I have a particular technique when I am hosting a school visit to a Synagogue. Judaism is on the National Curriculum for Year 3 children so I have hosted many visits from schools local to the Synagogues where I have been Rabbi. The children were often on a series of visits to local churches, mosques, temples and shuls. I bring the children into the Sanctuary and ask them to sit down. Then I ask them to close their eyes and imagine that they are in a bare hall – just chairs, a bare floor, walls and ceiling. After thirty seconds or so I ask them to open their eyes and to tell me what they can see that makes the room in which they are a Synagogue and not just any hall.
If I am lucky there will be forest of enthusiastic hands. The children will notice the Bimah, the Ark or Aron Ha Kodesh, the Hebrew above the Ark and the Ner Tamid – each one worthy of explanation and giving us a starting point for making the visit meaningful. Sometimes I make myself hostage of fortune and ask them what they think the objects they can see are, so that they can display their in class learning.
I don’t always get the answer I am hoping for! Like when I asked a class what they thought was inside the Ark and received a chorus back from children who were obviously getting confused as to which place of worship they were in: “the idols”.
Here in EHRS, when the children open their eyes and look around, there is something quite unique, which was commissioned to inaugurate this Synagogue Bet Tefillah back just over 20 years ago. These special stained glass windows with pictures representing all kinds of aspects of Jewish life are unique to the Synagogue. One of the problems inevitable to being a new Rabbi here for the past four years is that I don’t know much about how they got here and the ideas behind this particular piece of effective Jewish art. I do know that the hands in the window which remembers the priesthood are a based on a photocopy of Rabbi Danny Smith’s hands. If you do have more info then do tell me.
Of course the windows frame a wonderful discussion with children about the symbols of Judaism.
And of course the windows from the Danescroft home of Hendon Reform Synagogue are a wonderful vibrant testament to Jewish life – the numbers alef to yod, the festivals of the Jewish year, the symbols of Jewish observance, peoplehood and values. There is even one in the hallway you entered by that shows the Danescroft Synagogue itself and its windows!
When I was rabbi at Alyth Synagogue the same exercise was driven by the much more abstract stained glass windows around their sanctuary. Here is one of them:
The eighteen windows were created by the artist Roman Halter. It was Roman’s vision that turned those windows into a lush forest of Jewish life. The number 18 in Hebrew is expressed with the letter Chet, equivalent to the number 8 and the letter yod, equivalent to the number 10. Chet Yod together spells out Chai – life. Hence the theme of the windows.
Roman was of course a survivor of the Shoah. He died in 2012 having taught this country about the Shoah through his involvement in the foundation of the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. Roman’s art though was not about the destruction wreaked by the Shoah – rather it was about the rebirth of Jewish life despite the Shoah.
Roman’s windows were full of lively Jewish symbols, all of them shouting for attention, demanding to be noticed through their bold colours. Not every symbol in the windows is obviously Jewish, because Jews live in the real world. Many people in the Alyth Synagogue as we at EHRS know about Rabbi Smith’s hands know about the cricket ball high up in the window at the back left dedicated to the memory of Alyth’s minister from the late 50’s to the early 70’s, Rev. Philip Cohen whose Shabbat services always ended on time for him to make it to Lords cricket ground before the first wicket.
The life in the windows is united by one motif straight out of the section of this Shabbat’s Torah portion which Zack read to us – the sprouting staff. In the middle of every window you will see that there was a tree growing up sprouting at the top as if to give life to everything around. There are, though, two windows where this tree is thin and unable to grow or spout. They are composed of darker colours with very little life within them. These two are dedicated to the memory of Roman’s family from Chodecz in Poland, who were murdered in the Shoah, and the six million like them. For me the power of these two dismal windows is heightened because they are only two of the eighteen. Everything else is a symbol of life. The Shoah does not have victory over the Jewish people. There is too much life in us for that to be possible and Roman clearly believed that to be so.
Aaron’s staff in our portion is a symbol too of that life. This apparently inanimate piece of wood in one day “sprouted, brought forth sprouts, produced blossoms and bore almonds” (Numbers 17:23). Our Midrashim (eg Numbers Rabbah 18:23) gave this miraculous staff a back story and a future: our Rabbis said it was one of the ten things created in the last moment of creation just before the first Shabbat evening of the universe, along with Balaam’s talking donkey and parting of the Red Sea and even the earthquake that opened under Korach’s followers. It was the staff that Jacob held to help him, following his hip injury caused disability, to cross the river Jabbok. It was the staff that Moses raised to signal the parting of the Red Sea. It became the staff held by every future King of Israel, as appointed originally in our Haftarah portion by the prophet Samuel, and will one day be in the hand of the Messiah, should the Messianic Age be signalled by a King over Israel again.
Another Midrash suggests that its specialness does not lie in such a history but rather it was merely one of twelve cut by Moses from a single trunk which by the application of God’s miracle in favour of Aaron and the tribe of Levi turned into an almond tree. In the Christian Bible the staff was thought to be kept in the Ark of the Covenant (Hebrews 9:4) together with the tablets of the ten commandments ready for use by the heroes of Christianity.
Rabbi Jefffrey Salkin reads the legend of Aaron’s staff symbolically (JPS Bnai Mitzvah Torah Commentary p181) – “After a normal nut tree blossoms, its flowers wither and become buds which then grow and eventually become nuts. But Aaron’s staff went through all those stages at the same time….it is like Judaism today [as pictured in Roman’s windows]. When the Holocaust occurred, there were people who thought that Judaism was like a dry, dead stick. But now [if you open your eyes] you can see that the hard, dry stick has, in fact, blossomed.” Think of the miracle of the thriving modern State of Israel, think of lively Jewish communities like this one across the world. “Consider that there is more serious Jewish learning going on today, more Jewish culture in Jewish community centres and elsewhere, more Jews serving in government positions. In many respects and in just a few years after we were told we were dead, Judaism and the worldwide Jewish community is sprouting and bearing fruit.
Rabbi Salkin teaches that it is all too easy to close your eyes to potential and fail to see the possibilities of abundant life.
Judaism is the religion of Chai – of life. We say L’chaim to toast each other, we wear the letters chet and yod to symbolise our belief in life and when we open our eyes to potential and our hands to enabling that potential to sprout. You could call this a miracle – one of those addressed in the prayer modim anachnu lach – the wonders that are with us each and every day, eventing morning and noon – erev, boker v zocharayim. That flourishing staff, Roman’s life demonstrated, the resurgence of the Jewish people demonstrates and that every Shabbat service in which we celebrate life demonstrates and will continue to demonstrate that to have hope and to flourish – this is truly holy and truly a miracle.
