tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4041481468884734282024-03-18T09:48:10.836+00:00Rabbi on a Narrow BridgeA meeting place for tradition and modernity, viewed from a Masorti perspectiveRabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.comBlogger715125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-44498871849830806482024-02-26T14:23:00.001+00:002024-02-26T14:23:08.092+00:00On the Public Stage - For the Release of Hostages and for Democracy in IsraelIn September, and then again in October, I had the privilege of speaking to large crowds at two events in Central London.The first, was a pro-Democracy rally where I shared thisAnd then, awfully, just weeks later at a rally for the release of all the hostages, but particularly as a Shaliach for Noam Sagi whose mother (now released) was taken on the 7th October 2023.Posting here for anyone Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-12727550860321781712024-01-26T09:38:00.004+00:002024-01-26T09:38:19.822+00:00On Holocaust Memorial Day at New London SynagogueThis year Holocaust Memorial Day falls on Saturday 27th January. I want to pay tribute to all those who have made this day such an important occasion in our national calendar. We are all invited to place a candle in our window at 8pm this Saturday evening. Iconic buildings will be lit up purple and there is a project to light 6 million ‘digital candles’ on billboards across Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-45322447869413215742023-12-07T17:08:00.006+00:002023-12-07T17:08:46.914+00:00The Chanukah Giraffe Chanukah has always asked the question – are you, as a Jew, willing to raise your head above the parapet? Right back in the earliest days, the heart of the Maccabean revolt was the refusal to shrug and fall in line when the surrounding society said, “Don’t be Jewish.” The Maccabees found this intolerable. And so, here we are. Two hundred years later, the Rabbis articulated rules Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-36306423245906001432023-11-22T18:09:00.001+00:002023-11-22T18:09:43.657+00:00On Abortion I was asked by a teen congregant for Judaism's approach to abortion. I responded with this.Judaism's position on abortion falls into neither of two main camps on this difficult issue - neither 'pro-life' nor 'pro-choice.' My primary teacher on this issue is a fellow classmate in the Rabbinical School where we were both ordained. She, Rabbi Dalia Kronish, carries the genetic code for Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-68792790532951377802023-11-20T22:07:00.000+00:002023-11-20T22:07:33.810+00:00And He Lifted Up His Voice and Wept - A Sermon on Shabbat Toledot Always a difficult Parasha
I get that we are supposed to favour Jacob over Esau and indeed
find ourselves, the Children of Israel, in the narrative of our patriarch
Jacob.
But … I never have.
Jacob comes across in this week’s Torah reading as a bit of a schemer, quick to do his brother out of his birthright at the beginning of the
Parasha. And then quick to follow his mother’s – let it Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-66964822049515819992023-11-13T15:01:00.006+00:002023-11-13T20:43:33.420+00:00How to Stop Making the World Worse - Or - Do They ALL Really Hate Us?My phone began flashing alerts late on Saturday night. Since then I have probably received over 200 expressions of concern from across the globe as well as local political and civil leadership and members of the Synagogue I serve.
A short reel emerged on Instagram and Twitter which showed a
man wearing a Keffiyeh spraying green smoke into the air while he, and a man
unseen in a car, waved aloft Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-23143314361504942302023-11-09T11:59:00.001+00:002023-11-09T11:59:32.782+00:00Sources That Ground a Jewish Military Ethic Military Ethics
Part One – Biblical Models
<!--[if !supportLists]-->a)
<!--[endif]-->Amalek
Deuteronomy 25
Remember what Amalek did to
you on your journey, after you left Egypt— (18) how, undeterred by fear of God,
he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down
all the stragglers in your rear. (19) Therefore, when your God grants you
safety from Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-29893054794768696222023-11-03T16:00:00.004+00:002023-11-03T16:00:59.574+00:00 Jewish Reflections on War and PeaceThis is an extract from my book, Spiritual Vagabondry. Posting here because ... oy.I was contacted by
the editors of the journal, The Arches, asking if I would consider contributing
an article, outlining Jewish approaches to ‘War and Peace,’ the theme for an
upcoming publication. The Arches is published by The Cordoba Foundation. They are
an organisation, founded by a British Muslim, ‘committed Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-75986353123645815292023-10-15T14:06:00.003+01:002023-10-15T14:06:59.068+01:00For the Release of Hostages - Speech Given at Parliament Sq 15th Oct 2023 I want to share words with you here as a Shaliach as a
messenger for a dear friend, a member of my community at New London Synagogue
and one of the most remarkable people I have ever met.
Noam Sagi’s mother, Ada Sagi, has been missing since the atrocities
of last Saturday. Ada’s home is Kibbutz Nir Oz, a beautiful place close to the
border of Gaza. Last Saturday, attacking on the religiousRabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-17617250260941919332023-09-24T14:25:00.008+01:002023-09-29T13:12:41.734+01:00On Israel - Kol Nidrei Sermon
I feel the need to address Israel from the Bimah this year. I
don’t think it’s appropriate to ignore what’s been going on in the one Jewish
nation-state, in this, its 75th year, the 50th
Anniversary of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. But it’s hard to bring a
community of Jews closer together and closer to our faith by giving a sermon
about Israel at the moment. And Yom Kippur should be a Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-30874265698963138792023-09-24T14:23:00.001+01:002023-09-24T14:23:24.029+01:00Quitting - A Neilah SermonI should probably start with a spoiler.
I’ve no big personal announcement to make in this sermon. I
want to talk about its subject because I think it’s important. I want to talk
about quitting, or moving on to new challenges or … that sort of thing. But, as
I said, I’ve no big personal announcement.
Over the summer, an article spread through the social media of
my friends.<!--[if !Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-84776859672585884352023-09-24T13:58:00.001+01:002023-09-24T13:58:29.978+01:00What is Left for the Human - A Yizkor Sermon in the Age of Chat GPTMah Adam
V’Tedayhu, Ben Enosh vTechashveyhu
What is a human that you,
God, should know us? What is humanity that you should consider us?
These questions, from the
opening of the Yizkor service, always awaken in me the memories of those I have
loved and lost, but, for me, this year, they also have particularly technological
resonance. I’ll come back to the Yizkor piece, but I want, in a year Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-59295692950462110362023-09-15T12:49:00.003+01:002023-09-15T12:49:40.436+01:00 To See Others, To Change Others - A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Day One 5784
Here’s a
cute thing little kids do. They’ll cover their eyes and assume that just
because they can’t see you, you can’t see them. “Peekabo.” For a tiny
child, the idea that anyone else sees the world differently from the way they
see the world is so absurd you can get peals of laughter from playing along.
Adorable
isn’t it. From a small child.
My concern,
my fear and the driving force of my Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-78088072206634740092023-09-15T12:45:00.002+01:002023-09-15T12:45:13.885+01:00Accommodate the Environment - A Sermon for Second Day Rosh Hashanah 5784The choice of subject was easy. I wanted to talk about
the environment today, partly because it’s possibly the most significant area of our
lives where we, as humanity, owe a responsibility to our Creator and our fellow
human beings to change. And partly because it’s proving so difficult for us, as
humanity, to make that change. We’re stuck.
There’s an old joke that feels less funny every time IRabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-55719462016803369082023-09-10T12:25:00.004+01:002023-09-11T08:02:02.490+01:00A Speech Given at the Pro-Democracy Rally, Trafalgar Square, London, 10th Sept 2023 I’m Rabbi
Jeremy Gordon from New London Synagogue. It’s an honour to be here.
Anachnu
Nitzavim Kulanu Hayom
We are all
stood here today; the religious, the secular, the old and the young, the men
and the women to say that this is wrong.
And I know,
within the government of the State of Israel, there are those who think that,
that we protest because, somehow, we lack love for the State ofRabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-33661674996042789652023-07-14T11:34:00.001+01:002023-07-14T11:34:05.659+01:00'But We' - Here in the Diaspora The piece I am preparing to read in Shul this Shabbat articulates
my understanding of an acceptable relationship with Israel – as someone who
doesn’t live in the country.
On the far banks of the Jordan, the tribes of Reuven and Gad
are struck by the suitability of diasporic land for their many sheep. They approach
Moses and ask, “If we have found favour in your eyes,” to remain, Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-65875301573590719732023-07-07T15:47:00.009+01:002023-07-07T15:47:51.746+01:00Pastoral Implications in Lurianic MythologI
The
doctrines of Lurianic Kabbalah have important implications for the Jewish
Pastoral Carer and these are implications untapped in published work in the
field. So many of the texts that seek to guide the work of pastoral carers speak
a Christian discourse and while Jewish pastors are starting to use Jewish
responses, the canon needs stretching.
II
All this,
of course, begs Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-59859799700479321182023-06-30T17:54:00.002+01:002023-06-30T17:54:53.928+01:00We Are the Weather And
then it was the water.
In
these strange times, as we lurch from pandemic to climate catastrophe to
military invasions to …. oh the next thing, I wasn’t expecting to hear the news
about the water companies this week.
I
knew a bit about the privatisation of state utilities under the Thatcher Government.
I wrote school projects about the privatisation of British Gas when I was,
Avery, Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-42763352954094575862023-06-16T17:39:00.003+01:002023-06-16T17:39:58.877+01:00How To Bend the World Towards Love - Parshat Shelach It’s exam season, here’s a little physics, for those of us who
still shudder at the thought of spending these weeks desperately trying to
remember Newton’s First Law of Motion, or some such.
An object, Newton articulated, will remain in uniform motion,
in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external
force.
I’m not, you are probably relieved to hear, Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-70032364060165763062023-06-16T09:53:00.002+01:002023-06-16T09:53:18.732+01:00Welcoming Expressions of Interest in a Textile Commission for New London Synagogue
Our community is looking to commission some new
textiles suitable for our Grade II Listed building.
The heart of our sanctuary is the reading table from
which prayers are led and the Torah is read. The original cloth used on that
table is now looking tired and we have the opportunity to create something new
– and more interesting - in memory of a remarkable, sadly recently deceased,
member of Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-25071615485301341672023-05-30T20:43:00.002+01:002023-05-30T20:43:23.739+01:00What Does it Mean to be Masorti?I thought I would share some thoughts on what it
means to be a Masorti Synagogue, for us (many of us) to be Masorti Jews. It’s
a good Shabbat to be reflecting on and celebrating who we are - Rosie, you and I – for me today is the
nineteenth anniversary of my ordination as a Masorti Rabbi and, for you, it’s
the first day of your life as a Masorti Jewish adult. And many parts of what
you Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-27552935103005058662023-05-24T18:59:00.001+01:002023-05-24T18:59:13.898+01:00Reminds Me of a KingMekorot in Honour of Tikkun Leyl Shavuot 5783Mashal LeMelech
Louis Jacobs, Principles of the Jewish Faith
Maimonides
is of the opinion that whatever attributes we use of God are to be understood
in a negative sense. They do not tell us what God is but what He is not. Thus
when we say that God is one we do not really mean to imply that we know
anything about God's true nature but we merely Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-60629900247723375832023-05-02T09:50:00.003+01:002023-05-02T09:50:34.197+01:00It Wasn't Just the Shaving Foam - On the 75th Anniversary of the Declaration of Israel's Independence I didn’t, I’m sorry to
say, enjoy the Yomei Ha’Atzmaut I spent in Jerusalem, part of a throng
of thousands jostling along Ben Yehuda, being hit over the head with 6ft
inflatable beeping hammers and being covered in shaving foam.
It wasn’t just the shaving
foam.
It’s that I get a little
uneasy with mob displays of uniformity. There’s still a place in my soul that
feels uneasy at the sight Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-38978700950432735482023-04-02T13:27:00.004+01:002023-04-02T13:27:49.166+01:00Reflections on a Paschal Goat I remember well the year I
spent the weeks before Pesach in Dimona, a development town in Israel’s Negev
desert founded during the great immigration of Jews from Morocco in the 1950s.
It was a diverse place, as well as Jews from across North Africa, there were
Indians and Ethiopians, just not many Ashkenazim. On Rosh Chodesh a sheep
appeared, tethered to a tree on the front lawn of the Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-404148146888473428.post-74380634328725308172023-04-02T13:21:00.002+01:002023-04-02T13:21:57.849+01:00On Freedom - Looking Backwards and ForwardsOn Wednesday night, at the Passover Seder
Table, we will read from the Haggadah, ‘Remember that you were slaves to
Pharoah in Egypt.’ We are called to see ourselves as if we personally were
there, and left. The memory is painted starkly and in binary terms. We went;
Me’Avdut LeHerut – from slavery
to freedom
MeYagon L’Simchah – from misery
to joy
UMeEvel L’Yom Tov – from mourning
to festivity
Rabbi Jeremy Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02566221408060070063noreply@blogger.com0