Yitro – an abundance of learning

Posted on February 5, 2025 by sylviarothschild

Six sidrot in our torah reading calendar are named for people – they are the parashiot of Noah, Hayei Sarah, Yitro, Korach, Balak and Pinchas. It’s an odd list – the first is a man who was the part of the tenth generation after Adam, named by his father Lamech for much longed for rest and comfort after the expulsion of human beings from Eden and the requirement for them to work for everything they needed: “This one will provide us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil that GOD placed under a curse” but whose life is anything but respite from the hard work of survival, and who, having been the only one to survive the flood with his family, makes another covenant with God. Then there is Sarah, wife of Abraham and the woman through whom the divine covenant for Israel is fulfilled with the birth of Isaac, a woman whose life was multifaceted and whose death is recorded right at the beginning of the sidra which then details the arrangements for her burial. Then Yitro a priest of Midian – about whom more later, then two different members of the priestly tribe of Levi both of whom challenge the leadership of Moses and Aaron, and finally a Moabite King who has heard about the Israelites and their travels in the wilderness, and in his fear of them he hires a prophet to curse them – unsuccessfully.

When we meet Yitro, we meet him first as a father and a priest, rather than learning his name: – “The priest of Midian had seven daughters” (Exodus 2:16). Later on he will be described as the father in law of Moses (who married his daughter Tzipporah) (Exodus 4:18). We see him take in the young Moses who is fleeing from Egypt, and bring him into his home. Later we will see him teach Moses about timely justice. We see him in many different roles and indeed our commentators suggest that the many names and descriptions of Yitro refer to the different periods of his life, his evolving relationships and facets of his identity. (see Nachmanides ad loc)

The midrash is particularly interested in his various names in bible “ Yitro had seven names: Yeter, Yitro, Chovav, Reuel, Chever, Putiel, Keni. Yeter — he added (yiter) a section in the Torah; Yitro — he was “abundant” (yiter) in good deeds. Chovav — he was beloved (chovev) by God. Reuel — he was a “friend” (rea) to God. Chever — he was a “companion” (chaver) to God. Putiel — he “weaned himself” (niftar) from idolatry. Keni — he was zealous (kinei) for Heaven and he acquired (kanah) Torah. (Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 3:12)
The same midrash teaches that he relationship between the Moses and Yitro undergoes a significant shift after the exodus – “In the beginning Moses was proud of being the son in law of Yitro. Afterwards, Yitro was proud of being the father in law of Moses.”
The midrash builds on the difference between the names Yeter and Yitro noting that there is an additional letter vav – a letter whose origin is a hook, and concluding that this change in name is in order to demonstrate that he linked his fate to that of the Jewish people – that is, he converted to Judaism.

The midrash converts Yitro to Judaism, suggesting that he tried every form of idolatry in order to find the true nature of the divine and meaning of existence, and only after a journey through the entire world of idolatry does he see what God does for the children of Israel, and recognise the One true God. He becomes a sort of icon for the personal spiritual journey in this way.
But for me this rather misses the point. For me, Yitro personifies the goodness of the outside world, taking a refugee into his home and family, giving him not only a place in the family but work and meaningful status. I like the idea that we learn from others, that Yitro (which can mean both that “abundance /more” and “remnant/left over”) can offer for us to become more of what we are, and can also show the power of what is “not us”. It can speak of the sense of “plenty”, and it can at the same time remind us that with even a small amount of our tradition and people surviving, there can always be new growth. How often do we learn in Jewish history of the power of a small remnant to pick ourselves up and build ourselves once more?

One of the nouns that derive from the same Hebrew verbal root as Yitro means a cord or a rope, something that ties together. By holding on together, by organising ourselves in relationship with each other, this biblical figure reminds us that we are able to build ourselves again, however great the opposition to us may be, however small a group of us is left.

So I would rather Yitro stays a Midianite – a supportive and critical friend, an outside eye who sees what we may not notice. One of the best biblical examples of this is his teaching to Moses of creating a responsive judicial system, rather than delaying justice for people. Yitro is a figure who challenges precisely because he isn’t part of Israel, someone who can ask difficult questions, challenge the group-think, make us rethink the norms. And as such he provides a great service, both in the biblical text and later. We are told (BT Sotah 11a) that his descendants the Kenites lived at Yabetz – and that they sat in the Sanhedrin in that the place, and the Jewish people went there for advice, in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. (See Sifrei Bemidbar 78)
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Yitro and his descendants model the dynamic and mutually beneficial relationship between the Jewish people and those outside the community. They are the “other” whom we respect and value, who bring their insights and understanding to our world, who remind us that while we have a particular covenantal relationship with God, God is the God of all peoples. They remind us to value other faith traditions, to understand that each of them has perception and awareness of God that we may not be party to, to know that God is much greater than the particular relationship with the Jewish people. As the prophet Amos reminds us
“To Me, O Israelites, you are Just like the Cushites —declares GOD.
True, I brought Israel up From the land of Egypt,
But also the Philistines from Caphtor
And the Arameans from Kir. (Amos 9:7)

The many names of Yitro remind us that people are made up of many experiences and identities. And they remind us too of the many names for God – the same God, the only God, who manifests in every tradition and faith.

There are six sidrot named for people and they can be seen as sets of pairs. Pinchas and Korach are Levites, both act zealously according to their own narrow world view, and challenge Moses and the leadership. Sarah and Noach are each critical to a covenant with God, each produce the child through which the covenant will continue. Balak and Yitro are also a pair – Balak sees the travelling Israelites on their way to their land, and is afraid of them coming through his kingdom. His response is to pay a freelance prophet of God to curse them and so destroy what he perceives to be a threat. Yitro hears of the splitting of the sea and the escape of the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians and recognises that God cares for this ragtag of ex-slaves travelling to freedom. His response is to help them to organise themselves for the future. He is a reminder that every outsider need not be an existential threat, but that people of faith can care for each other and lift each other.

Yitro walks away just before the giving of Torah at Sinai. I have always wondered about that decision – was it his way of retaining his own Midianite and priestly relationship with God, or was he sent away because his work was done? Either way, he remains the consummate critical friend, the figure we need to give us perspective, to remind us that difference is good and that there are many, many paths to the One God.

Vayetzei – transformational journeying. Also – Vatetzei if you look harder

Posted on December 5, 2024 by sylviarothschild

Parashat vayetzei begins with Jacob leaving home in fear for his life, having tricked his father and older brother in order to gain the birthright blessing of the firstborn. We follow him to the edge of his homeland, where he sleeps and dreams of a ladder, and meets God who promises him divine protection in his journeying, that he will return to the land and that he will have many descendants. We see him fall in love with Rachel, go to live with her father – his uncle Laban – and work for him as a shepherd for seven years as the price for her hand in marriage. We see him tricked by Laban (as he had tricked his own father), and the wrong sibling – Leah – married to him instead, with the fantastically ironic reasoning that here in Haran they don’t privilege the younger over the older sibling. For the price of another seven years of work Jacob marries Rachel too. We watch as the two sisters become rivals, Leah desperate for his love, producing six sons, with each birth expressing the hope that her husband might love and value her, Rachel desperate for a child of her own, her longing causing such friction in their relationship that she uses her maidservant as a surrogate to birth children she can adopt – a ploy that Leah copies – before finally producing Joseph.
We see Jacob negotiating again with Laban, wanting now to return home. Laban has become very wealthy on account of Jacob, but when Jacob responds to his enquiry about payment he cannot resist trying to trick him once again. Jacob outwits him and builds a substantial flock for himself from the animals he has been shepherding for Laban. Jacob attributes this successful selective breeding to the protection of God, and in speaking to his wives, he references a dream he had to this effect.
The three of them plan to leave Laban and journey to Jacob’s home land. The sisters join together in accusing their father of ill treatment, that he has sold them into marriage and used their brideprice for himself – so there will be no inheritance for them. They tell Jacob that wealth he has accrued at the expense of Laban belongs to them and their children and God has simply dispensed financial justice. Without informing Laban, the family begin their journey back to Canaan. Now it is the furious Laban who has a dream, in which God warns him against harming Jacob in any way. He pursues the family, there are some dynamics, then the two men make a pact of peace, with Laban belatedly adding protective clauses for his daughters’ future. Laban returns home and the sidra ends with Jacob once again encountering angels, once again recognising that the place he is in belongs to God.
So many dreams, so many repeated motifs of trickery and manipulation, of angels and encounters with the divine. So it is so easy to read the text and focus on the journey that Jacob makes, one which echoes the classic hero narrative – of a man who journeys into the unknown, overcomes difficulties, and returns home powerful and transformed.

But other lives and other transformations are detailed in the sidra. Two of our matriarchs, Leah and Rachel find themselves sold into marriage, their value – even in their own eyes – bound up in their bodies and in their fertility, yet each have a spiritual journey of their own.

After the heartbreaking births of her first three sons, Leah gives up naming her children for the unrequited hopes that Jacob will care about her, and begins to name them for her own feelings. She names her fourth son “Judah” because she thanks God for his birth. The fifth and sixth she names “Issachar” – “reward”, and Zebulun – “gift” or “honour”. These children are for her, not for Jacob and the children born by her surrogate Zilpah she names for her good fortune.

Rachel’s desperation for a child shows great mental anguish, and her husband’s angry response to her that it is God’s will that she does not have children must have been excruciating for her to hear. We see her behaviour change after that – she first uses a surrogate to achieve her aims, naming the first child Dan declaring that God has vindicated and heard her, and the second one Naftali – a contest with God and her sister that she has, in her own mind at least, won – though when she finally gives birth herself the name she chooses for her son “Joseph” shows that the words Jacob so cruelly flung at her still stung. In naming him almost as a challenge to God “he will add another son”, she shows that she is determined to write her own history, refusing to accept her infertility as any kind of divine decree. And she goes further, literally selling a night with Jacob to Leah in return for some mandrakes, a plant believed to increase fertility.
When Jacob proposes his plan to leave Laban and take wealth with him, it is Rachel whose response is recorded first. She reminds him that Laban has cheated the sisters from what should rightfully be theirs, she has no compunction about getting the wealth back.
And finally – her most extraordinary act of rebellion and initiative – she steals and hides Laban’s household gods and uses the condition of her female body to ensure they are not found.

What we see is both sisters responding to their situation by taking what matters to them most for themselves. Leah learns she has intrinsic value beyond what her husband and father give her, Rachel that she can resist the roles given her by her husband and her father, selling one and stealing from the other.

The root of the word “vayetzei” is yatza – to go forth. It has already appeared many times right from the beginning of creation when the earth puts forth vegetation and living animals, when Noah and his wife leave the ark, When Terach, Abram and Sarai leave Ur to go to Canaan, and later of course the exodus from Egypt that will set the family on the road to peoplehood is “yetziat mitzraim”. On multiple occasions this verbal root is used to denote important changes towards growth. So it is no surprise that this sidra is named for the beginning of Jacob’s growing up. Yet the verb is also used in the sidra for an action of Leah’s. Having borne four sons she is no longer having children – the implication is that Jacob is no longer sleeping with her. So when Rachel asks her for the mandrakes she has, she barters them for a night with Jacob. We read “When Jacob came home from the field in the evening, “va’tetzei Leah” -Leah went out to meet him and said, “You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.”” . Calmly and with purpose, she takes control of Jacob. It is the night Issachar is conceived.

And in next week’s sidra we will read of her daughter Dina, who also goes out “Va’tetzei Dina”, though her adventure with Shechem takes a dark turn when her brothers become involved. The plain biblical text shows both these women as confident and outgoing, no blame colours the text. Yet neither sister nor Dina become role models for women – instead their presumption and initiative-taking become something to be discouraged, they are judged for being too forward. So in liturgy we see Leah placed second to the more beloved Rachel, even though she is the ancestress of both the monarchical and the priestly tribes through Judah and Levi. While her pain and the rivalry with her sister is recorded in bible with some empathy, the development of her own relationship with God is never explored, even though she is the first person in bible to praise God. Instead, commentors focus on her name, which could mean “weary” or “bovine”, and focus on the ambiguous description of her having “soft eyes”. It is hard to get to know Leah, her reputation as a “yatzanit” – a woman who goes out from the home – by implication for nefarious sexual purposes, chills any searching for the woman behind the utilitarian producer of babies.

Her daughter Dina is silenced even more aggressively. Noting that she doesn’t appear in the story of Jacob meeting Esau on his way home, when Jacob is described as dividing his camp including eleven children, the midrash suggests this is because he has locked her in a box for her own protection. What a strange idea – it presents Dina as sexually available who cannot be seen in case the man cannot control himself. And then the worst happens Dina too goes out – in her case we are explicitly told that she does so in order to meet the women of the land. She is not going out to seduce as her mother had done, yet midrash tells us “like mother like daughter” – they are both “yatzanit” – women who wrongly leave the protection of home and menfolk in order to follow their own wishes.
And this is clearly unacceptable to our commentators.
Dina does have sexual relations with the prince of Shechem who we are told loves her and speaks tenderly to her, wishing to marry her. Her brothers response is that he has treated her like a whore. Vengeance is bloody. The whole family have to leave the area. And we don’t hear of her again beyond her name being listed in the seventy souls who moved to Egypt with Jacob.

Why is it such a heroic thing for a man to “go out”, but a terrible thing if a woman does so. Bible offers us matriarchs who are just as flawed as patriarchs, yet we rarely celebrate the transformative journeys of the women. We continue to focus instead on women’s bodies. Women’s fertility or sexual attractiveness or availability. The news overflows with stories of sexual abuse by wealthy men, of “banter” or inappropriate comments aimed at women’s physical appearance, of campaigns for abortion rights to be limited further, of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Look closer and the idea of the yatzanit emerges – the woman who “deserves all she gets” because she took something for herself, she left the house and went into public places, she is no better than she should be.
Maybe if we were to read “va’teitzei” as we read “vayetzei” – the story of a heroic narrative, where the individual goes on a journey to an unknown place, has adventures and returns transformed into something more than they were – maybe then the world would be a happier and a safer place.

What is Reform Judaism? An ongoing conversation…..

Posted on July 13, 2023 by sylviarothschild

paper written for a rabbinic conference on reforming religion

One of the questions we ask ourselves and repeatedly try to answer, albeit not with great success or satisfaction is: – what is Reform Judaism? Rabbi Morris Joseph in his sermon at WLS asks the very same question at the turn of the 20th Century, saying “It may not be superfluous to point out that Reform does mean something. Not all of us, I am afraid, are very clear as to this point…Reform means a great deal more than the organ and no second day festival…Reform stands for a great, a sacred principle, of which these things are but symbols…it is an affirmation of a desire, an intention, to cling faster than ever to all that is true and beautiful in Judaism. ..Reform has, first and chiefly, to convert those who have ranged themselves under its banner to nobler ideals of living. This is the great truth which nearly all of us miss. Reform is not a movement merely; it is a religion, a life. …it is not merely the expression of a creed, negative or positive, but a pledge binding those who identify themselves with it to the highest ideal of conduct, to a higher ideal even than that which contents the non-Reformer.. “One might say that the emergence of Reform Judaism in the late 18th Century was a not a religious development at all, but a European lay initiative, arising from the effects of the Enlightenment. It began by ‘modern Jews’ challenging prevailing traditional religious beliefs and designing a form of Judaism that would enable Jews to be accepted both as individuals and as a group into European society. [Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), father of the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah), more than any other forged a way of holding the two worlds together in a way that Spinoza(1632-77) had not been able or willing to do a century earlier ]

Rabbis only got involved much later in the mid 19th century, and by using academic study (Wissenschaft des Judentums) tried to formulate ideological and theological positions and to support the emerging Reform innovations. It seems to me that that pattern has continued in European Reform Judaism – the continuing communal challenge to traditional ideas, the continuing desire to be part of the mainstream modern world, coupled with the rabbinic task of creating the bridges which allow for modernity to impact on Judaism without causing it to lose its particular flavour and perspective.

As rabbis, ours has become the task of formulating the ideology and of co-creating the overarching principles that contain and maintain our Reform Jewish values. We take for ourselves the shaping and determining of the boundaries that retain our particular identity, while allowing for the diverse expressions of these principles that will emerge in different communities at different times.

There is a prevalent myth behind many of the challenges to the legitimacy of Reform Judaism that somewhere there must be an objectively authenticated Judaism, (orthodoxy).

But any survey of the history of Judaism will instantly reveal that each generation responds to the needs of its time, adapting to their contemporary political, geographical and historical exigencies. While it may take great pains to profess otherwise, classical Rabbinic Judaism is one long process of change, reformation and adaptation – even now. The rabbinic dictum that Revelation took place only once and for all time, in the form of an Oral Law given simultaneously with the Written Torah at Sinai, and which is to be mined from the text only by the initiated who possess a set of carefully hewn hermeneutical principles, was a device that gave Jews, for many generations, the permission to read the text both exegetically and eisogetically, and thus to keep it alive and relevant. It was a brilliant device, but somewhere along the line a distortion has appeared so that the notion of one given Revelation which is unfolded by the knowledgeable and trained elite seems to have become frozen, and with it congealed the ongoing and dynamic process of Jewish response to the world. Scholars began to argue over minutiae rather than focus on the Reality the minutiae were designed to remind them of. The purpose of lively debate became to prove right or wrong, rather than to increase the richness of the understanding. And suddenly authenticity became something everyone sought uniquely for themselves, while denying it to others.

Progressive Judaism emerged as a reaction to this congealing of responsive Judaism. Its innovative and brilliant insight was that of progressive revelation. Instead of there having been one total disclosure at the theophany which we are still unpeeling, it reframed the rabbinic teaching to produce the same effect with a different instrument. Progressive Judaism taught about Progressive Revelation – as each new person reads the text, there is a possibility of new understanding of the divine purpose.

Unlike classical rabbinic Judaism, this new thing was not considered to have been discovered or uncovered, as having an independent existence. Instead we are clear that it is the interaction between reader and text that brings it into being. By bringing our own experience, our own values into our reading of the text, we bring forth a particular reading which did not pre-exist. We emulate our Creator in this continuing act of creation. By language we cause new things to exist – we call forth new worlds and populate them.In the preamble to the Statement of Principles adopted in 1999 by the Pittsburgh Convention of the CCAR, is the comment “Throughout our history we Jews have remained firmly rooted in Jewish tradition, even as we have learned much from our encounters with other cultures.

The great contribution of Reform Judaism is that it has enabled the Jewish people to introduce innovation while preserving tradition, to embrace diversity while asserting commonality, to affirm beliefs without rejecting those who doubt, and to bring faith to sacred texts without sacrificing critical scholarship”We like to use the language of tradition with modernity, continuity with change – we present ourselves as an evolving expression of the Judaism of the ages, so that in the language of Pirkei Avot, Moses may have received (kibel) Torah at Sinai (whatever that means); handed it on (m’sarah) to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets passed it on to the men of the great assembly – and we see ourselves in that chain of tradition, receiving something all the way from Sinai, taking charge of it in our own times.

The website for the Reform Movement tells us “It is a religious philosophy rooted in nearly four millennia of Jewish tradition, whilst actively engaged with modern life and thought. This means both an uncompromising assertion of eternal truths and values and an open, positive attitude to new insights and changing circumstances. It is a living evolving faith that Jews of today and tomorrow can live by”. The front page of the annual report for the Reform Movement makes much of the words “Renewing, Revitalising, Rethinking, Representing – Reform”. The prefix re- meaning “again, back” is only added to verb bases The Movement website presents five core principles: “welcoming and inclusive; rooted in Jewish tradition; committed to personal choice; men and women have an equal place; Jewish values inspiring social change and repair of the world” Reform Judaism calls itself ‘Living Judaism’. We see ourselves being in the continuous present – we were not the subject of a Reformation, once and for all, but are always in the process of reforming our theological understanding and its practical expression. And we keep re-forming ourselves. Thus it is important that we have as healthy an interest in the process of how reforming takes place as we have in the content of our Judaism. So we have to ask ourselves – on what basis are we challenging the present and changing the status quo? What are the ways in which we do this? Who is the ‘we’ who is deciding? How is reform happening?

The phrase ‘Living Judaism’ brings us to some interesting places. We recognise Judaism as a living system. And let’s have some definitions here: Living systems are open self-organizing systems (meaning a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole) that have the special characteristics of life, in that they are self sustaining and interact with their environment. They are by nature chaotic. As Meg Wheatley says “If you start looking at the processes by which living systems grow and thrive, one of those is a periodic plunge into the darker forces of chaos. Chaos seems to be a critical part of the process by which living systems constantly re-create themselves in their environment.” ….Living systems, when confronted with change, have the capacity to fall apart so that they can reorganize themselves to be better adapted to their current environment. She goes on to say “We always knew that things fell apart, we didn’t know that organisms have the capacity to reorganize, to self-organize. We didn’t know this until the Noble-Prize-winning work of Ilya Prigogine in the late 1970’s. But you can’t self-organize, you can’t transform, you can’t get to bold new answers unless you are willing to move into that place of confusion and not-knowing which I call chaos.” (Meg Wheatley)

I would like to introduce to you some learning not from the traditional sources, but from the modern world of biology and complexity:

The first is the notion of a self organising system: Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it. This globally coherent pattern appears from the local interaction of the elements that makes up the system, thus the organization is achieved in a way that is parallel (all the elements act at the same time) and distributed (no element is a coordinator). In a self organising system the collective following of a few simple principles can lead to extraordinarily complex, diverse and unpredictable outcomes.

One example is the way that birds flock in the sky. It can be predicated on just three simple rules:

Always Fly in the same direction as the birds around you

Keep up with the others

Follow your local centre of gravity (i.e. if there are more birds to your left, move left. If right, move right)

The second is the idea of punctuated equilibrium: This is a theory that comes from evolutionary biology, which suggests that evolution is not a slowly progressive and continuously ongoing event, but that instead species will experience little evolutionary change for most of their history, existing in a form of stasis. When evolution does occur, it is not smooth, but it is localised in rare, rapid events of change. Instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill (“equilibrium”), “punctuated” by episodes of very fast development of new forms. Punctuated equilibria is a model for discontinuous tempos of change. According to those who study such things, “Self organised living systems are a conjunction of a stable organisation with chaotic fluctuations.” (Philosophy Transactactions A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2003 Jun 15;361(1807):1125-39. Auffray C, Imbeaud S, Roux-Rouquié M, Hood L.)

Doesn’t it just define Judaism through the ages, and Reform Judaism in our world – A conjunction of a stable organisation with chaotic fluctuations. And these chaotic fluctuations that punctuate our history are the drivers of very fast development and change.I’m sure we can all think of the events – Abram living with his family in Ur Casdim until God says “Lech lecha”. Exodus from Egypt. Sinai. Entering the land; Destruction of first and then second temple, Exile and Return; loss of Northern Kingdom….coming closer to home the development of oral law, of synagogue communities, rabbis taking over from priests in the religious leadership, Karaites; Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Aruch, Expulsion from Spain and Portugal, Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah, large scale Aliyah from Russian empire; Salanter and the mussar movement; Hasidim and the lubavitcher dynasty; Israel Jacobson and the Seesen school experiment to name just a few.

The question I have now is – if we truly are a living self organising system, then we are not so much driven by our ideology or our tradition as we are a people whose structure develops without a central authority or external element imposing it. Instead what we become develops from the local interaction of the elements that makes up the system, – that is the people within Judaism. With enough impetus and enough individuals wanting it – or doing it -we become who we are in a way that is parallel (all the elements act at the same time) and distributed (no element is a coordinator).

An example – Pesachim 66a – Hillel could not remember how to carry the knife for the pesach sacrifice on Shabbat. His response was “But,” he added, “things will work out, because even if Jews are not prophets themselves, they are the sons of prophets.” The next day, Shabbat Erev Pesach, these semi-prophetic Jews arrived at the Temple with their animals for the Pesach sacrifice. From the wool of the lamb protruded a knife, and between the horns of the goat a knife was to be found. Upon seeing this Hillel proclaimed: “Now I recall the law I learned from Shemaya and Avtalyon. This is the procedure which they taught me!So how do we hold on to the continuity / tradition we assert is integral to the change /modernity we bring.

Second question – If we do truly function along the lines of punctuated equilibrium, then what are the next things to punctuate our equilibrium? What will bring about the rapid development after our periods of stasis? Should we be looking out for them and encouraging them?

Third question – complex systems emerge from the utilisation of a few very simple rules. Morris Joseph knew what the rules were in Reform Judaism even if, according to his sermon, his congregation on the whole didn’t. Firstly that it was “religious, and that its religious life must be expressed in public worship”. Reform Jews may be “less bound ritually and ceremonially, but are therefore more bound religiously and morally”Secondly that” in order to live, Religion has to adapt itself to the shifting ideas of successive ages”Thirdly, that while progressive Religion is a great idea, progressive goodness is a far greater one. Reform has, first and chiefly, to convert those who have ranged themselves under its banner to nobler ideals of living. Reform is a religion and a life”

Shabbat Parah : the red heifer ritual and our own mortality

Posted on March 10, 2023 by sylviarothschild

The temple system of ritual purity and impurity continues to have an effect on Jews even though the Jerusalem Temple itself is long gone, replaced by synagogues, and prayers have taken the place of sacrifices.

Rooted in biblical texts, and greatly expanded in rabbinic ones, Jewish daily life continues to play out the concepts of tahor and tamei, of ritual cleanness and ritual uncleanness, of our appropriateness or not to enter the Temple courtyards to bring sacrifices – a paradigm of supreme practical futility given that we have lived in diaspora for over two thousand years and have had no Temple in which to take such offerings.

Be it the kashrut system and our attitudes to the food we eat, of blessing God before eating or drinking, be it the use of mikveh after menstruation or giving birth, or before the festivals, or be it the practice of Cohanim not to enter the Ohel of a cemetery or come too close to either the dead or their graves, everyone washing hands after leaving a cemetery, the system of tahor and tamei continues to be quietly yet powerfully expressed.

While there is an enormous and complex rabbinic explication of the system – almost entirely long after it has ceased to be of use in the Temple, there is relatively little actual explanation about its purpose beyond being fit or unfit for Temple activities. Yet the concepts are critical to understanding Jewish life across the millennia.

To begin, the words tahor and tamei, usually translated as to do with purity or cleanliness, express ideas that do not exist in other languages or cultures. Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests they are words expressing a blockage of (tamei) or a freedom for (tahor) the transmission of holiness. Someone who is tahor is able to be a conduit for God’s will in the world, someone who is tamei is not. The words are certainly nothing to do with physical cleanliness, even though one way to remove most states of “tumah” is mikveh – immersion in living waters.

Essentially when we talk about these states, we are in the world of moral concepts, in particular the world of kedushah, of holiness, and of the efforts we make to express God’s will in the world by our mundane and quotidian actions.

The Parah Adamah, the second reading torah reading that is read on the shabbat before shabbat haChodesh, the shabbat before Pesach, and which gives this shabbat its name (Shabbat Parah) is placed here in our liturgical calendar in order to remind the people to make themselves ready to offer the Pesach sacrifice. The “impurity” caused by contact with the dead is unlike any other impurity – it cannot be solved by time, washing and mikveh alone, but only by this arcane and opaque ritual of the ashes of a red heifer. Since the impurity can be passed on to others who did not have contact with a dead body, the chances are high that at any one time we are all in this state of tumah -of ritual impurity. While we cannot resolve this state without the ritual of the ashes which no longer exist, and in any case will not be offering the Korban Pesach, it seems at first glance odd that the tradition has insisted that it be read. There must be another reason for us to keep it so prominently in our liturgical calendar.

One reason is a may be a reminder that death is a disrupter of the importance of bringing holiness into the world. Judaism is a religion of life, we can only perform mitzvot in our lifetime (the reason why a Jew who is buried in tallit will have the symbolic knotted threads on each corner cut before burial), the dead do not praise God says the psalmist. While death is normal and natural, we do not look forward to it as the gateway to heaven. Our focus is on living a life that allows us to bring God and holiness into the world, not on a life whose meaning is particular only to ourselves or one that is a precursor to some “real life” in the afterlife.

Yet death is always around us, it can create fear in us and the deaths of others can destabilise us. The death of one we love can cause us to reject life, or to reject God. Death rarely comes at the right time, we all want more life if we can.

So the idea of death causing this highest form of tumah, of impurity, a form that requires a special and esoteric ritual, is a reminder that while we recognise our own mortality in theory, we find ourselves blocked or in denial about what this might really mean for us – our lives and our selves too will end.

Yet there is a way to resolve this that is held out to us on shabbat Parah – we have the almost fantastical ritual of the Parah Adamah – and some way in some time this ritual will be available to us once more, the conduit between us and the divine caused by our own mortality and the mortality of those we love, can become cleared. Death will not be the end.

Another reason we read of the Parah Adamah is that the rabbis who mandated it and who built the complex and enormous system of theoretical ritual purity and impurity were focused not on any physical state but on our spiritual state. The second torah reading this shabbat is paired with a special haftarah. In the book of Ezekiel we read that “I will sprinkle “mayim tehorim” – ( pure water) on you and you shall be tahor (pure). From all your tumah (impurities) I will purify you.” (Ezekiel 36:25). It is an echo of the ritual of the red heifer, but it takes the ideas of purification further and explicitly moves the arena to the spiritual rather than the physical and ritual purification.

Ezekiel continues

“נָתַתִּ֤י לָכֶם֙ לֵ֣ב חָדָ֔שׁ וְר֥וּחַ חֲדָשָׁ֖ה אֶתֵּ֣ן בְּקִרְבְּכֶ֑ם וַהֲסִ֨רֹתִ֜י אֶת־לֵ֤ב הָאֶ֙בֶן֙ מִבְּשַׂרְכֶ֔ם וְנָתַתִּ֥י לָכֶ֖ם לֵ֥ב בָּשָֽׂר׃

And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh;

וְאֶת־רוּחִ֖י אֶתֵּ֣ן בְּקִרְבְּכֶ֑ם וְעָשִׂ֗יתִי אֵ֤ת אֲשֶׁר־בְּחֻקַּי֙ תֵּלֵ֔כוּ וּמִשְׁפָּטַ֥י תִּשְׁמְר֖וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶֽם׃

and I will put My spirit into you. Thus I will cause you to follow My laws and faithfully to observe My rules.

God says “I will give you a new heart (Lev Chadash) and a new spirit (Ruach Chadasha)… and cause you to follow my laws etc

The purification here is one of a moral flaw – the heart of stone we have demonstrated in our lives so far, a heart that has been unable to hear the needs of others, unwilling to respond with compassion and thoughtfulness, that heart will be replaced by God with one of flesh – a heart of humanity, of openness to others, a heart that sustains life.

Rabbi Jacob Milgrom teaches that the ritual of the red heifer is a ceremony of ethical cleansing for the self and for the community. He writes “Ancient Jews believed that acts of immorality affected more than just those involved in them. There are consequences of wrongdoing that infect and pollute the entire community. … [the sins] have a contaminating effect, not only upon the guilty individuals but also upon the community and sanctuary. Asking forgiveness through sacrifices and prayers, even repairing the wrong through apology or restitution, is not enough to purify what is soiled by wrongdoing.

“For the ancients, the ritual of the parah adumah alone has the power to remove or exorcise such sinfulness. ‘By daubing the altar with blood or by bringing it inside the sanctuary, the priest purges the most sacred objects and areas of the sanctuary on behalf of the person who caused their contamination by physical impurity or inadvertent offense.’ The person and the community corrupted by wrongdoing are restored to a state of purity and can then go on without the burden of guilt.” Jacob Milgrom, JPS Torah Commentary ad loc)

Reading this extra piece of torah within days of celebrating Pesach functions not only as a prompt for us to examine ourselves and our lives half a year after the period of teshuvah of Elul and Kippur, it also reminds us that our lives have value and meaning, that we must live them the best way we can, renewing ourselves and behaving with greater humanity and renewed spirit in the world. It reminds us that lives are finite, that each one of us is a conduit for holiness, that the world is mysterious and while we cannot understand everything, we can understand the importance of a life searching for the divine.

And finally, why did the rabbis spend so much time and thought on a system that no longer existed? It is I think an act of hope, a belief in redemption and the forging of an identity that would be clearly and powerfully based on the activities of everyone’s daily life. The majority of the Jewish world were no longer living in Eretz Yisrael. There was no temple extant. But what better way to keep a people and a religious and cultural system alive and connected than the system of ritual purity they created. Every moment of this system is a reminder of our covenant relationship with God. Every tiny detail ensured that the Jewish world stayed focused on that, on the Land, on God, and on our peoplehood we would not be lost while in exile, the fate of so many peoples displaced at the whim of great empires.

It was, I think, a religious act and a political one too. The Jews, wherever they find themselves, are part of a system designed to bring us closer to God in a specific and unique way. The system kept us from merging with the cultures surrounding us, yet allowed permeability so that we could absorb enough to live and survive in them. It gave us the flexibility to live in diaspora yet with our eyes towards Jerusalem, and the structure to retain our particularity and act out and understand our covenant relationship with God.

The ritual of the red heifer may continue to be mysterious and inexplicable, a law of God with no obvious rationale, but the system within which it sits is the air that we breathe. It is an imperative towards life, an imperative towards holiness, a reminder to check ourselves and repair what we can in timely fashion. A reminder of our mortality, and of the life we want to live.

Being a People, creating community, bringing light and warmth into our world: Rosh Hashanah Sermon Lev Chadash 2022

Posted on September 29, 2022 by sylviarothschild

Rosh Hashanah 2022 Sermon Lev Chadash

L’italiano segue l’inglese

Once there was a small mountain village where a small Jewish community lived.There was no electricity and each home had a wood burning stove to give warmth and small candle lamps to give light, and any time the Jewish community wanted to meet, they did so in each other’s homes. One day, the people decided to build a synagogue, so that they could observe Shabbat and holidays together, celebrate b’nai mitzvah and baby namings and weddings together, and be together to pray, because small as the community was they were too big for anyone’s home. They though hard about what they wanted and they told the rabbi:

“It must have enough room for everyone in the village to dance the hora, without stepping on anyone’s feet.”

“But it must be small enough that no one ever has to feel like they are sitting off in a corner, alone.”

“It must have a very big wooden stove, so that we can keep warm in the long winter months.”

“But it must have huge windows, so we can air it out in the summer months.”

But soon, they ran up against a problem. The lights. There was no simple way to light the new synagogue. There was no electricity in this village, and so there was no easy way to light the whole room. Because the synagogue had to be big enough for everyone to dance the hora without stepping on each other’s toes, if they put a lamp in the middle of the room, the corners would be dark, and if they put a lamp in the corners of the room the middle of the room would be dark. And there wasn’t enough money left in the budget to do both. Not to mention, how would they pay someone to keep all of the lamps lit all the time?

At long last the synagogue was ready and the people came a Shabbat evening dinner and service, so everyone arrived at the new building just before sunset. They waited and whispered outside in the snow, holding their lamps that would light their way home in the dark.

“I hope it’s big enough for a hora.” One villager said.

“I hope it’s small enough so that no one feels alone in the corner.” Another responded.

“I hope there’s a stove.” Said one.

“I hope there are windows.” Said another.

And there were a lot of people who said, “I wonder how they are going to keep it lit up through the night.”

Finally, the doors opened and all of the people poured in to have a look around. It was big enough for a hora, small enough for an oneg, with a big wood burning stove in the centre and huge windows on the side. But one thing was missing. As the sun started to dip lower in the sky, signalling that Shabbat would be here soon and along with it another long, dark night, they realized that there were no lights in the building at all.

The people gasped, “What are we going to do with a synagogue with no lights?”

“Did we run out of money?” Asked one.

“How am I supposed to see my prayerbook in the dark?” Asked another.

“How are we supposed to serve food in the dark?” Asked one.

“Are we just going to have all of our services in the daytime?” Asked another.

They looked around for the lights. And then they noticed – all along the four walls of the synagogue were brackets, big enough to hold the lamps they used to light their own homes . There were dozens of them, one for every person in the village.

The rabbi took her own lamp she had brought from home and put it in one of the brackets on the wall. “This is how we will light the synagogue. Each of you will bring your own lamp from home. When you are all here, this room will be full of light for us to eat and pray and dance by. And when you are not here, we will see that the room is darker, and we will miss you. And when you are at home, wondering whether or not to set out in the cold, dark night, you will remember that, without you, our synagogue will be that much darker.”

I found this story in a collection of folk tales and wanted to share it with you today. The whole period leading up to the Yamim Noraim began some weeks ago. After the month of Elul when we are expected to reflect on our lives, on our priorities and our actions, to repair what we can of our inevitable mistakes and to try to live more closely We are in a time of reflection and of self-judgment, of separating ourselves from bad habits and attempting to habituate ourselves to good ones. It is a time of renewal of our selves and of the way we live our lives, a time where we consider what is to be repeated and what is to be changed.

In many ways this is always going to be a highly personal and individual process. Like prayer it is an action we do both for and by ourselves. We stand in the presence of God but no one else can see or hear our inner monologue. And yet –

– And yet this is a process that is enhanced by community. We stand amongst everyone else who is praying or reflecting or confessing or pleading or denying or avoiding the work of this season. Others walk alongside us just as others have walked these paths before and yet others will walk them long after our own time. This highly personal and individual process of tefillah and teshuvah is reliant for its success on the support of the community around us. The nudge to reflect that is incorporated in our liturgy and our calendar is amplified by the actions of the community. The words we can say out loud together – each of us confessing to everything so that those of us who need to say those words can do so in the safety of the collective confession. The pull of family or community – asking us what we are doing for the festivals, sharing their insights or reading suggestions or meals or even tasks to make us ready for the Yamim Noraim. We help each other along this path, often without even being aware of our contribution to the general good.

Asher Tzvi Hirsch Ginsberg, better known as the essayist “Achad Ha’Am” (literally meaning “one of the people” (1856-1927) was a founder of what became known as cultural Zionism who argued with the theories of political Zionists such as Herzl, and instead worked for Eretz Yisrael to become a spiritual exemplar for Jews in the Diaspora, something that would bring Jews across the world together as one people with shared values and spirituality, rather than fragmented communities – he wanted what he called “A Jewish State, and not just a State for Jews”.

He wrote: Judaism did not turn heavenward and create in heaven an eternal habitation of souls. It found ‘eternal life’ on earth, by strengthening the social feeling in the individual by making them regard themselves not as isolated beings with an existence bounded by birth and death, but as part of a larger whole. As a limb of the social body…I live for the sake of the member. I die to make room for new individuals who will mould the community afresh and not allow it to stagnate and remain forever in one position. When the individual thus values the community as their own life, and strives after its happiness as though it were their individual wellbeing, they find satisfaction and no longer feel so keenly the bitterness of their individual existence, because they see the end for which they live and suffer. (Achad Ha’Am Asher Hirsch Ginsberg 1856-1927)

For Achad Ha’Am being part of the community gives meaning to our lives. Although he himself was secular, he is speaking from the foundational texts of Judaism – we are first and foremost “Am Yisrael” – a People [called] Israel

The word Am עם is found hundreds if not thousands of times in the Hebrew bible. It is used to mean a nation or a group of people, though it has a secondary meaning of “a relation/relative”. Both the Hebrew root and its Arabic cognate appear to have had an original meaning of “father” or “father’s family” which is later expanded to kinsman or clan, and eventually to “nation”. The root עמם from which it derives also means “to join, to connect”, from where we also get the word im עם meaning “with”.

We learn in Mishnah Avot 2:5 that Hillel taught “do not separate yourself from the community” – both in its celebrations and in its difficulties we are part of this group. This is also the reason we pray together, traditionally some of our liturgy demands we form a community before we can pray it – because the rabbis taught that “ For when one prays by himself, he might ask for things that are detrimental to some. But the community only prays for things which are of benefit to everybody. A reed on its own is easily broken but a bundle of reeds standing together cannot be broken even by the strongest winds.”

Community lies at the heart of Judaism. Jewish peoplehood is our overarching identity – whether we see ourselves as religious or secular, Ashkenazi, Sefardi or Italki, believers in God or sceptics, Orthodox Reform or Masorti – it is Jewish peoplehood that binds us, Jewish community that is the structure that we exist in symbiosis with, that we create wherever we go and that sustains us in return.

I think all of us know the slogan – or is it a prayer? – “Am Yisrael Chai”. While it is unclear where this phrase originated, a recording of the liberated Jews in Bergen Belson concentration camp singing “Hatikvah” in April 1945 also contains the voice of Rabbi Leslie Hardman, the first Jewish Chaplain to the British Army to enter that camp two days after it was liberated, calling out “Am Yisrael Chai” into the silence that followed the Hatikvah. It was a challenge, a prayer, a statement of intent rolled into three short words. Leslie Hardman supervised the burial of over 20 thousand victims in the camp, trying to give them the dignity in death that had been so lacking in life and saying kaddish over the mass graves. He circumcised babies who had been born in the camp, he even conducted a wedding of a survivor to a British soldier – he was determined in the face of so much death and horror, that Am Yisrael Chai – the people Israel would continue to live. He went on to minister to Jewish communities and made a lasting impression on many who knew him. Even today I occasionally meet people who toward the end of their lives want to reconnect with their Jewishness and who say to me “Leslie Hardman did my barmitzvah”!

The power of community, and the power of the people who believe in community is immense.

Everywhere we look in Judaism we see the imperative to community. In a few short weeks we will be celebrating Sukkot, and using the arba’a minim, the Four Species, in our services. There is a famous midrash on this ritual object – together these different plants represent the fullness and diversity of every Jewish community. – “As the etrog has taste and fragrance, the palm taste but no fragrance, the myrtle fragrance but no taste, and the willow neither taste nor fragrance, so some Jews have learning and good deeds, some learning but no deeds, some deeds but no learning, and some neither learning nor deeds. Said the Holy One ‘let them all be tied together and they will atone one for the other (Midrash Leviticus Rabbah)

All together we can help each other to atone, but not only that – together we help each other to grow, to live, to thrive. At the centre of our torah is the injunction to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. As Israel Salanter (1810 – 1883) writes: – “The Torah demands that we seek what is best for our fellow human beings: not by repressing our hatred or rejection of them, nor by loving them out of a sense of duty, for this is no genuine love. We should simply love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We do not love ourselves because we are human beings, but our self-love comes to us naturally without any calculations or limits or aims. It would never occur to someone to say ‘I have already fulfilled my obligation towards myself!’ The same way we should love our fellow human beings naturally and spontaneously, with joy and pleasure, without limits or purposes or rationalisations”

In the folk tale I began with, the picture is painted of the contribution each and every one of us makes to making our community brighter and happier, supportive and challenging, warmer and kinder.

Today we might have electricity to light our synagogue but we still count on each and every one of you to bring your own light in a different way. When you come to be part of the community at prayer or in study, come to share simchas and sorrows, when you join in with the singing or the prayer, when you reach out and enfold each other under the tallit for the blessing of nesiat kapayim, then our synagogue is full of light and warmth. And when you are gone, everything feels a little darker because you are not here. The same is true in every community you take part in.

And so we pray, as this new year begins, that our lights will shine brightly and we will bring them to share with each other, and everyone we join with in community – even if only for a short time -will be blessed by our light and warmth.

And we pray too that like those long ago villagers, we will bring our lights with us wherever we go, and that we will find the places to fix our lights and let them shine out an warm our community.

In the words of the blessing of nesiat kapayim –“ ya’er Adonai panav elecha “– may the face of God shine on you; And in the vernacular of the Jewish community, may we each represent the face of God to each other, join with our communities and offer ourselves to brighten each other’s lives whenever and however we can.

Rosh Hashanà 2022: Sermone per Lev Chadash

di Rav Sylvia Rothschild

C’era una volta un piccolo villaggio di montagna dove viveva una piccola comunità ebraica. Non c’era elettricità e ogni casa aveva una stufa a legna per riscaldare e piccole candele per illuminare, e ogni volta che la comunità ebraica voleva incontrarsi, lo faceva nella casa di qualcuno.

Un giorno le persone decisero di costruire una sinagoga, così da poter osservare insieme lo Shabbat e le festività, celebrare insieme b’nai mitzvà e dare il nome ai bambini, fare i matrimoni e stare insieme per pregare, perché, per quanto piccola fosse la comunità, era troppo grande per la casa di chiunque.

Pensarono molto a quello che volevano e dissero al rabbino:

“Deve avere abbastanza spazio perché tutti nel villaggio possano ballare la hora, senza calpestare i piedi di nessuno”.

“Ma deve essere sufficientemente piccola, che nessuno debba mai sentirsi come se fosse seduto in un angolo, da solo”.

“Deve avere una stufa a legna molto grande, in modo da poterci riscaldare nei lunghi mesi invernali”.

“Ma deve avere finestre enormi, in modo da poter arieggiare nei mesi estivi”.

Ma presto si imbatterono in un problema. Le luci. Non c’era un modo semplice per illuminare la nuova sinagoga. Non c’era elettricità in questo villaggio, quindi non c’era un modo semplice per illuminare l’intera stanza. Poiché la sinagoga doveva essere abbastanza grande da permettere a tutti di ballare la hora senza pestarsi i piedi, se avessero messo una lampada in mezzo alla stanza gli angoli sarebbero stati bui, e se avessero messo una lampada negli angoli della stanza il centro sarebbe stato buio. E non c’erano abbastanza soldi nel budget per fare entrambe le cose. Per non parlare del fatto di come avrebbero pagato qualcuno per tenere tutte le lampade accese tutto il tempo.

Alla fine la sinagoga fu pronta e le persone vennero per la cena e il servizio serale dello Shabbat, quindi tutti arrivarono al nuovo edificio poco prima del tramonto. Aspettarono e sussurrarono fuori nella neve, tenendo in mano le loro lampade che avrebbero illuminato la strada verso casa nell’oscurità.

“Spero che sia abbastanza grande per danzare la hora”, disse un abitante del villaggio.

“Spero che sia abbastanza piccola in modo che nessuno si senta solo nell’angolo”, rispose un altro.

“Spero che ci sia una stufa”, disse uno.

“Spero che ci siano finestre”, disse un altro.

E ci furono molte persone che dissero: “Mi chiedo come faranno a tenere acceso per tutta la notte”.

Alla fine le porte si aprirono e tutte le persone si riversarono all’interno per dare un’occhiata in giro. Era abbastanza grande per una hora, abbastanza piccola per l’oneg, con una grande stufa a legna al centro ed enormi finestre sui lati. Ma mancava una cosa. Quando il sole iniziò a calare nel cielo, segnalando che lo Shabbat sarebbe arrivato presto e con esso un’altra lunga notte buia, si resero conto che nell’edificio non c’erano affatto luci.

La gente sussultò: “Cosa faremo con una sinagoga senza luci?” “Abbiamo finito i soldi?” chiese uno. “Come faccio a vedere il mio libro di preghiere al buio?” chiese un altro. “Come dovremmo servire il cibo al buio?” chiese uno. “Avremo tutti i nostri servizi durante il giorno?” chiese un altro.

Si guardarono intorno in cerca delle luci. E poi si accorsero che lungo le quattro pareti della sinagoga c’erano delle mensole, abbastanza grandi da contenere le lampade che usavano per illuminare le proprie case. Ce n’erano a dozzine, una per ogni persona del villaggio.

Il rabbino prese la sua lampada che aveva portato da casa e la mise in una delle mensole del muro. “Così illumineremo la sinagoga. Ognuno di voi porterà la propria lampada da casa. Quando sarete tutti qui, questa stanza sarà piena di luce per mangiare, pregare e ballare. E quando non ci sarete vedremo che la stanza è più buia e ci mancherete. E quando sarete a casa, chiedendovi se partire o meno nella notte fredda e buia, vi ricorderete che, senza di voi, la nostra sinagoga sarà molto più buia”.

Ho trovato questa storia in una raccolta di racconti popolari e volevo condividerla con voi oggi. L’intero periodo che ha preceduto gli Yamim Noraim, i Giorni Solenni, è iniziato alcune settimane fa. Dopo il mese di Elul, in cui ci si aspetta che riflettiamo sulle nostre vite, sulle nostre priorità e sulle nostre azioni, per riparare ciò che possiamo dei nostri inevitabili errori e per cercare di vivere più da vicino, siamo in un tempo di riflessione e di auto-giudizio, in cui ci separiamo dalle cattive abitudini e tentiamo di abituarci a quelle buone. È un momento di rinnovamento di noi stessi e del modo in cui viviamo la nostra vita, un tempo in cui consideriamo cosa ripetere e cosa cambiare.

In molti modi questo sarà sempre un processo altamente personale e individuale. Come la preghiera, è un’azione che facciamo sia per noi stessi che da soli. Siamo alla presenza di Dio ma nessun altro può vedere o ascoltare il nostro monologo interiore.

Eppure questo è un processo che viene potenziato dalla comunità. Siamo tutti tra coloro che stanno pregando o riflettendo o confessando o implorando o negando o evitando il lavoro di questa stagione. Altri camminano al nostro fianco proprio come altri hanno già percorso questi sentieri e altri ancora li percorreranno molto dopo il nostro tempo. Questo processo altamente personale e individuale di tefillà e teshuvà dipende per il suo successo dal sostegno della comunità che ci circonda. La spinta alla riflessione che è incorporata nella nostra liturgia e nel nostro calendario è amplificata dalle azioni della comunità. Le parole che possiamo dire ad alta voce insieme: ognuno di noi confessa tutto, in modo tale che quelli tra noi che hanno bisogno di dire quelle parole possano farlo nella sicurezza della confessione collettiva. L’attrazione della famiglia o della comunità: chiederci cosa stiamo facendo per le solennità, condividere intuizioni o pasti o persino compiti, leggere suggerimenti per prepararci per gli Yamim Noraim. Ci aiutiamo a vicenda in questo cammino, spesso senza nemmeno essere consapevoli del nostro contributo al bene generale.

Asher Tzvi Hirsch Ginsberg, meglio conosciuto come il saggista “Achad Ha’Am” (che letteralmente significa “uno del popolo”), fu uno dei fondatori di quello che divenne noto come il sionismo culturale, che confrontò con le teorie dei sionisti politici come Herzl. Lavorò invece per Eretz Yisrael, affinché diventasse un esempio spirituale per gli ebrei nella diaspora, qualcosa che avrebbe riunito gli ebrei di tutto il mondo come un unico popolo con valori e spiritualità condivisi, piuttosto che comunità frammentate: voleva quello che ha chiamò “Un Stato ebraico, e non solo uno Stato per gli ebrei”.

Scrisse: “L’ebraismo non si è rivolto al cielo e non ha creato in cielo una dimora eterna di anime. Ha trovato la ‘vita eterna’ sulla terra, rafforzando il sentimento sociale nell’individuo, facendogli considerare se stesso non come essere isolato con un’esistenza delimitata dalla nascita e dalla morte, ma come parte di un tutto più ampio. Come membro del corpo sociale… Vivo per il bene dei membri. Muoio per fare spazio a nuovi individui che plasmeranno di nuovo la comunità e non le permetteranno di ristagnare e rimanere per sempre in una posizione. Quando l’individuo valuta così la comunità come propria vita, e aspira alla sua felicità come se fosse il proprio benessere individuale, trova soddisfazione e non sente più così intensamente l’amarezza della propria esistenza individuale, perché vede il fine per cui vivere e soffrire”.

(Achad Ha’Am Asher Hirsch Ginsberg 1856-1927)

Per Achad Ha’Am far parte della comunità dà un senso alle nostre vite. Sebbene lui stesso fosse laico, parla dai testi fondamentali dell’ebraismo: siamo prima di tutto “Am Yisrael”, un popolo [chiamato] Israele.

La parola Am עם si trova centinaia se non migliaia di volte nella Bibbia ebraica. È usata per indicare una nazione o un gruppo di persone, sebbene abbia un significato secondario di “relazione/parente”. Sia la radice ebraica che il suo affine arabo sembrano aver avuto un significato originale di “padre” o “famiglia del padre”, poi successivamente esteso a “parente” o “clan” e infine a “nazione”. La radice עמם da cui deriva significa anche “unire, connettere”, da essa proviene anche la parola im עם che significa “con”.

Impariamo in Mishnah Avot 2:5 che Hillel ha insegnato “non separarti dalla comunità”: sia nelle sue celebrazioni che nelle sue difficoltà siamo parte di questo gruppo. Questo è anche il motivo per cui preghiamo insieme, tradizionalmente alcune delle nostre liturgie richiedono di formare una comunità prima di poter pregare perché i rabbini insegnavano che “perché quando uno prega da solo, può chiedere cose che sono dannose per alcuni. Ma la comunità prega solo per cose che giovano a tutti. Una canna da sola si spezza facilmente, ma un fascio di canne che stanno insieme non può essere spezzato nemmeno dai venti più forti”.

La comunità è al centro dell’ebraismo. Il popolo ebraico è la nostra identità generale: che ci consideriamo religiosi o laici, ashkenaziti, sefarditi o Italki, credenti in Dio o scettici, riformati, ortodossi o masortì, è il popolo ebraico che ci lega, la comunità ebraica è la struttura con cui esistiamo in simbiosi, che creiamo ovunque andiamo e che in cambio ci sostiene.

Penso che tutti noi conosciamo lo slogan (o è una preghiera?) “Am Yisrael Chai”. Sebbene non sia chiaro da dove abbia avuto origine questa frase, una registrazione degli ebrei liberati dal campo di concentramento di Bergen Belsen che cantavano “Hatikvà” nell’aprile 1945 contiene anche la voce del rabbino Leslie Hardman, primo cappellano ebreo dell’esercito britannico ad entrare in quel campo due giorni dopo la liberazione, che grida “Am Yisrael Chai” nel silenzio che segue l’Hatikvà. Era una sfida, una preghiera, una dichiarazione di intenti racchiusa in tre brevi parole. Leslie Hardman ha supervisionato la sepoltura di oltre ventimila vittime nel campo, cercando di dare loro la dignità nella morte che era stata così mancante nella vita e dicendo il kaddish sulle fosse comuni. Ha circonciso i bambini che erano nati nel campo, ha persino organizzato il matrimonio di una sopravvissuta con un soldato britannico: era determinato, di fronte a tanta morte e orrore, a far sì che Am Yisrael Chai, il popolo di Israele, continuasse a vivere. Ha continuato a servire le comunità ebraiche e ha lasciato un’impressione duratura su molti che lo conoscevano. Persino oggi incontro occasionalmente persone che verso la fine della loro vita vogliono riconnettersi con la loro ebraicità e che mi dicono “ho fatto il bar mitzvà con Leslie Hardman!”

Il potere della comunità e il potere delle persone che credono nella comunità è immenso.

Ovunque guardiamo nell’ebraismo vediamo l’imperativo della comunità. Tra poche settimane celebreremo Sukkot e utilizzeremo le arba’a minim, le Quattro Specie, nei nostri servizi. C’è un famoso midrash su questo oggetto rituale: insieme queste diverse piante rappresentano la pienezza e la diversità di ogni comunità ebraica. “Come l’etrog ha gusto e fragranza, la palma ha sapore ma non fragranza, il mirto ha fragranza ma non ha sapore e il salice non ha né sapore né fragranza, così alcuni ebrei hanno istruzione e buone azioni, alcuni sono dotti ma non compiono atti, alcuni compiono atti ma senza nessun apprendimento, e per alcuni non vi sono né apprendimento né azioni”. Dice l’Eterno: “Siano legati tutti insieme ed espieranno l’uno per l’altro” (Midrash Levitico Rabbà)

Tutti insieme possiamo aiutarci a vicenda per espiare, ma non solo: insieme ci aiutiamo a vicenda a crescere, a vivere, a prosperare. Al centro della nostra Torà c’è l’ingiunzione di amare il nostro prossimo come amiamo noi stessi. Come scrive Israel Salanter (1810 – 1883): “La Torà esige che cerchiamo ciò che è meglio per i nostri simili: non reprimendo il nostro odio o rifiuto nei loro confronti, né amandoli per senso del dovere, perché questo non è un vero amore. Dovremmo semplicemente amare il nostro prossimo come amiamo noi stessi. Non ci amiamo perché siamo esseri umani, ma il nostro amor proprio ci viene naturale senza calcoli, limiti o obiettivi. A qualcuno non verrebbe mai in mente di dire ‘Ho già adempiuto al mio obbligo verso me stesso!’ Allo stesso modo dovremmo amare i nostri simili in modo naturale e spontaneo, con gioia e piacere, senza limiti, scopi o razionalizzazioni”.

Nel racconto popolare con cui ho iniziato, c’è l’immagine figurata del contributo che ognuno di noi dà per rendere la nostra comunità più luminosa e felice, solidale e stimolante, più calorosa e gentile.

Oggi potremmo avere l’elettricità per illuminare la nostra sinagoga, ma contiamo ancora su ognuno di voi per portare la propria luce in un modo diverso. Quando venite a far parte della comunità in preghiera o in studio, venite a condividere simchà e dolori, quando vi unite al canto o alla preghiera, quando vi proteggete e vi avvolgete l’un l’altro sotto il tallit per la benedizione di nesiat kapayim, allora la nostra sinagoga è piena di luce e di calore. E quando ve ne siete andati, tutto sembra un po’ più oscuro perché non siete qui. Lo stesso vale in ogni comunità a cui prendete parte.

E quindi preghiamo, all’inizio di questo nuovo anno, che le nostre luci splendano brillanti, così le porteremo a condividerle tra tutti, e coloro con cui ci uniamo in comunità, anche se solo per un breve periodo, saranno benedetti dalla nostra luce e calore.

E preghiamo anche che, come quegli abitanti del villaggio di tanto tempo fa, porteremo le nostre luci con noi ovunque andremo, e che troveremo i posti dove fissare le nostre luci e farle risplendere e riscaldare la nostra comunità.

Nelle parole della benedizione di Nesiat Kapayim: “ya’er Adonai panav elecha” –

”possa il volto di Dio risplendere su di te”; E, nel vernacolo della comunità ebraica: possa ognuno di noi rappresentare il volto di Dio l’uno per l’altro, uniamoci alle nostre comunità e offriamo noi stessi per illuminare la vita gli uni degli altri quando e come possiamo.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

A Tree of Life – and life giving trees: Tu b’Shevat

Posted on January 15, 2022 by sylviarothschild

“One day Choni the circle maker was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree; he asked him, How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit? The man replied: Seventy years. He then further asked him: Are you certain that you will live another seventy years? The man replied: I found [ready-grown] carob trees in the world; as my ancestors planted these for me so I too plant these for my children”. ( Talmud Bavli: Taanit 23a)

Trees are deeply important in our tradition, and also have their own relationship with God. They are prominent in our texts – mentioned at the Creation, vital to the narrative in the Garden of Eden; the Hebrew word for tree appears in the bible over 150 times and more than 100 different kinds of trees, shrubs and plants are named. The Mishnah follows suit, naming hundreds more plants in its legal codification. In all more than 500 different plants are named in our traditional texts. Trees are a signifier of the connection the Jews have with the land, and reflect the relationship that we have with the Land of Israel – Moses repeatedly reminds us that we must care for the land and treat it well, and not only land but people – otherwise we will be driven out from there as other nations apparently were before us.

Trees have a special place in how we create awareness of God. For they are not only part of the natural world, they are also used repeatedly in our texts as a metaphor for humanity, for life, for reaching upwards to God and rooting the self in the world. Trees symbolise so much, they have a quasi-divine element, a quasi-human element. They feed us, they provide shelter, they bridge the generations, and they act as a bellwether for our moral state.

We read in Deuteronomy “ When you will besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees by wielding an axe against them; you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? (20:19)

This image, comparing the fruit tree to human beings, powerfully reminds us of the damage that can be inflicted in a war between people, and in obliging us to protect the trees reminds us of what we have in common with them. If we should not cut down the fruit bearing tree, how much more so should we consider the safety of the people being besieged?

We are about to celebrate the festival of Tu b’Shevat – the fifteenth day of the month Shevat. Originally Tu b’Shevat was simply the way by which the age of trees was measured for purpose of tithing and of orlah (the first three years when the fruit was considered strictly God’s property and not to be eaten by anyone). In effect it marks the boundary of a tax year.

After the destruction of the second Temple in the year 70CE the taking of tithes from fruit trees fell into disuse, but the date remained special in our calendars. The Mishnah recorded four new years and their dates: – Rosh Hashanah le’ilanot (Tu b’Shevat) for trees, Rosh Hashanah for years, Rosh Hashanah lema’aser behemah for tithing animals, and Rosh Hashanah le’mel’achim for counting the years of a king’s reign.

The date of Tu b’Shevat has stayed in our calendar throughout the time we were without our land, celebrated and noted by communities all over the world. The Kabbalists of Sfat in the 16^th and 17^th century developed a ritual – the Tu b’Shevat Seder – to represent our connection to the land of Israel and also to reflect the mystical concept of God’s relationship with our world being like a tree. The Seder consisted of eating the different types of traditional fruits grown in Israel and connecting the different types of these fruit with each the Four Worlds of Kabbalistic theology, drinking four cups of wine that were each mixed with different proportions of wine with each cup of wine symbolizing one of the four seasons, and reading texts about trees.

The mystics understand Tu B’Shevat as being the day when the Tree of Life renews the flow of life to the universe. And they taught that by offering blessings on Tu B’Shevat, a person can help in the healing of the world. From this came the belief that since on Tu B’Shevat we offer a blessing for each fruit before we consume it, the more fruits we eat, the more blessings we can offer to help heal the world.

In more modern times Tu b’Shevat has been a gift to the Zionist movement and the return to the Land. They have used it as an opportunity to plant trees in Israel as a way of transforming the land, as well as re-attaching ourselves to the physical Land of Israel. And most recently the Jewish ecological movements have adopted the day to remind us in powerful messages of our obligation to care for the environment.

All these themes bound up in Tu b’Shevat are important and helpful to our own Jewish identity and spirituality. There is an overarching theme of healing the world through our connections with nature, of the importance and symbiosis of our relationship with the natural world. And in our relationship with nature, we express our relationship with God. Caring for our world is a sacred task. As we read in Proverbs (3:18)

עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר׃

[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.

Our tradition asks: “How can a person of flesh and blood follow God? … God, from the very beginning of creation, was occupied before all else with planting. Therefore … occupy yourselves first and foremost with planting. – Midrash: Leviticus Rabbah 25:3

It reminds us that “If you have a sapling in your hand and people tell you that the Messiah has come, plant the sapling and then go and greet him” (Avot de Rabbi Natan)

Yom Kippur Morning 2021: Sermon Lev Chadash Milano

Posted on September 16, 2021 by sylviarothschild

In “the Mirror and the Light”, the finale to Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, she has him say while contemplating his own diminished future “We are all dying, just at different speeds”

Yom Kippur is a day that reminds us not only to consider how we are living our lives in the light of our values and hopes, but it speaks to us of our own mortality – it is a day out of time, a day we travel through as if dead, with no food or water, no ordinary business to transact etc. Yom Kippur is a dress rehearsal for death.

To be clear. We are not supposed to feel dead in the sense that we might feel nothing, or no longer care for the things of this world; rather we can take twenty five hours where we subsume the wants or desires of the body into the perspectives and expression of the soul.

As close as we can be, we become disembodied. We pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that are usually drowned out in the busy-ness of everyday living. The tradition is that we wear white – the colour of purity. Many of us wear a kittel – quite literally the shrouds that will wrap our bodies in the coffin. We are practising a death of the body in order to free the life of the mind or the soul.

Judaism is famously a religion of life. We toast each other “Le’chaim” – to Life! We focus on our actions in this world, and leave unexamined what may happen beyond this world. But we build into our practise this one extraordinary day when we rehearse our dying, in order to understand our world a little differently.

The point of Yom Kippur is not to remind us that we are mortal, that, as Mantel says we are all dying, just at different speeds. It is to remind us to think about how we are living our lives – specifically how are we living them in relation to the teachings and expectations of our traditions.

Rabbi Eliezer famously taught that one should: “Repent one day before your death.” So his disciples asked him: “Does a person know which day he will die?” Rabbi Eliezer responded: “Certainly, then, a person should repent today, for perhaps tomorrow he will die—so that all his days he is repenting.” (Talmud, Shabbat 153a)

In my work as a hospice chaplain I recently had a long conversation with a patient, a strict Catholic woman, who was terrified that she might not die in a state of grace, and that if she was not entirely absolved of her sins she would not be allowed to enter heaven. I was so perturbed by her distress and her certainty that the gates of heaven might be still closed against her even though she had made her final confession, received full absolution from her priest, and had had no obvious opportunity for further sinning given the frailty of her health, that I rang her priest to see what else could be done. There was nothing more to do, he told me, it was all in the hands of God.

It got me thinking back to Rabbi Eliezer. He is not talking about dying in a state of grace, not suggesting that we need to get our timing right so that we die shortly after repenting our sins. He is talking of being in a continuing state of teshuvah, not so much its colloquial meaning of “repentance” as its real meaning – “returning” or “turning towards God”. Eliezer is not terribly interested in the purity of our souls at any given moment, but in the fact of our being engaged in some kind of understanding of our purpose in this world, some kind of intention and action towards making ourselves and our worlds a better place.

Taking a day away from our routine, blocking it off in our diaries and using it for introspection and for the evaluation of our lives in the light of the values and teachings and the expectations of our tradition is a valuable and important activity. Doing it from within our community with a liturgy that provides a map for our journey of return is a supportive and sustaining factor in the day. Knowing that across the world Jews are coming together in real meetings and these days in virtual communities too, gives us the strength to keep going during the times when the prayers seem endless or pointless or inappropriate or trivial. A day set aside in order to consciously attempt teshuvah, turning ourselves and our lives around in search of meaning, in search of God, is a gift to ourselves, the gift of time and of space to hear the needs of our souls which have so often been ignored or silenced in our quest for material success or even just to get through the daily routines we must complete.

When Rabbi Eliezer tells us to repent one day before the day of our death this is not a rhetorical flourish, but a reminder of the value of our lives. He is not suggesting that we live each day as if it were our last, cramming in all the things we might like to have done as we tick off as much as we can from our bucket list, or fearful of a coming darkness and doom. He is saying we should live each day as well as we can, maybe not procrastinate so much, maybe say the words that need to be communicated to others, maybe enjoy the moment of sunshine playing on our skin or watch the clouds scooting across a beautiful sky. He is reminding us that each day we live we should strive for the understanding that this day is unique, it is providing us with an opportunity that may not return on another day to do the things that this day makes possible. How do we turn towards God today? How will we demonstrate our love for the Divine in our behaviour towards other human beings? And how will the choices I make today shape me and my relationships in the world? Am I making sure to appreciate what each day offers, to acknowledge the blessings in my life, to show that appreciation in my actions?

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said that “if you are not a better person tomorrow than you are today, what need do you have for a tomorrow?”

Each day we try to work on ourselves, try – in the words of the prayer – to bend our will to do God’s will.

The work of the day of Yom Kippur can be done on any day, it is simply helpful for us to block out the time to do it together with our community. And the day of Yom Kippur is not just one of prayer and of teshuvah, not only about atonement and about considering our lives from the outside as if we are dead. It is a day that signifies the endless possibility of rebirth. The sound of the shofar at the end of the service is the cry of the reborn, it is our signal to go back into the world refreshed and renewed to do the work we are here to do.

There is a famous inspirational quote found on many a social media site “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” – and essentially that is what Yom Kippur is also helping us to understand and enact. But never forget, that if today doesn’t work out, there is also tomorrow, and the day after that.

But don’t wait too long. Live every day searching for teshuva, for closeness with God, for aligning our will with God’s will, and then when the day of our death finally comes we will be able to say that we tried to live as fully as we could, we have no more need of a tomorrow.

15th Elul: Which God do you not believe in?

Posted on August 23, 2021 by sylviarothschild

Elul 15 23^rd August

A discussion among my colleagues – “What does one say when someone says to you “Rabbi, I don’t believe in God””

One answer – “I always ask them which God they don’t believe in”.

My teacher Rabbi Dr Jonathan Magonet used to bemoan the fact that so many Jews give up serious Jewish education at bar/bat mitzvah. They had, he used to say, a thirteen year old god. And as they grew and matured, their idea of God was frozen in time, adolescent and unbelievable.

Jews are the people of Israel – literally the ones who struggle with God. We are not required (despite the Maimonidean doctrine) to believe in God. Indeed earliest rabbinic Judaism was not so much interested in what people believed about divinity, but talked instead about shared narratives. Slightly later we have the extraordinary rabbinic midrash on the verse in Jeremiah (16:11) “They have forsaken Me and not kept my Torah” – “If only they had forsaken Me but kept my Torah!” (Pesikta d’Rav Kahana 5-7^th Century)

Rabbinic Judaism is far more interested in how people behave, in the keeping of mitzvot, in action rather than in belief.

Since the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai on the way from slavery in Egypt to freedom in their ancestral land, Jews are a people who are commanded – who are under a chiyyuv, and obligation – and whose live are traditionally framed by the observance of mitzvot.

Of course the idea of commandments does somewhere require there to be a commander, but while we may have an historic metzaveh in our texts, the doing of mitzvot is in and of itself integral to our religious life. So for example Rabbi David Polish wrote that “When a Jew performs one of the many life acts known as mitzvot to remind themselves of the moments of encounter, what was only episodic becomes epochal, what was only a moment in Jewish history becomes eternal in Jewish life”[i] His examples of the lighting of shabbat candles or of sitting at a Pesach seder are some of the examples he gives of our connecting with Jews across the world and across time. The meaning and purpose of mitzvah for him is in part a way of sharing history and experiences across Jewish people hood, something that strengthens us in the world, and that momentarily allows us to transcend the mundane into the spiritual.

There are many rabbinic names and descriptors for God. There are ways of understanding God not as a noun but as a verb – we are not tied to a thirteen year old god, some kind of supernatural being to whom we have to speak in stilted and formalised language. My very favourite name for God is “haMakom” – literally “the place”. Not a geographical location but a space where things can happen.

Israel – Jews – are named for struggling with God. Struggling with the ideas, the ethical demands, the behaviours that are required of us to be in covenant with God. The struggle is ongoing. If you find it hard to believe in the God of your childhood, then it is up to you to search the texts and find God with whom you can have a dialogue.

[i] ” Gates of Mitzvah: A Guide to the Jewish Life Cycle, ed. Simeon J. Maslin [New York: CCAR Press, 1979]

5th Elul – auditing the ethical accounts

Posted on August 13, 2021 by sylviarothschild

Elul 5 13^th August 2021

Elul is the time for us to do cheshbon nefesh, the accounting of our soul. The language is curious – it feels more like the language of commerce than that of spirituality. Yet the tradition is replete with such language and metaphor for our spiritual cleansing.

In Pirkei Avot we read “Rabbi (Judah haNasi) said: which is the straight path that a person should choose for themself? One which is an honour to the person adopting it, and [on account of which] honour [accrues] to him from others. And be careful with a light commandment as with a grave one, for you do know not the reward for the fulfilment of the commandments. Also, reckon the loss [that may be sustained through the fulfilment] of a commandment against the reward [accruing] thereby, and the gain [that may be obtained through the committing] of a transgression against the loss [entailed] thereby. Apply your mind to three things and you will not come into the clutches of sin: Know what there is above you: an eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.” (2:1)

There is a clear sense that our lives become balance sheets, with credit and debit columns that can be examined and checked against us. Spiritually we can both make profits and losses.

So with this metaphor in mind, Elul is the time for us to look at the balance sheets and make a plan so that next year we will look more spiritually solvent.

What will bring us honour and what will only bring us satisfaction? When we choose our path through the next year, tradition reminds us that there are bigger needs than our own immediate gratification. At some point there will be a reckoning – better to have the annual audit and make our adjustments gradually towards a more honourable life.

For after all, as we also find in Avot (2:15) “The day is short and the work is great, the workers are lazy and the reward is great and the Ruler of the House is insistent”

4th Elul – holy texts holy people

Posted on August 12, 2021 by sylviarothschild

Elul 4 12^th August

On this day in 1553 Pope Julius the third ordered the confiscation and burning of the Talmud.

‘Once these books are removed,’ an advisor to the Roman Inquisition had written, ‘it will soon be that the more that they are without the wisdom of their rabbis, so much more will they be prepared and disposed to receive the Christian faith and,’ what he calls, ‘the wisdom of the word of God.’

The Inquisitors confiscated every copy of the Talmud in Italy; On Rosh Hashanah 5314 (9 September 1553), that the Talmud and many other Jewish books were burnt in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome.

On 12 September 1553 another papal decree was issued, demanding that all copies of the Talmud throughout the Catholic world be gathered and destroyed. In Venice – then the world centre of Hebrew printing – the order was interpreted to include other Jewish books as well. On Saturday, 21 October 1553 , 3^rd Cheshvan 5314 all the books gathered were burned in Piazza San Marco.

Other Hebrew books were burned in 1568 in Venice.

Throughout the remainder of the sixteenth-century, a complete edition of the Talmud could not be found anywhere in the region.

Later, the printing of Hebrew books was permitted once more, but under censorship. They were checked and licenced by the authorities (licenza dei Superiori) whose imprimatur can be found in all Hebrew texts printed in Venice from the second half of the 16th century onwards.

The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and studying it has shaped Jewish thinking. Those of us who have read a page a day (daf yomi) for the seven and a half years it takes to complete the books will attest to a change in how the world is perceived. Yet the ideas of a people do not only reside on the printed page, and the burning of their books did not destroy the Jewish people.

Judaism resides in the spirit of the Jewish people. Ideas may be suppressed, people may be martyred, but as Leo Baeck wrote centuries later “A people only dies when its spirit dies”.

On the plaque recording the great burning in Rome there are two quotations. One from the Talmudic story of the martyrdom of Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion, who, wrapped in a burning torah scroll called out “The parchment is burning but the letters fly up to heaven”, the second from the lamentation Sha’ali Serufah ba-Esh, a kinah by Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, written in the 13^th century after the Disputation of Paris led to the destruction of almost every copy of the Talmud in Europe. The question is directed at the Torah, how can the text given in holy fire be destroyed in worldly fire? “My question, burned in the fire, about the welfare of mourners” (Sha’ali Serufah ba’Esh, leshalom avelai’ich”

For all that study of our texts has sustained and nourished us, informed and shaped our thinking, allowed us to express our reality and pursue ideas to their sometimes extraordinary conclusions, the texts themselves repeatedly tell us that it is the ideas they embody rather then the physical artefacts that matter. What is given in holy fire cannot be destroyed in worldly fire. It is our interaction and engagement with the ideas of Judaism that keeps our spirit alive, and keeps our people alive.

This coming week, month, year find some texts and engage with them. It can be bible or siddur, Talmud or commentary. Let yourself be touched and changed, discover for yourselves the holy fire.

rabbisylviarothschild

the occasional thoughts of a working woman rabbi in England

Tag Archives: spirituality