Much is written about the five sisters in this week’s parashah (Torah portion). The daughters of Zelophehad pleaded their case before Moses (and God) to inherit their father’s name and holding as there were no brothers. This had significant impact on inheritance and legacy rulings and Moses and God changed rules because of these daughters. What commentators particularly draw out is the fact they are named, all of them.
…The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. They stood before Moses, Elazar the priest, the chieftains and the whole assembly…(Numbers 27:1)
They were counted. They were named and they stood up and out to present their case. They boldly demanded an inheritance of the promised land and their names are repeated twice. Babylonian Talmud, in Bava Batra 119b praises them in three ways: as intelligent women knowing when was the right time to speak; as being knowledgeable in Israelite (Jewish) law, knowing the legal ramifications of their situation; and lastly, because they were unmarried and stood up for themselves, whatever their ages.
Doubtless they were astute pioneers. But for us as a congregation, I am particularly drawn this year, on re-reading the text, to the naming of the sisters. This week marked our 70th AGM and in all our remembering and praising what we have achieved, I am struck by the names of individuals whose lives have been touched by FPS and in turn leave their mark. We are nothing if not a congregation of individual named people who have shaped the customs, expectations and achievements of this our synagogue. All who step forward to take office carry the responsibility, however briefly, of the health and welfare of our community and the values we hold. I am so grateful this week for our Council and Executive and the passing the baton from our brilliant Chair Tamara Joseph to our next thoughtful and skilled Chair in Beverly Kafka.
And for me, it’s Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah who remind me of that.
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
This Shabbat, our teenagers graduating from our Kabbalat Torah group will lead FPS in commemorating Pride Shabbat, and we get great nachas watching these five FPS teens grow up and move into adulthood. Their portion, Balak, contains the blessing we know from Mah Tovu the words we offer every Shabbat morning at the beginning of our prayers:
Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishk’notecha Yisrael
How lovely are your tents [people of] Jacob; your sanctuaries [people of] Israel.
They feel the blessing of their synagogue and we should be proud of them and us for sustaining their connections.
I am very looking forward to this Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca.
We are, as a family, celebrating my father’s 80th birthday this coming weekend. I have been prepared for this moment by watching so many of your rites of passage and moments of joy throughout lives. As we have been exercised in planning our gathering, I have been struck by what it is we want to celebrate and make his legacy to us all: stories he wrote for us as children and the sensibility of literature and football, often at the same time.
Obviously I am thinking about our legacy as a congregation as we mark our 70th. What are we capturing that is important for the next 25 years and beyond? One thing that’s clear is that our building is tired and needs repair and renewal. Our spirit is strong but the ‘body’ that houses it is tired and whilst we ‘the family’ love it, we want newcomers and prospective members to be attracted to our home as well. At our AGM on 4th July, we will be able to share the plans we are now working towards. I wanted to remind you that whilst we have not come out and asked you all yet, we have already received extraordinary gifts and pledges and I wanted to get the rest of us thinking.
We knew we needed a few large, meaningful gifts and we have now received one for £50,000 and a pledge for the same. We have successfully been awarded a grant for £78,000 from Barnet Council. We have received several gifts of £5,000 and a couple of £10,000 donations. One courageous member has pledged £4,000 for every one of the next five years and some have given £100, £200, £500. All has been hugely appreciated. We are applying for many, many grants. We have now reached £488,000 but we need much more to be in the position to replace our roof, uplift our synagogue sanctuary, improve our welcoming spaces and upgrade us to an environmentally sustainable building.
I wanted to give you an update because this matters. We want to ensure the future and longevity of the joy we have in our synagogue and all it means for us – and that is what birthday celebrations are: identifying what we love best and ensuring we look after it.
In this week’s portion the Israelites are without water after Miriam’s death:
וְלֹא־הָ֥יָה מַ֖יִם.
There was no water …[Numbers 20:2]
They are desperate and Moses must access some for the people. I take this as a challenge. We will and should access what we need.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
A quick word from New York. I’ve been here to witness conversations about the challenges facing Progressive Judaism (indeed all paths outside Haredim).
Numbers are apparently down, even here in the relative Mecca of Jewish life. The fight for souls is intense here, the competition with other commitments is fierce, be it soccer, dance or the relatively new pickleball*! Gym membership is infinitely cheaper here than temples’ (the charming name for your local synagogue). NYC congregational membership for a family can be $4000 and apparently, that’s not outlandish. Please enjoy the relatively modest dues to FPS in comparison!
I’m thinking a lot about how, at our best, Judaism can and should speak poetically to what matters to us. I visited Ground Zero and my visit was made more moving by a beautiful D’var Torah I’d heard the night before by Central Synagogue’s Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.
Ayn Mukdam Ume’uchar.
There is no early or late in Torah.
As the deep compression / hole of those memorial pools filled with the water that flowed in and backed up, it made sense. The water flows, time passes, grief continues and new life emerges and none of it is necessarily linear. We take beginnings and endings together.
This Shabbat we’ll be commemorating our Czech scrolls, all three so precious to us at FPS, bringing their past and stories of lost communities of Austerlitz with them, even as our children renew them time and again when they read from them.
I’m looking forward to this and being reminded of this Talmudic verse and its layered meaning for all of us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rebecca Birk.
*Pickleball is a fun sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis and is played outdoors on a badminton-sized court and with a slightly modified tennis net. Two or four players use solid paddles made of wood or composite materials to hit a perforated polymer ball, over a net.
Americans, I (re)discovered, are very good at celebrating themselves. I found it impressive and not just a little life affirming.
So this Shabbat I am delighted we are honouring our 70th birthday with a summer bbq lunch and musical moment in the sunshine. We will offer appreciation of our outgoing Council members and Chair in the Shabbat service, conveniently the portion is KORACH which has a thing or two to say about leadership and its challenges. Korach and his band of followers criticise Moses and Aaron for leading the people.
“You have gone too far! For all the community are holy. . .Why then do you raise yourselves above the Eternal’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3)
… is what they shout at the brothers, who have frankly carried the people tirelessly for years, not just months.
I like that we will read these words and they’ll help us appreciate how much those who lead us do – and as far as I am aware there are no complaints about our Council, who carry us all in a supremely democratic, conscientious and thoughtful way, managing the day-to-day life of our congregation and the visionary parts as well.
This Shabbat will be an opportunity to laud our lay leaders who work so extraordinarily hard for our synagogue and who deserve and need that blessing we say over Torah books endings;
Chazak, Chazak, V’Nitchazek. Strength, Strength, Let Us Be Strengthened.
They have strengthened FPS and the next cohort will continue to do so.
Shabbat Shalom and see you then.
Rebecca.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
(To Be of Use, by Marge Piercy)
In turn I love this poem. It captures how I see the world and, well, being of use. But the role of rabbi is more than that. Rabbi Professor Larry Hoffman tells the story of a new rabbi trying to block time for thinking and studying and eventually giving up those spots in his diary for the inevitable and essential meetings of synagogue life. Meetings are indeed critical for the growth and well being of communities but so is thinking! I have the opportunity to attend two rabbinic conferences dedicated to study (and thinking) and I intend to dive right in with the same enthusiasm I take to work. I’m off to New York today for two days on Recharging Reform Judaism followed by a Shabbat visiting Manhattan congregations to taste services. And then on to Boston for the Women Rabbis’ Network annual convention. Rabbi Deborah Kahn-Harris and I will representing us British rabbis. I’ll report back and bring much with me on my return, especially just my thoughts.
Shabbat Shalom and more from me next week.
Rebecca.
Shavuot – meaning Weeks – is the poor relation of festivals, or it was when I grew up, somewhat forgotten next to Pesach and definitely drawing less focus than our relatively modern High Holydays. But it’s the best of holidays: study, flowers, fruit, cheesecake, the Book of Ruth, the ideas of conversion and joining Judaism and figuring out what matters.
It’s not just accessible and enabling but actually celebrates that. As well as the barley harvest, we celebrate Matah Matan HaTorah – the giving of Torah. That’s interesting for us as Liberal Jews who do not rely on Torah as written by God, Torah min Hashamayim.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai… his face was glowing…. He instructed them… and put a veil over his face. (Exodus 34:29-33)
But for certain we are inspired, challenged, provoked by the reading of Torah every week of the year and this week we get to engage more deeply.
2023 is the year we are joining with Southgate Progressive Synagogue for Shavuot. Rabbi Danny Rich and I are sharing the learning, the praying and the facilitating and will be exploring the ideas of human connectedness.
Our fate is bound up in each other (Babylonian Talmud Shevuot 39a)
This will be our programme on Thursday evening at SPS:
6.30pm Bring and Share Supper
7.00pm Shavuot service
7.45pm The Book of Ruth, Thomas Hardy and Rembrandt
8.35pm Cheesecake and Coffee
8.50-9.40pm The Torah of a New Progressive Judaism
9.40-10.20pm Jewish Attitudes to Conversion
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca.
If people feel they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand,
so wrote Howard Schultz when he began Starbucks coffee.
This is an interesting moment for those of us who have identified with Liberal Judaism over these past 60 years and more, indeed for anyone who has been drawn to its values these past 120 years. The Biennial conference of 2023, the first togetherness for 4 years or so, is entitled Liberal Judaism Matters, intended as a clever pun the matters / business of Liberal Judaism but also to engage with the idea that Liberal Judaism does matter and will continue to matter. The progressive expression and experience that has underscored our bit of Jewish real estate is still relevant, meaningful and important.
All the values of our Liberal Judaism and the stories that have brought us here and enabled so many of us to integrate our secular lives and our Jewish sensibility will permeate what our hopes will build when our ideologies and movements come together to build what’s next. As the beginning of the Book of Numbers calls for…
שְׂא֗וּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ֙ כָּל־עֲדַ֣ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֑ם בְּמִסְפַּ֣ר שֵׁמ֔וֹת
Count all the congregation of the children of Israel, by families following their family houses; a head count of every person according to their names and how many of them.
We will all be part of this.
For those wanting to be part of this shared Shabbat service with all of Liberal Judaism, do come along to FPS to share the streamed service at 11am as usual, to be together – or of course watch from home. I’ll be preaching there, so it may feel familiar. Our own Ben Combe, Gordon and Jane Greenfield, Howard and Valerie Joseph, Josie Kinchin, Alex Kinchin-Smith, Sharon Michael, Paul Silver-Myer and Susanne Szal will be representing FPS.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca.
“The Eternal One spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai” (Lev. 25:1)
וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בְּהַ֥ר סִינַ֖י לֵאמֹֽר
This week’s double portion Behar Behukotai ends the Book of Leviticus and in so doing sets us a challenge that all our Judaism – however different, however contemporary, irreverent or iconoclastic – relates to the moment of Sinai.
A beautiful midrash tells the unlikely story that Moses had a dream, a disassociated vision, where he imagined being thousands of years in the future sitting in a classroom of the yeshiva of Rabbi Akiva. Sitting in the back row while Akiva taught, Moses was utterly confused. His spirits fell as the arguments spun around in circles. He just couldn’t follow anything, from comments on the crowns of the letters of Torah, to the commentary that surrounded them. He was, the midrash suggests, forlorn and lost. One of the other students raised a hand and asked “Rabbi, where in the Torah did you learn this?” Akiva answered: Halachah l’Moshe MiSinai, “Oh this is the law given to Moses at Sinai.” Then Moses’ mind was set at ease. This was connected to him. M’nachot 29b
I love this story.Because it basically reassures us that every new thing we do, every new expression and manifestation of Judaism, is connected to what has gone before. I think of this as we mark the next FPS Bar Mitzvah of Sam Fields, a most committed Bar Mitzvah student, who plays guitar in our shabbat service, accompanies me on social justice outings to represent us at the Barnet Citizens Assembly, who has waited on our seder tables for the past two Passovers and is generally a great kid in our synagogue, and I see that same line of connection flow through these past 70 years of FPS life to this moment and two weeks later to our next Bar Mitzvah in Zac Zalkin.
I’m compelled by continuity as well as courage in being different and inspired. As we finish the book of Leviticus and bless ourselves in the process, may these words be real for us.
Chazak Chazak V’NitChazek.
Strength, Strength, Let us be strengthened.Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca.
Whether Republican or Royalist or somewhere in between, this coming Shabbat will be a memorable one. My mother leads a reminiscing group at Hammerson House care home and this week’s topic was recalling the last coronation in 1953, 70 years ago. I wonder whether our children will recall this weekend’s coronation of King Charles III. I like being reminded that the prayer for the Royal family given in most synagogues has the historical significance of being the first vernacular prayer in any synagogue here. We noted with interest when it was skipped in the Shabbat service of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. At my Shabbat table with FPS congregants last week, we were full of talk of the coronation and its cost – right down to the hand-made buckles on shoes.
I am always drawn to the prophet Jeremiah’s insistence to his people in the 6th century . . . seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
And so this week my colleague and president of LJ Rabbi Alexandra Wright has written a prayer for us all for this Shabbat for the coronation of King Charles and it is hard to disagree with her thoughtful words and hopes for him.
May he foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely. May he find the freedom and strength to speak out against cruelty and injustice and to lead by example, living in harmony with nature, conserving its resources, diversity and beauty for future generations so that they too may reap in joy.
May his reign be governed by truth, judgement and peace, as it is said, ‘These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates’ (Zechariah 8:16).
Along with other LJ and MRJ synagogues, we will bring our Shabbat service earlier to 10.00 am and follow with a shared kiddush and opportunity to watch the coronation together if you so wish. Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis Chief Rabbi if the United Synagogue has been invited to stay the night at Clarence House for Shabbat so he and his wife can walk to the Abbey. It will be Shabbat as usual for us here at FPS and those who want to mark this moment can do so.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
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