Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Parashat Noach  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  The Land of Confusion  Over a decade ago, I had a bit of a fight about Torah. It’s normal to have a discussion about a piece of text or an interpretation, but this got slightly more heated. A friend and I were reading Parashat Noach and we got to the story of Migdal Bavel, the Tower of Babel.  I read the story with fresh eyes, taking the text at its face-value. My ‘psh’at’ (literal) interpretation was that humanity was still unified. There was no war, no bloodshed, no racism and no national distinctions. (After all, humanity got a fresh start after the Flood just a few verses prior). It sounds like a model United Nations, avant-la-lettre. They settled and wanted to build a city with a citadel to prevent them from being scattered across the earth and to establish an honourable reputation for themselves as a united human community.  I argued that the text betrayed God’s pettiness and judgment. Why decry...

Sukkot Sermon 2014 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  The Season of our Joy  There’s a bit of an urban legend floating around that the Inuit community have over 20 different words for ‘snow’. Of course, peoples are shaped by their historical and geographical experience and whether or not this platitude is true, it does speak to a truism: Arctic peoples must be deeply familiar with the subtleties of ice and snow.  There is a similar urban legend floating around about the Jewish community. Shaped by our historical experience, often fraught with difficulty and sadness, we have come to place a premium on ‘joy’.  And so, we have many words indicating shades of happiness. We have ‘asher’, which means happy in a blessed or fortunate way: ‘Ashrey ha’ish’ – happy – or fortunate – is the man. We see this a lot in psalms, in particular in psalm 145, the so-called ‘Ashrey’, which has the same root: ‘ashrey yoshvei beteicha…’ – ‘happy are the dwellers in Your house’. ...

Yom Kippur Sermon Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz A Tale of Two Futures Leeds city centre, photo: Dave Middleton “3 rd of October 2064, Time for another journal entry. I’ve been in Leeds for a few weeks now as part of my fieldwork tour across the United Kingdom, surveying what’s left of the Jewish community. For an American like myself, it’s been a grim journey. Everywhere I came, I saw the tell-tale signs of decline; even the London Jewish community is struggling. The situation outside of London is dismal. Leeds is an impressive metropolis of 2 million strong, fully immersed in the robotics and nanotech industry, with a vibrant glass and steel skyline cutting across the green Yorkshire hills. Yet, this growth has not been shared by the tiny Jewish community here, just a few hundred strong. And the situation here is so similar across the UK. Synagogues are boarded up; once-proud buildings are sold and Torah scrolls and religious artefacts donated to museu...

Rosh haShanah Sermon 2014  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  The Good News and the Bad News As is fitting for this time of year, there’s some good news and bad news. Which would you like first?  The bad news is that religion is a transformative power in the world.   Whether we are personally religious or not, there’s no denying that despite Richard Dawkins’ better hopes, religion is alive and kicking. And it’s especially the ‘kicking’ part that is troubling. This world, this young century, this year, these last few months have seen no shortage in how religion can ‘transform’ our world. The new millennium was dragged in kicking and screaming by the attack on the Twin Towers of 9/11, already an unbelievable 13 years ago. To say that this caused a cascade of disastrous political events would be an understatement.  Violent religious fundamentalism – be it Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and yes, even Jewish – has a lot to answer for. The reasons why ...

< source > Movement for Reform Judaism Elul Thoughts 2014 There is the tried-and-true Chassidic story of the notorious gossip sent out by his rabbi to empty out a down pillow case in the village square. As the tiny feathers dance in the wind beyond his grasp, the rabbi remarks that these represent the consequences of his thoughtless words. It is a compelling story and as we move through Elul, we may resolve to be more careful with our speech. Intentions, however, still need to be grounded in practice. How to go about that in our fast-paced world where an inflammatory opinion is just one click away? We have to reverse-engineer the scattering of our words. Can we find ways to make our voice meaningful, measured and compassionate? How can we control our reactions when a cauldron of emotions and opinions is poured over us daily in the media (social and traditional), in our communities and among our friends and family? It is traditional to recite Psalm 27 ...

photography: Esther Hugenholtz שִׁירוּ לַיהוָה, שִׁיר חָדָשׁ; שִׁירוּ לַיהוָה, כָּל-הָאָרֶץ. ' Shiru la'Adonai shir chadash, shiru la'Adonai kol ha'Aretz '  'Sing unto the Eternal a new song, sing unto the Eternal, all the Earth!'  ~ Psalm 96:1 Music has always been an inextricable part of my spirituality. I didn't grow up in a 'musical' family (we were the sort who cultivated the 'visual arts') but the musical choices of my older brothers did rub off on me: Bob Marley, Queen, Nirvana, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Tracy Chapman.  Queen and Bob Marley were especially formative to me. It was in this music that I found my earliest spiritual inspiration. When I was 19, I discovered Tracy Chapman and was so inspired that I decided to teach myself to play the guitar and have been writing songs ever since. Once I started getting involved with the Jewish community, I also started composing liturgical and religious music. As a ...

photo credit: Dave Middleton Sermon Parashat Ekev  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  Into the Wild  There’s something a bit mad about leaving the creature comforts of your modern life – central heating, indoor plumming, WIFI, a hot bath and microwave –to go out into the wild to pitch your tent, get rained on, eat beans on soggy toast and shiver on a thin mat and an inadequate sleeping bag. Oh, the joys of camping.  And yet we do this every year, with great enthusiasm, much greater than might expect since according to one camping website (biased data perhaps!), 18 million Brits go camping every year. What is it about the attraction of going ‘into the wild’ and leaving it all behind? Every summer, we embrace the ritual of fleeing our mundane lives by going on vacation. And although some vacations are spent in greater luxury than what one may be used to during the year, the fact of the matter is that most vacations embrace an ethos of simplicity. We like goi...