Erev Toldot 5777

Candles, fires & coincidences

Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein 2 December 2016

It says in the Mishna (Rosh Hashanah 1:3,2:2) "On six new moon messengers ride forth: Nisan because of Pesach, Av because of the Fast, Elul because of the new year, Kislev because of Chanukkah, Adar because of Purim. At first they would light bonfires. After the Samaritans confused the calendar, they would send messengers."

A short, but important historical note that suddenly seems so current. Up to date, because today is 2nd Kislev and 2nd December and yesterday it was the new moon - Rosh Chodesh and by coincidence one of the months where the Hebrew numeral is the same as the civil one. But more importantly, a connection to the very recent massive fires in Israel. In ancient times the dissident Samaritans sought to cause havoc amongst the majority Jewish population by a cunning and simple ruse. The Jewish calendar was fixed by observation of the new moon in and, its sighting confirmed, the confirmation was transmitted to the outlying Jewish communities through a chain of bonfires on the top of key hills. All the dastardly Samaritans had to do was to creep up and light a bonfire on the wrong night...perhaps a day or two before the official signal....and soon the outlying communities couldn't be sure if they would be celebrating the key festivals on the right date. And so the Jewish authorities had to send messengers out to proclaim the important new moons.

Slightly comical...but not the fires in Israel. Most likely caused initially by natural causes due to prolonged drought, the forests and their undergrowth tinder dry, and then unfortunate strong winds fanning the fires. We saw it six years ago on Carmel...we see it not infrequently in California. And in the latter we know that from time to time it is either careless or deliberate arsonists that light the initial flame, or who add to the conflagration out of a sad sense of power or just joining in. And I have no doubt that the same applied in Israel....with the added concern that some of the fires were caused by deliberate arsonists as acts of terrorism against the Israeli State and its citizens.

Scanning the news sources, as is usual, one sees a range of conspiracy theories, or just opinions, maybe facts. Palestinian Facebook accounts celebrating the fires and destruction; the fact that some Arab towns also had outbreaks suggesting that Jewish extremists thought they should retaliate, nutter claiming it was divine punishment for the government demolishing Israeli settler houses, others claim it was punishment for draft laws forbidding early morning muezzin calls. Others blamed the Government for failing to learn from the earlier fires and building up the resources to deal with such phenomena.

Take your pick...all we know is that as in the case highlighted in the Mishna 2000 years ago....sometimes just a simple act can bring about vast devastation, and that sometimes nature has a fury that we cannot control, but that vigilance is needed to protect nature from wilful neglect and political dissent. And whatever the truth of this situation perhaps we should most constructively recall that amongst those giving immediate assistance to put out the fires were teams from the Palestinian Authority, from neighbouring Mediterranean countries and America. Israel has so often been at the forefront of rescue missions in disasters all round the world - it is good to hear their help being reciprocated so willingly.

And talking of the coincidence that today is both the 2nd Kislev and 2nd of December and on Christmas Eve we will light the first candle of Chanukkah, I have just come across another coincidence that will demand of me more research and new investigation into three projects that recently have been put on the back burner (whoops not a good metaphor in a sermon about fires).

On the first night of our recent tour to I was presented with a wonderful book about "Professor Moses Schorr - the last of the of ". It has introduced me to an incredible Jew I had never previously heard of and it has opened up intriguing new lines of research. The Great Synagogue was dedicated on Rosh Hashanah 1878 and was then the largest synagogue in the world. Sadly it was blown up on 16th May 1943 as the last act of the Nazi's total destruction of the Warsaw Ghettos. Rabbi Schorr was born in 1874 and studied in and at the Israelite Theological Institute in where he was ordained in 1900 and along the way getting doctorates at the Universities in Vienna and Lviv. He became one of the leading scholars of Polish Jewish history and ancient Assyrian civilisation; he was a polymath indeed. And he was a progressive rabbi and getting to know his story led me to understand that Progressive Judaism did flourish in Poland alongside many other expressions of our religion and culture.

As well as being a scholar, rabbi and famed preacher, Schorr was one of founders of B'nei Brith, and one of the representatives of the Jews in the Polish parliament. He was an active anti-Nazi before the War and this led him to escape to the East when the Germans invaded Poland. But this did not save him as the Soviets arrested him and after months in various prisons, including the infamous Lubyanka in Moscow, he was sent to a gulag in where he died in 1941 aged 67.

One of the many incredible lives destroyed by the Shoah and a reminder that study of this period of history must go on. So much to learn; so much was lost. And for me the intriguing connections to three of my own fields of research.....for the Institute in Vienna was founded by the Rothschilds and Rabbi Richard Feder the last rabbi of Kolin in Czech Republic must have studied there at the same time as Schorr. And I have never found out details of Feder's time in Vienna, nor seen his ordination certificate, but now I have seen Schorr's so maybe I can find a new way to information. And finally Schorr founded the Montefiore Lodge of B'nei Brith in Lodz. I have never been to Lodz...did Sir Moses Montefiore (the subject of my Ph.D.) beat me to it?..and so the story never ends though this sermon will now do so.