5:2 (Yom Kippur Drasha)

Nothing really compares to seeing a famous person you’ve heard of in a theatre setting.

We experienced such an occasion at The Alban Arena in St. Albans on Wednesday evening, 6^th February 2019.  To a thunderous applause, we watched him walk or rather hobble onto the stage (he’d damaged his foot).  The next few hours flew by as he entertained and educated us in his inimitable and original manner.  It was a wonderful show.  Little did any of us know that just over five years later, his life would end in tragic circumstances at the early age of sixty-seven.

To be honest, I didn’t know a great deal about Dr Michael Mosley beyond the fact that Stephnie was familiar with his ideas and had his book, ‘The Fast Diet: The Secret of Intermittent Fasting – Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer.’ in the pile on her bedside night-table.  Having read the tome and followed his advice, she had tried the diet and recommended the same to me.

I lasted a whole week and decided that it wasn’t ‘my thing’.

Nevertheless, when she bought tickets for us to see the show, I willingly obliged.  After all, who would turn down the chance to see this ‘legend’ live on stage?

I’ve been reflecting on Dr Mosley’s dieting advice over the last few days.

I do appreciate that the last thing you probably want to think about on a fast day is anything to do with food and apologise if I upset anyone…particularly on the Day of Atonement but please hear me out on this.

Dr Mosley’s theory has created quite a controversy amongst medical experts.  I don’t know enough about the science behind it to be able to comment either way regarding its effectiveness in a positive or negative manner on an individual’s health.

On the 5:2 or as it is more commonly known ‘Fast Diet’, you eat ‘normally’ (whatever that means) for five days of the week and eat considerably less or as it is termed ‘fast’ for the other two, consuming 500 to 600 calories per day.  You are not allowed to ‘fast’ for two days consecutively.

The reason I’m thinking about this ‘Fast Diet’ is the fact that this week has seen me, and many others take his advice rather more seriously than he had envisaged.  On Sunday, I fasted, and until 7pm ingested zero calories.  Today, I’m continuing the fast I began last night!  In other words, I have eaten for five days and am fasting for two.

I’d like to think that the good doctor might be quite proud of me, but I believe I would be doing him a disservice if I ended my sermon here.  Dr Mosley built his career on trying to improve the health of the nation but in the end, died in the most tragic of circumstances.  For someone who had prided himself on helping others to ‘find their way’ to better health, he literally lost his by taking the wrong path after leaving the Greek town of Pedi.  It was later discovered that he had passed away only 100 yards from a beach bar.  Achingly close but tragically, not nearby enough to be rescued.  That his four children had searched the area previously and might have been able to find him (even though it was probably too late), added to the poignancy of the situation.

Which brings me to this holy day when we are fasting (perhaps twice in a week) and considering our decisions and activities throughout the previous year.  Last September, when Yom Kippur ended and we felt relieved that it was ‘over for another year’, did we set out on a journey home from Shul with thoughts in our head about how we would make the most of the coming months?

Did we envisage that just over a year later, we too might have lost our way, maybe not literally, but figuratively?  The trips we planned to Israel may not take place.  The Sedarim we attended would feel like nothing we’d ever experienced before.  The streets we were used to walking along may suddenly appear unsafe and threatening.  Right now, our journey as Jews feels as precipitous as the one Dr Mosley undertook on 5^th June.

The roller-coaster we have all endured since Shmini Atzeret doesn’t seem to be ending and we are going around and around, wondering what lies beyond the next corner.

Which is why this Yom Kippur, of all the ones we have lived through, is so important.  It is our 5:2 day.

Five prayers spread over the entirety of Yom Kippur we spend in shul.  Last night we began our journey through the fast with the proclamation of Kol Nidre.  We liberated ourselves of the vows that we may have uttered over the last year.  What was done, was done.  This is a new year.  Last night was Part One.

Today, we are working our way through Part Two.

The Yizkor service binds our souls with those of our departed and much-loved relatives.  In unison, praying and hoping that this year, we will find our way home.

In all the day’s five tefillot, we beat our chests together as one nation, admitting that although we tried our best to be our best, we didn’t achieve as much as we thought we could have done last year.

We want to be the finest versions of ourselves that we can aspire to be.  To atone, not only for us but also for all those who are unable to reach a shul.  We are their emissaries and their mouthpiece to the King of Kings on this second part of our journey.  The one which will take us through to the final shofar blast this evening.

For those of our nation who are in hospital or bedridden at home.  For the hostages in Gaza, for the soldiers who can’t attend shul because they are risking their lives throughout the day and beyond to protect our holy country.

This is our 5:2 day – whichever way you feel it can be.

In memory of those who didn’t survive including the Kedoshim/holy souls who were murdered throughout the last year.  In remembering others, including Dr Mosley whose souls returned to their maker, we need to dedicate ourselves to using this day to pray for them and hope that in turn, they will intercede with Gd on our behalf.

May Hashem answer our prayers and help every one of us find the safest path to the ‘home’ we want to live in over the next year.

Today, on Yom Kippur, we are all observing the ‘Fast Diet’.  May it provide us with the spiritual and physical ‘nourishment’ we need to ensure that when Yom Kippur 5786 arrives, this troubled world in which we live will be a much more peaceful and safer home for all of us.

Amen.

Gmar Chatima Tovah.

Rosh Hashanah I: One People - One Heart

 It honestly seems like yesterday.

Last year, on 16^th September, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I stood on this exact spot and towards the end of my sermon read the following words:
‘Today, I stand alongside you, sincerely hoping that your own year books will contain the best of everything that the forthcoming Jewish year (which contains 13 months) can provide us with.  We need the kind of days that brightened up my June and August so that we can appreciate how blessed we are to be alive, to have family and friends who love us and be in possession of the financial security to help us negotiate these difficult times.’

The ‘June’ I referred to was of course the wonderful day we spent together marking the Cheltenham Hebrew Congregation’s bicentennial.  The ‘August’ recalled the wedding of my eldest daughter, Hadassah.

Twenty-one days after I delivered that Sermon - on Shmini Atzeret - we know exactly what happened.

‘so that we can appreciate how blessed we are to be alive, to have family and friends who love us…’

How can anyone in Israel utter these words without breaking down, considering the blackest, bloodiest and bleakest day in the eighty years that have transpired since the end of the Shoah?  How can any Jewish person outside of the Land of Israel not wonder whether they too might have been one of the thousands killed or kidnapped?  Furthermore, even if they weren’t amongst the casualties, perhaps their child was fighting in Gaza or in the North.

Shortly, during the repetition of the Musaf Amida, we will recite one of the most stirring and, if I may add, terrifying prayers in the entire High Holidays liturgy:

'On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

how many will pass away and many will be born;

who will live and who will die;

who in his due time and who before;

who by water and who by fire;

who by sword and who by beast;

who of hunger and who of thirst…

…who by strangling and who by stoning…'

(taken from the Sacks Koren Rosh Hashanah Machzor page 568).

How many of the descriptions in the paragraph can we ascribe to the barbarity that was inflicted on our nation and others by a cruel, sadistic and savage enemy on 7th October?  How many relate to the treatment of the hostages – both those who were murdered or are still surviving in tunnels or cages that are hardly large enough to enable a human being to stand up properly?

My father passed away in July of last year just over a month before his 95th birthday.  There is not a day that goes by where I don’t miss him and wish he were still here but can I honestly claim that he died before his ‘due time’?

Can we say the same about Hersh (23), Eden (24), Ori (25), Almog (27), Alexander (33), Carmel (40), Jake (26) (my friend’s cousin and stepdaughter’s peer from JFS) who was a security guard at the Nova festival?  Did they die before their ‘due time’?

Seeing what happened to them and many of the others who attended the Nova festival on that day (including Hersh) in the unforgettable recent Israeli documentary aired on BBC 2 ‘Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again’ was horrific, shocking and heart-breaking.

How about the over 300 IDF soldiers killed in Gaza?  Some of them are around the same age as my children and stepchildren.  Did they too die before their time?

Nearly a year ago, Jo Woolfe started an initiative in her Hampstead Garden Suburb home.  Every week with a team of volunteers, she packs 2000 pairs of blue tea lights in pouches along with a photograph of a hostage containing their name and age, a prayer for their release and also for those who have been released.  She has taken them to shops and schools.  (https://www.thejc.com/community/one-womans-mission-to-keep-the-flame-alive-for-the-hostages-j29nx7c7).

Back in November, I picked up a pack which contained Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s name and adopted him as my ‘guest for shabbat’.  Every Friday night when I was in Staines, I laid the table for the two of us.  Hersh and I waited for him to be freed.

When the horrific news came through, I decided to continue the practice because I realised that, as per his mother Rachel’s heart-breaking hesped/eulogy at his gravesite, Hersh was now truly free and for the first time since his capture, could join me at my Shabbat table.

In Judaism, there is a concept called ‘kol Yisrael areivim ze la ze’.  It means that ‘every single Jew is responsible for every other Jew’.  Whether or not they want us to be and when we recite the prayer that I am referencing, we are relating it to each and every man, woman and child who has been impacted by the events that have shaped this past year.

And I believe it is this aspect of religion that has been a catalyst in determining the other side of the year.  I have lost count of the number of Psalms I have been reciting since October, both in a minyan or by myself.

Since the start of the war, we have witnessed some events that are so extraordinary that they defy rational explanation.  In April, Iran sent over 300 drones, missiles and other devices with the intention of causing as much carnage as they could to Israel.  The vast majority didn’t reach their destination as a troupe of Israeli, American, British, French and Jordanian (!) air forces knocked them out of the sky.  Yes, the Jordanian Air Force protected Israel.  Let’s just think about that for a moment and last Tuesday’s missile attack did not result in a single Israeli death.

The Israeli secret services comprising of the Mossad and Shin Bet managed to eliminate the head of Hamas in a room in Iran along with the top brass of Hezbollah Commanders in Lebanon and of course their evil leader.

A few hostages were rescued in some military operations that could have formed set-pieces in Hollywood action movies and as for the exploding pagers, walkie-talkies and solar panels…what can one say?

For me personally, the most powerful and positive memories I have of the post October 7th pogrom/massacre, focus on the unity that pervaded (sadly for too short a time) both and Israel and outside the country.  Where the slogan of ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ became our buzzword.  Predictably though, soon enough, our people reverted to recreate the divisions that we are all accustomed to. These have sadly returned.

Which brings me back to the prayer that I referenced at the start of this sermon.            I strongly believe that everything positive that has taken place has come about because of the unity we show when we pray together.  When we support each other emotionally.  When we support the State of Israel and its institutions financially.  When we unite to defend Israel and by extension the Jewish People against those who literally hate us and wish us death; those who march menacingly through our streets; threaten our university students both in the United States and the UK whilst the authorities stand by and do nothing.  Sometimes even joining their ranks.

The prayer ends with a formula that can bring about a reversal in our fortune.

'Uteshuva – Utefila – Utzedaka - Ma’avirin et Ro’ah Hagezeira'

'But repentance, prayer and giving to charity– avert the evil decree.'

Even in our darkest hour, we have not given up hope and there have been glimmers of light when we thought that all was lost.

This Rosh Hashana, we need to focus our every effort to effect change.  We have seen what can happen when we unite and use the weapons that have made up our spiritual arsenal for thousands of years, such as reciting Psalms.

It is never too late to give Tzedaka to Israeli charities that are literally providing a lifeline to our brothers and sisters across the Mediterranean Sea.

If we redouble our efforts to speak with one voice and become once again ‘am echad be’lev echad’ – ‘one people – one heart’ – as we witnessed at Sinai, this brand-new year of 5785 may end up being an opposite of its predecessor.

May Gd protect the State of Israel, the IDF and all Israeli security forces and may we see the return of the hostages very soon.  May He bring peace back to our beloved land and frustrate the plans of our enemies.

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate prayer on this Day of Judgement.

Shanah Tova Umetuka – may we all be blessed with a sweet year and a successful inscription in the Book of Life. 

Rosh Hashanah II: Reframing Our Perspectives

 I was born and raised in the heilige/holy Jewish bastion that is known throughout the world as Golders Green.  Some people, who I assume are envious of those of us blessed to originate from this vibrant north-west London suburb, refer unkindly to my stomping ground as ‘Goldbergs Green’.  I suspect there is a not a small amount of antisemitic sentiment in this moniker.  Nevertheless, it was the place in which I spent the latter part of the sixties, entire seventies and the eighties.  To me it was home and I suspect always will be (even though I no longer live there).

I also appreciate the sentiment of those of us who sang the refrain from the Beatles’ long lost classic anthem, which went along the lines of, “We all live in a house in Golders Green.”  Many of you will be unaware that George Harrison (of Blessed Memory) did in fact write and record a song (in the style of Carl Perkins) called ‘Going Down to Golders Green’ with the following refrain:

Goin' down to Golders Green

Goin' down to Golders Green

Goin' down to Golders Green in my limousine.

I don’t know why it didn’t make it onto the charts!  However, you can hear the song at https://youtu.be/l3UMLb4inzg?si=Nb5m3DUEU6sK6Tsu.  

It’s one of those undiscovered classics.

As usual, Stephnie calls this my ‘Ronnie Corbett’ moment.

Back to Golders Green.

Growing up, my father’s synagogue of choice was a small Chassidic shtiebel situated in the heart of the community; we lived at the posher and in those days, less frum/orthodox Temple Fortune end.  The building was a converted detached house where the men sat cramped together in pews on the ground floor whilst the ladies were situated upstairs in a room directly above us.  In the centre of that room was a square area of the floor that had been removed and was surrounded by a black ornate grille.  The poor ladies had to contend with sitting as close as possible to the centre to hear what was going on beneath them.  It was quite a primitive setup to say the least!

The services were led by members of the Kehilla/Community and it was all very informal.

This was the shul we prayed in every Shabbat, week in and week out.  As a young child I didn’t know any better and many of my school friends also attended services there.

Every year when Rosh Hashanah rolled around, I dreaded going to the shul.  We would sit there for hours.  Just before the blowing of the Shofar (or it might have been Musaf), the young Rebbe and his elderly father who was also a Rebbe would disappear for an hour or so to immerse in the local mikvah whilst we waited for them to return.  The offshoot of this meant that the services never finished before about four o’clock in the afternoon.

Before I had discovered the age-old custom of comparing shul-finishing times on Rosh Hashanah – what is it about we Jews that we feel the need to boast about how late our services end on Rosh Hashanah or the length of our Pesach Sedarim? – in my pre-Bar Mitzvah mind, Rosh Hashanah services had to end really and I mean really late.  After all, wasn’t this the practice in every shul in the vicinity?

Apparently not.

Starting secondary school, I made new friends and at the start of the school year, asked one about the timings at his shul which happened to be nearer to where we lived.  He replied that they wrapped up services at half past one.

“Half past one?” I replied incredulously.

“What time do you begin in the morning?”

“Eight o’clock,” he responded nonchalantly.

“That’s the same time we do too!” I replied.

As it turned out, their Rabbi didn’t feel the need to go for a dip at around midday (accompanied by dad) and they just got on with the service.  Shockingly, as far as I was concerned, I came to realise that had they followed my shul’s customs, their members would have probably walked out a long time before the end of proceedings!

It won’t come as a surprise that I begged my father to move shuls, which he reluctantly agreed to.  As it happened, this coincided with the passing of my grandfather and, as a non-driver, my father preferred the proximity of this shul as he walked there on a daily basis to recite Kaddish.

The point of all of this is to explain how my perspective of Orthodox Jewish life was framed by the limited exposure I had encountered through attending a single shul with its unique ‘order of play’ as it were on Rosh Hashanah.  There was nothing wrong with this and I appreciate that the people who went there did so in the full knowledge that this was how Rosh Hashanah prayers were meant to be conducted.

Changing shuls enabled me to adjust my perspective, reframe my thoughts and see things in a different light.  Eventually, I moved on from this second shul which was also shtiebel-like in the sense that the men sat facing each other on long tables in a similarly informal setting.  To this day, I am automatically drawn to this sort of layout when it comes to attending shul.  Given the choice of sitting in the main building in my own seat or joining the alternative service in the Beit Hamidrash (a small room used for study), I will also opt for the latter as this is the environment in which I grew up in.

I believe that this idea of reframing our perspectives can be taken further and applied to our religion as a whole.

On Rosh Hashanah, Gd judges the entire world but it’s just the Jews who have the privilege of representing humanity to the King of Kings.  We are made in all different shapes and forms.  Some of us or short, others tall.  There are men, women, young and old, white, brown and black skinned.  Shuls for every denomination in every denomination.  The various services finish at different times throughout the day but it’s okay because that’s what the people have signed up for.  Some folks don’t observe the festival and go to work whilst others stay at home.  Does this make them better or worse Jews than those whose belief system means that for shul to matter, it has to last until 4.00 pm?

In light of everything that has transpired in the last decade from Corbyn onwards, I have tried to reframe my perspective and become less judgemental regarding others in our small tribe.  This doesn’t mean that I am willing to compromise on Halachic precepts (such as one’s Jewish status following the maternal line) but it has resulted in my trying to view concepts that I might have thought unthinkable in a softer light than in the past.

At this juncture, over the festival that quite literally ‘heads’ up the Jewish year, my prayer is one that refers to all Jews.  May Gd protect us from our enemies both in this country and abroad and especially in our beloved State of Israel.  May He give us the ability to work together in unison so that those who wish to harm us have their plans frustrated and ultimately abandoned.

In Israel, our brethren have suffered because they let their perspectives be blurred by understandable fear and desperation.  Right now, we, the Jewish People need clarity more than any other time since the end of the Shoah.  We need to reframe our perspectives and work together to bring about the return of the hostages, the defeat of our enemies and the ultimate realisation of a world that reframes its perspective as to who the real enemy is.  In doing so, recognising the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish State as saviour of the western world.

May it happen in the very near future.

Shanah Tova Umetukah.