Sermons

Kol Nidre 5786

 

 

Kol Nidre Sermon: CZJ 2025

 

 

Monday. 

The phone rings . 

A long-standing member of our community on the line. They’re calling to tell me that they’re leaving the synagogue.

“Why?” I ask.

“You’re just too pro-Israel” they reply.

We are??

 

Tuesday. 

My email inbox pings. 

Another resignation. Another valued member leaving.
“Why?” I ask. 

“You’re too pro-Palestine.”

 

And so it goes.

If it weren’t so sad, it might make a good Jewish joke. 

 

I pause and ask myself: Who is “you”…? Who is “we”….? 

 

Our community is made up of over a thousand families, over 2400 thousand individuals. Each of us has our own story, our own perspective, and trust me when I say that I know how much those views differ. But I also feel the pain of these departures, and it leaves me asking: how do we build a community that can truly hold difference?

 

Now, don’t panic—especially if you're on the synagogue council or an honorary treasurer. Our membership is, thank God, still growing, and resignations are few and far between. Yet each one stings. With every strike, the question looms larger: How do we stay afloat together when the waters around us are churning, without those we love feeling the need to leave?”

 

It reminds me of a story from Midrash:
“A group of people were travelling in a boat.
One of them began to drill a hole beneath himself.
The others shouted at him: ‘What are you doing?’
He replied: ‘Why do you care? I’m only drilling under my own seat!”

 

As you imagine this story playing out, I wonder who you think is drilling the hole? Is it Netanyahu? Iran? Hamas? even the British media? For others, perhaps it’s our political leadership - or, even - dare I say it - the FRS clergy! Whoever we perceive to be sinking the boat , we are certain we are right, and the other person is wrong.

That story comes from Vayikra Rabbah, based on Numbers 16:

הָאִ֤ישׁ אֶחָד֙ יֶחֱטָ֔א וְעַ֥ל כׇּל־הָעֵדָ֖ה תִּקְצֹֽף׃     

When one member sins, will You be angry with the whole community?

(Numbers 16:22)

 

This verse teaches us a hard truth: we are accountable for one another. That one member of the community’s behaviour is born by everyone. That God is universal. These ideas present us with the fundamental, universal challenge - and invitation - of Yom Kippur. Today we stand together, even when it is painful.

This is not a new struggle for our people: Just a few chapters later, Moses faces crisis. Not only a challenge of leadership but also a moment of deep personal loss. His beloved sister, Miriam, dies, and the well that sustained the Israelites dries up. Miriam had been Moses’s protector and guide; and wherever she went, water followed. Yet when she dies, Torah does not make space for Moses’s grief. Instead, the community complain of thirst. God tells Moses to speak to the rock to bring forth water, but in his pain and anger, he strikes it. Water flows, but God tells Moses he will not enter the Promised Land.

 

Our sages suggest that striking the rock was the act of a man undone by sorrow, frustration, and fatigue. And surprisingly, Torah, for all its brilliance on the human condition, gives him no ritual for mourning.

 

We, on the other hand, do have rituals: We tear our clothes, shovel earth onto a grave, sit shiva surrounded by friends, and say Kaddish throughout the year. We use these ancient practices to process our grief...They are psychologically wise; they remind us: grief isn’t meant to be carried alone. It’s held by community.

 

But today? We’re grieving so much. Many of us are indeed like Moses, living with overwhelming and unresolved grief: the devastation of October 7th, the hostages still in captivity, the killing of innocent people in Gaza, settler violence in the West Bank, fear of antisemitism at home and on our university campuses, the heartbreak of refugees unwelcome on our shores… We are heavy with grief, but without clothes to tear, graves to stand over, or rituals to express it. When grief has no ritual, it spills out as anger or blame - and we risk striking the rock.

 

Some of us find small ways to ritualise our pain: A yellow ribbon. A dog tag. An empty chair. Some light a candle, or go to a rally.
But symbols can’t hold the complexity of grief—and when they’re used exclusively, they can feel like a denial of someone else’s pain.

 

No wonder we struggle with flags, demonstrations, hashtags. We jump to conclusions before we ask, share, or listen. We strike the rock, again and again.

 

One thing is clear: Our pain is so deeply felt that we crave the comfort of being surrounded only by those who agree with us. Somewhere along the way, we have lost a core Jewish teaching: disagreement itself can be holy. 

 

These days, when we disagree, we cancel. We walk away. We retreat to echo chambers. Our beloved and oft quoted “two Jews, three opinions” has turned into “one Jew, one opinion - and I’m right; you are wrong.”

 

But Rabbi David Kasher from Yeshivat Hadar reminds us:

”We have always been made up of different tribes and experiences.
Each person stands under their own flag - אִישׁ עַל דִּגְלוֹ …
Yet when we camped together at Mount Sinai, we became
 כאיש אחד בלב אחד — like one person, with one heart.”

 

Back to Moses striking the rock: We read:

“וְלֹא־הָ֥יָה מַ֖יִם לָעֵדָ֑ה וַיִּקָּ֣הֲל֔וּ עַל־מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְעַֽל־אַהֲרֹֽן”
“There was no water for the community,
and the people came together against Moses and Aaron.”

 (Numbers 20:2)

 

The word ‘vayikahalu’ shares its root with kehillah - community. But a kehillah is not just a crowd united in complaint. Kehillah comes from קול - kol—voice. It’s a gathering of many voices, called together with purpose. A congregation’s strength comes from its many voices. 

But what kind of voice will we cultivate? Not the voice of any single member of clergy, or the voice of the chair (sorry Jenny!), or any one person. A healthy kehillah is many voices, many words, shaping the whole.

 

Aviva Zornberg notes that Moses’ real mistake wasn’t hitting the rock—it was what he said first. His words, she writes, were wielded as blunt weapons. And we know this too: words can wound. Even well-meaning ones. Even from good people. From Moses we learn: voices must build connection, not strike others down.

 

How do we feel when our voice isn’t heard in this community? And how do we cope with the pain of voices that clash with our own?

 

When we carry grief, anger, or fear, it spills over. Hurt people, hurt people. But hating someone, as the saying goes, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. 

 

Our liturgy offers us a prayer for times like this. We find the text in every service, said individually at the end of the Amidah. Elohai n’tzor asks God to guard us from others’ words, and to guard others from ours. It is an incredibly meaningful prayer for me, so my students hear me talk about this text often. It’s worth noting that it’s written in the first person - unusual for our liturgy, and another reminder that we each have our individual part to play in protecting our community. 

Conversely, the Vidui - our confessional prayer - which we will repeat multiple times over the coming 25 hours is written in the plural:

“Ashamnu, Bagadnu, Gazalnu, Dibarnu Dofi” ….
“We have sinned, we have been disloyal, we have robbed, we have spoken slander”

not because we each committed every sin, but because we share collective responsibility.

 

There is a lot of fear in the Jewish community at the moment, but instead of trying to patch the holes together, we seem more focussed on identifying who has the drill - and then throwing them overboard.

The lead-up to this time of year includes a time in our Jewish calendar that we call Bein Hametzarim - literally, within the narrow places - but perhaps better translated as “between a rock and a hard place”!

Today, we feel squeezed politically, socially, emotionally. Deborah Lipstadt calls this “the great horseshoe of antisemitism”, and it’s another cause of collective pain in our community: we feel pressured from the right and from the left, emotionally-drained, religiously-unsure, uncertain where we belong. It’s hard to stay centred. 

 

But, again, this is not new. Time and again, our people have faced crisis and chosen creativity. After the Temples fell, we built anew. Even in exile, we turned our mourning into dancing. We turned debate into holy practice. Machloket l’shem shamayim - disagreement for the sake of heaven.

 

The Talmud shares a moving story (Bava Metzia, 84a) of Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish. The two are study partners who constantly fight. After Resh Lakish dies the rabbis bring Eliezer ben Padat, a young hotshot to study with Yochanan. Before long, Yochanan throws up his arms and says “I can’t deal with this guy because he only agrees with me. How can I learn if I don’t have someone pushing me?”

The Mishna and Talmud exist precisely to hold the record of Jewish argument. They remind us that our adversary is also our partner. Disagreement is difficult, but it can also be inspiring and transformative - teaching us as much about who we are as about the other. 

 

As British people, we don’t often choose to sit where disagreement is expected. We dread it. But nothing could be more Jewish than preserving both sides of a debate.

 

Daniel Taub, Israeli peace negotiator and former ambassador to the UK – teaches that in Israel these days, people give each other space before replying, even in disagreement - a moment of silence to honour the connections and pain that might be consuming the speaker: 

 

At the recent shiva for much-loved Jerusalemite teacher, Avi Goldberg, his wife Rachel insisted politicians come only if they attend in pairs, one from the coalition, one from the opposition. The resulting conversations were deliberate, careful, and deeply human.

 

To hear each other’s stories is courageous; it is how we are part of the solution. That’s what I hope for us. Not agreement, but courage. Courage to listen. Courage to stay. 

 

Maureen Kendler, zichrona livracha, was a remarkable Jewish educator who pushed boundaries for women in the Orthodox world. She was famous for saying to the Orthodox leadership: “I’m not threatening to leave, I’m threatening to stay.” Maureen taught us that passion demands voice - that we must remain in the conversation. 

 

I find it both deeply moving, and nothing short of miraculous, to hear the testimonies of those taken hostage. For many reasons, of course. But one of them is the extraordinary way they speak with such care for others. Even when confronted with denial of their own pain and suffering, they somehow draw from a well of calm and kindness. We have so much to learn from them.

 

Please God, the news of the last few days might lead us to a new chapter of peace where the glimmer of hope for the returning of hostages, an end to the war, and a chapter of calm could be possible again.  But as we pray for a peaceful future in Israel and in Gaza let me be clear - we are a synagogue. We are not a Middle East think-tank, nor a lobbying group. We are a community. Here to celebrate, mourn, learn, and imagine together.

 

So here’s my ask: stay in the boat.

Show up.
Talk.
Ask questions.
Speak with those you don’t agree with.
Come to our Voices of Israel programme. 

 

Find the people with whom you agree
and also those with whom you disagree. 

 

And then, come together to: 

Volunteer at our winter shelter.
Visit mourners.
Bake for Kiddush.
Greet new members.
Help with security.
Sing in the choir.
Join a committee.
Be a warden.

I could go on… 

 

Our community is far more than a gym or golf club, where you pay dues and expect service, with little regard for who receives that service alongside you. Building community takes engagement and spirit. It means saying, “We’re not perfect, we may disagree, but we’re here, and we’ll stay in this boat, trying to patch the holes together.”

 

I know we are afraid and tired. I know we are sitting on edge, waiting to see whether this new proposed peace plan might end the war and bring our hostages home, finally, finally. In that regard, all we can do is pray. 

 

But I also know - we are not alone. Around the world, especially in these 25 hours, our family is praying. Others share our worries, our pain, our hopes. We benefit the more your voice is part of ours. Holding grief together, arguing constructively, seeing the good in each other - this is how we support one another, how we constructively respond to our pain, and how our community continues to move forward.

 

When we take ourselves out of community life, our voice is lost. Our whole Jewish community is in this boat together. May we gather as one Camp of Israel—many voices, one heart. I hope that in 5786 you’ll add your voice to our kehillah. Together, we can face the storm and keep our boat afloat, even in the roughest waters.