Preparing for Rosh Hashanah - A Message Shared With Masorti Europe

The year has been dominated by the attacks of 7^th October and their aftermath. My deepest prayers are for the immediate release of the remaining hostages and turn from violence. For so many of us across Europe, the attacks of 7^th October also resulted in an immediate spike in our experience of antisemitism arriving at a time when we were already, in the language of Deuteronomy, Ayef v’Yagaya – weary and pained.

It's the great Chasidic teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Braslav, who taught, “אָסוּר לְיָאֵשׁ עַצְמוֹ כִּי אֵין שׁוּם יֵאוּשׁ בָּעוֹלָם כְּלָל” - it is forbidden for a person to despair for there is no despair in the world at all. I looked up the original teaching in his work of collected sermons Likkeutei Mehoran (2:78).

Likkuetei Mehoran, is a Hebrew book, based on oral teachings originally shared in Yiddish.  But at this point the editor (Reb Noson) breaks away from relaying the teaching of his master in Hebrew translation to say this;

וְאָמַר אָז בְּזֶה הַלָּשׁוֹן: קַיין יִאוּשׁ אִיז גָאר נִיט פַאר הַאנְדִין, וּמָשַׁךְ מְאֹד אֵלּוּ הַתֵּבוֹת " קַיין יִאוּשׁ אִיז גָאר נִיט פַאר הַאנְדִין " וַאֲמָרָם בְּכֹחַ גָּדוֹל וּבְעַמְקוּת נִפְלָא וְנוֹרָא מְאֹד, כְּדֵי לְהוֹרוֹת וּלְרַמֵּז לְכָל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד לְדוֹרוֹת, שֶׁלֹּא יִתְיָאֵשׁ בְּשׁוּם אֹפֶן בָּעוֹלָם, אֲפִלּוּ אִם יַעֲבֹר עָלָיו מָה

And he said this in this exact language: Kein yiush iz gor nit fahrhandin! He drew out these words, said them with great power and wondrous depth and awe, in order to teach to each and every person throughout the generations not to despair under any circumstances, no matter what happens to them.

Kein yiush iz gor nit fahrhandin! – There is nothing to this thing of despair at all. Who is he trying to fool? Despair lurks all around. The point, I think, is that withstanding the call of despair takes effort. It can’t be taken for granted. But there are many ways to steel ourselves in the fight against it.

The extraordinary journey of so many of our communities across Europe is a source of excitement, as is the incredible quality of my European colleagues. We have an approach to our faith that is thriving in this complex modern world even this year, even after everything European Jews have experienced. I urge us all to connect to our local Masorti communities at this time.

Acts of Hesed or Tzedakah – kindness and justice - are incredible ways to dispel any gnawing sense of despair. Just sitting with our concerns risks making us feel worse. Doomscrolling will guarantee our misery. Taking agency to mend the world with acts of kindness and justice will lift your hearts, I’m sure. It always lifts mine.

And finally, take a moment to appreciate the turning of the seasons. This is a remarkably beautiful world which will connect us to hope and awe. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of his battle against despair walking the streets of Berlin in the 1930s. “I felt very much alone with my own problems and anxieties.” He recalled, “Suddenly I noticed the sun had gone down, evening had arrived. From what time may one recite the Shema in the evening? I had forgotten God — I had forgotten Sinai — I had forgotten that sunset is my business.”

May we all, in this year to come, banish despair and be greeted with a year of sweetness health and peace,

Shannah Tovah 

When You Go Out To War – Deuteronomy 21:10

The opening of this week’s Torah portion knows war. The first commands speak to the way a dangerous sexuality can instil itself in fighters – the Torah mandates its control. Then comes an instruction on what we have come to call ‘collateral damage’ or perhaps wilful damage of the means of production that will be needed for a decent society to return even after the passing of a time of war.

It all feels horribly current.

I’ve spent years fascinated by the work of Rav Shlomo Goren, the first Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defence Forces. Rather than seeing his role as one of providing Chizuk v’Nechamah – inspiration and comfort, Rav Goren took it upon himself to return to Israel, in a contemporary manner, a military Halachik ethic that had not existed, in any meaningful way, for two thousand years.

Not since the time of Bar Kochba, Goren wrote in the introduction to his major collection Meishiv Milchamah, has Judaism had any reason to consider the contemporary implications of having citizens and a land to save and having a military to command. The Jewish people need, he wrote, an entirely new section of the Shulchan Arukh – the central code of Jewish law and life.

Meishiv Milchamah has much Halachah directed at the soldier facing their own ethical and Halachic decisions, in a time of war. There is a heartbreaking analysis of whether a soldier is obligated ‘to enter into a place of possible danger in order to save their fellow from certain danger.’ There’s a huge section on Shabbat – what, for example, are the implications of Jewish law for the soldier setting out in a vehicle to inspect a border on the Sabbath.

But the most remarkable sections are those which seek to recover and impose frameworks on generals and politicians – ‘Musar HaLechmia B’Or HaHalachah’ – the ethics of war in the light of Jewish Law. What is the ethical way to treat an enemy? Who has responsibility for deaths in war? And most famously, how is a war-time siege to be conducted according to Halachah. Rav Goren argued fiercely, based on a line in Maimonides’ Halachic masterwork, that an escape route – ‘Ruach Patuach’ - should be maintained for the people of Beirut during the siege of their city in 1982.

The sense I have reading his teachings is of a man trying to do what is right and good in the face of very real, existential, threats. It’s clear that he believed the only way to address this question, as a Jew, lay in the verses and teachings of our faith. But that didn’t render any of his conclusions simple, certainly, there is nothing in his writing that is simplistic or reductive. The sense I have is that he didn’t sleep well. No military ethicist, Jewish or otherwise, should sleep well at a time when human beings, creations in the image of God, go out to war.

Shabbat Shalom

Israel and Rosh Hashanah at New London

(Piccie drawn from Daniel Sokatch's book, which has a great title - but I haven't read)

Oh, that my head were water
My eyes a fount of tears!
Then would I weep day and night
For the slain of my poor people.
Jeremiah 8:23

New London has always been proud to support Israel, but we have never faced a challenge like this last year. There are three parts to the challenges I, and I know so many members of the community feel. There are the awful attacks of 7th October still felt deeply and feeling, this week particularly, like an unhealed scab continually pulled away. There is the surge in the experience of antisemitism in this, and other, countries. And there is the concern felt by many in the community that the some of the policies pursued by Israel’s political leaders have led to tremendous suffering for the Palestinians of the West Bank as well as Gaza without bringing increased safety for Israel or the release or rescue of substantial numbers of captives.

 

Commemoration and Engagement
Our relationship with Israel will be a principal focus of the sermon on the First Day of Rosh Hashanah, 3^rd October. On Shabbat Shuvah, 5^th October, we will have the opportunity to engage with the newly published collection of contemporary Israeli reflection on this last year, Shiva, edited by Rachel Korazim.

On Sunday 6th October, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we encourage support of the cross-communal Weekend of Reflection organised by the Board of Deputies, JLC, UJIA, Hostages and Missing Families Forum and many others. A major, central London communal event is planned. Fuller information will only be released much nearer the time, and you can register interest here - https://bod.org.uk/october-7-commemorative-weekend/.

On the night of 7th October itself, we will commemorate this past year as a community, in person at New London. There will be readings and prayer and it will be a quieter opportunity for us to come together in pain, in confusion and in hope. We will share more about this evening shortly.

 

In the Jewish calendar, the 7^th October 2023, was Shmini Atzeret – a Yom Tov featuring Yizkor and a day which, I fear, will now forever be associated with the attacks of last year. We will certainly acknowledge the anniversary on Shimini Atzeret.

 

Tefilah

We have, since October, been praying for the immediate release of the captives with this remarkable prayer written by my colleagues Rabbis Ofer and Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi. We are, as of this week, adding new language; calling for leaders of the State to redeem the captives with fortitude and compassion as our traditions calls. The calculus that faces the Israel’s political leaders is, of course, desperately complex, but it has felt increasingly important for us to include this element in our prayers for freedom for the captives.

 

Tzedakah

For sixty years, New London Synagogue has partnered with the UJIA (and formerly the JIA).  We’ve supported communities across the country with pride and tremendous generosity. This year are calling, in our Kol Nidrei Appeal, for support which will allow the UJIA to support Israel in this time of great need. More information will be in the mailing members will receive nearer to Rosh Hashanah. Or see www.ujia.org.

 

Religion and Politics

There are two reasonable cases to be made for New London, and I as its religious leader, to limit our engagement with these desperately complex, and often divisive issues. It’s reasonable to claim that New London, especially over the High Holydays, should be a place of sanctuary from the sirens and shrieks that have so often accompanied this past year. It’s also reasonable to claim that religion should keep its nose out of politics, and diaspora religious leaders especially should be humble before the decisions of Israelis. But Israel is more than ‘mere’ politics for us as British Jews. And New London has never closed its heart or its mind to the world in which we live. As your Rabbi I will, as ever, be attempting to balance on a narrow bridge. I hope for your compassion even as – for I am sure it will be ‘as’ rather than ‘if’ - I fail to articulate the perfect balanced response to these unprecedented pressures.

 

May the captives be released. May peace come.

Shannah Tovah

 

Praying for the Captives - September 2024

My thoughts and prayers, throughout this week, have been with the families of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov and Ori Danino, may their memories be a blessing, found murdered in a tunnel in Gaza last Shabbat.

As regular attendees will know, we have offered at all services this year a prayer written by my colleagues, Rabbis Ofer and Rachel Sabath Beit Halachmi. The prayer calls for the captives’ strength, protection, rescue and redemption. It calls for understanding to be placed even in the heart of the enemy that they may return the captives. It calls for peace between all the sons and daughters of Abraham, Sarah – the archetypal mother of all Jews – and Hagar – as mother of Ishmael, a spiritual mother of Palestine. And it prays for the Israeli soldiers who, last Shabbat perhaps most painfully, are tasked to make their way into these tunnels of unimaginable danger.

The prayer has given my yearning and pain a place of tethering. It has allowed me a vehicle for a faith sustained not by certainty but in hope. I’ve been grateful for it. Following the rescue of  Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrei Kozlov, and Shlomi Zivin June, a member wrote to me in delight that the news that broke following that morning’s recitation and urging its increased use. I don’t think either of us believe in a theology quite that literal, but the prayer, I believe, has helped.

The original prayer, written I think in late October last year, addressed the ‘enemy,’ but didn’t address the political leadership of Israel, tasked with a balance of unspeakable complexity – securing Israel while fighting for and also negotiating for the release of captives. The demand to rescue captives through negotiation – Pidyon Shevuim – is a tragically well-known Mitzvah – core obligation of our faith.

Rambam (Hilchot Matanot Evyonim 8:10) codifies this obligation as follows.

“Redeeming captives receives priority over providing the poor with food and clothing. There is no mitzvah greater than redeeming captives, because a captive is included among those who are starving, those who are thirsty, those who are without clothing, and they are in life-threatening danger. One who hides from redeeming them violates the following Torah prohibitions…” And here the Mishneh Torah cites eight verses from Chumash followed by this heartbreaking  verse from Proverbs, “Release those who have been taken from death (Mishlei 24:11). “There is,” Rambam states, “No greater command than the redemption of captives.”

This utterly compelling call does not, of course, imagine there is no calculus – Halachah makes clear that there is a limit to the price payable for the release of a captive since paying too high a price could simply drive more hostage-taking. But the horror of captivity and the vital importance of a negotiated release is so central to our faith, and our needs at this time, that we have added a new paragraph to our prayer. My thanks, particularly, to David for his assistance drafting the following.

פְּקוֹד נָא בְּחֹסֶן וּבְחֶמְלָה אֶת מַנְהִיגֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, רָאשֶׁיהָ וְיוֹעֲצֶיהָ, לְקַיֵּם מָה שֶׁכָּתוּב "לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת יָדְךָ", וּמָה שֶׁכָּתוּב "לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל דַּם רֵעֶךָ", וְלִפְדּוֹת אֶת הַשְּׁבוּיִים הַמְּחַכִּים לִישׁוּעָתֶךָ.

Evoke fortitude and compassion in the leaders of Israel, its rulers and advisers, to uphold what is written, “Do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin” (Deut 15:7)  and what is written, “Do not stand on the blood of your fellow” (Levi 19:16), and redeem the captives who are awaiting your salvation.

May it come speedily.

Shabbat Shalom