On Women, 9th Av, Harlots, Agency and the Future of New London Synagogue

The Eve of the Deluge, William Bell Scott c. 1865

Jerusalem the Harlot

On the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av we read a Haftarah that warns of the destruction of the City of Jerusalem.

Eichah Hayitah LZonah the prophet Isaiah asks about the city – How is it possible that she has become a harlot?[1]

Harlotry as a Biblical metaphor is staggeringly well-attested; the Israelites run after other gods when they are supposed to be monotheists. And the prophets describe them as harlots.

This is from the opening of the book of Jeremiah;

“The word of the Lord came to me,

This is what the Lord says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth,
    how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,
    through a land not sown.

And then a few verses later

“Long ago you broke off your yoke
    and tore off your bonds and under every spreading tree
    you lay down as a prostitute."[2]

The entire structure and driving force of the Book of Hosea is the command, given to its hero, to marry a harlot – Gomer, so Hosea can appreciate God’s pain with Israel running off after other gods. It’s an ugly relationship. At one point the cuckolded lover promises retribution – it’s not clear whether it’s Hosea talking about his wife, or God talking about Israel – in these sharp words;

“I will strip her naked and expose her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst.”[3]

The Biblical scholar Renita Weems writes: “Hosea’s use of the marriage metaphor to describe [God] and Israel’s relationship is very effective, [but] it raises problems for those who are concerned that the Bible may excuse violence against women. If God has the right to punish the people, the image of a husband physically punishing his wife becomes almost unavoidable, and his right to do so unquestionable.”[4]

We claim the Bible should infuse our contemporary actions. We are proud of the way Exodus inspires us to oppose contemporary slavery. We love the way Shabbat seeks to give us a balance between being workers and ensouled human beings. We proclaim that the creation of every human being in the image of God means that all humans should be honoured. So, what do we do with an idea that gives a divine imprimatur to domestic violence?

Jerusalem the Wailing Widow

Let me try another problem, one less brutal but far broader in its contemporary reach.

The verse in the Haftarah read before Tisha B’Av  Eichah Hayitah LZonah – ‘How did she become a harlot?’ – echoes the opening line of the book of Lamentations read on Tisha B’Av itself.

Eicha yashvah bdad haIr rabati am hayitah k’almanah

– ‘How did the city once so full of people, become deserted, like a widow.’

Jerusalem is to be compared to a widow.

‘She weeps bitterly, tears on her cheeks, she has no comforter among her lovers.’[5]

Throughout the book of Lamentations, the victim of destruction is referred to in female terms, Bat Zion - ‘Daughter Zion’ (see Lam. 1.6; 2.1), Bat Yerushalim - ‘Daughter Jerusalem’ (Lam. 2.13) Betulat Bat Yehudah - ‘virgin Daughter Judah’ (Lam. 1.15) Jerusalem is a mother mourning her ‘her children.’ (vv. 16, 18)[6]

Some, such as the Bible Scholar Barbara Kaiser, find it moving that, finally, after so many male heroes, we get the Bible using a female persona to express itself.[7] But others, like Deryn Guest, argue these female metaphors just perpetuate seeing women as recipients of male violence. The men, Guest suggests, evade the public glare of scrutiny while the brunt of the blame is shifted onto a personified woman.[8]             

To me, the issue is not that men evade responsibility – there are plenty of verses attacking male failure. It’s that the role the Book of Lamentations presents only one role for women – the role of weeping. There’s no female agency in Lamentations.[9] The role of woman that arises from the Book is to wail, and that's it.

Again, that imagery is not limited to one Biblical appearance. In Jeremiah we find this;

Thus says the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more.[10]

Men do things, sometimes good things, more often bad things. Women cry.

And again, for those of us who believe that this ancient book should guide how we live our lives today – we have to ask the question, what impact does the framing of ‘woman’ as ‘wailer-only’ have today?

Half-Way to Modernity

Let me try and answer in two steps stepping, first, 1000 years forward from the Biblical period into the classic Rabbinic period. I want to look at how the Rabbis of 1500 years ago read the story of Dina as told in Genesis 34.

Dina, daughter of Jacob, gets raped. That’s awful. Everyone in the Biblical period knows that that is awful and the Bible reports vigorous argument over how to respond to this awful act. But it is only the men whose arguments are recorded. Regarding Dina herself, her mother, any sisters (is it really the case that the only one daughter was born to Jacob, or maybe Dina is the only daughter whose name is deemed worthy of recording?) we have nothing. To fill in the blanks in the Biblical account we, as Rabbinic Jews, are counselled to turn to the great Rabbinic commentaries and here we find familiar refrains.

The Biblical narrative opens by saying that Dina went out - ‘VaTaytze’ - to visit the daughters of Canaan. Rashi suggests that the reason for her rape was that she was a 'Yatzanit' – ‘the kinda girl who goes out.’[11] In contemporary terms, this, of course, is known as victim-blaming. It's unacceptable, not least since there’s nothing in the Biblical narrative that suggests Dina’s wrongdoing. She’s just blamed for being a ‘Yatzanit’ because … well I think it’s impossible to view this any other way, there is an assumption among the male commentators of the Rabbinic period, that she’s liable to harlotrous behaviour simply because she’s a woman.[12]

And then there is this. In the Talmud the Rabbis are engaging in hermeneutic play and suggest, of all the possibilities, that Dina marries Job[13] - Job the greatest sufferer of the Biblical period. Well, I think it’s impossible to view this claim any other way than to believe the male commentators of the Rabbinic period assume that the typology, the role and the destiny of Dina, as a woman, is to wail.[14]

The point is that Biblical images, narratives and typologies constructed around women continue to impact into the Rabbinic period – of course they do.

Today, and Tomorrow, at New London Synagogue

We finally turn to the question of the impact of all of this on the vitally important consultation we are engaged in at New London.

We’re consulting on the long-term future of our community; whether women in this community should women be able to participate fully in every service in the year, or should we retain our existing arrangements; whereby women are only able to lead services or read from the Torah on alternative weeks. 

Whereas, in the past I’ve led these conversations as the Rabbi – and we’ve considered, primarily, halachic issues[15] – this time, we are going to be led on this by Council on this strategic decision about the nature of the future of our community. I don’t get a vote on Council, so I feel freer to state my case. And for those who disagree with me, I still love you all. But my job is both to teach Torah and to provide leadership for our community. So let me try.

The key issue, as far as reading from the Torah is concerned, is the honour of the community.[16] The Talmud says that the honour of the community would be besmirched by having women called to the Torah, and that while it would be possible to call women to read from the Torah, we don’t for this reason.

Now that attitude – that calling women to read from the Torah besmirches the honour of the community - makes sense if one views women as harlotrous, or good for wailing, but not good for action. But it doesn’t make sense if one views women as full and equal members of society and as capable of bearing honour as men.[17] And I know everyone in the community believes women are equal members of society and this community, but at the moment, there is concern about having women called to the Torah every week.

And the people, decent, caring, passionately committed members among them, who articulate this concern don’t suggest, for a moment, that women are second-class human beings, or lacking in any way. They just claim that it feels wrong, or they feel no need to make a change that would mark out this community as being less close to its orthodox beginnings than they would wish to see. Now I accept that. I accept that doing things differently can feel odd and wrong and can make people feel less comfortable in the Shul. But I don’t accept, I can’t accept that it’s possible to disentangle how we got to this place – where women are not honoured with being called to the Torah – from all the imagery associated with Dina, and Rachel, and Bat Zion and Gomer.

I don’t accept, I can’t accept that we are in this place because men and women are valued by the tradition equally but given different tasks in our religious lives. That’s not true when you look at how men and women have been imagined and valued through three thousand years of religious history. 

It’s not true that our tradition honours not being called to the Torah for one gender and being called to the Torah, for the other as equivalent. There are people who make that claim, but it’s a deceit, [18] it’s an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. I don’t and I can’t accept it.

So what do we do?

Here’s a technical example that makes an important point. In the Talmud[19] there is an argument as to the implication of the term ‘Uvshochbecha’ – ‘and you lie down’ as it appears in the first paragraph of the Shema.[20] The great House of Shammai thinks it means you have to lie down to say the Shema in the evening and the great House of Hillel thinks the word ‘Uvshochbecha’ just means you say it in the evening. Hillel thinks the term has nothing to do with lying or standing or sitting to recite these words.

Then comes this story.

Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarah were staying in the same place and Rabbi Yishmael was lying down and Rabbi Elezar was standing up. And it came to the time to say the Shema.

Now Rabbi Elazar was a follower of the House of Shammai, so he lay down.

And Rabbi Yishmael was a follower of the House of Hillel, so he stood up.

And the Rabbis ask, why did Yishmael feel the need to stand up? Hillel didn’t say you had to stand up, he just said how you stand or sit, or lie is irrelevant. The answer is given that Yishmael stood up because he didn’t want anyone to look at him and think he followed the ruling of the House of Shammai. Yishmael felt he needed to stand up to demonstrate he wasn’t to be counted among the people who believed something that he didn’t believe to be true.

Here’s the problem for all the decent, serious, passionately committed members of this community who don’t see why we should change and have no interest in being associated with the way in which women have been included in narrative after narrative and legal category after legal category for thousands of years of Rabbinic Judaism. It’s not that these people are sexist or misogynist or anything like that. The problem is that by continuing to accept the structures of the past, they allow others to look on and think that the very thing they oppose is, in fact, acceptable, or maybe even divinely mandated. Not standing up to oppose the existing structure is to allow another generation to grow up thinking that these structures are somehow God-given, even if they don’t accept that to be the case.

Rabbi Yishmael is an inspiration. He puts himself out to demonstrate he doesn’t accept what he doesn’t accept. He doesn’t allow people to look at him and think the thing he rejects is OK, and that requires effort and discomfort.

We need to change to become fully egalitarian every week. We need to make that shift, even if it is uncomfortable, and I know it is uncomfortable. We have to make that shift soon and we have to make it cleanly. I know many women in this community won’t wish to receive aliyot, and that’s fine. They don’t have to. But we as a community can’t enter 2020 without making our future on this issue clear.

It’s not acceptable that ancient models of seeing women as harlots and wailers continue to dominate our future, as a community that values and wishes to honour all our members.

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[1] Is. 1:21, see also 57:8.

[2] 2:20, see also Jer. 3:1. 3:2, 3:6, 13:12.

[3] Hos. 2.3. Israel as a harlot is a trop of other Biblical books too, particularly Ezekiel, see Ez. 16:15, 16:16, 16:25, ‘At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.’

[4] Substantially reworded, See Helpmates, Harlots and Heroes ed. Bellis, p.160.

[5] Lam 1:2. Note that even as a widow ‘she’ is still referred to as a harlot.

[6] I’m grateful to Discourse of Resistance: Feminist Studies on the Psalter and Book of Lamentations,  Carleen Mandolfo for much of this analysis.

[7] Barbara Bakke Kaiser, ‘Poet as “Female Impersonator”: The Image of Daughter Zion as Speaker in Biblical Poems of Suffering’, JR 67 (1987), pp. 164-82. For her notion of ‘persona’ she draws on the work of William F. Lanahan, ‘The Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations’, JBL 93 (1974), pp. 41-49.

[8] Deryn Guest, ‘Hiding Behind the Naked Women in Lamentations: A Recriminative Response’, BibInt 7 (1999), pp. 413-48 (428).

[9] Possibly 2:20-21, but it’s not much.

[10] 31:15. See also Isa. 3 16 & 25.

[11] Rashi follows BR 80:1 and Tanhuma Vayishlach 7. Interestingly Rabeinu Bachya records four other rabbinically attested reasons for the rape (each of which blames Jacob, nor Dinah), but Rashi focusses exclusively on the one that blames the woman. See here. That said Bachya perhaps reflects the underlying Rabbinic assumption regarding women – and Dinah among them – when he cites “Rabbi Yehudah son of Shalom added: ‘there is no worse cause of sin than woman; whereas we find that three thousand Jewish males were slain for having worshipped the golden calf, (Exodus 32,28), twenty-four thousand Jewish males were killed due to the seduction by the Moabite and Midianite women reported in Numbers 28,9.’”

[12] Or, as Rashi puts it, she takes after her mother, Leah, was is also labelled a ‘Yatzanit.’

[13] Baba Batra 15b

[14][14] It’s clear from the Sugya that the Rabbis are playing a hermeneutic game. Job is not being considered a real person, but rather an exegetical plaything that can be used to associate and disassociate ideas, rather than historical facts. I’ve published on this Sugya in Conservative Judaism, available here.

[15] There is a summary here. My responsa on women reading from the Torah is here and on women leading services here. Rabbi David’s Golinkin’s responsum on mixed seating (with which I entirely agree) is here.

[16] Tosefta Megillah 3:11, see sources and discussion cited here.

[17] Equally, this view doesn’t make sense in the reverse – i.e. if we view women’s ability to besmirch the honour of the community on a level equal to men.

[18] The absurdity of that claim is most apparent when considering the question of ‘the voice of women.’ The reason the ‘voice of women’ is precluded from religious and public settings, in those religious communities that preclude a woman’s voice, is because it is deemed to entice sexual promiscuity – it’s the harlotry thing again. See Talmud Brachot 24a and discussion here.

[19] Tosefta Brachot 1:6 and TY Brachot 11a:15.

[20] Deut 6:7.

On the Role of Women in the Services at New London

 

Two women sing in our Bible readings this Shabbat.

Both make rich pickings for those who are, as we all should be, considering the role of women in contemporary religious environments.

 

The major song is in Haftorah – the song of Deborah; mighty judge and prophet of Israel. Deborah calls on Barak to attack the armies of Sisera and he is scared. He will only go if Deborah accompanies him warning him, ‘there will be no glory for you for this way God is delivering Sisera into the hands of a woman.’

It’s a fascinating insight into the role of women in ancient times – tough and prepared to lead, but it’s seen as an embarrassment for a man to be so led.

 

And there is another song in the Torah portion – the song of Miriam Haneviah, Miriam the prophet who takes up timbrels and leads the women dancing in the aftermath of the Bible’s recitation of the Song of Moses.

The Mechilta suggests that just as Moses led the men, so Miriam led the women and that may well be true for the dancing, but the Biblical verse says

Vtaan lahem Miriam – Miriam led them and the Hebrew word for them implies the inclusion of men as well as women.

Vataan lahen would be the Hebrew if Miriam was only leading the women in song.

 

Though there is something very touching about another insight of the Mechilta – how did the Children of Israel end up with timbrels and drums in the wilderness?

They were righteous and they knew that God would do miracles and great deeds as they came out of Egypt, so they made sure they had something to celebrate with.

This is the woman acting with insight and foresight and faith. There is something recognisable in this gendered reading for today, as there was, no doubt, in ancient times.

The women show a level of faith and preparedness perhaps lacking in the male leadership who quickly run out of water and resort to incessant complaining.

Bzchut nashim – it was the merit of women that led to the Children of Israel being redeemed from Egypt, say the Rabbis. And indeed the women take the prime role of hero in many of the Wilderness narratives in both

The Hebrew Midwives, Bat Pharoh, Tzipora, Miriam, the wife of On…

And, for what it is worth, it has been the issue of the role of women in our faith that has been at the heart of my place I have located myself, and the Judaism I believe in.

 

Having decided I wanted to study for the Rabbinate I was still torn about the issue of denominational affiliation.

Should I study for an orthodox ordination and locate myself on the left wing of orthodoxy?

Or should I study for a Masorti ordination and locate myself as a progressive Rabbi.

Felt the tug of authenticity, it wasn’t obvious that I was going to be a Rabbi and I wanted, if I was going to embark on this terrifying journey to do it properly.

And like many of us I’ve experienced the passion and the fervour and the love of our tradition that exists in the orthodox world.

 

On the other hand, I grew up here.

Hearing the Rabbi Jacobs Torah that the Torah did not come in one moment, nor has Judaism ever stood still. We are a religion of progression.

And for myself I had already seen problems in the whole-hearted swallowing of tradition within orthodoxy.

 

I made an appointment to see one of my most admired orthodox teachers.

A tremendous scholar and teacher, he had had a major impact on my religious development.

And I decided to ask him about one of the first blessings in the morning service where the siddur instructs men to bless God for not making me a woman.

I had been struggling with the blessing for some time.

Sometimes saying it, sometimes not, sometimes replacing it with other words.

And we sat, I remember the evening very clearly, for three or four hours, going back and forwards around every argument.

And in the end I left.

Nothing he said could convince me that God wants me to get up in the morning and bless God for not making me a woman.

I had been through every apologetic, every justification, every commentary and every contextualisation.

And none of them worked for my soul.

I left.

I left orthodoxy behind.

I haven’t blessed God for not making me a woman since.

 

It was a Rubicon crossing moment for me because it was the first time that I internalised for myself and the Judaism I believed in that sometimes I would have to change my Jewish practice because of what I believed in.

And I became clear in my heart that the right way to pursue Jewish is not as an orthodox Rabbi. Because orthodoxy is just too closed to engaging in the demands of a progressive world where I learn new things today that I did not know yesterday.

 

It’s not that I think that traditional forms of Judaism are, or should be, considered misogynist.

That would be crude and ahistoric.

It’s more that, if there is a failing in hazal – Hachameinu Zichronam L’vracha, it is that they couldn’t rise high enough above their own contemp society.

 

^[1]

I want to take the example of ketubah.

It’s an incredibly sophisticated response to problem of the age.

2000 years old, and more.

It’s a response to a problem surrounding women being dumped by their men void of any ability to survive economically, they would have become destitute.

So the Rabbis create a vehicle where if the woman is to be divorced she receives money.

How much money? A standard case 200 zuz.

As any Seder participant knows can get a kid for 2 zuz, so a divorced woman is therefore set up with 100 goats.

She’s no longer destitute, she has a viable economic future.

Brilliant, foresight, compassion.

Quid pro quo – women couldn’t demand their goats. Up to husband to divorce.

Made sense then, now stuck with husbands who refuse to offer a divorce.

In a world where women aren’t so weak.

And civil protections apply in case of divorce, some divorce cases I am told, women can get even more than 100 goats.

Flaw in the Rabbinic system is that didn’t see this far inot the future.

That’s not bad. It’s just human.

But it does need to be addressed, women can’t be left in that place.

 

So what implication does this sort of analysis have for our services at New London.

Enormously complicated.

Many who turn to New London because they like traditional sep of roles – both men and women, both older members and younger, members of long standing and new members.

But also many who turn to New London because they see that this is a community which is capable of progression without abandoning the tradition. And again many who are looking for what they see as progression at New London are old, many are young, many are longstanding members and many are new members.

 

I face an enormously difficult balancing act which has little to do with my own personal wishes and beliefs.

Because I am, by far, most committed to a much more important question – what is the best interests of our community, our members and our God?

 

Asking, pleading for consultation.

Shared decision making process.

 

But I have been asked to provide leadership and that requires honesty.

So let me be honest about what I see.

It seems clear to me that that radical overhaul is not right for our community.

But I am increasingly gnawed at by the sense that what we do is not good enough, it is not holy enough.

 

Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s book, Deborah Golda and Me,

 

In New City, New York, a village largely inhabited by Orthodox Jews, there is a sign advertising a Talmud course: Talmud For Everyone – Men Only.

I have a perverse fondness for this sentence … Men are “everyone,” women are not …

“Jew” means man, because males are the only Jews who count – literally. I learned this when I was most vulnerable, when I wanted to count – to be counted as a Jew…

A strange man was called in to say kaddish for my mother, because he was more a “Jew” than I.

In those first weeks after losing my mother I needed to lean on my religion, crawl into its arms, rock myself to Hebrew rhythms as familiar to me as rain. But how could I mourn as a Jew if my kaddish did not count?

The answer is, I could not.^[2]

 

We are, of course, in better shape than New City New York.

Women count in the minyan, women say Kaddish in their own right.

And there are many bright, successful powerful women in this community and others who don’t feel that sense of exclusion at the male led ship we currently sail on.

But there are women who do feel this exclusion.

And there are men, and I am among them, who feel the loss of not being open in this way to contribution of all our members, male and female.

 

And I have no good answer to those who feel that when we call only men to the Torah and that when we allow only men to lead services we are falling short of acknowledging that women too are created equally in the image and likeness of God.

It’s not that I don’t understand the Halacha, I know the Halacha very well, indeed I’ve written a teshuvah on the subject.^[3]

But even having made that study, especially having made that study, I still have no good answer.

 

We have a mighty challenge to balance between love of tradition and beauty and holiness of tradition.

And the need to subject our tradition to our contemp sense of the relative roles of men and women.

Those of you wrestling with the best way to move forward, please join me, help me understand how best we can balance these competing tugs.

 

Those of you who feel that the solution to this problem is simple – either by believing stasis solves all problems or full egalitarianism I have this message and this plea.

The message is – you are wrong.

There is too much that will be lost by taking either pole of stasis or radical change. Too much damage to the community, too much damage to the future of our membership. In either direction.

And the plea is this – it may well be that you personally wish for no change, or only radical change, but I urge you to view this challenge away from the trenches.

View it, as it were, from the balcony.

Look at the lie of the land, all the respective tugs and considerations, and share with me the wisdom you gain when you take a step back from this emotive issue.

 

I believe however that we are strong enough to have this conversation.

Indeed we are proving ourselves strong enough to have this conversation.

And our commitment must be to developing that strength which grows the more we understand and find ways to respect the position of even those who disagree most radically with us.

 

Shabbat shalom

 

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^[1] Drawn from J. Hauptman Rereading the Rabbis

^[2] L. Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah Golda and Me: Being Jewish and Female in America, (1991) pp.49-50

^[3] Available at http://www.e-sams.org/pdf%20files/Policy%20on%20Women%20Receiving%20Alyiot%20&%20Reading%20Torah.pdf

Women, Organic Growth and Petrifacation

 

Dear Friends,

 

This week I will be addressing, in the Shabbat morning service, the role of women in our services. As many will know it’s a discussion that has been through a number of iterations at New London. At our last major engagement, two years ago just as I arrived at New London, a General Meeting split 71-70 in favour of making no change to our current arrangements. More recently I was asked by Council to provide some rabbinic leadership as we plot a way forward. In the most recent Newsletter I asked for anyone with feelings on the issue to contact me. I am available for meetings, phone conversations as well as e-mail. As I am firming up the recommendations I will make to the Services Committee and Council I feel it is vital that I understand as well as I can the fullest range of feelings in the community.

 

It is, of course, no surprise to find this issue bubbling away at our Shul. New London, of course, was founded on the back of a change in our understanding of the history of our Torah. Rabbi Jacobs acknowledges that an intelligent person simply couldn’t accept a ‘pre-modern’ theory of how our most important text arrives in these most modern times. He is of course right, but biblical archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern philology are not the only schools of thought that have transformed our understanding of our religion. At a time when many of the great ideological revolutions of the last century lie largely broken (Communism, Nationalism…), feminism retains, if not all the burning power of its foundational rhetoric, nonetheless a transformational hold over the mind of the intelligent modern. In an era where both Israel and the United Kingdom have known women Prime Ministers, it’s simply not possible to look at any woman in a position of leadership as an affront to men unable to lead the community themselves – as Deborah suggests to Barak in this week’s haftorah. This much is clear. But the implications of these transformed conceptions on our religious practice is less easy to plot. On the one hand our founder Rabbi claimed that there was no need to change religious practice just because our theology had changed. On the other hand Rabbi Jacobs dedicated much of his scholarship to showing how Judaism does change as societal influence impacts upon our tradition which has never been closed to the world around us. Rabbi Dr Elliot Cosgrove brings a fascinating example of Rabbi Jacobs advocating change in the face of societal change dating back to 1948 when, in the aftermath of the foundation of the modern State of Israel the question arose of how, religiously, to treat this new arrival. In an article entitled ‘Organic Growth vs Petrifaction’ Rabbi Jacobs insists that, “every thinking person must protest against the attitude which bids us to relinquish the project [of change in Judaism] merely on the grounds that we of this generation have not the merit to take an important step unknown to our ancestors.” And goes on to offer this extra-ordinary analogy.

 

“A year or two ago a process was discovered by means of which the paintings of the old masters in the National Gallery could be cleaned. At first there were shocked

outcries of “sacrilege.” Many of those who protested seem to have considered the very grime that had accumulated through the ages to be an essential part of the pictures. The protest went unheeded, the pictures were cleaned, the grime removed, and new beauties formerly obscured, were revealed to the eye. We should keep this in mind in our approach to the renewal of Jewish life. We must never identify the dust of the ages with the living Jewish faith; but as traditional Jews, while attempting to remove this dust, we must ever be on our guard not to wreak irreparable damage to the picture of Judaism by removing its paint with our too vigorous cleansing.”

 

We must neither wreak irreparable damage, nor must we venerate accreted grime. The balancing act that has always been at the heart of our journey as a community continues. I urge us all to play our part in it.

 

Shabbat shalom