Covenant, Community, Caring

Shavuot Sermon Sinai Synagogue 

Covenant, Community and Caring 

Communities are interesting places. Communities can be nurturing or toxic, they can include and exclude, uplift and break down. In this sense, communities are just the sum of the parts of humanity that cement them together. Of course as a community, we hope and want to see the very best of ourselves. Yet there is a darker side to community as well. Who is in and who is out? Who participates and who is jettisoned? Who leads and who follows? This is part of the central question of what kind of a community we want to be. 

Shavuot, like any good Jewish holiday, is about many things. (We never make things simple in Judaism!) There is an agricultural component as we celebrate the harvest and offering of the firstlings. It is also, of course, about Revelation at Sinai and the giving of the Torah. Shavuot is a spiritual wedding, if you will, where Israel as the Bride enters into a sanctified and loving state with God as the groom. 

One of the central Shavuot themes is community and inclusivity. 

The Book of Ruth is a prime example of this. Time and time again, individuals in the Book of Ruth decided to be inclusive. They could have been exclusive but chose ‘chesed’, loving kindness, instead. Ruth, as a new widow from Moav could have chosen to stay with her own people. Yet ‘chesed’ compelled her to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi. Naomi kisses Ruth tenderly and tries to honourably turn her back with kind words, ‘go, return to your mothers’ house, may the Eternal deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and me ‘ (Ruth 1:8) Yet Ruth matches Naomi’s ‘chesed’ with her own as she persists and utters the famous words: 'ki asher telchi, elech, uv’asher talini, alin, amech ami, v’elohaich, elohai’ – ‘for where you shall go, I will go; and where you shall lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God’. Naomi relents and does the right thing: she includes the poor Moabite woman, a member of the very community the Torah prohibits the Israelites from marrying, and brings her to her new home. 

Of course the story doesn’t end here. 

Ruth then gleans the fields to support herself and her mother-in-law – another act of chesed – and eventually Boaz, the kinsman who comes to love her on the threshing-floor – another act of chesed. And the greatest act of chesed is yet to come, for out of this downtrodden foreigner, the quintessential convert to Judaism, the Davidic lineage will flow, and with that, the Messianic redemption of the entire world. It is indeed true that ‘God works in mysterious ways’. Through the downtrodden He redeems, as the ‘Shomer gerim’ (Ps. 146:8), the Guardian of strangers. 

And yet this message is so easily forgotten. 

When communities do not feed the poor, do not welcome the stranger, do not act with chesed. By oppressing the downtrodden, they scorn the Divine Will, as happened only a few days ago in Tel Aviv. Thirty six times we are commanded to not oppress and even love the stranger, ‘for we were strangers in Egypt’ and ‘you know the nefesh, the life-feelings, of the stranger’. 

Yet on the 24th of May, thousands of Tel Aviv citizens converged in a demonstration against African asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and Darfur, where oppression, hunger and war run rampant. A right-wing politician described the African foreigners as a ‘cancer’ that needs to be ‘excised’ and sent back. The demonstration darkened into race riots when some of the demonstrators turned their anger onto the Israeli police and a car with African passengers.

I read the news on Thursday evening in Ha’Aretz and was left speechless. Only a few days before Shavuot, this festival of covenant, community and caring, a Jewish mob in Tel Aviv violates the very premises at the heart of Jewish ethics. Each one of those African immigrants could be a Ruth, crossing over from Moav, because there was ‘bread in the Land’. 

The parallels are scathingly obvious. This is when communities become vicious and turn to exclusion. The walls get pulled up to form an echo-chamber of exclusivist, if not racist, rhetoric. Us versus them. Human versus something somehow deemed diminished in humanity. The Torah counsels us against this. This is why the Name of God is invoked after so many of the ethical commandments: ‘And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.’ (Lev. 19:33-34). God’s most sacred Name is to remind us of the divine spark in each of us, because as soon as we forget that each human being is created in the image of God, it is all too easy to forget our common humanity. 

Community is supposed to be the structure to help us remember this great commandment. 

Luckily, we also have plenty of examples in our communities on how you get it right. From the grandiose political to the parochially personal, I too, am a Ruth. Holland may not be exactly a Moav and Yorkshire may not be Beit Lechem (although the verdant hills might suggest otherwise!) but I crossed over into your community this past year and felt incredibly welcome. There was real ‘chesed’ practiced here. The community of Sinai Synagogue welcomed me into your shul, homes and hearts. I sat at your Shabbos tables, slept in your houses. I was picked up and brought back to the train station, fed endless cups of tea and offered friendship, hospitality and kindness. 

As this year comes to a close, I can look back on a wonderful year with you all, where I felt welcome, this stranger from Holland and London. You’ve offered me Northern warmth and I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you all for having me with you as your student rabbi this year. Communities can be interesting places and I hope to learn more about how to help you build that caring, covenant community, the kehillah k’doshah. I am certain we can do it, in the little and not-so-little ways, and then we can nurture the regulars and the newcomers alike. Who knows what blessings will flow from this. 

Chag Shavuot Sameach!

Stairway to Heaven

This article has been published in the Sinai Chronicle, Sinai Reform Synagogue, Leeds

Stairway to Heaven

Are you ready to count your way to personal transformation?

The Omer Counting can be seen as the world’s oldest ’12 Step Program’, an antique method of self-improvement. According to the Chassidic tradition this is certainly the case where each ‘sefirah’ (‘counting’) is aligned with a Kabbalistic description of the Divine, like ‘Gevurah’ (power) or ‘Chesed’ (loving-kindness) for us to emulate. Be what may, the message is clear – the Omer is not only a Biblical commandment (Lev. 23:15) in which we count our way from freedom (Pesach) to Revelation (Shavuot) – but also a stairway to Heaven into our deepest personal experiences.

A lot happens en route. From the first counting (on the 15^th of Nisan, second Seider night, for those who celebrate) to the 50th on erev Shavuot itself (6^th of Sivan), the tragedies and joys of the Jewish people pass us by. On our relentless march to receive Torah is interspersed with Yom haShoah (27^th of Nisan), Yom haZikaron (4^th of Iyar), Yom ha’Atzma’ut (5^th of Iyar) and Lag b’Omer (18^th of Iyar).

Most of these events are solemn remembrances of death, loss and tragedy and so in traditional circles, the Omer period is seen as one of semi-mourning where joys are tempered. Yet at the same time, the Omer period reminds us equally of all that we can rejoice in and what we can look forward to – being alive to accept Torah anew each year at Sinai. As with many of our festivals and experiences, this ‘mixing’ of both the difficult and the beautiful is what makes our tradition real, tangible – and deeply personal.

How can we become fully ready to embrace the covenant at Sinai? The Omer count is supposed to prepare us for this transformative experience, it is like steps leading into our collective mikveh. Are you ready to take the proverbial plunge?

It is so easy to focus on the clichés of Shavuot: Ruth the Moabite, conversion and the inclusion of converts to Judaism. Revelation, the Ten Commandments, (all-night) Torah learning. Even the fresh flowers in the Sanctuary and a big slice of cheesecake! All of these are important and positive values, worthy of discussion. But maybe it is helpful to focus on the process of Shavuot instead. How do we get to that point? What forces shape our experiences on the way? Perhaps a more conscious experience of the Omer count can help us with that question.

The Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Yevamot 46a) discusses the requirements for conversion to Judaism (circumcision for men and immersion in a mikveh for both genders) and deduces that when our ancestors stood at Sinai, they all were converts to Judaism. It is a lovely sentiment, of course, both for Jews-by-birth and Jews-by-rebirth, but the question begs itself: how did they ‘get there’? What transformation happened along the way to turn this haphazard and traumatised band of ex-slaves into a covenant people, ready and worthy to receive the Divine Presence?

They went through the 12 Step Program. They faced both their traumas and joys and were willing to work with them, move with them and move beyond them. They placed their pain in the crucible of faith and forged hope from it. Sure, they were fallible – and the Torah is a testimony to their frequent backsliding (and Moses’ relentless kvetching!) – but our ancestors took the plunge because they knew from their personal experience what Torah could mean to them. They were liberated physically and honed their souls to be liberated spiritually.

What are you readying yourself for this year? What Torah values would you like to immerse yourself in this year as you stand at Sinai? Is there a new mitzvah – however small – that you would be willing to take on? And how do you feel about choosing your Judaism, mind, body and soul? You still have a little while to think, reflect and feel these questions. Just remember, the Holy One Blessed be He is ‘counting’ on you!