Category Archives: Jeremy’s Notes

Please note that service reminders aim to build a bridge between the last Saturday service two weeks before and the one being announced. They will therefore often focus on the previous parshah rather than on the one in the title.

Jeremy’s Notes

Va-yiggash

The whole of the book of Genesis can be seen as a history of brothers… and sisters… and brother and sister…

“Hang on a minute,” someone is saying. “How can you possibly reduce the first book of the Torah to a single theme like this?”

The thing is, like all creative books and all art, there are many different strands in the Torah which can be newly discovered, revisited, coloured and reshaped. Look at Hamlet, for instance. There are literally thousands of books written about just this one play. As for…

“Hang on a double minute,” that someone is now saying with a great deal more heat. “How can you even think about comparing our sacred text to a piece of literature?”

Read not, ‘Compare the Torah to a work of art, but rather compare the work of art to the Torah’. The Torah is simply the greatest of creative works. Indeed, its words embody the creation of the world, of humanity and of a people entrusted with a holy task. It resonates in its depth, shines with its insights and weaves into its being a multitude of shimmering threads.

So after that preamble, I return to the story of siblings. It starts extremely badly. The first brothers to be born are destroyed when one rises up and murders the other. From then on there are problems of varying degrees of intensity. Ham, the son of Noah, shames his two brothers Shem and Yefeh by observing their father naked. Ishmael and Isaac are estranged. Rebecca seizes the first opportunity to escape the malign influence of her mercenary brother. Jacob so alienates Esau that the latter plans to kill him. Leah and Rachel are rivals for Jacob’s affections. Finally, Joseph’s presumption and snitching enrage his brothers so that they almost kill him,  settling instead for selling him into slavery. It is this final story of sibling friction, culminating in the reconciliation that draws Genesis to a close, which is told in the most detail. Both Joseph and his brothers make a journey towards, on the one hand, generosity, wisdom and forgiveness and, on the other, towards a recognition of guilt and the desire to make amends. The opening words of Ya-yigash are, thus, among the most moving in Bereshit. “Judah walked up to (Joseph) and said, “Please, your highness, let me say something to you personally. Do not be angry with me, even though you are just like Pharaoh.” And so Judah, the brother who has demonstrated most clearly the human capacity for change from evil to righteousness, tells the story of his father’s loss and and his consuming fear of losing his youngest son as he believes he has lost the second youngest. Most importantly, Judah begs to be allowed to be Joseph’s slave in Benjamin’s place.”

As always, the parsha has far more in it than I can possibly touch on. To experience some of this, to share in prayer and song and to take part in a particularly special service at 10.30 on Saturday. A  graduate of Kehillat Kernow and graduand of Exeter University, Murray Brown, together with Pat Lipert will be leading us.

 

Jeremy’s Notes

Va-yeitzei

“But the children clashed inside her.” Is it not unusual for twins to fight? Are not twins usually as alike as two pins? Yet in the case of Esau and Jacob, from before birth, during birth – when Jacob emerged grasping his brother’s heel – right through to when Jacob departs from his parents’ house for Padan Aram, there appears to be nothing but friction and rivalry between these two twins. Their characters are very different. The parents don’t help either. “Isaac enjoyed eating Esau’s game and favoured him, but Rebecca favoured Jacob.” The conflict between the children is reflected in the different preferences of the parents, and why does Isaac, the man who, in his youth at least, used to go out into the fields to meditate, let his belly decide which of his children he will love more.

None of this bodes well for the future of the Jewish people. Things, however, are not quite so simple. It could be, as Rashi* says, that Esau knew how to entrap Isaac with his mouth. He might have had a hairy body, but he had a smooth tongue. Also, Rebecca had a good reason for favouring Jacob. She had been told by God that the older would serve the younger. Jacob is the one destined to take forward the Covenant. And yet again, Esau is not all bad, not all hunter and motor mouth. He clearly loves his father and goes out to hunt so that he can serve him a delicious meal. He leaves his best clothes at home, according to Rabbi Shimon*, in order to don them when he returns so as to honour his father. What is more, the words that Esau utters on discovering that his blessing has been stolen by Jacob cannot but arouse our compassion: “Is there only one blessing that you have, my father? Father! Bless me too!”

Jacob, the trickster, leaves home at the beginning of Va-yetzei. He clearly has a lot to learn. And learn he does. He has a dream of angels going up and down a ladder which reaches from Earth to heaven. This is a journey Jacob will now make repeatedly, each time learning something more. He will ascend in spirit and take each new insight back to the reality of his life. He will need to, because he is about to arrive at his uncle’s, another trickster, but one who learns no moral wisdom, who ascends nowhere and who has no redeeming features.

Va-yeitzei is a sedra so full of seminal events, including the birth of all but one of the future tribes of Israel, and so rich in meaning, I could spend a lifetime thinking and discussing it, but, for now, I must confine myself to introducing our leader for this Saturday. Harvey Kurzfield will tell us more and guide us through the service. Come at 10.30 to hear him and to share in our communal prayers, songs and conversation.

* See Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs: ‘Covenant and Conversation’ 30 Nov 2016

Jeremy’s Notes

Chayyei Sarah

The Torah has loads of contradictions…. Now, before everyone gathers together into a furious band, comes round to our house with pitchforks and scythes to skewer and shred me to pieces, please read a little further. The Torah has loads of contradictions through which it reveals the profundity and fineness of its moral vision. Take the creation. Man and woman are the last to appear, as the pinnacle of God’s work, yet, no sooner are they securely installed in the most beautiful place imaginable, than they disobey God’s command. The first two children are born and one of them dies before his parents. Abraham is promised numerous times that he and Sarah will parent a blessed people more numerous than the stars in the sky and the sand on the earth, yet Abraham remains childless until his old age, and he is even older when his wife finally gives birth to a single and only child. Abraham is also promised a land, but he wanders for most of his life and only ever owns a burial plot. Such contradictions continue long after the death of the parents of the Jewish people. Jacob is heir to the Covenant, but he is the younger brother. Moses, the best of his people, never enters the Promised Land. David, our greatest ever king, starts life as a shepherd boy. Samson is humbled in his strength, but then is partially triumphant in his weakness. Jonah only understands the will of God when his prophesy is rendered obsolete. There is not time to go into these things in more detail at present, but all of them provide ways through which the protagonists are able to become greater than they could otherwise have been and to learn that to serve God, we have to be free to make choices and to own these choices.

Let us return to Abraham. One of the contradictions in his life is that he lives as a wanderer, but the impression he makes on us is of a deep and gently stillness of being. Picture him sitting at the door of his tent in the hottest part of the day, as the beginning of Va-yeira presents him. Three strangers appear and he immediately jumps up to offer them hospitality. He modestly understates this hospitality by mentioning a morsel of bread, but, in fact, with Sarah’s help, prepares rolls of the finest flour, cheese and the tenderest calf in his herd. Who could wish for a better grandfather? Abraham continues in his forthright, just and ever courteous manner when he argues with God over the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, when he makes a treaty with Abimelech and when he reluctantly sends away Hagar and Ishmael.

Then we come to the Akedah, that most disturbing yet central of episodes. Much has been written about it. It provides proof of Abraham’s faith, but could his faith have been in God not allowing the sacrifice to happen? After all, God had already demonstrated to Abraham that he would not kill the innocent.

Chayyei Sarah brings us back to one of the contradictions I began from. Abraham has great difficulty in obtaining a parcel of land to bury his wife in. It takes us to Isaac and Ishmael, who are the future: the one for the Jewish people, the other for the Arabs. To hear more and to join with others in communal prayer and conversation, come along this Saturday at 10.30. Adam Feldman will be leading us.

Jeremy’s Notes

Lech L’cha

Bereshit is full of big bangs. First there is the startling sequence of light, sky and water, the Earth and the seas, the sun, moon and all the stars, the fish in the seas, the birds in the sky and the myriad animals on the land. What if it had stayed like that? But it didn’t, for man is formed, and woman, both born into innocence. Cursed – or blessed – with curiosity, we moved the story on with another bang by doing the one thing we were instructed not to. We ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Not a good start, or perhaps it was the best we could have made in this brave new world. We became experienced, but this may have been a necessary prelude to a higher form of innocence. If there were no experience, there would be no tikunn olam (world repair). In the case of most objects, a repaired version is not as good as the original new one, but in the case of the world, repair may make it, and us, more wonderful than we could ever have been.

There is, however, an awful lot to repair. We made sure of that, by the next several bangs. How sad and telling that the first human being to die was the child and not the parent. How sadder and more telling that his death was not through natural causes but as a result of murder. And how even sadder and more telling that the murderer was the victim’s own brother. This terrible beginning is mitigated somewhat by God’s mercy. While punishing Adam and Eve, he clothes them. While punishing Cain, he grants him a period of life.

The bangs continue, nonetheless. “The world was corrupt before God, and the land filled with  crime.” God, therefore, resolved to destroy it. We would be blind if we pretended that the story of Noah was the only flood story to exist. There are several, possibly many, others. The Sumerian and Babylonian epic narratives of Gilgamesh have the hero survive a great flood. Andean stories also tell of a flood that covered the mountains. What is special about Noah? It is this. The story of Gilgamesh is not dissimilar to that of the Greek hero Odysseus, who also survives a number of life threatening tests. In both cases, the hero pits his wits against partially or completely divine or demonic forces. The qualities needed are ingenuity and great daring. In the case of Noah, the defining quality is righteousness. Right from the beginning, the Torah is to do with making choices between good and evil. It is the good spark within humanity which draws God’s mercy, not his cleverness.

Not that we are always that clever. Our hubris can be monumental, quite literally when we build a tower in order to reach the heavens. Another bang, another fall. How wonderful that eventually a new kind of man should come along, namely Abram, a modest, gentle, yet courageous soul within whom the good spark shines brightly. To appreciate quite how brightly, come along this Saturday at 10.30. Pat Lipert will be leading us.

Jeremy’s Notes

Bereshit and B’nei Mitzvot Rachel & David Barral

After Ha’azinu, some of which was beautifully rendered for us by Isaac Feldman, the story continues in the Torah inevitably to the death of Moses. However, it is not a totally sad end, for the last thing that Moses says to the people before ascending Mount Nebo to view the promised land is a blessing to all the tribes. And this time the blessings are not balanced by curses. Nor are there any words of dark warning. It is all joy. “Israel shall thus dwell securely, alone in a land of grain and wine, just like Jacob. Your heavens shall also drip with dew.” Besides, immediately afterwards, a new beginning is announced, as Joshua is “filled with a spirit of wisdom, because Moses had placed his hands on him.”
“No other prophet like Moses has arisen in Israel, who knew God face to face.” Despite this, the period of mourning is limited to thirty days, the same for everyone. There is a profound message here. However great any single individual may be, after death he or she merits the same consideration as everyone else, no more, no less.
The way we read the end of Devarim is not quite the same as the linear progression through the Torah. After Ha’azinu, there was Shabbat Chol Ha-mo’ed Sukkoth, for which the parsha returns to a much earlier passage in Devarim recounting God’s protection of Israel during her wanderings and, understandably, the laws of Sukkoth. Then comes Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, which does end Devarim for us, with the death of Moses, and immediately goes back – or is it forward? – to the beginning of Bereshit. At the same time, the Haftorah is Joshual 1: 1-9, definitely a move forward in time, but, as already said, a new beginning.
And this week, we mark a new beginning for David and Rachel Barral, whose B’nei Mitzvot we will be celebrating. The service will start at 10.30 and will be led by Harvey Kurzfield. So come along and begin again.