Category: Rabbinic Thoughts
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Two Nations in One Womb
To hope for a kiss and brace for a bite: Toldot, Interfaith Week and the stubborn work of remembering without hatred.
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We Will Not Hide Our Light
Rabbi Adrian M. Schell addresses the Wimbledon Synagogue community following the horrific knife attack on the streets of Golders Green. The fading surprise at such violence is perhaps the most terrifying reality of all. Our response cannot simply be to retreat behind higher fences.Exploring Parashat Emor and its demand for “one standard for stranger and…
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We Will Not Hide
Again! I found myself staring at the news alerts yesterday, feeling that familiar, heavy tightening in my chest. Another attack. This time, a knife on the streets of Golders Green. The shock is instinctive, but if I am brutally honest with myself, the surprise is fading. And that fading surprise is perhaps the most terrifying…
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Beyond Silhouettes: Choosing People Over Labels
There is a particular comfort in “we and them” because it tidies a complicated world. The holiness of a community is found in its ability to recognise the individual within the mass. This requires a refusal to see a “refugee” or “man” as a monolith, insisting instead on seeing the Tzelem Elohim [Divine reflection] in…
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From Yom HaZikaron to Yom Ha’Atzma’ut
This week, as we mark Israel’s 78th year of independence, the movement from grief to sovereignty feels more demanding than ever. The pain across the region remains acute, the political reality deeply fractured. What does it mean for us, sitting here in London, to mark this anniversary today?It means that our response to loss cannot…
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What We Feed the Mind
The current debate about children and screen time is real, and the concerns are serious. Studies on sleep disruption, on shortened attention spans, on the psychological effects of algorithmic content designed to provoke outrage or insecurity, all of this belongs in the conversation. Yet the instinct to simply ban or limit, while understandable, misses something.…
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Being Alive is Reason Enough
Life trains us to ask hard questions. We are skilled at complicating what is good, at asking what price was paid and who is left behind. We spill drops of wine at the Seder precisely because we carry the suffering of others inside our own joy.Yet the Song of the Sea suggests a different spiritual…
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Love, Justice, and the Soul of Israel
Rabbi Adrian Schell examines the moral test of the soul of Israel in this Pesach [Passover] sermon. Drawing on Deuteronomy and Song of Songs, he addresses the Kotel [Western Wall] bill and the Death Penalty Bill, arguing that liberation requires protecting the dignity of the stranger and the Soul of the Jewish State. True love…
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They Burned Our Ambulances, Not Our Resolve
On Monday morning, we woke to images that turn the stomach. Four ambulances, vehicles whose absolute sole purpose is to save lives, were reduced to charred, twisted metal in Golders Green. The shattered glass and the blackened frames speak of a profound, targeted hatred. To attack a Jewish volunteer emergency service is not simply an…
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Finding Holiness in a Fractured World
Vayikra [and He called] refuses the idea that faith should be simple, tidy, or continuous. It understands that life is fractured, and that a human being often comes to the holy place carrying contradiction. Sometimes we arrive with devotion. Sometimes we arrive with numbness. Sometimes we arrive because something inside us has gone wrong, and…
