12/13 July 2024, 7 Tamuz 5784

I was very moved on Sunday to witness the ordination of 5 new rabbis; joining the progressive rabbinate and ready to take on communities.

Rabbis Daisy, Eleanor, Nicola, Martina and Matt who studied through the Pandemic and the closures all spoke of their trepidation of what it might mean to lead, to give direction, to know where to go – one even asked us the congregation exactly what to do; he felt so uncertain.  They spoke of hoping for encounters with congregants and the opportunities to grow relationships. The senior librarian at Leo Baeck College gave a brilliant address, during which she reminded  the congregation that becoming an accountant is very not like becoming a rabbi.

Because, she said, it is far more intimate, you are bound up with people constantly. The prospect of all those waiting relationships was daunting for each one of the ordinands. 23 years since my ordination I can say that it has been the best part of my role.

The great Civil Rights rabbi German/American Joachim Prinz reflected this understanding when he said, “You cannot be a rabbi unless you love people. You don’t have to like them, but you have to love all of them. [God] says, ‘Thou shalt love the neighbor as thyself.’  [God] doesn’t say, ‘Thou shalt like them.’ I have loved all the people with whom I’ve come into contact. Even those with whom I have disagreed and whom I have disliked because I think God wants us to love people.”

This week we read about the waters of Meribah where the children of Israel argued.  They argued so badly that they ignored Moses grief for his sister’s death, they caused Moses and Aaron to lose their right to finish the task.

הֵ֚מָּה מֵ֣י מְרִיבָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־רָב֥וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל

And we know as we read that disagreement is not the sign of indifference, as Prinz identified there can still be love there. And at the end of this story it strangely says as interpreted by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz with these Hebrew words et vahev b’sufa” (Numbers 21:14) “In the end, there was love.”

That is at the heart of these stories and the ones in our own lives and communities.