This Past Year in Pandemic

What a difference a year makes! The approaching AGM marks a year since NLJC met only on Zoom. As news of corona virus spread last year we knew something was coming, but I’m not sure any of us expected to be here one year later, with stricter governmental regulations than before. A year of online community and a new Rabbi you’ve never met in person! Yet, we’ve adapted. Thanks to Zoom we’ve found ourselves creating a meaningful, online community which sometimes even has its bonuses. We are able to be joined by Suffolk, Peterborough and BKY as well as members, friends and visitors from all over the world. Online community has even meant that some members and friends who had been unable to make it to the Old Meeting House for services have now been able to join regularly online. Yet, while some of my colleagues worry that people will get too comfortable with ‘shul from home’ and our synagogue communities will suffer for it, I am in no doubt that human interaction, being able to separate space, having those natural in-between moments, and being able to eat together, laugh together, sing together and be together are so missed that the comfort of a service from home could never replace the in-person experience of synagogue community life.

Like most other progressive synagogues in the UK, NLJC has had almost no in-person activity since March last year. The decision was made partly in response to governmental restrictions and once those were slightly eased, a decision was made based around both risk assessment and values. Currently the Government guidelines allow for religious communities to meet in person under very strict regulation. Currently those restrictions include;

• Singing or chanting only be done by the service leader who must be behind plexiglass to protect worshipers.

• No mixing or mingling between households

• Any communal prayerbooks used must be quarantined for 48 hours after use

• People must adhere to social distancing.

The guidance recommends that, ‘where possible, places of worship continue to stream worship or other events to avoid large gatherings and to continue to reach those individuals who are self-isolating or particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.’

With so many people feeling the effects of the pandemic restrictions, careful decisions had to be made about what was the safest response to take. For me the Jewish value of Pikuach Nefesh, sanctity of life — the teaching that saving a human life is more important than following the majority of the mitzvot — has been paramount in my thinking of how we as NLJC respond to this pandemic. Where the Government allowed for religious institutions to hold services, I asked myself, what is the safest thing to do? Just because we’re allowed does it mean we should? The restrictions limited numbers of worshipers, how do we choose amongst our community who is allowed to come and who is not? Did it feel responsible asking people to travel during a pandemic to have only a limited community experience? What would happen if, God forbid, the virus spread amongst NLJC members because of the choice to meet in person? Because of these questions and more NLJC has stayed online throughout the pandemic.

As we reach the year mark, more and more people are being vaccinated, the virus rates that sky rocketed at the end of the year are coming down and while there is still a long way to go, there certainly is light at the end of the tunnel. Until we can safely meet together again, we’ll continue to do the best we can, creating spiritual moments and replicating that community feeling through our screens. If anyone wants support in getting online please do get in touch. I look forward to the day we can meet in person again.

Rabbi Anna Posner

Last week we read Parashat Yitro which is most famous for the giving on the ten commandments and the moment that all the Israelites gather together at the bottom of mount Sinai as Moses ascends up the smoke and fire wrapped mountain. But, before we get to this moment, there is a lesser known interaction between Moses and his father in law, Yitro. Yitro tells Moses;

 לא־טוב֙ הַדָבָ֔ר אֲשֶ֥ר אַתָ֖ה עֹשֶֽה׃

“The thing you are doing is not right;

 נָבֹ֣ל תִבֹ֔ל גַם־אַתָ֕ה גַם־הָעָ֥ם הַזֶ֖ה אֲשֶ֣ר עִמְָ֑ כִֽי־כָבֵ֤ד מִמְָ֙ הַדָבָ֔ר לא־תוכַ֥ל עֲשֹ֖הו לְבַדֶָֽ׃

You will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. (Exodus 18:17 – 18).

The words ‘it is not good’ are said just two times in Torah and both these are in regard to people trying to do it alone. First, when God sees Adam alone and says, ‘It is not good’ so creates Eve, and then again in this latest conversation between Moses and Yitro. Even in times of Torah it was recognised that people need community and companionship in order to exist and thrive.

Later as the Israelites stand together at the bottom of the mountain for the momentous occasion of the giving of the ten commandments, they stand in community and with support of each other and Moses. Not only is it said that all of Israel stood there at the bottom of the mountain, but we were all there too. Tradition tells us that every Jew throughout history and today were there receiving Torah, standing side by side.

The ongoing Corona virus restrictions, as well as the seasonal struggle that many face, have left many of us feeling more alone and the task is too heavy. As friends and members of NLJC we are lucky to have that community around us and whilst we cannot meet in person, we are all still here.

However big or small you may feel your need to be, be sure to reach out and to know that it is okay to share the load. This third lockdown is long, and many are finding it harder. This too shall pass and until it does, we have each other.

There is a wonderful NLJC care group and I can be contacted on a.posner@liberaljudaism.org.

Together we can make it through! Rabbi Anna Posner

One Book We Judge By Its Cover

“Tell all the skilled workers to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest.” (Exodus 28:3)

In Exodus, we read forty verses that offer intricate details regarding the clothes that Aaron and his sons must wear to serve as priests.

And these clothes are not just for show. We find out that Aaron’s headdress will allow him to take away any sin from the Israelite people and that the breastplate over his heart holds the ‘mishpat Bnei Yisrael’ – the instrument that Rashi says decides for the Israelites what to do or what not to do.

The priests’ dress purposefully set them apart from the community. It was their job to give sacrifices and be the connection between the people and God.

But what of Moses – the community builder and teacher of Torah, who is there for all the Israelites’ celebrations and anxieties? What did he wear? We do not know. Nor do we know what the rest of the Israelite people wore. Perhaps, we can assume that Moses wore the same clothes as the community.

If Moses were to have worn the same garish clothing of the priests, he might not have been able to have had the ‘on the ground’ impact with the Israelites that he needed to.

In an age without the Temple, it is not priests but rabbis, cantors and lay leaders who lead our communities, and like Moses, they do not wear the priestly clothes detailed in these chapters of Exodus.

Instead, with the absence of the Temple and sacrifice, our Torah becomes the central connection to God and ritual practice. Therefore, it is the Torah that wears the clothes of the priest. It has been a long time since we’ve been able to be together, take the Torah from the ark and parade it around the community but thanks to technology, we got a glimpse of the text during our High Holy Day services.

Over these months of separation, we have also learned that it’s the words of the text and the community who live them and come together to bring them to life that gives us that connection to God, spirituality and ritual practice.

Rabbi Anna Posner

Somehow, we have found ourselves in December, nearing the end of what for many has been the longest year ever. This evening the festival of Chanukah begins, Judaism’s contribution to the lights that many traditions bring through their festivals in winter.

Whilst Chanukah is a minor festival it’s often said that the commercialised nature of Christmas heightened Chanukah’s importance by comparison. While I’m sure this holds some truth, I wonder if part of the appeal is the light from the candles and the joy of the traditions that bring lightness to such a dark season. This week, thousands of people around the UK started to receive their Corona Virus vaccine; it feels miraculous to see the images and know that my grandparents will be getting theirs tomorrow. Suddenly the end to all of this is feeling possible, real, and not too far.

Chanukah celebrates the return to and dedication of a destructed temple, destroyed through civil war. Whenever the world is free of the hold coronavirus has on us, we will be allowed to return to something that looks like normal life. Many have spoken of ‘the new normal’, yet we have learned many lessons from this pandemic and seen inequalities highlighted. We have a chance to rededicate our society and community and be a part of making a world that we would be proud to live in and pass to future generations.

As the days count down to 21st December, the darkest day of the year, we light a candle counteracting the everfalling darkness. With each candle, we bring our own small light into the darkness and, as a difficult year draws to a close, we see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy Chanukah.

Rabbi Anna Posner

Sometimes a radical shift in circumstances presents an opportunity. In Numbers 20:1 we read that Miriam dies. Immediately after in Numbers 20:2 we are told that the Israelites were without water. Rashi comments that from this we learn that the Israelites had the well through Miriam’s merit and therefore her death caused the Israelites to no longer have water. Without Miriam’s well the Israelites need to find water by different means and so follows one of the Torah’s most well-known stories, Moses trying to get water from the rock. Here, in the same parasha, parashat Chukkat, Moses hits the rock rather than talking to it as God had said for him to do and so is punished. Moses is told that he will not be able to enter Israel, the promised land, with the rest of the Israelites that he has been leading for all those decades.

Shortly after the incident with the Rock, in the same parasha, Aaron dies. All in one parasha we see the death of Miriam, the death of Aaron and Moses being excluded from entering Israel. This sequence of events leaves the Israelite people without their leaders who have carried them through from their freedom from slavery to their development as a people and nation.

Just two parashiot before this we read of how no-one over the age of 20 will not be able to enter Israel. The Israelites must wander the desert for forty years and the new generation, who have not known slavery, will be the ones to enter Israel. How can a people be totally free and independent if they are so reliant on their leaders? Now the Israelites lose their core leadership in one fell swoop and they must learn to trust new leadership and gain their own independence.

The sequence of events in parashat Chukkat teaches us that sometimes we need radical change or to be pushed away from what we have always known and relied on to be able to find that independence and be truly free.

Rabbi Anna Posner