In the service of 7 May I used an excerpt from a text by the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943).
Weil is an inspiration for the way she combines her religiosity with very concrete political actions. In this, she touches on some of the central values in liberal Judaism, though Weil’s determination is of a unique kind. It makes her thought so exceptional, but also difficult. Her writing needs to be read slowly and more than once.

What strikes me in the excerpt I have included, is that she holds that there is something in any human being that expects the good from people. This she calls ‘the sacred’ in every human. It is often silenced in those who are powerless. They don’t have words to express injustice being done to them. Their words sound irrelevant, or shrill, or they stumble when they speak. Weil’s text presents a powerful warning against not being swayed by suave words, but also an appeal to listen to uncomfortable or halting speech.

Lastly, as I have to concentrate on work for the college and other responsibilities, I shall have to reduce my contributions to NLJC’s wonderful newsletter. So, you will not see ’From the Student Rabbi’ every month, but I aim to keep contributing from time to time.

The excerpt – I hope it will speak to you too.

From Simone Weil, ‘The Person and the Sacred’

At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.

Every time that there arises from the depth of a human heart the childish cry … ‘Why am I being hurt?’, then there is certainly injustice. For if, as often happens, it is only the result of a misunderstanding, then the injustice consists in the inadequacy of the explanation.

In those who may have suffered too many blows, in slaves for example, that place in the heart from which the infliction of evil evokes a cry of surprise may seem to be dead. But it is never quite dead; it is simply unable to cry out anymore. It has sunk into a state of dumb and ceaseless lamentation.

And even in those who still have the power to cry out, the cry hardly ever expresses itself, either inwardly or outwardly, in coherent language. Usually, the words through which it seeks expression are quite irrelevant.

That is all the more inevitable because those who most often have occasion to feel that evil is being done to them are those who are least trained in the art of speech. Nothing, for example, is more frightful that to see some poor wretch in the police court stammering before a magistrate who keeps up an elegant flow of witticisms.

Apart from the intelligence, the only human faculty which has an interest in public freedom of expression is that point in the heart which cries out against evil. But as it cannot express itself, freedom is of little use to it. What is first needed is a system of public education capable of providing it, so far as is possible, with means of expression; and next, a regime in which the public freedom of expression is characterised not so much by freedom of expression as by an attentive silence in which this faint and inept cry can make itself heard; and finally, institutions are needed of a sort which will, so far as is possible, put power into the hands of men who are able and anxious to hear and understand it.

The full text is available here, under a different title: https://lib.tcu.edu/staff/bellinger/rel-viol/Weil.pdf

Dr. Hannah M. Altorf

This weekend marks Jewish Women’s Aid Shabbat, a fully cross-communal event supported by the Office of the Chief Rabbi, United Synagogue, Reform Judaism, Liberal Judaism, Masorti Judaism, S&P Sephardi Community, Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies.

According to Jewish Women’s Aid’s website:
“The goal is to focus our community on the issue of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and generate important conversations that lead to a culture change.”

Sadly, no community is immune from domestic abuse. As we reach nearly two years of the pandemic, the lockdowns caused a spike in cases of domestic abuse as people were trapped in with their abusers. In this last year alone, it was estimated that 1.6 million women were victims of domestic abuse. When we speak of domestic abuse, it is not just physical violence that is being spoken of. Since 2015, coercive control was recognised in law. Coercive control is a continuing “act or pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.” (cps.gov.uk)

Jewish Women’s Aid has wonderful resources to help educate our communities and support those going through physical abuse or coercive control. So often in tight-knit communities, rather than being held and protected, people can feel constrained and may feel  reluctant to share the truths of their relationships, if they fear it will damage the name of a loved congregant. No one should have to suffer at the hand of another. If you are concerned about yourself, a friend or a loved one, please know that Jewish Women’s Aid is there for you.

Rabbi Anna Posner

As we entered into the New Year, we rerolled the scroll and began our story back at the beginning. Bereshit, in the beginning, God created all that was. Often, we read the story as binary; light and darkness, day and night, land and sea. Yet we know that as we follow the light through the day, from morning to night time, it changes in increments; twilight, dawn, dusk.

The stories in Genesis, before Abraham, are universal stories of humanity. No tribe is set, no religion. In creation, we learn that all humans are created in God’s image. Famously, when asked the ‘golden rule’ of Judaism, Rabbi Hillel answered, “Treat your neighbour as you would want to be treated.”  Rabbi ben Azai argued that the word ‘neighbour’ is too narrow. In fact, the golden rule should be to remember that all humans were created in the image of God and we are all descendants of Adam.

In Exodus, we’re taught that all people whose hearts moved them, contributed to the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The artists who were wise of heart brought the plans, and the women whose hearts stirred them spun the goat’s hair. Together the Israelites built the tabernacle where God would dwell. Upon the Mishkan sat two cherubim, from the root keruv, to draw close. The two cherubim facing each other teaching us, according to Torah scholar Avivah Zonberg that, “God is in the place where the two gazes intersect.”

The divine is found in connection and relationship, and through those divine encounters, we are moved and changed. Divinity is found in the connection between, and knowledge and truth are found in an understanding that often, when things seem binary, we must look for the twilight.

Rabbi Anna Posner