TFTW Archive 2022 Apr

Additions to your Seder plate

1 April 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

This Shabbat is Shabbat Chodesh, the first Shabbat of the Hebrew month of Nissan, during which Passover is celebrated. Jews all over the world begin to prepare for this festival and plan their Seders.

Over the years, Seder Pesach has become the time to raise awareness about contemporary issues. Apart from traditional food, many people add alternative symbols on the plate to open the conversation and discuss what we can do to make a difference.

Perhaps the most common and well-known alternative symbol is an orange. Jewish Studies Professor Susannah Heschel once asked everyone at her family seder to take an orange slice, make a blessing over the fruit, and eat it to show solidarity with lesbians, gay men, and all Jewish community members that are marginalised. Because an orange consists of many segments joined together, we eat the orange with the hope that everyone will find a place, comfort and peace within our community.

Many people add olives. On many occasions, olive trees were damaged to force Palestinians to leave their homeland. At the same time, the olive branch is famous for symbolising peace. We add to the Seder plates a symbol of hope for future peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

As we tell the Pesach story and consider our current liberation struggles, we also think of signs of the climate catastrophe and find inspiration to take action. Therefore some people place a red chilli pepper on the seder plate to remind us of the burning Earth.

One of the less well-known traditions is to add a banana to the Seder plate. Aylan Kurdi and his brother, Galip, were victims of the Syrian refugee crisis. We place a banana on the Seder table to honour a tradition in which the boys’ father would bring them a banana to share every day. This is a reminder of an ongoing refugee crisis. By putting a banana, we hope that all who seek refuge be guarded and protected along their journey to safety, shielded by their parents’ love, watched over the God full of mercy and compassion.

Today, amid the war in Ukraine, the refugee crisis is more relevant than ever. Over 4 million Ukrainians have fled their country and are seeking refuge abroad. Thanks to Rabbi Alex and her class earlier this week, there is a brilliant idea for the seder this year. The sunflower is a Ukrainian national symbol. One of Rabbi Alex's students suggested putting sunflower seeds on the seder plate as both a symbol of solidarity with Ukraine and a symbol of hope. I think it is a brilliant idea and I would like to share it with you. Warning - it is considered kitniyot (legumes), and not all Jews consider it kosher for Pesach. Perhaps, if you do not feel comfortable with including sunflower seeds, the idea becomes even more beautiful this way - sunflower seeds do not belong to the seder plate in the same way as war does not belong to the modern world.

Alternatively, Ukraine’s famous national food is borscht. Its main ingredient is beetroot. Hebrew for beetroot is selek. This word resembles the word for retreat, yistalku. Before eating, you may say: May it be Your will, Eternal God, that all the enemies who might beat us will retreat (yistalku), and we will beat a path to freedom.  

Shabbat Shalom,
Igor Zinkov
 

Shabbat M'tzora/Ha-Gadol

8 April 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

This week I came across the story of a young Afghani man, seeking asylum in this country. Nineteen-year-old Khalil’s parents died when he was quite young, and he was living with an uncle. But after an argument, his uncle threw him out of the house and Khalil found himself with nowhere to live. He had no money to buy food and nowhere to sleep. The park was too dangerous as there were drug dealers there at night. On the first night, he climbed on to the roof of a library and spent the night there.


Two weeks later, volunteers from Sufra, the food bank and kitchen, found Khalil, homeless, hungry and cold, eating leftovers from customers’ trays at the local McDonald’s. Sufra arranged emergency hotel accommodation for him and then transferred him to a shelter. They provided a small stipend to pay for his travel costs and mobile phone top-ups, as well as small grants from charity partners for clothing and other essentials. ‘I just want to continue my education,’ says Khalil. ‘I don’t want to be homeless.’

This true story reminded me of the story in the Talmud of Hillel the Elder who would go out to work each day and earn half a dinar for his day’s work (half the average payment for unskilled labour at the time). With half of his earnings, he would pay the guard at the study hall, and with the other half he would pay for his own sustenance and the sustenance of his family. On one occasion, he couldn’t find work and the security guard wouldn’t let him enter the academy, so he climbed up on to the roof and sat at the edge of the skylight in order to listen to the words of the great teachers, Shemayah and Avtalyon. It was Erev Shabbat in winter and very cold. Snow fell on Hillel and covered him. When morning came the two scholars noticed that the classroom was dark, the sunlight blocked from entering the room. Looking up, they saw the shape of a man covered in snow, three cubits high. They brought him inside, shocked by Hillel’s poverty and impressed by his great desire to continue his learning (bYoma 35b).

Khalil at 19 was barely out of his adolescence and should have been at home with caring adults, continuing his education. Hillel the Elder had a family – a wife, children perhaps. Where did they live? How did they heat their home and find enough to eat? How were his children’s health and learning affected by the poverty of their family? Perhaps they suffered the indignity of not even having the right clothes to go to school.

For those of us in warm houses without the struggle to meet our monthly bills or pay the grocery bill each week, it is hard to imagine what it must be like for Khalil or the children of modern-day Hillels whose parents’ wages don’t keep up with the cost of living. The number of children living in poverty in the UK is higher than comparable wealthy countries and the numbers are increasing. They will continue to increase unless resources are poured into high quality and fully funded childcare, after-school children’s centres, and the income of those families on the margins is raised to restore dignity and remove the painful and difficult daily struggles that people have to endure to get by.

It is not inevitable that the shocking gap between rich and poor grows bigger by the day. It is not inevitable that the poor will become poorer, the rich richer, that children will suffer at home and at school because they are cold or because they don’t have enough to eat, or because their parents are under intolerable pressure. This is not about bad choices, writes Professor Michael Marmot, it is poverty. Child development, adequate food and nutrition, and decent housing lead to a healthy life.

Sufra’s support for Khalil is incalculable. He has left the shelter and is being housed by a local Afghan family and the charity has helped him secure a pro-bono solicitor who is currently working on his case. Homelessness rendered him depressed and close to wanting to die. Poverty took away this young man’s dignity and the right to make the kinds of choices that should belong to all of us.

Addressing poverty is central to the teachings of the Torah – even in this week’s parashah, M’tzora, which deals with the laws of nega tzara’at – a skin disease, the purification rituals required were modified depending on means – Leviticus 14:21-22. This is not simply a matter of generosity and compassion, although it is that, but justice – tz’dakah – doing that which is right and utterly fair for everyone in society.

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexandra Wright

Passover and the importance of secondary characters

15 April 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

Even people not familiar with Torah would probably know the story of the parting of the sea and the Exodus from Egypt. When the Egyptian army was approaching Jews standing at the shore of the Red sea, the water split, and Israelites walked on dry ground. This is the story as we know it from Disney movies and art. We also read about it at the Passover Haggadah – the book we read to each other at Seder tables.

 

This is how the story is told in the Torah (Exodus 14:15-16):

The Eternal One said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you lift up your rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it so that the Israelites may march into the sea on dry ground.

However, if you read Rabbinic interpretations of the story of the parting of the sea, you will be surprised. This story is retold from a very different perspective. In the rabbinic version from Babylonian Talmud, the Israelites gathered at the seashore, Moses lifted his hands, and nothing happened. The sea remained still. Trapped between the sea and the approaching Egyptian army, people were reluctant to jump into the water. Then, Nahshon ben Aminadav, the head of the tribe of Judah, jumped into the sea first and started to walk into the sea. (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 37a).

Talmud continues by saying that Moses was saying his prayer at that time. God said to him: My beloved people are drowning in the sea, and you tell your prayer to me? Moses answered: Master of the Universe, but what can I do? God said to him (in the words of the Torah): ‘Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. And you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand’ (Exodus 14:15–16).
 

From this passage in Talmud, it seems like our rabbis did not like the fact that the Torah story presents the parting of the sea as a pure miracle, and the only active role is played by God. In the eyes of Rabbinic scholars, it did not give any significance to people. The Torah text presents this moment as God’s grace, missing the essential element of human agency. Talmudic Rabbis decided to add a legend (midrash), filling the gap in the story and giving people an active role in the moment of the historical grandeur.

We know that the story did not end there. After Israelites crossed the sea, there was still a long way to the Promised Land. People like Nahshon ben Aminadav are not on the frontline of historical novels. Not many people remember them, but people like Nahshon ben Aminadav, secondary characters, who are as important as Moses Miriam and Aaron in the achievements of our people. Sometimes all we need to do is to make a little step forward.

As we make the last preparations for Pesach this year, I wish all of us a very Happy Passover. I would like to thank all of you for being such a great source of support and inspiration, exemplars of kindness and compassion and worthy members of our community and society.

Pesach Sameach and Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Igor

Photo: Nahum Gutman - Passover Haggadah: Crossing the red sea. 1930.
Copyright: with the generous permission of Yaakov Frankel and the Nahum Gutman Museum Tel Aviv.    

Seventh Day Pesach/Shabbat Acharey-Mot

22 April 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

I know of only one member of our synagogue who, for more years than he wished to count, sought asylum in this country.  Rendered stateless by the country where he was born because of his religion, his parents both murdered, he came to this country, as a young and vulnerable adult, knowing no one and having interrupted his education. Somehow, he was put in touch with a solicitor who specialised in immigration and eventually, after many years, he was given Leave to Remain. That man is now working and contributing to the economy of this country, but the long wait until he could live and work here took its toll on his health and well-being and damaged the professional prospects that his parents had for him.

I cannot begin to imagine what might happen to young men – barely out of their teens – who arrive in this country, the country they choose to come to, only to find that they will be sent to Rwanda for ‘offshore processing.’  These are the inhumane plans that the government is proposing as though people are some form of cargo to be moved around at the will of the leaders of this country.  What about the voices of those seeking asylum? Do they have the choice about where they want to live their lives and how they wish to lead their lives?  Has anyone listened to them?

That is not to say that Rwanda is not a hospitable country, making every effort to accommodate people displaced by war, conflict, oppression or violence.  But there is something brutally restrictive and controlling in this policy, not to say contrary to international refugee law.

The message of the Seventh Day of Pesach is one of deliverance from the tyranny and hard-heartedness of Pharaoh.  It is about overcoming fear and about ‘holding peace.’  It’s about the courage to move forward, good leadership and – yes – the miracle of the sea that is driven back, turning the waters into dry ground.  And it’s about the angel of God, whose presence protects them from the pursuing Egyptian army.

This narrative and the experience of slavery in Egypt is connected indissolubly to the law that is repeated again and again throughout the Torah: ‘You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Exodus 23.9).

The young man I mentioned, used to find sanctuary in the synagogue during the years of waiting for Leave to Remain.  There were times of deep depression and hopelessness – there was danger in returning to his homeland where he was unrecognised by the state, and there was loneliness and frustration that he was unable to work. Eventually, he was moved to Wales and was able to volunteer in a centre for others seeking asylum.  And he found his angels in the form of his solicitor and the barrister who argued his case for Leave to Remain.

Why did the angel of God move from leading the Israelites in the front, to following behind them, asks Rashi in his commentary to Exodus 14:19?  To make a separation between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel and to receive the arrows and the catapulted stones of the Egyptians.

As we celebrate this last day of Pesach and remember the deliverance of the Israelites, let us place ourselves between the proposed punitive decrees of offshore detention and the people who are worthy of protection and help – those fleeing conflict and persecution and whose voices must be heard by all of us who live securely and in freedom.  

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Alexandra Wright

Post-truth and Torah portion Kedoshim

29 April 2022

Dear Members and Friends,

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, post-truth has the following definition: ‘relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts’. 

We assume that truth is something we value and care about. Everybody wants to hear truthful facts. However, we live in a world where truth depends on perspective and perspective depends on your belief.  

Hannah Arendt formulated an important basis for the conception of post-truth theory. In her 1972 essay ‘Lying in Politics’, she writes: 

“Truth or falsehood – it does not matter which anymore, if your life depends on your acting as though you trusted; truth that can be relied on disappears entirely from public life, and with it the chief stabilizing factor in the ever-changing affairs of men.” 

The world is changing constantly and rapidly. Everything seems to become relative and almost nothing gives people a sense of stability. In Judaism, we teach that there can be more than one side to the truth. Two people may disagree with each other and yet be truthful. Our emotions and beliefs may affect the side and perspective we take in an argument. 

How does one find truth from the many belief-based claims? How do we find stability and consistency in the ever-changing world? How do we live with the idea that nothing is true, and everything depends on perspective?  

This week’s Torah portion is called Kedoshim, which means ‘holy’. It begins with the famous commandment to all Jews: ‘You shall be holy, for I, The Eternal One your God, am holy.’ This portion contains the famous commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, as well as some other laws about rituals, forbidden sexual relations and other actions, such as idolatry and unethical business practices. This section in the Torah is called ‘The Holiness Code’ 

I think that the key to understanding the Holiness Code lies in the meaning of the word Kadosh (Holy). The root of this word is Kuf-Dalet-Shin (קדש). It has a variety of meanings, including ‘to be cut off, separated, to be consecrated, dedicated’ In other words, the most basic meaning of the concept of holiness is to be dedicated, separated, different, and distinguished from others. Looking at the context of the Holiness Code, it becomes clear that the Torah text commands us not to be afraid to be different. Even when everybody around you is involved in a certain practice, it does not mean that you should do the same.  

Perhaps, the commandment ‘to be holy’ in Judaism is the best compass in the era of post-truth. In the world of information overload and too many positions, we should not be afraid to be critical, think for ourselves. In the world of COVID, war and the rise of dangerous powers, we should not be afraid of becoming outsiders in the arena of social debate. In the world of ever-changing affairs, we should not be afraid of coming together and supporting each other as a community, even if some of us hold opposing views. In the ever-changing world, we need to accept diversity of opinions, not be afraid to present our side of the story but remember that this too might change.  

Shabbat Shalom,

Igor