Aaron Goldstein


you Shall count thEM In There have been times in Jewish history when it was safer to button down the hatches and only welcome the purest of Jews into the community. However, I take all the biblical and subsequent barriers to entry and injunctions against relations with other peoples as a hint that significant numbers of our people were always interested to interact with others. Our faith and our people have at the core such a robust and eternal, universal truth combined with an engagingly attractive particular narrative, culture and heritage. Combined with influences from other forms of religious and


secular thought and culture we get a Judaism that is all the richer for it. I do not fear for our continuity, only fear and negativity, which can stifle enthusiasm and vitality. So why put up barriers to conversion, to the inclusion of all Jews and if relevant, their non- Jewish spouses, partners or friends. My eleventh commandment is, ‘You shall count them in, not


advice to the potential convert, who expressed his desire to learn the whole Torah whilst standing on one foot: “What is hateful for you, don’t do to your fellow, the rest is its explanation; now go and study [the Torah] (Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 31b)”. Through getting the true loving feeling, one is further motivated and inspired to walk the walk, to faithfully follow the Torah path!


Herschel Gluck is Honorary Secretary of the Arab-Jewish Forum, and Chairman and founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum.


Sybil Sheridan


you Shall grEEt pEoplE I have spent a lot of time in Ethiopia recently and am struck by how calm and centred the people seem to be, even though their daily lives are beset with unbelievable problems. I wondered what it is that they have that we do not. One thing is that they talk to each other. One Ethiopian on


coming to England found it strange, even hilarious, that everyone on a tube or in a bus queue is reading something and avoiding eye contact with those around them. In Ethiopia you always talk to the person next to you; you always greet friends whatever the circumstances. I remember walking down the High street in Gondar with one man who shook hands with almost every other person we passed. Two hours later we walked back.We passed the same people, but stopped again to greet them once more. It slowed down our progress considerably – and that in itself put us in a better frame of mind. Why rush? Our mission had been important, but no more important than these regular exchanges with people on a very simple level. It makes both parties feel welcomed… included…a Somebody. Conversation is the fabric of community. I therefore suggest as my 11th commandment (or is it 614th


commandment?) that, outside of the necessities of work, family and other commitments, you shall greet at least ten people every day.


Sybil Sheridan is Rabbi,Wimbledon and District ReformSynagogue.


count them out.’ Aaron Goldstein is Senior Rabbi, Northwood and Pinner Synagogue.


Jonathan Wittenberg


you Shall lovE your nEIghBour I’m staying with that most familiar, yet most challenging, of all commandments: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself; I am the Lord’. What could be new about it today? Nineteen centuries ago


RabbiAkiva declared: ‘This is a great general principle of the Torah’. ‘There is one yet greater’, benAzzai replied, ‘This is the book of the generations of humankind’. What was benAzzai’s problem? It’s likely that he felt the


word ‘neighbour’was too circumscribed; the context might suggest that it meant ‘Jewish neighbour only’. The Torah, however, is teaching for all. Just this is the issue.We need greater, indeed global, moral


imagination; it’s a matter of life and death.We cannot afford to think only from inside our own story.We all need to listen to those others who are different, including the others we see, sometimes with reason, as enemies. Otherwise we will pay for our ignorance, fear or hatred with our children’s lives and with the entire earth. Then we need moral courage.We cannot ‘love’ these others


as we love our family; the commandment, presumably, asks rather for respect. But to respect them we must think of whom they love, of what they need. This applies whoever they are, wherever they live. My heroes include TreeAid,WaterAid, and the Israeli /


Palestinian Bereaved Parents Circle. They have the imagination and they follow it with action. In behaving thus, we proclaim God sovereign not just of our


tribe but of the entire world.


JonathanWittenberg is Senior Rabbi of the Assembly of Masorti Synagogues and Rabbi of New North London Masorti Synagogue.


JEWISh rEnaISSancE octoBEr 2011


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