Sermons 2021
Shavuot Birkat Kohanim, Shabbat Naso 5781
There is little cause for celebration of the ceasefire between Israel and Gaza that took effect early on Friday morning, although we are thankful that the killing has stopped. A cessation of military operations is not the same as a political resolution for what remains an intractable problem between two peoples with the same claim to land and sovereignty. Until the Occupation of the West Bank comes to an end, the conflict between Israel and Palestine will remain a festering sore with further outbreaks of hostilities, endangering innocent populations, uniting Palestinians and depriving both sides of the security they need and yearn for. Last Sunday, on Erev Shavuot, we witnessed despicable acts of antisemitism and misogyny here in St John’s Wood, in Hampstead and Golders Green, when a convoy of four cars, draped in Palestinian flags, drove through north-west London, broadcasting messages of incitement and hate through a megaphone. In recent days, there have been a series of antisemitic messages and hostile statements posted on social media as well as threatening language used against students and others. Such acts are serious and fearful triggers for many in the Jewish community and must be condemned, as must anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia. They are repulsive acts, but we need to be careful not to detract our attention from the fundamental need to support movements in Israel and Palestine, working collaboratively for peace, that seek to end inequality and injustice between Arabs and Jews.
It is perhaps of symbolic significance that your beautiful reading this morning, Nora, included the Priestly Blessing. I think many of us heard it not only as part of the instructions from Moses to Aaron as High Priest in the Book of Numbers, but as a heartfelt prayer for peace. I know that you have family in Israel and over the past eleven to twelve days, there has been huge concern for all those deeply affected by the thousands of rockets that have pounded parts of Israel. One of the most moving, almost unbearable-to-watch videos I saw this week, was the Israeli progressive rabbi, Galit Cohen-Kedem, giving a sermon via Zoom to the North Western Reform Synagogue, Alyth Gardens last Shabbat. Abandoning her desk and her sermon notes, she had taken refuge from rockets landing in a bomb shelter in Holon. Those listening could hear clearly the sound of explosions nearby as she was speaking. How significant, she said, that the Torah teaches us nothing about sovereignty. We come out of Egypt, we wander for forty years in the desert, we end up on Mount Nebo, but we never make it into the Promised Land. And she ended her D’var Torah with these words: ‘I am asking for your spiritual support, empathy and sympathy for the pain that is outside my bomb shelter and to be attentive to the various voices and not just the ones that shout the loudest. There are so many beautiful attempts here in Israel these days to keep this fragile coexistence together and it seems like hate is almost winning… We have been told by our ancestors that God is love and that the biggest choice is having love in our lives. And I choose to love.’ She told us about the 1000 Arab and Jewish women who attended a spontaneous event via Zoom with prayers for peace, as well as other endeavours that are countering the voices of hatred. ‘I am asking you to be part of the commitment to be part of these voices that aren’t giving up on peace and hope.’
At the end of last Shabbat, Liberal Judaism organised a Zoom gathering for its congregations all over the country. In small break-out groups, there was an opportunity with a facilitator to express our anxieties and worries about the most recent outbreak of violence, the mortality rate in Gaza and Israel, the numbers wounded, and the resulting effect on social media and on the streets here in the UK.
In the group I attended, one man confessed, ‘I am ashamed of being Jewish. The killings, the destruction of homes and hospitals in Gaza, the disproportionate attacks against civilians make me ashamed.’ I think many of us may share such painful feelings of distress and deep anxiety about the effect of the Occupation on Palestinians and the cost to Israelis. But do I feel humiliation and shame for being Jewish? Shamelessness would be a poor response to the events of the last eleven days: brazen, arrogant and untruthful. So perhaps I do feel a sense of shame and dishonour that the politicians who lead the Jewish State do not seem willing to interrogate themselves in the light of Jewish values: the saving of human life, truth, humility, justice, compassion. Perhaps I am ashamed that I have hidden myself from certain truths that lie within the complexity of the conflict, that I have colluded in remaining silent when I should have spoken out. But I am not sure that I feel the self-hate that is the root of shame.
But to feel ashamed of being Jewish? To lose my respect for our Jewish heritage, for its values and the texts from which we can learn so much? I cannot feel shame for these, for what we have brought to the world through traditions and texts such as the Priestly Blessing with its prayer for peace that you have just read to us, Nora, with such reverence and beauty.
It is a source of wonder that the words of this blessing go back at least to the sixth century BCE, towards the end of the First Temple period, and perhaps even earlier. We know this because in 1979 archaeologists discovered two tiny silver rolled amulets in a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem. When the amulets were unrolled in laboratories in the Israel Museum, one measured 9.7 by 2.7 cms, just a little bit longer than the length from my wrist to the top of my palm and in breadth less than the span of two of my fingers held together. The second one is less than half its size. The words are incised with a sharp, thin stylus, no thicker than a hair’s breadth which can only be deciphered under a microscope. The inscriptions on these minute silver scrolls are almost identical to the priestly blessing which you read this morning, Nora.
This invocation to God for a blessing of peace found its way into the Torah; it migrated into our Siddur and Machzor and became a significant part of our prayers: in our home ritual on Erev Shabbat with our blessing for each other, as a blessing at the end of services, in our festival prayers, our ceremonies of brit milah, baby blessings, marriage and other significant life cycle moments.
In ancient times, it was not uncommon to find the blessing on amulets for protection, and its structure seems almost magical: the three-line formula, the three repetitions of the divine name, a line of three words, then five, then seven, its musical rhythm and repetitions. But beyond the magic of numbers lie the significance and value of its message: blessing, protection, favour, graciousness, and peace. That is what we seek from God for our own lives and for the lives of all human beings. I cannot feel ashamed of being Jewish, when these are the values that lie at the very heart of our Jewish heritage; these are the words that call out to us from the pages of the Torah, from our liturgy, from two tiny amulets two and half or more thousand years ago. They testify to the eternal value of our Jewish teachings, not as some ideal, but as attributes to be embodied in our own lives. May we aspire to be worthy of God’s graciousness and love in our courageous partnership with others, in our shared experiences and words and in our willingness to build bridges of hope. And in time, perhaps we will merit the ancient blessing of shalom – wholeness and peace. Keyn yehi ratzon. Amen.
Rabbi Alexandra Wright
You can also click HERE to view the amulets
A Prayer for Israel - 14th May 2021 Shabbat B'Midbar/ Shavuot
Eternal God, shelter of peace for all nations, we turn to You at this time of conflict and danger for the State of Israel and all who live there. Protect all those who are living under rocket fire and in the midst of riots and violence in the cities of Israel. As Shabbat begins, we pray for a cessation of all hostilities for the sake of those who are fearful and traumatised, for those who wish to live their lives in quietness and peace.
In the shadow of death, we associate ourselves with those who are bereaved – families who have lost parents, children, partners, brothers or sisters. Strengthen them and console them with the warmth of Your compassion and love. Bind up the wounds of those who have been hurt; be with them in their pain and help them towards healing and recovery.
We stand together with all those who cherish a vision of freedom, justice and peace, who work for equality and understanding and seek to remove enmity and hatred. Eternal God, we pray in the words of the prophet and psalms: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May peace be found within her walls and safety within her borders. V’yiggal ka-mayyim mishpat,u’tzedakah k’nachal etan – ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’
And let us say: Amen.
Rabbi Alexandra Wright
Erev Shabbat B'Midbar 5781/2021
Leo, I know that your Bar Mitzvah comes a year after your thirteenth birthday and that, because of the pandemic you, like many of our other students, chose to postpone the date. And so tomorrow you will read, not our weekly parashah which is B’Midbar, but your original parashah Shemini, the story of the death of Aaron’s two sons. They died in a tragic conflagration inside the Sanctuary soon after their ordination as priests. This story and its repercussions seem particularly relevant in the light of the tragic events we are witnessing in Jerusalem, throughout Israel and in Gaza this week.
Last night, I watched a briefing from our sister movement, the Israel Movement for Reform Judaism. Progressive Israeli colleagues who serve communities spoke about their experiences of living under constant rocket fire and as witnesses to the riots and violence in cities throughout Israel. And I was struck, not by their despair and hopelessness, but by the very real questions they raised and a sense of empowerment to bring about change: how does one deal with the trauma of this latest round of hostilities without falling into the pit of hatred, asked Rabbi Galit Cohen Kedem from Holon? Others spoke about a sense of solidarity between the progressive communities Israel, northern congregations reaching out to those in the southern and central parts who are coming under rocket fire, offering them invitations to stay with them and so give them some respite from the constant threat of danger and the noise of rockets and sirens. In many cities, Arab and Jewish mayors have come together in reconciliatory and peaceful ways to ask for calm and to show how it is possible to live peacefully together, striving for the same outcomes.
In Haifa, Rabbi Ofek Meir, Principal of Leo Baeck Education Centre, two of whose students joined us for a special service marking Yom Ha-Atzma’ut – Israel’s Independence Day - a few weeks ago, issued a joint Arab-Jewish statement on behalf of Arab and Jewish head teachers in Haifa, acknowledging the ‘voices of hatred, polarisation and division in the social fabric of [the] country’ but re-affirming their commitment to building an educational system which has the power to produce a different kind of discourse in Israeli society, ‘one of mutual respect and pluralism.’ ‘The role of education,’ they wrote, ‘is to remind students and communities of our shared destiny, and the power and beauty of living together.’
In three days’ time, we will be celebrating the festival of Shavuot – z’man mattan torateinu – the season of the giving of the Torah. In ancient times, Shavuot was a harvest festival of indeterminate date, known as Chag Ha-Katzir – the Feast of the Harvest – and a festival of first fruits. In the Torah, the rituals of this sacred occasion are linked with our moral responsibilities towards the poor and stranger: ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Eternal One am your God.’
This commandment which is found in several passages in the Torah informs another book in Tanakh which is read at Shavuot, the Book of Ruth. Ruth, a Moabite woman who has been left a widow by her Israelite husband in the land of Moab, follows her mother-in-law Naomi back to Judah. Destitute, widowed and a foreigner, dependent on the kindness of others, Ruth gleans in the fields of a kinsman of her late father-in-law, Boaz, and following the gleaners, picks up the fallen sheaves they have left behind for her in accordance with the laws of the Torah.
But what is so interesting about the Book of Ruth is the underlying attitudes towards the land of Moab and the Moabite people that exist in the Torah. As the descendants of an incestuous union between Lot and his daughter, a people who refused to allow the Israelites to traverse their territory as they were making their way through the desert, and Moabite women who enticed Israelite men to idolatry, the Torah is not well-disposed towards Moab and its people. Deuteronomy forbids any marriage to take place between Israelites and Moabites with the words: ‘No Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Eternal One…’ (Deut. 23.23.)
And yet, along comes Ruth, a woman from Moab, a country that Israel regards as its arch enemy, who is treated kindly and generously by Boaz, the Israelite man whom she marries. And more remarkable is the fact that she becomes the great-grandmother of no less a figure than king David.
I am comforted by this book, by the way its author, whoever he or she was, subverts the traditional Torah narrative and transforms enmity into friendship and even love. I imagine those first encounters between Ruth and Boaz, the way he offers her protection against the interference of his young men in the fields, his open hospitality, sharing food and water and her response: ‘You are most kind, my lord, to comfort me and to speak gently to your maidservant…’
These are such small steps: physical protection, food and water, friendship and then kinship. In the cities of Israel, where Jews and Arabs live side by side, let us pray for the continuation of solidarity and friendship. And, between Israel and her Palestinian neighbours in Gaza and the West Bank, we pray too that small steps of acknowledgement of pain and hurt may come soon. May fear be transformed into trust and enmity into kinship and may God’s presence dwell on both peoples, Arab and Jewish, and bring them security and peace. Amen.
Rabbi Alexandra Wright
