The Movement for Reform Judaism

Finchley dumped me. After countless years of sharing the intimate details of my annual summer holiday on Rosh Hashanah morning, they emailed to say that they had an embarasse de rabbesses (and rabbs as well) and my services were no longer required. Goodbye Sir Bobby! Am I offended? Moi ? I’m much too big a man ever to take offence. I’ll just drive here via Friern Barnet Tesco in future.

Slowly, it dawned on me that the whole dynamic of my High Holyday was going to change. Instead of being a promiscuous huckster selling my wares round the various Reform Synagogues of north-west London, I was, for once, going to be an honest journeyman with the same group of people. It’s true that I will be at Hendon for second day Rosh Hash, Alyth for Kol Nidrei and I even have the novelty of sharing Neilah with my dynasty at Middlesex New. But Erev Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah and most of Yom Kippur constitute the real core of the High Holydays. You, who are distinctly counter-cultural by turning out on Erev Rosh Hash rather than going out for dinner, you represent the hard core. I guess a significant percentage of us will be together tonight, tomorrow and again in ten days’ time which means that for the first time in many years there will be a small group of people who will realise that my High Holydays sermons connect. For many years I haven’t quite known why I bothered. This year, I do.

Linda and I had/have (the English language lets us down here) a very good friend called Pat. Pat and her husband Alan were founder members of our synagogue in Weybridge, which is where I took my first, faltering rabbinic steps. Alan was a single-handed GP with his surgery at home and specialised in GP deliveries — he personally delivered my rabbinic dynasty 25 years ago. He and Pat had/have (same English inadequacy) five daughters. Alan died at the age of 50, very suddenly, from a heart attack. I Bat Mitzvahed his twins and the sidra turned out to contain the story of the daughters of Zelophchad — I’ve never been able to get that out of my mind.

Pat has been incredibly helpful to me over the last 13 months. She says that in her experience the pain does not begin to diminish or change until after two years but she says that if you have spent your whole life in a relationship, in a partnership, you do at least begin to discover who you are as a single person, as a whole rather than part of a whole.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

Linda used to say to me that men couldn’t cope with being on their own and that they always rushed into new relationships and I told her that she was talking rubbish when it came to me. But I now realise that she was right and I have rushed into a new relationship. Her name is Francesca. She is very beautiful and very articulate, particularly for 3½, and she calls me Gramps.

No, I didn’t just say that in order to make you think that you were about to have a ‘News of the World’ moment with which to start the New Year, but because I wanted to reflect for a few moments on what a relationship-dependant or relationship-focused person I am. We are. Do I exist in any meaningful way except in relationship to others? Does anyone?

I know that were I actually to find myself on a desert island with only eight CDs, the bible and Shakespeare, I would have the deepest personal crisis imaginable. Would I even still exist in any meaningful sense? I have a hunch that my personal answer and the traditional Jewish answer is ‘no’.

In fact, if I were to take the late lamented Roy Plumley seriously — as I always did because he was one of the few men of even shorter stature than me — the desert island becomes a metaphor for hell. Not because I couldn’t build myself a shelter or harvest coconut palms — I couldn’t but that’s beside the point — but because the rest of my life spent totally alone with only God and coconuts for company would be unendurable. I’m not now talking about marriage but about any real relationships. Without them, life would have no meaning and no purpose at all. “What’s it all about, Almighty?”, I would sing and I can’t imagine that even She would be able to give me a purposeful or meaningful answer.

Ni-na, ni-na, ni-na, ni-na. Oh God, what have I done? I pull over and wind down my window. “Evening, sir”. “Evening officer, is there a problem?” “Do you know where you’re going with this sermon, sir?” “Er, er, …. not Finchley”. “Can I remind you, sir, that you’ve already been speaking for seven minutes. It is Erev Rosh Hash and these people will be wanting to get home for their festive meals. You have another five minutes, max, to discover where you are going and get there. You do know what the punishment is for being lost in charge of a sermon, don’t you, sir?” The face of the gentleman from the constabulary metamorphoses into that of Judge Jerome Karet and he begins to put a black shmateh on his head.

Blow it, as they say at Upton Park, I do know where this sermon is leading. It’s a fragment of my story, my autobiography, edited frames from my personal journey over the last 12 months. Being unpartnered; the love affair with my granddaughter; huge questions about the meaning or not of life alone; challenges as to the direction of the journey. For better or for worse, it’s typical of my “a funny thing happened to me on the way to the synagogue”, holidays-round-the-world approach.

Of course faith moulds life. Choosing to be a rabbi rather than a city solicitor, as I did, could not be a more graphic example of how faith determines bank balance. But — this is the point of the sermon, officer, your honour — life moulds faith, religion, even God. Or at least our understanding of God. Try this for a thought. In religious orthodoxies, there is a blueprint from heaven to which the faithful are expected to conform, lock, stock and smoking mitzvah . In liberal religion, there is a journey. People see the odd bush that seems to be alight and realise they understand a little something, a little differently from the day before, about the nature of heaven. Orthodoxies are ‘Do it!’ religions. Reforms or non-conformisms are ‘Do-it-yourself’ religions.

So, my precious hard core, if we are together tomorrow morning and on Yom Kippur morning and you have nothing better to do — listen to the sermons and see where my story, my autobiography, my year’s journey has impacted upon my rabbinic pronouncements, my grand ex cathedra assertions of faith and doctrine, my declarations about what Reform Judaism stands for.

And, over the coming High Holydays, whether you have anything better to do or not (actually let me be pompous and tell you it’s ‘or not’ — you have nothing better to do) try reflecting on your last twelve months, on the joy, on the boredom and the du du, and struggle with what it may or may not disclose about the meaning of your life, about your faith, about hell and about heaven. That’s how we do Judaism today. That’s Reform for you. Though actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that’s how it was done in the beginning which is why both Abraham and Moses spent so much of their lives on journeys and why so much has been passed on of their autobiographies. Life moulds faith.

So there we are. Journey’s end. Just in time. A few closing prayers and they’ll all be home in good time for dinner without exceeding the speed limit, officer!

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed