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...

Birmingham Liberal Community Esther Hugenholtz Parashat Chukkat Trust Do you remember that game in school where you had to close your eyes and allow yourself fall backwards in the arms of your classmates? This exercise was geared to build trust, one of the most elusive and difficult human emotions. Why is it so hard to trust? We can be prideful and angry, lazy and greedy. But somehow, these are aspects of ourselves that we can chisel away at to improve. Slowly but surely we can resolve to become better individuals by turning inwards and finding the strength to implement our highest ideals about ourselves. But trusting is hard. In the ocean of trust, no man is an island. We always trust in relation to another. We need each other to trust. This week’s parashah is all about trust. On the surface, this week’s reading appears to deal with disparate themes: the odd purification rituals involving the ashes of the red heifer, Moses striking the rock, the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, the refusa...