It is lovely today to be celebrating so many things in our Torah service, from Sherry’s Phd, to Joel’s amazing achievement in being awarded Children In Need’s Young Fundraiser of the Year, and Manfred’s birthday! Mazal tov to you all! I’ve noticed over the years, that when it comes to celebrating Jewish weddings, there isRead More
Our Torah reading for this week, Parashat Toldot starts with good news. Rebecca, Isaac’s wife is pregnant. The bad news is her pregnancy is a difficult one. She is in pain and we are told that it is because her twin baby-boys were pressing against each other. So according to the author of the TorahRead More
I really enjoy Inductions… but only when other people are having them. I feel shy being the center of attention. This is my second Induction in 14 years. I went out of my way 2 years ago to miss another one, ending up in Ukraine at the beginning of the war. And I hope thisRead More
I won’t lie, I have spent this week wondering what on earth I am going to say this morning. I have, in fact, felt lost for words a lot of the time this week. I have felt like I might snap in half at any minute. On Monday, I tried to explain to my 8Read More
Every end means a new beginning. At the end of our Morning Yom Kippur service we are only 4 services away from the end of our spiritual journey over the last 10 days, the end of our fast and indeed that new beginning for our cleansed and shining souls. There is something uplifting in YomRead More
“The words of the mouth are more potent than those of the heart. For it is from the mouth that we utter blessings and curses, and from the mouth that we go out to war and peace. Therefore, one should be careful with one’s mouth and speak only words of truth and kindness.” (Talmud, ShabbatRead More
A few weeks ago, I was walking with the family along a busy Jerusalem street, heading for the shuk, the market. In front of us, sitting on the pavement, where it seemed she might have been for some time, a woman was begging. As I noticed her a man who looked like he too couldRead More
Can you smell the air right now? What does it smell of? Apple and honey? Something is in the air. A new beginning? Are you relieved that last year with all its ups and downs, broken hopes and losses, bad news from around the world has finished? Just pause here. Just breathe this air ofRead More
No more excuses Taylor Lewis bar-mitzvah Parashat Nishavim is about excuses. We are told off for making them or even thinking about making them. But are excuses so bad for us? Is it even possible to live our lives without having a few excuses to hand? In my career as a Rabbi the best excuseRead More
When I first arrived at EHRS in April 2020, the world looked a little different. It was a rather small world for a little while. But life needed to carry on in multiple ways that we had to make work, including families wanting to apply for Jewish schools. We found ways to monitor attendance andRead More
There is something breath-taking for me as a child of the late 1970s, who used to communicate with her friends only via the landline and didn’t have a mobile phone until my early 20s, about the exploration of outer space. The landing of the space-station Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the Moon brought lotsRead More
Through the course of recent history, Jewish people, have been called many names. My favourite one is “people of the book”. It is because this name captures the essence of our tradition: look at us celebrating two of the most important lifecycle events, Bat-Mitzvah and Aufruf, around the Torah scroll. So, probably, it does notRead More