Mitzvah Day 2009 Recognising community volunteers Rabbi Aaron Goldstein 14 November 2009

When looking for role models in the Torah, one often has to look at an episode in their lives rather than take into account all the aspects of their lives. Rebecca does not come out smelling like roses, when we consider a literal interpretation of the devious and single-minded way that she favours Jacob over Esau and encourages him to con his brother out of what was rightfully his and to take advantage of his own father’s disabilities to achieve his goals.

Yet in the episode that I have chosen this morning, Rebecca is a symbol for us all as we seek to follow God’s path of righteousness. In particular, as we honour all those who volunteer in our Community for the good of others, we find exceptional behaviour exhibited by our Matriarch.

The medieval Biblical Commentator, Don Isaac Abravanel was himself an incredible contributor to the Jewish Community. Born in Lisbon in 1437, he served as Finance Minister to the kings of Portugal, Spain and Naples. He sought to use his position to lighten the burden on his people but personally suffered from court intrigues and was expelled with the rest of his People in 1492.

Abravanel, sees our passage as a character test devised by Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, to test Isaac’s future bride. Success in his test, as is described in his prayer to God would be as response to his request to have some water, to be given water for himself and his camels. Rebecca exceeds his wildest expectations. Apart from her unimaginable beauty – I mean, since when does the Torah devote three expressions when one would have sufficed!? – Rebecca, responds by offering Eliezer water when she might well have told him where to get off and to get it himself! She took responsibility rather than nod to the various other girls who would have been around the well. To tilt the jar, also meant her making a special effort to take a full pitcher off her should for him to drink. Then consider the camels – 10 of them who would have required a petrol-tanker load to fill them up after a long journey. The Torah emphasizes this point by three times saying that the camels drank until they were full. It further enhances her mitzvah by repeating the fact that the well was only in the vicinity of the animal’s trough, not by it.

The modern commentator, Nehama Leibowitz, suggests, “Those realists and practical folk who might be drawn to pity the simplicity of the maiden, who went to all this trouble to quench the thirst of a total stranger and his camels, who do well to remember Akavia ben Mahallel’s maxim in the Mishnah (Eduyot 5:6):

Better that I should be dubbed a fool for the rest of my days, rather than become a wicked man for one hour before the Omnipotent!

Similarly, Rebecca entered into no calculations of profit and loss when she gave man and beast to drink. It is just such “fool” who have succeeded in becoming benefactors of mankind.”

I am so proud that today, we honour what some might call, a ‘congregation of fools (!),’ but one that I would prefer to call a congregation of the righteous, a kehillat tzadkikim.

All those who have taken part in the service today and so many more who are here today or are here for our community, are those who make this a kehillat tzadikim. It is not the professional staff but the incredible volunteers who create this wonderful enterprise we call Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue. I will not attempt to list all the activities that you are involved in, for I would undoubtedly do a disservice to someone, for lists are forever inaccurate. It is you all that I thank this morning.

Last night, I spoke about the First World War veterans, of whom the last of living in the UK, Harry Patch died this year. Of them, John F. Burns wrote in the New York Times, “To many, the veterans stood as totems of a vanished age of self-sacrifice, loyalty and honor, and, some said, as a living rebuke to the more self-centered mores of contemporary Britain.”

Thank God we do not live in the times of such a war. Yet within our own Community, we find those who give of themselves and who themselves are worthy of being descendents of Rebecca and of those who gave of themselves in the quest for freedom, justice and righteousness.

It is vital to the transmission of our faith and our lives in the UK and British Jews, that we educate our future generations about our Biblical role models and our British role models whose memory is still just within living memory. Yet what serves as the perfect roles models for their generation, is you, the people who are the inheritors of a glorious tradition of giving of oneself for the good of others. It is my task to insure, that this message is transmitted to our next generation. May the activities of our young people this morning, inspire them to be like you, not on one Mitzvah Day, but throughout their lives.

Keyn Y’hi l’ratzon – May it be God’s Will. Amen