Friday 24 April 2009

Between Holocaust and Independence

Last week we commemorated Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Memorial Day.

This coming week we commemorate Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut, days of memory and celebration for the creation and continued survival of the State of Israel.

 

I have been reading a recently completed PhD on our founding Rabbi of blessed memory, by Rabbi Dr Elliot Cosgrove, now of the Park Avenue Synagogue NY. Rabbi Cosgrove notes that Rabbi Jacobs was inducted as Rabbi of the Central Synagogue (of Manchester) one month before the Israeli Declaration of Independence and records, what he considers, ‘the most theologically-minded Zionist statement on record for Jacobs,’ published in early 1949;

 

“The upheaval through which our people have lived during the past ten years is so terrible that to attempt to explain it is to be smug and complacent…Yet one effect of that upheaval is that our people have been shocked out of its indifference to its future as a people on a land of its own. The iron clutch of the Galut has been compelled to release us and we, like our people of old in the time of the Exodus… are therefore able to celebrate the Pesach of our people. The slave mentality of the Galut-loving Jew who hated real freedom has been defeated with the establishment of the state of Israel.” (“Judaism and Freedom,” Chayenu)

 

 

Israel, as a nation State, is a marker of ‘real freedom,’ a freedom which is not cosy, but comes with challenges, burdens and complexities. It is only the ‘slave mentality,’ says Jacobs, which would reject this ‘real freedom.’ Our challenge is to celebrate this real freedom, as we celebrate the challenging freedom from Egypt. We may indeed pause to remove some wine from our cups, but if we dare lapse back into an ‘indifference to [our] future as a people on a land of [our] own’ we fail.

 

Shabbat shalom

Tuesday 14 April 2009

Colliding Memories and Yom HaShoah

It is the season for memories.

Last week we remembered as if we, personally, went forth, baking matzah on our backs, singing songs about goats etc. etc. All very jolly. The sufferings of Egyptian slavery have been through the wash-cycle and are bleached white and shiny. The focus of Passover is on redemption and freedom; the focus is forwards, towards Sinai, and entering the land of Israel.

 

This week we remember the Holocaust. And there is no jollity. As I write this my mind is drawn to the relationship between the march out of Egypt and the Death Marches of the last days of the Nazi era. Raizl Kibl marched from Auschwitz and later recalled;

 

‘In a frost half-barefoot or entirely barefoot, with light rags upon their emaciated and exhausted bodies, tens of thousands of human creatures drag themselves along in the snow. Only the great strong striving for life, and the light of imminent liberation kept them on their feet. [For] woe to them whose physical strength abandons them, They are shot on the spot. In such a way were thousands who had endured camp life up to the last minute murdered, a moment before liberation.’

 

So what are we doing when we commemorate Yom HaShoah? It’s not a ‘happy ever after’ kind of a story. There is, of course, a State of Israel, but there is no redemption. Nor can we rely on the oft-quoted slogan of my youth, ‘Never Again.’ There have been too many genocides, from Rwanda to Bosnia, for me to feel that there is a connection between the commitment to remember our own Holocaust and the safety of every people from this most heinous of offences.

Rather, I want to suggest two other reasons for memory.

When we remember we afford a scrap of dignity to those who were killed being told implicitly and explicitly that there lives counted for nothing, that no-one would remember. We remember to prove the Nazis wrong. Their lives did count and do count still.

And secondly, we remember to feel pain, feeling pain is good. We should expose ourselves to feeling pain, this is how we know we are alive, this is how we know we are compassionate, this is how we know we care. We remember the Holocaust because, as our own eyes prick with tears, we remind ourselves of our own humanity and our membership of the Jewish people. The Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto, Kalonymous Shapiro, suggested that when all doctrines of reward and punishment have crumbled away all that remains is the possibility of crying together, together with out fellow humans and together with a God who, Shapiro claims citing the Talmud, cries too. In this we remind ourselves that even if we cannot change the facts of the Holocaust, we refuse to accept them with a shrug of the shoulders and a flip to the back pages to check out the sports headlines.

 

We commemorate Yom haShoah at New London with a talk from Kitty Hart-Moxon, Auschwitz survivor, come to prove the Nazis wrong, come to be reminded of our shared humanity.

 

Shabbat shalom,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

Monday 13 April 2009

Drowning in a Sea of Embarassment

Yet when you appear and dazzle –

I am almost drowned

In a sea of embarrassment

(From A.J. Heschel’s To a Lady in a Dream)

 

Be careful what you wish for.

Freedom comes at a cost.

Life, as a slave, for all its physical traumas, is spiritually empty. No decisions, no responsibilities, no matter.

Life, as a free person, for all its material attractiveness, is spiritually demanding.

This, of course, is why the children of Israel spent so much of their time, in the desert, wistfully remembering the ‘good old days’ in Egypt.

 

I have no understanding of why I was born here and now, and not as Jew in Warsaw in the late 1930s, or a Darfuri in the late 1990s. I claim no special merit resulted in my childhood being so full of parental love and opportunity. And, yet, here I am - enjoying a level of health, security and prosperity almost unknown, not only in the history of the Jewish people, but in the history of humanity. These are the great gifts of freedom. And I am almost drowned  / In a sea of embarrassment.

 

How should one respond to a gift of freedom beyond the dreams of my ancestors and most of the world.

Let me suggest two ways.

First – say thank you, bless, sing, even come to shul. We are at our very heart a thanks-giving people. ‘Yehudi’ - Jew – comes from the root ‘to give thanks.’ We say these words at the Seder, ‘It is our duty to thank, laud, praise, glorify, exalt, adore, bless, elevate and honour the One who did all these miracles for our ancestors and for us. He took us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to festivity, and from deep darkness to great light and from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore recite before God, Halleluyah.’ We could all benefit by becoming more articulate in our giving thanks for the bounty we have.

 

Secondly – help tip the scales in favour of those who have less. Rambam (Hilchot Teshuva 3:8) teaches that the whole world is delicately balanced between tipping onto the scale of merit or futility. Be a force for tipping the world to the side of merit. My e-mail in-tray fills up, this time of year with ‘Seder inserts’ – supposed to stimulate discussion and action around Pesach – fair trade, poverty in the developing world, gifts to feed the poor, Jewish and not, fight slavery both literal and (no less demeaning) figurative. There are some links below. Choose something to share at the seder, choose some cause to support on the eve of our own celebration of Freedom, chose one difference to inculcate into your lives in the year to come.

Ah – this freedom thing costs. But paying off our debt to our Creator, our people and the planet on which we live is both exhilarating and a worthy task for one who is free.

 

Chag Sameach and every good wish for a wonderful Pesach,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

AJWS – Fighting poverty in the developing world  - http://tiny.cc/ajwspesach

A Jewish Guide to Fair Trade - http://tiny.cc/jewishfairtrade

Hazon Yeshaya – Providing food and clothing for the poor in Israel - http://www.hazonyeshaya.org/uk.html    

 

Happy pesach

Yet when you appear and dazzle –

I am almost drowned

In a sea of embarrassment

(From A.J. Heschel’s To a Lady in a Dream)

 

Be careful what you wish for.

Freedom comes at a cost.

Life, as a slave, for all its physical traumas, is spiritually empty. No decisions, no responsibilities, no matter.

Life, as a free person, for all its material attractiveness, is spiritually demanding.

This, of course, is why the children of Israel spent so much of their time, in the desert, wistfully remembering the ‘good old days’ in Egypt.

 

I have no understanding of why I was born here and now, and not as Jew in Warsaw in the late 1930s, or a Darfuri in the late 1990s. I claim no special merit resulted in my childhood being so full of parental love and opportunity. And, yet, here I am - enjoying a level of health, security and prosperity almost unknown, not only in the history of the Jewish people, but in the history of humanity. These are the great gifts of freedom. And I am almost drowned  / In a sea of embarrassment.

 

How should one respond to a gift of freedom beyond the dreams of my ancestors and most of the world.

Let me suggest two ways.

First – say thank you, bless, sing, even come to shul. We are at our very heart a thanks-giving people. ‘Yehudi’ - Jew – comes from the root ‘to give thanks.’ We say these words at the Seder, ‘It is our duty to thank, laud, praise, glorify, exalt, adore, bless, elevate and honour the One who did all these miracles for our ancestors and for us. He took us from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to festivity, and from deep darkness to great light and from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore recite before God, Halleluyah.’ We could all benefit by becoming more articulate in our giving thanks for the bounty we have.

 

Secondly – help tip the scales in favour of those who have less. Rambam (Hilchot Teshuva 3:8) teaches that the whole world is delicately balanced between tipping onto the scale of merit or futility. Be a force for tipping the world to the side of merit. My e-mail in-tray fills up, this time of year with ‘Seder inserts’ – supposed to stimulate discussion and action around Pesach – fair trade, poverty in the developing world, gifts to feed the poor, Jewish and not, fight slavery both literal and (no less demeaning) figurative. There are some links below. Choose something to share at the seder, choose some cause to support on the eve of our own celebration of Freedom, chose one difference to inculcate into your lives in the year to come.

Ah – this freedom thing costs. But paying off our debt to our Creator, our people and the planet on which we live is both exhilarating and a worthy task for one who is free.

 

Chag Sameach and every good wish for a wonderful Pesach,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

AJWS – Fighting poverty in the developing world  - http://tiny.cc/ajwspesach

A Jewish Guide to Fair Trade - http://tiny.cc/jewishfairtrade

Hazon Yeshaya – Providing food and clothing for the poor in Israel - http://www.hazonyeshaya.org/uk.html    

 

Sunday 5 April 2009

Sheep's Gone, Now What

You may, or may not, recognise this song מה נשתנה הלילה הזה מכל הלילות שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלין בשר צלי שלוק ומבושל הלילה הזה כולו צלי On all other nights we eat meat roasted, boiled or stewed, on this night only roasted. It comes from the original version of the Mah nishtana, as appeared in the Mishnah,[1] a document so old that much of it can be dated back to Temple times, two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago, when the Temple still stood, the Children of Israel would arrive in Jerusalem, each family grouping leading their own Paschal offering – a sheep or a goat - which would be prepared for the Paschal Meal – the seder night. And the Paschal offering was roasted. In ancient times the forging of the nation of Israel in the moment we came forth from Egypt was deemed to be a forging in fire, and so we ate the Paschal lamb forged, roasted in that fire. And then, of course, the Temple was destroyed. No more Paschal offering, The question from the mah nishtanah goes, replaced by something to do with leaning. And as for the Paschal offering the sheep, the goat We are left with shells, shadows, vestiges רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל הָיָה אוֹמֵר:כָּל שֶׁלֹּא אָמַר שְׁלשָׁה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ בַּפֶּסַח , לֹא יָצָא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ Rabban Gamliel used to say, all who do not mention these three things at Passover has not fulfilled their obligation פֶּסַח שֶׁהָיוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אוֹכְלִים בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הָיָה קַיָם, עַל שׁוּם מָה? The Paschal offering that our ancestors used to eat when the Temple was still standing … And of course the song – Chad gadyah, chad gadyah The goat, once the very centrepiece of the Passover meal has become a nursery rhyme recited partly in exhaustion and partly in intoxication. A sad end to a journey for the once proud and mighty Paschal sacrifice. So this is my question – how should we deal with the fact that we can no longer offer up a Paschal offering? The sheep is gone, now what? Or let me set the question more broadly, how do we deal with the loss of something we knew, and loved, and could count on that suddenly is gone. Replaced by a world we no longer recognise, no longer so familiar, no longer so secure. It’s a question I’ve been pondering this week in the light of the G20, it’s a very good question for us, here at New London, and I think, Paul, Beth, it is also a very good question for parents of a young boy who is turning into a man before your eyes. The sheep is gone, now what? The sociologist Claes Janssen has a theory about how we deal with change thrust upon us.[2] He calls it the four rooms of change. Imagine, says Janssen, a house of four rooms. In the first room everything is just how you like it. Your favourite sofa, comfy chairs, wallpaper just so. It’s all perfect. This is the room of Contentment. Then something happens and, like it or not, you are forced out of the room of contentment and into another room. Now this room looks just like the room of contentment, but there is something very different. You can’t quite put your finger on it, or bring yourself o articulate what has changed, and so you pretend that nothing has changed. You keep sitting in the sofa, which isn’t as comfy as it once was, and you start getting frustrated that the pattern on the wallpaper now seems to be giving you a headache. Something is wrong and, all too often, you can’t quite work out why. The good news is that there is door out of the room of Denial, so you head through it. But in this new room everything is clearly different, it’s all new, none of it is to your taste and whereas you didn’t quite know why you were feeling awkward in the room of Denial you are quite clear that this new room, the Room of Confusion, is not where you want to be. You heading back to the room of Denial, hoping to get back to the room of Contentment, but that door is sealed forevermore. So you wander back and forth between the room of Denial and the room of Confusion feeling irritable and ill-at-ease until eventually you see a door in the far side of the room of Confusion. You’re amazed you had never seen it before, but there it is. In the far side of the room of Confusion is a door into a room of Renewal. And you give up on ever getting back into the room of Comfort, so clearly sealed off, and head off into the new future – this new creative beginning. Four rooms You get thrown out of the room of Comfort into the room of Denial. You wander back and forth between Denial and Confusion. Eventually you give up on what once was and then the door to Renewal appears. It’s an interesting model. It certainly presents an intriguing way of viewing the work of the G20. The wealthy nations were all very comfortable in their never-ending cycles of boom and boom. Well that’s now gone. There’s no more credit and our leaders, God bless them, are desperately trying to find ways to get us back into the room of Comfort. And we don’t like this confusion, with its increased unemployment and decreased levels of expenditure. But we aren’t yet ready to give up on the model of capitalism we once knew. There is a lot to give up. For one thing we need to cut our carbon footprint in half. For another we need to find a way to take 1 billion people out of sickening levels of poverty. The door to room of Renewal is still pretty well hidden from the eyes of the leaders of our Great Nation States. The Four Room model also, I think, offers a fresh perspective on the recent history of this holy community, New London Synagogue. Rabbi Jacobs – the very epitome of comfort for so many of us – became older and we didn’t like it. And we didn’t like the changes that this unavoidable reality thrust upon us and wanted to go back to the room of Comfort and it took a long time to find the door to the room of Renewal. It took a while for us, as a Synagogue, to feel comfortable looking ahead, rather than looking back. And I think it is a model, dear Paul, Beth, for the journey you face as parents in these coming years. Oscar’s no longer a child. You’ve left that room, and the teenage years are difficult years in which to parent. Everything is in flux, nothing fits anymore, the journey to the room of Renewal is bumpy. Four rooms You get thrown out of the room of Comfort into the room of Denial. You wander back and forth between Denial and Confusion. Eventually you give up on what once was and then the door to Renewal appears. So how do we get to this fabled room of Renewal. Do we really have to leave everything we knew and once loved behind? I don’t think so. I think, rather, the secret might be in yet another piece of the Hagadah זֵכֶר לְמִקְדָּשׁ כְּהִלֵּל. כֵּן עָשָׂה הִלֵּל בִּזְמַן שבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הָיָה קַיָים: הָיָה כּוֹרֵךְ מַצָּה וּמָרוֹר וְאוֹכֵל בְּיַחַד, לְקַיֵים מַה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: עַל מַצּוֹת וּמְרֹרִים יֹאכְלֻהוּ. A zecher. We do this like Hillel would while the Temple was still standing, fold the matzah and the herbs around the meat and eat them together as it says, ‘eat it – that’s the Paschal offering we no longer eat – with matzah and bitter herbs.’ The term zecher is usually translated as a memory, but that is not quite right. It’s more than that. A zecher is a memory that drives us to do something. This zecher drives us to perform a ritual that both acknowledges the Temple is destroyed and reminds us of our history. It hold both our memory and allows for our renewal in one moment. Jews love this notion of zecher - a memory built into a ritual, at seder night most especially. The ritual holds the meaning and memory – the past - and still allows for renewal and future. In the language of neuroscience, the ritual allows the same synapses in our brain to spark away, keeping alive what can be kept alive, letting go of what has forever gone. At the seder we still bring the Paschal offering, it’s there in the shankbone, it’s there in the zecher lmikdash chillel. It’s there in the song about the goat. But we have moved on; there is a new question in the mah nishtana, Indeed the whole seder night ritual is no longer predicated on each of us turning up in Jerusalem leading our Paschal offering up to the Temple Mount. The whole ritual is a renewal, a new kind of celebration. This is the incredible power of ritual, Jewish ritual, our tradition. It allows us to acknowledge what has been lost and move on holding what we can of the past, open to the challenges and opportunities of the future. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע Once we know we can walk through the valley of the shadows of death fearing no evil what fears does a room of Denial, or a room of Confusion hold for me? Jewish ritual gives us a way to journey forwards while still being true to the traditions and values of our past. It is an incredibly powerful gift And there is no Jewish ritual more powerful than the Seder night. For it is the Seder night, with its absence of the goat and its had gadyah which holds us all as we sit round the Seder table and remember grandparents and great-grandparents who are no longer with us, and yet we still cook the same food and sing the same tunes as we learnt when we first paraded before the grown-ups to sing the mah nistanah. The seder night is the ritual par eminence which holds the meaning and the memory – the past - and still allows for renewal and future. We lost, we’ve struggle for a while, and we’ve found ourselves again, renewed. Year after year, Seder after Seder. We’ve left one room of Comfort after another, from the destruction of the Tempe, the expulsion from Spain, from Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, we’ve used our past to bring with us those most important dreams. Dreams of an end to slavery. Dreams of freedom. Dreams a God who puts an end to the work of the angel of death. And we have found a way to be both free – renewed - and true to our glorious heritage. We fold the matzah around a Paschal offering that is no longer there and perform a zecher – a memory folded into a ritual. And we sing a song about a goat. Chad gadyah, chad gadyah, It is a heritage of extraordinary worth, we would do well to care and tend for it, at this time of year, perhaps above all others. A good Pesach to us all, And Shabbat shalom,

Thursday 2 April 2009

Preparing for Pesach - Going Chametz Free


Thanks,
Jeremy

The Talmud (Pesachim 10a) contains a tongue-in-cheek discussion of what a person should do if, in the midst of Pesach, perhaps leaning back in the course of Seder night, one sees a loaf of bread lurking in the rafters. The discussion (sadly uncompleted) hinges on whether the Rabbis would put a person to such trouble since the said loaf is unlikely to fall down. The good news is that no party to the conversation considers the Rabbis immune to the notion that ‘enough is enough.’ The point is this - going chametz free should not be, and was never intended to be a loathsome, exhaustive burden.

It’s supposed to be hard work, a ritual endeavour in every sense, but not something to fear and certainly not something to enslave.

 

The Rabbis instituted a three-fold model of going chametz free.

First – the obvious bit – remove the chametz.

Then perform a bittul. This is the safety-net, it’s the guaranteed removal of any chametz we might have missed. Twice, once on Tuesday evening and then again on Wednesday morning say the magic words;

“All hametz in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, shall be nullified and be ownerless as the dust of the earth.”

And it is gone.

 

The third element is the one which attracts occasional (misplaced) ridicule. Mechirat chametz – a sale of chametz is one of the great gifts of Rabbinic culture. For those of us who collect whiskey, or would feel the financial (or ecological) pinch of having to throw out perfectly good chametzdik food, the Rabbis created a method whereby food can be sold and then repurchased and used again after Pesach. Now the Rabbis knew, as much as we know today, that this mechirah is a loophole, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. What we rather the bearers of our tradition were blind unswerving automata? This willingness to meet us in our endeavour, treating us as humans with human needs and human strength, is the very essence of Rabbinic Judaism and every time I avail myself of this loophole I’m grateful for the boldness of my Rabbinic predecessors.

If you wish me to arrange a mechira for you please send me rabbi[at]newlondon.org.uk an e-mail with your name and full address and the phrase, ‘I empower and permit Rabbi Jeremy Gordon, or any agent appointed by him, to sell all chametz possessed by me.’  I need these mails by noon on 7th April.

 

For more on the technical rules regarding preparing for Pesach please check the New London guide to Passover, on-line at http://www.newlondon.org.uk/files/pes09.pdf

 

Shabbat shalom,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

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