A-Z OF JEWISH VALUES -

R FOR REVISION

If I say the word ‘Revision’ to you, I wonder what it conjures up. Memories of schooldays I would guess, not particularly pleasant.

In later life we do it for university or professional exams; when you prepare for your driving test you have to swot up the Highway Code. In a Jewish context, if you are converting to Judaism you’ll have revising to do before your interview with the Beth Din.

Judaism depends a great deal on knowledge. Some argue that if you’re Reform there’s less to know. In fact the opposite can be argued, on grounds that if you find yourself having to justify your Jewish observance to others – or indeed, more importantly, to yourself- you’ve more to learn than if you just go with the traditional flow.

Over the past 12 months I’ve been presenting to you an alphabetical survey of Jewish values from a Reform point of view. This morning I’d just like to revise with you some main points.

Starting with A last January, I began with Atmosphere which is so important to us. And in comparing ourselves with orthodoxy I introduced the concept ‘anthropocentric’ - or person-centred. I said

“Our values are anthropocentric and theirs are bibliocentric (centred on the books). Or alternatively we start from A and they start from B. Or if you prefer the Hebrew alphabet, we start from ‘Adam’ and they start from ‘Torah’. We go from Aleph to Tav and they go from Tav to Aleph. And hopefully we meet in the middle.”

The following week, under the heading of Belief I addressed the question of how we speak of God. Revisions have and are taking place in our prayer books in this respect. By the way, the latest news is, our new Siddur will be launched in early July this year (put that in your diaries)

I said last year:

“New Reform translations of the Siddur… which use expressions for God like ‘The Eternal’, are not just trying to be egalitarian and politically correct in not addressing God as a man, but being more philosophically correct in not addressing God as a person in the sky. The value here is philosophical integrity, consistency between what we say religiously, with what we actually think.”

In my Cheder Class I asked for a value beginning with C and would you believe it, one lad came up with ‘Consistency’. Community is another. According to a Board of Deputies Report last year British Jews place a higher value on Belonging than on Belief. We value Community so much that we place Children in the forefront. To quote what I said on this:

“A very good example of this is the Family Service we have here every 6 weeks or so. It’s quite an innovation to have children of all ages leading the service. It hasn’t happened before in Jewish history. It’s a reflection of the high value we place upon community as an extension of the family”.

Next Decorum. Decorum and Devotion, or, in Hebrew, Kevah and Kavannah. Devotion (I said) is preferable to Decorum, because Decorum can be just as rule-bound, just as fixed and rigid, just as empty of content as Kevah….Decorum starts from rules; Devotion starts from you and I and the spirit we bring to it”.

Actually if you have Devotion you’ll have Decorum. You won’t talk whilst others are davvening– because your mind will be concentrating on the prayers yourself.

Enthusiasm, enjoyment: Quote:

“What do we enjoy most? I would say from observation: it would seem to be each other’s company. Our most popular events are (again) family services – though we have to work hard to keep up the momentum, the senior members’ lunch - hugely popular and successful as was the first meeting of our social group Reva. (we’ve had more since)

What we have to think very carefully about (I said) is the Jewish element in social events which we run here. We are a little bit afraid of the Jewish element- in case it puts people off.

But it’s the Jewish element that we’re here for…”

Next -Flexibility is a strong Reform Jewish value. I argued it is a strong Jewish value – but we don’t go along with legal fictions which exploit loopholes in our laws, like the sale of leaven on Pesach.

G for Generativity (quite a high scorer in Scrabble that one) -handing on to the next generation. Handing on Torah values from one generation to the next. Being sensitive to needs of the next generation and helping them to satisfy their spiritual needs.

Then History. I dared to suggest that the History of the Exodus is not born out by archaeology. I had some, but very little reaction against this. In an orthodox synagogue I would expect my job to be in jeopardy!

Reform has a different view of history. For us it’s not that the Torah was all written down by Moses, but that it is the product of many hands over generations.

To challenge a conventional view about history is called Revisionism. It’s usually a political stance. It surfaced in Israel in the 20’s with Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionism. His militant form of Zionism sought to "revise" the terms of the British Mandate, particularly to provide for the re-inclusion of Transjordan in Mandatory Palestine. (You might say that every view of history is a political one). Modern Israeli revisionist historians have argued that just as we demand that Palestinians revise the school text books which teach that Jews have no historical right to the land, so if we want honest understanding between us we should revise ours. For example, the denial that any Palestinians were pushed off their lands in 1948.

The criticisms I received for this were twofold when I said:

“Since the excavations of Finklestein and others over the past 30 years have discredited the view that the Exodus generation established the first Israelite settlements in what are now the West Bank territories, they’ve come under vehement attack for their theories and been accused of having pro-Palestinian political agendas”. The counter-views expressed to me were that

(a) Finkelstein is wrong: Jewish settlements have existed since the Exodus on what we now call the West Bank and

(b) Finkelstein is crazy.

I’m still waiting for the evidence to back up those statements, before I decide on revising my view of the issue.

I was for Israel, Identity and Independence.

“Independence (I said) in Hebrew is Atzmaut. Yom Ha’Atzmaut is translated as Independence Day. Atzmaut is very positive. It means literally Selfness. Atzmaut means you define yourself, you’re not dependent on others to do it for you”. That’s very much the spirit of Reform Judaism.

There is such a thing as Reform Zionism – but that’s for when we get to the end of the alphabet.

J for Jerusalem. Two Jerusalems – the earthly and the heavenly ideal. Classical Reform revised the Siddur by taking out all references to Zion because they called into question our universality.

Recent revisions have restored Jerusalem.

“And here .. in Jackson’s Row, (I said) where the Hebrew name of our Shul is Sha’ar Zion the Gate of Zion, we are rediscovering tradition, accepting and respecting our differences, aiming for peaceful co-existence, and aiming to bring the heavenly closer to the earthly and the earthly to the heavenly.”

K for Kashrut. Keeping Kosher.

It expresses our particular identity. It’s value is also universal I argued, as follows:

“By keeping kosher – we are asserting who we are. There are certain values - in particular, by and large, our kashrut limits us to a rather restricted field of domesticated animals, so there are environmental benefits here – and there is within our dietary laws the recognition that human beings are in reality carnivores – omnivores, but that being so, that we are not the absolute masters of the world to consume indiscriminately and ruthlessly, but we apply an awareness of the sanctity of life, through the symbolism of our tradition”.

I spoke 3 weeks running on the letter L. London was on our minds – the July bombings. My themes – Liberalism, Law and Liberty were all about our values as Reform Jews opposed to all forms of fanaticism. And the dilemmas involved of revising laws, which we do as Reform Jews and which our government was contemplating doing. The dilemmas of safeguarding life and limb without sacrificing liberty were and still are for us to wrestle with.

Memory on Rosh Hashanah (also called Yom Hazikaron- the Day of Memory). Revising the events of the past Jewish year, especially its catastrophe. Through collective memory I said:

“we enhance our sense of purpose, and it will be the kind of community we’ll want to belong to - not only for the purpose of servicing our needs at certain times of our life, and no further, not only for the sake of saying prayers, even regularly, but for giving our whole sense of belonging and our prayers meaning – meaning beyond preserving memories. Meaning building upon memory to create renewed vitality”.

I continued with M the following Shabbat. M for Mistakes plus N for Novelty. The novelty that Shabbat was that I was brief. I gave a 30 second derashah on this. What’s the value of Making Mistakes I asked. One or two of you quickly gave me the answer: “You learn from them”.

Ownership, Openness and Outwardness came on Yom Kippur. Reform begins with the Self, but does not end with the self.

Then Prayer. I got more positive feedback from this one than any other. It would seem that there is great feeling for coming here actually to pray. I focussed on how we do it. Quote:

“It’s my view that Anglo-Jewish shul-goers are naturally low-profile, undemonstrative, not to say private. The more assimilated, the more low-key. This is not a criticism, it just is the case. It goes against the grain to make a big show of it all. I am coming round to thinking that the quieter and more contemplative and personal our services are the better it would suit us”.

Q is for quiet. And there is a word Quietism. It means leaving everything quietly in the hands of God to take care of. Not a Jewish value I maintained. Questioning Quietism is the value. We believe in action for a better world.

So that’s a review of where we’re up to. And today is R for Revision and Review. And of course I haven’t covered all the subjects. In the coming weeks up to Pesach we’ll complete the alphabet, though of course I won’t exhaust the values.

All the talks I gave on these subjects are posted up on our synagogue website – you can find the internet address at the top of the notices, for you to review. I have had some interesting responses. Do please take the opportunity at kiddush to suggest to me subjects of your interest.

(Co-incidentally, another Reform Synagogue, South West Essex, whose rabbi Maurice Michaels is the current Chairman of the Assembly of Rabbis and a former Chairman of RSGB started his own A-Z and I hope to be working with him on it during my sabbatical).

I think that this work is important because the more forthright we can be about our positive values as Reform Jews, the more we know what we stand for, the greater our self-confidence in it.

It enhances our view of ourselves. In that sense too, a kind of ‘Re-vision’.