Rabbi Natasha Mann

  Helix by Godfrey Kurari The Great Helix of History           If I asked you to map out three Yom Kippur evenings – the earliest you can remember, last year, and next year – you would probably draw me a straight line. Back there lies the deep past, close to us lies the recent past, here we are right now – and over there somewhere is the uncertain future. That is the model of time that is the most apparent to us. Time, after all, is linear. There is a past, which is over, and a future, which has yet to begin, and we are perched in the ever-moving present, filtering the future into the past to be gone forever. However, this is not the model of time that was the most apparent to people in the ancient world. Many ancient cultures thought of the existence of time as a wheel. Everything that had happened would happen again, over and over, for all of eternity. This is a model that’s easy to see in nature: day becomes night becomes day, the tree gives a see...

  The God of Broken Spaces Rosh Hashanah 5786           I am searching, this year, for a God of the Gaps. Not those kinds of gaps. “God of the Gaps” is a phrase that usually refers to explaining gaps in scientific knowledge with miracles. That is not the gap I am looking to fill. I am seeking for something to hold together the fractures and great divides that exist between us in society, as they continue to broaden year by year, a continental shift in our understanding of one another.  It seems that the divides between us only keep growing, separating us from those whom we might otherwise love or at least respect. Our cultural environment encourages us to ignore the places of strength in our agreements. Instead, we are urged to peer ever more deeply for opportunities for disagreement, to look for reasons to push one another away, for ways to widen that gap. Too often, we create the cavern between us based on assumptions, on misuse and misunder...

Walking Through Time (Re’eh/Elul)           I would like to spend some time, today, thinking about time.  We are standing here at a meeting-point of two cyclical, calendrical moments. The first is our Torah portion, Parashat Re’eh, with all its anticipation for the Israelites entering into the Promised Land, and its call into its own future to return, again and again, to the Temple. The other is the moment of the year we are in. We are about to begin the Month of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh HaShanah, which has its own particular obligations. It is another kind of anticipation. With the High Holy Days and the sense of looming judgment, we are invited to spend the Month of Elul preparing ourselves: to reflect on the year we’ve had, the lives we’ve had - the decisions we’ve made along the way - and to do “teshuvah” with one another. Teshuvah is repentance - it is making up for ways we might have wronged one another - but the language we use, tesh...

                        A photograph I took of the lapidarium at the destroyed Jewish Cemetery outside Kazimierz Dolny, Poland Revelation and Relationship (in Bethlehem and Warsaw) We have days to go until Shavuot is upon us – Z’man Matan Torateinu, the Time of the Giving of Our Torah. In celebration of the giving of the Torah, our tradition mandates two special readings - one, we’ll read as our Torah portion on the first day, and the other, as the megillah, the special scroll, for the second.  The first is of course the story of Sinai. There is thunder and lightning. A great shofar is sounded. The people of Israel stand, terrified, at the foot of the mountain. And law is given. Ten specific sayings, in fact, which are displayed in synagogues in the likeness of the tablets on which they were written. And in contrast with Sinai’s drama and commandments, we also read Megillat Rut, the Book of Ruth. This is a soft k...

  Disposable People The Torah speaks of slavery in two ways: the Israelite slave and the Canaanite (or, really, non-Israelite) slave. The Israelite slave had many previously unheard-of protections, such as the mandated release after six years. The non-Israelite slave in the Torah was given some protections, such as not being returned to the master after escaping, but was ultimately treated similarly to any ancient slave.  Moving forward through history, a thousand years or so, and the rabbis of our tradition found themselves uncomfortable with the state of the written law. And through a truly masterful legal framework, they gave all slaves the protections of the Israelite slave.  Another thousand years, more than a thousand years, and the question of abolition of slavery came to be. Some rabbis saw the trajectory of our narrative, with its reminder that we were once slaves and its growth of protections around the enslaved person, and became abolitionists. I’m sorry to say...

  Sacred Pain and Chicken Soup I’ve mentioned before on this bimah, I think, that since October 7, I’ve been meeting semi-regularly with a small group of Jewish and Muslim leadership. We’ve mostly been speaking about what’s happening within our communities and how our communities relate, or don’t relate, to one another. A few weeks ago, I joined some of those friends at a local mosque. It was our first time meeting outside of a living room, which always felt a little quiet and maybe even secretive - but there were no issues with inviting us into their sacred space. Some weeks before that, I invited a group of Muslim student imams and future leaders from Indonesia into New London Synagogue for a tour and some learning, too. I don’t want to shy away from it - there were some awkward questions. But there was also meaningful conversation and I think we all left understanding each other better.  The truth is, I don’t do enough interfaith work. There’s always too many other things t...

  Before Whom Pharaoh Stands I find power fascinating.  There are constructs of power within Jewish tradition which are by their nature uneasy. Social stratification might be necessary in some ways, but it also causes unending issues. God, in the early days of our existence in the Holy Land, does not want there to be a king. God seems to think, throughout the Book of Judges, that God can be the ruling social authority. There are prophets, after all; the divine message can be delivered, so why would the people need a king?  It turns out - heresy alert - God is wrong. The people need a king, not because of anything lacking in God, but due to something lacking in themselves. Everyone else has a king. Kings are great cultural symbols. Never mind all of the issues that come with handing power over one man - the people demand a king, and so eventually God gives in and tells the Prophet Samuel to anoint Saul as their new sovereign.  It goes, I hate to tell you, quite badly....