Never before has our fragility been so apparent.
Usually we would want to pack our sukkah with uzpishin, guests, real and imagined. But this year it will be us, members of FPS who need the sukkah to meet in. Designed to be impermanent and not remotely robust, we bring ourselves into this new space.
This year it would be unsafe to squash into our usual sukkah space so there will be impermanent structures in the car park. Fabulous David Lewis will bring strong outdoor lights for us. Bring warm clothing. The service length will be understanding of us being outside!
We are tashvu k’ein taduru, we sit in the sukkah in the manner in which we dwell in our permanent homes. We make out like it is our home.
But we know as Rabbi Alan Lew z’l described; No building of wood and stone can ever afford us protection from the disorder that is always lurking all around us. So let’s bring all of that into our Sukkah this year whilst also marking our joy. This Sukkot, waving the lulav and eating and dwelling in the Sukkah, is a commandment that can only be fulfilled with joy.
We would love for you to bring fresh fruit and vegetables for the Food Bank (they will be delivered on Shabbat so families have them fresh).
Your local lulav – an opportunity to reflect on this strange time – and a message we can hang in the Sukkah about something you have learned of fragility this year.
Rabbi Rebecca
Yom Kippur this year will be hard for many of us, staying at home, fasting perhaps alone, without the throngs of folk and even the occasional irritation with the person seated next to us. All of this we will miss. Be easy with yourselves as you anticipate the day and what it might hold for you. Perhaps prepare to be disappointed or frustrated then one can only be pleasantly surprised.
Our services will be shorter, and there will much to peruse or visit across the LJ community in that early afternoon slot. We wanted to offer as much virtual inspiration as possible, so have asked four folk ahead of Yom Kippur to share their thoughts on the Torah reading that day. Netzavim talks of community; who is included, and what our Judaism might be.
We’re so excited to tell you about our new FPS Podcast. Rabbi Rebecca discusses thoughts and ideas from our Emeritus Rabbi, Frank Hellner, Sheila King Lassman, our Life President, Richard Greene leading our Building Group and our new Chair Tamara Joseph. Together they offer new insights into being a Jew and meeting Yom Kippur. Look out for the first episode coming on facebook and twitter in the next few days.
We’re also delighted to announce our Kallat Bereshit and Chatan Torah for this memorable Simchat Torah. Valerie Joseph has chaired our Beit Tefillah Services Committee and Dean Staker, as we know, makes our services. Both have done much during the past six months to hold services, prayer and community together, both behind the Bimah and on it. Very much looking forward.
Gmar Chatimah Tovah. A good fast, a good day and a good finish.
Rabbi Rebecca
Please do donate the equivalent of your Yom Kippur meals to Foodbank Aid. You can drop bags off at 36 Millfield Lane, Highgate N6 6JB.
I wish you a joyful, an easy and a sweet New Year. I hope you manage to taste new fruits and food.
Managing new moments is the spirit of Rosh Hashanah; new experiences are such a key part of our New Year rituals. In that spirit we’d like to give FPSniks a chance to visit the sanctuary, have a 15-minute moment in front of the ark and essentially re-connect ahead of Kol Nidrei between 10.30 and 12.30 on Sunday 27th. We hope to have some of our new Council here to welcome and wave at you and give you prayers and siddurim. Do book in for your slot by emailing
What a year for us to negotiate our way into a New Year with no more clarity or certainty than the one we are leaving. I pray that we can be of use to each other, that our congregation continues to provide solace and even joy and we can together add to the urgent tikun our community and world needs.
Yesterday I was taught a phrase by the Reverend Dr Rosemarie Mallet, Archdeacon of Croydon, who referred to religion’s “inward reach and outward stretch”. May this New Year of 5781 be that for us; an inward reach to the profound parts of our Jewish practice and learning and an outward stretch to be felt in the world. Good goals to have.
Shanah Tovah to you all, thank you for all you bring to FPS.
Rabbi Rebecca and all working here in your synagogue
Zoe, Dean, Franklyn, Pauline, Gracielle and Hilary
We are living in an ever changing world. Guidance this week, more robust than before makes gatherings for over six people illegal. Clearly this will disrupt family Yom Tov gatherings for many of us.
Sadly we will not be able to meet together for Tashlich and communal Shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah afternoon. Instead we will prepare packs for families or groups of six that would like to do this themselves. Please email if you want a pack.
We will still manage our car park Friday evening services and move forward on synagogue gatherings under 30. We will keep you informed at every stage. This Shabbat, Ivriah will come into the building and we will gauge how that feels for everyone.
Franklyn, Dean and I will bring Selichot to you on Saturday evening from the sanctuary. In the meantime, as home connection seems inevitable for us all, here are some tips how to make your computer space for services feel a little different over the High Holidays as you zoom into the sanctuary which I hope will allow you to feel closer to us and the building.
When the rabbis asked the question where would Judaism be after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E, they answered ‘homes’. Each home would become a mikdash m’at, the miniature Beit Hamikdash (Temple). Shabbat tables would be the mizbei-ach (altar). Maybe we need to remember this during this insane year that keeps us out of our synagogue building.
Some ideas from around the Jewish world for managing being at home and Zooming in for services:
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom and looking forward to meaningful renewal for us all whatever the medium.
Rabbi Rebecca
Schools are going back. Which frankly felt a like a dream until I saw Dora walk up the path and down the road to Woodhouse College. Rafael begins next week and, of course Ruben is finished and it’ll be a year before he begins his Economics degree at Glasgow University.
But all of this does mean that we have arrived at Autumn, as the poet John Keats captured for ever;
Season of Mists and Mellow fruitfulness…
Things have not felt mellow for many of us these past six months. Indeed anxiety has been pretty high. So preparing for Rosh Hashanah this year as we pass through this month of Elul is so different. Time has been strange these past months as days and weeks merged together; and we negotiated work schedules at home and new means of marking distinctions.
But of course preparing for the New Year is also familiar, because this opportunity to gaze inwards comes annually and reminds us that we are responsible for ourselves. This past year has amplified what is beyond our control and Elul invites us consider what we can control and manage. That is, ourselves. Kotveinu b’sefer chayim we will chant again and again this month, Write us in the Book of Life. That Book doesn’t get written on Rosh Hashanah; we write in it continually. Decisions that were made for us will be in its pages; the experiences of growing up, our parents, our siblings. Our work and our adult choices and of course the decisions we make every day how to be and how to react.
In S.Y. Agnon’s beautiful anthology, Days of Awe, we find this story: “A tale is told of one who sat in study before the zaddik Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna, of blessed memory, and before Rosh ha-Shanah came to obtain permission to be dismissed. That zaddik said to him, ‘Why are you hurrying?’ Said he to him, ‘I am a Reader, and I must look into the festival prayer book, and put my prayers in order.’ Said the zaddik to him, ‘The prayer book is the same as it was last year. But it would be better for you to look into your deeds, and put yourself in order.’”
And so we do.
Actually this year the prayers will be a little different, service format tweaked and adjusted for the different reality we find ourselves in. The yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’ are upon us and I hope they will bring you an opportunity to feel that awe and radical amazement of being alive, of having reached another year and another renewal for us, our lives and our hopes.
Shabbat Shalom for the weekend of Parashat Ki Tavo; the penultimate Shabbat of 5780.
I wish you well and look forward to seeing you in person if you manage one of our Car Park services, or on line as we have been doing.
Rebecca
“All models are wrong,” statisticians like to repeat, following words coined (most likely) by British statistician George Box in 1976 “…but some are useful”.
When does usefulness outweigh justice?
This has been quite a week; five days of much anguish for young people as they surveyed their school years of study and in some instances their future hopes and dreams in shatters. This all followed the A Level results, which had been adjudicated by a computer algorithm created by Ofqual. And on Monday at 4pm of this week, it was trumped by the human touch and knowledge of teachers. And our government reversed their trust in the system and returned to Central Assessed Grades.
There is such an anti-dystopian message in all of this. One A Level student talked of the ‘lack of humanity’ in all of this. Huy Duong, a refugee from communist Vietnam, arriving in the 1980s, now an IT consultant anticipated the errors for 39 % of students, but no-one listened. He described the algorithm as opaque and undemocratic, something he recognised from his youth. And talked of our 18 year olds’ “collective punishment by statistics”. In other words the computer said no.
How can there not be a message or a moral in all of this?
Maybe one is that justice and humanity is sometimes at odds with ‘usefulness’. This week’s portion Shoftim gives Jews their marching cry, it’s directed us for many generations. Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof…Justice, Justice shall you pursue. Amidst all the attempts for efficiency and usefulness is the desire for humane justice. This is the case whether calling out environmental damage, responding to poverty and destitution or people fleeing their countries for safety. And indeed even calling for fair and transparent ways of rewarding our school children, wherever their postcodes.
Shabbat shalom
Rabbi Rebecca
MESSAGE FROM RABBI REBECCA
These days continue to be so strange. Our executive board are working flat out to prepare for a safe and responsible return to the building. We all want to be together. I know for many, zoom services provide a strong and meaningful substantiate for being in our beloved Hutton Grove. For some maybe not so much. And I empathise with how everyone is feeling.
Re’eh anokhi nothin lifnaichem hayom beracha u’klalah. Behold I set before you blessing and curse. This is the opening verse of this week’s portion (Deut 11). The Torah text implies listening and observing the commandments or not designated a blessing or curse. Generations later we appreciate fuller way of understanding the choice in our response to life. Indeed our preparation for the New Year is all about that wrestling we all have to manage. It’s not easy.
We will try our first Car Park drive-in service on Friday 4th September and then again 11th September. We are allowed up to 30 people either in their cars or seated outside the Small Hall doors. We will be outside so singing will be permitted. Dean and I will lead from outside the Small Hall and it will be streamed to Zoom and Facebook as usual. This will be a first step for us!
Do book in to join us. We will manage a first booking system, and will particularly reach out to some of you who have not been using Zoom.
Today I officiated at my first wedding since lockdown. There were 6 guests and many more on the screen from Paris. It was strange to be doing that amongst people. Be called Rabbi by folk in real time next to me; sign a ketubah and stand under a chuppah. It reminded me we will be back, we will return and things will be as they were and maybe a little bit better.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Rebecca
Rabbi Rebecca writes:
Your clothing did not wear out upon you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. (Deuteronomy 8:4)
How could I resist this verse?
Rashi suggests that their clothes were refreshed by the Cloud of Glory-a sort of celestial dry cleaning. And as children grew the clothes on their backs grew with them; like a snail’s shell. I love these details. Even medieval rabbis asked practical questions. But on a deeper level this verse speaks to the idea of surviving trials; walking for those years through the desert was not easy and Deuteronomy acknowledges that. As always it offers succour to contemporary readers and the ordeals we encounter. Sometimes we manage them, and our clothes don’t wear out and our feet don’t swell; in other words we survive them.
This is a good verse to read through these weeks of Av as we approach the month of Elul. After Tisha B’Av our liturgical tradition dictates the 7 haftarot of consolation-the reminder there was and is renewal and forgiveness. It’s a good message to internalise.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
From Rabbi Rebecca
This week I wanted to share a thank you letter to you. Never in a million years would I have anticipated this birthday would be accompanied by such generosity from my synagogue.
Truly I was rendered speechless when a group of FPS folk gathered at my garden gate in the rain last Shabbat afternoon and presented this extraordinary cake and the plethora of gifts you gathered for me. You even listen to my sermons; these tiny models of books are all pages I quote from.
We are having great joy unpacking our new garden sofa, around a fire pit (how did you know we had been longing for such things?) New garden lights are being hung and I see no reason why we couldn’t squeeze in here for a Shabbat service one balmy day, or at least Havdalah. You donated in my name to a beloved collective philanthropy project that helps and supports women and girls in London. You even gave me two nights away, (mid week of course) in a hotel in deepest darkest Somerset with a beautiful restored garden. I have much to be grateful for, but these loving gifts have totally humbled me. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Rafael made a toast at our (small!) birthday dinner and ended saying “You must be an ok rabbi, Mummy, because your congregation has done such nice things for you.” Last Shabbat Dean sang Bob Dylan’s Forever Young “May you always do for others; And let others do for you.” And goodness how you have. Thank you for your kindness, and thoughtfulness; accompanying me as I mark this milestone, a half a century, as I keep being reminded! Yaaloz libi the psalmist wrote, my heart leaps for joy. (Psalm 28:7)
Shabbat Shalom
Rebecca
Click on this image to see Elliott’s story
MESSAGE FROM RABBI REBECCA
Communities are rightly proud of their children. Jewish tradition urges us to nurture the next generation, and indeed each generation. L’dor va’dor we sing each Shabbat morning, generation to generation. Teach this (whole thing of Judaism) to your children v’shinantam l’vanecha so says the Shema prayer. And Talmud Berachot when it insists children are like builders in what they create:
Rabbi Elazar said Rabbi Hanina said: Torah scholars increase peace in the world, as it is said: ‘And all your children [banayich] shall be taught of Adonai, and great shall be the peace of your children.’ (Isa. 54:13) Do not read your children [banayich], but your builders [bonayich].” -Talmud Brakhot 64a
So it’s pretty clear, generations matter. Not just families and ‘your’ children but the future of all communities. Elliott Karstadt, Dr Elliott Karstadt actually, is a child of this congregation. His parents Lyn and Philip Karstadt raised all three of their children Elliott, Lauren and Jonathan within our congregation (Lauren is my Rafael’s favourite teacher ever, ever.) Elliott was taught in Ivriah, directed to Bar Mitzvah by the legendary Tzvi Rosenwasser. He continued and became a teacher for the next generation of children. He taught both at Ivriah and Jewish Studies GCSE here at FPS. He teaches adults and has been an integral part of the Delving into Judaism community. He was part of early Shabbat Resouled and has maintained that connection and commitment despite these past five years of learning and serving Reform and Liberal communities across the UK.
This Shabbat is a joy not just for his family but for us his synagogue. Elliott will become a rabbi next Wednesday. It should have been on July 5th with all the pomp and ceremony of all ordinations. Our Dean Staker was to present him and I was to ordain him. But during these extraordinary times we will have a small, distanced private ceremony next week.
It is one of the greatest privileges I’ve known to be Elliott’s ordaining rabbi. Moses is told ; charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him…. I imagine these words addressed to me for Elliott. And I will do so with your love and pride also.
Shabbat Shalom and do join us for this service.
Rabbi Rebecca
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