We embark today on 29 days of the month of Elul.
Elul’s acronym is I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine (dodi li v’ani lo). Tradition has understood it to be speaking about the individual and God, rather than just romantic love. For us now, it can be how we intuit the sacred and our relationship to it. And so, we are encouraged to undergo a 29-day reflection as we approach Rosh Hashanah.
We do this year in and year out, trying to concentrate our intentions, our self-knowledge, our potential. In the book of Kohelet we read, ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (1:9). We know these cycles; this is what we do. Yet this year’s High Holy Days will feel different for all of us. The horror of October 7th, as we were winding down to end the of the Tishri season last year, continues to traumatise in so many ways, from so many perspectives. How might we approach this season with this terrible backdrop behind and seemingly in front of us? How will it be when we gather together with all our different responses?
Colleague Rabbi Kath Vardi, on behalf of Reform and Liberal Rabbis and Cantors, suggests, In such circumstances it can be tempting to allow hope to give way to cynicism, to protect ourselves from bitter disappointment and hurt by pre-deciding that there is little point in working towards anything different.
Yet surely that is exactly what we should be doing, so that once again we embark on that internal work that allows these days to carry the grandeur, the possibility and the hope they promise.
So, with a great appreciation for repetition, I share some fragments again for each day of Elul. You’ve seen some of them before but like our prayers, they speak afresh to the person we are this year. We are different – and perhaps they may help us to find the future and hope we look towards.
This exercise is to enable us to arrive readier and more open to the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur journey. Take what you find helpful and leave what you don’t.
It will also be different because we will be out of our beloved building as work begins on our roof. It is a challenge to not be in our home – but what an act of love for our synagogue community this work is.
We are encouraged to read Psalm 27 daily throughout Elul. I’ve found that different stanzas and phrases call out at different times of the month. Print it out for your fridge? I’m sharing a particularly beautiful translation by Rabbi Richard Levy z’l. And here is it set to music by Aly Halpert and Joey Weisenberg.
1 Of David.
Adonai is my light and my victory—
From whom should I feel fright?
Adonai is the stronghold of my life—
From whom should I feel terror?
2 When evildoers approach me in battle to feed on my flesh—
My pursuers, my adversaries—
They have stumbled, they have fallen down.
3 If a camp encamps against me, my heart will not fear;
If a war arises against me,
In this I would trust:
4 One thing have I sought from Adonai—how I long for it:
That I may live in the House of Adonai all the days of my life;
That I may look upon the sweetness of Adonai,
And spend time in the Palace;
5 That You might hide me in Your sukkah on a chaotic day,
Hide me in the hiding places of Your tent,
Raise me high upon a rock.
6 Now my head rises high above my enemies roundabout,
And in Your tent I’ll offer offerings to the sound of t’ruah.
I shall sing and chant praises to Adonai!
7 Hear, Adonai, my voice—
I am crying out!
Be gracious to me, answer me!
8 My heart has said to You: “Seek my face.”
I am seeking Your face, Adonai—
9 Do not hide Your face from me.
Do not turn Your servant away in anger,
You have been my help—
Do not forsake me, do not abandon me, God of my deliverance!
10 For my father and my mother have abandoned me,
Yet Adonai gathers me up.
11 Make Your path apparent to me,
Guide me in the upright road
Because of those up ahead who lie in wait for me.
12 Do not hand me over to the lust of my adversaries—
For false witnesses have risen against me, puffing violently!
13 Had I not the faith
That I would see the goodness of God in the land of life . . .
14 Wait for Adonai—
Fill your waiting with hope in Adonai;
Let your heart be strong and of good courage,
And wait hopefully for Adonai.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
These quiet weeks of August have been anything but here in our synagogue as we pack, plan and proceed. However, as a few vital folk take holiday these next few days, we will be offering this week’s as a double email. Your next email will arrive on 1st Elul which is Wednesday 4th September and we will begin the Elul entry into the High Holidays together.
If not now when…. begins the famous learning from Pirkei Avot. This considering and reflecting on our past year and its enormity on the world stage will certainly take some thought. But so do our own smaller lives – and as always, it starts with where we are now.
So in these remaining days of summer, wherever you are, whatever you are remembering, recalling or looking at right now right here, I wish you time and meaning as you do so. I share a blessing based on tradition and inspired by our good friend Rabbi Professor Larry Hoffman:
Baruch Ata Adonai Melech HaOlam, she’kacha lo b’olamo
Blessed are You…whose world is filled with beauty.
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom and if you need anything during these days while Caroline is away, do be in touch with me or Beverley.
Rebecca
This week, we will celebrate our Resouled Band with a special kiddush to show our gratitude for all the music they have created for us. Resouled will be a little smaller and more modest in the coming months but the tunes and the music will remain with us. Please join us this Friday to celebrate with them. Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash, Sing to God a New Song, said the Psalmist and so said Dean Staker and Rabbi Neil Janes over 16 years ago. The power of song and prayer are central to the spirit of FPS and Resouled is critical to that.
This week’s portion, V’Etchanan, contains the second version of the Ten Commandments. It is different particularly in the reason for keeping Shabbat. This one suggests gratitude for the Exodus from Egypt rather than the work of creation that God made.
For me this week, it speaks of repetition: the opportunity of iterations and the chances to try things again and differently. FPS has been known for its creative music and famously for Resouled which was exactly that: Shir Chadash – a new song.
Change can be daunting, sometimes even paralysing, but we must remember that newness springs from it.
Shiru L’Adonai Shir Chadash
Shabbat Shalom and see you on Friday night.
Rebecca
Helen Keller said; “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
We know the difference between sight and the capacity to see and have vision. These past ten months, the need to see, watch and bear witness has been huge since the horrific events of October 7th and events in Israel, Gaza and the Occupied Territories have unfolded through the following months. It has felt a Jewish obligation to pay attention carefully and watch responsibly. This has extended to life here. I haven’t taken this responsibility to keep eyes open lightly.
When we’ve offered the Morning Blessings, pokeach ivrim, the one who opens the eyes, feels very live and very real.
This week’s Parashat BALAK has Balaam the sorcerer failing to the see the obstruction in his path and it takes his donkey, after he has whipped it three times, to help open his eyes so he can see the Angel of God. B’nei Mitzvah students love this portion with the talking donkey, but there is something very adult as well about the opening of his eyes to the reality. It’s compelling in this story and it has been extraordinarily compelling these past ten months.
But so is the need to look and gaze elsewhere at times. So is the need to take rest and look at the stars, greenery, the sea and your beloveds.
Mary Oliver wrote in The Song of the Builders:
On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God –
a worthy pastime.
I hope to manage this during my break from work and although watching the tragedies that surround us, I will be focusing my attention elsewhere briefly. As the poet Amanda Gorman explains;
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
if only we’re brave enough to be it.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
I was very moved on Sunday to witness the ordination of 5 new rabbis; joining the progressive rabbinate and ready to take on communities.
Rabbis Daisy, Eleanor, Nicola, Martina and Matt who studied through the Pandemic and the closures all spoke of their trepidation of what it might mean to lead, to give direction, to know where to go – one even asked us the congregation exactly what to do; he felt so uncertain. They spoke of hoping for encounters with congregants and the opportunities to grow relationships. The senior librarian at Leo Baeck College gave a brilliant address, during which she reminded the congregation that becoming an accountant is very not like becoming a rabbi.
Because, she said, it is far more intimate, you are bound up with people constantly. The prospect of all those waiting relationships was daunting for each one of the ordinands. 23 years since my ordination I can say that it has been the best part of my role.
The great Civil Rights rabbi German/American Joachim Prinz reflected this understanding when he said, “You cannot be a rabbi unless you love people. You don’t have to like them, but you have to love all of them. [God] says, ‘Thou shalt love the neighbor as thyself.’ [God] doesn’t say, ‘Thou shalt like them.’ I have loved all the people with whom I’ve come into contact. Even those with whom I have disagreed and whom I have disliked because I think God wants us to love people.”
This week we read about the waters of Meribah where the children of Israel argued. They argued so badly that they ignored Moses grief for his sister’s death, they caused Moses and Aaron to lose their right to finish the task.
הֵ֚מָּה מֵ֣י מְרִיבָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־רָב֥וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל
And we know as we read that disagreement is not the sign of indifference, as Prinz identified there can still be love there. And at the end of this story it strangely says as interpreted by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz with these Hebrew words et vahev b’sufa” (Numbers 21:14) “In the end, there was love.”
That is at the heart of these stories and the ones in our own lives and communities.
Why vote?
I have studied attitudes to civic engagement with our teenagers this past month. Jewish tradition has a great deal to say on involving ourselves with the welfare of our cities and the wider community in which we live. As Jeremiah wrote in the 8th century BCE to his anxious and exiled people: But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you [into exile,] and pray to the Eternal on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. [Jeremiah: 29:7]
This feels particularly apposite this week.
In a delightful twist of fate and time, our synagogue Annual General Meeting was booked for the day we will turn out to vote in our General Election. And the effects of living in a democratic society benefits us all.
Our community is a microcosm of our wider society. No organisation is sustained healthily without its members caring for it. In all the 12 years of my serving FPS, I have seen that demonstrated every day – a full, if miniature, democracy. On Thursday, I imagine we will feel similarly about the leadership of our local areas and the country at large.
In Mishnah Avot, we learn that Rabbi Hanina, the vice-high priest insisted: Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear it inspires, every person would swallow their neighbour alive. We need good governance – we know what the alternative is – and we do more than pray for it. Thanks to our new BoD representative Tim Seyner-Harness, our community had access to a local hustings for the candidates for Finchley and Golders Green and those in neighbouring constituencies have had access too. It is deeply Jewish to care what happens around us – Lo Tuchal L’hitalem – Do not become indifferent, says the Book of Deuteronomy in Ki Teitzei.
I welcome this opportunity as you may also do. Do join us on Thursday evening – in between your voting and watching results for the General Election – by expressing your views on our synagogue, its plans and its governance. You are critical to that process too.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
There are sharp divisions between the Jewish people all over the world.
We might not yet call it a civil war, thank God, but the dissent between us is distressing.
I am not sure about the percentages but a large group of Jews are more, and maybe even exclusively, drawn to the suffering of Jews and the plight we are in; such is the trauma that it is impossible for them to see others’ suffering. The other group feels that pain but also deeply feels the responsibility and values of Jewish life threatened by the suffering unleashed on others. It is safe to say this is a profoundly difficult time for all of us, wherever we sit on that continuum. Dissent troubles us in the British Jewish community, even though our name means wrestling with God – Yisra (wrestle) El (God). I heard yesterday about families torn about these past 7 months or so – families not even caught up in the terrible troubles – just the mere act of talking and conversing has proved divisive and injurious.
In the Book of Esther study group, we have been reading with great interest this diaspora fairytale that speaks so acutely to the news right now.
There have always been passionate differences of views and as always, our Torah portion speaks to this, with the fractured response to those scouts who checked out the land for Moses and the people. The scouts produced bad reports about the land that they had seen (Numbers 13:32). The people began to panic, screaming and crying, and saying they wanted to go back to Egypt (Numbers 14:1). They even threaten to throw stones at anyone who tries to calm them down (Numbers 14:10).
I pray for us to keep talking, keep discussing and keep open to each other’s points of view, however challenging we may find them.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
I find the idea of complaining rather compelling. You may have seen the cartoon of a New York City Jewish restaurant table with three older women: “Is there anything else I can bring you to complain about?” the waiter asks them.
Complaining is often a pretext in our own lives for finding fault, creating negativity, avoiding gratitude and positivity. This is the scene we find in this week’s portion.
וַיְהִ֤י הָעָם֙ כְּמִתְאֹ֣נְנִ֔ים
The people were complaining.
Rashi suggests they were looking for a pretext a reason to fall out of favour, or out of connection, with God.
Complaining was a way of doing that. Recalling the plentiful food in Egypt allowed an amnesia of everything that came with the cucumbers, leeks and meat. They could be cross rather than assess their new situation out of Egypt, with less food but more freedom and safety. Instead, they complain.
The concept of complaining is complicated. Sometimes, it’s indulgent and self-serving. But sometimes, complaining is a form of protest and concern, raising alarms, seeking protection and calling to account. As a veteran complainer, I appreciate this reminder – that it is not only bad.
Last week, a group of parents of soldiers and combatants at the front line in Gaza wrote a letter of complaint (or beseeching perhaps) to the government. They joined with the hostage families critiquing their government’s policy of war and beseeching them for an end to hostilities and a deal that brings home their loved ones and ends the killing. We are out of time, they complained.
What a reminder that complaining can be powerful, heartfelt and hopeful.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
Passover always reminds me why I am a religious person: to be part of a tradition that calls on us to show up and mark time together by sharing ritual, prayers, food and values.
During the Seder and this ‘season of freedom,’ we will retell our story: that’s literally the meaning of Haggadah. This is a story so central to our tradition that it informs our Judaism and our Jewish expression. We recall that we have lived through generations of suffering and that we know liberation. It’s an energetic remembering, because in every generation, it means something particular to the moment in which we live. We are called to radical empathy at Passover, as the writer Jonathan Safran-Foer describes. This year, the seder and its words freedom, liberation and oppression will have many more layers of meaning for those of us who sit round the table.
I imagine each of us in our own way will manage the commandment:
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see themself as if they [personally] left Egypt. (Exodus 13:8)
I want to wish everyone a meaningful and inspiring Passover. I hope your charoset is sweet, your Seder plates full and that you and your guests come to the table tonight, and at FPS tomorrow, with a tender and open heart to all of the questions and remembering that we will do this year.
Rebecca
On Saturday night, we were having dinner with friends, talking as usual about Israel, the war in Gaza and our Jewishness, when we heard news of Iran’s impending attack. That there were no deaths was the result solidarity across the region, though one young Bedouin girl was seriously injured. So, the start of this week has been infused with concern following Iran’s assault on Israel and with fear of how things might escalate. All the while, our attention remains on the hostage families, becoming desperate for the lack of news or possibilities, as well, of course, on the dire suffering in Gaza. We here are trying to hold steady and continue our work as diaspora Jews, to resist division and to be open-hearted and sensible in our collaborative work with others. With such pernicious news, all we can do is double our efforts to negotiate our Judaism in a thoughtful, open way and to keep optimistic and hopeful.
Passover is here and the line from the Seder and Book of Exodus has rarely felt more poignant:
B’chol for va’dor hayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatzar m’mitzrayim. In every generation each person is obliged to view themselves as if they personally left Egypt.
I want to remind us all of two events that capture us at work and see us doubling down on our Jewish values.
The first is our open doors this Shabbat morning*. We have advertised this and invited to join us folk who want to explore their Jewishness at the moment, as we thoughtfully and courageously arrive at Passover with its invitation to consider redemption, empathy and freedom. As I wrote in London Jewish News last month, Liberal Judaism has much to celebrate. You can carry your Jewishness from either parent, from choosing to convert, from the legacy of family who gave it to you to make something different from it.
This is the moment for Jewish conversations.
The second event is on Thursday, 25th April, in the midst of Passover, when I will co-chair the London Mayoral Assembly for London Citizens. We have worked with them for over ten years and have brought so much positive change to London as Jews – remember our success settling Syrian Refugees into Barnet? Jews and our communities need to be proud and involved in London and I feel privileged to lead this event with Mayor Sadiq Khan and mayoral candidate Susan Hall. There are only three places left – if you would like to join me, contact me direct.
* Service 9.45-10.45
Discussions and family activities from 11a.m.
This Shabbat we will be praying for:
Alon Ohel
Avinatan Or
Guy Illouz
Matan Angrest
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