A video of actress Maureen Lipman being shown around Penzance Jewish Cemetery by Keith Pearce is now available. She found the inscriptions on some of the gravestones heart warming.
Taken in July 2015, extracts filmed by Reef Television & Channel 4, courtesy of Maureen Lipman. View the video now at the bottom of the Penzance Jewish Cemetery page.
Words, words, words… Devarim is full of these slippery, chameleon, shape-shifting creatures. Are they to be trusted? To encourage us to do just that, the last book of the Torah begins by situating itself very exactly in space and time: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel on the east bank of the Jordan, in the desert, in the Aravah, near Suf, in the vicinity of Paran, Tofel, Lavan, Chatzeroth and Di Zahav… On the first of the eleventh month in the fortieth year, Moses also spoke to the Israelites regarding all that God had commanded them. This was after he had defeated Sichon, king of the Bashan, who lived in Ashatasroth…” And so it goes on. To fix Devarim even more securely, Moses proceeds to summarise the story so far. Here he is at his grandest. The simple yet unassuming authority with which he speaks makes the reader sit up attentively, as it must have made the Israelites stand and listen with the greatest alertness. Moses brings the narrative up to the present and begins to reach forward to the impending entry into the promised land.
Poor Moses. After forty years of leading the people, of guiding them, reasoning with them, pleading with them, and pleading with God on their behalf, he understandably pleads now on his own behalf to be allowed to cross the Jordan with the people he has done so much for and see the good land. Va-etchannan. But it is not to be. Yet Moses, straight and true, despite his profound disappointment, does not plead any longer or complain, but continues his work by beginning to remind the people of the lessons accumulated over forty years. “What nation is so great that they have such righteous rules and laws, like this entire Torah that I am presenting before you today?” The parshah proceeds to enumerate some of the laws and further to prepare for the history that lies ahead. There is so much – history and law that is. To get much more of a flavour than these few words can give, come along to the service on Saturday at 10.30. Pat Lipert will lead us.
ELKAN’S VIEW FROM EDGWARE WEEK ENDING 6TH AUGUST 2016
This Shabbat is the 100th birthday of one of the great figures of Anglo Jewry, Lieutenant-Colonel Mordaunt Cohen, TD, DL.
Mordaunt was born in Sunderland, the son of an immigrant father and an English-born mother. His paternal grandmother changed the family name to her maiden name of Cohen, although the family are Yisraelim.
Mordaunt had the usual high quality secular education in those days and after a hard day at school he went to Cheder where the tuition was all in Yiddish. This did not stop him becoming a fine athlete and a good cricketer and footballer.
At the age of 16 he was articled to a solicitor for 5 years and believes that he got a better legal training as a result. In 1938 he qualified as a solicitor and the following year set up in practice on his own.
War soon intervened and he is volunteered for the army, commanding an anti-aircraft battery defending the shipyards of the north-east from the Luftwaffe. He was soon sent to Nigeria to train a heavy anti-aircraft Regiment. His troops were Muslims, who couldn’t quite understand what Judaism was and decided that he was a white Muslim!
After distinguished service in Burma he returned to Sunderland and reopened his practice. A few years later at a conference in Manchester he met his wife Myrella. She was one of the first Jewish women to be called the bar, and then to be made a QC, and she was the third woman to be made a judge.
It was a long and happy marriage and each of them was involved in many communal and social matters – AJEX, Sunderland Hebrew congregation, Masonic matters, Board of Deputies, local politics, and various legal appointments. Mordaunt and Myrella were the first couple who were both appointed to full-time judicial appointments.
Sadly Myrella died in 2002, but Mordaunt has continued his very full life, going to Israel 4 times a year and being very much involved with his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Throughout his life he has been a proud and committed Jew while participating fully in the life of his city and his county. Mordaunt Cohen is a unique person – Happy Birthday Mordaunt, and many more of them!
If a man makes a vow to God or commits himself to some action, he must keep the vow. So we are told in Mattot, and this is not surprising. If a woman makes a vow, then whether or not she has to keep it depends on either her father or her husband, depending on where she is living. Is this surprising and does such a distinction provoke debate? At the time Moses receives these rules from God, there is no time to have one, since Israel is commanded to attack Midian, which they do with great success. No sooner do the victorious troops return with the spoils of conquest, including the women and children, than another troubling incident occurs. Moses, the compassionate leader, the one who has so often pleaded to God for the people, reprimands the generals and captains for not killing the women and boys and promptly commands them to do so. Are the boys guilty of the sins of some of their mothers? Another swing of emotion follows, when, over and above the portion of spoils the army is instructed to present to the priests and the Levites, the commanders, of their own free will, offer gifts to God in thanks for not losing any of their men – an act of double generosity. If only the generals in charge during the First World War had cared so much for their troops!
More generosity of spirit follows. The leaders of Gad and Reuben ask that they be allowed to settle on the side of the Jordan presently occupied by the people. Despite Moses’ misgivings that they are trying to avoid having to fight in order to conquer the land on the other side of the river, the two tribes show that they have absolutely no intention of shirking the fight. Quite the opposite: they volunteer to be in the vanguard, and so Moses responds with equal generosity and grants their request.
Can it be? Are we already at the far edge of the wilderness, at the end of B’minbar? It has taken forty years to get here, yet it seems like only yesterday that we were embarking on the beginning of Bereshit. We are indeed coming to the end of the journey, and Mas’ei summarises all our wanderings. It does not end there, however. Instructions are given for the conquest of the land and the delineation of its borders. As a new chapter (or book) is about to begin in our history, new leaders are appointed. Land is to be set aside for Levitical cities and for cities of refuge. This is a parsha full of things and there is no more space here for them, but there will be at 10.30 on Saturday. Liz of the most musical settings will be leading us, so come along.
“How good are your tents, Jacob, your dwelling places, Israel. They stretch out like streams, like gardens by the river; they are like the aloes God has planted, like cedars by the water.” So says Balaam, “the man with the enlightened eye who hears God’s sayings and knows the Highest One’s will”, and who has inspired the beginning of our daily service. Yet he sees less than his donkey, who immediately recognises God’s angel and turns aside from him, whereas his master needs to be told several times by God and his angel not to curse the people of Israel, but who, nevertheless, tries to do so. The prophet’s failure to see what is in front of his nose is not only due to a lack of prophetic vision, but of a moral one too. His donkey is, in more ways than one, his superior. The parsha of Balak concludes with the killing of the Israelite man who takes a Midianite woman into his tent and, presumably, also engages in idolatrous practice.
