To celebrate our 120th anniversary, Liberal Judaism launched a Creative Competition.

Our winners – including Anna Dilphy (pictured above receiving her prize from Rabbi Igor Zinkov) were announced at the Day of Celebration 2022. You can see and read their wonderful work below:

Best Poem: THE WORDS WE PRAY by Susannah Alexander and Kittah Vav (Year 6) of The Liberal Jewish Synagogueís Rimon Religion School.

This prayer was a collaborative work by Kittah Vav (Year 6) at the Liberal Jewish synagogue in response to the question ‘What is Prayer’? Following discussions, the class asked me to put their ideas into a poem which rhymed and in which the first letter of each verse spelled out the word ‘prayer’. No pressure, then! Every idea in this poem came from the children; I just did a bit of editing. The poem was presented at an intergenerational service, accompanied by a large ‘tefillah megillah’ containing words, thoughts and illustrations from the pupils and their families on the meaning of prayer.

Petition, penance, praise each day,
But who will hear the words we pray?
We think we do what God would seek
On Friday evenings every week
And on Shabbat we utter phrases
With vague ideas of singing praises.
What is the meaning when we pray
And who will hear the words we say?

Requests we send to God on high
But then we pause to wonder why
The evil profit, from their vice
With scant reward when one is nice.
When learning Hebrew brings us stress
Is mumbling mitzvot meaningless?
We wonder why we ever pray
When no one hears the words we say.

Alas, our lives are not plain sailing.
In fearful times with courage failing
In that dark place, and all alone
When hope and strength have almost flown
Then soft we whisper words uncertain
We’d never tell another person.
To soothe our pain, our fears allay
The furtive, stammered words we pray.

Yes, deep within the darkest void
A spark of hope, not quite destroyed
Reminds that life still has some meaning
That good is real, and dreams worth dreaming.
To get us through a time we fear
To conquer challenge far and near
To ask for help throughout the day
Our prayers form through the words we say.

Each prayer may start with words by rote
But through the sounds, the heart emotes
Its sorrow for the wrongs it’s wrought
Its thanks for miracles meekly sought.
The more we strive, the more we trust;
It works because we say it must
Ourselves we work on day by day
Through every heartfelt word we pray.

Reason or faith?  Whatever guides us
Our prayers can lead to acts of kindness
For prayer is nothing without deeds
It’s us, not God who intercedes
To right a wrong, to elevate
Ourselves and friends; to celebrate.
And this means action every day
As we perform the words we pray

Best Artwork: ALL THE WOMEN IN THE TORAH by Ruth Hallgarten (pictured right)

All the women named in the Torah are hand-embroidered onto a tallit prayer shawl, with their roles re-imagined in a small panel on the left hand side.

Best Sermon or Dívar Torah – Under 18: Maia Rosenberg

My portion, Netzavim, means ‘you are standing here’. It comes from the final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy and has Moses going over what the people have experienced and the resealing of the covenant. Moses lists all the people included in the community and mentions women, children, newcomers and those who did the manual labour.

It’s obvious that times have changed since Exodus when the commandments and covenant were given at Sinai, because then, Moses directed all the instructions only to the men. There is a very shocking verse in Exodus where Moses said to the men “do not go near a woman”. This proves sexism was alive and real as he only talked to the male half of the community. It is interesting and confusing to see that after years of being discriminated against by the Egyptians they still don’t treat everyone in their community as equal. But here in Deuteronomy we can see how times have changed and how they have progressed to include women being named as part of the community.

Seeing this change in the way the Torah is written from the first book to the last means a lot to me as a Jew and as a woman. It isn’t much and there is still much more that can be improved, but it’s one of the first steps towards equality in the Torah that we can see. Obviously, the patriarchy in Judaism continued to be very common, and it is only in the last few hundred years, when both reform and progressive Judaism started to gain popularity, that women have had a bigger part in their communities.

At one time, and currently in some synagogues, women sit separately from the men, hidden behind a screen. Today, in this synagogue we all sit together here as equals. Traditionally men would wear a kippah and tallit and women would not.

Today I am wearing my great grandfather’s tallit which passed down to my parents who were married beneath it and now I stand under it to be bat mitzvahed.

My family has had a conflicted relationship with Judaism. Two of my grandparents were hidden children during the holocaust and many of my family were murdered in Belgium, France, and Poland. They were subject to the terrible consequences of discrimination.

My parents chose Finchley Progressive Synagogue because they felt it fitted well with our family’s values and emphasised what they felt was the most valuable part of the Jewish tradition. I think they wanted to give me and Shira a positive experience of our Jewishness and a sense of community and belonging.

Maybe the Jewish experience of persecution has led to there being a strong tradition of fighting for social justice in Jewish communities, as well as the fact that tikkun olam, the concept of repairing the world, and tzedakah, the moral obligation to give to charity, are fundamental beliefs in Judaism.

My family on both sides have a strong tradition of social action. Both my parents made sure we had a good understanding of world affairs and took us demonstrations from a young age. I look to my grandparents who have all been active throughout their lives, in trying to change the world and make it more equal and kind. This has been through political activism, charity work, campaigning or working with people with mental or physical health needs. Before them, my great grandparents were trade unionists, and volunteered with the league of Jewish Women. I take a lot from those examples.

FPS feels like a safe and comfortable environment in which to explore my identity. It is a good mix of Jewish religion and Jewish culture. I don’t believe in God or that the Torah is completely factual, but I have always felt able to be open about that here and have never felt judged or disapproved of as a result. To me, the Torah makes for an important story, something that ties us all together, to guide us. Like an Aesop’s fable, we can learn from the stories about how to live. And the centuries that we have been sharing and reading them strengthens our identity.

My tzedakah project is for a charity called Play for Progress. They use music, the arts and creative therapies to support young unaccompanied refugees and asylum seekers.

So far I have raised £450 by doing face painting and festival tattoos at local community events.

I chose Play for Progress because the number of innocent people forced from their homes and into a danger and uncertainty breaks my heart. There have been over 40 wars or conflicts across the world in 2020 and 2021 alone. I feel angry and disgusted when I watch our current government making it more difficult for those in need to find sanctuary here. However, it is amazing to see how local communities rally round to collect vital resources for newly arrived refugees, especially recently from Afghanistan.

Having two grandparents who were forced into hiding at a young age just for existing as Jews, it feels particularly important for me to be able to stand up here publicly acknowledging my heritage and my Jewishness. I’m still finding out what that means to me, but it includes a sense of social awareness, a set of strong values and an understanding of the importance of a big, inclusive community.

Best Photograph: UNCHAINED by Anna Dilphy (pictured left)

Breaking the chains of prejudice, Ariel reinvents the meaning of community through the lens of queerness, inherently tied to his Jewish identity.

Best Sermon or Dívar Torah – Over 18: Sarah Stuart

Vayera 2021 – Bereshit 21: 1-13

Today we read the very difficult story of the expulsion of Hagar, in a text which closely parallels the earlier story in Genesis 16. Sarah, overwhelmed by jealousy and desire to advance the position of her own son, Isaac, demands the expulsion of Hagar and her son Ishmael. Hagar’s suffering is summed up in the lasting image of her running back and forth in a desperate search for water, a story relived year after year during the Hajj.

Although there are some obvious textual difficulties, not least that fact that Ishmael must be at least an older teenager by this time, the overlapping stories of these two women, and their offspring tell us much about the nature of human suffering.

For Sarah, it is the very existence of Ishmael which causes her pain.  After ten years of marriage to Abraham, she has failed to give birth to an heir, despite God’s promise that Abraham’s offspring will be as numerous as the stars.

According to Near Eastern practice of the time, she offers her slave woman as a surrogate. Bound and trapped by the social and cultural expectation to conceive, she is then forced to watch from the sidelines as Hagar supplants her. Motherhood has reversed the status between them.

It is easy to be critical of Sarah’s reaction, both in this passage and the earlier one.  Having offered Hagar to Abraham, she then turns on him, saying the wrong is his fault. In today’s section, seeing the potential challenge posed to Isaac, she casts out the pair, refusing even to call them by name. A midrash suggests that had she been less self-interested, Sarah’s life span might have gone on to equal that of Abraham. Having said that, Abraham’s role in both sections of the story is equally problematic. He does not initiate the expulsion, and is visibly distressed, but neither does he take action to prevent it, opting instead for damage limitation.

Yet, in the outcome of the story, God refuses to judge. Our story, in the Torah, may go on to focus on the descendants of Abraham, but God also looks after Hagar. He takes note of her suffering, and makes of Ishmael a ‘great nation’, whilst also preserving the inheritance of Isaac and through him, the election of Israel. In this section, our sympathies are with Hagar, the oppressed, but the outcome of the story does not satisfy the desire for the innocent to be rewarded at the expense of the jealous wife.

Life is never that simple. Sadly, as the Torah here acknowledges, there are times and situations in which the very existence of another person causes us untold suffering, even if we would prefer not to admit so. The child born of trauma; or because of adultery; or perhaps more in earlier generations, the result of an unwanted pregnancy. Sometimes, although we know the other is innocent, we still wish they were not there.

In early Near Eastern societies, children were prized as an inheritance, as a form of security for the future. Nowadays, our reasons may be different, but society still places immense value on the status of motherhood and the importance of having children. Behind these societal assumptions, lies a great deal of pain. It may not be fashionable or politically correct to acknowledge it, but here, the Torah reminds us that such pain can have long lasting impacts.

There is little in this story that acts as a moral compass point, or an example of how to behave. Instead, it lays bare the pain and suffering of hurt, jealousy, and human weakness. Before we condemn Sarah, we should take time to remember that in such situations, most of us have no idea how we will react. Sarah does her duty by giving Abraham a son via Hagar, but very soon she finds it impossible to live with the consequences.

God’s promise to make nations of each descendent, as we well know, does not end, but instead exacerbates the suffering. The pain of both branches of Abraham’s family is thus legitimised and acknowledged. For here, pain is the consequence of a painful situation. There is no solution. Sometimes, that is how life is. Of all passages, this morning’s makes it clear for us that we should never approach the Torah looking for a solution to our problems. Instead, amongst the host of characters, we find ourselves and our own problems reflected back at us. From generation to generation there has been life, joy, endeavour, and yes, also great suffering. Our task is to see ourselves reflected, and to move on, knowing that at the very least, we are not the first, nor by any means the last, to feel the pain of existence.