Parashat Acharei-Kedoshim: Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
1st May 2012

Sex Lessons in the Torah[i]

This week’s double Torah portion, Acharey-Mot K’doshim, juxtaposes two very different themes, which look at first sight to be totally unrelated: sexual prohibitions on the one hand, and a code for ethical and just action, on the other. In fact, these two portions provide us with a Leviticus ‘sandwich’: the Holiness code of Leviticus19 sandwiched between laws against sexual misconduct in chapters 18 and 20

In Leviticus 18 and 20, the focus is on prohibited sexual acts – those between family members; a man and his neighbour’s wife[ii]; a man and a menstruating woman[iii], two men; a man or woman and an animal.· In all these cases, with the exception of bestiality, where initiation of the act by both sexes is conceived, the individual male is thesubject; the individual female is the object. And this perspective is reinforced in all the other references to sex in other legal texts in the Torah: a bride must be a virgin[iv]; a father is prohibited from making his daughter a prostitute[v]; sex out of wedlock is not punished as long as the woman is an un-betrothed virgin and the man who lies with her, marries her[vi].

Interestingly, however, in two key narrative passages dealing with exceptions to the taboo surrounding incest, the active role is taken by women.· Following the destructions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the transformation of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt[vii], Lot’s two daughters, left alone with their father, get him drunk on successive nights and lie with him, to ensure they have offspring[viii]. In another case where the future is at stake, Judah’s daughter-in-law, Tamar, childless because Onan has spilled his seed rather than produced a child in the name of his dead brother, Er (Tamar’s first husband), conceals her true identity with the garments of a prostitute and entices her father-in-law to lie with her so that she may conceive[ix].

These two exceptions highlight the hierarchy of values implicit in the system of sex laws outlined in the Torah: ultimately, the imperative of reproduction is so important it may even over-rule incest taboos. What is more, ethicalconduct as such is a secondary consideration. The primary principle underlying the rules of sexual behaviour is the maintenance of social order and the preservation of the separateness of the people of Israel. The laws regulating sexual acts in Leviticus 18 and 20 are set in the context of the book’s concern with k’dushah – with setting apart: the offerings to be made on the altar from the remainder of property, the priests from the people, the people from the other nations. As the preamble to the sex rules in Leviticus 18 indicates, ethical issues are less relevant to the laws regulating sexual conduct than the need to ensure that the people do not follow the ways of Canaan or Egypt, but rather walk in the way of God[x].

But one rule in Leviticus 18, by contrast, does seem to emerge from a predominantly ethical concern. At verse 18 we read:
And you shall not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime.

While there are no laws against bigamy in Torah, and indeed bigamy was only out-ruled for Ashkenazi communities in the late tenth century by the ban of Rabbeinu Gershom ben Judah[xi], and remains an option (in theory) forSephardim within the religious Courts of Israel to this day, the rule against marriage between man and his wife’s sister seems motivated by consideration of the wife’s feelings and the need to preserve the integrity of the relationship between two sisters. As such it has much more in keeping with the next chapter, Leviticus 19, where the need for right conduct in social relationships is stressed again and again. Indeed, the link in ethical tone between this rule, and the chapter sandwiched between the two dealing with prohibited sexual acts, makes the apparent contrast between the ethical preoccupations of Leviticus 19 and the separatist agenda of 18 and 20 even more marked.

In my view, the juxtaposition of the chapters is not accidental. Rather, it suggests that just as the sex rules should be understood in the context of the imperative of setting the people Israel apart from the other nations, so they should be understood in the context of the ethical regulation of social relationships. And yet, in fact, to this day, Jewish law has failed to consider the implications of this juxtaposition for sexual ethics.

At the heart of Leviticus 19, a chapter dealing with correct ritual· practice and ethical behaviour towards the poor, the stranger, the disabled, the elderly, one’s neighbour, lies the famous dictum ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Eternal’ (19:18). This verse is part of a section of laws dealing with acts of justice, with the myriad material ways in which we must fulfil our responsibilities towards our neighbours and towards God.

Significantly, of the various ethical rules delineated in Leviticus 19, only that concerning the command ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ deals with the relationship of peers; of· equals; of equal men. All the others involve ensuring right conduct between those whose relationship to one another is asymmetrical the person with propertyvis a vis the one who is poor, the Israelite vis a vis the stranger, the able-bodied vis a vis the disabled, the young vis a vis the old.· Similarly The Song of Songs is unique in its egalitarian treatment of the lovers.· In its pastoral paradise, love and desire is expressed equally and actively by both partners. Indeed, it is the passionate female voice present in the poem which has led some scholars to suggest that the text is probably the work of a woman[xii].

For the spirit of Leviticus 19:18 and The Song of Songs to infuse the sex laws would require a huge conceptual shift. It would mean treating both women and men as active subjects, peers, equals. It would mean perceiving sex, not as a series of acts perpetrated by one party on the body of another, but as a means of expressing a relationship.· It would mean seeing the expression of love and desire as one of the primary purposes of sexual activity. It would mean recognising all relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, with or without children, as variations on the theme of human partnership and evaluating them all according to the identical criteria of love, equality andreciprocity.

The commandment to ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’ provides the ethical framework for a code of sexual behaviour. So what happens when we apply the criteria of love, equality and reciprocity to the sexual prohibitions outlined in Leviticus 18 and 20?· Clearly all relationships in which the inequality of the parties is an inherent feature, for example relationships between adults and minors, are unacceptable. As far as other relationships are concerned, a clue to whether or not they fulfil the criteria emerges from the specific sexual terminology employed in the texts.·There are a number of linguistic expressions for sex in the Torah, of which the most common are to know – lada’atand to lie down – lishkav. Both of these terms are morally neutral. The words themselves do not convey the nature of the sexual encounter, positive or negative. By contrast the expression gillui ervah, ‘uncovering nakedness’, which is used in the Torah exclusively in cases of incest and in reference to sex with a menstruating woman, suggests not only sexual intimacy, but vulnerability and danger. Within the world-view of Torah, blood is a powerful substance, and contact with it is taboo. From the vantage point of the present day, the danger associated with ‘uncovering nakedness’ has more to do with the potential for exploitation involved in ‘uncovering’ a person’s ‘nakedness’. In the words of a contemporary rabbi quoted anonymously[xiii]: ‘Very simply, it means making a person completely vulnerable and then not taking care of them in their nakedness.’

Interestingly, the expression ‘uncovering nakedness’ is not used in Torah in connection with other categories of prohibited· sexual behaviour outlined in Leviticus 18 and 20 – adultery, sex between men and bestiality. In these examples, the more neutral term ‘lying down’ is employed[xiv]. Clearly none of these cases entails the danger of blood contact or a built-in asymmetrical power dynamic. Indeed, in the case of two men lying down together, perhaps there may be an implicit assumption that the independent male subject is not in a position to exploit his equal – another male. But, at a deeper level, ‘uncovering nakedness’ refers not only to who is involved, but to what is involved. Even if the parties concerned are equals, any sexual encounter which entails exposing and exploiting another person’s vulnerability is ‘uncovering nakedness’.

So, by reading the prohibitions against gillui ervah, ‘uncovering nakedness’, in Leviticus 18 and 20, through the prism of the injunctions ‘to love your neighbour as yourself’ in Leviticus 19, we can identify the parameters of an egalitarian sexual ethic that is inclusive of all relationships.

Parashat Tazria-Metzora: Rabbi Neil Janes
24th April 2012

I recently returned from spending a year in Israel, living in Haifa, where I began the research for my PhD. My wife and I were reminiscing today about the street party that took place at this time last year for Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day). Music blaring out, we worried that our daughter’s hearing would be affected, but could not resist the wonderful atmosphere with families of all ages celebrating after the sombre mood of Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day).

I share, like all of you, a grave concern about the prospects for the future; whether peace will one day be realised between the Israelis and Palestinians. And, at the same time, the lack of peace is only one part of how I relate to Israel. Israel for me is an expression of the Jewish people’s yearning for sovereignty - to shape their destiny in cultural, spiritual and religious terms. Israel is a land in which the sacred texts of our tradition were brought to life from the imaginations and intellectual endeavours of our ancestors. Israel is a place where the potential for democracy and Jewish values can become embedded within the fabric of society. Israel is a place of huge complexity and challenge, a land in which many communities and peoples live, work, love and pray.

Allow me to take you back to the first time I lived in Israel, in Jerusalem; a time when I was studying for the rabbinate. After that year I promised myself I would speak regularly not just of the politics of Israel but of the human experience of living in such a complex part of the world…

Within the first day of arriving in Jerusalem I had to find a flat.· So I set off with my intrepid future housemate (a friend from England) to search through lists of flats for rent. We paid a small fee to an agent for their accommodation lists and within minutes we identified a suitable flat in the right location and promptly telephone the landlord.

Shalom
Shalom
Errr efshar l’daber im Avraham Chovav b’vakesha
Ken, m’daber Chovav
Err, yesh lekha dera l’haskir?

The stilted Hebrew must have been painful even for a kindergarten child, but as we were to discover our landlord did not speak a word of English (at least that’s what he made out to us). Having seen the flat and decided it was suitable we telephoned Avraham again to arrange contract signing.

Avraham, we were soon to learn, was a sweet septuagenarian who I think really loved the fact that we had come to Israel to study.·· He duly invited us to his apartment to sign contracts and meet his wife Margelit.· He picked us up in his old red car and after a few moments panic, that he could be taking us anywhere, we settled in for the journey – full of painful conversations and rapid attempts to decipher the magical language he spoke.

With the contract out of the way he offered us drinks and food in the true style of the hospitality you might expect in the Mediterranean.· “Sit, eat, my wife made the cakes.”· She spoke much better English – apparently she once taught English in a primary school.· It was then that he brought out the wine.

Just as Moses in the book of Deuteronomy describes the land as bountiful with the seven species (wheat, barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey) so were we entering the land and sitting down with our landlord to…homemade pomegranate wine.

Now this was a little more than we expected and though reluctant to drink alcohol in the middle of the day we felt obliged.· Only it wasn’t just wine it was fortified wine and very sweet – like a sherry. If you can imagine kiddush wine – stronger and sweeter – that is how it tasted.· My housemate wanted to describe it as having a certain sharpness – but we couldn’t find the right word in the dictionary.

His wife then brought us some delightful herbs from the garden.· One of them smelt slightly lemony and she insisted we take it back with us to our flat. It was called Melisa and retained its scent all the way through to Pesach.

Just before we left his home, Avraham showed us his photos of army service.· It transpired that he believed that as long as any Israeli was capable he should fulfil his duty to protect the land.· Imagine the seventy-year-old sitting in an armoured vehicle surrounded by 19-20 year olds.· Avraham and his wife were born in Israel before the state was founded and the family had been there at least for two generations prior to them.

It was whilst applying for a reduction in the council tax (we were students) in the city municipality that Avraham revealed to us a treasure of a story.· He was trying to ask us if we had been scared that morning – a suicide bombing on a bus had occurred metres from our flat as we waited for him to turn up.· The windows had shaken with the blast and seconds later the sirens began wailing.· Scared – how could I not be?

He then, spontaneously, began to recount a scary moment in his life.· He told us that he was a member of ETzeL – one of the radical groups campaigning for the foundation of the State of Israel in opposition to the British mandate.·He wasn’t really a radical – he was around 10 or 11 years old and used to fly post around Jerusalem; putting up propaganda posters.· But on this occasion he and his friend (also fly posting) were unlucky – a British officer caught them.· They were taken back to the police station and interrogated.

Of course his parents were not called he told us, incredulous that we would ask such a foolish question.· It was then Avraham pointed behind us through the windows of the municipal offices to a low building across the road.· “That was the prison where we thought we were going to be taken (it’s now a museum),” he commented. Avraham said he was so petrified he started crying.· He thought the British were going to hang him.· Actually he was given a serious warning and sent home.· They didn’t fly post again – at least they didn’t get caught anyway.

As we left Jerusalem, on my last day in Israel, Avraham, our landlord, drove us to the airport.· He had offered to give us a lift – as if we were his extended family.· His last words before we took our bags to the departure lounge were:

D’ash lahorim shelachem. - Send good wishes to your parents and if you ever come back and visit give me a call.

I never did give him a call when I was living in Israel last year, I don’t even think I have his number any more, but I’ll never forget his pomegranate wine, made from fresh pomegranates grown in his front garden. As we yearn for a time in which we only need think of such things as friendship, eating and sharing the stories of our past and the aspirations of our future, I am reminded of the words of Psalm 122, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; may those who love you prosper. Let there be peace within your walls, safety within your borders. For the sake of my people, my friends, I say: let there be peace within you.”

Parashat Shemini & Yom HaShoah: Rabbi Alexandra Wright
17th April 2012

The death of two of the sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, comes at the conclusion of the solemn and uplifting seven-day ceremony of consecration of the priests.·Purified and clothed in their ritual vestments, the two young men officiate for the very first time with their father. As the celebrations come to their conclusion, Aaron lifts his hands towards the people and blesses them and the Presence of God appears to the whole people.·At that moment a fire descends to consume the burnt offering on the altar.·The people see and shout and fall on their faces.·The fire is the fire of acceptance, of God’s acknowledgement that all has gone well in the proceedings, that if there has been any violation of ethical or ritual prohibitions, then all is forgiven and order restored.

It is a proud moment of achievement for these two young men, the elder sons of Aaron and Elisheva and brothers of Eleazar and Ithamar.·Their birth is announced in a genealogy list in Exodus 6:23.·Their father’s cousin, Korach, also mentioned here, is to make his appearance in the Book of Numbers, as a rebel against the authority of Moses and Aaron. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Korach and his followers are caught trying to offer up incense and are scorched in a lethal fire.

But it is not their first privileged experience. In Exodus 24, Nadav and Avihu ascend Mount Sinai with Moses and Aaron and seventy elders of Israel – and it is in this elected group that they experience a vision of God: ‘And they saw the God of Israel – under whose feet was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity’ (Exodus 24:9).·What did they make of this revelation?·What did they see and experience that was to lead them perhaps to attempt to replicate the experience in the Tent of Meeting, and that resulted in their tragically, premature deaths?

On the day of their deaths, they lay coals in their firepans, add incense and bring what the Torah calls esh zarah – ‘alien fire’ – into the Tent of Meeting.·There has been no command from God, no instruction from Moses or Aaron, they take this inexplicably upon themselves.· The consequences are devastating; they are consumed by a fire and die instantly.·What happened? Was it a tragic accident?· Did one of them drop his censer too close to their inflammable vestments, and in the confined precincts of the Tent of Meeting, both went up in the conflagration?· Were they intoxicated as suggested by legislation that follows on from this story, prohibiting the imbibing of wine or other strong drink before entering the Tent of Meeting? (Leviticus 10:8-11).·The midrash suggests that their early experiences had made them arrogant, imagining themselves as assuming authority and power once Aaron and Moses were dead.·‘Let us see who will die first,’ says God.·Like Korach subsequently, they rebel against the authority of the older generation – ‘Are not all the people holy?’ Korach is to ask Moses later on.·What does it mean that both sets of cousins are consumed by divine fire?

Are they rebels like Korach, or is something else happening here?· Perhaps indeed, their experience on Mount Sinai has not only turned their heads, but claimed their fatal zeal.·Sinai recedes into the past and as priests they know that they are God’s anointed, privileged to enter the Holy of Holies and glimpse what the mountain yielded from its top – the stone tablets and the ineffable presence of God. They step inside the curtained tent, treading silently, pushing aside the blue, purple and crimson yarns of twisted linen.·There, behind the curtain of partition they glimpse the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid with pure gold and above it the two cherubim, made of hammered gold, standing at each end of the cover of the Ark.·Their wings are spread above, shielding the cover, their faces turned inward, in praise of the unseen presence of God.·‘There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you…all that I will command you…’ (Exodus 25:22).

They wait, scarcely daring to breathe, their censers hanging low towards the ground, the incense rising to their nostrils.· Where is the sapphire pavement?·Where is the throne of God’s glory?·They step closer; they touch the beaten gold with their hands, they swing their censers and smoke fills the enclosed space.

It is here in the Holy of Holies that they are found, scorched by fire. In the numbness that follows, Aaron opens his mouth to protest, but no sound emerges; his heart is broken, but there are no tears; he exhales to remove the terrible weight that pressures his abdomen, but he is silent.

There is no mourning; no rituals, no prayers, no eulogies for the dead, no words of comfort for the living, and no monument is erected in memory of the dead. The father can only silently plead remembrance for his two sons dragged to an unknown grave by their own kinsmen, their charred bodies unrecognisable in the aftermath of the burning.

That any poem after Auschwitz is obscene?
Covenants of silence so broken between us
Can we still promise or trust what we mean?

Once, long ago, the story was told of the death of Aaron and Elisheva’s two sons; shaped and embedded into the sacred narrative, a long-lost author added in their own silent sorrow, Va-yidom Aharon – ‘Aaron was silent’ for the child they had lost in the burning of the Temple or in the flight from Jerusalem to Babylon.

And today, as the last survivors witness and their children and children’s children listen, tell and re-tell the stories of their parents and grandparents, we are shaping and embedding the story of our past, breaking the covenants of silence that stifled our peace and suffocated our hope.

We feast to keep our promise of never again.
(Micheal O’Siadhail, The Gossamer Wall, ‘Never’)

Parashat Shemini: Rabbi Aaron Goldstein
17th April 2012

Ritual purity is the major focus of one of the six Orders of the Mishnah, (the Rabbinic interpretation of the Torah laws relating to life in Temple days and post its destruction, written in 200CE). I would not normally focus on Leviticus 11:24-38, a passage that seemingly interrupts lists of beasts of the air, land and sea that were not to be eaten. However, on this occasion my options were limited and not having had the pleasure before, thought my Congregation and I might find something in focussing on impurities through contact with carcasses of mentioned beasts.

For The High Holydays, we adorn our scrolls and the ark with special white coverings to symbolise the search for purity during this period – a custom that, in some communities, even extends to the Rabbi and some members of the congregation, who may wear a white robe known as a kittel. White is also a symbol of death in Judaism, reminding visitors to the synagogue of the challenge posed in Deuteronomy 30:19, to ‘choose life.’

Ritual purity as defined in biblical times became a factor in the desire to keep men and women apart. The fear of ‘impurity,’ in relation to women especially during menstruation, enshrined in the laws of the Torah and dressed up as a desire to uphold those laws, meant that although women were not actually prohibited from carrying out the mitzvot in relation to prayer, the custom was for them to be excluded. If women did want to participate in prayer, it was deemed necessary to keep them separate (a practice that had it roots in the Second Temple, which included the Court of Women).

This was one aspect of the development of Judaism that witnessed the concern for ritual precision and purity quickly transformed in ritual from being a means to encourage and inspire righteous action to becoming an end in itself. Apologists talk about the vital, holy role that women could play insuring their own purity and that of the household, her domain being the kitchen and the bedroom.

“Rabbinic efforts to justify immersion indicate that the rationale was secondary to the practice. Midrash Sifra connects the ritual immersion of a vessel to another requirement for purification, namely, waiting for the sun to set. The midrash states that just as purification is linked to the simultaneous setting of the entire sun, so purification should be understood to refer to simultaneous immersion of the whole vessel.” (Carol Selkin Wise in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p. 631)

There are simply no grounds for this subjugation of women. It was - and for those who still practice it, is – purely discriminatory.

Liberal Judaism has never had need to justify from traditional sources the permission to include women in all aspects of synagogue life. Purity is a means to holiness and only has validity when it led to acts of lovingkindness. The Prophet, Amos extolled a God that would decline to accept the people’s offerings as long as injustice remained:

“I loathe, I spurn your festivals, I am not appeased by your solemn assemblies. If you offer Me burnt offerings, or your meal offerings, I will not accept them; I will not pay heed to your gifts of fatlings. Spare Me the sound of your hymns, and let Me not hear the music of your lutes. But let justice roll down like water, righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (Amos· 5:21-24).

Practices of purification can have a positive impact in our lives, personally defined and ordained rather than imposed. They can help us to feel personally revived, relate better to others around us, spiritually in our relationship with God or as a motivation to be as good a person as we can. All are practices that lead to a positive impact, on an earthly, practical level, and perhaps if we believe that God metaphorically smiles when we feel self-efficacious, then on a cosmic level too.

We might feel purified in a hot bath, with candle lit and bath bomb exploded, having walked in an area of natural beauty, experienced an inspirational concert or witnessed a feat of humanity at the pinnacle of skill, ability or thought, a Friday night Shabbat dinner that unifies family or friends, or being giving love and feeling loved. For the religious it might be through silent meditation or communal worship, through study of our Torah in all is guises. Any such stimulus that captures our senses can purify.

Yet the purification through performing a mitzvah, defined not as a commandment but as a good deed, exceeds them all. As it is written:· “Who may ascend the mountain of the Eternal One? Who may stand in God’s holy place? – the one who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3-4a)

Pesach: Rabbi Janet Burden
11th April 2012

I missed my father’s call again this year – the call he used to make as I would be getting ready for the second night Seder.· “How was your Passover?” he would ask.· “Great,” I would reply.· “We had a good crowd for Seder, but matzah still tastes like cardboard.”· Thus, or on very similar lines, ran our conversation year after year.· I long ago gave up trying to explain to him that there was still another Seder to come.· Bottom line, he never really grasped the idea of a festival that lasted for more than a day.·I’m sure it seemed a bit excessive to him, though Chanukkah made slightly more sense, being in a more normal festive season….

You see, my dad wasn’t Jewish.· Not only that, he had never had much exposure to Judaism or Jewish culture.· Dad grew up in a tiny town in Iowawhere there just weren’t any Jews.· I think the total population of the town of Walnut was about 800 souls – and he was related to half of them.· Most of the inhabitants in that corner of the world were third or fourth generation Americans, primarily of Danish, Dutch or German ancestry.· Cultural diversity in Walnut was expressed by whether you spelt Hansen with “en” or “on.”· One is the Danish and the other the Dutch spelling, but I never could remember which was which.· Thus his world was - and remained for most of his life - largely homogeneous.

Imagine my dad’s surprise, then, when his youngest daughter chose to become Jewish.· Wow.· I’d had plenty of odd notions in the past, but becoming Jewish was on another level entirely.· He hadn’t been that fussed when I stopped being Christian in high school.· Religion generally didn’t interest him all that much – he and my mum had taken us to church and Sunday school mostly because that was what everyone else did.·· And, too, the church would provide a safe social venue for my sister and I that would give us a moral and ethical framework.· They were right about that, at least while we were very young.· But when I decided at sixteen that I couldn’t believe much of what I had been taught, they respected my choice and left me alone.

When I became involved with Jews and Judaism, I was at university studying for my Master’s degree and in search of MEANING:· not only with a capital ‘m’ but with the whole word writ large.· I was horrified by the mess our world was in and wanted to find some framework within which I could try to change things.· I became a social activist, and through this work, became involved with the Jewish community.

But it isn’t my story that I want to focus on today.· It’s my dad’s story – and the question of how non-Jewish family members fit into the lives of practicing Jews.· I know that my story isn’t unique.· For a whole variety of reasons, including intermarriage as well as conversions, many Jewish people have non-Jews in their families.· In the Orthodox world, this is talked about in hushed tones, as if it were something shameful.· The undercurrent of disapproval is so strong that many good Jews decide to leave the synagogues they grew up in, even though they often retain fond memories of them.·· This works to the benefit of Progressive synagogues, where attitudes are at least slightly more open.· Yet I worry sometimes that we don’t always live up to our own rhetoric.· We talk about being open and inclusive, but are we really as accepting as we could be?· Aren’t we sometimes guilty of buying into the narrow-minded attitudes that drove so many of our members away from Orthodoxy?· Could it be that we secretly fear that the presence of non-Jews in our lives makes us less authentically Jewish?

I wish I could say that the questions here were rhetorical, and that the so-called “right” answers would trip off every tongue. “Yes, we are inclusive!”·“Of course we don’t construct our Judaism on racial lines!”· “We reject this ridiculous ‘authenticity’ game!”· But I can’t.· I can’t, because I have realised that unhelpful attitudes often become internalised.· Some years ago, I had the uncomfortable experience of explaining that my father was due to arrive in Britain the day after Yom Kippur.· He and my step-mother were treating themselves to a trip on the QEII. ·“So they’ll have spent Yom Kippur on ship?” someone asked, perfectly reasonably.· With a slight feeling of butterflies in my stomach, I said simply – “It’s OK.· My dad’s not Jewish.”

It’s OK.· Gosh.· At least for a brief moment there, it didn’t feel OK – and I am pretty practiced in this.· I’m a rabbi, for heaven’s sake!

The incident provoked a memory of pledge I made to myself years ago after an experience at a Jewish summer camp.· One of the kids asked Tracy, one of the adult helpers at the camp, if she had had a hard time learning the Hebrew for her bat mitzvah.· She immediately responded, without embarrassment or shame, that her experience wasn’t the same.· She had been an adult when she did her bat mitzvah, because she had converted to Judaism.· I was amazed when she said this.· Tracy was one of the most committed Jews I had ever met.· She ‘looked Jewish,’ whatever that meant.· She taught cheder and was regularly called up to Torah.· Tracy?· A convert?· The discussion suddenly became animated and the kids were on the edge of their seats, wanting to hear her story.

Later I asked her why she had volunteered this information.· “You could have just said ‘yes,’ you know.· We both know how hard it was to learn.”·“Yes, I could have,” she said.· “But you know, many of these kids are wondering what it means to be Jewish.· A lot of them still think that it’s a slightly unfortunate accident of birth.· The fact that someone might chooseto become Jewish because it’s a wonderful thing to be has probably never crossed their minds.”· “And now it has,” I said, amazed that I could have failed to see this before.· “And now it has,” she smiled.

I made up my mind, right then and there, that I would always follow Tracy’s example.· In this season of freedom, I rededicate myself to defying the negative attitudes that we inadvertently internalise.· They can be just as tyrannical as any Pharaoh.

Chag Sameach

Pesach: Rabbi Neil Janes
6th April 2012

The Spirit of Enquiry
How the Mah Nishtanah inspires us to ask questions this Pesach

I was recently asked what to do with the Mah Nishtanah for families who no longer have a ‘youngest’ child to sing. The Mah Nishtanah is the song that makes four statements about the seder night experience:

How different is this night from all other nights!

On all other nights we eat hametz (leavened bread) and matzah (unleavened bread). On this night only matzah.

On all other nights we eat all types of vegetables. On this night bitter herbs.

On all other nights we do not dip, even once. On this night we dip twice.

On all other nights we eat sitting or reclining. On this night we all recline.

On thinking about this question I turned back to what is probably the oldest version of this song, found in the Mishnah (a legal document compiled in around 200CE). This version is a little bit different from the one we sing today:

…the son asks his father. And if the son lacks the intelligence to ask, his father instructs him:

How different this night is from all other nights!

On all other nights we dip only once, on this night we dip twice.

On all other nights we eat hametz or matzah, on this night only matzah.

On all other nights we eat roasted, stewed or boiled meat, on this night only roasted.

According to the intelligence of the son, the father instructs him….

(Mishnah Pesachim 10:4)

It will be immediately obvious that, instead of the expected motif of four statements, there are only three and they are not questions they are statements. In fact, later versions of the Mishnah were amended to include a fourth question, but the earliest manuscripts all contain ONLY these three statements. Moreover, only one statement, about the matzah, is the same as the one found in our Mah Nishtanah today. For more information about these differences you can look, via Google books, at ‘My People’s Passover Haggadah, Vol. 1’ page 154.

From my point of view, for Pesach this year, what is interesting is that the roles are reversed in the Mishnah. It is not the youngest child asking, but rather the father instructing his son about Pesach who reads the Mah Nishtanah; had the son been able to ask a question, the recitation of Mah Nishtanah would have been unnecessary. In the Babylonian Talmud (Pesachim 115b) we read that:

Abbaye was sitting in front of Rabbah. Abbaye saw that they were taking the table away and he said to them: “We still haven’t eaten, why are they taking the table away?” Rabbah said to him, “You have exempted us from reciting Mah Nishtanah.”

This text emphasises our point, that the Mah Nishtanah was a way of ensuring that questions were asked at the seder table and that it was not necessary to recite it if a different question was asked. In other words, it may be included today as part of a standard element in our seder night, but ideally we should ask our own questions instead of simply routinely reciting it. Not that it should be excluded; both Maimonides in the 12^th century and Saadya Gaon in the 9^thcentury reflect the evolution of the liturgical use of the Mah Nishtanah that we have today in which the child at the table recites it. However, I am suggesting that to ask something else, something additional, something relevant at this point of your seder is to embrace the spirit of the Haggadah (the guide book for the seder night).

Two historical examples of this might inspire you this year. The first is taken from the Haggadah of Kevutzat Hadera in 1929. They had their own sense of liberation and freedom that was experienced through working the soil in the land of Israel as a collective group:

How is this year different from all other years.

On all other years we do not even dip one finger into work; this year, ten fingers.

On all other years we eat all types of food; this year, the food of the kevutzah.

On all other years we eat the toil of strangers; this year, the fruit of our labours.

On all other years everyone sat alone; this year we sit together.

In 1999, The Dancing with Miriam Haggadah was published that contained an alternative rendering that expressed a desire for women’s contribution to Jewish life, both at the seder and in history, to be acknowledged:

At all other seders, we hear the stories of our forefathers,

But the voices of our mothers are silent.

Tonight they will be heard.

At all other seders, the heroic deeds of our sisters Miriam, Yocheved, Shifra and Puah are kept hidden.

Tonight we will celebrate their courage.

At all other seders, we denounce Pharaoh of the past.

Tonight we will also examine the pharaohs of our own day.

At all other seders we rejoice only in our liberation as a people.

Tonight we also celebrate our empowerment as Jewish women.

Yehudah Amichai in an extract from an exquisite, subversive poem from his final collection of poems ‘Open Closed Open’ writes the following:

Seder night reflections: “What is the difference?” we asked,

“What makes this night different from all other nights?”

And most of us grew up and don’t ask anymore, while others

Continue to ask their whole lives just like they ask

“How are you?” or “What time is it?” while continuing to walk on

Without hearing the answer.

Our task at seder night is not to ask questions in a routine, monotonous and unthinking way. Our task is for the seder to kindle a sense of enquiry. We should ask questions about our collective memory and history as a people. We should ask questions about what brings people to celebrate the festival this year. We should ask questions about our own spiritual journeys to freedom. We should ask questions about the world around us that is so full of inequality, oppression, slavery and absence of freedom. Then, when we have exempted ourselves from reciting the Mah Nishtanah, we should sing it, whether children or adults. Chag Same’ach!

Texts and ideas used in this Thought for the Week were developed from:

“My People's Passover Haggadah, Volume 1: Traditional Texts, Modern commentaries” edited by Lawrence Hoffman and David Arnow (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2008).

“The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary” translation and commentary by Joshua Kulp (Jerusalem: The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2009).

“Open Closed Open” by Yehuda Amicha, translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld (Harcourt Inc., 2000).

The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture – http://www.chagim.org.il

Parashat Vayak'hel-Pekudei: Rabbi Neil Janes
12 March 2012

“Thus were completed the heavens and earth and all their host and God completed on the seventh day the work which God had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3)

“Thus was completed all work of the Tabernacle of the tent of meeting and the children of Israel did according to all the Eternal One commanded them… and Moses completed the work”.· (Exodus 39:32 & 40:33)

There is a famous midrash from Pesikta de Rav Kahana that plays on the same root of the world ‘vayechulu’ (‘thus was completed’), but in this case from the book of Numbers in relation to the Torah reading for Chanukah, that describes how God’s presence (the Shekhina) gradually moved away from the world as a result of the ‘sins’ of the people in it.· However, for these ten generations that forced God out into a self-imposed exile, there are ten corresponding generations that brought God’s presence back into the world.· It is as if, in according to the midrash, the world was intended to be the dwelling place for God, but the behaviour of the people forced God out of God’s self-made home.· Yet, with righteousness and truth and justice God’s presence can once again be made to feel at home.· For that reason, the midrash concludes with the ‘completion’ of the building of the Tabernacle; because themishkan is a purpose built structure, within which God’s presence is theoretically palpable. The manifestation of God’s presence has shifted from the whole world to the tiny new world of the Tabernacle. This is the reason for the parallel between the completion of the creation of the world and the completion of the creation of the Tabernacle.

Of course, that does not mean God is not everywhere, but that within the Tabernacle - its building, its preciously guarded rites and rituals - God can be, if you like, at home.

You don’t have to be a genius to see how little has changed.· In the biblical description, God was reduced to dwelling in a small tent wandering through the wilderness.· Today, I suspect the space available where God’s presence can dwell may be even smaller.· We have succeeded in shutting out holiness.· We have mastered the arts of deception, of gossip, of greed and selfishness. ·We have triumphed in hatred, oppression and causing enmity amongst fellow human beings.· We are universally brilliant at ensuring that God cannot dwell amongst us.

As I mentioned before, the Tabernacle was a microcosm of the universe – a place where God could dwell. Maybe it was easy for the ancient Israelites to have a place which was kept pure and untarnished in which God’s presence is realised.· It is much harder to extend this realm into a world outside of the confines of the tent that was themishkan; it definitely was not possible once we reached the period of the Temple, the fixed equivalent to the portable sanctuary. After all, the Second Temple is destroyed, we are taught in a rabbinic teaching, because of baseless hatred. After the Second Temple is destroyed, as Liberal Jews, we do not believe the task is to rebuild the Temple in a literal sense, but to rebuild it wherever we find ourselves. To create a space fit for God’s presence anywhere that we dwell.

The prayerbook for the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism reminded me of this and provides some food for thought.

In all Jewish communities, in the daily Tefillah (not on Shabbat) there is a blessing for Jerusalem.·The blessing for Jerusalem in one of its classic modern formulations is as follows:
“Have mercy and return to Jerusalem, Your city.·May Your presence dwell there as You have promised…”
“Velirushalayim ir’cha berachamim tashuv, vetishkon betocha ca’asher dibarta…”

Yet, in the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism siddur we read:
“Dwell amidst Jerusalem your city just as you have promised…”
“Shechon betoch yerushalayim ir’cha ka’asher dibarta”

Those of you with good Hebrew will notice that the opening word is an imperative form of ‘dwell’.· So, whilst following the Sephardi rite (which has ‘tishkon’ – the non-imperative form of the same verb) the word has changed and the sense is of demand or pleading with a God who feels absent. Absent from the holy place of Jerusalem and also from all spaces and places. If Jerusalem is a symbol an intimation for us all, as well as a reality (as suggested by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book ‘Israel: An Echo of Eterntiy’), perhaps we should all change our liturgy to reflect a greater necessity and urgency for this prayer to become realised. With no small amount of chutzpah we demand that God will once again dwell among us. But the demand is made of us not of God; it was people who expelled God’s presence and it is people who will let God back in – whether in Jerusalem, between Israel and the Palestinians, in Syria in the face of tyranny or even here in the UK.

We do not pray to get God to listen to us and intervene with miracles; we pray, in my opinion, that we may be worthy of God hearing our prayer.· Perhaps then, when we are worthy, the prayer will no longer be necessary.

Parashat Ki Tisa : Rabbi Danny Rich
6 March 2012

Parashat Key Tissa (Exodus 30:11-34:35) begins with a census of the Israelites before returning to the theme of the last few parashiot: the building of themishcan, the tabernacle which was to serve, according to legend, as the temporary, mobile home of God and the centre of the cult during the Hebrews’ wanderings in the desert.· The details include: the making of the anointing oil and incense, the appointment of an artisan, and verses on authentic and inauthentic worship and on the celebration of festivals.

At the heart of the parashah (32:1-) is the incident of the Golden Calf during which – and in breach of the second Commandment- the Israelites worship a physical being, an idolatrous image.· God is so angered that God is prepared to renege on the covenant and Moses is forced to prevail upon God not to do so.

One might argue that the story was inevitable.· The Children of Israel consisted of Israelites who had perhaps only known the idolatrous ways of Egypt ·and a mixture of others for whom religion might have been of no interest at all, and thus the disappearance of Moses (for 40 days) causes a panic and a moment of lack of faith.· Perhaps for many Moses was their God but his absence leads to their demanding that High Priest Aaron, Moses’ brother, should ‘make for (us) a God’.· Facing the mob, Aaron seems relatively complicit as those who had shown such generosity for the mishcan donate similarly for the calf.

Moses is informed by God of what is happening and hurries down the mountain- having first persuaded God not to destroy the Children of Israel- whereupon he smashes the tablets, burns the calf, grinds it into powder and forces the people to consume it with water.

What lessons might we learn from this portion? I want to suggest two.· The first is an obvious one.· In the absence of leadership, the mob or the weaker leader takes charge and the ensuing consequences may be far reaching.

The more interesting question, however, concerns Moses’ decision to ‘hurl the tablets from his hand and shatter them at the foot of the mountain’ (32:19).·Perhaps Moses was simply angry and unable to control himself or more deliberately the smashing of the tablets was a symbolic method of demonstrating the possibility that the covenant between God and the Children of Israel might be over.

A nineteenth century commentator, Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843-1926) known as ·Meshech Hochmah suggested that Moses intended to make the point that there is no intrinsic holiness in material things.· Only God is intrinsically holy.·Physical objects can attract holiness insofar as they lead people to God.· When Israel disregarded the words on the stone tablets, they became merely stones.

I have just returned from a trip to Israel, part holiday and part leading a mission on behalf of Rabbis for Human Rights.· Whenever I am in Jerusalem I always go to the kotel and walk its length.· I am afraid it leaves me uninspired on each and every occasion.· I remind myself that it is, after all, merely the wall which Herod constructed to hold up the mound he had created and on top of which he reconstructed the Second Temple.· But I walk it because I want those who are there and those who see the kotel on television or in newspapers to be reminded that Jewish history belongs to all Jews, not just those in exotic dress or who ‘worship’ walls, graves and other sites with a particular fervour.

The more serious point is this.· However ancient and beautiful are our buildings, our dress, our customs or other trappings, the real test of Judaism is how its adherents behave which is precisely why, despite all the demanding details of the construction of the mishcan God does not dwell in ·it but rather ‘amongst the people’.

God is only a reality when humanity responds to the Divine voice.

Parashat Tetzaveh : Rabbi Janet Burden
27th February 2012

As part of the upcoming Fairtrade Fortnight this year (Feb 27- Mar 11), I will soon be meeting up with Fitzrovia Councillor Abdul Qadir for a photo op on the steps of the Camden Town Hall. As Abdul is serving his stint as Mayor of Camden this year, he will no doubt appear in full mayoral regalia, including the dashing red coat, the lacy collar and the mayoral chain – oh, theatricality of ritual dress….

Much of portion Tetzaveh is given over to the description of the sanctification of Aaron and his sons, how they are enrobed in special vestments so that they might fulfil their roles as priests. We rather expect this kind of dress from religious functionaries in this country. Where would the Archbishop of Canterbury be without his rather fetching robes and mitre, which are (at least in part) modelled on the High Priest’s garb? Lovely Rowan Williams isn’t half as imposing when he sits in his plain grey suit, with his sweetly unruly mop of hair. Apart from the colour of that hair, he looks a bit like a few of the fellows I went out with in the seventies – I know because I walked beside him a few years back as we both took part in the Make Poverty History campaign. But the Archbishop holds no monopoly on grandly flamboyant gear: the heads of other religious groups are often equally resplendent.

Here in Britain ‘investitures’ are not merely in the provenance of religious communities; they happen in our civil society as well in various forms, not all of which I think are particularly healthy. When ‘elevated’ to the House of Lords, one is garbed in an ermine-trimmed cloak. Judges and barristers enrobe themselves in black and crown themselves with grey wigs which are certainly the product of another era. These are the trappings of power, meant to reinforce authority. And on the whole, we buy into it (usually on the grounds that we don’t want to be like those uncouth Americans who have no real sense of history…). Look at the brouhaha that arose when the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, refused to wear the full uniform of his office.·Betty Boothroyd was almost apoplectic. But much as Betty is one of the most inspiring women I know – and I will certainly be thinking of her on International Women’s Day, coming up on March 8 – on this one, I think she has overstated the case for the preservation of this particular tradition. Sometimes, the pendulum needs to swing back, reminding us that all people are equals.

Already in the Torah, a tension – I think a necessary tension – is manifest between the singling out of particular individuals for special roles and the assertion of radical democracy. Just a few short chapters ago, in Parashat Yitro,we read the words which has for centuries framed so much of our people’s understanding of what it means to be Jewish: “You shall be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex.19:6). This task is placed upon ALL the people, not a select few. So how are we to square this assertion with the amount of attention and focus that is here placed on priestly caste?

Of course, we are not the first people to ask such a question. Others across the ages have recognised that these words form the basis of Korach’s challenge to Moses and Aaron’s authority, which we will read about in the book of Numbers in a few months’ time. Korach reminds Moses and Aaron that all the people are channels for holiness – by what right do these two run the show? My colleague, Rabbi Sheila Shulman, observed that Korach’s biggest problem is that he believes his own propaganda, assuming that the people are inherently holy.· But that the apparent ‘statement’ about being a holy nation is meant to be understood as an assertion of potential, not a declaration of pre-existing fact.· A better translation, Sheila asserts, is to read the imperfect tense as something more nuanced that a simple future: ‘You should be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ I’m inclined to agree.

All the fine garb in the world, all the accoutrements for service, are not enough to constitute holiness. These provide only the drama, the spectacle. Such things have their part to play for us today – if in a slightly different form than they did for our ancestors. Much of what we do here in our synagogues echoes the practices of the Temple in small ways. But personally, I am exceedingly glad that I do not have either to wear the vestments or to bear the responsibility of the priests of old. Whether you like it or not, my friends, each and every one of us is ultimately responsible for what takes place in Liberal synagogues. Will we rise to the challenge of manifesting in our words and deeds the holiness expected of a kingdom of priests? Only we can decide. Together.

If you want to help publicise Fairtrade Fortnight, feel free to join Abdul and I and our friends on the steps of Camden Town Hall, Judd Street, just across from the British Library, 7 March at 1 pm. Otherwise, just TAKE A STEP to a fairer world by supporting Fairtrade: http://step.fairtrade.org.uk

Parashat Terumah : Rabbi Neil Janes
24th February 2012

I know I am not alone in having bought a piece of flat pack furniture. Some years ago I bought a flat-pack desk; after all a Rabbi must have a desk at which to work. I read through the instructions, established I had all the parts and promptly began piecing it together. Sweating on a late summer’s day, I finally managed to stand the desk up and placed it in position; but something was wrong, it didn’t seem to lie flush against the wall. After much thought and head scratching it suddenly occurred to me in a flash of inspiration that one of the legs was on backwards.

It was with this memory that I have often wondered what it would have been like for Moses following the instructions from God for the mishkan (the tabernacle): the poles should be this long and the sockets and screen made of this and that material, etc.. Down comes Moses from the mountain with the instructions to give to the children of Israel and they use all their talents to produce the products with Bezalel and Ohaliab directing procedures.

But you never hear that the poles weren’t quite long enough or that the sockets were not quite wide enough. Or of the material being cut to the right length but forgetting to allow a little extra for the hem. Maybe the Biblical engineers were more effective at construction than our contemporaries – we don’t even read of the rising costs escalating beyond all reasonable proportions.

Yet, the construction information in the Torah, you could say its instruction booklet, is not entirely clear. One could not easily build the mishkan from the Torah alone and so we ask ourselves why all the details about it?

I think the details, the nuts and bolts of the creation of the mishkan, are part and parcel of its purpose, to be the dwelling place of the Divine presence; in our Torah portion, God says in reference to the tabernacle, ‘Veshachanti betocham’ (I will dwell amongst them, Exodus 25:8). It seems to me that through the mishkan the presence of God will emanate, along with the ideals inherent in the Torah, to the people who use it and who are affected by it – the nuts and bolts of the physical building become part of the nuts and bolts of the values of the community. The details, these ‘nuts and bolts’, are in a sense a microcosm of the whole mishkan, which is a microcosm of the society for which it is intended to be created – the Children of Israel.

Just as Genesis describes God resting from the work of creation of the universe on the seventh day; so too, the traditional formulation of work, from which some Jews cease on Shabbat, are derived from the work of creation of themishkan. The mishkan is a portable ‘mini-verse’ that is a reflection of the universe. The mishkan is a microcosm within the cosmos.

It is because of this idea that the tangible material aspects of the mishkancannot be ignored, indeed they are necessary and vital to its creation; the concept of the mishkan, a dwelling place for Ha-Makom (God) becomes inseparable from its very physical nature of place (makom). This, I think, is a crucial lesson for all of us involved in the development of community.

The instruction for making the Holy Ark, in which were housed the tablets, is written in the Torah in a plural form. From a midrash, we learn that this is to instruct the community that the crown of Torah is the inheritance of everyone and, therefore, everyone should participate in the making of the vessel that houses the Torah. For Liberal Jews, the Torah, in the widest sense of the word, is the collective understanding of our values, our affirmations, and our religious practices.

The construction of our communities: programmes, relationships, and ideas must be done in a way that represents everything the community stands for; all must be encouraged to apply their skills, to feel welcome, to learn and share together in its creation. It is not enough to have grand ideas about the values that we claim to hold. The nuts and bolts of our communities must reflect and build those values and principles, even down to the way we wish one another Shabbat Shalom or the food we purchase for kiddush.

The instruction booklet may seem confusing, but if we are to reflect an image of a universe that we would like to see on this world, then we must keep trying and keep building.

Parashat Yitro : 6th February 2012 - Rabbi Richard Jacobi