Watch yourselves that you do not become seduced by your desire to dominate and possess, destroying the work of Creation. For then, the Source of Creation will turn against you, and the world in which you live will no longer sustain you, and you will be lost upon the face of the earth which the Creator has provided for you.
Make these words part of your understanding and spirit, bind them to witness the works of your hands, see through them as they focus the image before your eyes, teach them to your children, discuss them at home, on the road, before your sleep and when you wake…
This alternative translation of the Shema by Rabbi David Cooper calls to mind this week’s portion, Noach, and the obligation to consider our part in the earth’s fragility. I welcome this reminder.
So much can compete for the prime place of concern in our hearts and minds right now but the earth so deserves its place. We need an opportunity to reflect on that. It is so easy to prioritise pressing dilemmas and current suffering and continue to kick our concern for Creation into the long grass.
Perhaps consider what in your life you might add or subtract to recommit to this consciousness of our place here.
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom on this Autumnal day,
Rebecca
Goodness. Here we are, at the end of the month of Tishri with Simchat Torah, our last festival and often the most intense, as we finish the cycle of Torah with the last words of Deuteronomy and begin again with Genesis. It is always a wrench to let go of the month of festivals of the narrative arc that sees us beginning with Rosh Hashanah, through the ten days of reflection, out into the physicality of Sukkot and then finally, this moment of Torah.
Rashi, on Leviticus 23:36, suggests the end of Sukkot – Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah – is rather like a king who invites his children to a celebration for a certain number of days. When the time comes to depart, he says, “My children, I beg of you, linger with Me another day; your parting is difficult for Me.”
I understand that.
Me’or Einayim was an 18th century Ukrainian Chasidic commentator. He suggests Torah is meaningful to us because it’s like a mirror to our own lives and we will always find something that resonates – and so we will this year.
In a way, we have held our collective breaths since last Simchat Torah 5784. Maybe you remember that Saturday morning, as I do, and the quick decisions we had to make to adjust our service as the news came in from Israel. But we have navigated this year together.
It has been intense for those of us working as ‘professional’ Jews but also, actually, for anyone who identifies Jewishly. We have all carried it. This week we have planned carefully to ensure we mark this ending sensitively, adjusting to this most significant of anniversaries.
Wednesday evening will be joyful for our children and families. We honour Natasha Kafka and Sarah Wendy Burman as our Kallot of Torah and Bereshit, so we’d love all their students to celebrate them there with chocolate and singing.
Thursday morning, also with Sarah Wendy and Natasha, will be more solemn, as we manage Yizchor and the cycles of life and Torah.
I so look forward to seeing you there, at SPS, for our last Autumn festival.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
Some of us are carried kicking and screaming into the next festival of Sukkot, known as “z’man simchateinu,” or “season of our joy.” After the profundity of Yom Kippur and the balancing it offers, it’s hard, and even a little abrupt, to be told to be immediately joyful.
We are literally mandated to feel, not even just to express, joy. FirstTorah [the Deuteronomist] declares a few times “you shall rejoice” (Deut. 16:14) and then: “You shall have nothing but joy” or said another way, “You shall be exceedingly joyous“ (Deut. 16:15).
I have struggled a little with this commandment and thus insistence to feel joyous – who likes being told to cheer up or to smile when they are not joyful?
Yet this year, I am thinking of what I shared with you on Yom Kippur. If a funeral procession and a wedding procession met, the wedding would take precedence over the mourning. Indeed, the family service ark at Sha’arei Tsedek had engraved the words from Psalm 100 Ivdu et Adonai b’simcha – Worship God with joy.
So here it is – our chance to do just that. Even those of us who aren’t building a sukkah [this year] needn’t miss the physicality of this festival, eating under the stars and rain, if necessary. Waving the lulav, smelling the extra special scent of the etrog always feels so welcome. I am determined to allow the physicality of Sukkot to be something special this year, although we won’t have our own sukkah at FPS – we will share one at SPS. I intend to enjoy walking in nature and to make time to do so. Even if you don’t have a lulav at home, feel the benefit of your autumn garden and the air. That’s what it’s asking of us. Feel it and be alive.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, an unusual and brilliant Orthodox Rabbi in New York, writes in his new book, “Only those who know the fragility of life can truly appreciate the full preciousness of every moment… The release from Yom Kippur leads to the extraordinary outburst of life that is Sukkot.”
Enjoy the outburst and hold onto the balance. Chag Sukkot Sameach!
Join us for a family [but for everyone] relaxed Erev Sukkot service at SPS. I’ll be leading and then Thursday morning Rabbi Danny Rich and I will share the service and all it offers us in this take on joy. Kiddush will be important too! Then it will be Dean’s last Resouled on Friday 18th and our Chol HaMo’ed (intervening festival days) service on Shabbat morning.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
Days are scrolls; write on them what you want to be remembered – Bahya Ibn Pakuda, a scholar and mystic in 11th century Spain who wrote a book, ‘Duties of the Heart.’
During this period through our Days of Awe, but particularly these ten days of tshuvah, we are invited to create a chesbon hanefesh, an accounting of our souls. it is a spectacular piece of agency that reminds us we also have choice in how we will be, how we react and how we act. We will have time to respond to this invitation in our Shiur on Yom Kippur.
I’m reminded of this in our small exchanges as well as in the big intentions we set for ourselves, and not least in how we negotiate our Jewish lives.
Monday was the anniversary of that devastating Shabbat, October 7th. Some of us attended the vigil in Hyde Park on Sunday. I listened to the radio for much of the day. A most respected colleague was speaking and our own Karen Werth, from Nottingham Liberal Synagogue, talked so eloquently about how to be in the face of unimaginable brutality and fear here in the UK and reminded us to choose hope and connectedness.
On Monday evening, we shared a service with Crouch End Chavurah and Southgate Progressive Synagogue. Over 125 crammed into the space we had created with dimmed lights and one yahrzeit candle that held so much grief and so many memories. It was a strong moment for all who attended. Marian Fixler shared a haiku after:
We gather to mourn
Witnessing our grief and pain
The space to just feel.
We acknowledged the line from Ecclesiastes, that there is a time for everything under the sun. Monday was a time to mourn and bear witness to the particular atrocities of that day and the repercussions that flowed from it – the death and mourning and not least the families still waiting painfully for their loved ones to come home. We spoke of the 101 hostages still there as well as those murdered and still not home for burial. We talked of the soldiers on active duty. We acknowledged the extraordinary acts of bravery from individuals that day. We remembered the loyalty and courage of the Bedouin community in the South, who responded by helping and saving several. But what really spoke to was the grief we all felt.
A midrash recalls that Just as when a single walnut is taken from the pile, all of them collapse and roll onto one another, the same is true of the Jewish people: if one of them is stricken, all of them feel it. Phillipa Carr, one of our members, works for JAMI and wanted to share these extraordinary videos as we all navigate talking about the 7th October, about the conflict and our reactions. Do take advantage of these for you, your children, for school, work and a myriad of occasions. Click here to access.
I wish you Gmar Chatimah Tovah – and truly, may we all find and recognise ourselves ‘written in the Book of Life,’ feeling open and ready for our Yom Kippur services. We will be back at Shaarei Tzedek (there is easy parking within 5/10 minutes of the synagogue). Our services will run all day and the shiur discussion will be a quiet spot for chevruta-partner and small group learning. I hope it will be a strong and meaningful day for us all. We need it. Especially now.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
Tonight brings in Rosh Hashanah. It is not the New Year we might have wanted or expected. Nonetheless, it’s ours. The fear and trembling that Iran’s attack on Israel has unleashed will be around our tables tonight. Yet we still believe that Rosh Hashanah has huge promise for us. HaYom HArat Olam is another name, this day is the birthday of the world but actually the Hebrew really suggests pregnancy and possibility – of the world and what it can be.
Yom HaZikaron
Rosh Hashanah is also known as the Day of Remembering – R. Eliyahu Ki Tov, in his Book of Jewish Awareness, calls on God who remembers all that is forgotten. May we take seriously our task to remember. May the hostages be freed and fighting end. May safety and security be assured for all and a dignified life be restored in Gaza.
Yom HaDin
The Day of judgement – may we bring our reflective observations with us as we look closely at our own hearts and souls in these first ten days of the year.
Yom T’ruah
May the shofar, sounded this year by both David Hoffman and Ian Kafka, wake us and pull us into a New Year of hope and justice.
May we make this year a good year, filled with sweetness and goodness here in our own homes and community. May our adventure out of the building be easy and interesting. May we be healthy and able to access gratitude in this New Year of 5784.
Shanah Tovah – wishing you a sweet healthy and strong new year.
Rebecca
There is so much ’newness’ to navigate right now, not least negotiating our temporary homes for Shabbat and of course, next week at Shaarei Tzedek Synagogue (see directions and access to them below). Some things stay constant: us, the community, me, our melodies and ways we do things. Managing the balance between New and Unfamiliar is one of life’s best challenges.
The Torah cycle continues and to mark our beautiful weekly Sefer Torah going with us, we will be consecrating its brand-new mantle this Shabbat. This embroidered silk mantle has been a labour of love by FPS-niks throughout the 70th year and into this Autumn, where we might benefit from a dedication especially right now. Designed by Naomi Gould and embroidered and put together by Valerie Joseph, Valerie Boyd-Hellner, Dalia Lyons, Wika Dorosz, Ruth Logue and Bobbie Hood under the supportive tutelage of Kathy Sylvester of Nottingham Liberal Synagogue, this image of the Tree of Life captures the seasons and the promise of peace and all things humane by the Dove and her olive stem, as she rest on the branch of the tree.
On this Shabbat Netzavim, this dedication for the Torah that accompanies us week in and week out feels incredibly symbolic to me. Netzavim is the magnificent telling of the Covenant moment, emphasising the whole community being present, even those who were yet to come for Deuteronomy’s re-telling, Kulchem – all of you -every part of the community, from those at the centre to the visitors at the fringes. This is for all of us and consequently feels extremely important. We talked of the gifts made of scarlet, blue and purple threads with gold and silver that make up the sanctuary. From all ‘whose hearts are willing’ and ‘who are skilled,’ so our temporary sanctuary is nourished and we bring beauty in our portable ark. I am so grateful to this group and the gift they are bringing to our Shabbat community.
See you this Shabbat – and a reminder of our shared Selichot service Saturday evening 9pm at Southgate Progressive Synagogue.
Shabbat Shalom
Rebecca
I found myself at Windsor Castle on Monday – teaching on the same leadership course I attended in 2018. The remit was ‘be brutally honest’ as I shared my good and bad experiences. I might have enjoyed that invitation to truth-telling anyway but I particularly enjoyed it during the month of Elul, when I am particularly focused on self-reflection. I also explained the Jewish impulse to renewal and transformation, especially now, sitting as I was beneath portraits of the late Queen and her mother. Strange juxtapositions, that have a way of sharpening the mind and being truthful about our weaknesses, is just one benefit of these reflective days. We talked a great deal about the balance of one’s own personal integrity and consideration of others.
How does one pay equal attention to both?
Yesterday’s words by Marge Piercy have remained with me:
“Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.”The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme
– Marge Piercy
As you pay attention to yourself, do consider joining us for our second Shabbat away from home – it was good last weekend and did not feel at all ‘wilderness’ like.
See the guidance for access to, parking and finding us at QMH and TCC.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
Lo tuchal l’hitalem. You are not allowed to ignore. This verse in the heart of Ki Teitzei You are not allowed to ignore; you are not allowed to be indifferent. Deuteronomy has this in the context of civic responsibility, literally returning lost animals. But commentators have over the generations understood this to mean cutting yourself off from others. This can mean witnessing injustice or distancing yourself from what is happening.
This past week I can honestly say that our Council and many, many members of FPS have fulfilled this obligation by showing up to help us pack up and organise our moving out of the building temporarily. It has been more than impressive, it’s been extraordinary. We have barely had to pay for our move -members have offered storage spaces, have driven and schlepped and organised, sorted and culled what we own and packed it all ready for the charming removal folk to pick everything up on Monday and Tuesday. We talk of minyan being ten adults at prayer. But it is also ‘showing up’ for each other and goodness that has happened this week. Join us for our first Shabbat in our temporary sanctuaries. It should be special. The caretakers there are working hard to welcome us and make our experience be as sensitive and helpful as possible. I am tired but supremely grateful and looking forward to this adventure. Please remember my new office is in my house and on Wednesdays at the Quaker Meeting House. Call on me as usual I am very much here.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca
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
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