Rabbi Rebecca's Writings

3/4 December 2021, 29/30 Kislev 5782

Rabbi Rebecca writes:

I lit candles this week at Akiva School. It was lovely to see some of our FPS children there delighted to be recognised by their rabbi.

I always ask children what is the real meaning of Chanukah. They are surprised to learn that it is not candles, nor oil, nor lighting or even miracles. The meaning of the word Chanukah is dedication, the root of the word is chinch- from education.

The Temple was rededicated after having been out of action for Jews under the Greek Seleucids and that created this moment of memory and celebration every year for eight days at this time of 25 Kislev, since then.

I like this reading of the festival, a dedication or re-dedication. This year feels particularly apt, as in a way we rededicated our synagogue this past Monday, on the second day of Chanukah with a tea where 65 of you came back to the building, some for the first time, and you ate latkes and donuts but more importantly you saw each other and felt safe in our synagogue once again.

It was a moment of great joy tinged with some trepidation, I am sure for some, but there was a great deal of love in the room. That is what our synagogue (synagogues replaced the Temple after 70c.e) is for; a place of meeting and relationships – Beit Knesset.

We will continue to go carefully and thoughtfully as we welcome you back, responding always to the latest government advice.

To that end we wondered if any of you would like to join together for lunch on 25th December after the Shabbat service, if you fancy company and (I’m afraid) a non Turkey meal. Please, please do let us know.

I wish you your remaining days of Chanukah to be joyful and uplifting. There is lighting every night with us @FPS. Remember Chanukah gifts of underwear and socks are much needed for the Afhgani refugees in the great Western hotel in Hendon, I’ll be doing a drop there next Wednesday.

Shabbat Shalom.
Rebecca

26/27 November 2021, 22/23 Kislev 5782

19/20 November 2021, 15/16 Kislev 5782

Mitzvah Day took the British Jewish community by storm several years ago.

For us as a community we have discovered that a relationship of longevity with organisations and the good works gemilut chasadim that accompany them suits us best here, so our mitzvot are ongoing and strong.

This Saturday we will be visiting the new Food Bank Aid hub – taking more needed supplies. We’ll be shown how we are, and can continue to, make a difference.

Another group will be representing FPS at Sunday’s AJEX march at the cenotaph, and include prayers in our shabbat service.

The need to care about what has come before, about the commitment of Jewish ex-servicemen and women is something important for us to mark every year.

Join us on Saturday at 1pm or Sunday 2pm.

With warm wishes to you for a Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca

12/13 November 2021, 8/9 Kislev 5782

This Shabbat is heavy with significance. We have our last Covid postponed Bar Mitzvah, the first in this family’s for generations.

Karen explains her choice to turn from her Jewish secular roots to find a synagogue community, celebrate a Bar Mitzvah and watch her son move through Ivriah into Kabbalat Torah.

I find such journeys back to Jewish ritual and celebration intensely moving. We have made our Jewish lives rich with meaning, in terms of marking personal lifecycle, learning, and creating ‘sacred relationships and sacred acts that flow from them’ as I learned from Rabbi Larry Hoffman.

I welcome that challenge to keep building a synagogue that fosters sacred relationships and sacred acts. One of them is a responsibility to work for justice. This weekend Jewish Women’s Aid marks their annual Shabbat, when synagogues across the land speak about and to the experience of domestic violence and abuse in our communities and how they support those who need and teach the rest of us to be aware and ready. I’m proud this is one of our designated charities. Our own Andrea Collett will share words on Friday night, and Talia Pavell, from university in Liverpool shares her take on the organisation she continues to do so much for.

I know that November traditionally captures a little burn out and exhaustion. How can it not post high holidays and the energised start to the year and stream of festivals we had. But I do hope you will take advantage of all that FPS works on and the opportunities it offers for those sacred relationships and acts that follow them.

Just see our Events Calendar.

With warm wishes to you for a Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca

29/30 October 2021, 23/24 Cheshvan 5782

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone.

These are the words of poet David Whyte and they feel so apposite at the moment. Many FPS folk are contracting Covid despite being vaccinated and some even boostered. We are all so linked and with that in mind I wanted to reassure that we are being careful and responsive in 54 Hutton Grove as and when we welcome you in.

We will continue to watch and respond closely to changing guidelines and to the safest way for us to be together in the synagogue. Masks are still compulsory and we still mark over 1 metre between households. Please feel reassured and reach out if you have any questions.

Much appreciation to Dean, Michael Lassman, John Rubinstein and Paul Silver-Myer who will lead Shabbat services this weekend. We are fortunate as a community to have such skilful and willing members.

This week’s parasha is Chayei Sarah narrating the death, and life, of Sarah. But the words that penetrate are about Isaac mourning his mother and being comforted when he finds and loves Rebekah.

Isaac took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after [the death of] his mother.

We are none of us alone there is always someone to comfort and to share. I hope that is true in our community. David Whyte continues in his poem, Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation…Everything is waiting for you.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca

22/23 October 2021, 16/17 Cheshvan 5782

Last weekend we had an amazing visit to Nottingham’s Beit Shalom’s Holocaust museum. Our children met with a survivor and throughout learned about kindness of individuals that meant lives were spared. They understood this as allyship. They are familiar with this term of empathetic friendship and care.

I write with a certain fire of frustration this week. How can one not feel that in the face of racial injustice. We learned yesterday in London Jewish News that Hillsong Mega Church have bought the former Hippodrome building in Golders Green. This is just weeks after the approval for Islamic use of the building was shamefully halted. It seems so blatant so discriminatory that a mega church with huge community is given approval whilst a Muslim centre is not. I’m shamed that all the work of supportive Barnet institutions and their superb legal team failed in the face of this prejudiced decision.

Yesterday many marched to oppose the new Borders Bill, a bill that threatens the humane and decent way to offer asylum and means for refugees and migrants to find a home here. Only ‘worthy’ refugees will find asylum on our shores, many will be declared inadmissible and all of this will hamper integration.

I know there are those that suggest our Jewish faith not tread into areas political, but I cannot understand such a separation of concerns. The prophetic voice is part of our contemporary Judaism. This week’s parashah Va’eira so nuanced and challenging sees Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael ostensibly to die in the wilderness. They don’t, after God reassures they will be saved and Ishmael will father a great nation himself. But medieval commentators criticise Hagar freely as a mother. The tension is there.

I see our constant re-interpretations of Torah and religious texts as directly informing and inspiring our Judaism. We learned this week in our Delving class of Rabbi Michele Brand Medwin who says God is whatever power, history being, ideal or consciousness that inspires us to mitzvot.

These mitzvot include standing up against injustice and encouraging others. We’re teaching it to our children and we are learning all the time.

Anger precedes action sometimes.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca

15/16 October 2021, 9/10 Cheshvan 5782

“Leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. (Gen. 12:1)” We talk a great deal about this portion of Lech Lecha symbolising change, redirection and courageous new moves. Avram and Sarai were told to move from all that was familiar to a place initially unrecognisable. They are promised blessing and abundance on doing so. Robert Frost ‘s poem captures the choice of paths we all take:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I’m interested that we applaud this biblical couple’s bravery yet contemporary migration and moving to new lands can be fraught with suspicion and a reluctant welcome.

The idea of moving and changing one’s life is an old one. It gives us pause this week to consider attitudes to those that move because they know they must for a safe life of blessing.

And that is good. Conversation with Torah should give us pause and opportunity to consider life; our own and others. Next week we have an opportunity to protest peacefully against the new Borders Bill that threatens such migration we read Abraham and Sarah undertaking.
Everything is connected.

You’ll see some of us are gathering at the Refugee Welcome Solidarity march next Wednesday-see below. If you are bringing coats to FPS, please bring hangers too. Many thanks.

Shabbat shalom,
Rebecca

AFTERNOON RALLY- BORDERS BILL
Refugee Welcome Rally,
[Meet at the Millicent Fawcett Statue 4pm]
Wednesday 20th October, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Parliament Square, London SW1P 3. Join with other FPS members and LJ folk to stand up for refugee rights, spread the message that refugees are welcome here and protest against the cruel and unfair new Nationality and Borders Bill. Just when the UK needs to uphold its commitments to refugees, the new Bill is progressing through parliament and moving closer to becoming law. Come and join us to show solidarity with refugees.

8/9 October 2021, 2/3 Cheshvan 5782

I love these photos from our past month of Tishri. We managed real community moments together. This new month of Cheshvan sees a focus on learning, as you saw in Shofar. The promise of second chances gets reinforced by Noach and the rainbow coming this Shabbat. “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Here are the FPS learning opportunities ready for this fresh academic year. Hebrew reading with some modern Ivrit as well with Eti Wade on Wednesdays at 1pm (for those interested in evening Hebrew class please let us know). Were you struck by the camaraderie and learning of our our Adult B’nei Mitzvah group? A taster meeting will be next week 13 October 6pm. Delving into Judaism will be asking this term Is God Compulsory? Cafe Ivriah promises stimulating chat and connections. And look out for more in the coming weeks.

We’ll channel the poet William Blake.

“In seed time learn, in harvest teach,
in winter enjoy.”

Shabbat shalom,
Rebecca

1/2 October 2021, 25/26 Tishrei 5782

Zoe writes:

With 24 hours behind me, I can take a breath and look back at the High Holy Days of 2021, 5782.

We truly weren’t sure what it would be like. With so many changes to normality; pre-booking, mask-wearing, social distancing, we didn’t know whether our FPS-ness could come through these obstacles.

But it was wonderful. Wonderful to be together in the building. So many of you told me you were anxious before your first visit back to the synagogue. And yet, once here, it was all okay. An embrace from an old friend, someone said.

I encourage you to come when you feel ready. We are here – and we know we can make not just Shabbat, but even our High Holy Days, meaningful in these strange times.

During the HHDs I become a citizen of FPS, of my spirituality, of my body. But as the cacophony of Tishrei festivals ebb away, the noise from the outside world becomes louder. I return as a citizen of the world. And it’s sometimes a difficult place to be. The reports from the Sarah Everard case are hard to read. The ongoing and urgent need for support for Afghan refugees is horrifying.

In a Barnet Citizens meeting just this morning we were looking at how the Barnet Refugee Welcome Board – set up to support Syrian Refugees – is now turning to Afghanis. We will continue to update you as we have more information, for the moment please do drop off children’s and adult’s coats to FPS.

May the joy of these festivals, our community, and celebration, lighten us as we continue along the road.

Shabbat shalom,
Zoe

24/25 September 2021, 18/19 Tishrei 5782

Sukkot comes up so quick after Yom Kippur. Just five days to move from that profound spiritual reflection and hope for transformation into the physicality of this festival. Building the sukkah and then hanging out in it too, with the last of the warm autumn sun shining on our faces, if we are lucky as we have been this week.
I like the sharp juxtaposition and our small sukkah at home has been just such a sanctuary. Our Delving into Judaism class built and decorated our FPS sukkah with fruit for longevity-take a peek, it’s wonderful.

We fitted in perfectly for our Sukkot service, with copious children drinking their hot chocolate as we sipped on mulled wine.

I struggle with the notion of commanding joy, Sukkot as our time of joy zeman simchateinu but there is certainly something liberating about this autumnal moment for us all.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun,

John Keats was anticipating our Sukkot.

And onto the next after this shabbat where we celebrate Ellie Jackson’s Sukkot Bat Mitzvah, and into Simchat Torah and a celebration of learning. The joy continues.

This year we celebrate Chris Nash as our Chatan Torah and Zoe Jacobs as Kallat Bereshit with two youth Kallot Ruby Reich and Rebekah Treganna. Do join us for Simchat Torah as the last moment of the Tishri Festivals as we finish and begin again our cycle of Torah
Shabbat Shalom and then Chag Sukkot Sameach.

Rebecca