Communitisiaring

 

This week has seen the passing of a mother of a member of New London and a mother of a member of St Albans Masorti. I spent Thursday night meeting with a couple planning their marriage and will spend Friday morning at a stonesetting. I’ve arranged a baby naming and helped another couple with some options for Hebrew names for their unborn child. The grandfather of one friend of New London and father of another also passed away. I am spending this Shabbat with the fourteen members of the Bar Mitzvah programme of St Albans and on Monday I am hosting a brunch for the senior members of New London. And the title of this week’s Torah reading – vayahkel.

 

And Moses gathered all the congregation of the people of Israel.

 

Actually the translation ‘gathered’ (found in the Hertz Pentateuch) doesn’t do Hebrew justice. The Hebrew word has the same root as the word kehillah - community. Perhaps a better translation would be;

 

And Moses made a community out of all the congregation of the people of Israel.

 

Sad, really, that English doesn’t have a verb ‘to communitise,’ but ‘communitising’ is what we do – we bind ourselves into one another’s past, present and future, we share in the celebrations and the commiserations, we take our part in the unfolding of the generations and the sense, buried deep down, that once upon a time we all stood at Sinai.

 

Shabbat shalom.