Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Power of the Person – Shabbat Av/Parashat Devarim Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz You are powerful beyond compare. It’s a message that’s unexpected, counter-cultural, radical even. We live in times where many of us feel adrift, swept along on currents and riptides that are very much beyond our control. Our world seems more unstable and volatile than we’ve seen in generations and an instinctive response is to be paralysed by our own sense of powerlessness. What can we do, after all, about the many problems that beset us? About war and hunger, poverty and destitution, hatred and bigotry? The answer is: everything. The Talmud, in Tractate Gittin 55b, tells us the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. A rich man decides to throw a party and asks his servant to invite his friend, Kamtza. The servant, however, makes a mistake by mixing up names and invites Bar Kamtza instead, who is a sworn enemy of the rich man. When Bar Kamtza shows up to the party, the patron shoos him and tells hi...

Pride Shabbat Sermon / Parashat V’etchannan Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Strength + Courage = Pride ‘ V’chazakehu v’am’tzehu ki hu ya’vor lifnei ha’am hazeh ’– ‘And strengthen him and give him courage for he shall cross and go before this people’. (Deut. 3.28) These are the words that God commands Moses to take to his brave general, Joshua. They have come to the boundary of the Promised Land and Moses is not allowed to enter after his anger flaring up when striking the rock. The people wait anxiously for further instruction. Their journey has been long and arduous, filled with peril and despair. And Joshua bin Nun must reach beyond his own fears and lead this desert generation on. ‘ V’chazakehu v’am’tzehu ’ – ‘strengthen him and give him courage’. Joshua is bound to feel ambivalent. He’s come this far but it’s been a struggle. He is so close; all he needs to do is to cross the Jordan River, into the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. He will lead his people h...

Parashat Devarim  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz From Rebuke to Reconciliation  After the parshiyot of the last few weeks talking about the failure of the spies to show courage and the conquest of Cana’an, the first parashah of Devarim (Deuteronomy) repeats much of the same theme and I’m inclined to move onto a new type of Torah. Some ‘Torat imi’ to paraphrase Proverbs, ‘Torah’ from my mother.  When my older brothers and I were children and would devolve into the usual sibling conflict, we’d play every card of the blaming game. Rather than taking sides, my mother would always say, “you are responsible for your own actions, not for the actions of someone else.” This would inevitably be followed by our predictable protestations, to which she would answer, “thinking that you’re in the right is not the same thing as having your right acknowledged”. (It works better in Dutch!)  My mother’s message was clear: don’t shift the blame, be critical of yourself and tak...