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From The President
David P Lewis
e: president@greatsynagogue.org.au
Dear Friends,
Anzac Day Shabbat 27 April
Our usual rose laying ceremony will follow the Shabbat service this week in the war memorial. By now all of you who wished to make an offering would have provided details to the office. Due to closure of the office during Pesach we may not be able to notify Rabbi of late additions. We will, however, do our best to accommodate all who have missed the deadline.
Sunday morning 28 April NAJEX will host its annual Jewish Communal Anzac Day Commemoration and Wreath Laying. Rabbi and I will represent The Great with each of us laying a rose during the wreathlaying.
Services for the end of Pesach
On Sunday 28 April, we have our Choral Maariv & Sefirat HaOmer Service commencing at 5pm followed by a Wine & Cheese Kiddush. The Great Synagogue Choir will lead the Choral Maariv Service featuring Samuel Alman’s masterpiece for the counting of the Omer and other timeless classics.
Monday 29 April, we have the 7th Day Pesach service commencing at 8.45am with Shacharit.
This will be followed on Tuesday 30 April with the 8th Day Pesach service also commencing at 8.45am. Yiskor is traditionally recited at this service at approximately 10.30am.
Cooking for the Community
Sharon and The Great Women’s group are looking for volunteer meal makers for Mitzvah Meals for our community. The first cooking day is Sunday 5 May 2024 at 9am – at The Great. For all enquires and to volunteer, email sharon@greatsynagogue.org.au.
My last newsletter for a while
As is usual for Caroline and me at this time of the year, we will be returning to London for a few weeks as I am required to work from there and be in attendance for my Spring conferences and Board meetings.
I will be “attending” the May TGS Board meeting by Zoom and remaining involved notwithstanding the time difference.
As always if there is anything you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to contact me via either email or text and I will respond as soon as I can.
Vice President Lauren Ryder will be our more regular Newsletter correspondent during this time along with Treasurer Eli Green and Senior Vice President Max Freedman.
To all those in our community who are suffering an illness, we wish you a Refu’ah Shleima — a complete and speedy recovery; and to all those commemorating a Yahrzeit, or who have recently suffered a loss, we wish you a long and good life, full of Simchas.
Shabbat Shalom
From The Rabbi
Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton
e: admin@greatsynagogue.org.au
Devar Torah: Shabbat Chol HaMoed and the last days of Pesach 5784
I hope everyone enjoyed their Sedarim and the first days of Yom Tov. There is now plenty to enjoy over the latter days of the Chag. On Shabbat morning we will be marking ANZAC Day by the laying of roses in our traditional ceremony in the Mezzanine. If you would like to lay a rose but have not informed the office please tell me on Shabbat morning and make an offering after Yom Tov.
On Sunday night 28 April, the seventh night, the Chazzan and Choir will be presenting the annual choral service for the Counting of the Omer. That will begin at 6pm and be followed by a cheese and wine Kiddush. The music for this service is one of the highlights of the year.
On the seventh morning of Pesach we will be joined by Ben Ezzes, the Deputy Head of Jewish Studies at Moriah College who will give the sermon. Mr Ezzes is an accomplished educator and speaker and I am looking forward to hearing him.
On the last morning of Pesach, on Tuesday 30 April we will be reciting Yizkor. Please do not arrive too late for the service in case you miss Yizkor.
The theme of the end of Pesach is the splitting of the Yam Suf (often translated as the Red Sea, but which really means the Sea of Reeds). When the Israelites made it safely to the other side and saw the Egyptian army drowned, they sang the Song of the Sea. This Song is so powerful that it is now recited every day of the year as part of the early morning service. When it is read in the synagogue in Parashat Beshallach and on the seventh day of Pesach a special melody is used and the congregation stands, to indicate that this was a unique moment of revelation that we experience again during the reading of the Song from the Torah.
According to a well-known Midrash, while the Israelites sang, and their song is recorded and celebrated, God silenced the angels when they started to sing, and He rebuked them, telling them, ‘my creatures are drowning, and you are singing before Me?’ it is important to recognise that the angels were not about to sing over the deaths of civilians. There is no record in the Midrash of the angels singing at the time of the Ten Plagues when all Egyptians were suffering, and in the case of the last plague, dying. The angels realised that would be inappropriate, but maybe they thought that as it was the Egyptian army that was drowning, it was real combatants and dangerous, imminent enemies, who would have re-enslaved the Israelites given the opportunity, then it was proper to sing over their demise.
The startling ethical insight of this famous Midrash is that in heaven they must not gloat even over the deaths of the people who wish us the most harm and are ever eager to inflict it upon us. It is no great moral challenge to mourn and feel regret over the deaths of civilians, even if we believe that those deaths were unavoidable given the circumstances. That ethical level is demanded of us all. Furthermore, on a human level, we are permitted to sing praises to God when our active enemies are destroyed. However, we cannot forget that from the point of view of heaven, from the ultimate perspective informed only by moral values and without our inescapable element of human feeling, even the deaths of combatants are tragic, and God takes no pleasure in them, in fact He grieves for them. To retain an element of that perspective is much harder, and yet that is exactly what the Rabbis, through this Midrash, are asking us to do.
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