As we continue on the journey of counting the Omer between Pesach and Shavuot, I’m very aware of progress and moving forward. Every year it is the same but different, as it reflects the new generation and times we live in. Liberal Judaism has this week announced a new collaboration with the Movement of Reform Judaism that will see, in time, the creation of a new Progressive Movement. It is a moment that has been a long time coming and will put us in line with other countries, notably the U.S and Israel. We will be stronger and be able to create more influence and effect. It is a remarkable achievement and one that our own Rabbi John Rayner z’l prophesied all those years ago to increase and strengthen the progressive Jewish voice. As always, it is the detail that will be important and as Co-Chair of COLRAC, I have been part of the thinking and articulating of what comes next.
We are exceedingly fortunate to have our movement led by Rabbi Charley Baginsky, who is clear about the culture of Liberal Judaism being preserved and the way we both respect and are audacious with tradition. Our President Rabbi Alexandra Wright writes:
Liberal Judaism is in a strong position because of our rabbinic leaders and this has given us the confidence to be able to exert a special kind of leadership and role in British-Jewry.
Updates and news will be shared regularly over the next 18 months or so as this idea becomes a reality. It will move slowly and carefully, safeguarding all that we hold dear including our LJY Netzer camps etc. But transparency and collaboration is the way forward. This week, I got to tell our news to the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey at the launch of the Big Lunch.
We will be sharing updates and news over the next 18 months or so as this idea becomes a reality. We will be having an information evening at FPS very soon.
It seems most appropriate we are thinking of ourselves during the week that marks Yom HaShoah and we look back vertically to our history as well as exercising our horizontal connections in our Shabbat trip to a sister synagogue in Brighton. I do hope you are thinking of joining us. Several of us will be taking the train from London Bridge 9.15am Saturday morning and Sam King will drive with spaces in her car, as will Bobbie Hood. Do let Caroline in the office know which way you will be travelling and/or Sam King if you require a spot in the car. This is a much anticipated FPS outing and an opportunity to see Jewish Brighton. I look forward to sharing it with you and to our Yom Hashoah commemoration where our Kabbalat Torah class will introduce Joan Salter and her story of occupation and arrival here in the UK. Every story, every testimony adds to our sense of memorial and witness.
In our invitation and responsibility to listen to Joan, I’m reminded of the verse from Pirkei Avot which Rabbi Rene Pfertzel and I will begin on Wednesday evening:
Yose ben Yoezer used to say [learning from Shimon the Righteous]: let thy house be a house of meeting for the Sages and sit in the very dust of their feet, and drink in their words with thirst.
I look forward to drinking it all in with you.
Rabbi Rebecca
I want to wish you all Chag Pesach Sameach – a good and meaningful Passover.
We are obligated to pull meaning from this holiday – and we must consider whatever narrow place that Egypt represents for us in our day.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel dared to declare in 1963 that the contest between Moses and Pharaoh which began in that mythical Egypt had still not ended, but was being carried on between those who struggled for civil rights in America and those who resisted those rights. For us, we must consider where the struggles are now. The piece below is written by my colleague and friend Rabbi Igor Zinkov for the Four children of your Seder, reflecting on the war in Ukraine and the suffering that has ensued. I remind you also of that most poignant of verses deep in the Haggadah in Hallel’s psalm 118:
From a narrow place I called to God and I was answered with wide expansiveness.
Communally and personally the story of liberation cannot fail to resonate.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
In each and every generation, a person must view themselves as though they personally left Egypt, as it is stated:
“And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8).
This week is Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Pesach. As we prepare the synagogue for Passover and empty our cupboards of Chametz, we also are collecting Easter eggs for families at the Rainbow Centre – our partner charity. I see Pesach being about radical empathy. We are the children of slaves and wanderers and so shouldn’t that guide our principles now?
It seems most fitting that we would celebrate a Baby Naming this Shabbat as we gear up to emphasise “In each and every generation we must tell…” and so we will welcome him into the covenant and community.
I’m also reminded of the four children, of the questions, not just of the four Mah Mishtanah questions, but questioning our traditions that permeate the whole Seder. Why does this story matter to us so much?
Every year Pesach and the story it tells takes on different emphases. This year I am drawn to this charming statement in the midst of tractate Sotah:
Sotah 11b:4 Rav Avira taught: In the merit of the righteous women that were in that generation, the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt.
A shout out to Shifra and Puah, those brave midwives, to Miriam and her mother Yocheved who took such risks for that baby Moses (not unlike refugee families do today for their children, hoping for a better and safer life), and Batsheva, Pharaoh’s daughter who took the baby in and gave him opportunities in life. The midrash says that Israelite women at that time insisted and compelled the men to carry on as usual and to live with hope and joy even when they were downtrodden. There is so much in this story that never fails to lift us, and indeed other peoples who find it the stuff of liberation.
I love this season and am so looking forward to celebrating Pesach with everyone. Don’t forget to book into our Seder.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
P.S The Passover story of courage and resistance – truly speaking truth to power is poignant during these days of watching demonstrations on the streets of Israel and the diaspora in support. The Jewish world and citizens of Israel care deeply about it. As Israel is so much on everyone’s lips right now, including in international news, it feels a good time to remind the community that we will be choosing a new HHD Israel charity this year. We have enjoyed such a productive and inspirational relationship with the New Israel Fund and we invite you to send in your nominations for a new charity that captures the values of FPS and allows us to be in a supportive relationship with an institution there in Israel.
We just visited Bordeaux for the weekend. How can one not be restored by French cheese, wine and architecture? What I hadn’t anticipated was how intriguing I’d find the churches and religious buildings. The intricate spire of Cathedral Saint-Andre was visible in detail from our attic room terrace. The central window would guide us home at night. I’m taken, as you know, by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s insistence that Judaism creates palaces of time rather than space, Shabbat being the most impressive. But here in Bordeaux these buildings speak of a conversation with God.
This week’s parasha begins the Book of Vayikra, Leviticus. It’s known to contain a great deal of dry minutiae of sacrifice and other laws but its name means to call out.
And God called to Moses, and spoke to him out of the tent of meeting.
Leviticus is the book in which we are called to our religiosity, whatever that is for each one of us. And certainly that is what I experienced in Bordeaux. Indeed, in the cathedral, there were life size story boards of individual young people who’d taken the path of service to God, next to the stained glass windows and chapels.
“Et toi, que veux tu?” “And you, what do you want?” asks Pierre, a newly ordained Dominican wearing Ray Bans and a beret.
So I was ready for the Great Synagogue to be a similar expression of reaching towards God. It was the first major synagogue built after the emancipation of Jews by Napoleon. It was finished in 1812 then destroyed in a fire in 1873, and rebuilt by 1882 to be France’s largest synagogue at the time, costing 660,000 francs all which came from donations (and some grants from local and national government).
There are two towers, similar to bell towers on church facades; I read some Jews at the time were worried it looked too like a church, even with tablets of the ten commandments on the top. Even then community disagreed on building plans and ideas!
But it was an expression of pride and religiosity. I captured the dark green of the stained glass and it was beautiful. Movingly, the synagogue was used for internment before deportation to the camps. The building was pillaged and desecrated. But since the war, it has been lovingly restored to a living, breathing synagogue again.
Faith buildings always tell a story. Ours does at Hutton Grove. It may not be grand with towers and buttresses but it is ours and it has contained so much within its walls over these last 65 years or so. We now need to mend and restore it (our roof is in dire need) to enable its future life and a continuation of our story.
You are cordially invited to attend either Saturday evening 5.30-7pm or Tuesday 28th 7-8.30pm to begin this process; hear how we will be raising funds, asking for your gifts and applying for grants (as they did in Bordeaux). It is our calling. I so hope to see you there.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
….For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.from Peace of Wild Things
– Wendell Berry
So three years ago exactly as our world closed in, a group of our members asked for a morning service, an online shacharit (Hebrew for morning service). And so it began. Four days a week we created an online congregation. We saw it as an alternative to the Today programme and offered instead morning blessings, Shema, Psalms and alongside Dean’s voice, we wove in poetry to lift our spirits, to comfort and to offer the kavannah (direction of the heart) alongside traditional fixed liturgy, keva.
There were so many midwives to this project-Valerie Joseph, Bobbie Hood, Mandy Carr and Janet Tresman all lead the services now as well and Patricia Hinson writes new poetry for it. The words of this week’s portion Parashat Vayakhel – Pekudei talking of building and decorating the mishkan (sanctuary) capture something we did.
And every wise hearted person among you shall come and make everything the Eternal has commanded. Ex 35:10
And so this group did in building and beautifying our congregation. They built a community within a community and the skills of prayer and mindfulness have been honed and polished like precious materials and jewels mentioned in this portion.
We are only now tentatively making sense of what happened to us all during COVID, the loss, fear and changes we sustained. In some corners we built and grew and this is certainly one of them.
Join us for our anniversary service Tuesday 21st March 8.30am. (Please contact the office for the Zoom link)
We come out of Purim shaking off the violence and aggression however playful and we are met with Exodus 33 of Parashat Ki Tissa. This week’s portion is about love. It is about love and intimacy and the request to learn and know the others. It is Martin Buber’s seed, if you like, for his I and Thou and the understanding of true intimacy through seeing the other.
And so we stumble into this scene at Sinai when God tells Moses,
“I know you by name and you have pleased me.”
And Moses asks “Please may I see your glory?”
In this intimate moment between God and Moses, Moses is desperate to see, feel and experience God and God is warm towards Moses as well – and of course, it is all about love. And the message for us reading it now is how we choose to be open and part of things, and to understand that that desire to know and investigate is an expression of love.
In it, we see that Divine love triumphs over Divine anger, as Moses has no difficulty persuading God to abandon the plans for violence after the Golden Calf incident. So we see as Rabbi Professor Yochanann Muffs put it,
“Love is an act of bravery and tolerance at the same time.”
With great poignancy, this moment of Torah speaks to us now, this week, as we stand paralysed with fear and anguish at what is happening in Israel, not just that tiny land between Jordan and Egypt and Syria in the north, but the whole Jewish story that is ours here in the diaspora as well.
I speak with love even though my words may be hard for some.
The lack of knowing, of investigation and concern into the other, has possibly led to the extremists now holding power, people who once were considered too niche, too extreme to join the dialogue, who are now at the heart of the government of Israel. This is not a case of right, left, young, old. Even those at the traditional and hawkish end of the spectrum are calling for justice and what is right. We want to be awake and responsive to this moment now and to be part of this protest that seeks to protect the judiciary, democracy and human rights of Israel – and we can’t do that without love: without love for the land of Israel, ‘inspired by an age-old dream’ and all who live in it; without love for the Jewish journey and the challenge to ensure our own suffering makes us open and responsive to our neighbours; without love for the others as Torah reminds us 36 times “not to oppress the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Without love we would miss out on the extraordinary work of Tzedek Center, the NGO we are supporting through the NIF, that trains and enables collaborative work across all citizens. Without love we would miss the fact that the future of Jewish Israelis is bound up with the security and ease of their Palestinian neighbours. Without love we would miss out, as Dr Cornell West wrote “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public” and without it we are an impoverished version of ourselves.
These verses of Torah remind us of all of that. It matters.
Here is the link to the protest here in London on Sunday which I will be attending. Sometimes one needs to show up for love.
Shabbat shalom,
Rebecca
The Jews had light, happiness, joy and honour. (Esther 8:16)
Purim is a festival of the diaspora and we are nothing if not that. Here we are celebrating our own longevity, 70 years’ presence of a Jewish community here in our city of Finchley (Shushan!) So this Sunday we will taste a little of that light and happiness we are so good at creating here.
Our musicians will give us a concert capturing the last seven decades – an Anglo Jewish cream tea with hamantaschen of course. Those turning 70 this year will tell the story of Esther [and Vashti!), our children will sing and we will celebrate having sustained a liberal Jewish community, sometimes against the odds, right here in N12 – and yet we are here and hope to be at least for another 70 years.
This week’s Torah portion Tetzaveh affirms all of this when it begins with the instruction to keep a light burning always – in the sanctuary – a ner tamid.
And that is what we’ve been too.
An everlasting statue for all generations from the Children of Israel. (Exodus 27:21).
Purim for me this year has a new meaning, a chidush, (newness) that I am rather enjoying and very much looking forward to.
I hope to see you for this rather special afternoon on Sunday.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
This week I opened an email from Boots, the Chemist, offering an opt out of Mother’s Day publicity, if one’s heart wasn’t willing. I was impressed by the sensitivity for those without mothers, those who mourn not being mothers or indeed just having uneasy relationships with mothers or children. We might think this level of sensitivity is new, but it’s not. There is evidence in Torah, this week’s parasha even, that ultimately everyone is motived by their own desires and comfort levels. Boots, the Chemist appreciates that and so did God in talking to Moses appealing gently to the hearts of others.
Speak to the children of Israel and have them take for ME a gift from every person whose heart inspires them to generosity….
Rashi explains this expression of the person whose heart inspires refers to willingness, openness etc.
Rashi explains that in old French, this refers to willingness, openness, “an expression of good will in French,” all to be given voluntarily, that is the most important thing.
We in the business of community organising, of enabling and empowering others to be part of things, understand that everyone gives of themselves when they want to, when they feel seen and their hearts motivate them. In other words, there must be self-interest. I think a great deal about that and how we nurture a congregation that should inspire this and be a place where we operate sensitively and ultimately, encourage willing hearts.
This Shabbat Rafael and I will be visiting Ruben in Scotland and our services here at FPS will be led by our phenomenal lay leaders whose hearts are very much willing and able.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
There is one tiny line in this week’s portion that caught my eye.
You shall not put off (lo te’aher) the skimming of the first yield of your vats….
Why should Torah be concerned with timeliness in the midst of so many other mitzvot? What does God mean by not putting off and more to the point why does God care? I read some learning by Rabbi Jonathan K. Crane where he identified great interest in this sense of doing things with alacrity, not delay. Rashi, French commentator of the 11th century says don’t disturb prescribed order-Spanish Ibn Ezra a generation later goes a little further by suggesting this phrase speaks to couples not delaying their time together. Either way the message is seize the day, carpe diem. Moments don’t always last.
For me I am intrigued by this call to promptness. As someone as prone to procrastination as the next person I understand well the truth; if you know you want to do something good, why delay? How often I have had a good idea, or instinct for an act of kindness and I put it off momentarily and the moment passes? Amidst the sea of mishpatim-laws in this parasha the learning about focus and timeliness is useful. Last term our Taste of Torah class wrestled with the words of Kohelet;
When you make a vow/commitment, do not delay (lo te’aher) in fulfilling it for God has no pleasure in fools, what you vow, fulfil. Ecclesiastes 5:3.
Within the busyness of our lives how easy is it to put things off and be constantly caught up with other obligations. This is the reminder to us to approach and give time to everything we can – and to do so with alacrity.
We have so much to respond to in the life of our synagogue. This week we are called upon to support the rescue and support efforts in Turkey and Syria. World Jewish Relief as they so often do are leading the community to do so. Click here to donate.
Dear friend of the congregation Nsreen Kaa who came to Barnet with VPRS, has asked for financial support for her family caught up with the disaster in Northern Syria. Reach out if you would like to help her family. This on Shabbat Shekalim when we are called upon to think about our home and what we need to sustain it. Please see below invitations to join us for our first ‘Sip and See’ evenings for Renewing our Home. We want you all to be part of this.
Shabbat Shalom
Rebecca
This week’s Torah portion packs an unusual punch with Yitro giving compelling life advice to Moses, his son in law and consequently to every person who has read Exodus 18 since then. The message is so obvious – working alone and too hard is not just an expression of hubris – but is foolish as well.
The thing you are doing is not good.
You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. This thing is too heavy for you, you cannot do it alone.
It was clear and utterly unambiguous – managing alone is never good. The poet John Donne’s observation echoed this millennia later:
No Man is an island entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent
A part of the main.
Yitro was giving this message; we are stronger, better supported and more effective when we operate together. It is the kindest way. And what Yitro also identified was that people love to be of use, and be part of projects where they contribute and are appreciated. This is a critical piece of Torah now -being of use in a constructive and meaningful way is spiritual work.
Our community manages rather well at involving and benefiting from its members’ skills and generosity. But we can always do better. And getting to know each other in a profound and engaged way is how we go about doing it. Being known and recognised and sharing in this congregation is critical to many of us and the success of our synagogue. What matters to you? This is a question we should be continually asking each other. And I intend to do that at least 70 times this year, not just casually in passing at kiddush, which is also important but real, sit down with a cup of tea or go for a walk kind of time together. An opportunity to carve out time and share a full and real conversation.
So I am committing to seventy of these moments with you all (121s) throughout this our 70th year. And I expect our Council would love to have them with you too. Please book in with Caroline through for a slot. They can be here in the synagogue or a walk or wherever suits. We will begin by connecting this Shabbat for those who will be at services. Be in touch anyway you can.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
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