Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Parashat Chukkat 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz My Shlichut (Mission) It sounds shockingly definite to utter these words and I say them with considerable melancholy but this will be my last sermon at Sinai. Goodbyes can’t be said without thank you’s and I’m at a loss at how to say thank you to a community that has come to mean so much to me. I remember setting foot in this building in 2011 as a 4 th Year Student Rabbi thinking ‘woah, 1970’s décor!’ Soon after, I discovered how warm and close-knit the community was and I loved you even more after being part of the ‘Oy Factor’. Before I knew it, I was the Assistant and (later) Associate Rabbi of Sinai Synagogue, in God’s own County. As I was mulling over in my head how I could do justice to thanking Sinai – both individually and collectively – and the wider Jewish community in Leeds, I thought that I do so by what doing what I love best: teaching Torah. A first pulpit is the mother of all first rabbinic experiences, a...

Parashat Sh’lach Lecha 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Truth and Trust ‘ Emet v’emunah kol zot v’kayam aleinu ki hu Adonai Eloheinu ’… Such are the words of our Friday night liturgy, recited between the Shema and the V’ahavta. Our siddur (prayer book) chooses to translate them as ‘all this is true and firmly held by us, that You are our Living God…’ which makes it sound like a tidy credo. However, we could also translate with ‘Truth and trust is all this, and this stand stands that He/She is the Eternal our God.’ It misses the organized elegance of the prayer book’s version, but brimming underneath the self-contained English words brims something awesome and powerful, an enduring force supported by the pillars of Creation. Emet in itself is a word worth examining. A rabbinic teaching recounts that the aleph-mem-tav of the word has symbolic relevance: truth, like these letters of the aleph-bet, has a beginning, middle and end. It is all-encompassing and uncompromising. ...

Life is a strange admixture. The bitter and sweet, our sorrow and joys, are often mingled. We laugh and then we cry and find healing in laughter renewed. Most of all, we find comfort in community, faith in friendship and common ground in our shared humanity. This was Jo Cox' legacy. A year ago, I was heartbroken to hear of her murder. I could easily find common ground with Jo. Her constituency is not that far from my city (Leeds) and she was of a similar age, also the mother to young children. We share many of the same ideals. That Shabbat, I gave my most emotional sermon to date in the synagogue. So much has changed in a year. There has been one political landslide after another, both in the UK, the USA and elsewhere in the world. The script, as the commentariat would say, has been ripped up. There's no denying it's been a hard year and I've thought of Jo and what she would have made of it all. Recent events have compounded our heartache and anxiety, our an...

Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz A False Dichotomy? We Reform Jews pride ourselves on our ethics; so much so, in fact, that one of the founding documents of the American Reform movement, the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform stated: “ We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress originated in ages and under the influence of ideas entirely foreign to our present mental and spiritual state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation.” To sum up: the Classical Reform position has been – not without controversy – to dismiss ritual law over the centrality of ethical law.  Reform Judaism calls us to constantly re-evaluate our relationship with our sacred sources and how we interpret and practice them.    Hence, it is little surprise that in practice, a great deal h...

Shabbat Chol haMo’ed Pesach 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Let’s Take It Personally I don’t do this often because who wants a rabbi who abuses the pulpit in order to inflict smarmy tales of domestic bliss upon her congregation? Yet, I can’t resist: watching my two toddlers sing Mah Nishtanah at the Seder table was possibly one of the greatest sources of naches that I’ve been privileged to experience as a young Jewish parent. I fully admit, I’m a fool for Pesach. I love Spring, I love the ‘thickness’ of the ritual and culture of the festival and I love cooking and hosting. A dear friend of mine spent part of the holiday with us and the three of us cooked a storm and our family enjoyed a Seder with all the trimmings: chicken soup with kneidlach, glazed brisket, quinoa salad, potato salad, egg salad and more (and you can probably guess where I’ve lingered on the kitniyot debate!) Once seated, I feasted my eyes on a beautifully set table, as I’m sure as many of you have, and s...

Parashat Tzav Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Priest, Prophet, Rabbi Parashat Tzav welcome us deeper into Vayikra. The Book of Leviticus, is also known under its rabbinic name ‘Torat Kohanim’, the Priestly Law (Mishnah Megillah 1:5). We tend to associate Leviticus with all the stuff that makes us feel icky and that is difficult to talk about, like purity laws and the sacrificial cult. Added onto that is the institution of the Priesthood itself as well as the notion of commandedness, with which our portion opens: ‘ tzav et Aharon v’et banav ’ – ‘command Aaron and his sons’. The first chapters of Leviticus outline the sacrifices as well as the consecration of the Mishkan, Tabernacle. The central question for us over the coming weeks is how can we re-read Leviticus in a way that is authentic to the intention of the text as well as compelling to the contemporary, progressive Jew? The fact that the book of Leviticus is called ‘Torat Kohanim’ by the Mishnah is significant: the Rabbis ...