Shabbat Lech Lecha
Written by Student Rabbi Nathan Alfred Wednesday, 01 November 2006
It is an honour and a privilege to be addressing you, my teachers and fellow students, this morning. I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words, chosen around the theme of Shabbat Lech Lecha and our own Leo Baeck.
Most, if not all, of us are visiting a Reform or Liberal community this Shabbat, in some cases more than one. As we journey to our destinations, be it to FRS up the road or to Edinburgh and Glasgow a plane ride away, we will be spreading the word about our Leo Baeck College, that it is their college too and that, of course, it is great.
Great, perhaps not in number – but then it says in the Torah we won’t be a great people, but nevertheless great in other ways – and I want to focus on one of these:
Great – that the student body reflects the wide multicultural heritage of current European Judaism. European Jews these days are often not quite that – we should all know about the large Russian immigration, but less documented are the huge influxes of Americans and Israelis who are now living on the continent – Britain included. And our college reflects this, to a greater or lesser extent – more than half the student body originates from outside this country, and one third of it from outside Europe.
So, I am sure that when Shabbat Lech Lecha comes around, we all have our story to tell. Our own journeys can be very interesting, be they our journeys to Judaism and religion from a secular background, or our paths that led us to this country and to this college, Let’s face it, even our travels on Public Transport can be interesting sometimes – this morning’s ride on the 82 notwithstanding.
But I want to challenge you this weekend to leave aside yourself, and depart from the typical Lech Lecha sermon – maybe even to write something new this year. For uniquely, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rabbi Leo Baeck’s death, and this gives us reason to look not only at his immense life and journey, but also to examine more widely the journey of European Judaism since the Shoah, and where we are today.
The latter is not so easy, something I know from my own experience. In EuroJews we tread a narrow line between celebrating the long heritage of European Judaism and remembering the darker chapters of our history. A typical weekend will include a Jewish tour – such as to the Warsaw ghetto or the Berlin memorial, with time to reflect on the past, and the need to believe in and build for the future – to educate a generation that is more often than not Jewishly lost and searching, overcome by the enormity of the Shoah, but not necessarily feeling part of it from their own or their family’s experience. For some, with grandparents in Auschwitz still living, there is a different need, many different needs – and there is a lot to learn from each other. But the one thing that is common is the need for a future and a hope for Judaism in Europe – and that of course is our college’s motto too.
Rabbi Baeck’s life is a shining example of this. He refused to abandon his community, and travelled with them from Germany to Terezin where he continued to teach and lecture in the most terrible of circumstances. And by a miracle he survived and came to England, and persisted in this task.
One of the interesting things to come out from our rabbinic conference in the summer was the realisation that Rabbi Baeck was far from a saint, as his biography might lead us to believe. A couple of the lecturers expressed how difficult he was as a person, something no doubt forgivable given the atrocities he had experienced but somehow heartening to know nonetheless. And it was also amazing to know that fifty years on, people still have first-hand experiences of him that they can relate, that our jubilee year is his story but not yet history, something I, for one, - in the ignorance of youth - often forget.
So, as you write your sermons – perhaps on Thursday – Rabbi Baeck’s fiftieth yahrzeit – may it be an opportunity to share our Leo Baeck with the wider community – he is of course their Leo Baeck too. And he is also great – in so many ways – not least in the way he continued his teaching both in Terezin and in this country, keeping the flame of European Judaism alive, and giving a future and a hope to us all.
Nathan Alfred
