Induction Response –

by Mark Goldsmith

Finchley Progressive Synagogue, despite its forty six years of existence is one of the least experienced in the Union of Liberal & Progressive Synagogues at holding Induction Services for new Rabbis. We were served as lay reader in its first years by Lew Hoffman of blessed memory - whose wife, Frances, has happily achieved her ninetieth Birthday today, then by Frank as Rabbi for 33 years and so far by me for three months. Those who remember the last Induction service held here must at least be reaching their half century.

In my first few months I have begun to appreciate why Frank was happy to dedicate such a large proportion of his rabbinate to the one congregation. Finchley Progressive Synagogue appears to me to be a congregation where the Rabbi can get on with the work he or she was trained for. The administration of the Synagogue is taken care of by others. The Rabbi can say let there be chairs put out in the synagogue for this or that crazy idea and there are chairs put out in the synagogue. Following the high standards set by Valerie Boyd-Hellner, the bulk of the work of running Ivriah is again in the hands of an extremely capable head teacher and the level of lay participation in all aspects of the synagogue is remarkably healthy.

I have been able to find these things out because I have already been working with you for three months and you have supported my projects and me. Also you have enabled Nicola, Alice and I to settle in most comfortably. To most of you this service is not needed as an introduction because I have met you already.
For those of you whom haven't met I should say that I am a lifelong Liberal Jew born into a family that has valued and worked for the progress of Liberal Judaism for generations. Before coming to Finchley I was the Rabbi of Woodford Progressive Synagogue in East London for three happy and satisfying years and before that I received my Semichah from Leo Baeck College, which is also here in Finchley. I am a lifelong Liberal Jew more than anything because I need to be part of a Judaism which is inclusive not exclusive. I need to be part of a Judaism which aims to reach out without judgement to those for whom Judaism can give guidance and meaning to their lives.

On October 18th 1902, Claude Montefiore preached the first sermon at the first Liberal Jewish Service in England organised by our predecessor, the Jewish Religious Union. At the end of his sermon he stated that the aim of the Jewish Religious Union would be "to increase the number of religious Jews, religious in the best and fullest and only real sense of that word [so that] the world as well as our community will profit and be the better." That surely remains the aim of the Union of Liberal & Progressive Synagogues, Finchley Progressive Synagogue as a constituent within it and must be my aim as its Rabbi.

My job here is to increase the number of religious Jews. As a Liberal Jew I can do that through worship, through education, through social activity, through care, through communication. And in each of these areas I can innovate as well as draw from the wellsprings of tradition. I need exclude nobody.

This Synagogue is right in the centre of London's Jewish community, nevertheless there are untold numbers of Jews who either are or perceive that they are excluded from the richness of Synagogue life. It may be that they need to find a Judaism that is more engaging and relevant to their lives than that in which they were brought up. It may be that their family make up makes them assume that no Synagogue would want them. It may be that they are certain that some aspects of their lifestyle exclude them from Synagogue life. Our congregation, under Frank's leadership, has always been open to Jews in whatever situation of life and to those who wish to join the Jewish people for the first time. I would like to help us to re-double our efforts and positively reach out to those for whom being a member of our community would be of great benefit.

Every effort that we make to reach out to those outside our synagogue will also pay dividends to us as the existing members here. To reach out effectively we will have to ensure that anyone who visits us is extended the hand of friendship - not left on their own in the service and Kiddush unless they choose to be. To reach out effectively we will have to refrain from judging where new people come from but accept them as they are. To reach out effectively we will have to desist from holding expectations about how active or otherwise in Synagogue life a person may be or become - lest we create self-fulfilling prophecies. We will have to be open, we will have to be creative, we will have to offer a spiritual as well as a communal atmosphere, we will have to communicate well, we will have to learn as well as to teach. Hard work but wonderfully rewarding and with Frank's Rabbinate as our building block we work from a very solid foundation.

We found ourselves this morning half way through the Book of Genesis. We were introduced to the unlikely Patriarch Jacob. He was not, on the face of it, expected by his father to be his successor, Isaac was expecting Esau. Jacob was not a vigorous man but meek and mild, seemingly easily led by his mother to do what seemed to be a dastardly dead in deceiving his blind father. Midrashim down the ages tried to make Jacob's trickery seem acceptable by suggesting that God had created the conditions for his ruse to succeed. They interpret that Isaac was meant to go blind so that he could be tricked, and the right son become the next patriarch, or that he was blinded by the tears of angels when he was bound upon the altar, or that Isaac knew all along that it was Jacob before him but went along with the deception willingly, even that the rank smell of the goat's skin was changed into that of the garden of Eden so that Isaac would know that God's elect was before him.

But maybe we should take the story at face value. Jacob was the unlikely one to lead the Jewish people - yet he became Israel - the father of us all. In the same way those whom other Jewish denominations find themselves excluding from Jewish life can flourish as active Jews in Liberal Judaism and can indeed go on to become leaders of our people. By the end of the book of Genesis the entire Jewish population of the world could sit down to tea in the front half of this Synagogue. There were seventy of them, the children and grandchildren of Jacob. Is each one of them of any more individual importance than any individual Jew out there - for whom this synagogue can be a natural home? One Jew lost in those days would have had huge implications up to our day. But so will one Jew lost in our day impact on our future.

I hope and pray that my rabbinate here will be one in which every member or potential member of our congregation is valued in equal measure, one in which I will help to encourage people to make the most of their Judaism, one in which Liberal Judaism will grow in its influence on your lives and the life of out community - for good. Cen Yehi Ratzon.

Rabbi Goldsmith is Rabbi of Finchley Progressive Synagogue.

This sermon was given on Shabbat Toldot 13 November 1999 at his Induction Service