Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

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...

Parashat Kedoshim Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Law of Kindness The last few weeks, I’ve been really engrossed in watching BBC’s ‘MasterChef’. As we speak, the final has been aired (on Friday night) and as soon as Shabbat goes out, I’ll watch it on iPlayer and can’t wait to find out who wins! I love watching the show for its adventurous and creative cooking. It’s a guilty pleasure because, as a religious Jew, I can only have 10% of the dishes they prepare! It’s a true celebration of treyf : the episode where they cooked the giant prawn with urchin sauce and noodles flavoured with octopus ink powder really took the proverbial cake! What I’ve really enjoyed about MasterChef is its unexpected and counter-cultural message of kindness . This is a Reality TV competition where the prize opens the doors to a career that could change contestants’ lives, where judges from the best and brightest of the food industry submit the contestants to their unrelenting judgement. There’s ...

Sermon Parashat Kedoshim  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  'Lifnei Iver' - A Life with Visual Impairment “V’lifnei iver lo titen michshal…” – “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Lev. 19:14). This is, of course, one of the famous ethical commands that lies embedded in the middle of the ritual heart of Vayikra (Leviticus). Wedged in between chapters 18 and 20 that deal with ritual, sexual and cultic prohibitions (the so-called ‘arayot’, ‘nakedness’), chapter 19 of parashat Kedoshim brims with compelling ethical instruction. We are taught to love the stranger, not curse the deaf, pay a worker’s wages on time, not favour the rich or the poor, use equal weights and measures, to not hate our fellow in our heart.  It would be easy then to explore the ethical commandments of Kedoshim in this sermon. It would be easy to tie it in with a particularly relevant or timely theme: after all, there are plenty of moral quandaries in today’s world that need addressin...