Sermons, essays, articles, arguments and thought pieces from a Liberal Jewish perspective.
You can watch a recording of this sermon on our YouTube channel.
Kol Yisrael arevim zei b’zeh
All Israel are responsible for each other.
Shavuot 39a
Architect of the world
Author of her story,
Grant me the courage to participate
In the world’s design
To join in the unfolding of her story.
How I want to share in the
Responsibility of this world –
To pray for her welfare
To care for her needs
To safeguard her treasures
To work for her rectification
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
On Rosh Hashanah Morning, I suggested that each one of us had a role to play in the unfolding story of the world and especially in these dystopian times for many on the planet, to work for her rectification. I introduced the concept offered by Baroness Catherine Ashton, of ‘radical humility,’ and how she used it to bring individuals together, sworn enemies to bring about accord for their nations. This magnitude I did not ask of us, rather to bring to bear on the world our understanding of God’s desire for the affirmation of life. Brought by us on an individual level it is sometimes difficult to perceive the effect. Yet we still act for we know it is right to do so and because when we do so with confidence that we are all acting, the power of community to affect Creation, the world we know, love and wish for us and future generations to live on.
Naturally, I posited the universalism that Liberal Judaism has gifted to Judaism in the UK. We do not solely pray for peace and welfare for the Jews but for all who inhabit our globe.
Yet this Yom Kippur, we are faced by two phenomena that challenge easy, lethargic or ambivalent relationships we may have enjoyed for decades within Judaism.
This evening, in the quiet stillness of Kol Nidrei, I will speak about what I, we – as I will be using Rabbi Lea’s thinking – consider to be a dangerous and pivotal moment in the State of Israel and therefore for Judaism.
Tomorrow morning, I will speak about the plight of three groups of Jews, a few you may not have heard about.
Let us consider the rabbinic principle of Kol Yisrael arevim zei b’zeh.
– All Israel are responsible for each other, and our commitment to it and how we bring the approach of radical humility to play.
When we consider our relationship with the State of Israel, our personal identity and life experience influences our outlook. Are we Israeli or Diaspora Jews? Do we have personal ties to Israel, family and friends? What was the narrative of our younger years: Did we experience the existential wars, the optimism of Camp David and Oslo, the brutality of Occupation, intifadas and rocket fire. Do we know anyone not of our own identity: Arab or Palestinian, African refugee, East Asian carer; or not like us as Jews, ultra-Orthodox, of Ethiopian or Yemeni background; or not like us politically.
Our different outlooks are not good or bad. They are just different and part of our radical humility is to hear and hold difference. By the end of this sermon, you will have heard over these days Dad and I provide divergent levels of optimism relating to the State of Israel.
Whilst we all bring something different, we bring the glue that is Judaism, indeed a particular brand. Soon to become Progressive Judaism in the UK, in Israel and the United States (in other words for over 93% of the Jewish World), we are known as Reform.
What does it mean to be a Reform Zionist today? This was the question that our daughter, Shaya, posed to Rabbi Lea ahead of leading at our LJY-Netzer summer camp. A good person to ask, as Rabbi Lea was until last month, the Chair of the official body of World Reform Zionism.
Rabbi Lea answered that logically there are two ways to understand this question:
How does Zionism inform my Judaism?
The Torah does introduce the idea of finding a place where we are in charge of running our own affairs, to have sovereignty. A place where we get to decide which days we take off as public holidays, whether the calendar is based on sacred or secular norms.
We are a People and we should have a homeland with our own language, calendar, and culture as well as religion. Not at the expense of other Peoples but as a collection of those who are similarly entitled to their own homeland.
How does my Judaism inform my Zionism?
We hold a set of values as a Jew, as a Progressive Jew. These values, we understandably want to see in the Jewish State. We don’t want to leave our values at the door of our homes and Synagogue. We take our secular values and religious values with us as we walk through life; and we take them with us when we consider our Zionism.
Fundamentally, our belief in equality and the value of every human life, means that we wish the State of Israel to be true to its only written charter, that of the Declaration of Independence, read on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister to a crowd in Tel Aviv, that included:
The State of Israel:
Our Zionism informs our Judaism and our Judaism informs our Zionism. This is a vital moment in the history of Jewish nationhood, not least, as Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, New York noted at Rosh Hashanah, both King David’s Israel and that of the Hasmoneans, fell in their eighth decade. I am not superstitious but the State of Israel faces an existential crisis wrought not by external forces but hatred between Jews.
It is not groundless hatred, the phrase the Rabbis gave as the reason for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Mizrachi Jews have been failed by successive Governments that also never halted the rise of settlements. Younger voters whose formative years experienced the second intifada and settlers uprooted from Gaza fed unfulfilled promises. There are reasons but not excuses for the weaponisation of discontent to aim at another.
When I try to traverse the complexity of religion and politics, morality and justice in Israel, I take a very simple religious value, whether an issue or person, intends harm to others. At this moment, Israel’s policy is directed by a group of ultra-Orthodox men, stated misogynists, homophobes and racists.
My Judaism informs my Zionism but that very Judaism is vilified by the Government of the State of Israel, hijacked by ultra-Orthodox, religious nationalist popularists. We hear that we are not really Jews at all, their equivalent of dehumanisation, deJudaising us.
No matter what our connection to the State of Israel is, Zionism does affect our Judaism. We know that our Judaism is not bigoted or racist, misogynist or homophobic, not even right or left. Yet this will be the world’s understanding of Judaism.
In a country that has no written constitution, no second chamber of government, the Supreme Court is the only bastion of justice, the only check on power, not just of this government but any government of Israel. The undermining of the Supreme Court put a time bomb on the “ethical rudder of Israel,” as Rabbi Plumb termed it.
This year, we will be supporting the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC) in our Yom Kippur Appeal. The reason why IRAC exists is to bring cases of religious and other discrimination to the only place of protection against State discrimination, the Supreme Court.
Our Judaism, our Liberal Judaism, has seen us fight for equality for women, for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community, how we treat asylum seekers, and to break the chains of poverty. Now is the time for us to support our sisters and brothers, in the State of Israel. Tonight I ask you to act with radical humility, to take the small steps that make a difference and collectively save the State of Israel and Judaism.
Send your personal message to the Government of Israel and their Embassy in London through irac.org and give generously on Yom Kippur to IRAC, helping to secure civil rights for a just and egalitarian Israel based on Israeli law and Jewish tradition.
Speak with your family and friends who are members of Orthodox Synagogues. I suspect that they hold similar concerns but their Rabbis and leaders have hidden away. Please help the United Synagogue Rabbis to join our leaders of Progressive Judaism in expressing their concerns to the Government of Israel.
Listen with radical humility to those who have real grievances that need addressing in Israel. Listen with empathy. They have the solutions. Not us. Talk with me of your concerns and how I can support you to be active and come to Israel with me at the end of January to experience the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa and experience Jerusalem with my friend, Colleague and activist, Rabbi Oded Mazor.
Kol Yisrael arevim zei b’zeh
All Israel are responsible for each other.
Shavuot 39a
Architect of the world
Author of her story,
Grant me the courage to participate
In the State of Israel’s design
To join in the unfolding of her story.
How I want to share in the
Responsibility of this Jewish State –
To pray for her welfare
To care for her needs
To safeguard her treasures
To work for her rectification
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
