Sh’elot U’Teshuvot: Questions and Answers which have appeared in previous editions of Shofar (our monthly magazine). The answers were provided by our former rabbi Mark Goldsmith, whose successor at FPS is Rabbi Neil Janes
Click on the question to read the answer and again to return to the questions
If Jews lived on Mars would we still celebrate Pesach?
To me your question essentially asks whether Judaism is an earth bound religion. In some ways this question is by no means as
contemporary a concern as you might think. Judaism originally developed in a way which linked it absolutely to Earth and
to one particular part of the Earth - the Land of Israel. Its rituals, as proposed in the Torah and recorded later on in
the Bible were almost all meant to take place in only one location - the Temple in Jerusalem. Those rituals which had to
do with people's agricultural produce and land, such as the practice of leaving a fallow year every seven (shmittah) were
only applicable in the Land of Israel.
Yet Judaism had to transcend its centralised, Israel based origins or it would have died as a religion two millennia ago
when large numbers of influential Jews went into exile in Babylonia and certainly when the Second Temple was destroyed in 70CE.
The Pesach pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem metamorphosed into the Seder service carried out now in homes from Australia
to Alaska. The Temple sacrifices became represented by prayer in any and every location. To Jews a thousand years ago the notion
that Judaism could be carried out on undiscovered continents might have seemed as strange as your question about Jews on Mars
but now the city with the largest active Jewish population in the world, New York, is on a continent which had no Jewish
population whatsoever just five hundred years ago. It should be noted though that some Rabbis in the past suggested that a
Jew should not live too far North or South in the world as the days were too long to observe Shabbat properly! (e.g. R
Simcha haLevi Bamberger of Aschaffenburg)
So Judaism has adapted to be followed anywhere - but would space, so to speak, be the final frontier? This question really
and practically came up this summer (2002) when Colonel Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Air Force made his plans for spending Shabbat
on the Space Shuttle Columbia in July. Shabbat comes, of course every seven days, but being in a Space Shuttle orbiting earth
every ninety minutes would, you might think require a Jewish astronaut to down tools for Shabbat every nine hours. Rabbi Zvi
Koninkov of Florida sought the opinion of many Rabbis in order to help Ramon. The consensus was that Jewish time is based on
the sun setting on Earth not in outer space. Thus Ramon should observe Shabbat at the time operative at the place where he was
last on earth i.e. Cape Canaveral, Florida, though one of the Rabbis consulted though that he should stick for Jewish observances
to the time operative in Israel, since Ramon is Israeli.
To return then to your question, space is not the final frontier for Judaism. If you were living on Mars then you would
observe the normal practices of Diaspora Judaism. Perhaps you might have to adapt some of your Pesach dishes to the foodstuffs
locally available, just as Sephardi Jews tend to use lettuce as their bitter herb whilst Ashkenazi Jews use horseradish. You
would keep the times of the festival according to earth time set by the moon and sun and based on the time in either the
place on earth which you left or perhaps your original community on earth.
What is a leap year in the Jewish calendar?
The Jewish calendar has, in a regular year, 12 months reckoned by the phases of the moon. The moon takes just over 29 days
and 12 hours to orbit around the earth so five Hebrew months have 29 days and 5 have 30 days. The months of Cheshvan and
Kislev have 29 days in some years and 30 in others. This adjustment still gives a maximum length of Jewish year of 355 days.
The Earth's orbit of the sun is just over 365 days and, of course, it is this orbit that determines the seasons. Most of
the Jewish festivals' timing is determined by the harvest year. Pesach, in the bible, is meant to take place around the time
of the barley harvest in the first weeks of springtime. Sukkot should take place just after the general autumn harvest. If
this 10 or 11 day gap between the lunar or solar year were not to be corrected then within fifteen years the two festivals
would swop seasons and, in Temple times, it would have been impossible to bring the correct offerings for the season (BT San.
11a)! Therefore the system of intercalation was created to keep the festivals in their place.
By this system, today's version of which is credited to Hillel II in 359 CE, an additional 29 day month of Adar (the month
which contains Purim) is added to the Jewish year in seven leap years out of any cycle of nineteen. Purim always takes place a
Hebrew month before Pesach and so is in Adar Sheni (second) in a leap year. This has a major effect on the timing of Rosh
Hashanah, which will be 20 days later in 2003 than in 2002 because the Jewish year 5763 is a leap year with the additional
month Adar Sheni.
Because the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar which does not have a system to harmonise it with the solar year, Muslim
festivals move around the solar year. When Ramadan takes place in summer in Northern countries an observant Muslim is required
to endure many hours more daily fasting then when it takes place in winter time.
When did the prayer shawl (Tallit) come about and why have I never seen any with the commanded thread of blue in them at Synagogues?
The Tallit (lit. hanging garment) is a development of an all over cloak similar to the abbayah still worn by
Bedouins as protection against the wind and sun in the Middle East. In Number Chapter 15 verses 37-41 there is the command
directing the Children of Israel to wear fringes (tzitzit) on their garments and to look at them as a reminder of the
commandments.
When Jews ceased to wear an all over cloak with fringes attached as their regular dress the Tallit came into existence
as a cloth to bear these fringes at morning prayer with its variant the Tallit Katan available to be worn underneath regular
clothing throughout the day. There is considerable argument in the Talmud (Menachot 43a carried on in later sources) as to
whether women are obligated to wear the Tallit as well as men. In the end they are regarded as exempt because the wearing
of the Tallit is a "time bound" mitzvah and women are assumed to be too occupied with other roles to fulfill these
commandments. Therefore there is absolutely no reason why a Liberal Jewish woman, who is assumed to have equal religious
roles to a Liberal Jewish man, should not wear a Tallit.
The blue thread (called "techelet") is commanded in Numbers 15:38 to be woven into the Tzitzit. It seems from the
Talmudic account that Talitot using a blue thread were still in use in the early centuries of the Common Era. In this
account (Menachot 43b) R. Meir used to say, "Why is blue specified from all the other colours, because blue resembles the
colour of the sea, and the sea resembles the colour of the sky, and the sky resembles the colour of a sapphire, and a
sapphire resembles the colour of the Throne of Glory (for God)." However blue thread is no longer used because we cannot be
sure where the original dye came from in order to create just the right colour. Some scholars suggest that blue might have
been banned from peoples' clothing by the Roman authorities who wanted it reserved for royal use. You might have seen in the
Jewish Chronicle last year that there are people in Israel trying to find which blue dyes might have been in use by our
ancestors so that the blue thread could be restored!
What is the difference between Liberal and Progressive Judaism?
I have often been asked this question by people new to our Synagogue. Finchley Progressive Synagogue is a member of the
Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (ULPS) and people naturally assume that there must be a difference between the
two types of Synagogues. Well there is and there isn't!
Our Synagogue began life as the Finchley Liberal Jewish Congregation and, a few years ago, having become the Finchley
Liberal Synagogue, changed its name to the Finchley Progressive Synagogue. What did we mean by this change of name?
First let us deal with the term Liberal Judaism. The name of the association which sowed the seeds for the ULPS in 1902
was the Jewish Religious Union (JRU). Among its most prominent founders was Claude Montefiore and Lily Montagu. It did not
begin as a separate synagogue movement, but rather as a way of enhancing the Judaism of its members, who were Jews of all kinds. In time it developed a view of Judaism and of Judaism's future which was increasingly its own and, probably using the title of Claude Montefiore's 1903 book "Liberal Judaism - An Essay" which began to clarify what the JRU stood for, it changed its name in 1909 to the Jewish Religious Union for the Advancement of Liberal Judaism.
The name reflected the way in which the founders of the JRU sought to make Judaism relevant to the lives of the large
numbers of Jews who could not find religious fulfillment in Orthodoxy and also was a direct translation of the name of that
type of Judaism which was already thriving in Germany - where it was called "Liberaale" and in France where the Union Liberale
Israelite had been founded in Paris in 1907. The first Synagogue established by the members of the JRU, in 1910, was therefore
called the Liberal Jewish Synagogue - fondly known as The LJS.
By 1926 there were Synagogues in several counties catering for the need for a liberal kind of Judaism - from Los Angeles
to London to Bombay. In that year they decided to come together to form an international association to discuss common issues.
That association needed a name. It could not be called something like the Association of Liberal Synagogues because synagogues
of our type in America are called Reform, the one in India was called the Jewish Religious Union, those in Germany were called
Liberaale etc. A term that covered all of us had to be found and thus, in London, the World Union for Progressive Judaism
(WUPJ) was founded. Progressive here meant a combination of a forward thinking attitude to Judaism combined with a sharing of
the concept of Progressive Revelation - the idea that God did not at one point in Jewish history reveal all religious truth
but rather continues to help and guide us throughout the generations. All of the Synagogue movements which are members of the
WUPJ are collectively known as Progressive Jewish Movements - the Reform movement and the ULPS in Britain, the Reform and
Reconstructionist Movements in the US and Canada, the Progressive movement in Israel, the JRU in India, the Liberal and
Progressive Movements in France etc
Within the ULPS, the name that the JRU adopted in 1944 the terms Progressive and Liberal do seem to me to show a slight
difference in attitude to the way that we would like to see our Judaism develop. Synagogues which were founded by people with
a background in the LJS tended to keep their link with the LJS way of dong things by calling themselves Liberal - such as
South London Liberal Synagogue, Kingston Liberal Synagogue, Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue etc.
In 1921 a Synagogue was founded which, by 1928, chose a different name - North London Progressive Synagogue. I have not
been able to find any records as to why NLPS chose that name but it can safely be assumed that it reflected a wish to be a
little different to the LJS - primarily in being happy to hold on to a greater degree of traditional Jewish practice than was
the case at the LJS.
Over the years ULPS Synagogues have been founded with the Liberal name and the Progressive name and some, such as ours
have changed their name. As ULPS members have become more comfortable with adopting traditional practices without worrying
that by doing so they are becoming "Orthodox" and, as the word Liberal has become a misunderstood term in our days - almost
used as an insult in American politics and often preceded, unfairly, by the word "woolly" here in Britain- an increasing number
have come to prefer to call themselves Progressive Jews.
So we became Finchley Progressive Synagogue, Wembley Liberal Synagogue became Harrow and Wembley Progressive Synagogue,
Southgate Liberal Synagogue became Southgate Progressive Synagogue etc.
Because it is easy to mix up the collective term Progressive (i.e. a member of the WUPJ) and our specific term Progressive
(i.e a Progressive member of the ULPS) many ULPS publications use the word Liberal to make it clear that it our movement that
is speaking - such as the Affirmations of Liberal Judaism booklet and, of course, in 2002 we celebrated the centenary of
Liberal Judaism.
Do Liberal Jews have a duty to keep Kosher?
The basic laws of Kashrut (keeping Kosher) appear at a number of points in the Torah. The requirement to eat only certain
kinds of meat and fish is mainly covered in Leviticus Chapter 11 and Deuteronomy Chapter 14. The requirement to separate
meat and milk is derived from Exodus 23:19, 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21. The restriction on cuts of meat which are considered
Kosher is derived from Genesis 32:33. In none of these texts do we find a reason for keeping the laws of Kashrut except
that keeping them will help a Jew to be "holy". That is, the only reason which the Bible gives for keeping Kosher is that God
has commanded you to do so.
The Talmud and later Jewish Legal Codes derived many complicated rules for Kashrut from the basic laws in the Torah.
The result of these rules is that if you choose to keep to all of the laws of Kashrut, it is virtually impossible to eat in the
home of a person who does not keep Kosher. Yet the Talmud does not give any reasons why a Jew should keep the laws. Indeed
it is explicitly stated in the Talmud itself that the laws of Kashrut do not have a rational explanation.
This has not stopped Jews trying to find an explanation however! In the Midrash Genesis Rabbah there is a statement that
the laws of Kashrut were given to Jews to train them in self-discipline. The 1st Century BCE Greek Jewish Scholar Philo of
Alexandria agreed that the laws of Kashrut encourage self discipline and he added that eating Kosher encourages us to be
gentle and kind as no carnivorous creatures are Kosher - I guess that he was working on the theory that "you are what you eat"!
The Twelfth Century Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides and others of his era added the notion that keeping kosher was good for
your health. In his book "Guide for the Perplexed" he stated, for example, that free range pigs made towns in France dirty
and smelly!
The health reason for Kashrut does not stand up to much scrutiny however. If God had meant us only to eat healthy food
then surely He would have made mushrooms and kidney beans not Kosher as both can be poisonous if you pick the wrong type or
do not cook them properly. Philo's ideas concerning gentleness and kindness might also be said to apply to Shechita
(Kosher slaughtering), but only if it can be proved that Shechita is the most humane method of slaughter.
In the final analysis a Liberal Jew can only return to the Biblical reason for keeping Kosher - that it helps you to
be holy. If an individual Liberal Jew finds that doing something positively Jewish with every mouthful of food they eat,
something which links them with Jews of generations past, helps them to feel closer to fulfilling God's will then they
should by all means keep Kosher. Finchley Progressive Synagogue's policy on Kashrut begins with the requirement that we
do not allow meat into the Synagogue building. This policy is operated by most Liberal and Progressive Synagogues. In this
way Jews who do choose to keep Kosher can eat in the Synagogue although some who take Kashrut to a very strict degree are
effectively restricted to the company of those who also keep Kosher to the same degree that they do.
There is one further question of Kashrut which a Liberal Jew should ask themselves. That is whether we have a duty to
avoid certain foods for ethical reasons which are not part of the traditional Jewish Kosher laws. This would lead many of us
to avoid foods which are likely to be produced in a way that is cruelly exploitative of animals or of agricultural workers or
which are produced in ways that is likely to permanently damage the environment.
If you have any question for our Rabbi please email info@fps.org and he will try to answer it and post the question on the website.