A Thoughtful Evening of Discussion with SAMS

I’ve always appreciated the St Albans Masorti community. They are invariably welcoming, kind, thoughtful and engaged in their Judaism. The community is also strategically acute and I’m glad that this walk will also make a small contribution to their building. And they have a great Rabbi, now three-quarters moved to the New London, in Jeremy Gordon.

They asked me to speak about how the Masorti Movement is different from Orthodoxy on the one hand and Reform on the other. I base my response on the teachings of Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs, but the conversation soon turns to the key priorities for the St Albans community and the Masorti Movement as a whole: serious learning engaged both in traditional text and modern critical thought; observance encouraged by a sense of obligation and community example without being judgmental about every individual; education from birth onwards so that every community has a pre-school, we develop a Masorti primary school and play our part in JCOSS; passion and depth of prayer fostered by knowledge and music (with great appreciation for the work of Jaclyn Chernett and her founding of the European Academy for Jewish Liturgy); and participation in the important agenda of young people in social action and commitment to social justice. It’s great to see the Movement thriving in so many places.