Even though Jerusalem now has an Ashkenazi chief rabbi and a Sephardi chief rabbi, tradition dies hard.
By GREER FAY CASHMANRabbi Arye Stern(photo credit: Courtesy)
CONGREGANTS OF the Yeshurun Synagogue, as well as visitors from other congregations who went there last Saturday to hear Rabbi Ari Berman give his annual Shabbat Hagadol lecture, were surprised to see security guard Shimon Zahavi from Dror Securities in the doorway. For many years, Zahavi had been the pleasant meeter and greeter of worshipers and of people attending lectures and other events at Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue. Unlike many other security guards, he also knew everything about the building and could direct people to the various services, tell them who was conducting the choir, who was having a bar mitzva or a bridegroom call-up and who was delivering the sermon.THE RABBI was doing double duty at Yeshurun.During the morning service, Rabbi Berman delivered a sermon in Hebrew on the search for hametz; and after the morning service, he spoke in English on how the Seder and the Haggada represent a microcosm of the development of Jewish society through the ages. He also spoke of the difference between memory and experience and said that when planning for the future, people were more inclined to anticipate memory than experience and that the whole purpose of the Seder was to transmit memory to the next generation to ensure that there would be a future for the Jewish People.The Haggada begins with the story of the exodus from Egypt and ends with “Next year in Jerusalem,” Berman noted. He also stressed that because the story is told as if it were the personal memory of the individual(s) conducting the Seder, it was important for parents and grandparents to pass on actual personal memories to their children and grandchildren, such as the Seders they experienced in their childhoods, the tunes they sang, the foods that were on the table and the recipes for those foods. Some of this would in turn be passed on to future generations in the saga of Jewish continuity.EVEN THOUGH Jerusalem now has an Ashkenazi chief rabbi and a Sephardi chief rabbi, tradition dies hard. Neither Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Arye Stern nor Sephardi Chief Rabbi Moshe Amar delivered Shabbat Hagadol sermons at the Great Synagogue. Stern spoke on Friday night at the Kahal Hassidim synagogue in Sha’arei Hessed and on Saturday afternoon at the Har Horev Synagogue in Katamon.Amar was somewhat busier. He spoke on Friday night at the Alumim Synagogue in Ramat Eshkol, on Saturday morning at the Ahavat Shalom Synagogue in Givat Hamivtar and on Saturday afternoon at the Ades Synagogue of the Aleppo community in Nahlaot, which meant that he had quite a long walk.Meanwhile, in accordance with tradition, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi David Lau spoke at the Great Synagogue on Saturday morning and at Yeshurun on Saturday afternoon.The tradition was bent slightly when Rabbi Yona Metzger was chief rabbi. He was not invited to deliver sermons at the Great Synagogue, although he did speak at Yeshurun. Throughout the period of Metzger’s tenure, it was his predecessor, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the father of the present chief rabbi, who spoke from the pulpit of the Great Synagogue.ANOTHER SLIGHT break from tradition was the Saturday night Shabbat Hagadol lecture delivered annually at Yeshurun by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat. The venue has moved from Yeshurun to the Great Synagogue. Whereas in the morning people who went to hear Berman came from many synagogues in the area, in the evening they came from much farther afield to hear Riskin. At the start of his extraordinary address, in which he wove together ancient Persia and the Iran of today with the need to accept and embrace converts, he paid tribute to ambassador Yehuda Avner, who died last week.Riskin described Avner as “a proud Jewish leader and a prince of Israel who reached the highest echelons of the world” and also had a love of Torah. Riskin said that no one had encouraged him more than Avner.“I will miss him, and the world will miss him,” he said.AT THE Baha’i New Year celebrations at the David Citadel Hotel last week, Joshua Lincoln, the secretary-general of the Baha’i International Community, commented on the beautiful floral arrangements in the lobby leading to the banquet hall and noted that all the flowers come from the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa and that he had promised Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav to bring them back.Yahav sets great store by Baha’i, which has not only beautified his city but is also responsible for hundreds of thousands of tourists who go there primarily to see the Baha’i Gardens but also, in many cases, explore other tourist attractions. In fact, Yahav is so appreciative of Baha’i that he placed large congratulatory New Year ads in various print media outlets.
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