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TFTW Archive 2025 June

Shabbat B'ha'a'lot'cha

Dear Members and Friends,

Jewish people are very good at…complaining.
This remains true today, and it was also true in biblical times. The Torah has many examples of Jewish people speaking out against leaders, demanding change or better conditions.
Not long after the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, they turned to Moses with worries about food and water. Then Moses brought their concerns to God. The response was generous - manna appeared each morning, just enough for the day, with a double portion given on Fridays so they could rest on Shabbat. Water flowed freely, too, and according to rabbinic legends, there was a miraculous well that travelled with people wherever they went.

Fast forward two years. A lot has happened. Since the Exodus, people have stood at Mount Sinai, received the Ten Commandments, and built the Mishkan, the mobile sanctuary with a clear organisational structure around it. Their life seems to have more certainty and order. And yet, in this week’s Torah portion, the complaints return. Life in the desert is hard, they say; the food is the same every day. Back in Egypt, they had more variety.

This time, the Torah focuses not just on the complaints and solutions, but on how Moses responds. This time, he turns to God and opens his heart: “Why are You doing this to me? Why have I not found favour in Your eyes, that I should carry the burden of all these people?... I can no longer carry all this people by myself. It is too much for me.” (based on Numbers 11:11-15) 

That feeling is familiar to many of us. Whether we’re parents, teachers, carers, or team leaders, there are times we reach our limit. Sometimes the weight of responsibility feels too heavy. Moses’ monologue is a raw, honest, and profoundly human reaction from a person who is tired and burned out. Moses is overwhelmed. He’s done everything he possibly could, and still, it feels like he’s failing.

And what does God do? God reminds him that he is not alone, that he has people around him who could support him. Seventy wise and trusted individuals were appointed to assist Moses. This was not a new idea. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, had suggested something similar earlier on, and it worked. However, as time passed, the burdens and responsibilities once again fell on Moses’ shoulders.

The Torah offers a gentle but powerful message. Leadership isn’t about doing everything yourself. Facing problems isn’t about collapsing under the pressure, nor about pretending you are fine when you are not. It is about recognising when you need help and having the humility and wisdom to ask for it.

We’re not meant to carry everything alone, not in families, not in communities, not in life. Even Moses couldn’t do it on his own. Why should we think we can? Some find strength in family, friends, and community. Others turn to God. God does not intervene to prevent pain, but God stays with us as a sourse of support in any hardship. This way, people are never alone. Even when we cannot rely on our friends, our families, our communities, there is always God. But God is not something supernatural, not a person-like creature who we can train to do our will. God is much deeper and more complicated. As Jack Riemer beautifully wrote:

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end despair,

For You have already given us the power

To clear away slums and to give hope

If we would only use our power justly.

We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease,

For you have already given us great minds with which

To search out cures and healing,

If we would only use them constructively.

Therefore we pray to You instead, O God,

For strength, determination, and willpower,

To do instead of just to pray,

To become instead of merely to wish.

It is that quiet conversation with the deepest parts of ourselves, that we call God, that is the source of strength, determination, and willpower. Such conversation, such prayer might come as comfort, clarity, resilience, or simply the sense that we are not alone. Moses wasn’t. And neither are we.

Best wishes,

Igor

Shabbat Naso

Dear Members and Friends,

I spent part of this week accompanying a delegation of Israeli Rabbis from Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) to meetings at the House of Lords and the Board of Deputies. The four Rabbis, Avi Dabush, Executive Director of RHR, orthodox ordained Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel from Yerucham, a development town in the Negev, Rabbi Dahlia Shaham from Haifa and Rabbi Dana Sharon, Director of the Rabbis Network for RHR, were in the UK to address congregations over Shavuot and meet up with individuals from different organisations.

With the evening sun shimmering against the Jerusalem stone in our Sanctuary, Rabbi Avi connected our visit to the London Central Mosque and St John’s Wood Church, which took place before our Erev Shavuot service, to an interfaith march that had taken place earlier on in the week in Jerusalem as a counter-narrative to the Jerusalem Day flag parade which often involves large groups of Jewish Israelis marching through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. You can listen to Rabbi Avi’s D’var Torah here.

After they had addressed around ten synagogues throughout Shavuot, I joined the Rabbis at the House of Lords where we met with the Bishops of Southwark, Gloucester and Chelmsford. All had recently returned from Israel and the West Bank. On Wednesday, the Rabbis met with the President of the Board of Deputies, Phil Rosenberg and invited him to be part of their work when he was next in Israel.

RHR’s membership is drawn from across the denominations – orthodox, conservative, progressive rabbis – all of whom see Judaism, our religious heritage, as inseparable from morality. Their work is driven by profound Jewish values of justice, dignity and equality. Human rights lie at the heart of their day-to-day advocacy, education and direct action.

They provide a ‘protective presence’ in areas of conflict, particularly during the harvest season, by accompanying Palestinian farmers, helping them with their olive harvest. While in London, Rabbi Avi described how a group from RHR had gone to help farmers pick apricots. While with them, the army had approached them and told them to move away as they were 200 metres from a settlement. No, they said, you need a warrant. In this way, they fended off the army and Palestinian farmers were able to glean their harvest.

In Israel, RHR advocates for the rights of asylum seekers, migrant workers and other marginalised populations; they provide significant education in schools and synagogues, and particularly in pre-army preparation programmes, before recruits begin their training.

Their visit was a heartfelt plea to all of us to urge for an end to the war, for the release of the hostages, for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. The gap between war and peace, said Rabbi Avi, is much smaller than the gap between the status quo of ‘managing the conflict’ and peace. And in those words, and many of the words that were spoken by the Rabbis this week, I drew hope and inspiration.

Managing our own conflicts here in the UK, dealing with the anger and sometimes hatred that have been directed against our own communities have resulted in exhaustion and highly defensive reactions. Sometimes it feels as though Israel is in the midst of its 100-year war. And sometimes, I ask myself, is this the darkest time of the night before dawn comes?

As I think of that tiny gap between the destruction and devastation of war on the one hand, and peace on the other, I pray that Rabbi Avi is right. That our prayers and the determination and action of our colleagues in Israel, can extinguish the burning hatred, revenge and terror and bring what R.S. Thomas describes in his poem of hope the ‘warm rain/That brings the sun and afterwards flowers/On the raw graves and throbbing of bells.’

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexandra Wright

Sun, 15 June 2025 19 Sivan 5785