Our eyes are glued to images, which frankly are reminiscent of those eighty years ago. The writer, scholar and lawyer Professor Philippe Sands encapsulated that this week when he shared his own father’s experience of leaving Lviv. Tuesday saw the destruction of the Babi Yar memorial or the 33,771 Ukrainian Jews murdered in the rural ravine in Kyiv 1941. It is terrifying and all the appreciation of the strength, resilience and courage of the Ukrainians both soldiers and civilians does not minimise the intensity of the Russian attacks.
This week, like you I read of the last text message of a Russian soldier to his mother. “We were told they’d welcome us..” I found this both distressing and intensely moving.
As some of you know Rabbis Julia Gris and Tanya Sakhnovich are safely out of the Ukraine, more news of them soon. Rabbi Alex Duchovny continues to lead his community from Kyiv, even Shabbat services from the shelter. Click on the image to see his message to Jewish communities across the World Union.
We have an invitation to join our twinned community in Mogilev, Belarus for their candle lighting at 3.30pm tomorrow and to be in contact with Rabbi Grisha Abramovich. He appreciates our connection deeply.
Over Shabbat as we gather we have the opportunity to hear from two members who are working closely in the field.
Paul Anticoni leads World Jewish Relief and the disaster appeal they have launched. WJR works closely with elderly folk in Ukraine needing support. If you missed Wednesday’s event hosted by Emily Maitlis you will have a chance to hear from Paul during our Friday evening service about what is happening and how WJR are attempting to help.
For an extra and special Shabbat morning conversation in person and online our member Max Rebuck will be sharing his understanding of the conflict through media monitoring and speaking to Ukrainians in Ukraine and abroad to publish their stories during the conflict. Since Jan 2019 he’s been responsible for designing and delivering media development and counter-disinformation projects on the behalf of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s Russia Desk helping independent media in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the Baltic States. Now working for Tortoise Media contributing to their journalism on the war.
Being informed and connected is what we need right now. I hope you will join us.
Shabbat Shalom
Rebecca
This is grim day for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe.
Last week Rabbi Julia Gris joined us virtually from Odessa to speak of the Progressive community she has nurtured there. Today she is in the west in Lviv worried for her and her daughter Izolde’s safety. Indeed Liberal Judaism is trying hard to extend an invitation to them here by communicating with the British Embassy in the Ukraine.
Two other rabbis we know well are there trapped in Ukraine; Rabbi Alex Duchovny and Rabbi Tanya Sakhnovich who was visiting her son. They matter no more than all Ukrainian citizens thrown into an unprovoked war, but our intimacy with and knowledge of them makes this situation all the more awful.
People are already trying to cross into neighbouring Poland and other countries such as Slovakia.
Money and support are small gestures right now but for those feeling powerless it is something to do:
We are praying and watching with vigilance each hour of news from Kyiv and beyond.
There is something about the watching about the concern about the fear we are seeing played out on our news channels. The Torah twice refers to the night of the Seder as leil shimurim, a night that is guarded: It is a night that is guarded by God to take them (Israel) out of Egypt, this night remains to God a night that is guarded throughout the generations (Exodus, 12:42).
I think of that watching, of that guarding of that speaking out now.
I look forward to seeing you this Shabbat when we can be together.
Rebecca
This weekend marks the beginning of the anniversary year for Liberal Judaism, 120 years since its creation by the three famous ‘M’s; Israel Mattauck, Lily Montagu and Claude Montefiore. It kicks off with a shared service hosted by the Liberal Jewish Synagogue. Our President Paul Silver-Myer will represent us.
Anniversaries are strange events. They invite us to reflect and consider what passed in a celebratory way, even if we don’t feel part of that celebration particularly. Many of us have joined our congregation Finchley Progressive Synagogue over the years because it felt like the ‘the place’ for us, not necessarily because it is an outpost of Liberal Judaism. And there are also many that were our founding mothers and fathers creating our community as a Liberal Jewish congregation proudly and building it, brick by brick and idea by idea.
We have, grown and transformed over the years. Liberal Judaism has moved from Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues.
Creating a movement is brave and yields dividends. The initial intention for a fiercely intellectual and reasoned Jewish expression still stands and yet more has been added; more Hebrew and music and emotional connections and inclusive ideas of who belongs and an expansion of who we are as a Jewish people, into a Jewish family.
This week’s Torah portion contains the unedifying passage of the building of the golden calf, the wretched faithlessness of the people waiting for Moses and needing something tangible and easier to replace Moses and God’s leadership. I’ve often heard the appalling critique of Liberal Judaism being a distraction, a moment of idolatry even that confused and obfuscated the pure message of Judaism. Not only has this not been the case, its longevity and creativity point to its welcome addition to Jewish life and practice.
As Me’ah v’esrim is a traditional blessing on birthdays with hope for health and gathering of years. Liberal Judaism has done that.
There is much to be proud of. From Lily Montagu’s first essay Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today to our attempts now to ensure our Jewish practice has integrity, creativity and joy. As she captured so well 120 years ago. “There would be no value in worship services and symbols did they not… serve as aids to right living.”
What an excellent legacy.
We are inheriting well.
Shabbat Shalom and see you at LJS.
Our community meets in different ways. Our Family learning with the B’nei Mitzvah class and their parents-Differences between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Judiasm. Our revived Monday Afternoon Club and our Young Folk in our Delving into Judiasm meeting for an exhibition and coffee last Sunday. Nothing thrills me more than this. We talk of being of ‘being busy with the words of Torah’ but this is being busy with fellow congregants and learners. How good is this? Parashat Tetzaveh tells us B’nei Yisrael were told to light a Ner Tamid, an Eternal Light as a statute forever, for all generations.
And you shall command the children of Israel, and they shall take to you pure olive oil, crushed for lighting, to kindle the lamps continually…[it shall be] an everlasting statute for their generations…(Exodus 27:20-21)
I wonder if that crushing of olives and illuminating the lights was, in other words, keeping the community running, alight, and connected. The gradual return to our building and the connections that switch us on are key, whether in our classes, our friendships or our services. As Monty often reminds us there is joy in belonging. And so there is.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
I like this Torah portion very much, situated as it is after the moment at Sinai and before the manuals for building the mishkan, sanctuary.
Here is where the congregation of Israel is invited to give gifts to the sanctuary if their heart is willing. יִדְּבֶנּוּ לִבּוֹ, the Hebrew comes from נְדָבָה, an expression of willingness as Rashi teaches us.
I believe strongly that none of us, not even the most altruistic do anything without a certain amount of self interest. It’s a good thing. We need to want to give of ourselves, our possessions or tzedakah. Torah identifies and anticipates a rather modern idea people will give more of themselves if their heart is willing, if they want, if they experience some joy, benefit or learning from it.
I like this reciprocal idea of giving.
I imagine we might think deeply about this as we think more about our synagogue, returning and reuniting with the building and each other as a congregation.
You’ll see from the accompanying poster that the whole month of February is dedicated to different ways to support Food Bank Aid who are struggling after a frugal January. It’s our opportunity to give. I just dropped off a street collection today and when I mentioned FPS the woman who received our goods exclaimed ‘oh my goodness that synagogue does so much for us’. Thank you to all of you who have given.
P.S. donate a laugh, send your jokes for next month’s shofar – all on humour and Jewish humour ()
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
I need to share this as we go into our own Shabbat. Shabbat Yitro where we will read the 10 Sayings that are the backbone to our religious and social commitments. There is something about Congregation Beth Shalom that seems similar to us; a mid sized suburban shul dedicated to be welcoming, open and committed to helping in the world. I watched the healing service for the community; it was, as you can imagine extraordinary. Unpolished, open, generous and gracious. We can learn from this and our commitment to training, safety, security and making those cups of tea for strangers as Rabbi Charlie Citron Walker did.
Statement on the synagogue siege in Texas
By Rabbi Rebecca Birk and Rabbi René Pfertzel
Co-Chairs of the Conference of Liberal Rabbis and CantorsWe watched with horror the events unfolding in Colleyville, Texas, where a gunman took hostage Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three of his congregants during the Shabbat service. A service where he’d been welcomed.
We were relieved and grateful to see the hostages emerge unharmed after a testing ordeal and we firmly condemn this act, which sadly reflects the madness of our time.
Such a situation is what we’ve all dreaded, when Islam and Judaism are erroneously pitted against each other.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Rabbi Cytron-Walker, his family and his community, Beth Israel.
Places of worship are sanctuaries and everyone should feel safe whilst praying.
Rabbi Cytron-Walker’s words now inspire and inform us all, as he declares his thanks and appreciation for his community, his family, the prayers and vigils and most movingly for being alive.
We pray for a world where weapons will be replaced by words, and loving kindness is the foundation of human relationships.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
This Shabbat I’ll be chanting from Beshallach, the Song of the Sea. A prayer, an expression of relief and gratitude. but before it the Eternal chastises Moses for telling the people to rely on God. “Mah titzak elai. Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.”
I like this idea of action and prayer juxtaposed in this way. Rabbi Amy Eilberg, first woman to be ordained by the Conservative movement, writes her idea of prayer and it is interesting as we prepare for the Song/the Prayer of the Sea:
Prayer may work when the thing that we have asked of God indeed comes to be. That’s one way we pray…Prayer may also work by significantly connecting us with the Jewish community and with our tradition; It can work by quieting or centring the self. It can work by having momentary transporting us to a place of beauty and transcendence. It may work by helping us focus on the blessings in our lives. It may work by invoking a greater sense of God’s presence, giving us strength to face the trials of our lives.
What might it be for you? when is it time for action and when for prayer?
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
Thoughts for Mental Health Shabbat 2022
The composer Tchaikovsky in 1876 wrote these words to a beloved nephew.
Probably you were not quite well, my little dove, when you wrote to me, for a note of real melancholy pervaded your letter. I recognised in it a nature closely akin to my own. I know the feeling only too well. In my life, too, there are days, hours, weeks, aye, and months, in which everything looks black, when I am tormented by the thought that I am forsaken, that no one cares for me. Indeed, my life is of little worth to anyone.
He could have been referring to the plague of darkness in this week’s Parashat Bo. So keenly does he identify the blackness of depression and melancholy. Torah describes this darkness as palpable.
[so] thick [that ] people could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was.
One can feel the heaviness and de-pressing nature of this ‘darkness’ that the poet Jane Kenyon described so memorably, pressing the bile of desolation into every pore.
Darkness may have been just another of the ten plagues but it’s possible meaning and resonance reaches out of Torah to us now. To our young people struggling through Covid, to each of us weighed down by the isolation of mental fragility of all kinds; anxiety, depression, confusion and alienation from the life we are ‘expected’ to lead with ease.
Such dislocation resonates profoundly this year after the months we’ve endured and the continuing challenges that are still so real.
Our synagogue is focusing on empathy this Shabbat, on the power of empathetic concern and connection, of meeting people truly where they are. This is a skill we can all develop. We are also working with Barnet Citizens (CUK) clear requests for our Borough’s Mental Health provisions to ensure both more and better empathy in all such services in Barnet. From better sign posting to someone there when you need it.
We all need and can give empathy; ready to be present for when, as Exodus 10 describes; no one can get up from where they were.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
Shabbat Shalom all.
It’s strange to be in a similar although not identical place this December as we were last year. We are newly concerned and vigilant and most us want to be as responsible as considerate as we can be. It’s hard to avoid what’s happening around us, although be reassured FPS is doing all it can to make gathering with each other as safe as possible. As rabbis we keep asking, can we reflect on all this yet? But ‘this’ continues.
On Monday, Rabbi Charley Baginsky and I were invited to tea with chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his chief of staff Ari Jesner. It was just the four of us and we were discussing what we, the Jewish community, have been through and what we have learned. They were interested to hear what’s been happening in our communities, as we were in theirs. It was an astonishingly respectful tea party in his library.
I was so pleased that FPS member, Paul Richman wrote this reflection as a doctor, after the excellent Cafe Ivriah last Sunday on the Purpose of Life. It helps us make sense and anticipate what is next, and I wanted to share it with you.
Rebecca
A Reflection
Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Omicron. Familiar household names now….they sound (to me) a bit like stars.
“Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania.
Neptune, Titan, Stars can frighten” wrote Syd Barrett.
And so with our newest Covid 19 variant of concern.
We felt we’d almost won. We were sensing a kind of normality. Back in the synagogue. Planning a holiday. A dinner party. A meet-up with friends.
But we’d forgotten: viruses mutate. All the time. They don’t have much else to do. Their purpose is to proliferate.
Worry. Depression. A sense of panic; these stars definitely frighten.
Last week, Anne and Adrian led us in discussion to consider our own purpose in life. What are we here for? There were many views and opinions. We discovered lots of angles and ways of looking at it. But, when the going gets tough, underpinning all, there is a sense that we are here to look after each other and that if we can strive for that, we can achieve our goals, we can find contentment, we can prevail over adversity.
And so, together, we shall prevail over Covid in all its many forms. The vaccines are helping. More and better ones are in the pipeline. There are also treatments which can help. We do understand better how it spreads and behaves and how it causes such serious disease. We’ve conquered viruses before and we shall do so again. We can recover our composure, retain our faith, and go forward together. Perhaps to reach the stars.
Paul Richman, December 2021
Zoe writes: In one of our, many, Chanukah quizzes I asked ‘how many candles do you need to celebrate chanukah?’*.
What I didn’t ask was ‘how many people do you need celebrate chanukah’?
And truly, the answer is 1. You – and a candle.
But with more people comes more joy. (And more latkes, more doughnuts, more chaos…!)
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” (Buddha).
We wanted to celebrate Chanukah with as many people as possible. Each night I wanted to spotlight one area of our community, honouring new community spaces like Morning Meditation, holding transition moments for others like Rosh Chodesh, and providing much needed in person parties for our families and the Delving group.
From our smallest crowd of just 10, to our largest of 60, each night was special.
We had some events online and others in person. Did they feel different? Yes.
Was one better than the other? Actually no. The moment 50 Community Makers each showed their chanukiot (we’re supposed to put them in our window for the world to see, is the 2021 update putting it by our Zoom screen?) as we lit together was so special.
Thank you to those who facilitated: Maayan who must have fried 200 latkes for our families, to the 4Bs (Beverley, Barry, Barbara, and Bobbie) who handed out, and washed up, 60 cups of tea and plates of doughnuts, to Dean and Franklyn, Natasha and so many more.
On Havdalah we reflect the candlelight in our fingernails. I saw the chanukah candlelight reflected in 250 FPS-ers.
On telly I’ve seen an entire primary school on electric bicycles, finding that if everyone peddles together they can turn on the school lights with their leg work.
This week, we could have powered all our chanukiot with our joy and light. Our own miracle is 250 people came out, showed up, sang and laughed together. Thank you.
*in case you were wondering, it’s 44.
Shabbat Shalom.
Zoe
Copyright © 2025 Finchley Progressive Synagogue. All rights reserved. Website designed by Addicott Web. | Charity #1167285