cvgku,l vacug s; Volume 26 BEHA’ALOTCHA No. 37 Daf Hashavua

7 June 2014 • 9 Sivan 5774 Shabbat ends in London at 10.19pm Artscroll p.774 • Hertz p.605 • Soncino p.838 Protecting and Promoting by by Dr Simon Hochhauser and Professor David Katz, Co-chairmen of Milah UK

Brit Milah – performed on the eighth day our right to carry out Brit Milah was not at (unless medical concerns intervene) – is an risk. important physical sign of Jewish identity However, this does not prevent individual and an integral part of Jewish life. Milah UK countries from legislating against Brit Milah. works on behalf of the Jewish community to Norway is currently in the process of passing protect and promote our right to carry out legislative measures regulating circumcision. religious circumcision, which we have done Thankfully Brit Milah will continue in Norway proudly without impediment, as safely as if it is under the supervision of a medical possible, for centuries. practitioner. Politically, Brit Milah In the United brings two basic human Kingdom, we are rights together in a constantly aware head-on collision – the that one negative incident could jeopardise right of an individual to freedom of religious the future of Brit Milah. The unsettling practice conflicts with the rights of the discourse around halal and kosher meat child to physical integrity. Milah UK argues indicates the way that the media-influenced that the decision must lie with the parent public mood can turn when presented with a to choose which of these two basic rights seemingly strange religious practice. The trend is more important to their child. First and is clear. A religious practice is singled out, foremost Milah UK fights to preserve the undermined and demonised and then con- right to choose. trasted with an enlightened worldview which This debate recently resulted in the simply cannot tolerate, in this case, a physical Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of ‘attack’ on a child unable to consent. Europe’s resolution on children’s rights to As a community, we must respond in two physical integrity. The resolution made ways. Firstly by arming ourselves with the reference to the need for “intercultural and facts, so that we know how to respond to interreligious consensus” about these rights, critics. We must also make clear that faith is regarding religious circumcision of young boys not an obstacle to compassion. Rather it is a as detrimental to physical integrity. vehicle for it. The more we demonstrate in our Milah UK worked with European allies to day-to-day conduct that Judaism is a force ensure a balanced debate and earlier this year for good in the world, the better advocates the Council of Europe itself confirmed that for religious freedom we will become. So who were they? by Zvi Cohen Kingsbury United

We may often look back at our lives and wish else to take care of the burial. we had been given a second chance at Unidentified people burying something. It may be a specific decision or a an unidentified person! series of them. One person even told me recently that they would have done everything Why does the not differently! identify them, especially given that as a result of their Our sidrah contains an episode in which some request we learn the whole concept of individuals were given that second chance. Pesach Sheni? The question is compounded Almost a year after leaving Egypt, the Jewish when we consider a similar episode where a People were told that they should once again question raised by a group of people led to a bring a Pesach offering. halachic ruling, namely the daughters of However, some were unable Tzelophchad, who requested a share to do so: ‘There were men in the Land of Israel (Bemidbar who had been in contact with 27:1-10). In that case they a dead body and could not bring are mentioned clearly by the Korban Pesach…’ (Bemidbar 9:6). name, so why not here? Upset at missing out, they approached Moshe and asked why they should be Rabbi deprived of the opportunity by force majeure. (d.1986) explained that in the case of the After consulting G-d, Moshe informed them daughters of Tzelophchad, the Torah wishes that they would have another opportunity to highlight their greatness. They merited to bring the offering a month later. This to have a law taught through them because new occasion and offering was called Pesach as individuals, they were distinguished. Sheni. However, our episode is different. It was not who these people were in general but what It seems strange that the Torah does not tell they did on this particular occasion. Here us who these people were. It is left to the were a group of people exempt from Talmudic sages to debate their identity bringing the Korban Pesach. They would have (Succah 25a-b). One opinion is that they were been fully justified in doing nothing! They the individuals who carried Yosef’s coffin from had no obligation. However, for them that Egypt, helping to fulfil his request of burial in was not an option. Their love of G-d and the Holy Land (Bereishit 50:25). A second desire to fulfil His mitzvoth drove them opinion is that they were Mishael and to ask for an opportunity to do so within Elzaphan, who had removed the bodies of the proper parameters of Jewish law and their cousins Nadav and Avihu from the practice. Mishkan where they had died (Vayikra 10:1-4). A third sage disagrees with both opinions and Those ‘men’ could be any one of us, when we says that they had been involved in the burial serve G-d with love and enthusiasm, looking of a ‘met mitzvah’ – someone they had an for every opportunity to become people obligation to bury in the absence of anybody through whom the Torah can be taught. Righteous Eleanor Rathbone, the MP for Refugees amongst the Nations Part 2: by Rabbi Z. M. Salasnik, Bushey and District United Synagogue

Mention the name ‘Rathbone’, and most people world”. In November 1938, she established and will think of the American actor Jackson was Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee Rathbone (d.1984) or Basil Rathbone (d. 1967), on Refugees. Conservative MP Victor Cazalet the actor who played Sherlock Holmes and a (1896-1943) was Chairman. He was killed in the number of film villains. As , however, we same plane crash as the Polish leader General should be most grateful to Basil’s father’s cousin Sikorski. The Vice-Chairmen were the Liberal MP and Jackson’s more distant relative, Eleanor Henry Graham White (1880-1965) and Labour’s Rathbone MP (1872-1946). The Rathbones were Lord Marley (1884-1952). a Liverpool Quaker family involved in Her refugee work occupied her daily and on philanthropy for at least six generations. many levels. She asked questions in the Eleanor’s father, William Rathbone VI, House of Commons, badgered MPs was a Liberal MP in the late 19th and civil servants (some tried to century. His grandfather, William duck behind pillars if they saw her Rathbone IV, was an opponent of coming), distributed information the slave trade. pamphlets, wrote letters to the Eleanor was an Independent MP press and visited internment for the Combined English Univer- camps. She advocated on behalf sities (a two-seat constituency of Jews and other anti-Nazis who representing all English universities were interned. She said: “We shall other than Oxford, Cambridge and Eleanor Rathbone MP be told that national security must London, which had separate represent- (1872-1946) come first. Of course it must, but the ation) from 1929 until her death. These question we ask the Government to parliamentary seats themselves only existed consider seriously is: cannot the method and from 1918 until 1950. For some of that time, her machinery be improved, not only in the interests nephew John and (after John was killed in of humanity and of the refugees, but in the service with the RAF) his widow were interests of security itself?” Conservative MPs. In 1943, she set up the National Committee for Throughout her life, Eleanor was involved in Rescue from Nazi Terror. Members included Chief helping good causes. Initially, her interests Rabbi Hertz and the Archbishops of Canterbury included women’s suffrage. Once women had and York. She was critical of government the vote, she looked abroad to campaign for the ministers who could have done more for improvement of the position of women in refugees. She said: “For a few brief moments, Britain’s colonies, including India and those in be just one of those human beings, whose Africa. In 1934, she undertook a fact-finding body, with its nerves that can suffer so, and tour of British Mandate Palestine on the whose mind and soul, with all their resources of matter of child marriage. This introduced her to terror and despair, are concealed by the cold Zionism, of which she became an admirer. abstraction of ‘one hundred and fifty’ and ‘ten thousand’ and ‘six million’”. Her sympathies for Jews were aroused in 1933 when she spoke in Parliament of “the re- In 1949, a school was opened by Vera Weizmann, emergence of an evil spirit [in Germany] which the wife of Israel’s first President, in Eleanor bodes very ill for the peace and freedom of the Rathbone’s name. Leadership Qualities by Rabbi Geoffrey L Shisler, New West End United Synagogue

As one follows the wandering of the Israelites officers had mercy and accepted punishment in the desert, one marvels at Moshe’s level of upon themselves. tolerance. Instead of being grateful for his This self-effacing and self-sacrificing leader- having taken them away from the pain of ship seems far from what we may often their servitude, the people complained associate with leadership today. A charismatic incessantly. This included protests that they personality, a fine speaking voice and did not have food, that they had run out of wealth are frequently the qualities that water and that they were exhausted from we tend to prioritise, yet this is far from what the journey. Whilst it is unsurprising that the Torah seeks. Moshe eventually decided that he had had enough, the fortitude with Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (d. 2005) the which he bore their grumbling for so famous Mashgiach (spiritual mentor long is astonishing. in a yeshivah) once went to a Chanukah party. As he In today’s sidrah the com- came into the hall plaining becomes too much for where the dancing Moshe. In despair, he says to was being held, he G-d, "I cannot bear all this heard all the students people alone, for it is too heavy singing together, a burden for me. If this is the way You treat me, please kill me” (Bemidbar 11:14- "avh Kyrb awvdqd adbi ana ana ana" 15). In response, G-d tells Moshe to appoint ("I, I, I, am the servant of the Holy One, blessed 70 elders to assist him. The selection criterion be He"). He exclaimed, "The words are wrong! for these 70 men was simply that they were already ‘elders and officers’. They should be: avh Kyrb awvdqd adbi adbi adbi ana (11:16) explains this seemingly cryptic " " criterion. These ‘elders’ were the ones who had ("I am the servant, the servant, the servant been appointed ‘officers’ over their own of the Holy One, blessed be He!"). Rav Wolbe brethren in Egypt. When Pharaoh decreed that was telling them that there was too much the Israelites had to produce the same quota "I" here, and not enough "servant". of bricks, even without the usual amount of straw they had been given in the past, it was A true leader is one who is more concerned clearly an impossible goal to achieve. with the well-being of the people he leads than he is with his own comforts. The Instead of berating the people for their greatest of our leaders throughout our history inability to fulfil this royal decree, these have always demonstrated this trait.

United Synagogue Daf Hashavua Produced by the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue, together with US Living & Learning Editor: Rabbi Chaim Gross Editor in Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Available also via email US website www.theus.org.uk ©United Synagogue To sponsor Daf Hashavua please contact Richard Marcus on 020 8343 5685, or [email protected] If you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavua please email [email protected]