FROM THE RABBI
There was a wonderful party at the shul on the last night of Chanukah - nine chanukiot were lit, each one with nine candles - a glorious blaze of 81 lights that quickly warmed up our Functions Hall and threatened to set off the fire alarms! Our Chanukah celebration symbolised all that the synagogue stands for - bringing together old and young to share music and song, food and drink, not forgetting the underlying Chanukah message of cherishing and affirming our precious and unique religious heritage.
After Chanukah, there is a long break before our next festival. This will be Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, that this year falls on Wednesday 8th February. At Bet Tikvah, our two fruit trees that guard the front gate have firmly declared that they’re not prepared to wait that long - our cherry tree is already blossoming, a whole month early!
In our Jewish tradition, trees are admired because they exemplify so many positive values. They are remarkably long-lived and many are faithfully productive, demanding so little yet yielding so much. The very first of the psalms compares righteous men and women to trees - ‘planted beside streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose foliage never fades, and whatever it produces thrives.’ On Friday nights we sometimes sing Psalm 92, that declares: ‘the righteous shall flourish like the palm, grow tall like the cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Eternal One, they shall flourish in the courts of our God; they shall still bear fruit in old age, they shall ever be fresh and green.’
When we sing Tov Lehodot on Erev Shabbat, I look down and see Gerry and Marguerite Wimborne sitting in the front row, Bet Tikvah’s very own palm and cedar of Lebanon. They are now celebrating a significant joint birthday and a special service was held to honour them. In my sermon, I remarked on the astonishing contributions that both Gerry and Marguerite have made, both to the Jewish community and to the wider community, through their active participation in countless charitable and welfare organisations.
But just as those trees in Psalm 1 can only maintain their productiveness because they were planted by the waterside, so Gerry and Marguerite have always actively nourished their Judaism through their commitment to regularly coming to services and by joining Kedem, our regular and popular Wednesday-evening adult education classes. we wish them both ye-asher co’ach’chem (may your strength increase) and ad meah ve-esrim (until your 120th birthdays)!
Liberal Judaism has just launched a new social group called ‘Routes’, for young Jews in their 20s and 30s (together with non-Jewish friends and partners). The launch last month saw 70 people crowding into a room in a pub in central London. The details are to be found in elsewhere in this edition of HaEtz. If you have children in the right age-group (even if they are no longer synagogue members), please let them know and encourage them to go along and see what’s on offer!
Rabbi David Hulbert |
