Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Parashat Mishpatim/Shabbat Shekalim (Judith Trust Inclusivity Shabbat) Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Other Side of the Coin I have a few questions for you. Why do you come to synagogue? Do you have friends here at Sinai? And if you have friends here at Sinai, how important is the social aspect of Sinai to you? Everyone wants to be comfortable. It’s human nature to connect with our peers and like-minded friends. Similar in worldview, age, belief-system, ethnic background, socio-economic status and level of ability. And usually, this seems good enough in our lives – isn’t this what friendship is about? But maybe it’s actually not what being part of Sinai is about. Having friends in the community is vital – we are all part of this community because we want to be uplifted by those we have bonded with. But what is powerful about ‘community’ is actually how it orchestrates and facilitates encounters between people who we might not ordinarily connect with. Tots, teens and senior c...

Parashat Va’eira 2015  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  What Plagues Us  Blood - dam, frogs – tzefardea, lice - kinim, wild animals - arov, pestilence - dever , boils - shichin, hail – barad. Those are the plagues of parashat Va’eira, seven in total, with three more – arbeh (locusts), chosech (darknesss), makkat bechorot (death of the firstborn) in the next parashah, parashat Bo.  We are so used to encountering the plagues in a very specific context: the Pesach seder. Did anyone else feel like dipping their finger in their wine and dabbing it on their napkin as I read them out? The plagues remind us of schmutzy haggadot accruing wine stains and matzah crumbs. These Pesach associations can hold a lot of fondness but they do manage to detract us from the core message of Va’eira. No plague finger puppets today (as cute as they may be). Now is the time to leave the gimmicks behind.  To be fair, the Torah itself gets a little gimmicky about these plagues....

Parashat Vayechi  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  Finishing Well  Now that the chanukkiyot are packed away, the candlewax has been scraped from window sills, the dinners, the Season’s post cards, the gift wrappings, champagne corks and fireworks are behind us, what we have left to reflect on are not only our expanded waistlines but the family relationships we built during the winter Holiday Season.  There’s a certain greyness to early January. The festivities have died down and this could be a time of quite reflection, of acknowledging our mortality in deep winter, alongside icy roads and bare branches. Reflecting on endings and death, even of a cyclical nature, allows us to shape our own response to it. It’s OK, I suppose, to embrace the darkness a little, to acknowledge the coldness in our bones and to feel the tilt of the world towards decay. The question then is how we relate to these relationships around us.  Many of us have spent time with family...

Parashat Vayeshev – Human Rights Shabbat  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  Right is Might  For all the timeless wisdom the Torah shares with us, I think the warning that the Torah gives us to beware of the idea that somehow ‘might makes right’ is one of the most powerful. In fact, one could argue that the entire Hebrew Bible (not just the Torah) resists this Machiavellian maxim. Kings are brought down low, the poor are risen up. Prophets speak truth to power and the foundational narratives of Genesis and Exodus tell us of how smallness – not power – makes great. It is not the firstborn, nor the great nations that impact the moral destiny of civilization. It is God’s covenant with our tiny nation that would echo across the ages.  This resistance or perhaps even abhorrence of‘might is right’ extends into the rabbinic tradition as well. Many Talmudic cases of tort law protect the vulnerable: the slave, the labourer, the widow, the poor. And even our most boastful...

Parashat Vayera  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  Doing God  “Proof to me that God exists.” Many a militant atheist has tried to bait me with this enticing polemical proposition. And yet, I always disappoint them by replying that I have neither ability (empirical, philosophical or otherwise) nor desire to test and proof the existence of a Supreme Being. In fact, I’d wager to say that even if, in some far-fetched future, we could find empirical evidence to proof God’s existence, religion would lose its value. Faith, or trust if we go with the Hebrew ‘emunah’, is not about hard facts. What’s the fun in religion – in the existential quest for connection and meaning – if it’s reduced to a trite attempt to proof, catch, contain and dissect God? So then we know God exists – snuffed out is our curiosity, critical thinking and creativity.  Thanks but no thanks.  What is more interesting to the experience of contemporary religion is showing godliness in the wo...

Parashat Lech Lecha  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz  How to Make a Jew  How do you make a Jew? This is a tried-and-true recipe that has worked fabulously well throughout the centuries, starting with Rikvah and Yitzchak. You get a Nice Jewish Boy to meet a Nice Jewish Girl under favourable circumstances and with a bit of luck and a bit of coaxing, you hope that they will fall in love, have a chuppah and produce some Nice Jewish Babies that we can all kvell over. Bonus points if you can get this Nice Jewish Couple to sign up to join your congregation and enroll their kinderlach in your cheder or religion school. Of course, the recipe can be updated a little in case a Nice Jewish Boy meets another Nice Jewish Boy. Or Nice Jewish Girl meets another Nice Jewish Girl.  Then there’s another, though less common recipe, that has worked nicely since the days of Ruth the Moabite. Nice Non-Jewish Boy or Girl might wander into your synagogue. They might be in relations...

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...