Rabbi Natasha Mann

Dare to See God Here New London Synagogue exists because of a rather exciting theological scandal. It included important questions about the authorship of the Torah, how to be a religiously devoted Jew without being a fundamentalist, and the politics of institutional orthodoxy. Less screen-time is given to the fact that Rabbi Louis Jacobs of blessed memory had clashed with the ultra-orthodox on many occasions before, perhaps because the subjects of disagreement were not quite so juicy and the outcome was not quite so dramatic, but, as I’m sure some people in the room will remember, the Jacobs Affair did not come out of nowhere. One such example of this tension occurred in the 1950s, wherein some of the orthodox rabbis of Manchester were discussing ways to improve the decorum in the shuls for the upcoming High Holy Days. The suggestions were, I must say, marvelously inoffensive. And yet, somehow, offense there was. Suggestions such as “maybe there are a few of these pages upon pages of...

  One: The First Light The first day of Ḥanukkah is arguably the strangest. The story goes that we had enough oil for one night, but it miraculously lasted for eight. Doesn't that mean that there was no miracle on the first night? So why do we say the blessing שֶׁעָשָׂה נִסִּים לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה (that God made miracles for our ancestors in that time, in this season)? This year, I feel that I truly understand the miracle of the first night. Because this year, we are bringing light into the darkness of a long and exhausting crisis. Sometimes, we can see today, and we cannot be sure that it is enough - that we are enough - for tomorrow. We feel extinguishable and exhaustible. We’ll flicker out before we make it. And sometimes, we decide to light the Menorah anyway. We decide to try. That is the miracle of the first night - to try, against the odds, to bring light into the world. To accept that it might not be enough, and to do it anyway. Two: Tablets of t...