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Like Ed Miliband, I tend to speak extemporarily (after a great deal of preparation!) This year, also
like Ed, I forgot a major portion so it's good to have the opportunity to insert it in a written version.
But these days, 14 years after I ceased being Community Rabbi, maybe it's forgivable. In fact, this
year, for the first time, something new happened. Being Emeritus Rabbi has always been a
pleasure and honour but I suddenly realised that I am Emeritus Rabbi of FRS. The community has
such spirit, such energy and creativity that I realised that I feel very proud. I know how much FRS
is able to achieve.
Just before I began to speak, looking out of the windows at Alexandra Palace in the late morning,
as the skies darkened, there was a moment when, in the far distance the horizon disappeared and
it looked as if we were at sea. At the same time, inside the walls were clad in black curtains and it
seemed as if we, the congregation, FRS, were Jonah, swallowed up in the body of the whale. Here
we were being judged, collectively. Would we be considered worthy - in the end - of being spit out
upon the dry land? Or would we perhaps be digested, never to return?
Like Jonah, we too were on the run, had turned away, had been unable to recognise the 'call' of
the Universe, of God's Being, of Existence itself. We too have fled and though rightly on this day
we are concerned with all that we personally have and have not done in the previous year, in the
end these individualistic concerns need to undergo a transformation so that we lose our
introspective sense of self importance and recognize instead the Other.
It is this tension, the paradox of the 'I' and the 'We', that is the very heart of Yom Kippur. These are
the readings we are about to enter - where Moses pleads with God for a greater understanding of
God's Essence, to be allowed to enter further into the Mystery so that he will have the strength to
lead the people; followed by the Holiness Code, those Commandments which tell us how to act so we can do what is right, and, as Isaiah says, distinguish the Fast that God truly demands of us,
leading us to Righteousness and Justice, from our concern with outer appearances.
Concern with our own shortcomings is entirely insufficient. We have to recognise wider
responsibilities because we are failing our world. As Jews, we cannot ignore what has been done,
in our name, in this past year. We, the people Israel and our leaders of the State - though we may
not elect them - have acted in Palestine, especially in Gaza in ways which most of us saw as
excessive and that caused us pain. 'All Jews are responsible for one another'. Here, too and we
have insufficiently raised our voices, if at all. The suffering, the desperate pain of others caused by
our violence will take generations to heal. Perhaps there might be justifications of Real Politik,
perhaps we as individuals can do nothing and even within our synagogue groupings and
movements can effect little. But at least we have to acknowledge - and confess.
Nor was it this year alone. We are part of a repetitive cycle: so often Israel, its leaders have made
the wrong choices. We may understand; we may empathise but today we cannot excuse our
silence.
But we are not only Jews, however. As human beings, we need equally to acknowledge what we
are doing to our world. Barbara Kingsolver put it well in a quote I came across almost by chance in
a Commencement Address at Duke University:
"We're a world at war, ravaged by disagreements, a bizarrely globalized people in which the
extravagant excesses of one culture wash up as famine or flood on the shores of another. Even
the architecture of our planet is collapsing under the weight of our efficient productivity. Our
climate, our oceans, migratory paths, things we believed were independent of human affairs. [A
report based upon more than a thousand scientific papers has just appeared showing that some
volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis may be partially the result of human activity
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/260518297_Anthropogenic_EarthChange_We_are_on_a_Slippery_Slope_Breaking_New_Ground_and_Its_Our_FaultA_MultiDisciplinary_Review_and_New_Unified_Earth-System_Hypothesis]
Kingsolver continues: "Twenty years ago, climate scientists first told Congress that unlimited
carbon emissions were building toward a disastrous instability. Congress said, we need to think
about that. We need to think about that." And so they still think....
Last week, a World Wildlife Fund report stated that the overall number of mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians and fish has declined 52 percent between 1970 and 2010!
[http://www.vox.com/2014/9/30/6870749/the-world-has-lost-half-its-wildlife-since-1970-wwf-says]
how incredible is this? It has happened virtually during the time that I have been a rabbi at FRS.
Do you know the difference between a Jewish pessimist and a Jewish optimist? A Jewish
pessimist say, 'Oy va'voy! Things are so terrible. It can't get any worse!'
To which the Jewish optimist replies, 'Oh yes it can!'.
However, to put it more objectively, in the words of a friend, "our planetary system is at a time
when multiple converging cycles – geological, climatic, environmental, societal, spiritual and
human – are coming together & bringing about massive changes".
However this path is not entirely irreversible - or, rather, it is not only negative. At the same time as
old systems and structures are coming to failure point, the systems and structures of a new
civilisation are emerging and forming.
A central prayer, which we will be reading shortly, is the Unetane Tokef, which tells of the great
Shofar call. On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: it seems in quite a
deterministic way, therefore, that the path is already set - of illness and health, of life and death, of
those who will wander and those who will remain at home, of who will become poor and who will
prosper. However, the 'ro'a ha-gezerah' the evil decree - or the harshness of the decree - can be
mitigated by Teshuvah, Tefillah, Tsedakah.
This is an extraordinary suggestion. It suggests that by Returning to the Being of Life, to full
understanding and an engagement with new ways in Prayer, by Right Action we are not
necessarily trapped in the mechanical life: we may be able to awaken and bring about change.
What can this possibly mean? One suggestion is that energies are available to us, if we open
ourselves deeply enough, if we allow the Other to enter in, that can fundamentally effect our lives:
a smile, a word, an idea; perhaps a new possibility, something we had never imagined - a journey,
a visit to someone or somewhere that we have never allowed ourselves. I have no idea what that
might mean for you; I have only a vague hint of what it might be for me. What is the change that is
necessary? Is it to give thanks, to enter more fully into a spirit of cooperation, to love more fully, to
appreciate more deeply. Voltaire's Candide makes fun of the sentiment that all is for the best in the
best of all possible worlds and it is easy to do so - but Hegel, for one, saw things entirely
differently, and so, oddly enough, did Nietzsche. Another way of looking is that when we accept
what is taking place, there is true freedom.
We need to give thanks for the abundance that God has given us: so much - the resources of our
planet, the beauty...but we know so little of sharing, of limiting ourselves. At this time, on Yom
Kippur, we are forced to admit that we are more inclined to greed and our obesity does not only
afflict our bodies.
But we must go further than thinking on a personal level. Rabbi Berger has courageously
suggested that we, as a community might embark on a new and potentially transformative path by
offering us the Shemitta - the Fallow year which began on Rosh Hashanah - as an opportunity for
FRS to do something new. While in the past few years, FRS has been actively involved in interfaith
work and social action - for example in the Homeless Refuge for Xmas programme - now, for one
year, following the Biblical prescription (which may never have been followed in practice though it
is fully documented in the Mishna), we are taking the opportunities, for example of the Festivals, to
adopt as a community obligations towards the environment and the poor; to recognise that social
and economic justice is at the heart of Biblical teachings though not, it seems, of our society;
perhaps we shall look at teachings on debt and its mitigation as well as developing our
reconnection with nature so well established last year in our Lag B'Omer outdoor Shabbat.
Rabbi Berger is also setting up ways in which we can gauge our own carbon footprint and then
offset our emissions as we may wish to do - but always with an awareness that we are here
following Jewish obligations and prescriptions and that there is a blessing to be made, thanking
God, for example, for commanding us to preserve Earth's resources and make them available for
future generations.
This Shemitta campaign demonstrates how much more effective a community, an organisation, an
institution or a business can be than a sole individual. While it is necessary and right that we
should all take our part in recycling, composting and cutting back on our use of plastic bags and so
on, how much more we are able to achieve when we work together - when we are even forced to
do so by Council or government decisions and laws - even from the EU!
On your seats you will find today's 'Examination Paper': it asks us to fill in a small task we might do
on behalf of the community either on a Friday night or Shabbat, something quite simple but really
useful. So much development has taken place in these last years that more help is now
necessary. You can see it as an Exam since if at the end of the day you feel no more connected
than when Kol Nidre began, if your path is still an individual one, bound up solely with personal
needs, then perhaps Yom Kippur has not worked as it might. If we are to deal with the enormous
issues the world faces, we have or move forward together.
Take as another simple example, our gas and electricity supplies. www.ecotricity.co.uk is a small,
relatively new, totally 'green' energy company. It might cost marginally more but each time you
receive your bill with an update of the new investments they are making in wind and solar, it feels
when you pay almost as if you are making a charitable contribution! As with FRS, there is a real
'buzz'. We need, each of us, to change to Ecotricity; five, ten, twenty individuals can begin to move
towards a tipping point when we are able together to convince others, and this makes a very
tangible difference. If it is not already doing so, hopefully the Synagogue itself will become an
Ecotricity customer and then convince the Movement.
These are small examples of how change can take place. I can give another. There are so many
talented, knowledgeable individuals as members of FRS, who are working, all over the world even
- lawyers, accountants, engineers, doctors, artists. We need to link together. Just as, many years
ago, it was a dream that we could develop our music in the way we have done until, last night, we
had the very great and moving pleasure of listening to the Kol Nidre played on the cello, so, in
years to come, we will realise how essential IT is to put us in touch with one another, to extend our
networks, to enable us to draw on each other's talents and enthusiasms so that 'community' can
become still more of a living reality and we can be at the forefront of bringing about much needed
changes.
So 'the trends that we see in our world are perilous - but not inevitable. "The choice is ours: form a
global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the
diversity of life". [Quote from www.EarthCharter.org] Mechanistic determinism is not the only
possible outlook: teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah ma'avirin et ro'a hagezerah.
We need to develop our collaboration and participation, to share our skills, our passions, our
hopes, our enthusiasms much more fully than we have ever imagined possible up until now.
I am an avid twitterer and receive and communicate information, to people I know and people I do
not, faster and more fully than I could ever believe. FRS will surely soon be leading the way by
investing in the ways we can communicate with one another in order to develop our collaboration.
We need to work faster and smarter - and enjoy ourselves more!
Where am I now? I don't know what this new year will bring. I am certainly looking for new
alliances and partnerships. There's work to be done - within and beyond the Jewish community.
Huge changes are taking place. The rediscovery of the potential meaning of #shemita is a sign.
Organisations - businesses- NGOs have such potential, particularly when they work together:
governments no longer lead, they follow.
We Jews are renowned for our networking capabilities. I believe we need to develop and exploit
them to fulfil our religious obligations - to act as partners with God in the work, to contribute
together with all those who attempt to contribute to healing the world. FRS can certainly be - and is
- a base and exemplar; it cannot possibly do it alone.
As the biologist, Elisabeth Sahtouris has written “I like to use the metaphor of the butterfly. In
metamorphosis, within the body of the caterpillar little things that biologists call imaginal discs or
imaginal cells begin to crop up in the body of the caterpillar. They aren't recognized by the immune
system so the caterpillar's immune system wipes them out as they pop up. It isn't until they begin
to link forces and join up with each other that they get stronger and are able to resist the onslaught
of the immune system, until the immune system itself breaks down and the imaginal cells form the
body of the butterfly. I think that is a beautiful metaphor for what is happening in our times. The old
body is going into meltdown while the new one develops. It isn't that you end one thing and then
start another. So everybody engaged in recycling, in alternative projects, in communal living, in
developing healthier systems for themselves and each other is engaged in building the new world
while the old one collapses. Its collapse is inevitable. There is no way around that.”
Jonah had much to learn as an individual but it was in order that he could help save Nineveh. We
Jews still have much to do but we need to start by realising that Yom Kippur is not essentially for
ourselves but for our work in the world. May each of us act as an imaginal cell, joining up with one
another.
Click here if you’re interested in switching to Ecotricity.
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