It’s been so lovely to celebrate, Rebecca (name changed), with you and your family, and to see you up here doing just so extraordinarily well. And to know you are off and running on this incredible journey of becoming a Jewish adult. It’s enough to make me deeply excited about the possibilities for our future.
Which is good, because,
frankly, that isn’t how I’ve been feeling for much of this week.
As we left the festival of
Shavuot, I was nastily jolted out of a
sense of peaceful delight by the awful news of an attack on Jews in Boulder
Colorado. On members of a Synagogue led by friend and colleague, Rabbi Marc
Soloway. Wishing everyone in that community healing and strength in a time of
real pain and bitterness.
And then, this week, my
wife has opened her new theatre show, The Reckoning, at the Arcola. Tickets
still available, since you ask. And yes, it has had wonderful reviews. But it’s
also a show about pain. The script is built from witness testimonies of survivors
of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, now, staggeringly over three years ago.
And against all that is
the news from Israel and Gaza where it’s grim, still terribly, terribly grim.
It feels like a wave.
It takes a certain kind of
bravery, a certain kind of strength, to embark on adulthood today. Any kind of
adulthood.
I think we need to teach
this certain kind of bravery, this certain kind of strength.
So here we go.
On my mind are two parts
of this Torah reading portion. Both strange. There’s a whole passage about what
to do if a husband suspects their wife in adultery. It’s a long passage with a
strange trial by ordeal that … well I’ve never seen it because it no longer
plays any role in an Jewish community. Why?
And then there’s a whole
passage where, one after another, the Bible explains that each leader of each
tribe brings a dedicatory offering to the sanctuary. But rather than list all
the names in one go, and list the identical offering once, the Torah details
these each identical gifts one after another. What could have been done in a fraction
of the time is expanded in a massive repetition in what becomes the longest
Aliyah in the Torah. Why?
The standard answer for
why we no longer do this strange ritual around suspected adultery. In Mishnah
Sotah it says, מִשֶּׁרַבּוּ
הַמְנָאֲפִים, פָּסְקוּ הַמַּיִם הַמָּרִים – when the amount of adulterly
increased they ceased doing this ritual.
That is to say, there’s
just too much of the same thing going on, we can’t pay it proper attention any
more.
And, goodness, I hear
that.
I hear that there is just
so much of the same thing going on, especially, the same bad things, that it’s
hard to pay it the proper attention. But I don’t like that answer.
And, for what it’s worth
it’s completely the opposite idea to the standard idea to explain the massive
repetition in detailing 12 offerings 12 times again and again and again.
In Rabbinics, the standard
answer why we get so much repetition, is that God cares about individuals and
doesn’t want see anyone lose their big moment, so even if it is the same thing
after the same thing, each Nasi of each tribe, each person gets their moment,
to stand proud and central as if their offering is the only offering, as they
deserve our upmost attention and acknowledgement.
So here we are, on the one hand, it’s a bit miserable,
following the news and seeing the same thing
again and again and again, and the temptation is just to normalise the bad
stuff. No longer to protest against it.
There are a bunch of
flashy terms and words for that – habituation is getting used to something so
it no longer drives from us a reaction. We come to accept the things that are
happening around us, for good or for ill, without question, without opposition,
without remark.
There’s the Overton
Window, named by Joseph Overton, who noted that the things that we, as a
society deem sensible shift over time and the thing that we once though was
beyond a pale becomes slowly acceptable, even if, really it should never be
considered acceptable.
There’s also that really
disturbing idea about boiling frogs. There’s an idea, I’m sure you’ve heard it,
that if we only increase the temperature of the water ever so gradually, a frog
won’t realise the water is getting hotter and hotter and won’t realise that
it’s boiling. Apparently frogs aren’t that stupid. Frogs realise. They get out
the water. It’s only the humans that don’t respond suitably to the reality that
we are boiling our water, destroying our planet while simultaneously protesting
that everything just normal. But maybe that’s a different sermon.
So I understand, I think
we all understand the notion that if something happens a lot, we give up paying
it close attention. That’s a human decision and, I think, a human failing.
Because the other way, the
decision to pay close attention and call, again and again the same out every
time it happens, that’s what the Torah does, that’s the Godly thing.
I’m reminded of the most powerful
prayer of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipput – the Unataneh Tokef –
כָל בָּאֵי עוֹלָם יַעַבְרוּן (תעביר)
לְפָנֶיךָ כִּבְנֵי מָרוֹן. כְּבַקָּרַת רוֹעֶה עֶדְרוֹ. מַעֲבִיר צאנוֹ תַּחַת
שִׁבְטוֹ .כֵּן תַּעֲבִיר וְתִסְפֹּר וְתִמְנֶה וְתִפְקֹד נֶפֶשׁ כָּל חָי
All of creation passes
before you, God, as if on a narrow mountain path, like a flock before the
shepherd, with each sheep passing under the staff, passing by, and counting and
being recognised and taken account of – the soul of each living thing.
You can almost hear the staff rising and falling as we each
get noted, accounted, counted.
In the language of my
wife’s play – did I mention tickets are still available – there will be a
reckoning. Everything we do does count.
Rebecca, you become BM
today.
You pick up, as an adult
Jew, not only a nice collection of new presents, but obligations on your own
account – Mitzvot. We say there are 613 of them and they are about, well lots
of things. The time you spend on one thing or another, what you are allowed to
do, or eat, or wear or say, even the amount of money you should be spending on
charity.
That’s because, to be
adult, means every single thing counts.
It leaves a trace.
Everything matters.
That’s the very heart of
who we are as Jews, with this huge raft of 613 Mitzvot.
We are a people who think
that everything counts.
And whether it’s just dull
that there are twelve entirely identical passages of different leaders bringing
the same sacrifice, or it’s yet another month after month of horrifying news
from Ukraine or Israel or Gaza or … everything matters.
And the adult thing to do,
the only thing to do is refuse to be desensitised, refuse to become a slow-boiling
frog.
We need to be a people who
notice, who are provoked, who pay attention.
The good news is that when
we do start looking there are incredible things to see; incredibly young girls
turning into incredible young women on the occasion of their BM, Mazal Tov Rebecca
again.
Incredible boys too, turning
into incredible young men.
There is the news that
warms our hearts and reminds us of the incredible gift of what it means to be a
human being, even in challenging times.
Members will be aware that we welcomed Itay Shabi to New
London on Shabbat 25th April. Itay, his wife and, four-year-old twin
daughters, evaded and escaped the invasion of their home on Kibbutz Be’eri on
October 7th.
He spoke with astounding humility, from the pulpit, of holding
the door-handle of the shelter-door closed as the terrorists attempted to break
in and their remarkable escape during the infiltration.
He also shared that he and his wife had made the decision
that, where the terrorists had brought death, they would bring life. His wife
was 7 months pregnant while he was in London.
I’m delighted to pass on the news of her safe childbirth and
the healthy arrival of Shavit, named in honour of the soldier who, eventually,
rescued the family.
Shavit’s Brit, earlier this week, was the first in Kibbutz
Be’eri since the awful invasion over 600 days ago.
Mazal Tov
Even in Ukraine, touching
moments of love and compassion and resilience and pure unadulterated humanity
in everything we could possibly aspire to be.
Even in Israel, at the
fundraiser for Yachad I attended with Rabbi Natasha and others from this community
– the Israeli, Elena Kaminika spoke about her son, killed defending Kibbutzim
on Oct 7th, and the Palestinian, Aziz Abu Sarah spoke about his
brother, killed while imprisoned by Israel – they both spoke about their work
to bring peace, insisting that change is possible, humanity is possible, even
amongst the multiplication of pain.
To be an adult, a real
adult,, not just someone who has been around for a while, means to continue to
see, and be provoked and care pay attention.
As a BM, Rebecca, you will
now count as part of our quorum on prayer.
You now count as an adult,
but to count isn’t just a function of numbers. It means to have a certain
attitude to the gift of being a grown up.
Actually, you, I’m not
worried about.
You’re going to be great.
It’s the rest of us who
need to remember never to give up, and always to pay attention, to the good
things, in particular.
Shabbat Shalom
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