Compelling Commitments

by Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah

It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight. I recall that the last time I stood here on this bima was in 1985, when I was a second year rabbinic student at Leo Baeck College, undertaking a short apprenticeship during the summer term with Rabbi Frank Hellner, who treated me with the utmost kindness and courtesy, and whose thoughtful feedback proved invaluable.

A great deal has happened in my rabbinate and in the life of this congregation during those past nineteen years – we’ve all grown a little older for a start! Following ordination in 1989, I was rabbi of Buckhurst Hill Reform Synagogue – now Sukkat Shalom Reform – for five years. I then worked as Director of Programmes for the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain and Deputy Director of the Sternberg Centre until July 1997, before getting involved in the Liberal Movement. After serving Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation for two and a half years, I embarked on my current role as rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue at the beginning of December 2000.

Having begun my rabbinic journey twenty-one years ago as a marginal, unaffiliated Jew, attracted by the radical, egalitarian and inclusive values expressed by a handful of reform and liberal rabbis I encountered almost accidentally – principally, Rabbis footerbara Borts, Lionel Blue, Rodney Mariner, Charles Middleburgh, and David Goldstein, zichrono livrachah – like many searchers, I was impelled by an inner need to find a way of living Jewishly that made sense to me intellectually, enabled me to explore and create meaning, and was in keeping with my experience.

During the course of my rabbinate, my impulse to find a form of Judaism that takes my needs into account and works for me has brought me to Liberal Judaism. What is so special about Liberal Judaism? Since its inception in 1902 in the form of the Jewish Religious Union, Liberal Judaism not only acknowledged that Judaism is dynamic and changing, but also empowered individuals to make choices and take responsibility for our own Jewish lives. What is more, from the outset, the three principle founders and exponents of Liberal Judaism, Claude Montefiore, Lily Montagu, and Rabbi Israel Mattuck, were determined, not only that Judaism should progress to meet the challenges of the modern world, and make a contribution to the task of creating an ethical and just society, but also that reason and intellectual integrity should be the hallmarks of the new progressive form of religion.

As early as 1899, Lily Montagu, writing about ‘Spiritual Possibilities of Judaism Today’ in the Jewish Quarterly Review, declared – and I quote: " Together we must sift, with all reverence the pure from the impure in the laws which our ancestors formulated in order to satisfy the needs of the age…"

In one of his early sermons at a Jewish Religious Union Shabbat service, entitled ‘Religious Education’, Claude Montefiore argued – again, I quote: "Religion needs the mind; it needs thought and study, as well as ardour and love… Where Jewish students, or rather Jewish teachers, so often fail is that they learn the answers of past ages to past problems, but hide their ears and envelop their minds from the questions and problems of today."

Forty years later, Israel Mattuck, who became the rabbi of the newly-established Liberal Jewish Synagogue in 1912, wrote in his major work, The Essentials of Liberal Judaism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962, p. 140 – first published in 1947) – a final quotation from our Liberal sages:

Judaism cannot for all time be confined in a form given it in the past. It must develop as life changes and human thought grows… Judaism… was always a developing religion. Rabbinic Judaism developed out of Biblical Judaism; the Bible itself records a development of Judaism. Liberal Judaism is its latest development.

The title of my lecture this evening is Compelling Commitments: A radical re-think of Liberal Judaism? The question is genuine. In the spirit of the legacy of Lily Montagu, Claude Montefiore and Israel Mattuck, Liberal Jews are required to think, and to re-think, to develop our thinking. But this evening, I want to give us the opportunity not only to re-think Liberal Judaism, but also to re-feel Liberal Judaism. As I reminded us a few moments ago, Claude Montefiore argued that ‘Religion needs the mind; it needs thought and study, as well as ardour and love… Put another way, Judaism needs us to think and also to feel – to engage the whole of ourselves: our minds, our hearts, and our creative energies.

In just under three weeks we will begin to celebrate the festival of Pesach. The story of the Exodus begins, not with the liberation of the slaves, but rather several years earlier with the defiance of the Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Puah, who refused to obey Pharaoh’s order to kill the new-born Hebrew baby boys. We read in the Book of Exodus, chapter 2, verses 15-21:

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives - of whom the name of the one was Shifra, and the name of the second was Puah - / he said: ‘When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth, and you look at the birthing stones: if it is a son then you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, you shall let her live.’ But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had said to them; rather they kept the boy children alive. / So the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them: ‘Why have you done this thing, and kept the boy children alive?’ / Then the midwives said to Pharaoh: ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and they give birth before the midwives are coming to them.’ / So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. / And it came to pass that because the midwives feared God, he made for them houses.

How did Shifra and Puah find the courage to defy the genocidal decree of the mighty Pharaoh? The midwives ‘feared God’ the text tells us, but how was it that they did not fear the supreme overlord of Egypt? What impelled the midwives to save life, rather than follow orders and kill the new born baby boys? Where did their courage and that impulse come from?

Rather than respond to these questions directly, let me turn to the more mundane issues that preoccupy Jews most of the time. In 1987, writing in a pamphlet, entitled Women and Tallit, created by a group of us involved in an RSGB Working Party on Women and Judaism, I argued that, ‘the Progressive debate on the performance of mitzvot seems strangled in a false dichotomy. On the one hand there are God’s commands – the preserve of the Orthodox… On the other hand there is ‘personal choice’ – the privilege of the Progressive Jew… But what does ‘personal choice’ mean? Why do individuals ‘choose’ one practice or another… what impels me to perform this ritual and not that one?’ (1987; 1997, p. 27).

It is only now, several years after writing that short article, that I feel I have come to understand that we can begin to build a bridge to span the void between ‘command’ and ‘choice’, when we recognise not only that our choices are constrained by external forces, but that they are also impelled by internal ones: We carry our Jewish inheritance not only on our backs, but also in our mouths and hearts.

Let me explain what I mean: Unlike Orthodox Jews, who regard the Torah as God’s word, pure and simple, Liberal and Progressive Jews understand the Torah as the work of divinely inspired individuals. What is more, we look not only to the Torah for guidance, but also to the insights and wisdom of generations of our people from Sinai until this day. And in searching for guidance rather than instruction, we make the assumption that it’s up to us to decide what we will and will not do. God, the Creator of the world and the Liberator of our ancestors, may continue to address us in myriad ways, but the God we apprehend is neither a Dictator nor a Commander.

But if God is not a Commander – a Metzaveh – what do Liberal and Progressive Jews make of the Commandments – the Mitzvot? Why keep the commandments if they are, quite literally, man-made? If God is not compelling us, what’s the point?

Well the point is, even if we don’t think there’s a big Commander in the sky forcing us to bear ol hamitzvot, ‘the yoke of the commandments’, in my experience, many of us do feel compelled to keep, if not all, then certainly, a number of key mitzvot. Before we jump to considering what those key mitzvot might be from a Liberal Jewish perspective, I’d like us to spend a little time exploring what I mean by saying that many of us ‘feel compelled’ when the compulsion is not connected to any notion of an external force.

Eighteen months ago a familiar text from the Torah began to reveal a compelling response to the questions I had been struggling with for so many years. On the last Shabbat of the year, we read the parashah, Nitzavim. In Liberal communities on Yom Kippur morning, we re-read a couple of passages from Nitzavim. The second of these passages is in my Torah ‘Top Ten’ of profound teachings. Every time I read it, I feel moved beyond words, and I experience the sense deep inside me that what I’m apprehending is ‘true’ – in a way that has nothing to do with any rational, factual notion of Truth. So, we read in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verses 11 to 14:

For the commandment (hamitzvah), which I command you today is not too complex for you, nor too remote. / It is not in heaven that you need to say: ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and fetch it for us, that we may hear it and do it?’ / Neither is it across the sea that you need to say: ‘Who will cross the sea for us and fetch it for us that we may hear it and do it?’ For the matter (hadavar) is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.

Note: The text talks of ‘the commandment, which I command you today’, not ‘the commandments’. According to the medieval commentator, Nachmanides – that’s Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, who was born in Gerona in Spain, in 1194 - ‘this commandment’, is a specific reference to the command to repent, since the chapter begins with the exhortation to return to God. For Ya’akov Tzvi Mecklenburg, born in 1785, on the eve of the Enlightenment, on the other hand, ‘the commandment’ refers to the whole of the Torah – and most commentators up to the present day agree.

These are reasonable explanations. My approach is radically different – and my starting point is the very last phrase: ‘For the matter is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it’ - ‘Ki-karov eilecha hadavar me’od; beficha uvilvavecha la’asoto’. Most translations of the text render hadavar as ‘the word’. Now hadavar also means ‘the matter’. My interpretation of the text involves making sense of the singularity of hamitzvah and the singularity of hadavar in the context of the closing image, ‘in your mouth and in your heart’. What is in each individual’s mouth and heart? The text may be simply talking about the awareness of the Divine Command, in which case the translation ‘the word’ is appropriate. Alternatively, it may also be suggesting something about a capacity within each individual, in which case, the translation ‘the matter’ fits better: ‘For the matter is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

Why ‘in your mouth and in your heart’ and not ‘in your and heart in your mouth’? Although animals communicate with one another in various ways, human beings, alone among the creatures of the earth, attempt, using language, to make sense of our existence. Not content simply to live and reproduce ourselves, we want to shape the world around us to our own design. Each one of us has that power within us – a power that we discern as we watch a baby learning to speak; a power that centres on our ability to think and feel: ‘the matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

To do what? Human beings don’t just talk, think and feel. Our talking, thinking and feeling leads to action – and we don’t act alone: We are biologically driven. We are also fashioners of Culture: We formulate rules and regulations and ethical codes, and impose them on ourselves. We build complex social structures. And alongside, all our utilitarian pursuits, our mouths and our hearts crave and create beauty in every place.

We don’t know what the author intended, but, for me, what the passage suggests, so evocatively, is that the feeling of command comes from within us: It’s neither complex nor remote; it’s neither up in heaven, or somewhere else across the sea; it’s neither the responsibility of God, nor of a leader who will fetch it for us; rather, ‘the matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

As human beings, we feel compelled to act. But where does acting as Jews come into the equation? While all humanity thinks and acts, the concept of mitzvot is Jewish. As Jews, we not only have a love affair with words, we have a very particular sense that we must translate words into deeds, into mitzvot – the actions that we feel compelled to perform. But what determines which actions we feel compelled to perform?

The key to answering this question lies in the very next section of text:

See, I have set before you this day life and good and death and evil… therefore you shall choose life, that you and your descendants may live (30: 15; 19b).

U’vacharta bachayyim – ‘therefore you shall choose life’. What else can we do? ‘The matter is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ What could be nearer to us, in our mouths and hearts, than the matter of choosing life? And, of course, it begins in our mouths: For a suckling baby, choosing life is a simple biological urge. A new baby, born prematurely to friends of mine, twenty months ago, spent the first few weeks of his life sucking and sucking because his life depended on it, and he gained ounces of weight every day. So, what does it mean for us to choose life? And what makes choosing life a mitzvah, a specifically Jewish compulsion? Perhaps, what makes choosing life Jewish is simply the fact that, having looked death and evil in the face so often, we continue to feel compelled to choose life and good - which doesn’t mean that, like everyone else, we don’t sometimes choose death and evil instead.

Many of the mitzvot we find in the Torah, which have been incorporated into codes of law the world over, originate in a Near Eastern Code, formulated by Hamurabi, an enlightened king of Babylon, who reigned between 1945 and 1902 BCE, and undertook the codification of Babylonian law. As I indicated earlier, the compulsion to create rules and regulations is common to all humanity. The Jewish version of this universal phenomenon is born of our particular adventures and ordeals as a people. And so, for example, while The Ten Commandments may be shared by humanity, for Jews, there is an 11th – a specifically Jewish commandment, the mitzvah to remember everything: the joy as well as the torment. The mitzvot have emerged out of our experience: ‘Justice, justice you shall pursue’ (Deuteronomy 16: 20) because we have known injustice. ‘Seek peace and pursue it’ (Psalm 34:15) because we have been destroyed many times. ‘When a stranger resides with you… you shall not wrong him… you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Leviticus 19:33-34). We haven’t been strangers in the land of Egypt for millennia. But there have been other furnaces, other houses of bondage. Again: In the face of death and evil, what can we do but choose life and good?

What can we do, but be ourselves? No one is simply a human being. Each one of us is a particular human being, with particular characteristics – and being Jewish is part of our particularity – if we so choose: Ah, there’s the rub. Whatever the circumstances of our birth, we are all Jews by choice today. But it’s not a free choice. As Liberal and Progressive Jews we are caught between the demands of the world, indifferent to our particular Jewish compulsions, and the demands of Jewish particularity, which seem to require us to see the world exclusively through Jewish eyes.

So what do we feel impelled, compelled, to do as Liberal and Progressive Jews? If we look back one hundred years to the establishment of Liberal Judaism in Britain, it is clear that the founders of that movement, intoxicated with the gifts of the Enlightenment and Modernity, felt compelled almost exclusively, by the drive to transform society into an oasis of reason, truth, justice, compassion and peace. For them living as a Jew was primarily a matter of acting on the ethical principles of Judaism, set down in key sections of the Torah, and highlighted by the prophets. Ritual was a secondary matter only, and only those ritual acts that ‘made sense’, or which ‘enhanced life’ – principally, those associated with study, prayer, and the celebration of Shabbat and the festivals – became integral to Liberal Judaism.

But after the Shoah, Liberal and Progressive Jews, in common with our sisters and brothers throughout the Jewish world felt compelled by other concerns. Not only had Modernity let us down big time, but also, tasting the acrid smoke of the ovens in our mouths, and our hearts breaking with grief, we longed to savour the flavour of particularity once more, our hearts beating to a Jewish rhythm all of our own. The compulsion to choose Life - to choose Jewish life - after our journey through the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ became almost overwhelming. We were all survivors now. Jewish ethics were no longer enough to sustain us. Liberal and Progressive Jews, too, needed to nourish our souls by participating in uniquely Jewish acts.

Almost sixty years have elapsed since the Shoah. During that time, the Jewish world has been undergoing a process of transformation triggered by a number of developments, including the establishment of the State of Israel, the collapse of Communism in the East, and the liberation of women in the West. And so, too, Liberal Judaism has been changing. More than that, Liberal Judaism has been in the forefront of change in the Jewish world, because Liberal Judaism acknowledges that Jewish life is connected with the world and our responsibilities as Jews extend beyond the needs of our people to encompass, not only humanity, but God’s creation as a whole. Moreover Liberal Judaism recognises that Life makes demands on us now, impels us to continue to work out how we should live today. Liberal Judaism is not only, like Orthodox Judaism, a response to Modernity, to the consequences of intellectual Enlightenment and political Emancipation. Liberal Judaism provides a framework for working out how to live Jewishly in the modern – and now post-modern – world; an attempt to re-interpret and re-engage with our Jewish inheritance now. We may not feel commanded by an external force, but we do feel compelled not only to cherish our inheritance, but also to engage in recreating it in the context of the needs of the present, and in relation to the world around us.

We – our – us: But Liberal Judaism is not just about what we do. In embracing Modernity, Liberal Judaism acknowledged the crucial role played by individuals in defining and perpetuating communal life. So, while Orthodox Judaism continued to demand compliance to Divine authority, with the dawn of the modern age, in true liberal fashion, Liberal Judaism championed the autonomy of the individual. But if individual Jews are free to choose, what happens when autonomous individuals decide not to make Jewish choices?

Herein lies the fault-line in Liberal Judaism – but not only Liberal Judaism: Eleven years ago, Rabbi Tony Bayfield published his second statement on ‘Reform Judaism and the Halakhic Tradition’, Sinai, Law and Responsible Autonomy (RSGB, London, 1993) in an attempt to create a framework for ensuring that individual Jews exercise their autonomy in a responsible manner. Drawing inspiration from Franz Rosenzweig, Tony Bayfield presents a ‘Star of Jewish Responsibility’ – a combination of intra- and inter-relationships, which together encompass the arena of Progressive Jewish life. Focusing first on the particular context of Jewish life, he demonstrates the way in which the Jewish individual stands in the centre of an ‘inner triangle’, and negotiates his/her personal autonomy in relation to ‘Our God’, ‘Jewish Tradition’, and ‘Jewish Community’. There is no such thing as absolute autonomy. No one chooses in a vacuum. Modern Jews make Jewish choices by reflecting on the choices s/he wishes to make in the context of the particular responsibilities that define Jewish life.

Having explored this inner triangle, Tony Bayfield goes on to acknowledge ‘that there is a second, outer triangle reflecting Jewish existence in a larger world and the theology of our relationship to humanity’ (p. 21). So, standing in the centre of an ‘outer triangle’, the Jewish individual’s autonomy is also mediated by his/her universal responsibilities in relation to ‘Ein Sof’ – the ineffable mystery of the Eternal One, the human family’s shared store of ‘Wisdom and Knowledge’, and ‘Humanity’. Taken together, these two triangles form a magen david – ‘The Star of Responsible Autonomy.’ (p. 23).

Tony Bayfield’s Star of Responsible Autonomy’ is an excellent attempt from the perspective of Reform Judaism to work out how the individual negotiates his or her autonomy in the context of the external demands of Jewish life. In addition to these external demands, I would argue that it is essential to explore the internal dynamic within each individual that propels individuals to act. Which brings me back to that passage in Deuteronomy: The ‘you’ that the text addresses is the people as a whole – ‘For the commandment which I command you today’, etc. And yet, the image with which the passage closes suggests that ‘you’ also means the individual: ‘For the matter is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ Within the biblical universe, the feeling, thinking individual is subordinate to communal demands and dependent on communal structures. By contrast, in both the modern and post-modern realms of contemporary existence (excluding the numerous traditionalist societies that still exist the world over), not only has the individual taken centre-stage – politically, economically and culturally – but situating the individual in the context of the complex nexus of primary family relationships, the disciplines of psychology and psychoanalysis have helped us to recognise the ways in which each individual is both determined and determining, motivated by their own complex inner world, and negotiating their needs and desires in relation to significant others.

‘For the matter is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’ If it is, indeed, in each individual’s mouth and heart to act, then the central task of Liberal Judaism as I see it, is to create a framework for that action, which acknowledges not only, that the individual Jew will make ‘choices’, but also that these choices are constrained by internal and external factors. To distinguish this framework from that of both Rabbinic Judaism, rooted in Divine Commandments, and Classical Liberal Judaism, rooted in the principle of Informed Choice, I prefer to speak of Compelling Commitments emerging out of our on-going experience (including the on-going interplay between external and internal forces) framing the choices individual Jews make.

So what are these Compelling Commitments? For the committed Liberal Jew, they not only revolve around God, Torah and the People Israel, but also connect our lives as Jews with the lives of other peoples, and embrace concern for the world as well as concern for Jewish life:

Compelling Commitment One: Embracing Jewish Teaching and engaging with knowledge in the wider world

The commitment to nurture and cultivate our own Jewish lives and the life of the Jewish people as a whole, by continuing to learn and engage with the Torah, with our Jewish stories, teachings and traditions, and by participating in the various ritual acts, which celebrate Life with Jewish flavours, colours and tones.

And:

The commitment to engage with the accumulating wisdom of the world, to study and to learn about the major developments in human knowledge, and to find ways of ensuring that the developing wisdom of humanity in all its dimensions connects with and informs Jewish teaching.

Compelling Commitment Two: Sustaining the Jewish Community and repairing the world

The commitment to honour both those that have gone before us and those who are yet to be born, by becoming links in the chain of the generations of our people, and by maintaining, restoring and re-creating Jewish communal life in Britain, in Israel, and throughout the world.

And:

The commitment to love not only our neighbours, but also the stranger in our midst; to liberate the oppressed, protect the vulnerable, and support the fallen; to pursue justice and to seek peace; to participate in the great task of Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world.

Compelling Commitment Three: The Eternal is our God and The Eternal is One

The commitment to explore the meaning of existence, to journey, to search, and to listen out for the voice of the Eternal, who calls each Jew to become part of Am Yisrael, the people who ‘struggle with God’, and to strive to sanctify Life each day through our actions and our relationships.

And:

The commitment to acknowledge that the Eternal is One, and to work together with all the peoples of the world to recognise the essential unity of existence in all its diversity.

Compelling commitments: commitments that are compelling from within as well as from without because they spring from within us, within each individual. A few minutes ago, I said that my purpose this evening was to give us the opportunity, not so much to re-think Liberal Judaism as to re-feel it. Perhaps that’s too glib: What is required, in my view, is for Liberal Judaism to articulate a holistic approach to living as a Jew that acknowledges and encompasses all the dimensions of our humanity – the intellectual, the spiritual, the ethical, the emotional and the physical. In the parashah, Va’etchanan, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, we find the verses that form the first paragraph of the liturgical text, Jews call the Shema (6:4-9) – because it begins with the imperative: ‘Shema Yisrael!’, ‘Listen Israel!’ The principle statement of the Shema opens with the words: V’ahavta eit Adonai Elohecha bechol-levavecha u’vechol-nafshecha, uvechol me’odecha – which is usually translated along the lines of, ‘You shall love the Eternal One your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.’

Translation from one language to another is always tricky, and this translation is a little misleading: Starting with the phrase, bechol-levavecha, it’s important to acknowledge that within the biblical worldview, the word leivav denotes mind more than heart – so ‘with your entire mind’ would be more precise.

If we then turn to the phrase, u’vechol-nafshecha, we find that in the biblical context, where there is no distinction between ‘body’ and ‘soul’, a better translation of nefesh would be ‘being’. In the accounts of Creation we find in Genesis chapters one and two, the expression ‘nefesh chayyah’, ‘living being’ is used, not only to describe the first human being (2:7), but also the living creatures (1:20;21;24): each creature, both human and animal is nefesh chayyah, a living being. Not surprisingly, the English word ‘being’ is much more nebulous than the Hebrew word nefesh. The physicality of nefesh is brought home in Genesis chapter 9, which focuses on the aftermath of the flood: Previously vegetarian, after the flood humanity is permitted to eat flesh – basar – but not to eat blood – dam – because the blood is the nefesh of the animal (9:4). So, the nefesh is the stream of life that flows within each one of us, what makes each one of us palpably alive.

And what of: uvechol me’odecha? The translation, ‘might’, conveys the physical energy and abundance associated with me’od, but because it’s so familiar, we don’t often pause to explore the implications of the word: If leivav connotes the ‘mind’, the centre of understanding, and nefesh, ‘being’, the pulse of life within us, me’od, ‘might’, expresses the power to act on and shape the external world around us.

The key to unlocking the significance of the use of the three words, leivav, nefesh and me’od, lies in the very first word of the passage – in the imperative, ‘Shema!’, ‘Listen!’ The people Israel are exhorted first to listen, then to think about and make sense of what we hear, then to experience it within our whole being, and finally, to act. In the account of the aftermath of Revelation in the parashah Mishpatim, Exodus chapter 24, the text tells us that the people responded to Moses’ reading of the Book of the Covenant by saying, ‘na’aseh v’nishma’, ‘We will act and then we will listen’ (24:7). This phrase, ‘na’aseh v’nishma’ has become the central catch-phrase of Orthodox Judaism. For Liberal Judaism, on the other hand, the process is reversed: Nishma v’na’aseh – we listen first, and then we act. But it is not enough to listen, think and act: the challenge of living as a Jew involves all of who we are – all our mind and heart, all our being, all our capacity for creativity and action. Moreover, while the text of the Shema addresses the singular collectivity of the people Israel, ultimately, it is individuals, individual Jews, each one of us, who is challenged to listen, to think, to engage, to experience, to act: For the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

Let us now return to the story of those defiant midwives. Who were they? The Hebrew with which the tale opens – Vayomer melech mitzrayim lameyalledot haivriyyot ‘The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives’ (: 15), suggests that Shifra and Puah were Hebrews themselves, not simply, midwives of the Hebrews. If the latter were intended by the text, the Hebrew would be l’meyalledot (preposition only) – not lameyalledot (preposition plus definite article). So, these Hebrew women chose to defy the command of the mighty tyrant, Pharaoh. Moreover, although the midwives ‘feared God’ (: 17), neither God, nor any other power told them to save the baby boys – the matter was in their mouths and their hearts to do it. Despite the order to kill, what they felt compelled to do was save life.

With their hands, midwives bring new life into the world. When we speak about ‘taking action’, we often use the metaphor of ‘hands’. The story of Shifra and Puah’s defiance transforms a striking image in parashat Nitzavim into a profound truth: Compelling Commitments begin in our mouths and hearts and become manifest in the work of our hands. The time has come for Liberal Judaism to reconfigure our completely appropriate emphasis on intellectual integrity and right conduct within a holistic approach to Liberal Jewish action that attempts to engage every dimension of our complex humanity, as we grapple with the challenge of ensuring that Judaism lives in our lives: ‘For the matter is very near to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it.’

Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah is rabbi of Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue

This lecture was given at the Annual T'vunah Lecture at Finchley Progressive Synagogue on 17th March 2004 25 Adar 5764