Parashat Toldot: The Perennial Wanderers

 Looking through my parents’ documents recently, I came across my father’s British Certificate of Registration booklet which was issued to him on 26^th November 1963.

 

 

My mother and father had emigrated to this country just over a month before, on 20^th October (which was a week after Simchat Torah) and this was his ‘passport’, as it were, to settle in the United Kingdom.  A month later, and coincidentally exactly 62 years ago today, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

My parents had a framed photo of JFK on a shelf in our kitchen.  When I was old enough to understand, they explained what had happened to him.  His youthful demeanour and the tragedy of his untimely death filled my thoughts as I grew up.

Most crucially, the fact that his picture sat there for decades was a testament to my father’s wish that to his dying day he was, and would always be, American.  His levaya/funeral on 4^th July 2023 was proof (in my opinion at least) to his tenacity in holding on to his US Citizenship for the rest of his life (he refused to be naturalised in the UK).  I am in no doubt that he would have found the date on which he was buried highly appropriate and amusing!

Both of my parents were born in Antwerp, Belgium.  During World War II, my mother and her family lived in fear under semi-curfew in Spa, a village in the Ardennes, half-an-hour’s drive from the German border.  My father managed to escape to the US with his parents in April 1940 and grew up in New York City.

My mother’s parents were born in Australia and Poland respectively whilst my father’s began their lives in Belgium and The Netherlands.  My daughters’ maternal grandparents were born in Turkey and pre-state Israel.

This week’s Parasha of Toldot is very dear to my heart as it is my Barmitzvah sedra.  It begins with this verse (as translated in the Hertz Chumash):

And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begot Isaac (Bereshit 25.19)

Toldot details the lives of two of these generations, that of Yitzchak, Rivka and their twin sons, Yaakov and Eisav.  Within the first few verses, we learn that Yaakov has prepared a pot of lentils for his father Yitzchak, who is mourning the death of Avraham, the first of the Avot/Patriarchs.  At the tender age of 15, the youngster recognizes the significance of his grandfather’s passing whilst his eldest twin brother, Esav is more interested in feeding his stomach than aggrandising his soul.

By the end of the Parasha Yaakov, due to circumstances many of which are beyond his control, finds himself running for his life away from Eisav who wishes to kill him.

Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were the first Jewish wanderers although Yitzchak, who moved around the country, was instructed by Hashem not to leave the land of Israel.  Grandfather and grandson began their lives in one country and found themselves having to leave it to reach another.  In Avraham’s case, initially from Ur Kasdim (in modern day Iraq) to Charan (in Southeast Turkey) and eventually to Eretz Yisrael.  In Yaakov’s, a journey in the opposite direction, culminating in Charan.

However, whenever they arrived in a location, they found themselves having to leave it, facing hostility and envy engendered by the local inhabitants.  Twice, Avraham had to pretend to be his wife’s brother to escape death and Yaakov had to deal with the machinations dreamt up by his deceitful uncle, Lavan.  Once settled back in Canaan, he found himself embroiled in the terrible events at Shechem (revolving around the violation of his only daughter, Dina) and in old age, when we are told that he finally settled (the first word in Parashat Vayeishev), his beloved son, Joseph was sold by his brothers and then taken down to Egypt.

There is a line towards the end of Fiddler on the Roof following the wistful song of Anatevka where Mendel the Rabbi’s son says, “And our forefathers have been forced out of many, many places at a moment’s notice.” To which Tevya shrugs and replies, “Maybe that’s why we always wear our hats.”  As a child of refugees, I can certainly relate to this.

We seem to be the perennial wanderers.  How many of us are still in the locations where we grew up?  There are many reasons why we may have moved.  Life has a way of opening up new paths and sometimes, financial constraints limit our abilities to stay where we would wish.  However, I also believe that there is something nomadic in our DNA, an internal drive to remind us that, as much as we would like to feel settled, we simply can’t.

My late great-grandfather, Aron Vecht, was born in Elburg, a historic town in the province of Gelderland and lived in London, Melbourne, Sydney, Cape Town, Buenos Aires and finally Antwerp where he passed away. He was later reinterred in the new city of Tel Aviv.  He was known as ‘The Wandering Jew’ and carries on this tradition.  Referencing Tevya’s response to Mendel, he also had a very distinctive hat!

There is a famous song from the early 1960s called ‘The Wanderer’ which was a sizeable hit for Dion DiMucci, a New York native with a proud Italian Catholic heritage.  Although the context is different, I think we can all relate to the line:

Oh well, I'm the type of guy who will never settle down… they call me the wanderer, Yeah, the wanderer.  I roam around, around, around…

Jewish history has branded us the Wanderers who roam around, around and around.

One day our dream, unlike Dion’s protagonist and ironically Dion himself, has been happily married to his wife Susan for the same period of 62 years, is to settle down in security, peace and harmony with our Gentile neighbours. Please Gd may it come to us and all of Israel very soon but until then, I’ll make sure to keep my hat nearby because you never know when and where I might have to wear it again.  Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov would no doubt agree.

Shavuah Tov.

Parashat Lech-Lecha: Avraham and Yitzchak (Rabin z'l)

 

Motzei Shabbat, 4^th November 1995, 11^th Mar-Cheshvan 5756

ISRAEL PM YITZHAK RABIN ASSASSINATED

The big capitalised yellow letters on Ceefax say it all:

 

I can hardly believe the news.  This evening after a peace rally as Rabin was getting into a car, he was shot at close range by an Israeli law student, Yigal Amir aged 25 who belonged to ‘The Jewish Vengeance Organisation’.  He died on the operating theatre at the Ichilov (Hospital).

I’m horrified by the news.  Truly and completely horrified.  I was no big fan of Rabin, far from it but I never, never wished him any personal harm.

This is a tragedy for him and the Jewish People.  Never, in the history of the State of Israel has a leader been assassinated.  And by a Jew...in my eyes, after the Yom Kippur War, this is the greatest tragedy to have hit The State of Israel.

That a Prime Minister was assassinated.

That Jew killed Jew.

I am crying inside for what has happened…

This extract comes from a diary entry I made, almost to the day, thirty years ago.  Before the internet took over and revolutionized our lives, Ceefax (you may need to look it up if you were born after the year 2000) was our digital source of information.

Who knew that within three decades, we could imagine a historical event that was on par and arguably even worse than either the Yom Kippur War or Rabin’s assassination?

Reading my words written so many years ago is a sobering experience.  I was three decades younger, recently engaged and ready to take on a very different world.  The one that existed before the 11^th, September 2001.  The Oslo Accords had been signed two years previously and we hoped, albeit naively, that there was a chance the matzav, the ‘situation’ in Israel, could change for the better.  Little did we know…

Like today, we had just read Parashat Lech-Lecha that Shabbat morning when Hashem tells Avram (as he was then) to:

“Lech lecha mei’artzecha u’mimoladetecha u’mibeit avicha el ha’aretz asher areka“

“Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

Rashi understands Gd’s command to Avram as being, not only for his physical betterment, but at the same time, for his spiritual benefit.  He was being told to leave behind everything that he knew, his geographical location, culture, identity and comfort to take on a radically new existence in a land that was pretty much foreign to him (although the Midrash tells us that he had already journeyed through Canaan at this point).

At the age of 75, two years older than Yitzchak Rabin was at the time of his murder, the Rambam admonishes Avram for going down to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan.

 “Avraham sinned unintentionally by bringing his wife into danger.”

His honesty reminds us that even the greatest leaders, and Avram was one of these, are ultimately fallible.  Their journeys through life are not linear.  They are marked by missteps, by complexity and by the weight of responsibility.

Rabbi Shamshon Refael Hirsch sees Gd’s command as being a directive for Avraham (the name he will be given by Gd towards the end of the Parasha) to go alone.  This is a call to moral independence.  He is being told to detach himself from the society he inhabited in the past and to look to his own conscience to lead the way for others, irrespective of how popular it will make him.  In short, Avraham is the very definition of what it means to be a Jewish Leader.  He isn’t following the crowd but in fact, Gd’s call.  This is not an easy path to take.  He is being asked, as the old joke goes, to be the Prime Minister of what would become, 15 million Prime Ministers (not to mention the billions of Christians and Muslims who would venerate him in the future as the founder of monotheism).

It could have been so very different.

The evening of 4th November at Kikar Malchei Yisrael, as it used to be known, (or the King’s of Israel Square) had seen Rabin singing ‘Shir Lashalom’ or ‘A Song of Peace’ which had long been the anthem of the Shalom Achshav/Peace Now movement.

On its initial reception in 1969, it caused a stir, due to its anti-war message, particularly in light of the recent stunning (and miraculous) victories of the Six-Day War.  Over time, however, it gained wider acceptance, particularly following the discovery of a blood stained copy of the song’s lyrics in the Prime Minister’s pocket following the assassination.

Yitzchak Rabin, like Avraham, had forged a brave path of his own, firstly as the IDF Chief of Staff during the Six Day War, then as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and finally as it’s Prime Minister.  He was remembered for his decisive decision-making during the famed Entebbe Raid of 1976 and then, in September 1993 as the leader who tried to forge peace with Arafat in the White House Garden under the watchful eye of his close friend, President Bill Clinton.

And like Avraham, he heard a call, not directly from Gd, but from history.  He understood that sometimes, leaders need to make choices that will be unpopular with their electorate, that will require the kind of decision-making that means risking everything to pursue a goal that lies in an unknown future – for the benefit of everyone else who doesn’t share the same vision.

Avraham left behind the land he grew up in, the culture in which he was immersed and every comfort he had derived from living physically and metaphorically in the shadow of his father’s house.

Yitzchak Rabin could trace his military experience to the War of Independence.  A soldier to the core of his being, he ended his speech on that warm September afternoon by quoting the famous verse from Kohelet (he was famously unable to pronounce the word ‘Ecclesiastes):

"A time to hate and a time to love; A time of war, and a time of peace.”

Adding sadly, ironically, considering what was about to transpire.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the time for peace has come".

We have encountered the many episodes which marked Avraham’s difficult and long journey through Eretz Yisrael.  However, we will note in a few weeks’ time that he ‘died in a ripe old age, aged and satisfied’.

This cannot be said of Rabin whose difficult and long journey helping to protect the country and nation he loved was curtailed.

Not by famine, not by Pharaoh, but by a fanatic.  By his assassin’s refusal to accept that within Judaism there must be room for disagreement without demonization.  That the covenant of Avraham is not only about land but about ethics.  About how we treat one another.  About how we disagree and how we resolve these arguments peacefully and respectfully.  About ensuring that our meeting places, from the Knesset to the Shul boardroom are oases of tolerance and peace.

Rabbi Sacks ztl once wrote

“The test of faith is not whether we can believe in Gd.  It is whether we can believe in one another.”

Lech Lecha is the beginning of Jewish history but Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination reminds us that history can unravel when we forget its moral core. 

Sadly, thirty years on, I fear that we have not learned from our mistakes.  The divisions within our people, both in Israel and abroad instil a fear in me that, Gd forbid, we could turn on one another again.  Perhaps not the extent of what transpired on that terrible night but in terms of the manner which loses the moral glue that binds us together as a nation.  Where the concept of ‘Kol Yisrael Areivim e la ze’ or all of us are responsible for one another becomes nothing more than a meme (again, you may need to look it up if you were born before 2000!)

As we join Avraham on his journey this week, what can we learn from his experiences?

·         What physical or spiritual journeys will we need to take as we look beyond this year?

·         What comforts will we have no choice but to give up as we leave them behind?

·         And finally, how can we ensure that our internal disagreements can never result in the tragedy that took place almost thirty years ago today?

Let us walk together, hand in hand.

Not in fear but in faith.

Not in silence but through singing.

Whether we choose ‘Shir Lama’alot’ or ‘Shir Lashalom’, let the song that we sing together bring us peace, both within our Jewish nation and in our dealings with our non-Jewish neighbours.

Shavuah Tov.

 

Parashat Noach: The Same Language, The Same Words

The whole world spoke the same language, the same words (Bereishit 11.1).

Rashi: שפה אחת the same language — The Holy Tongue (Hebrew) (derived from Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 19).

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"Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.”

William Shakespeare: The prologue spoken by rumour to henry iv part two.

When I heard about the concert back in January, I immediately bought tickets.  After all, it’s not every day that one is treated to the sight and sounds of an artist with the musical pedigree of Graham Nash, former member of both The Hollies and of course, Crosby, Stills and Nash.  The icing on the cake being the addition of his friend Peter Asher whom he has known for over six decades.  It was even advertised as ‘Graham Nash - More Evenings of Songs & Stories with Special Guest Peter Asher’.  The location being the auspicious London Palladium and the event was nearly sold-out.

So off we went on the Northern Line from Edgware and made our way to the theatre, braving the rain in the process.  We took our seats and thoroughly enjoyed Peter Asher’s performance which (slightly misquoting the famous advertising slogan) ‘did exactly what it said on the tin’.

We were entreated to light-hearted stories, self-deprecating humour, songs and even the rare opportunity to hear Paul McCartney’s original demo of ‘World Without Love’, the famous number one hit which he had originally sung with his late lamented friend, Gordon Waller.

He completed his set by entreating us to sing the last verse of that song alongside him and the other two accompanying musicians.  Forty-five minutes of pure joy.  He left to a rapturous applause by the audience.

Following the interval, Graham Nash came on and played a couple of songs.  When it came to the third, he introduced it by telling us that his father had fought in the Second World War and this had influenced his decision to write the upcoming song.  He then started to talk about the fact that we now have social media and its connection to current conflicts.  He briefly referred to the Ukraine War (choosing not to mention anything about Putin) and proceeded to talk about Gaza, declaring that he believed that ‘the Israelis were committing genocide against the Palestinians’.  This was greeted by a rapturous clapping following, after stunned silence by boos, including from yours truly.  I turned around to Stephnie and told her that we were leaving.  We left the auditorium and met with a few people in the lobby which I believe were both Jewish and Gentile, all stunned and angry at the spectacle that we had just experienced.  When we spoke with the staff of the Palladium in the entrance hallway, they were shocked and told us that they couldn’t understand why so many people were leaving the theatre, granted that Nash was playing for another hour.

A cursory search for Graham Nash on Google comes up with the following:

Graham Nash is a proponent of peace through his music, activism, and social commentary, which often advocate for peace, social justice, and environmentalism.

That a so-called ‘proponent of peace’ felt the need to espouse an ancient antisemitic blood libel (being cheered on by an enthusiastic audience) is proof-positive to the dangers of what can happen when ‘the whole world speaks the same language, the same words.’  Not in the Plain of Shinar in ancient Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq) but in the heart of the West End of London.  5000 km or approximately 3,100 miles away.

The generation which built the tower is descended from the sons of Noach and is known as Dor Haflaga, or the ‘Generation of the Towers’.  Led by the evil King Nimrod, who infamously tried to have Avraham Avinu, the world’s first monotheist and our Founding Father, executed by throwing him into a furnace, led a campaign to ‘build us a city and a tower with its top in the heavens’.  In other words, to dethrone Gd.

Sixty years ago, on Shabbat, 22^nd October 1955, Rabbi Norman Lamm ztl, former President of Yeshiva University delivered a powerful sermon entitled, ‘The Generation of the Tower and a Towering Generation’ and I quote the following edited extract:

In this morning’s Sidra we read of the generation of Noah and the evil lives they lead.  Their punishment, as it is recorded in the Torah, was complete destruction – except for Noah and his family – in the Great Flood.  Following that episode, we read of another generation following in the footsteps of the first.  This is the dor ha’haflagah – the Generation of the Tower.  The people of this generation had evidently failed to learn from the tragic lesson that its predecessors had been taught.  They were a people marked by arrogance and haughtiness.

Remember friends, that the Torah does not describe merely poetic myths.  We have substantial corroboration of that episode from the science of archaeology.  We know that the Mesopotamians of about 3,600-3,800 years ago began to dwell in big cities and in them to build tremendous pagan temples.  These temples were constructed as high towers as a sign of the equality of the builders with the pagan gods they worshipped.  In their writings, some of which we still have, they boast to building into the heavens, even as is recorded in today’s Sidra.  (See Kasuto, Me’Noach ad Avraham, for all this information). 

At the turn of the present century, the very tower of which the Bible speaks was discovered, in ruins, by a German archaeological expedition.  It was clearly an impressive and imposing structure.  These tremendous towers served both to express and inspire these Babylonians to imagine themselves a superior race, a ‘herrenvolk’. Ultimately, the cities and the towers were destroyed and all further construction was frustrated.  If later today you will reread that part of this morning’s portion, you will observe the terrific sarcasm with which the Torah describes the entire episode.  Just one example: the name Bavel (or Babel or Babylon) given to that place by G-d.  This is a sarcastic pun, because the Mesopotamians themselves called their city Babel because in their language the name was derived from the words Bab-Ili, meaning the Gate of the G-d – or in the plural, Bab-Ilani meaning the Gate of the Gods (whence: Babylon).  However, in Hebrew the name Babel is similar to the root Balol which means ‘confusion’.  So the Torah tells us that what these mortals thought was their gate to their own goodness, was nothing more than the confusion of their poor minds…

https://lammlegacy.org/the-generation-of-the-tower-and-a-towering-generation-1955/#

These words could have been written in a contemporary setting.  How many people in the field of politics, media and entertainment, who see themselves as ‘Herrenvolk’ arrogantly peddle the lies spewed out by Hamas and its supporters?  Nash is just one example of how ‘arrogance and haughtiness’ lead to the perpetuation of comments that have not a single grain of truth.  The kind that led to the terror attack in Manchester earlier this month, where the same language of hate is used throughout the world.

To the point where even music, which has the power to erase the differences between nations and ethnicities, becomes itself a victim of this malaise.

And yet, Rabbi Lamm continues:

Despite the sarcasm and bitterness and ridicule which the Torah heaps upon this Generation of the Tower, the indictment of this generation is not complete.  Just compare these two generations, that of the flood and that of the Tower:  The Generation of the Flood was, with the exception of Noah and his family, completely and utterly destroyed; the generation of the Tower was not destroyed at all – it was merely punished by internal dissension and great exile and dispersion.  Why is it that the generation of the Tower was treated with such comparative leniency despite their sins of arrogance?

Our Rabbis gave us the answer, based upon a clue in the Bible itself.  Our Torah mentions vayehi kol Haaretz safah achass – all the world was one language, meaning of course that there was unity, cooperation, friendship.  And therefore, dor hamabul al yedei shehayu shetufim begezel lo nishtaira meihem pleitah, aval eilu al yedei shehayu ohavim zeh es zeh nishtayrah meihem pleitah.  There is something that can be salvaged from the Generation of the Tower, something of lasting and permanent value, and that is: love, friendship.

What our Rabbis got from this episode of the Generation of the Tower was that every generation can become a Towering Generation if it learns that love; that even if people are arrogant and G-dless and criminal, they can escape heavenly wrath if they will learn to love G-d’s creatures.  The only way of nishtaira meihem pleitah, of surviving a world of coldness and treachery and mass-production and bold projects which obscure the individual is through ahavah (love).

In this 21st Century in which we live, we are experiencing something that has not been accessible to our ancestors, that of a ‘common language’ which is spread throughout the world and a means by which to transmit this.  The language is, of course, English and the tool we use is the Internet.  Even though English is spoken by approximately 1.46 – 1.5 billion (which constitutes 18%) of our global population, it is regarded as the most spoken language (including non-native speakers).  The internet enables non-English speakers to translate the language into their native tongues.

It is the accepted ‘currency’ throughout the world’s air, sea and rail routes and even on the International Space Station (alongside Russian)!

We are truly at a time when historians will note that ‘the whole world spoke the same language, the same words.’  It is the just a case of which ‘words’ we choose to speak and what the impact of continuing to misuse this gift will have on how our communities both locally and internationally.

Sadly, despite the fact that we speak one common language, we are deeply divided.  Instead of harmony, we have disorder; instead of homogenous, we have heterogenous; instead of unity, we have dissension; instead of ‘Us’ we have ‘I’ and instead of tolerance, we have intolerance.  Instead of hate, we should have love for, as our Rabbis taught ‘all G-d’s creatures’.

As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Let us reframe the use of language to bring people together.  I have no problem with musicians or anyone else expressing a personal viewpoint in the appropriate location but the term ‘know your audience’ is as relevant in front of an audience who paid hard-earned money for a pleasant evening out, as a teacher standing in front of a class or a Rabbi delivering a sermon to his community.

If we can speak the same language with the same words and bring people together, we have proven that we are not the Dor Haflaga, the Generation of the Tower but one who builds towers of love, mutual respect and understanding between individuals, communities and nations.  Now there’s an idea for a song that we can all join in with, Graham Nash.

Shavuah Tov.

Yom Kippur: People of the Year - William (Bill) Shatner

His is a voice that will be recognizable to most people who remember the 1960s (and in my case, the ‘70s).

“Space, the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

These are of course the words spoken by the actor William (whom everybody calls ‘Bill’) Shatner when he introduced the Star Trek episodes from the original series.

If you recall, over Rosh Hashanah I referenced Time Magazine’s famous annual feature in honouring someone they felt

"For better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

Bill is the subject of this final ‘episode’ in my own series describing the people I have nominated to be my Yamim Noraim/Days of Awe ‘People of the Year’.  I will duly explain why I feel he deserves this award, particularly on Yom Kippur.

In 2005, the journalist Abigail Pogrebin wrote a fascinating book titled ‘Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish’ (Broadway Books, New York) which described her interviews with sixty-two of America’s ‘most accomplished Jews’ (as per the dust jacket).  One of these was with William Shatner (pp 352-355).

His entry begins with the following paragraph:

Star Trek’s Captain Kirk used to recite the four questions and lay tefillin during morning prayers.  That’s difficult to imagine.  William Shatner’s image has never exactly been Jewishy.  He’s sandy haired and barrel chested – his bearing, at the height of his fame, was that of a classic leading man.  “There was a whole thing where people would say, ‘Funny you don’t look Jewish,’” Shatner recalls.  “The racial stereotype bothers me to this day.  I’m very sensitive to it; I find it offensive.”

Bill recalls how he hailed from a traditional home in Montreal which, though Conservative was, as he states, “Pretty much like Orthodox here (in the United States).”  His mother kept a kosher home, he had a bar mitzvah and, as I said, wore tefillin for a few years.  He also had to deal with significant antisemitism from the kids in his school.  He adds that he had willingly missed a school football practice because it was Yom Kippur with the result being that he was never able to regain his position on the team.  The author writes that,

‘He says he didn’t try to convince his parents to let him skip Yom Kippur services; he knew that by that age it was sacrosanct.  “It wasn’t a choice,” he says matter-of-factly.  “It was Yom Kippur.”

Bill’s most famous role, of course, is that of the aforementioned, Captain James T (for Tiberius) Kirk alongside his friend of nearly 50 years, Leonard Nimoy, who played ‘Mr’ (later to be promoted to‘Captain’) Spock’, the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer and first officer aboard the USS Starship Enterprise.  He was four days younger than Bill.

Sadly, Leonard passed away in 2015 and a year later, Bill published a memoir called ‘Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man’ (William Shatner with David Fisher, Sidgewick & Jackson, UK).

Having read the book earlier this year, it moved me in a way that very few tomes have managed to do.

Leonard grew up in Boston and, like Bill, lived in a home where his parents kept kosher.  In fact, their upbringing was quite similar in that their parents were working class.  Bill’s father was in the shmatte/rag trade whilst Leonard’s was a barber.  They both came to the decision that they wanted to pursue a career in acting when they were eight years old.

It was not until July 1965, just over 60 years ago, that they encountered each for the first time on the set of a new futuristic science fiction series which was to be called ‘Star Trek.’  Bill doesn’t remember the moment they met and he writes that when they first started working together, although Leonard was ‘personally invested in the character, Bill ‘made the mistake of treating Spock with less than complete respect.  It was not a mistake I made a second time.’

The working relationship that was initiated back in those heady days of the mid 60’s developed into a deep friendship between the two like-minded individuals over the next five decades.  This was no doubt reinforced by the critical and commercial success of the motion pictures which began a decade later when Bill and Leonard revisited their roles over a twelve-year period in the six films which concluded with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991.

At this point in the Drasha, you will no doubt be wondering why I have spent the last three pages taking you on a voyage to explore what seems like a ‘five-year-mission, seeking out old lives and space captains to boldly go where no Rabbi has gone before on Yom Kippur’…

Please bear with me just a little longer and all of this will (hopefully) make sense, particularly on this holiest day of our calendar.

Behind the ‘glitz and glamour’ of Hollywood’s brightest lights (million dollar special effects), lies a decades-long friendship between two proudly Jewish men.  One that no-doubt emanated from the values they were brought up with and shared both in their professional and private lives.  In 2013, after decades of heavy smoking (at one point, he got through two packs a day) Leonard was diagnosed with COPD, although the signs had been there since 2006.

Towards the end of the book, Bill writes:

I often think about friendships.  Our friendship.  All friendships.  The complexities that bring two lives together sometimes briefly, sometimes for almost a lifetime.  There are fleeting friendships and enduring friendships.  It is such an all-encompassing word, but it doesn’t sufficiently define the depth of any relationship.  There are so many metaphors that might be applied, but ours covered an ocean of time, and as in any voyage, between the calm seas we encountered moments of turmoil.  One of my greatest regrets is that Leonard and I were not as close as we had been during those last few years of his life.

He goes on to describe an incident where he made a film about the ‘many captains of the Enterprise’ and Leonard expressly stated that he didn’t want to appear in it.  Bill didn’t think that Leonard was being serious as this seemed so trivial and when a cameraman filmed him at a convention without Leonard’s permission, he got angry and refused to speak with his old friend again.

Despite Bill trying to reach out and apologise, attempting to heal the rift, Leonard never spoke to him again and passed away a month or so short of his 84^th birthday.

Bill writes how puzzled he remains, granted that they had flown together following the convention and Leonard hadn’t demonstrated any animosity or anger towards him.  However, for some reason only known to Leonard, he decided to cut Bill out of his life.

Bill wrote a heartfelt letter to his old friend letting him know how much he loved him in the hope that Leonard would have read this before he died.

In one of the final passages, Bill writes:

I think about Leonard.  I miss him.  Even when we weren’t in touch, he was always in my life.  And when I think about Leonard and all the adventures we had together, I remember his own lust for life; I remember his desire to explore and experience life in all its infinite wonders.  I think of his spiritual side, in which he never stopped searching for answers he knew he would never find.  I think of his generosity and his commitment for equal justice for everyone.  I think of his never-ending passion for the arts and his quest to nurture creativity in young people.  And I think of him standing in front of me, his palm held high, his fingers separated in the Vulcan salute, smiling knowingly.

I look back and the reflection I see is my own life…

I cannot think of a more appropriate metaphor that represents Yom Kippur than the friendship and love that these two men had for each other and how it sadly dissipated.

In the week (and if you are Sephardi, month) leading up to Rosh Hashanah and throughout the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah/10 Days of Penitence, we recite Selichot. The root of Selichot is סלח, from which we have the word ‘selicha’ which means ‘forgiveness/pardon/excuse’ and when you wish to say, “Excuse me (or literally forgive me)” in Ivrit, the term is ‘selach li’.

Chazal tells us that for Gd to forgive a person on Yom Kippur, he must first seek that forgiveness (also known as ‘Mechila’ in Hebrew) from his fellow human being.  If he asks three times and the response is not forthcoming, the onus shifts on the respondent to make the necessary moves to heal the wound.

The tragedy of Bill and Leonard’s relationship was that when Bill tried to apologise, to say ‘selicha’, Leonard was too angry to respond until it was too late for him to do so and the hurt that ensued followed him to his grave.

We are fallible and I am sure that every single person here can relate to the way both men felt and, in particular, the sense of loss that haunts Bill to this very day.  He wrote his book to help him heal and let the world know how highly he thought of Leonard.

Yom Kippur is the day when we ask Gd to forgive us for the slights that we have caused Him over the year.  Those occasions when we didn’t live up to the expectations that He has of us and by extension, we have of ourselves.  When, as Elton John famously sang ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’, we admit our guilt and stand in front of the Creator of the Universe on the holiest day of the year to say ‘Sorry’ or ‘Forgive me.’

Over three thousand, three hundred and thirty years ago, we committed the seemingly unforgiveable sin of creating a Golden Calf.  To call it an insult to the True Gd would be an understatement and yet, in His infinite glory, He forgave us and we realised that this was the case, when Moshe descended from Sinai clutching the second set of Commandments on the 10^th of Tishri – today’s date.

I chose Bill as my final ‘Person of the Year’ because he really represents the very essence of what it means to be a Jew.  Our pride, angst, shame and ultimately, innate desire to make amends, the qualities that define us.  And to paraphrase his quote about Leonard – our commitment for equal justice for everyone.

I feel that he should join Omer Shem Tov and the Israelis that I described in my Drashot/Sermons on both days of Rosh Hashanah.  These are not only my ‘People of the Year’ but also deserve a mention in everyone else’s list.  We need them to remind us of how blessed we are to call them our own (and I include Sawsan Kheir, the Druze Psychologist).  Each one in his or her own right represents the very best of us and just as importantly the imperfections that make us who we are.

On Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.  Let us reflect on who they are and how they can impact who we are.  Because, one day, what you do might earn you a place on somebody else’s ‘Person of the Year’ list.

I pray that Hashem Yitzbarach, Gd Almighty hears our pleas, forgives us and grants our people a year of peace and healing both in the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora.  May we see the return of the hostages to their loved ones and the proliferation of wise and thoughtful decisions on the part of those who represent us on the world stage.

May you and yours be blessed with an easy and meaningful fast.

With the warmest of wishes from Stephnie, me and our children.

Chag Sameach and Gmar Chatimah Tovah. 

May it come to all of Israel.  

Amen.

Rosh Hashanah I: People of the Year - Omer Shem Tov

On 2^nd January 1928, Time Magazine inaugurated its very first ‘Man of the Year’ issue (The award is now titled ‘Person of the Year’). The initial recipient was Charles Lindburgh who had famously ‘made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1927 in his ‘Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis’

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This tradition has continued to the present day with the honouree being announced around the second week in December.

President Donald Trump was last year’s choice (and a glance at the list of runners-up is also worth checking out).

Time’s Wikipedia entry describes this edition as:

‘featuring a person, group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse ...has done the most to influence the events of the year".

With this in mind, I have decided to focus my High Holidays Drashot/Sermons on individuals or groups who have, paraphrasing this entry, ‘done the most to influence the events of my year’. All three of my Drashot are therefore entitled ‘People of the Year’.

Rosh Hashanah is our annual opportunity to both reflect on the year that has just ended whilst praying for a trouble-free future. As we read in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer at Musaph (please feel free to follow on Page 147 of the Routledge Machzor):

 

‘On the first day of the year (Rosh Hashanah) it is inscribed and on the Day of Atonement the decree is sealed, how many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die….’

Omer Shem Tov was kidnapped by Hamas on 7^th October from the Nova Dance Festival and held hostage in Gaza for a total of 505 days, of which 50 were spent 40 metres under the ground crouched in a tiny, locked tunnel cell in solitary confinement in pitch-black darkness for most of the time. He survived on a single daily biscuit and a little salty water.

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah last year, which equates with 3^rd October, he had been in captivity for 363 days or 11 months and 27 days. Whilst we were reciting Unetaneh Tokef in this beautiful Synagogue, Omer was imprisoned in a tunnel not knowing whether the New Year of 5785 would be his last.

Following the horrific attacks of 7^th October, the Board of Deputies initiated a campaign to have Synagogues ‘adopt a hostage’. My community of Staines chose Omer. For the duration of his captivity, we attached a photograph of ‘Our Omer’ to a seat in the prayer hall. We placed a framed picture bearing the hashtag ‘bring him home now’ on a table in the entrance hall in front of a pinboard where we displayed updates on his situation. Our members wrote emails to numerous MPs including Michael Gove and Kwasi Kwarteng who was the former Member of Parliament for Spelthorne. We prayed and prayed for Omer but were met with what seemed like interminable silence. Little did we know what would transpire.

On Shabbat, 22^nd February (which also happens to be my daughter Talia’s birthday), ‘Our Omer’ was released and we were overjoyed.

You can imagine our delight when we heard that he was going to be visiting this country in June. We were asked by Staines to represent the community and it was arranged that Stephnie and I would be the only people allowed to meet him (from amongst over a thousand attendees). JNF UK organised a special event at St John’s Wood Shul and they could not have been more willing to help and accommodating to our requests.

However, as we know, it turned out that for the first time in nearly 50 years, direct flights between Israel and Iran took place (I wish I could take credit for that line!) over a twelve-day period. Omer was unable to leave Israel due to the conflict.

Proceedings could have taken place online but being the kind of person he is, he decided to postpone his trip so that he could attend in person which he did in July.

We arrived early and were ushered into a room where Omer was sitting with his father, Malki and a documentary filmmaker, Yoram Zak.

You can see a video interview between Dana Zohar who organised the evening and Yoram at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfAP9OYvP1I.

I can’t adequately describe the emotions I felt when I met Omer. Words fail me, but the first thing I asked was if I could hug him and he willingly obliged! In fact, we talked and hugged at least three times. I presented him with a beautiful book containing copies of the emails I described as well as the photographs of the Synagogue (including his framed picture). He very kindly recorded a heartfelt video message for the members. I told him that to us, he was ‘Our Omer’ and that as far as we were concerned, we had adopted him for life!

Which brings me back full circle to Rosh Hashanah. On this day, Gd looks upon the  entire world and judges every living creature on its own merits. Chazal, our Rabbis tell us that He opens three ‘books’ – the first for the righteous, the second for the wicked and the third, for the rest of us who fall in-between the two. He measures out our good deeds against our transgressions (or in Hebrew terminology, Mitzvot and Aveirot) and He makes a decision that will impact our year.

‘On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur the decree is sealed…’

Last year, Gd made the decision to inscribe Omer Shem Tov and everyone sitting here today in the Book of Life. At the same time, He decreed that two people in this room would have their lives impacted by meeting a third. I wrote the following in my preface to the book we presented Omer which is taken from Pirkei Avot/ Ethics of the Fathers:

“Rabbi Shimon said, “There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the crown of kingship – the crown of a good name surpasses them all.” As you may have gathered, ‘shem tov’ means ‘a good name’.

When he was in captivity, Omer connected with Gd and had daily conversations with Him, calling Him ‘Aba – daddy’. He would start by asking Gd ‘how He was’!

 Since being released, he lays tefillin every day (except for Shabbat and Yom Tov) and in fact, the reason why we had to wait to meet with him was that he was doing exactly this whilst everyone around him was busy preparing for the evening.

He is an extraordinary human being in so many ways and meeting him has been inspirational. He has brought home to us the enormity of what has been taking place in almost two years of the nightmare that began on that Shmini Atzeret morning. Just as importantly, his courage and bravery in extremely challenging situations has been inspirational in a way that I can’t fully describe. That he happens to have a great sense of humour is all the more remarkable considering the trauma he has experienced.

Which is why, to me, Omer Shem Tov is my ‘Man of the Year’.

We are about to embark on a new adventure on the ‘good ship’ we call ‘5786’.

o   A year where we fervently pray that more Omers will return to their loved ones.

o   That Israel and the Jewish People will find the genuine and meaningful peace we are so desperate to achieve.

o   That our enemies will be judged on what they did and will be held accountable by both heavenly and terrestrial courts. May their evil plans and machinations against us be frustrated.

o   And finally, that someone as worthy as Omer Shem Tov becomes my Man of the Year for 5787.

There are many more individuals who have influenced me over the last year and I look forward to sharing their stories with you in the coming days! 

May we all be blessed with a happy, healthy and peaceful new Year. Shanah Tovah Umetukah to you and yours from Stephnie and myself.