We started on a Friday evening with drinks and then a musical Kabbalat Shabbat service before dinner. This was a weekend where we didn't need to bring our own Siddur Lev Chadash as the service was projected onto two large screens, which reminded me of how we do our 'Shabbat Showtime' and Purim melodies. The service included tunes new to some, familiar to others, but everyone joined in and the beautiful sounds filled the room. Dinner was an opportunity to greet new people and start to become acquainted with characters you'd recognise all weekend long. The Jewish community being as it is, you were never far away from someone you knew through friends, family, colleagues, once, twice or three times removed!
For me the Shabbat morning service was key. My fellow Ba'alei Tefillah colleagues took the core of the main service, with satellite options running concurrently in adjoining rooms which depicted Shabbat observance over the millennia. My aforementioned colleagues and I were given our certificates of Graduation of the course by Rabbi Danny Rich and LJ Chair Simon Benscher at the end of the morning service.
The rest of the weekend programme then began in earnest. After a keynote discussion between author Cole Moreton and Rabbi David Goldberg where the key takeaway emerged that in the UK there are 12 million adults who believe in God but hold no religious affiliation at all. I.E. in the census they declared no religion, belong to no religious institution, but could be searching for a spiritual solution.
We started our journey through the weekend's selection of workshops. There were to be four sessions across Saturday and Sunday with a choice of up to 13 subject choices each time. They ranged from discussions on Brexit, Israel, female Rabbis, to study on liturgy, Talmud, through to food, music and fashion.
The theme of the weekend was 'Thinking outside the book.' LJ is considering republishing our Siddur, and many workshops were looking on how we can influence the way the new Siddur is laid out, its content, the language (not only translitera8on, and gender-equal, but actually considering how we should address the ‘eternal one’ - a whole session on itself that I attended was very enlightening), the imagery, the format (even if it should be left-right, or right-
left) etc. The Saturday night dinner was followed by some humorous in-house entertainment, some video messages from previous students of the Leo Baeck College as it celebrates its 70th year graduating Rabbis. This included a message from our own Rabbi Yuval Keren, so he was with us, if not in person! We were then entertained by Jewish comedy-singer Daniel Cainer, whose rendition of ‘Bad Rabbi’ nearly brought the house down! Not to be forgotten, during the Saturday dinner the LJ Chair Awards were presented by the Rich/Benscher combination. These awards are given to hard-working long-standing members of the LJ communities and, as the title suggests, it is the Chair of each community that nominates the recipients. Unbeknown to her, our Jane Greenfield was a winner and she was delighted to accept the certificate.
Jane’s contribution to the organizing of this and previous Biennials was marked too at the closing ceremony where, with Josie Kinchen of Finchley Progressive Synagogue, she was presented with a gift.
The whole weekend seemed to pass in a flash. It was a shame that we were only 4 from SPS as there was so much going on. There was literally something for everyone, or hotel spa/gym facilities if you wanted to find some personal time too. Next year there is a single day – LJ’s Day of Celebration at Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue, 11th June – so hopefully a bigger SPS contingent will go. I for one will definitely be there and at the 2018 Biennial – please join me.
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