SHABBAT PARAH (PARASHAT KI TISSA)
18 MARCH 2007: HANOVER, GERMANY
Meine Damen und Herren,
Chavurot v’ Chaverim; friends, ladies and gentlemen
I feel a little bit of a fraud because I have shared services
and sermons with a man whom I have always wanted to meet, Rabbi
Dr Henry Brandt, and my dear friend and last night’s preacher,
Rabbi Willy Woolf, both of whom are part of the German legacy.
My family left Amsterdam in 1760 and went to a small island
which is now part of Europe but which was then know as England.
I was going to greet you in Swedish and Danish but an Englishman
knows only three languages: colonial English understood by our
cousins across the Atlantic, English, and continental English
which means that you repeat what you have just said only louder.
Let me make my final comments about language: I was asked to
preach in the morning service and it is now definitely after
noon in England, and, if you are lunching in hotel, dessert
is being served.
My friends, it is indeed an honour to be present in Hanover
at such a vibrant European Region Conference with some 150 delegates
represeningt most of our constituents and to be asked to say
a few words not far from Seesen where nearly 200 years ago Israel
Jacobsen began the first practical expression of Liberal Judaism.
I will not apologise for my gender although I am proud to head
a movement which currently has more women in the pulpit rabbinate
than men but it was recently that I found myself at a male only
event with two orthodox rabbis and 134 Anglican bishops in the
Egyptian Hall at The Archbishops and Bishops Dinner given by
the Right Honourable The Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman
David Brewer CMB, at Mansion House. It was a very English affair
and caused me to reflect on the status of the Jew and Judaism
in English civil society. It was in 1656 that Sephardi Rabbi
Manasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam petitioned Puritan Lord Protector
Oliver Cromwell seeking the readmission of the Jews to England.
They had been expelled nearly 400 years before in the reign
of King Edward the First, many of them travelling to France.
Cromwell had convened a conference on the re-admission of the
Jews at the end of the previous year, and although the relevant
minute is missing from the record of the Council of State, Anglo
Jewry has announced this year 2006 as the 350th Year of the
re-admission of the Jews to England. Indeed, this Shabbat is
Readmission Shabbat across England. Synagogues, cemeteries,
the right to be naturalised, the establishment of the Board
of Deputies in 1836, the knighting of Moses Montefiore by Queen
Victoria in 1841, the opening of West London (Reform) Synagogue
in the same year, the first Jewish Member of Parliament (Lionel
de Rothschild in 1858), the founding of Liberal Judaism in 1902,
and the inaugural meeting of the World Union for Progressive
Judaism in 1926 at the LJS (St John’s Wood) all form the
backdrop to the successful integration of Anglo-Jewry into the
English establishment. It is interesting to note that a Jew
(Sir David Salamons holding the office in 1855) became the Lord
Mayor of the City of London before a Jew could take a seat in
the British Parliament.
As a momento to take away the Mayor gave each diner a copy of
the reprinted Some Rules for the Conduct of Life to which are
added a few Cautions for the use of such Freeman as take Apprentices.
A verse from the prophet, Haggai 1:5 ( Seem-oo l’vavchem
al darchaychem: Consider your ways) adorns the front inside
cover but its opening rule is:
Whatever you at any time intend to do, consider the end which
you therein propose to yourself… One who does anything,
and knows not why or wherefore, acts foolishly: … If you
are careful to always observe this fundamental rule, you will
thereby avoid many sins which would disturb your conscience,
and also many trifling actions which would tend to your discredit,
or trouble your repose.
Being a relatively newly appointed movement Chief Executive
I am not sure what the task of the Shabbat morning preacher
at a European Region Conference is. Perhaps it is to link the
theme of the gathering to the Torah portion. It is my misfortune
that not only does the Conference have multiple themes: religion
and civil society, the German legacy, new immigrants, inter-faith,
new communities, education, the young(er), Israel, marketing,
future leaders and advocacy and that was only yesterday (never
mind: fundraising, leadership, ex-pats and twinning still to
come) but this Shabbat, being Shabbat Parah, traditionally has
an additional Torah reading: the strange case of the parah adumah:
the red heifer from Numbers 19:1-22. In my defence, coming as
I do from a classical Liberal tradition, Shabbat Parah and its
bizarre associated ritual was and is unlikely be part of English
Liberal Judaism – even if a unanimous resolution of the
World Union should so commend it. I can, however, find more
traditional mitigation in a comment found in Numbers Rabbah
19:3 (page 754 in Soncino English edition):
King Solomon declared: ‘All these I have fully comprehended,
but as regards the section dealing with the Red Heifer, I have
investigated, enquired, and examined: I will get wisdom but
it was far from me’ (using Ecclesiastes 7:23).
Who am I to override one of Judaism’s greatest community
builders? After all, Solomon raised funds from the Euphrates
in the North to Ethiopia in the South, Cilicia (now southern
Turkey) in the West to the Arab peninsula in the east; he built
a shul (even if it was not called that then) to rival in finery
any in Beverley Hills. New immigrants, ex-pats and the young
were clearly welcomed (perhaps more women than men). He organised
a successful twinning arrangement with King Hiram of Tyre, and
his inter-faith work and advocacy with the Queen of Sheba appears
to have been a success too!
So for more local inspiration let me turn to this week’s
regular Torah portion which begins with a census to assess each
person’s contribution to the building of the mishkan.
Betzalel is appointed to oversee the work, and Moses goes off
to receive shnai loochot ha-aydah, loochot even, c’tuvim
b’etzbah Elohim: two tablets of testimony, tablets of
stone, written by the finger of the Eternal God (Exodus 31:18).
Moses appears to be a day late in returning. In indecent haste
and assisted by Aaron (perhaps for the best of motives for according
to the Midrash it was a ploy: best to yield until he could wean
them from error – I trust Aaron is not chairing our leadership
workshop!), the Israelites construct the Golden Calf. Moses
pleads for the Children of Israel in the face of God’s
destructive wrath, returns, and when he himself sees the Golden
Calf, smashes the first edition of the Tablets and then appoints
hereafter a class of hereditary leadership – boy, did
these guys really need to spend some time at the Beutel Leadership
seminar of the World Union for Progressive Judaism! Satisfied
that the people are now in good hands, Moses once again ascends
the Sinai mountain to receive a second set of Tablets, before
warning the Children of Israel against inauthentic worship and
reminding them of the festival calendar.
There are two verses of this morning’s parashah upon which
I wish to comment. The first is the description of Betzalel
found in the first thirteen verses of chapter thirty one. He
is described malay: full of - ruach Elohim: the spirit of the
Eternal God; b’chochmah: with wisdom; oovitvoonah: and
with insight; ooda-ah: and with knowledge; oov’chol m’lachah:
and with every craft. Betzalel was not a communal macher. He
was neither the Moses – perhaps represented by our shul
Presidents, chairs, and Chief Executives (our temporal leadership)
and neither was he a priest or a Levite – perhaps equivalent
to our rabbinate or our shlichai tzibbur, our lay service leaders
(our spiritual leadership). Apart from the verses in this week’s
parashah we know little else about him from the Torah. The Rabbinic
literature, as one might expect, builds up the picture. The
Talmud (Sanhedrin 69b) says he was only thirteen years of age
when he started the mishkan project, was versed in halachah,
and possessed insight into the secret lore, knowing the combination
of letters by which God created heaven and earth. In a play
on the translation of his Hebrew name (in the shadow of God)
the philosopher, Philo, suggests he understood God as ‘shadow
like’ as opposed to Moses who knew God panim el panim:
face to face. Be that as it may-and thinking particularly of
our progressive communities in Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus
and in nearly all our constituencies where there is a shortage
of rabbinic leadership - perhaps this serves to remind us that,
in addition to the investment we put into the training of potential
rabbis, we must continue our work with the development of lay
leaders and talented congregational members.
I confess, however, a greater interest in the second set of
Tablets (Exodus 34:1) and how, if at all, they differ from the
first (Exodus 31:18). I have already made reference to the first
set and of the second the Torah records: P’sal l’cha
sh’nai loochot: Make for yourself two tablets…Our
minds could run riot with imagination. Was God a little peeved
that Moses had broken the first set which he appears to have
simply been handed so Moses had to make them himself this time?
Was God commenting generally on the human condition viz it is
only when we put a bit of effort in ourselves that we come to
best appreciate the outcome?
You are all midrashists of one sort or another (I understood
that is what post modernism is about!) so you can choose one
of these or invent another but I have a serious point to make
too. The Talmud (Berachot 8b) tells us that the fragments of
the first set of Tablets were carried in the Ark along with
the replacement set. Perhaps this legend of the two sets of
Tablets (one in fragments in the Ark and the other presumably
whole) serve to remind us that whilst we build upon the past,
it, and what it produces, may not suffice for eternity. For
is there a human physical creation that is perfect and unbreakable
for all time? No, for the very idea is the idolatry about which
Moses is so strident towards the end of our parashah. Perhaps
the German legacy is represented by the fragments of the fist
set of Tablets and the second is the effort of our brave friends
in the German Union of Progressive Judaism to re-create a living
Judaism here.
And in a sense that is the essence of Progressive Judaism which,
on the one hand reveres the past (including our own nearly 200
years of Liberal Judaism begun in this very political entity)
but, on the other hand, accepts that the form of what we have
received may not last forever.
My friends, we need to be proud of 200 years of Progressive
Jewish principles and practices but not so possessive of a particular
version that we cannot change with the times and share our insights
with others. That to me is what leadership, advocacy, work in
Germany, Israel and the rest of Europe, new immigrants, inter-faith,
and new communities are about.
Let me return to that booklet given to me by the Lord Mayor
of the City of London which reminds us to ‘…consider
the end which we propose…’ and paraphrase the words
of Haggai, the prophet, with which I began: Seem-oo l’vavchem
al darchaychem v’divraychem: Consider our deeds and our
words, and resolve to leave this Hanover Conference, in the
very land where our particular understanding of Judaism first
found expression, imbued with a passion – a passion to
ensure that the European Region of the World Union for Progressive
Judaism is not merely a bureaucratic structure, not merely where
we go to receive grants, but is the vehicle by which the values
of Progressive Judaism are brought into the daily lives of Jews
and non-Jews alike on this continent of ours.
I beg - as I conclude - one indulgence. This is the first European
Region Conference since the death of my personal exemplar and
our teacher, John Rayner. Perhaps I could end with his words,
extracted from a sermon titled The Role of Progressive Judaism
which he delivered at the Finchley Progressive Synagogue on
29 May 1997. It can be found in a collection of sermons and
lectures Signposts to the Messianic Age, the proofreading of
which John finished only weeks before his death in September
last, he writes:
At any rate this is the measure of the importance of Progressive
Judaism: that it alone can resolve the kulturkampf, that it
alone provides a platform on which the majority of Jews will
be able, sooner or later, to reunite. And this is the task to
which… I, along with many others, have dedicated our lives:
quite simply to demonstrate that it is possible to combine the
best of Jewish (T)radition with the best of modern secular culture.
John concluded his sermon with a call to commitment which I
trust he will forgive me if I paraphrase thus:
I trust that bringing the best of Jewish tradition and the best
of modern secular culture to the peoples of Europe, to our needy
world, is a task worthy of all of our allegiance.
Rabbi Danny Rich 2282`` Words
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