A German-Trained American Rabbi in Yorkshire

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 24th August 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

Since my interviews last year, I have consistently maintained that if there is something odd or confusing encountered in any of the changes to our services that have come up while I have led services, that I would much prefer that the questions be asked directly to me than spoken about in frustration where I am unable to aid in the dialogue. If something comes up, I encourage you to email me at  rabbi@sinaileeds.uk  with the heading “Ask the Rabbi” and I will happily answer them in order in this space. This week, the question was  “Am I a bad Jew?”    OK, full disclosure, this question wasn’t really asked, at least not in this way. This formulation is more of a response to a variety of conversations over the last weeks regarding specific halakhic (Jewish legal) customs, rulings and interpretations. Although seldom said directly, this pattern of thought comes in response to one of several prompts: being told by someone that self-identifies or presents as “...

   Yes, I am about to be a bit controversial. As a Jew and rabbi passionate about Reform and willing to stridently defend from within Jewish tradition the authenticity of Reform, I try to choose my criticisms of Reform carefully. Over the years, the one element of our stream that has most consistently frustrated me is our removal of “offensive” texts and/or our use alternative texts to the exclusion of the more traditional. This is not to suggest that alternative texts are not important and effective. For example, our siddur offers eight pages of potential alternative readings after the Shema for those that wish to explore texts other than the three that are historically associated with the Shema. But offering choice and alternatives is far different than removing completely.    The removal of texts reflects the choices made in the wake of the Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) by what are known as the “radical reformers” at the end of the 19 th century. Early R...

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 17th August 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

   Since my interviews last year, I have consistently maintained that if there is something odd or confusing encountered in any of the changes to our services that have come up while I have led services, that I would much prefer that the questions be asked directly to me than spoken about in frustration where I am unable to aid in the dialogue. If something comes up, I encourage you to email me at  rabbi@sinaileeds.uk  with the heading “Ask the Rabbi” and I will happily answer them in order in this space. This week, the question was  “Why do we still have a choir for the High Holy Days?”    Although many of us have a view of choir that varies from “That is what we used to do,” to “that is what my parents used to do,” we actually get to go back much further, as in the First Temple further, in order to look at the authenticity and importance of choirs in Jewish tradition. In 1 Chronicles 15:16 we read, “David ordered the officers of the Levites t...

    Even if we intellectually accept that The Eternal has no human attributes, nor, as per Maimonides, “[is the Eternal] affected by physical phenomena and that that there is no comparison whatsoever to [the Eternal]” we are still stuck (or blessed?) with the language of the Torah which is filled with physical attributes used to describe the Divine.    Sometimes the language is easy to see as metaphorical. In this week’s Parashah, Vaetchanan , we read one of the seven times in Torah that “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm” the Eternal brought is out of our slavery in Egypt. Unless Chagall is drawing a blue wind forming itself through a misty manifestation of divine will into half-imagined mighty fingers, it is pretty easy to understand how this can be accepted as symbolic language. Yet the language of some passages makes a literal and anthropomorphic God much harder to set aside.    “ Vaetchanan ” translates as “and I pleaded.” Vaetchanan...

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 10th August 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

   Although it is by no means new, it is quite an interesting exercise to compare the textual differences in Devarim (Deuteronomy or the 5 th Book of Moses) and the other books in the Torah, most especially Shemot (Exodus) and BaMidbar (Numbers). Since Devarim is a retelling of the narrative of the Israelite people from the escape from slavery through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Deuteronomy literally means “Second Law” from deuteros meaning second and numos meaning law) we get an opportunity to check for textual consistency.    In the academic world for the past two centuries this is looked upon through the lenses of textual criticism. Julius Wellhausen in 1878 famously wrote “ Geschichte Israels” or “The History of Israel,” the most well known and eventually influential book within a school of thought called the “Documentary Hypothesis.” Although this specific paradigm has been challenged and ultimately has collapsed in the last ...

Since my interviews last year, I have consistently maintained that if there is something odd or confusing encountered in any of the changes to our services that have come up while I have led services, that I would much prefer that the questions be asked directly to me than spoken about in frustration where I am unable to aid in the dialogue. If something comes up, I encourage you to email me at  rabbi@sinaileeds.uk with the heading “Ask the Rabbi” and I will happily answer them in order in this space. This week, the question was “Why do you sometimes say ‘HaShem?’ Isn’t that either superstition of something associated with Orthodoxy?” I like to call this the Great Jewish Name Game. The simple answer to this question from me (which you know by now I cannot only give a simple answer-- it is a bit like a compulsion at this point to get as complicated as possible before I am done) is that I like to differentiate between offering a blessing and the teaching of a blessing. For exa...

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 3rd August 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

In “Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory,” Michael Lambeck argues that rather than simply being objective or subjective, memory is performative.   In other words, memory is practice. One sees this in a therapeutic setting working with only-children versus children with siblings, especially siblings close in age. The siblings often recall more specific narrative details of their childhood than do only-children, whereas only-children will have punctuated memories of the main-events. The theory behind this is that the siblings will go into their room at night and recount the day to each other while the only child will be reminded by their parent(s) or guardian(s) of the events with enough impact to be worthy of family discussion.   This is not to try and weigh in on the debate of having one or multiple children, simply to say that if memory is performative, we will have different types of memory development based on those with whom we partner in life to make and ...

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 27th July 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

Rabbi Paul Moses Strasko - Sinai Sermon - 20th July 2019 from Sinai on Vimeo .

Since my interviews last year, I have consistently maintained that if there is something odd or confusing encountered in any of the changes to our services that have come up while I have led services, that I would much prefer that the questions be asked directly to me than spoken about in frustration where I an unable to aid in the dialogue. If something comes up, I encourage you to email me at: rabbi@sinaileeds.uk with the heading “Ask the Rabbi” and I will happily answer them in order in this space. This week, the question was “why do you have a silent Amidah on Friday evening ( Erev Shabbat ) and an out-loud Amidah for Saturday morning ( Shacharit Shabbat )? First of all, we have to ask what the Amidah is. Although the Talmud does give us multiple answers in chapters 4 and 5 of Tractate Berakhot (Blessings) the primary answer is that it is an ersatz or a stand-in for temple sacrifice. When the second temple was destroyed by the Romans 70 ce, the sages had the centuries-long...

It is a charming little superstition to hear when I visit friends in Israel: “Are you coming to supper Yom Rishon?” “I intend to be there. Bli neder !” Bli neder . Without pledge. We actually know the substantive derivation of the root nun-dalet-resh quite well, as it forms the name of one of our most cherished moments: Kol Nidrei . “All Pledges.” In about twelve weeks we will gather together to hear three repetitions (yes, three! Stay tuned!) of this most sacred prayer which ultimately amounts to a legal document covering us for all the times we forgot to say, “ Bli neder !” But really, what’s the big deal? The passage of Parashat Mattot that we will be reading Saturday morning goes into what feels like absurd detail regarding the status of a pledge. Essentially, if a pledge is made by someone that according to the societal rules of the times was able to make that vow, then the pledge cannot be broken and must be carried out. It really seems quite simple, doesn’t it...

This past Shabbat, along with Jonathan Lewis and my wife, Katrin, I attended Shirei Chagigah in North London at the Alyth Synagogue. Aside from being transformative in its own right and allowing me to meet over half of my UK Reform rabbinical colleagues, the conference seemed tailor-made to address some of the questions that we will all wrestle with over the next weeks, months and even years. As we were introduced to melodies including quite a few unfamiliar to me, the natural questions of musical taste and preference in synagogue settings arose. This moved conversation inevitably to the complexity of introducing new melodies or musical styles into a community. Perhaps it is comforting to know that these issues are universal. There were more discussions on how to teach new music and then deal with the resistance within a congregation than any other single subject. And within our discussions on “change” since I arrived, this is probably the element of change that is most crit...

Thank you Mr. Moriwaki. It is an honor to be asked to speak today, although I am not sure you were aware of all the levels of synchronicity involved when you contacted me: Before I moved to Bainbridge Island in 2014 I served as a rabbi in Germany, and as far as we can determine, was the first American Jew to be ordained as a rabbi in Germany. To stand here today is a reminder of how many different peoples share stories of humiliation and horror, and our responsibility to indeed never forget. My story today begins as do most good Jewish stories—with four rabbis arguing. In this particular story, the argument of all things had to do with the purity status of an oven. Of course, we all know a few of those people who are intolerably always right, and Rabbi Eliezer in this story was that person. The other three Rabbis in the argument, however, disagreed with Rabbi Eliezer and as Jewish Law is decided by the majority, you can only imagine the growing frustration of Rabbi Eliezer. In ...

I heard the term “fake Jew” for the first time at a small Shabbos dinner gathering many years ago.  It was actually a celebratory pot-luck for a friend that had just had her Beit Din and had successfully converted to Judaism.  She had an Israeli boyfriend and had planned to move to Israel with him, but her conversion had been a personal matter that predated this relationship.  One of the invitees in a quite varied group was an older lady, a born Jew of Sephardic heritage.  She had at one point after the discussion of making Aliya asked my friend about her own parentage.  When my friend responded and then commented that she has just converted, the guest nodded and quipped, “Oh, so you are one of those fake Jews.” This wasn’t the last time that I have heard this term or some crass variation used.  Sometimes those commenting simply are repeating something that they have unfortunately learned and on which they have never been challenged, others have dr...