Va'era Sermon

Rabbi Miriam's sermon - delivered Shabbat morning on 17th January 2026.

Shabbat shalom all. 

It is very special to welcome my friend, the Reverend Tom Mumford from Ipswich Minster, soon to be Chaplain to support the Bishop of Selby. Rev. Tom will address us at the end of shul, so I’m going to say something brief today. 

And the opportunity is too good not to start with a joke about a priest and a rabbi. 

A rabbi and a priest are the only passengers on a plane, along with the pilot. On this plane are only 2 emergency parachutes. Suddenly, the engines go out. Immediately, the pilot grabs the nearest parachute and jumps out.

Panicked, the priest asks the rabbi, "which of us should take the last parachute?"

Reaching under his seat and pulling out a hidden parachute, the rabbi answers, "Don't worry, the pilot took my tallis bag."

A question that both Rev Tom and I, along with many of you will have asked, possibly the biggest question to a religious person, is “how do we know God”. Other than, of course, jumping out the plane with a tallis bag rather than a parachute.  

In the Shema each day we say the words “you shall love the Lord your God”. But I’ve always wondered: how can we love such an utte

rly mysterious, unknowable being? How can you love what you don’t know? How can we know God? 

Now the phrase for knowledge of God, crops up repeatedly in this week’s sedra, at least five times, by my count: 

בְּזֹאת תֵּדַע כִּי אֲנִי יְהֹוָה - by this will you know that I am Hashem

בַּעֲבוּר תֵּדַע כִּי אֵין כָּמֹנִי בְּכל־הָאָרֶץ -  in order that you may know that there is none like Me in all the world.

לְמַעַן תֵּדַע כִּי לַיהֹוָה הָאָרֶץ - so that you may know that the earth is יהוה’s.

The ten plagues, shocking as they were, had a purpose. For God to be known by a Pharoah who said in last week’s parasha “I don’t know this God”. 

As far as the Egyptians were concerned, Pharoah was God. There’s a delightful midrash that the reason Moshe and Aaron so often approach Pharoah early in the morning, is because this was when he would secretly go to the Nile to relieve himself. The rest of the day he would pretend to be a God who had no bodily needs. 

So couldn’t God have magic carpeted the Israelites out of Egypt? Yes, but the plagues were necessary for God to be known. And in three directions: By Pharoah and the Egyptians. By the Israelites, who themselves had forgotten God, forgotten who they were in slavery. And third: by the wider world. This was to be a paradigm shifting moment in history, from a world of idolatry to a world of monotheism.

So what about today, when we cannot know God through big, public miracles? Knowledge of God is harder today, but I believe we glimpse more of God through our fellow people of faith. 

There is an ancient metaphor for our grasping for truth - that we are all like blindfolded people around an elephant. One feels the leg and says “this is clearly a tree”. One feels the tail and says “this is a rope”. One feels the trunk and says “no, no you’re both wrong, it’s a snake”. 

We believe fully in the truth of our faith, but we also have the humility to see it as part of a much huger truth, which only God can see in full. As Rabbi Sacks z”l said in his Dignity of Difference (censored out in the second edition but said proudly here):

“God is universal, religions are particular… In the course of history, God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims” 

This is part of why we welcome Rev Tom so warmly today. We thank him for his friendship and support. We look forward to his words shortly and we invite everyone to learn some parasha with us this afternoon at my home. Thank you Tom for letting us glimpse a little more of God through your eyes and your faith.

Shabbat shalom