Order and Chaos As We Open the Book of BeMidbar / Numbers

 

BeMidbar, or the Book of Numbers, contains two very different kinds of material.

At its opening, the Book is resplendently ordered. Each adult male member of each Tribe is counted and arranged around the central Sanctuary. Specific roles are allocated for specific sub-groups, and everything feels ready for the grand departure from the foothills of Mount Sinai.

 

Then everything goes wrong. Dispute, grumbling, faithlessness, rebellion, blame-mongering and failure mark the second part of the Book.

 

It’s a dynamic held, I think, in the relationship between the two names used to refer to the book – Numbers (or Sefer HaPikudim) – ordered, and BeMidbar (or Wilderness) – chaotic.

 

It’s a dynamic at play, also, in our own community. Last Sunday, the Board of Deputies hosted a cross-communal rally to oppose antisemitism. Everyone was invited. What could possibly go wrong? Well, actually, not quite everyone was invited; there were lines drawn that included some and excluded others. There have been reports of assaults, booing, and placards being pulled away (which, of course, I condemn, but I want to make a different point). The attempt to perfectly organise a unity of humanity – any humanity, but certainly the Jewish subsection of humanity – will always be doomed to fail.

 

“Hell,” wrote Sartre in his 1944 play No Exit, “is other people.” Sartre’s line arises from the impositions on personal freedom that arise in a ‘crowd’ of merely three characters. In our contemporary existence, as part of a world of billions of interconnected souls, it might be getting worse. We certainly seem increasingly resistant to the notion that deference should be paid to those who wish to cohere us into uniform blocks of collective identity. That, in many ways, is a good thing. But this resistance also threatens to increase atomisation, loneliness, jeering and setting ourselves against our fellows. These things are destroying the fabric of our society.

 

Saying we support tolerating ‘acceptable differences,’ while booing those differences we deem ‘unacceptable,’ is too thin a protestation. It’s too easy to set the line between ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ difference wherever we feel comfortable, and we end up accepting no difference at all. One of my particular current concerns about the Jewish community is that we are attacking both each other and those with whom we should be building alliances.

 

Washing our hands of the whole messy business of attempting to stand together, in solidarity with different human beings, similarly may feel attractive, but it is ultimately unacceptable. “It is not upon you to complete the work,” warned Rabbi Tarfon (ultimately martyred as a result of Roman persecution) “but nor are you permitted to abstain from it.”

 

We have to learn to celebrate difference, admire those who take different views from our own and applaud people who see the world differently from us. We need to imagine other people’s views from their perspective, not our own. The vision of the future we would all wish for is, of course, varied and multiple. We must support and model that desire with greater energy.

 

I have a tiny, delightful way to exercise that muscle to suggest for this Shabbat. It’s Cheder Shabbat. Our younger members will be in providing their particular brand of slightly chaotic leadership. It won’t be dreamily organised. It shouldn’t be dreamily organised. It’s a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the chaos of difference.

 

Shabbat Shalom

Sunday - Something I’m Delighted to Share and Something I Wish I Didn’t Have To

For those experiencing life as darker than we would wish, I have a recommendation. Come to Shul, Sunday evening for some glorious music. We are welcoming Sharqia, with guest artist Yoav, to share their Middle Eastern grooves. We have a hammered dulcimer, an oud, clarinets, saxophones and … Yoav is back. It will be a very special celebration of the Jewish music of the Middle East and North Africa. 

7pm, Sunday 10^th May. Advance booking is warmly appreciated - https://shulcloud.newlondon.org.uk/event/sharqiah-middle-eastern-grooves

 

This is the more painful piece.

There will be a major gathering in opposition to antisemitism also on Sunday, 1pm on Whitehall, opposite Number 10. It shouldn’t have to happen. Jews shouldn’t be being attacked for being Jews, and Jewish buildings shouldn’t be firebombed for being used by Jews. We shouldn’t be experiencing fear. Our concerns and demands must be clearly and publicly expressed before those who have the power and responsibility to ensure the safety of all the inhabitants of these isles. I’ll be there. If anyone wants to travel down and stand together as part of a New London Synagogue presence, please let me know.

The last major communal rally I attended, in October 2025, was exceptional. Powerful, united and moving. Others have been painful, complex and riven by the challenges of representing a British Jewish community that does not speak with a single voice on, frankly, anything. Speakers have been booed. Speakers have used the platforms at communal rallies to make what, to me, have felt inappropriate speeches. In general, I don’t like big rallies. But I’ll be there on Sunday. 

On Tuesday night, three local MPs, all taking the Labour whip, held a public meeting on antisemitism at St. John's Wood Synagogue. I went. There were moments of fractiousness, moments where the backdrop of national politics elbowed its way into the discussion – as was always to be expected. It wasn’t an easy space. I’m glad I was there.

The Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council, who are leading the organisation of the rally on Sunday, have made decisions about who to bring into the list of sponsoring organisations. Those are hard decisions to get right. Political speakers have been invited, prompting an outpouring of disagreement about who should and shouldn’t have been invited. One of the original sponsoring organisations made a decision to pull out; again, that’s a tough call. I share many of these concerns. I don’t think the rally on Sunday will be an easy space, not in a physical sense – I’m confident the police and CST will look after our physical safety – but emotionally. There will be those on the platform and in the crowd who will take the opportunity of this rally to express views with which I disagree. But I’ll be there. I’m going to take a placard. I don’t really like placards. Mine will read, “Every Human Being is Created in the Image of the Divine.” It’s as close to a slogan as I am ever likely to feel comfortable standing behind.

The way that this mess of a societal problem gets better is that we learn to stand together when we don’t fully agree. We learn to handle the impossibility, or certainly the ineffectiveness, of only being present in places of pure comfort.

We need to remember that those who are working to bring us together are not our enemies, even if their means are misguided or even self-defeating in our own eyes. We need to put more effort into standing in uncomfortable places and hearing uncomfortable voices. And we need to wave our own placards high. As I say, I’ll be there on Sunday for the rally in Whitehall. With a placard.

Then I’m hugely looking forward to getting back home and then coming to hear Sharqia in the evening. Balance. It’s a narrow bridge, and aside from not being afraid, we need balance.

Shabbat Shalom

 

How To Be Happy in Unhappy Times - Thoughts on 'Special Needs'

 In honesty, I’m having a lousy time at the moment – too much worry, too much hate and not enough joy.

If you are anything like me, here are a couple of IG reels that have lifted my heart, both connected to special needs.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DYA2gY2u_mY/

and

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DX-QcSePKQ9/

As I was wiping away the result of some dust clearly having got in my eye … twice!, and thinking of posting this, the fact that both these posts feature special needs somehow figures into what was making these posts so special for me.

Two thoughts

One is thank you. I owe an enormous debt to everyone who has opened my eyes to what happens when we make accommodations to the needs of each individual in each of our particularities. I’ve been reading the newly published A Different Spirit: Creating Meaningful B’nai Mitzvah for Children with Disabilities (H/T Howard Blas and Ilana Trachtman). It’s, largely, a collection of first-person narratives of those who have been on a meaningful BM journey, or loved someone who was, or wasn’t supported, or teachers, tutors, rabbis and the whole constellation. And aside from picking up some terrific tips for our own approach at New London, I’ve realised that the image of God emerges from these encounters in a way that it’s so easy to miss ‘normally.’ I’ve had the privilege of supporting special-needs journeys many times, and every time I’ve felt more lifted by what I have gained than challenged by the effort. Thank you.

The other is an obligation. There are still so many who find a single door-entry into Jewish life unfit for their needs; whether that be ramps or amplification, or patience, or the technical skill brought by a diverse range of therapeutic professionals or … The object has to be that every human being, again, for me there is no getting around the essential place of the doctrine of Tzelem Elohim in this – the image of God is vested in each of us precisely in our peculiarity and idiosyncrasy – finds a pathway through which they can enter with decency and travel with pride. More to do.

But if, in the meantime, you want to feel a little happier about the world … click on the reels.

Parshat Emor - Polarity Management after the Golders Green Attacks

 I was at a Faith in Leadership Seminar on Wednesday morning. There were fifteen of us, Jews, Muslims and Christians in the midst of studying something called polarity management when one of our group – he works closely with the orthodox Chief Rabbi – sprinted out of the room.

The other Jews and I swapped glances and, expecting exactly what turned out to have happened, quietly checked our phones. And I’m sad, I’m angry and I’m just a little bit scared that this is the sermon I have to give today, on a great day, Clea, for you and your family.

But there is something in this idea of polarity management that, I think, is relevant and helpful in the context of the awful attack in Golders Green and also this week’s portion.

A polarity, in this context, is a twin of opposing ideas. We want both, we need both. But we can’t simultaneously have both. Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, who was presenting the model to us, began with inhaling and exhaling – something simple to get us going. Do I want to inhale, do I need to inhale, of course, I need the oxygen. But if I focus only on inhaling, and forget to exhale, I’ll … well, you get the sense.

The point is that for any good thing in a polarity, there comes a point not only of a decrease of marginal utility, but a clear negative.

Let me do one that’s a little more personal for me – the polarity between confidence and humility. Is it good for me, for any of us, to be confident – sure. It’s how we get stuff done, it’s how we feel positive about who we are and what we can achieve. But too much leaning into the direction of confidence causes its own deficits – arrogance, overestimation of our own capacity, lack of curiosity and so on. Similarly, humility is great … right up until it isn’t.

And so, the work of polarity management is learning how to pre-empt the moment when our leaning in one pole or the other begins to defeat our over-arching goal and for those of us who fail to recognise our own proclivities, building the systems around us that can boost us, or limit us, as we err.

It’s a pattern that seems to apply so clearly to our reading today.

We have a goal – serving God – and the answer to the question – is it important to serve God in the best way we can? – is clearly yes.

So, at a certain point in our tradition, we start articulating all the ways in which we want the service of God to be perfect. According to the Parasha we read today, in order to serve in the Temple, a priest can’t be blind, or lame, or have a limb too short or too long or broken or a broken arm or a curved spine or a growth in their eye, or scarred or … and by the time the Mishneh Torah gets involved, there are a list of 90 ways in which a Priest is to be excluded from serving as a Priest because of one defect or another.

And it’s a polarity. Is it good for Priests to be perfect, well yes, but you can see the problem of the lean in this direction, it starts to be exclusory, elitist and frankly rather nasty.

And if you follow the unfolding of the Rabbinic tradition there is something truly extraordinary about the way the Rabbis gently pull back the unbridled, unsustainable and ableist position taken in the Torah text itself and create something that is inclusive, celebrating the diversity in humanity and the acknowledging the essence of the divine in each human being. Just to be clear inclusivity, celebrating diversity and acknowledging the essence of the divine in each human being is also a goal, and also a pole.

 

No-one, priest or otherwise, performs Jewish sacrificial offerings anymore, but the Halachah when it comes to who gets to read from the Torah or lead the prayer services or bless the congregation by what is called Nesiyat Capaiyim – lifting up of the hands and offering the priestly blessing is the same.

 

There is an acknowledgement of the important of all these things being done perfectly, by unblemished humans without fault or failure, and then there is chipping away at the damaging unsustainable position.

To give an example – in Talmud Megillah 24b there is a teaching that a priest with dye seeped into the skin of their hands, or with rheumy eyes or with a speech defect shouldn’t lift up their hands to perform the priestly blessing but to each of these issues there is a Rabbi – Rav Huna, Rabbi Yochanan, Rabbi Yehuda – who comes to say that is the community is familiar with that priest, they are not to be excluded.

 

Or the question of who gets to lead services – that’s dealt with in Talmud Taanit, there’s a list of things that make, by the time the Shulchan Arukh and Rama have dealt with the matter includes , “being free from sin and never to have been the subject of gossip not even in their childhood. They should be humble and desired by their community. They must look nice and have a pleasant voice … they should be first into the Synagogue and last out, nor should they be foolish or frivolous.” (SA OH 53:5). Well Anthony, you are pretty terrific, but that’s a list that would preclude you, me, all of us. And then the Halachah shifts towards the other pole – “If you can’t find someone who has all these qualities, choose [as well as you can].”

 

It’s not wokeness gone mad, it’s not a giving up on the value of having someone of quality lead services, it’s management of a polarity. It’s a kind of maturity, an expression of sense, an ability to see that focussing entirely on one side of a complex issue will destroy the greater goal.

 

And so to these awful attacks of Wednesday and the weeks before. What a time.

What’s the goal -  safety. That the Jews of this country – any country and any people – should be able to live our lives free of fear and free of being subject to attack and abuse. Put like that, it’s astounding that this feels even worth the breath of expressing.

And there are two poles.

There is our physical security – the sort of things that are protected by walls and fences and security guards and the sorts of security measures we encountered on the way in today. And these are a good. And thank you so much to our security team, our professional guards and our security volunteers.

And then there is the pole of our acceptance in broader society – and to achieve that we have to engage, we have to welcome in strangers and talk to people who disagree with us and be prepared to be in spaces we will feel, as Jews, today, a little unsure, a little uneasy perhaps.

There will need to be a management of the polarity.

An over-emphasis on building higher and higher walls to surround us will lead us to be ever more isolated, closed in and embittered. An over-emphasis on openness threatens our immediate security. Pursuit of either pole, without committing to its alternate, will fail us.

The challenge is being committed to both pieces of work. Of course, the physical security is vitally necessary – and this is a time to lean more strongly towards that polarity, awful as it is to say so. But it can’t be the only way we attempt to build towards our goal of being safe and secure in this country – or any other country.

We are going to have to manage our polarities, accept that a total focus on only one response to the complexities that face us will, eventually, be our undoing.

 That’s a tough call, especially today, especially this week, when we just want to pray for the healing of the injured and call out to those who have responsibilities for our safety to do more to provide us with more funding and more policing – and those calls are reasonable. But can’t take all our attention.

May we take inspiration from the Rabbinic approach to the pursuit of perfection in our Divine Service – the unfolding of traditions that begin with these verses from Parshat Emor. May we find the security we seek with a balance so easy to us, it feels as secure as the movement from the inhale to the exhale. May we all know peace. May there soon come a time when every person will sit under their vine and fig tree with none to make them afraid.

וְיָשְׁב֗וּ אִ֣ישׁ תַּ֧חַת גַּפְנ֛וֹ וְתַ֥חַת תְּאֵנָת֖וֹ וְאֵ֣ין מַחֲרִ֑יד

 

Shabbat Shalom

And then came the Holy Blessed One and slew the Angel of Death - Reflections on the Death Penalty in Israel

I didn’t want to do a political sermon on the First Day of Pesach – I get it, we were all up late last night and everything before that. And I wasn’t – looking at the passage of this new piece of legislation in Israel – right up until I was reflecting on the last line of the Seder.

So … here we go.

 

I didn’t want to do a political sermon on the First Day of Pesach – I get it, we were all up late last night and everything before that. And I wasn’t – looking at the passage of this new piece of legislation in Israel – right up until I was reflecting on the last line of the Seder.

So … here we go.

Three days ago, a bill, championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir passed its third reading in the Knesset, 62-47, with Prime Minister Netanyahu voting in favour. Ben Gvir was seen jubilantly handing out champagne to those who voted in its favour.

I’m not sure how much of the detail of the Bill registered with those in this country.,

It mandates death by hanging as the default punishment for West Bank residents convicted of deadly terrorist acts committed by a person who “negates the existence of the State of Israel”. While judges can opt for life imprisonment under ill-defined “special circumstances,” the death penalty would otherwise be mandatory and be carried out within 90 days of sentencing. There is no right of appeal. And the death sentence requires only a simple majority of judges on the military court panel – there’s no jury, no need for a unanimous decision and the ‘judges’ at an Israeli Military Court of First Instance need only include one legally trained judge.

The Times of Israel reported the vote this way,

“This is a day of justice for the victims and a day of deterrence for our enemies. No more revolving door for terrorists, but a clear decision. Whoever chooses terrorism chooses death,” said a jubilant Ben Gvir, sporting the golden noose-shaped lapel pin he and other advocates of the measure have donned to symbolize their campaign for the death penalty.”

The best that can be said for the Bill is that it’s a response to the anger felt by those who have watched prisoner swaps where the release of Israelis kidnapped and taken into Gaza has forced Israel’s hand into freeing, in some cases twice, terrorists who have attacked Israelis. Over 1,000 terrorists were released by Israel in the deal to free Gilad Shalit in 2011, including Yahya Sinwar, who planned the October 7^th attack.

It remains true that decent, peace-abiding Israelis are and have been threatened by terrorist violence and that they have a right to live in the freedom we all sang about last night. And that the ensuring of this freedom requires, again, in the language of last night, a Yad Chazakah, a strong hand. Turning the other cheek is not a way to negotiate with terrorists. I know that. My mind goes to the Open Letter that Martin Buber wrote to Mahatma Gandhi in 1936, in the midst of the Nazi surge towards the Holocaust.

Ghandi had called on Jews to oppose the Nazis with Satyagraha – non-violence. Buber responded,

When a voice that he has long known and honoured, a great voice and an earnest one, pierces the vain clamour and calls him by name, he is all attention. Here is a voice, he thinks, that can but give good counsel and genuine comfort,” But ...

And the letter continues with a juddering ‘But’

But what he hears - containing though it does elements of a noble and most praiseworthy conception, such as he expects from this speaker - is yet barren of all application to his peculiar circumstances. These words are in truth not applicable to him at all. They are inspired by most praiseworthy general principles, but the listener is aware that the speaker has cast not a single glance at the situation of him whom he is addressing, that he neither sees him nor knows him and the straits under which he labours.”

I get it’s hard in Israel, I get it’s hard to oppose terror nicely.

But this Bill is a disaster.

It’s unethical – in that it focuses only on Palestinian terror. What of the terror of West Bank settler Jews, responsible for death, arson, and, yes, seeking national elimination of the Palestinian people as a people? There is a wave of violence in the West Bank that is Jewish and is all but entirely unrestrained by legal process. You can’t, ethically, target only criminals of one ethnicity or religion in the attempt to bring an end to violence. It’s in Bedmidbar 15 and Vayikra 24, and Shemot 12

תּוֹרָה אַחַת, יִהְיֶה לָאֶזְרָח, וְלַגֵּר, הַגָּר בְּתוֹכְכֶם

You shall have one law for the citizen and the stranger dwelling strangely in your midst.

It’s misguided – in the faith it puts in the taking of life, God help us all, the excitement seen on the faces of the Bill’s proponents at the prospect of the taking of life.

You should terrify witnesses in a death penalty legal case, warns the Mishnah in Sanhedrin, because it’s not like a monetary case – you can’t pay back what you have taken as a punishment. When Cain killed Abel, God responds the, ‘Bloods of your brother call out to me,” – Damei Aicha -the Hebrew is in the plural to teach us that it’s not just the person killed, but their descendants and generations until the end of the world.

Rather, the entire direction of Rabbinic engagement with the deeply challenging question of how to deal with horrific acts perpetrated by one human being against another human being has been in the opposite direction.

When the Torah says, an eye for an eye, Rabbinic Judaism insists that is to be understood in terms of financial payments, not bodily violence.

When the Mishnah discusses the protections for death penalty cases, they ratchet up the protections, the number of judges who would have to agree - for one thing, they were all expert judges, secondly, there were 24, thirdly, a majority had to be clear - by one person was not enough - and there are more and more restrictions and checks on what might outherwise be a speedy - and unreliable and revenge driven - rush to take a life. Three members constituting a panel, only one of whom is a lawyer, decided by a simple majority is inconceivably narrow-minded. The Talmud determines that any Court that passes a death penalty even once in 70 years is a bloody Beit Din. That’s not meant as a good thing.

And then there is this. In Sanhedrin 41a,

We read that forty years before the destruction of the Temple, this has nothing to do with the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin exiled itself from the one place in the Temple precinct where it was held possible to judge a Death Penalty case. They moved away from the Chamber of Hewn Stone so as not to be tempted into thinking that justice and death penalties can be partners.

And the idea that you go around wearing a gold noose lapel pin, cheering on a full-on embrace of death penalties with virtually no safeguards when it could not be more clear that this is motivated by an abnegation of Palestinian rights is chilling, it’s unethical, it’s un-Jewish, and it’s not going to help.

The thing that works, as we Jews have learnt from our own experience of genocides – from Lavan to Pharaoh to … well, it’s a long list, is hope. Hope is the thing that allows us to see a world which is more than an inevitable promise of only the escalation of violence.

I understand that it can feel like we live in a world where justice might feel nothing more than, “you hit me so I will hit you, so you hit me back, so I hit you back harder.” But this is not true, it’s not true of the human soul, and it’s not a true reflection of how even the most intractable geopolitical problems of humanity have been eased and even solved.

It’s terrifying and deeply depressing to see Israeli legislators excited about an escalation of violence wielded by Jewish hands, for the angel of death does not, and can not be allowed to have the last line. The last line belongs to God, who comes and offers a solution on the other side of death.

A recommendation – follow, support and seek to amplify the message of those Israelis and lovers of Israel who are opposing this Bill – it still faces a Supreme Court challenge. I recommend Rabbi Gilad Kariv Member of the Israeli Parliament, the New Israel Fund and Yachad. Don’t let the angel of death have the last line.

Chag Sameach

What To Do in the Aftermath of the Attack on the Ambulances of Hatzolah in Golders Green

 

What To Do in the Aftermath of the Attack on the Ambulances of Hatzolah in Golders Green

The destruction of ambulances is appalling and utterly unacceptable. It’s also been predictable and predicted. It’s an attack on not only the Jewish Community of this country, but on all British citizens and the very notion of what it means to be British. There’s police work to be done, political work to be done and my mind is on what it means to help build towards the sort of society we should all want to live in.

In the aftermath of the attack on the ambulances of Hatzolah, try these.

 

Do Something Good

              Be kind, support a cause, reach out to someone alone or in pain. In the words of In the words of Rev Anders Bergquist, “Be the best friend you can be to your fellow. Bring out the best in your fellow.” Money also helps, Hatzolah are in need of new ambulances. That’s a good cause - https://hatzola.org/donate/. Don’t let a bad action get away without drawing a good action in its wake.

 

Don’t hide

              Take care, of course take care, but it won’t help to hide who we are or how we are different from others around us. If we do, we increase our sense of isolation, misery and they’ll spot us anyway. To hide is to fail ourselves, to fail those who are also different in their own differences and to give strength to those who feel terror is an appropriate way to affect change in the world. Hen Mazzig writing after the Bad Bunny Superbowl Halftime Show, argued brilliantly that we should occupy space, that we shouldn’t worry about permission or ask for pity. “Belonging,” he wrote, “Is not a debt to pay or a favour to beg for. It is a reality we need to demonstrate. Minorities [and we are all part of a minority, one way or another] are not a ‘problem’ to be solved.”

 

Be precise in the use of language.

              Quite how we have come to a place where nuance has come to be a sign of weakness is bizarre. Language has a life of its own once it leaves our lips. It might be that 99.9% of my audience are going to hear my strident language and realise that I mean no physical harm towards those I critique. It might be that only a person affected by mental illness or trauma could possibly understand my strident use of language as justifying physical harm. But that 99.9% is not enough. Not even close to being enough. Language is the greatest gift we possess as human beings. It’s the greatest responsibility. It’s capable of causing the greatest amount of damage. It’s also the best tool we have if we want to mend, to bring compassion, to offer hope.

If we disagree with a person’s actions or opinions, disagree with their actions or opinions. State their opinions as they would have it stated. Don’t extrapolate from what they have said into something that might sound more outrageous in order to create a straw-figure more easily pilloried. It might not be them, or their opinion that gets pilloried. It might be someone else.

 

Amplify those who help

              If there are people you hear or see who are trying to build the world you want to be a part in, retweet them, share their message. Don’t fall for the notion that ‘no-one cares.’ There are plenty of people who care, they just need better megaphones. Be a megaphone for good. 

Goats, Flies and Freedom in an Unsafe World - Reflections on the Shabbat Before the New Moon of Nissan

 

Pesach is coming – first night Wednesday 1^st April. It’s an odd time to be preparing to celebrate freedom. There are those sprinting back and forth to shelters, and many more for whom shelter feels a far-off dream. That’s not even merely about Iran, Lebanon, Israel and others experiencing militarised conflict. There was an attack yesterday on a Synagogue in Michigan. One of my Detroit-based colleagues posted about his close connection to the team there. And then there is this creeping sense of violence and real and perceived offence hanging in the air; locally, nationally and internationally.

We are, as ever, grateful to our professional and volunteer security team and working closely with CST, local and national police and political leadership. But also, this is a good time for faith.

My mind turns to the almost-doggerel which ends the Seder; one little goat swept into a cycle of violence – the cat, the dog, the stick and on the list goes. But there is a vast and vital difference between the spiralling song of my non-Jewish youth – There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, and this song about One Little Goat.

The song about the Old Lady ends in death, of course. But the song about the Goat ends with God defeating death, of course. As an act of faith – and I think it is an act of faith rather than a cool-headed geo-political calculation – we are not spiralling into only ever greater cycles of violence. As an act of faith, I claim there is a force greater than violence, stronger even than death. And with that faith position, if you join me in that faith position, we enter a sort of existential Game Theory experiment. If we hold a space for something to be more powerful than spiralling violence, we make it possible for something stronger than violence to thrive in this world. If we live our lives on the basis that violence is the greatest power in the world, we equally make it so.

I’m reflecting on something I heard, shared by a Vicar at a Mosque – such is my rabbinic existence. Last week, I attended an Interfaith Iftar hosted at the Regents Park Mosque at which the Vicar of St Johns Wood Church, The Revd Dr Anders Bergquist shared an observation about friendship (perhaps poorly transcribed by me). The Iftar itself, of course, was a radical act of hospitality offered by our Muslim cousins. And speaking at the dais, reflecting on the often-reported cycles of violence and hatred in our society, the Rev Anders made this simple but exquisite call, “Be friends,” he shared, “Be the best friend you can be to your fellow. Bring out the best in your fellow.”

He is right, of course, not only to observe that this possibility exists for us, even in our fear and seeking of shelter, but also that, if we dedicate ourselves to this task, we will bring out the best in each other. While that, in itself, will not bring an instant end to war, violence and oppression, it is the best, and I think single, task that can help, in the words of Maimonides, “tilt the scale for ourselves and the whole worlds towards the side of merit, causing deliverance and success,” and, dare we say it, building a world in which we, all of us, can be free. May it soon come.

Shabbat Shalom