Shabbat Shemini/Ha-Chodesh
5 April 2024
Dear Members and Friends,
As Passover approaches, we anticipate its arrival. The first night falls on 22 April, and our communal Seder will take place on the second night, 23 April. Pesach has many symbols and metaphors. Each year, symbolic food, customs, and songs of Passover trigger important thoughts and pose challenging questions. The shank bone, egg, two kinds of bitter herbs, fresh vegetables, and a sweet fruit paste called charoset - these are the classic six items mentioned in the Haggadah. Each of them has a symbolic meaning that is relevant to us beyond time and space. At the same time, there is room for some creativity and alternative ingredients. The Passover’s theme is the Jewish liberation from Egyptian slavery. Many people use the festival today to acknowledge and honour modern liberation struggles. New Seder items are introduced every year.
Beetroot. One of Ukraine's most famous national foods is borscht, made primarily with beetroot. During the festival, placing a beetroot on the Seder plate can symbolise showing support for Ukraine. The story of Pesach is about freedom, and we will be praying for those in Ukraine to also be free during this Passover. Although many of us may feel helpless in the face of what is happening, placing a beetroot on the Seder plate is a powerful symbol of solidarity. The Hebrew word for beetroot is selek (סלק), which resembles the word for retreat, yistalku (יסתלקו). I suggest that people eat the beetroot at the point in the Seder after the bitter herbs and before the main meal, saying the following prayer: “May it be Your will, Eternal God, that all the enemies will retreat (yistalku), and we will choose a path to freedom.”
Seder Seat for a Hostage. This year, The Board of Deputies of British Jews has started a new initiative called "Seder Seat for a Hostage". The initiative encourages people to set an extra place at their Seder table for one of the over 100 men, women, and children who are still held captive by Hamas terrorists. You can download and print a picture of one of the hostages, which can be placed at a special seat at the table set for them here.
Olive Branch or an Empty Serving Bowl. The olive branch is famous as a symbol of peace. Sadly, the destruction of Palestinian olive trees by Israeli settlers and the Israeli army is just one example of Palestinian suffering. Therefore, you can add an olive branch to your Seder plate to open a difficult conversation about Palestinian suffering as well as a symbol of hope for future peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Alternatively, you can choose to put an empty serving bowl to open a conversation about starvation in Gaza.
You can add one or all three or create any other symbol.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi Igor
Shabbat Tazri'a
12 April 2024
Dear Members and Friends,
I am deeply conscious that in the last six months our services and sermons, our conversations, and encounters with each other have been about the war between Israel and Gaza. I find myself living in a deep maelstrom of fear, sadness, shame and pride. Fear for the future of the region, fear of an imminent attack by Iran against Israel, sadness and horror at the number of those who have been killed, who are bereaved, injured and traumatised in Israel and Gaza; shame when I consider Israel’s so-called leaders and their lack of vision for the future; pride in those individuals and organisations who are searching for a non-polarised ‘third narrative’, in which there is a way forward for Israelis and Palestinians to live peaceably next to each other; dismay that school children, students and others in the West are subjected to hateful remarks and bias by individuals and groups taking up a polarised cudgel on behalf of one group or another.
Underneath my desk, on a narrow shelf, I keep copies of the concordances, dictionaries and biblical texts that I consult most frequently when I prepare sermons or teaching. Some have lost their covers; their spines have come loose over the years as they are dragged from shelf to desk week after week. But also, between the Hebrew dictionaries and texts, are slim volumes of poetry – Hebrew and English. And there are times when, if the weekly parashah fails to yield a glimmer of hope or vision, a poem will come to mind and there is comfort and hope in seeing twelve or fewer lines, elegantly printed on pages yellowing with age at the edges.
One such volume contains selected poems by the Russian born poet Ra’hel. Ra’hel Bluwstein, known only by her first name, was born in Russia in 1890 and moved to Palestine when she was just nineteen years old. There, she spent two years on a training farm for young women, before moving to France to continue her studies in agronomy. The First World War left her stranded in Europe and she moved to Odessa and worked at a children’s refugee home. It was here that she contracted tuberculosis. She returned to Palestine in 1919 but became too ill to work and died at the age of 41. Ra’hel is considered the ‘founding mother’ of modern Hebrew poetry by women – the first woman knowingly to express herself in poetry since Deborah the Prophet.
This is her poem Etz Agas - ‘Pear Tree’ in which she explores how the yad aviv ba-kesher ha-zeh, translated here as ‘conspiracy of spring’ awakens the individual who, throughout the winter months, has stubbornly held on to their burden of grief:
Conspiracy of spring –
a man awakes and through the window sees
a pear tree blossoming,
and instantly the mountain weighing on his heart
dissolves and disappears.
O you will understand! Is there a grieving man
who can hold on stubbornly
to a single flower that withered
in last year’s autumn gale,
when spring consoles and with a smile
presents him with a giant wreath of flowers
at his very window?
I have watched, over these past few weeks, how the tall tree, outside my own window, has released its green catkins and unfurled its leaves, and see how their very greenness reflects a new kind of light, no longer the grey morning light of winter, but brighter, lighter, in all senses of the word, heaving away the weight of these past months.
To hold on stubbornly to grief, to remain caught in a stormy, relentless tide of trauma and fear, diminishes our capacity for life, for gentle joy and hope. Pesach is our festival of deliverance and hope – let us pray fervently for some relief from war, for lightness of being, for peace.
Shabbat shalom,
Alexandra Wright
Shabbat Metzora and Lessons of Morality
19 April 2024
Dear Members and Friends,
We often say that religion is here to provide a moral compass. However, there is usually no clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes, the battle is not between pure good and pure bad but between one set of complex circumstances and another. What I like about Torah and the Jewish religious literature is that it does not pretend to be ideal. Our characters are complex; our stories are not straightforward. Therefore, moral lessons can sometimes come from life's most mundane and unpleasant parts.
In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the purification ritual for those who suffered from skin disease tzara’at and the contamination of their homes. It most likely refers to eczema or psoriasis for people and a type of mould or fungi for houses. While the ancient priests examined the infections on the body or fungi in the home, they did not prescribe any medicine or therapy for healing. Instead, they asked the person to isolate from the community until healed and the house to be scrabbed or demolished. Furthermore, the underlying message of the Torah seems to connect the disease to some form of wrongdoing. For example, after the person has been healed and the walls of the house become clean, the person and the landlord are prescribed to bring a sin offering. Torah does not explain what sin the person has committed, and it simply assumes that they did.
What was the wrongdoing that the person with skin disease could commit? For example, Rashi points out that Moses and his sister Miriam were punished with skin diseases for their behaviour. Moses was punished for complaining about the people of Israel, while Miriam was punished for gossiping about her brother and questioning Moses' marriage. (Rashi on Exodus 4:1–6 and Leviticus Rabbah 16:1)
Maimonides agreed with Rashi and expanded this further. He said that tzara’at (skin disease) is not a natural phenomenon but rather a sign for the people of Israel to warn them against lashon hara - evil talk.
Nehama Leibowitz, drawing from the previous commentators, provides an important lesson to our society: ‘The plague teaches us that society should take notice of the first sign of misconduct, however small. Just like a disease begins with hardly noticeable symptoms and can be stopped if detected in time, so a moral disease in society can be prevented from spreading if immediate steps are taken. Otherwise, it will spread throughout the community.’ (Studies in Vayikra, pp. 137–138)
In other words, this reminds us of our crucial role as individuals and as a community in upholding ethical standards. As the saying goes, ‘a stitch in time saves nine.’ If you sort out a problem immediately, it may save a lot of extra work later. If you turn a blind eye to even the smallest signs of misconduct, you risk spreading these issues, potentially causing irreparable harm to ourselves and those around us. Therefore, we must be proactive in identifying and addressing ethical concerns, not only for our benefit but also for the well-being of our society as a whole.
We live in a time of wars and political unrest, and it is often considered normal to commit ‘insignificant’ wrongdoings – one can accuse others, speak of them badly in public, or tell half-truths. However, we must not wait until the perfect time to act with integrity and morality. One does not need to wait until the end of a war to seek peace.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Igor Zinkov
