Latest Thought
Rabbi Josh Levy and Rabbi Charley Baginsky: High Holy Days reflection
There is a phrase at the heart of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy that feels especially resonant this year. Hayom Harat Olam. Today the world is born. It is an extraordinary phrase. The rabbis could simply have written, “Today the world was created.” Instead, they chose the...
Rabbi Paul Freedman: Parashat Shoftim 5786
There was an advert some time ago that stuck in my mind. Of course that’s exactly what adverts are supposed to do, but fortunately this one by the side of the road didn’t distract me from my driving, it just got me thinking. The advert was for Easyjet, the budget...
Rabbi David Hulbert: A month of spiritual preparation
Last Friday began the new month of Elul, the last month of the old year 5786. Only four weeks to go to Rosh Hashanah! Elul should be a month of spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days. We will open ourselves so much better to the messages of these Holy Days if we...
Rabbi Danny Rich: Parashat Re’eh 5786
The whole of the Book of Deuteronomy is written as though it is Moses' farewell address as he prepares to die, unable to accompany the Israelite people into the Promised Land, Canaan. It unsurprisingly includes a review of Israelite history, particularly a...
Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber: Parashat Eikev 5786
Circumcise your heart When I was in Year 11, I reduced one of my teachers to tears. Mrs Kelly was telling me to get down from a balcony. As it happens, another teacher had asked me to stand there and help with something, so I explained to Mrs Kelly that I was going to...
Becca Fetterman: Youth movements matter more than ever
Being involved in a Jewish youth movement was the best thing I have ever done (don’t tell my husband). From the age of 16, as an RSY-Netzer youth worker, I was already responsible for educating other children. I had to think about what I wanted them to learn and what...
Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah: Parashat Va-etchannan 5786
Va-etchannan: Remembering and Re-membering This week’s parashah, Va-etchannan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) is the second portion of the book of D’varim, Deuteronomy. Va-etchannan includes the second version of Aseret Ha-Dibbrot, ‘The Ten Utterances’, better known by their...
Rabbi Colin Eimer: My love affair with Israel
Israel didn’t mean much to me in my north-west London childhood. My parents donated to the (then) ‘Joint Palestine Appeal’ and we had a JNF Blue Collecting Box. They had bought some land in Jerusalem before the war because I remember them talking, in the late 1950s,...
Rabbi Hannah Kingston: Parashat Devarim 5786
This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat of our vision. The third Shabbat of affliction in the lead up to Tishah B’Av, this week completes a series of haftarot which gear us up emotionally for the destruction of our two Temples on the Ninth of Av. This...
Rabbi Professor Deborah Kahn-Harris: The shifting faces of the Progressive Rabbi
The address at the Leo Baeck College Study Day & Viva Presentation, celebrating 100 years of the World Union for Progressive Judaism as part of the Darkeinu conference, delivered on Thursday 7 July 2026: I’d like to start with asking you to imagine a rabbi....
Rabbi Ariel J Friedlander: Parashat Matot-Masei 5786
At first glance, the double portion of Matot-Masei can be tough to connect with. A large part of the text is concerned with the division of booty after a successful campaign against the Midianites, and there is a detailed description of the physical journey towards...
Rabbi Lea Mühlstein: Imagining the next century
The keynote address for the Centenary of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, Darkeinu, delivered on Sunday 28 June 2026: We gather here at the close of our celebrations of the centenary of the World Union for Progressive Judaism with one hundred years behind us...
Rabbi DY (David‑Yehuda) Stern: Parashat Pinchas 5786
Thought for the Week: Holding On, Letting Go There are moments in life that ask us to hold on and to let go at the very same time. Inheritance and succession are two powerful themes woven through this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Pinchas. As Moses prepares to divide...
Rabbi Dr Michael Marmur: Sermon on the nature of Movement
A sermon delivered at Hineinu, the inaugural conference of The Movement for Progressive Judaism, on Saturday 20 June 2026, Parashat Chukkat 5786: Hineinu. Here we are. But where are we, actually? How is the name of this place pronounced, and what does the name mean?...
Rabbi Warren Elf: Parashat Chukkat 5786
The parasha of Chukkat, at least chapter 20 onwards, is set forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. Thirty-eight years have passed since the spies in last week’s Sedra prompted the lack of faith and belief in the entire community and the doubt that God would lead...
Rabbi Charley Baginsky: We are responsible for one another
Rabbi Charley Baginsky, Co-Lead of The Movement for Progressive Judaism, delivered BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day on Tuesday 9 June 2026. You can listen here or read it below: Reports of girls as young as eight worrying about wrinkles have sparked calls to ban...
Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein: Parashat Korach 5786
Come Rosh Hashanah who will be the Prime Minister of this country or Israel? How often does the main theme of the Torah portion seem to be a comment on the headline news of the week. A boon for the preacher if not for the congregant who came to shul to escape the...
Rabbi Lea Mühlstein: Why everyone should visit the Nova Exhibition
I first met Rachel Goldberg-Polin on 27 February 2024, 143 days after the massacre of 7 October. Her son Hersh had been abducted after fleeing the Nova Music Festival. Describing the months since his kidnapping, Rachel spoke of feeling as though she had been hit by a...
Rabbi Lev Saul: Parashat Sh’lach L’cha 5786
Such giants we will slay together Why do giants feature so prominently in our stories for children? I recently had the joy of reading some chapters from Roald Dahl's BFG to my six-year-old godson. Reading to him as he got ready to sleep gave me such warm nostalgia. I...
Mike Frankl: Antisemitism and interfaith work
Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue, Cambridge, recently celebrated the 90th birthday of one of our members. It caused me to reflect on conditions for Jews in the world back then. For example, Berlin in 1936 was not such a good place to be a Jew. There were attacks on Jews...
Rabbi Adrian M Schell: Parashat B’ha’alotecha 5786
Pride Month begins next week. Not everyone in our communities will feel the same way about it, and I think it's worth mentioning that upfront. For some, Pride brings genuine joy. June is a month of celebration and visibility. For others, it causes discomfort and even...
Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy: We need confidence without uniformity
"Anyone can be in my tent who does not want to push me out of it.” Yaron Shavit – one of the most senior and respected Progressive Jewish leaders in Israel – once told us this. The words have stayed with us ever since. They capture something often absent from public...
Rabbi Mark Goldsmith: Parashat Naso
Being Like the Children of Kehat In Naso we hear how the chieftains of Israel, the heads of the tribes, came to Moses on the day that he finished the portable temple, the Mishcan, in the desert (Numbers 7:1). Each, starting with Nachson ben Aminadav from the tribe of...
Archbishop of Canterbury: Be assured of my friendship
Archbishop of Canterbury The Most Reverend Dame Sarah Mullally remarks during her visit to the Sternberg Centre earlier on Thursday 14 May 2026. The Archbishop spoke to Progressive clergy, student rabbis and staff members in Leo Baeck College's Lily Montagu Reading...