Around a decade ago a study was conducted in the United States exploring what creates the strongest sense of Jewish identity in young people that would last into adulthood. They looked at Jewish day schools, Israel tours, religion school or cheder, friendships and many other factors. Above and beyond anything else, the results were veryRead More
“My brother and I were at Sinai He kept a journal of what he saw of what he heard of what it all meant to him I wish I had such a record of what happened to me It seems like every time I want to write I can’t I’m always holding a baby oneRead More
It is hard to know where to begin after the week that has just passed… the land which our Torah puts so much effort into caring for continues to dominate our news cycles with pain and anguish and now also murders that spread thousands of miles around the globe. And while it has been impossibleRead More
Acharei Mot Kedoshim No one would have known it from Lissy’s confident delivery today, but this wasn’t the easiest bit of Torah to read, with sacrifice, blood, and strange goats. Ah well, at least it wasn’t the bodily emissions of last week! But these ancient Temple rituals, organised around systems of sacrifice and categories ofRead More
I often worry that my kids get bored of me telling the same stories and using the same commentaries at seder, but some of them hit differently every year. At our seder we always make a note of talking about the removal of wine from our kiddush cups as we read the 10 plagues, inRead More
In the Israel Museum in Jerusalem there is a stunning building known as the ‘Sanctuary of the Book’. Inside are some of the most incredible treasures for a lover of Jewish texts, and some of the most challenging! Their story begins in 1947, when a young shepherd found some ancient rolled up manuscripts in a caveRead More
My Uncle Herman is an extraordinary man. Born in Lebanon to two holocaust survivors that had fought their way to British Mandate lands in the hope of getting to the UK, he went on to be a highly respected immunologist at Oxford University, he has invented vaccines and conducted life changing research. At Ben GurionRead More
This shabbat is usually one of my favourites to talk about the portion. It contains within it a command that most people would never even notice, but which, through midrash, is now an integral part of the course I teach to student Rabbis at Leo Baeck College on World Religions and Interfaith Encounter. But inRead More
This week I finally caught up with the huge number of the Jewish community who have been to see Tracey Anne Oberman’s re-visioned production of the Merchant of Venice! Despite the clever interweaving of Shakespeare’s dialogue with Jewish rituals, and the backdrop of the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, Shakespeare’s play is an extremelyRead More
One of my favourite little books is called ‘Children’s Letters to God’. It does what it says on the tin. And one letter in particular came to mind this week: Dear GOD, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother. -LarryRead More
We have only just finished the first out of 5 services. (And instead of going home you now have my sermon too!) One of the opportunities Yom Kippur offers us is to do Teshuvah, to turn or return to our true and best selves. But sometimes we go through the motion of familiar and lovedRead More
I was 16 when my childhood Rabbi first suggested I think about following in her footsteps. I rejected the idea extremely strongly. I was an assistant teacher at the cheder, involved in RSY, my dad was chair of the synagogue, and we were there an awful lot. I had even picked Religious Studies as oneRead More