Building A Sanctuary Together

London stone, Mouse’s back, Fowler pink, Elephant’s breath, Hound lemon, dead salmon, matchstick, Wainscot, and my favourite Windmill Lane.

For anyone who has recently decorated their home you will recognise these as the weird and wonderful names given to paints. The choice is so extensive that many of us end up watching numerous design programmes to help us think about colours and design. And the national love of decorating our homes is clear from the sheer amount of design shows on TV, whether it’s how to make our homes perfect, how to use the space more effectively, create grand designs, or become an interior design master,  the amount of programming, youtube videos, blogs, websites and magazines shows how central the look and feel of our homes are for our sense of wellbeing, identity and the feeling of rootness. 

But within our love of decorating there's also something else going on, beyond the mood a colour on the walls instills in us.

The writer and thinker Rebeca Solnit wrote a poignant essay that asks the question perfectly -  ‘Showroom vs. Sanctuary: on What Our Dream Homes Reveal about Our Interior Lives’.

She writes about the pleasure and comfort of home design;
“There are times when… the apricot velvet headboard against the lavender wall…fills me with a mysterious satisfied pleasure in harmonies of color, texture, atmospheres of comfort, domesticity and a desire to go on living among such color and texture and space …as though [a] building itself could direct and support an ideal life, the life we dream of when we look at houses.
...the hankering for houses is often desire for a life, and the fervency with which we pursue them is the hope that everything will be all right, that we will be loved, that we will not be alone, that we will stop quarreling or needing to run away, that our lives will be measured, gracious, ordered, coherent, safe. Houses are vessels of desire, but so much of that desire is not for the physical artifact itself”.

A home is a “hope that everything will be all right, that we will be loved, that we will not be alone…or needing to run away, that our lives will be coherent, safe”. Perhaps our obsession with home interiors; finding the perfect lamp, the right balance between new design and old furniture, or the perfect colour that brings it all together, can be a reflection of our need for some control. When the world around us is, at best, chaotic and unpredictable. No wonder we seek refuge in our homes from the scorching heat waves we have endured, the insidious rise of AI now appearing wherever we turn, wars without any real national justification or reason, or the use of government sanctioned violence across the world, even against its own citizens, the list of existential threats in an increasingly unrecognisable world goes on; leaving us bewildered and fearful.

But added to all of the events of this past year, we as Jews or partners ofJews have also experienced something further that has been deeply disturbing, and which has left many with questions about belonging, and feelings of a form of not-at-homeness; the sense of not feeling at home within our present culture and wider society.

I feel in two minds about bringing us back to the sense of real fear and dread for our physical safety experienced after the attack on Heaton Park Shul on Yom Kippur, or the months of attacks on Jewish buildings, synagogues, institutions and people between March and June of this year, (only three months ago).  Yet, those months have left deep scars on top of the older wounds from the rise in antisemitism experienced in people's workplaces, schools and universities since 7th October 2023.

Some here today have experienced antisemitism, others have not had direct experience, but all of us have been impacted, and many have discussed with me about feeling shaken by a world we no longer recognise.  The amount of times we have ended up in conversations with people of all ages where at one point someone has said “we have thought about leaving…” and to which someone else will inevitably  respond “but to where?  For where is better or calmer or safer?” And then everyone looks despairing and so the conversation moves on.  Many are experiencing a sense of national not-at-homeness, of not feeling welcome, or belonging or safe, which is compounded by other national conversations adding to the sense of division.

I think we have been feeling a sense of ostracisation, of being targeted, and singled out by association for things that are not our fault or within our power to do something about, however much we wish we could. Places that we thought were our places, do not always feel like it anymore. And it's sadly a feeling we share with other minorities, whether Muslims, migrants or refugees. So many of us have not felt at home, and despite the best efforts of many people, it's proving hard to shake off.

A colleague and friend of mine experienced this up close in May, when on a bus ride very close to here, a man was shouting antisemitic violent abuse. My friend did not know what to do in the situation, and no one stepped in. She got off the bus as soon as she could, and called the police. She felt completely alone.
The way she described it in her witness statement sums up the pain of this past year:

“I don’t think you realised what you were saying that day on the bus, that you would kill a Jew if you saw them. I am a Jew and I was sitting across the aisle from you. I did not know if you were carrying any weapons. Earlier that week a man had tried to stab two children on another bus.
Your words hit the pain of generations. The fear that a society can turn its back on us and decide to ignore atrocities. When no one challenged you, I asked myself if everyone thought your words were now acceptable.

When I go to pray with my community, when I go to dance and laugh and share a meal, I expect to see airport-style security. I expect to pass guards and police and heavy doors…. When we celebrate Yom Kippur, our most solemn day of the year… we are all thinking of the two men who were killed in Manchester last year on their way to pray with their community. We are instructed to hide what we are and what we do.
When no one challenged you that day on the bus, I asked myself if everyone thought your words were now acceptable, that this was now ok. That again a society had turned its back”.

What she didn’t know was that the police had been alerted by other passengers, and were enroute, and that others had realised what was happening and were following the bus in their cars, but because of the state and obvious mental health issues of the man, they were keeping their distance. Plenty of people came forward to the police to share what had happened.

Had society turned its back again? In her witness statement she continues:
“Then the next day the police called and I heard a resounding ‘no’ to my question. Your words were far from acceptable to the people on that bus. It is not ok to say what you said. For all good reasons, they may not have challenged you on the spot, but they made sure you would know. That helped me get on the bus again and be part of this society I have come to love so much as a Jew and a foreigner, because it is still capable of keeping such diverse people together. I am not going to hide”.

This past year has been disorienting. Though it turns out that most of the attacks between March and June 2026 were by local criminals hired by an Iranian-regime linked group, and though the more acute threat appears to have gone away (after massive collective state and community effort), the feeling of being ill at ease, of being wary, have not.

It is important here to say, clearly, that I don’t think there is antisemitism everywhere, or that everyone is out to get us. And I don't think we need to pack our bags, or find a new home; but we do have to recognise and deal with the aftermath of what we have been going through for the past three years; the feeling of not belonging, of feeling uprooted, of not feeling safe, and of not feeling at home.

Adding to this sense of not-at-homeness is another form of alienation that has and is still ongoing, but rather than being about where we are geographically, it is a ‘not-at-homeness’ sense from within the wider Jewish Community, from within our tradition. The schisms that have opened up within families, friendship circles, and communities about what has, and is still happening, in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, are continuing to cause painful rifts. We cannot escape the ongoing issues, and perpetually find ourselves caught in the whether to keep silent or speak out conundrum, something we saw yet again in this past week. But the alienation goes deeper, and for some it questions core beliefs when parts of our tradition are used to justify violence and extremism, against Palestinians but also against Progressive Jews like us, when lawlessness and murder is brushed under the carpet in stark contradiction to core Jewish teachings. Teachings about the importance of law and being held accountable for our actions, on rights for every person, and the belief that we are all ‘bzelem elohim’, all created in the image of the Divine, no matter our religion or where we were born. It can be hard to feel at home in our Judaism when it feels as if the communal space around us has changed so radically, leaving so little space for a difference of opinions, or practice, and where a dialogue of fear is the main driver for so many, rather than justice and honesty.

For some the reaction has been to focus inwards, on their families and homes, shielding their eyes from what is going on. For others it has been to walk away, to leave traditions and Judaism behind; it may be because of fear for theirs, or their children’s, safety; or of no longer being able to recognise themselves and their values in what is happening.

But the most common reaction has been this [gesture to the room], to seek each other out, to turn to community, to our history and traditions. To question, to rail, to reclaim, and to argue with each other, not against each other. And also to reach out and listen and comfort each other, even when we disagree. To look for our roots, and help them grow deeper. This is a very Jewish response to a very Jewish problem.

The sense of not-being-at-home-ness came to the fore when a member of our community lamented our lack of a building. Initially I answered her, as I always do to this question, that we are ‘post-building’ and that we don’t need to own a building to be a community; and also that it is financially unattainable and environmentally unsound.  By having our main services and education in a Jewish school which hums with Jewish learning and values suits us and is also good for the school. And that by having Friday nights and smaller events within people’s homes, it opens up our tradition in ways that are not possible in other settings.

But afterwards I realised that she was actually asking another question. A question about feeling unmoored, and that our sense of community can feel somewhat ephemeral when it doesn’t have physical rootedness. Being in a building that goes back generations, where you can see names from the past, and where history feels alive, it does give a greater sense of permanence and security. In an insecure world, we want our communal home to be just that - a home and sanctuary for us, somewhere where we can go and things feel more stable, and safe.

And yet, ironically our tradition counsels the opposite or at least a wariness with a longing for buildings. Think of the main symbolic structures within our ancient tradition:
- In the Torah the communal meeting place is the Ohel Moed which was just a tent, a temporary structure.
- The Sukkah - the temporary booth that the Israelites dwell in is a flimsy structure that does not stand for more than 8 days at a time.
- And not least, the two Temples that were built as a central space for communal meeting, and as a place providing relief and sanctuary from the traumas of life and a counterweight to unpredictability in our world.

The Temples are particularly interesting because they were built once the Israelites reached the ancient land of Israel in a way that ran counter to the more temporary and transitional years beforehand.  It was a period that brought a sense of permanence through sturdy structures of stone. In fact the first temple stood for around 400 years and the second for nearly 600 years.  And yet, their importance for the past 2,000 years has been in their absence, the description and dreaming of them as a past memory and practice, but not their actuality.

Their importance has coloured our traditions, teaching us about fragility and impermanence. We remember the destruction of that previous way of life even in our most happiest times, with the crushing of a glass at a wedding ceremony, and how we are taught to leave a small part of our homes unfinished, a corner not plastered, or pipework exposed, as ‘zecher lchurban’ - remembering the destruction - acts as our perpetual reminder that nothing lasts forever. Rabbinic tradition did not seek to build cathedrals and consecrate them. Our buildings are not holy in themselves, but through the people and the scrolls who temporarily reside within them. As Abraham Joshua Heschel reminded us we focus on ‘cathedrals in time rather than space, of holy time rather than holy spaces’ as how we live our Judaism.

And yet of course we long for stability and security, for feeling at home. I’ve found the wisdom of my teacher and Rabbi Sheila Shulman z’’l helpful when thinking about this sense of feeling unmoored. She pointed to an idea from a book by the writer Ursula Le Guin, aptly named ‘The Dispossessed’;  ‘“You can go home again…so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been”.
This is a thought provoking statement, for surely we go home all the time!? But what Rabbi Sheila meant by it, I think, was that our idea of Home with a capital H is a construct in our minds. 

The static fantasy of Home is just that, a fantasy, because as we know the one constant is that things always change. People grow up and grow old, we move out and move on, the family home gets downsized or disappears altogether, we buy and build new homes, we paint and we organise, we sort out and (reluctantly) clear out. And so too we might see our feelings of at homeness within wider society and culture, acknowledging that it will always be changing and challenging.

Just as family life is full of love and conflict, of broyges and simchas, of pain and fear, and of feeling included and excluded, so too is being part of the country around us. Not to diminish the pain, fear and anger we have lived through. But also not to romantise what we remember as coming before.

But Sheila didn’t just use this quote to diagnose the pain of home and not-being-at-homeness. She also had an answer, she said that it's in the action of belonging that we create home; “When the community was shattered we learned new ways to make community. When the physical heart of our world was destroyed we found the heart of our world not in a place but in people gathered together, anywhere, around the book that told our story”.

It’s not the building or even the place that has sustained us, but the ones we come together with, we sit, dance, eat, pray, discuss with. ‘Home’ is a space shared with others, in all its beauty and frustration. 

The world is a mess, but rather than despairing and getting lost in the woods, we walk together, as the story from earlier in the service reminds us (see story below). There is no one answer or masterful idea that will help solve what is a complicated, infuriating, and at times despairing time to live in. But as Adrienne Rich quipped ‘If not with others, how?’

We are all seeking comfort, we are all seeking a sense of home in these hardened times. At times we will all be lost in the woods. 

Whom will you be walking with this year?

Rabbi Chayyim of Tzanz told this parable:
A man had been lost in a deep, dense forest for several days, unable to find his way out. He was exhausted, terrified, and running out of hope. Suddenly, he saw another person walking toward him through the trees. Overjoyed, the traveler ran up to him and cried out, "Thank heaven! Please, friend, tell me—how do I get out of this forest? I’ve been wandering for several days and I am unable to find my way out".
Said the other to him "Friend, I do not know the way out either, I, too, have been lost in these woods for days."

Seeing the first man's face drop in complete despair, the second traveler quickly added, "But do not lose hope. There is one crucial thing I can share with you: Do not go the way I have gone, for I know that is not the way. Now come, let us search for the way out together’.  Rabbi Chayyim added, ‘So it is with us, The one thing that each of us knows is that the way we have been going until now is not the way. Now come, let us join hands and look for the way together’.