Shabbat Vayishlach
1 December 2023
Dear Members and Friends,
In Hebrew the word for ‘hope’ (tikvah) comes from the root kavah – ‘to wait for’. Its etymology suggests ‘twisting’ or ‘stretching’ and the tension of a cord stretched tightly, an enduring wait.
Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the hopelessness of the exiles, returning from Babylonia ‘growling like bears and moaning like doves’, hoping for redress and vindication: ‘We hope for light, and lo! There is darkness; for a gleam, and we must walk in gloom’ (Isaiah 59:9).
Each night over the past week, we have watched with families in Israel, steadfast in their vigils and their demand for the release of the hostages, the freeing of family members from Gaza. We have been witnesses to the outcome of fragile and dangerous negotiations that allowed children and their mothers (not always together) and elderly women, to be returned to Israel. And that witnessing has been painful, even from afar, knowing that one child will be told their mother has been murdered, their father or brother still in captivity.
This suffering of the innocent is unfathomable and leaves little room for true and deep pity and compassion beyond our own people. And that is a terrible confession; but in these weeks following October 7, we are all struggling to process the murder, burning, kidnapping, rape and torture and destruction of whole villages of Jewish families and communities in their own homes.
And yes, the images of Gaza are appalling, and we must remind ourselves that we are also witnesses to the huge number of deaths and driving out of Palestinians from their homes which have been utterly destroyed, and the settler violence that has erupted in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank.
‘Nobody can hear anybody at the moment,’ said Rob Rinder, the speaker at the Philip Rueff lecture this week, an annual event to raise money for Neve Shalom-Wahat-al-Salaam (Oasis of Peace), the Arab-Jewish village in Israel, where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Israelis live together, and children are educated together in a bilingual Arabic and Hebrew speaking primary school.
In a moving address, he said, ‘hope is not ephemeral, it is not weak’, ‘in moments of emptiness, darkness, what can we say?’ The village gives us the very essence of what it is to hope – the sacred task of encounter, of listening to each other’s stories: ‘Who are you? Who are your parents? What makes you despair or cry?’ This is how you start the conversation; this is where you find ‘an Israel that has in its fabric and values an Israel of hope.’
This morning a friend sent me a video of a song, composed by the Argentine singer-song-writer, León Gieco in 1978, and inspired by the threat of war between Chile and Argentina and the harsh events of a military dictatorship in his own country. Its words, sung in Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic, resonate at a time of deep conflict, loss of life, of home and a darkness that does not allow us to see what lies ahead.
‘I only ask God that pain doesn’t leave me indifferent,
That death does not find me dry and empty and alone without having done enough.
I only ask God that injustice doesn’t leave me indifferent,
That they won’t slap me again across the face
and make me feel as though I am in the claws of fate.
I only ask God that war doesn’t leave me indifferent,
It’s a monster stamping on humanity, crushing the innocent, people like you and me.
I only ask God that deceit doesn’t leave me indifferent,
The traitors may be few, but what they left here for the masses to repay, we can’t forget.
All that I ask of you God is that the future doesn’t leave me indifferent,
Despair is what can make you want to leave your own culture, even your own country.
To be a witness is to reject indifference and see ourselves as part of the human predicament in all its vulnerability and suffering. Perhaps that it is all we can do at this moment – and recognise that each life and death is precarious and precious.
Shabbat Shalom,
Alexandra Wright
LIBERAL JUDAISM EXTENDS AN INVITATION TO THE CONGREGATION TO JOIN THIS COALITION OF FAITHS, CULTURES AND COMMUNITIES FOR A VIGIL URGING US TO REMEMBER OUR SHARED HUMANITY AND DO WHAT WE CAN TO BRIDGE DIVIDES BETWEEN US, NOT TO STOKE DIVISION.
Join our Building Bridges vigil this Sunday 3 December at 3pm on Richmond Terrace (Opposite Downing Street). https://togetherforhumanity.co.uk/
Shabbat Vayeshev
8 December 2023
Dear Members and Friends,
The days are becoming shorter, the air more crisp, the crunch of the leaves under our feet, all signs that we are in the darkest season of the year. As we enter into the months of winter we know that in the midst of it we will be able to bring light, literally and figuratively, into this barren time of year with the celebration of Chanukkah.
Chanukkah, meaning rededication, takes its name from the Maccabees who rededicated the Temple after their triumphant battle against King Antiochus.
We learn about the history of the rededication of the Temple from Macabbees I and II, which are part of a later collection of sacred literature called the Apocrypha. The rituals of Chanukkah are based on Talmudic teachings, rather than on the texts of Macabbees I and II. It is in the Talmud that the narrative is shared of the Macabbees having only enough oil to light the ner tamid (the eternal lamp) for one day and miraculously having it burn for eight.
The Talmud also shares an argument between the well known sages Hillel and Shammai as to how the Chanukkiah should be lit. Shammai argues that on the first night of Chanukkah all 8 candles should be lit, each night removing one candle. He bases this argument on laws around Sukkot when in the days of sacrifice 13 bulls were offered on the first day and each day one less would be offered. Hillel argues that we should start with one candle and increase the light with each progressing day of Chanukkah. To defend his argument Hillel shares that we should always increase in holiness. The current halacha of lighting the candle sides with Hillel, encouraging us in this season to increase the holiness in our own life and to strive to increase the betterment of others.
Fire has the capacity to burn and cause mass destruction, yet it also has the ability to illuminate and to create warmth. The same can be true of human existence, each of us has the power to tear down, to destroy, to cause harm and yet we also have the power to bring light, justice and compassion. In the darkest time of our year we are encouraged to bring light, and to increase it day by day. Chanukkah reminds us when we identify darkness in our society that it is our obligation to not use our fire to add to destruction but instead to use our own light to illuminate the fires of justice and compassion in our world. The shamash loses none of its own light by sharing its fire with the other candles.
This year as we gather around the Chanukkiah, it will be difficult to feel the light as war rages in Israel and Palestine, as innocent civilians continue to lose their lives and hostages remain missing. Let us increase light by widening our circle of compassion and concern for all of humanity. As we follow the teaching of Hillel, may we find that our light and the light we bring to others only increases with each passing day.
The real miracle of Chanukkah is the mustering of the courage we need, even in our darkest times, to bring light.
May this Chanukkah herald a season of greater light and freedom for all.
Kein Y'hi L'ratzon.
May it be God’s Will.
Rabbi Elana
15 December 2023
AN OPEN LETTER TO BINYAMIN NETANYAHU
Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,
The massacre that occurred in southern Israel on October 7th decimated families and whole communities. It has left the citizens of your country shaken to their bones and in a state of unspeakable trauma. Thousands, who have been bereaved, wounded and displaced have no homes and some, no families to return to. Hundreds have been waiting for more than two months for family members to be returned from captivity in Gaza. Some of those hostages have now been declared dead, including the Bibas family with their two tiny little red-headed children. It has been left to the volunteers and NGOs, to civil society, to support families and individuals with places to stay, food and clothes and to offer them practical and therapeutic help. I don’t know how individuals recover from the losses, the violence, merciless cruelty and brutality they experienced and witnessed on the day that has become known as Black Shabbat, but I have been moved beyond words listening to individuals speak about their experience, and their determination not to give in to vengeance, but to continue taking steps towards dialogue and bridge-building.
Israel is now in the third month of a war against Hamas: the army has flattened northern Gaza and forced its inhabitants to move south. 18,000 Gazans have been killed, including more than 7,000 children. Now, the IDF is bombing central and southern Gaza and Gazans have nowhere to flee except to the Egyptian border. Are you really going to force them out of this tiny strip and into Egypt to become forever refugees in tent cities? I dare not ask whether you are hoping to accomplish a second Nakba?
And have you already begun to flood the tunnels beneath Gaza with sea water? What about the hostages? Are they forgotten in this storm? How many more Israeli soldiers are you prepared to sacrifice to save your own skin and avoid the indictments of fraud and corruption that are lined up against you?
However much all of us want to see an end to terrorism and violent jihadism, how do you think you are going to eliminate Hamas? Do you think that bombarding and flooding Gaza is going to nurture a new generation of Palestinians who will stretch out hands of peace and friendship in the aftermath of this appalling and terrifying war.
You paused the war for a week to release 138 Israeli hostages and to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Gazans. What about the rest of the hostages? You must have been speaking to the leadership of Hamas in Qatar to negotiate the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners in jail. What is stopping you from ending this war and the destruction that it is wreaking, not only in Gaza, but on the West Bank as well. Do you think it’s a wise strategy to hand out guns to vigilante settlers in the Occupied Territories? To men who have already proved their abhorrent immorality in attacking Palestinian farmers and preventing them from harvesting their own land?
I wonder – if you lived in London, as I do, whether you would be affected by the endless images of Gazan buildings crumbling like ash, by the faces of Gazan parents and children, mourning over lost ones? Because that is what we see on our televisions and in our newspapers and on social media, every day, every minute, every second. And there is no escaping it. That, and the finger-pointing at the Jewish community who, by some, are held responsible for the destruction of Gaza and its population.
And I wonder – if you lived in the United States, where shamefully the heads of three elite universities refused to condemn the massacre on October 7th, endangering vulnerable Jewish students on campus, would you change your tune and think – perhaps there is another way to end the conflict? A truth and reconciliation project? A Good Friday agreement or whatever it would take to begin a process of justice on both sides.
You are deluded if you think you can eliminate terrorism by waging endless cycles of war. You can’t. It isn’t going to happen, not in your lifetime and not in mine, nor in my children’s or grandchildren’s. Something must change. Our world needs leaders of integrity, morality, courage, vision and compassion – for their own people and for the people in neighbouring countries.
If you care deeply about Israel and its future security, about peace and justice and the values that the Torah has taught, not only to us, the Jewish people, but the world, then you will remove yourself and your right-wing cronies whose presence as leaders of the Jewish State is a travesty of Judaism, and make way for a humane, moral leadership – a leadership that seeks to work for reconciliation and a proper alliance of peace between the country that I love and its neighbours.
Shabbat Shalom,
Alexandra Wright
22 December 2023
Rabbi Simcha Bunim taught that every person should carry two pieces of paper, one in each pocket. In one pocket should be the words "For me, the world was created." In the other, "I am but dust and ashes." When we have moments too focused on our finiteness, we are meant to take out the first; in moments of grandiosity, the second. Our souls are poised between greatness and nothingness; in knowing both, are we blessed.
The narrative of Jacob, which we are currently in the midst of reading, vacillates between grandiosity and humility.
Jacob steals his brother's birthright with help from Rebecca and then must flee his family home in order to survive.
Jacob falls in love instantly with Rachel and then is tricked by Rachel’s father into marrying his other daughter.
Jacob wrestles with an angel of God throughout the night and is victorious.
In this week’s parashah, Jacob learns that his beloved son Joseph is still alive. Jacob is lifted onto a carriage and travels from Goshen to Egypt in his old age and frail health. Jacob hears the voice of God calling to him and saying, “I am God, the God of your father, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will most surely bring you back up as well, and Joseph will lay his hand upon your eyes.”
After their reunion, Joseph brings Jacob to Pharoah. Standing in front of Pharoah, Jacob shares, “The span of the years of my lifetime has been 130; few and miserable have been the days of the years of my life.” After all the triumphs he has faced, it is painful to read his description of his days as few and miserable, as if Jacob had pulled the ‘Nothing but dust and ashes’ paper from his pocket.
Poet Amy Krichberger Blank, wrote this poem about the moment when Pharoah and Jacob stand face to face.
I stand before you, Pharaoh, yet I turn
Toward the past, the counting of my days.
Stretched out before my face I see my life,
I see the hungry hills, the well’s dusty lips,
The long journeyings and overarching all,
Even from first to last of generations spanned,
The God who blessed my way…
The moonlight almost spent
Upon the river,
The stars spread far apart-
Jacob, the father, thought into the future:
“My hope is far removed.”
The lissome Pharaoh thought:
“My hope is long fulfilled.”
Deep silence fell
Upon the two old men who understood
Each other’s separate earth and separate heaven.
Perhaps Jacob was able to find at the end of his life that balance, somewhere between believing that the world was created for him and an acceptance that he was nothing but dust and ashes. A balance we all hope to find, seeing that our time and our life is sacred while also seeing how vast the world is and the minute but unquestionably important role that we play.
In next week’s parashah Jacob will die, but first he will bless his children and grandchildren. God’s prophecy to Rebecca when Jacob is in the womb, and God’s prophecy that he shares with Jacob on his way to Egypt,
that his people will again return to Israel and that his children will birth a nation will be realized. His death a symbol of finiteness- his legacy a symbol of greatness.
May we all strive to find the balance, knowing that we are dust and ashes and that our life is a world in and of itself. In the holding of these two truths, we are able to live our life as God’s partners according to the words of Micah ‘to do justice, to love goodness and to walk humbly with our God.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Elana Dellal.
