Message from the Rabbi

Gila and I are absolutely delighted together with our family to be joining the WMA family as your Rabbi and Rebbetsen. Yet the lead up over the last week has proven to be rather stressful to say the least. This was highlighted by discovering the family piano didn’t quite fit in the WMA lift and it therefore had to take the arduous journey up four flights of stairs!. In fact, surveys have consistently found that moving home ranks amongst one of the most stressful life experiences. The ties and bonds that we have with our homes are long and deep and is a theme that is highlighted by this week’s Parsha.

The story relates to King Balak conspiring to destroy the Jewish people. To this end he hires a necromancer called Bilaam to curse our nation. Ultimately his plans are foiled by G-d and instead of cursing he offers prophetic blessings which our Rabbis tell us carry across the generations. The most well-known of his blessings are the immortal words “oh how goodly are the tents of Jacob, the dwelling places of Israel. Our sages offer two seemingly conflicting views according to the some, the tent of Jacob refers to the Shuls of the our nation, yet others suggest Jacobs tents as referring to the Jewish home.

The shuls are of course the home of spirituality, our sanctuary in time that has substituted for the Temple, the place where we pray and connect directly to G-d and with each other. Yet the Jewish home has been the heartbeat of our people. Every joyous and every sad occasion in our lives is centred around the Jewish home.

Therefore, perhaps we can suggest that our sages are not offering conflicting perspectives as to the epicentre of Jewish life but rather reflecting two halves of the same whole. Over the course of history, the shuls became our homes, and our homes have become sanctified like our shuls. It was Bilaam who prophetically saw that the secret to the Jewish survival was the tents of Jacob. It is our job to appreciate that blessing, the blessings that we have in the beautiful homes we create and the shuls and community we build together.

Gila and I together with our family cannot wait to meet and get to know you all. We very much look forward to hosting you in the coming months, we equally look forward to engaging with each and every one of you so that together we can grow our shul our community.