Tag: community security Trust

festivals · sermon

Do not leave any part of yourself in Egypt

levtaylor



Several years ago, at a seder, I was introduced to a new custom.

When it came time to sing Dayyenu, a Persian-Jewish friend passed us all a spring onion each.

“In my family,” she said, “we hit each other over the heads with spring onions while we are singing this song.”

“It’s supposed to get out of our heads any feeling that we might want to remain in Egypt. So we remind each other by hitting our heads that we do not want to go back there.”

I instantly fell in love with it, and have adopted it into my own family seders. In fact, in my home, it can turn into a bit of a food fight, as we chuck the spring onions around the room.

One year, a Muslim friend came, and was quite baffled by the proceedings. I put quite a unique twist on my seders, and try to make them fun. That year, I had people dress up as the Ten Plagues from bits of fabric around the house, and do a lip-synching competition to the Prince of Egypt soundtrack. As he left, he said: “I can believe all of it is normal Judaism, apart from that bit with the spring onions.” I said: “That’s the only bit that was a real tradition!”

Maybe you might not bash your dinner guests with greenery, but you do sing Dayyenu, don’t you? It’s such a highlight.

I worry that some of our families’ seders don’t get there. The food’s coming out of the oven, everything has already gone on far too long, you’re anxious to eat, maybe you skip this important bit. I hope you don’t.

How about afterwards, when you’ve finished eating: who does the whole thing? Who carries on and sings hallel afterwards, and does the benching, and drinks the next two glasses of wine?

I hope you do. In fact, if this sermon has a message, it’s this: do the whole seder.

As you will see, this is not just me being a stickler for making sure people treat liturgy seriously, or insisting on the importance of halachah. This is about how we live our lives.

Our story begins with slavery and ends with freedom.

So, when you come to have your Pesach meals, make sure you don’t just tell the story of slavery. Make sure you talk a good deal about the freedom that comes afterwards.

The haggadah is actually split into two parts. In the first half, we are supposed to see ourselves as slaves in Egypt, weighed down by the yoke of bondage. Then, we eat. After dinner, we are free. We cross the Sea of Reeds and sing praises to our God. We raise a glass of wine to our redemption. We raise another glass to our future. We keep back a fifth glass for Elijah, who will come and bring about the final redemption, when everyone everywhere will finally know freedom.

Now, which of those two halves of the meal is more important?

Of course, it’s the second one. We don’t get together with our families and communities to dwell on how miserable it was to be stuck in Egypt. We get together to rejoice that we are free. How wonderful is this festival, the season of our liberation, that reminds us of that miraculous exodus out of oppression.

We sing Dayyenu (and bash each other with spring onions) immediately before we eat. That moment comes on the cusp between staying in slavery and leaving for liberty.

Dayyenu comes at the point where we are leaving slavery for freedom. By bashing each other’s heads with the spring onions, we say: “don’t leave any part of your head there! Don’t go back there, not even in your mind! Don’t dwell on those narrow places that kept you oppressed!”

Come on, we’re about to be free. We’re about to eat. Let’s look now to the future, where we will never have to think about those things again.

There’s a good reason why we might use spring onions in particular for the hitting. When the Israelites do get free, and start wandering in the desert, they start moaning about how much they miss slavery. They whinge about how much better being oppressed was. And what do they say they missed eating? The onions.

Those Israelites understood something. Being oppressed can feel easier than getting free. Sure, Egypt might have involved great persecution, but you always knew where you stood. Getting free, or at least trying, is tough. It’s unpredictable. It combines dizzying excitement with a terror of the unknown.

So we have to remind ourselves, over and over again, that however difficult freedom feels, it is better than oppression. However easy it might be to wallow in misery or stay in a victim mentality, there is so much more to be gained from shaking off our chains.

The first part of the seder says: we were slaves in Egypt. The second reminds us: but God helped us get free.

In the 19th Century, the Progressive Jew Israel Abrahams wrote about exactly this optimism for the Jewish Chronicle. He began his article by saying how wonderful it was that even persecuted medieval Jews insisted on keeping their doors open for Elijah on seder night, adamant that God would protect them. He said: “truly there is no danger to Judaism while such eternal hope prevails over despair.”

Israel Abrahams goes on to talk about the messianic hope that Jews hold at Pesach. Look at the bigger picture of history, he says, and you can see that it is not a delusion. “Persecutions come and go, but the Jews go on.” Away with all pessimism,” he says, “away with all pessimism.”

Can you believe that such words appeared in the Jewish Chronicle? How much can change in just over a century! Today, there is no way our communal organs would say how great it is that Jews would keep their doors open. They’d tell us to keep them locked. They’d sell us a more advanced security system. They’d put in a fundraising pitch for CST while they were at it.

Can you imagine any of our great and noble communal representatives sharing a positive view of Jewish history and an even more positive view of our future? No, their message is always the same: we are terrified; we have always been persecuted; we always will be persecuted. All we can do is build up bigger defences, hire tougher security guards, buy more effective security cameras; and keep our bags packed to run away just in case.

Sometimes I think Anglo-Jewry is stuck in the first half of the seder. It is as if many of us believe that we ourselves were slaves in Egypt, but nobody can believe that we were redeemed.

Do any of us really believe we are worse off than Jews were in the time of Israel Abrahams? Do we have more reason to cower than did medieval Jews? And, if we did, is cowering behind even greater security really our best answer?

The point of the seder isn’t that we were slaves. It’s that we got free.

Think of the wonderful things Jews are doing, and that British Jews have done. We are stars of stage and screen, fully represented at every level of politics, working in every strata of society, innovating, building, and living happy lives among our neighbours.

Sure, you can talk about the bad bits. Whenever I talk about the good, someone is eager to remind me of some proof of how much they all hate us. Some people leap to lecture on antisemitism and misery at even the suggestion that things might sometimes be good. That is a mentality that keeps your head in Egypt.

It’s not that everything is miserable and it’s not that everything is fine. It’s always a bit of both, no matter who you are.

The point is that everything could be wonderful. We could build a future so much better than this one.

Many times, with God’s help, we have achieved wonderful things.

When you take up the third cup at your seders, remember all the incredible things you and your ancestors have achieved.

When you take up the final cup, look towards the great utopia you can build here on earth.

And when you leave your Pesach seders this year, don’t carry around with you the slavery and misery of the first part of the meal. Bring out into the world Judaism’s message of hope.

Keep your eyes always on the best of what may be to come.

Beat out of your head any desire to wallow in misery.

Do not leave any part of yourself in Egypt.

Shabbat shalom.

debate · sermon

We, who love being Jewish

levtaylor

Take a moment and think about what you love about being Jewish.

When I think about it, there are certain feelings, sounds, tastes and smells that transport me into this place of true Jewish joy. 

I smell cloves, absolutely anywhere and at any time, and I am immediately transported to havdallahs of my childhood. 

Similarly, leather seforim- those big bound Jewish books. I touch them and I can suddenly feel myself back in my grandfather’s study.

That feeling of stillness of being in a Jewish sanctuary. I used to love sitting in our little rented synagogue in Reading. Sometimes I come into this space, when nobody is here, and feel that same connection. 

There’s the music, there’s the text study, there’s the Friday night dinners, there’s meeting a complete stranger and finding you’re related, there’s the beigels, so much better here in East London than anywhere else… I could go on. 

Yes, I love Jewish life. And I love seeing others love their Jewish lives. 

Last week, I felt a certain eeriness walking around central London. Wherever I went, wearing my kippah and tzitzit, there was a massive picture of a smashed Star of David in every newspaper stand. The Evening Standard bore the harrowing headline “London’s antisemitism shame.”

This came after Mark Gardner from CST said Central London had become a “no-go area for Jews” on Saturdays. He wasn’t explaining where the eruv boundaries were. 

He was saying that Jews were not safe when the protests for Palestine were happening. 

I don’t feel I need to go into much detail on the headline. We all know that antisemitism is real, and some members here have had horrible experiences. It is not just about central London, as the local area can feel very intense. The demonstrations outside Lidl this week were intimidating, and clearly did include antisemitic harassment.

We all also know that London is mostly very safe, and comparisons with Nazi Germany of talk of mass Jewish departure are overblown. I have always felt absolutely fine being visibly Jewish in London. I can also feel the great tension that affects this area. We are all smart enough to come to a balanced judgement about the true picture.

What struck me about Mark Gardner’s statement was not in the headline, but buried in the text of the newspaper article. When asked about Jews who themselves go on the Palestine marches on Saturdays, the CST chief said: 

“There are two types of Jews who attend the protests in the main – ultra orthodox Jews who believe the state of Israel prevents the Messiah coming. Then you have revolutionary socialists using their Jewishness so people get the impression the movement is not fundamentally antisemitic.”

This was such a dismissive and unkind way to talk about fellow Jews, as if they could just be brushed aside and ignored. I bristled with indignation. 

Certainly, Haredim and socialists have always been regular attendees of pro-Palestine rallies. But, so what if they are? 

Are Haredim, the most visibly Jewish group and the most likely to experience structural discrimination for being Jewish, any less qualified to comment on what is antisemitic? Are socialists, who pride themselves on their culture and traditions, any less able to say what being Jewish means?

These are two groups of people who love being Jewish. 

You may not want to be Haredi (I don’t) and you may have criticisms of their approach to their religion (I do) but I would never dream of questioning their love of Jewishness, or their sincerity of conviction. 

The strictly Orthodox Jews in places like Stamford Hill and Hendon are crucial to London Jewish life. We have our kosher delis, our judaica shops, and our bookstores because of the commitment of Haredim to building up Jewish life here. 

When I think of the strictly Orthodox, I have no doubt that they, too, love being Jewish. They might not love all the same things that I do, and they might love some things I don’t, but they are fellow Jews, creating vibrant community.

I do not know the Haredi world, and have never been part of it, but I believe they have important things to say about being Jewish and facing antisemitism. 

I feel I can speak with more confidence about the revolutionary socialist Jews. That’s much closer to my world, and one that I interact with readily. That is a group of people I can say, with certainty, love being Jewish. 

It would be easy for such people to disregard their Jewishness, or downplay it. Plenty of Jews have, in all times and from all political persuasions, for varying different reasons. But the Jewish socialists have chosen to wear their Jewishness as a badge of honour.

These are people who have regular book groups, looking at Jewish thought. They are deep-divers of Jewish history, who keep alive the stories of the East End and the shtetl. They are Jews who will insist on telling me they are atheists, before heading off to Friday night dinners with each other, where they will sing the same songs and recite the same blessings that you all will at your dinner tables.

The revolutionary socialist Jews often see their politics coming precisely from their Jewishness, and not in spite of it. They are, in my experience, serious thinkers about antisemitism, who have done the reading, experienced the vitriol, and arrived at smart and nuanced conclusions about how to combat anti-Jewish hatred. 

They are with us, loving being Jewish, and building Jewish life.

What good does it do to dismiss them out of hand like that? 

Perhaps it is simply that they are easy to dismiss. They have no stake in the formal institutions of Anglo-Jewry, like the Board of Deputies, nor do they want to. In both cases, they will carry on living their Jewish lives as they want to, unhindered by such dismissal.

But I don’t think Gardner is quite right that socialists and Haredim are the only groups who march on Saturdays: increasingly, they are joined by young people who grew up in movements like Reform Synagogue Youth (RSY-Netzer.) They are the bulk of Jews in groups like Naamod. 

To see such people marching, especially in such numbers, was unthinkable only ten years ago. When they demonstrate, they are singing the songs they learnt in Reform youth camps. When they speak, they talk about the rabbis and leaders that shaped our Jewish world. They are attending as Progressive Jews.

One month ago, the movement workers for LJY-Netzer issued a statement, calling for a ceasefire, and decrying Netanyahu’s war. In their public message, they shared their dual sadness: on the one hand, at rising antisemitism; and, on the other, at a seeming inability to talk about Gaza.

LJY-Netzer is Liberal Judaism’s youth movement, parallel to the Reform one, RSY. The “Netzer” part is Hebrew, meaning Reform Zionist Movement. Today, while I lead here, Rabbi Jordan is meeting with them at Chagigah.

These critics of Israel are young people firmly within the institutions, who participate in their local synagogues. They love being Jewish, and, more than that, they love Progressive Judaism, our Judaism. 

Are they to be dismissed too? Will they find their Jewishness cast aside in some press release? Will they, for their principled stance, find they are no longer worthy to comment on Jewishness or antisemitism?

Ignoring them is not an option. It would be unconscionable to throw them away, with their opinions.

That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. You should certainly disagree with them if that is how you feel! 

But do so from a place of love. Because you love being Jewish. Because they love being Jewish. Because you should love each other as Jews.

Disagree, by all means, but disagree as Jews. What could be more Jewish than lovingly disagreeing?

If we are faced with hatred, we will only love more. We will love ourselves more. We will love being Jewish more. We will love the sights and smells and sounds and rituals and families and discussions and Scriptures and songs.

We will love each other more. We will love others’ ways of being Jewish more. We will all embrace each other, seriously, and with affection, as fellow Jews. We will encourage others to love what they love about being Jewish. So that they will keep on loving being Jewish, long into the future.

Shabbat shalom.