Anyone For Coffee?

Here's Rabbi Silverman's sermon for Shabbat Hagadol, best read while sipping a cappucino, or maybe a latte ....

Chag Pesach Sameach!!

                       Pre-Pesach 5776/ 2016   ANYONE FOR  COFFEE ?

A rabbi walks into a coffee shop. (This is not a joke). The rabbi gets into trouble for being in the coffee shop. Why? It wasn’t Pesach. It wasn’t Shabbat. It wasn’t the sort of place we are familiar with: Starbucks, Costa or Cafe Nero. It was one of the original such places, in London, in 1728 and they were called coffee houses. They were meeting-places for conversation, commerce, journalism, politics, learning and gossip: they have been called everyman’s university, quenching the thirst for knowledge. Your coffee would cost a penny, your social contacts could be invaluable. The Rabbi was Jacob Emden, one of the most outstanding halachic scholars of the 18^th Century. He was visiting London from Germany. Why did he get into trouble?

There were Jews in London who didn’t approve of him being in the coffee house, the company he was keeping, an issue about kashrut in a gentile establishment, and someone, probably seeing him through the window, challenged him on the spot. They said it was against the rabbinical rules of the community.  He apologised, but finished his coffee, saying he did not want to insult the proprietor by leaving immediately. Back in the German Jewish communities there was no such problem. Emden however then gave a judgment supporting London’s minhag hamakom, erring on the side of strictness. It was not long however before Anglo-Jewry relaxed on this matter. In Europe there were general bans against coffee drinking and against Jews trading in it: competition with beer for one thing. Beer-drinking was for men; coffee for men and women. Puritanical attitudes crept in, but not amongst Jews. It’s all in a book called ‘Jews welcome Coffee’ by Robert Liberles.

In Judaism there is  a creative tension between strictness and enjoyment of life. Pesach is strictness to the nth degree. Rabbinical strictness kicks in hard at Pesach time. Rabbis did not always preach to their congregations. I mean preach rather than teach, or give a derashah. Preaching in the sense of dictating behaviour was mandatory only on two Shabbats  in the year: Shabbat Shuvah between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and  Shabbat Haggadol which was for reminders about keeping kosher lePesach.

Coffee is a great example. Orthodox advise only buy what has a Kosher lePesach label. Or ask your rabbi. Reform: look at the ingredients label and use  common sense informed by tradition, and some knowledge about production.  Ground coffee: no problem. All instants including decaf – there is the possibility of chametz/leaven; decaf has been produced with alcohol.  The greatest success story in Kosher lePesach Coffee is Maxwell House. In 1934 they hit on the idea of a Maxwell House Haggadah. To  this day it’s the most popular Haggadah in the world and ensured sales of their coffee over Pesach.

Then there was a debate over whether coffee is in the same category as rice, beans, peas, sweetcorn (legumes or pulses - kitniot) Ashkenazi Jews won’t have them on Pesach; Sephardim will. Rabbi Jacob  Emden ruled in favour of coffee. His point on the kitniot issue was that coffee is from beans yes – but they grow on trees rather than in the ground therefore they are not legumes but fruit.

Whatever your practice on this point for Pesach what’s  important  is the need to know why. Basically, these products were kept in open sacks and there was a concern that chametz would get mixed in. Not all communities had this concern, hence the differences in observance. One further point: Jacob Emden, when asked about coffee being roasted in a pot that had not been koshered for Passover made a bold sweeping reply; he said ‘surely, he who is lenient is rewarded and one who is stricter loses out on enjoying the holiday for no reason’ (Discuss!)

It is important that we don’t get bogged down in the detail and fail to see the wood for the trees. Pesach is about Exodus from slavery to freedom. Jews were highly involved in importing coffee to Europe from Latin America. There was the issue of slavery. And this one has not gone away.

Coffee is the second most valuable traded commodity worldwide, second only to Petroleum. Production of it is highly exploitative. Child labour is widely employed in coffee cultivation. As the price of coffee rises, you take your kids out of school and send them to work. When coffee prices fall – poverty also keeps children from school. No school, no advancement, so - a cycle of poverty over generations. A solution is for farmers to be paid a living wage not based on the price of the commodity.

I am annoyed at my  local Tescos for ceasing to stock Fair Trade Coffee on their shelves. Amongst Reform rabbis now there’s a consensus:  Pesach is a good time to push, yes preach, for ethical kashrut. We urge giving our chametz to food banks.   It can also be an issue for  the EU referendum. There  are EU directives; contract incentives for fair trade companies – and so whilst we debate the pros and cons of  Free Trade outside the EU, there is also the imperative of Fair Trade to be considered, which might involve restrictions best advocated by a union of nations; strictness for the sake of humanitarianism. EU action against Starbucks’ Tax avoidance in the Netherlands is another highly topical case in point.  Outside such a union we could be free from directives and restrictions. But freedom in Jewish terms is not merely being free from restraints but free to act responsibly.  If we want Fair Trade for all we can best be of influence inside the EU.

It is important what you do on Pesach: making it a different and special time – enhancing family and social contact, immersing yourself in the values behind the festival. The details of observance are important. More important is an awareness of why we keep them, our freedom, physical and spiritual, and our vision of a freer and fairer world.                                   

 

Chag Purim Sameach!

And nowhere was more joyful than Jackson's Row!

We had all this to eat ... 

 And our very own puppet megillah reading with Amy Winehouse and Dennis the Menace with a sparkling script composed by our resident nurse ..

A tombola for the adults ...

And lots of littl'uns to make the party go with a swing ...

And all this was the work of SuperLaura and SuperMario and her wonderful network of hard-working mates!

And there was face-painting and football and tin cans and a baby area and crafts and of course! A lively Megillah reading upstairs in the sanctuary by the effervescent Rabbi Warren Elf, aided by the cocktails downstairs!

L'Chaim, mazeltov and kol hakavod to everyone who planned, worked hard and participated!



 

From our Rabbi in Perth

Here's the address given by our Rabbi to the congregation at Temple David, Perth, Australia this last Shabbat - a JR Blog exclusive!

PERTH, Western AUSTRALIA  Friday 18^th March 2016

It’s nice to say Hello again after 43 years since I was here last. I'm here now with Isobel at an international conference on Medical Education. Isobel holds the chair in Medical Education at Manchester University. I hold her bags for her when she travels to conventions like this one. We're also celebrating our Ruby Wedding year.

It’s great to be sharing the Friday evening service with Ken Arkwright. Isobel and I have had the pleasure a number of times of Ken and Judith’s company in Manchester over the years, during their son Peter’s presidency of our shul  and the bar and bat mitzvahs of their grandchildren, and it’s wonderful to be with them in your natural habitat.

I was last here in 1973. I  took part in a service on Friday evening 11 October that year. It was Shabbat Succot. I had come over that morning from Melbourne where I spent the beginning of Succot with Rabbi Brian Fox and family after a 4 month spell in Sydney holding the fort there whilst Rabbi Brasch was on sabbatical.  There was only one subject to talk about on that occasion. The Yom Kippur War had just begun. I came to Perth on my way home – I was invited to Temple David; Rabbi Uri Themal was finishing his contract and they were on the point of looking for another rabbi. The following evening I had been scheduled to speak at the community centre about my experiences in the Caribbean where my first congregation was (on the Dutch island of Curaçao) They got it wrong in the publicity and billed me as speaking on the Jews of Croatia! In the event, there was only one subject: Israel. I think the whole of the Perth Jewish community turned out for that evening. It was a different mood from the 6 Day War which in the length of time it took me to get from Sydney to Perth via a weekend in Melbourne, was over, this time we were caught unawares and didn’t know we would be facing a long drawn out traumatic war of attrition over many months.  Since the 6 Day War only 6 years previously we had been in a state of euphoria. The higher you fly the further you fall.

We also could not have imagined that within 4 years the President of Egypt would be standing before the Knesset and concluding a peace treaty with Israel which has lasted to this day. But we shouldn't get  blasé about that either. So much water under the bridge….Peace also with Jordan.  but then the 2 Lebanon wars, the 3 Gaza wars, the 2 Intifadas and with the stabbings all around Israel now, they are saying that they’re going through a 3^rd.  Or should I say 'we'. We now have a son, daughter-in-law and grandson living in Jerusalem. The Middle East is not the same Middle East. The world is a drastically altered world. Autocratic regimes have toppled to be replaced in some cases by worse regimes. The Shah followed by the Atatollas, Saddam and Ghaddafi, followed by the chaos of Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria and so-called Islamic State. 

And there's been Camp David,  Oslo and Taba with high hopes and dashed opportunities.

On the wider world scene we have witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the downsides of that in the Balkans, Chechnya and the Ukraine. The massive Exodus of our people from the FSU and the beginnings of what is likely to turn the 21^st into the Century of the Refugee from Afghanistan, from Syria and if climate change continues to worsen, what Israel has been seeing from African countries will become the experience of Europe too. We can’t cope and if  the rest of the world will not help what we are seeing now could be a storm in a teacup to what might come.

The world has been going through a midbar, a wilderness. Hopefully there will be a Promised Land on the horizon but we don’t see it yet. Certainly there are warnings to be heeded and imperatives which Wandering Jews receive from our history. The high point, Sinai came in the midst of the wilderness experience. But after that high came the Golden Calf, and civil war among the tribes. And after the miraculous manna came mutiny against Moses.

Today is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of Remembering. We remember how we were attacked in the wilderness by the cowardly Amalekites, ancestors of Haman. It’s the prelude to Purim (coming in on Wednesday night) The serious prelude to the crazy festival.

Festivals can be like markers of our lifetime events. On some phones when you type in Purim it autocorrects to Putin! There's a message in that.

Casting my mind back to 1973.It was still Yom Kippur even though it was Succot. The Yom Kippur War cast its shadow over the whole year. Curiously, there’s a rabbinic play on the name – in the Torah it’s called Yom Kippurim, and the word play is that it could be read to mean a day like Purim (just by changing one vowel – yom kepurim). How so? Well, they say that on Yom Kippur we starve our bodies and feed our souls, whereas on Purim we feed our bodies and starve our souls. On  Purim with fancy dress and fressing and boozing, good Jews masquerade as bad Jews, whereas on Yom Kippur bad Jews masquerade as good Jews.  

One rabbi, Eliezer Kitov, actually went as far as to say that Purim is greater than YK! (Rabbis love turning things upside down!) How could Purim be greater than Yom Kippur? Because Yom Kippur is a hard day of affliction whereas Purim is a day of fun. And it’s easier to turn to God during a tough time than it is during a fun time, in the troughs rather than on the crest of the wave.

The world has gone through so much turmoil, as well as good things since I was last here. My personal world changed when I came back from Perth too – going through changes of all sorts family-wise and as a young bachelor  I come back happier and more fulfilled as a husband, father and grandfather-todah la'El.

Isobel and I thank you for the warm welcome you have given us and wish you Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach.

 

To the future!

We are a shul with a history – and we are also a shul with a future. That future was the theme of Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner’s visit to Jackson’s Row yesterday. As our rebuilding draws ever closer, we gathered together to share our visions about our new home, and to be inspired by our very inspirational Senior Rabbi.

Laura started by asking us who we all were. What emerged from that was a picture of a hugely committed, caring community – diverse but united in their hopes for our synagogue. Some members were born into the synagogue, others were on the conversion course, about to join. Others have given a lifetime of service to the synagogue, others were brimming with enthusiasm to do just that. People led services, prepared kiddushes, did security duty, looked after our web presence, sang in the choir, ran family services, did outreach work – not to mention the President and his team who are working tirelessly on finalising the new build. Laura was – to coin a phrase – quite gobsmacked. She said our loyalty and continuity was something very special. As indeed it is!

We then all talked about our new building, and how we saw our community in the future. We all agreed we want a beacon synagogue – a building which has prayer at its heart, but also will be the go-to place for city-working and city-dwelling Jews. Laura stressed how we can exploit our position in the city centre, and encouraged us to think of the new opportunities change will bring. She said we can be a magnet for Jewish life in Manchester.

What’s not in any doubt is that our new building will allow us to do so much more than we can do at present. We will be able to hold all sorts of events, cater for members and guests, house learning resources and – ta-dah! – be able to park! The future looks very, very bright.

We also talked about the interim period, when we’ll be without a synagogue building. Danny, our President, made it clear that a lot of sound arrangements were already in place, and that we will continue worshipping in the city centre and also that Rabbi and Mandy will have offices here. And of course, Friday night services can be held in homes. As indeed they were last Shabbat – we had services in both North and South Manchester which attracted 10 times as many congregants as usual – a big thank you to Sharon and Brendan and Isabel and Peter for lending us their homes.

Even if we don’t have a permanent synagogue building for a while, it became very clear from Rabbi Laura’s meeting with us that we have the desire to keep our community life alive in the interim, and will more than rise to the challenge of being in transit. Rebuilding? No problem - we’ve done this before!  And Danny and the Rabbi were also able to assure us that the most treasured artefacts of our sanctuary will be moving with us to our temporary home.

A huge thank you to Rabbi Laura, and kol hakavod to all of us. To the future!

Jewsih Book Week in the north

For the keen readers among you, here’s the lowdown on Jewish Book Week. For the second year running, Jewish Book Week is coming up north (hooray!) 

Our sister shul, Menorah, is privileged to be hosting Wendy Holden and Eve Clarke. Wendy Holden is the author of 'Born Survivors', an account of how three mothers and their newborns fought to survive the Nazi regime. Eve Clarke was born at the gates of Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1945. Her pregnant mother had survived both a journey to Auschwitz11-Birkenau and the scrutiny of Joseph Mengele.

Wendy and Eva are in conversation with Gita Conn on Sunday February 28th at 6.00 pm

At 8.00 pm , also on the 28th Feb ( there is a bagel break between the two!)  Menorah is delighted to be hosting Saul David, historian and broadcaster, who will be talking about Operation Thunderbolt, Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe. In 1976 a group of German and Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris, eventually forcing it to land in Uganda. This fast-paced account of the hijacking, details the daring and ultra-secret mission orchestrated by the Israeli government to save the hostages and end the terror.

To book visit http://menorah.org.uk/jbw/ or call 0161 428 7746.

Also note other events include Wednesday 2nd March at Yeshurun Synagogue (Tel: 0161 428 8242) -   Dan Stone discusses The Liberation of the Camps – 8pm. And on Sunday 6th March at Bowdon Synagogue ( with Hale Synagogue) (Tel:0161 928 2050) Colin Shindler discusses The Rise of the Israeli Right: from Odessa to Hebron 6pm and at 8pm Thomas Harding discusses The House by the Lake

 You can book at http://www.jewishbookweek.com/events/jewish-book-week-tour or contact the numbers above.