View Web Version

When Jonathan Abro was 25, he drove straight through a red light. His father, sitting next to him, shouted: "You just went through a red light!"

"What light?" said Jonathan. He hadn't seen it. Although he didn't know it, he had started to go blind. Jonathan has written an account of his extraordinary journey in the Jewish Chronicle and I urge you all to read it in the link below.

 

Jonathan is a member of Western Marble Arch Synagogue and an avid reader - like you! - of You&US. You may remember that earlier this year we rebranded our weekly email to make it a more pleasant read, adding new content and many more images.

 

Lots of you were in touch to share your helpful feedback. As a result, for example, we are always careful to have dark text on light backgrounds to make it easier to read.

 

Jonathan got in touch with a more difficult challenge. As a blind man, to read his emails, he uses a 'screen reader': software which speaks to him. Through the wonders of modern technology, this nifty programme tells him not just what the words are, but also if there are images or links to click on. 

 

And of course the new-look You&US has many more images and links than before. Unlike the human eye, which can detect meaning and patterns in information and images, the screen reader just speaks things in order from top to bottom.

 

In making You&US more visually appealing, we had inadvertently made it more difficult for Jonathan and other members with visual impairments.

 

Jonathan helped me understand all of this and patiently worked with us to put coding into the email for his screen reader so that he can follow it better. Every week my colleague Rebecca – a big thank you to her – labels the images and photos accordingly. It takes us more time to write the email than it used to, but it's worth it.

 

I have learned a lot from Jonathan. Today is World Sight Day which is why we wanted to tell you his story this week. Every morning we say in our prayers: "Blessed are you Hashem our God, King of the universe who gives sight to the blind." Through the small steps we've taken with You&US, I hope we are able to help more people who are visually impaired connect with their faith.

 

Read Jonathan's powerful Jewish Chronicle article here.

World Teacher's Day

 

This week was World Teacher's Day which gives us the opportunity to say thank you to the extraordinary teachers - and indeed everyone who works in our schools - who are doing their very best in the most unusual of circumstances.

 

The Chief Rabbi put it well on Monday when he said: "In recent months, despite impossible circumstances, the unwavering commitment and boundless creativity of our teachers has been invaluable for the welfare of our children. Today, on World Teacher's Day, please join me in taking the opportunity to thank them all, for everything they do."

Shabbat shalom and Chag sameach – have a wonderful and safe Yom Tov, whether you’re celebrating in shul or at home.

 

 

Richard Verber

Communications Director

United Synagogue

 

P.S. Because of Yom Tov this week there is no Kabbalat Shabbat service but get into the mood for Simchat Torah by watching our Simchat Torah Sing-Along!

Simchat Torah as the name of the ninth day of Succot, roughly dates back to Babylon in the eighth century. It began as the convergence of two distinct customs. The first was the Torah reading of the day, namely the passage at the end of the Torah in which Moshe blesses the tribes (“This is the blessing”, Devarim 33:1).

The other was the long-established custom of making a festivity at the conclusion of the study of a text – an order of the Mishnah, for example, or the conclusion of a Talmudic tractate (Shabbat 118b).

 

The day on which the Torah readings were completed was already known as Simchat Torah by around the eighth century, and other customs rapidly followed. One was the practice of beginning the Torah anew immediately after the completion, so that the charge could never be levelled against the Jewish people that having reached the end of the Torah, they stopped, or
even paused. Hence the reading of the beginning of Bereishit immediately after the conclusion of Devarim. The two honours of being called to read out the ending and the beginning were greatly prized, and soon became known
by the name of Chatan, Bridegroom – Chatan Torah for the former, Chatan Bereishit for the latter.

 

By the eleventh century the custom had already been established in many communities to call up every adult male to the Torah on the day. Shortly thereafter, we developed the custom of collectively calling up kol hane’arim, “all the children.” The practice of Hakafot, walking around the bimah seven times in procession holding the Torah scrolls, as was done with the Four Species on Hoshana Raba, came later, originating in the mystical circle around Rabbi Yitzchak Luria in Tzfat in the late sixteenth century, at roughly the same time and in the same place that the service known as Kabbalat Shabbat was born.

 

Simchat Torah is one of the profoundest expressions of the Jewish spirit. The other festivals were either ordained by the Torah or, in the case of Purim and Chanukah, formally instituted to recall an event where the Jewish people were saved. Simchat Torah, by contrast, emerged through a series of customs that rapidly spread throughout the Jewish world.

It is what the mystics called itaruta deletata, an “awakening from below” – an initiative that emerged from the Jewish people itself. Through it, we recapture some of the joy and exuberance that marked the Simchat Beit HaSho’evah
celebrations in Jerusalem in Temple times.

More than that: we turn the day into a wedding, in which the Jewish people is the groom, and the Torah the bride. As the rabbis said, re-interpreting the verse, “Moshe commanded us the Torah as the heritage of the congregation of Ya’akov” – Read not “heritage” [morashah] but “betrothed” [me’orata] (Devarim 33:4, Brachot 57a). Never has a book been loved more.

The custom of reciting a long sequence of verses prior to taking out the Torah scrolls (beginning with Atah Hareita / You have been shown) from the ark is first mentioned in the Machzor Vitry, a work emanating from the school of Rashi in eleventh century France. This tefillah includes not only the verses usually said on Shabbat or festivals on taking out the scrolls, but also others added in honour of the occasion.

 

I wish you and your families Shabbat shalom and Chag sameach.

 

For more on Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah by Rabbi Sacks, click here.

 

Welcome to 'Tell US', our new section where we invite you to contribute a joke, a poem or a story. We look forward to turning the spotlight on your literary creations over the coming weeks and months!

 

This week's contribution is by Ray Lawrence, a member of United Synagogue Sheffield.

 

Some of My Passengers are Missing

 

I had just driven my cab around the corner into Albemarle Street when I saw the old gentleman standing at the bottom of the Royal Institution steps.  He was a funny old guy and close up he looked even more peculiar. Tall and thin and wearing a long black frock coat and a stovepipe top hat he looked as though he had just stepped out of an 1830’s edition of the Illustrated London News. Beside him on the pavement was a large box made of polished wood, with a bright metal top almost covered with knobs and dials. It was obviously some sort of scientific apparatus and I thought he was probably an eccentric Professor just leaving the Royal Institution after giving a lecture on some weird and wonderful scientific subject.

 

He was struggling with the box, which was obviously heavy so, I got down to help him lift it into the back of the cab. When I took hold of it you would have thought I was about to steal the Crown Jewels.  He glared at me. “Be careful!” he said, “this is an extremely fragile piece of equipment!”

 

Once he and the box were safely aboard he asked me to take him to an address just off the Bayswater Road, so I put the clock on and set off into the London traffic. It was busy that afternoon and it must have taken at least a quarter of an hour to drive up Piccadilly, around Hyde Park Corner and down Park Lane. I was busy watching the traffic so it wasn’t until we got onto the Bayswater Road that I glanced behind me into the cab to check that the old gentleman and his ‘extremely fragile’ box were OK.

 

But he was gone. I could not see him or the box.  Puzzled, I craned my neck round to see into the back of the cab, at the same time trying to keep my eyes on the traffic.  The Professor and his box seemed to have disappeared...

 

To continue reading this story, please click here.

 

 

Please send your submissions to youandus@theus.org.uk.

 

This email was sent with love from the United Synagogue.

If you no longer wish to receive this email, please unsubscribe here