Audrey spoke beautifully about the two main focuses of the book of Bemidbar and her Parashah: being in the wilderness literally and metaphorically, and that individuals matter. Each journey can both enrich and challenge us at the same time. And, that might be the point of our journeys: to grow while on them and notRead More
Harry, Kate and Alex, we are at a time in the year where we really need something to celebrate, especially this year. So thank you for giving us so much to celebrate! We are in a period known as the Omer – where we walk from the freedom of Pesach to the responsibility of receivingRead More
Today we celebrate the end of Pesach. Has this week made a difference to us as individuals and as a community? As a community we have had a memorable Pesach by marking it with the services and a meaningful communal Seder. This year having hostage photos at our Seder tables and then seeing the releasedRead More
I have a precious and diverse collection of haggadot. From an Ethiopian haggadah to haggadot that focus on modern heroes, a haggadah produced specially for American servicemen during the second world war, to an archaeological haggadah, each one speaks to different moments in Jewish thought and history, and my favourites also try to ensure thatRead More
As Jaden mentions in his D’var Torah one of the peculiarities of Parashat Tazria is the examination and validation by Priests of scaly infection called in Hebrew nega tzara-at – plague of infection on body, garments and buildings. There is hardly anything in the Torah about healing or of a medicinal nature. So why wouldRead More
Last Shabbat I was invited to speak at Oxford Jsoc for International Women’s Day. I did explain that I am also able to speak the other 364 days of the year (365 this year). We had a wonderful Shabbat there, staying over in the Jewish community centre where there is an Orthodox synagogue, a secondRead More
The first time I referred to God in the feminine from the bimah I had been a Rabbi for about 2 years. It was a throw away comment at the end of a sermon that hadn’t really been about God or women or even feminism, but it was the main topic of conversation at KiddushRead More
I want some balance in my life. Wouldn’t it be good to find some sort of balance in our human social broigus just the same way it exists in Nature? Does anyone know a magic formula for equilibrium as defined by “acting forces that are cancelled by each other resulting in a stable balanced system”[1]?Read More
כַּבֵּ֥ד אֶת־אָבִ֖יךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּ֑ךָ Traditionally translated as honour your father and mother, the fifth commandment begins with the word respect. This word has been playing on my mind this week, particularly after a conversation at the school gates on Wednesday. A mother was complaining about how the teachers at our children’s secondary school don’t respect theRead More
The Mental Health awareness Shabbat was chosen to be marked by JAMI, the Mental Health service for the Jewish Community in the UK, on this particular Shabbat because of its Torah reading. One of the 10 plagues, with which the Egyptians were afflicted, was the plague of darkness. We read at the end of chapterRead More
‘Let my People Go’. Possibly one of the most famous phrases of the book of Exodus, if not the Torah. It is a lament people throughout the ages have employed at some of the darkest times, and it famously became the refrain of an African American Spiritual, praying for freedom from lived slavery. This yearRead More
I would like to start with a riddle today: What do you call cattle who don’t have any courage? – Cowards! Well, Joseph’s brothers were definitely not cowards and not cow herders but shepherds as they confirm in their brave reply to Pharaoh’s question. Their reply was brave because Joseph warned them before their audienceRead More