can study and we can be kind here.

May this be so for us this year. May we keep our hearts soft in this hard world as we enter this New Year with strength and kindness. Ken Yehi Ratzon.   

RB September 2025-5786

^[1] These are real people who have spoken these words-but I have given all pseudonyms.

^[1] These are real people who have spoken these words-but I have given all pseudonyms.