Where were you when you heard the news?: Ha’azinu [5786] GKW Serm 6

Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber
Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue
Saturday 4 October 2025

1. ‘Where were you when you heard the news?’ – it’s what we always ask each other after learning of something particularly momentous. Where were you when you heard about the Queen’s death, where were you when you heard about 7/7, where were you when you heard about 9/11?
2. But the news of the Manchester attacks was different for British Jews. We were all in the same place when we heard the news. We were here. Or at the Reform shul. Or at New Church Road shul. Or in any of the hundreds of other synagogues across the country. We were all together when we heard the news – and the news was about people doing precisely the same thing we were doing.
3. We all rely on synagogues as safe spaces. Throughout human history, places of worship have been places of sanctuary, of insulation from the horrors of the outside world. They should be oases in the desert of a difficult society.
4. Even leaving aside the horrific murder of two of their members, the sense of desecration from which the congregation at Heaton Park must be reeling, is impossible for us to comprehend. That building, the one where generations of the same families have prayed together, laughed together, wept together – marked bar mitzvahs and marriages, births and funerals – has, in a period of just minutes, become forever contaminated.
5. For non-Jews following the press coverage on Thursday, I suspect the most bizarre part of the story will have been that the shul continued its Yom Kippur services. 9:31am, terrorist arrives. 9:38am, terrorist shot. 10:30am, turn to page 212 for the Torah reading.
6. For us, though, I think this makes perfect sense and feels utterly natural. When I heard the news here at BHPS – when one of our trustees passed me her ’phone to show me the emergency alert she’d received from the Community Security Trust – it never even crossed my mind that we should call off the rest of the day. If anything, the fact that such ghastly news came at the start of a day we had all pre-planned to spend here, together, was a blessing. Because what do Jews do in times of crisis, in times of trauma? We gather and we turn to our ancient rituals, the same rituals that sustained our ancestors.
7. And the same spirit of ‘keep calm and carry on’ which steadied the nerves of our sisters and brothers in Manchester, must continue to animate us here in Brighton. Our synagogue will be a safe space. Our synagogue is a safe space. We are absolutely not scattering. Covid made us stay at home, but no pesky terrorist can terrorise us. We’re stronger than that and better than that. We were here on Thursday. We were here last night. We’re here this morning. And we’ll be here on Monday and Tuesday for Sukkot.
8. Of course, this morning we aren’t on our own. We are so grateful to be joined by friends from across the city, in particular Councillor Sankey, leader of the council; Sabri Ben Ameur, the chair of the Muslim Forum; and Stuart Diamond from Brighton and Hove Faith in Action. Last night we were joined by the Vice-Chancellor of Sussex University and the vicar of St Nicholas’s church. The police have been frequent visitors since Thursday. Our email accounts and our physical letterbox have been overflowing with notes from well-wishers, both partners we’ve worked with before, and neighbours and other ‘random’ Brightonians who felt moved to offer us support at this time.
9. Ultimately, that is the way through a crisis like this. Togetherness as a Jewish community got us through Yom Kippur. Togetherness as a wider local community will get us through the coming days, weeks and months.
10. This morning, we read from the Torah about how Moses sang his final song באזני העם, into the ears of the people.¹ He didn’t just sing it: he sang it into their ears. Ayelet ha-Shachar, a modern Torah commentary,² explains that this is a reference to just how forcefully he sang: he pressed the words into their ears, he made sure that the words penetrated. There was no danger of anyone failing to hear, and internalise, what Moses had to say.
11. That is our task now. That’s the way we have to be. We must pray for peace not only in muttered Hebrew in this room but express our determination that there will be peace loudly, באזני העם, into the ears of everyone who we can impel to listen. We must express our love of the other, of the stranger, of our migrant and asylum seeker and Muslim neighbours, ever more loudly and ever more confidently, not merely quietly and casually amongst our personal acquaintances. As Dame Sarah Mullally, the next Archbishop of Canterbury, has said: “[D]oing what is right is not always earth shattering. Doing what is right is often doing little things with kindness, courtesy, generosity and gentleness […W]e need to keep working for the good of all, but especially for the person who is right in front of us.”³
12. So, when one of your friends or colleagues inevitably asks you where you were when you heard the news, you tell them: together. We were together. We are together. Young and old, religious and secular, Jew and non-Jew.
13. We pray for healing for the injured. We pray for solace for the families of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, z”l. We pray that those who witnessed such traumatic events will find comfort.
14. But, actually, we know that these prayers aren’t necessary. We don’t need God to swoop down and fix everything like some sort of deus ex machina. We can do this. We’ve got this. So long as we each go overboard in our efforts to impress a message of tolerance and togetherness into the ears of all who we encounter, באזני העם, our prayers will come true. כן יהי רצון, may this be God’s will.

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Shavua tov!

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Notes

1. Deuteronomy 32:44 ↩︎
2. Ad loc. ↩︎
3. Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, “Sermon preached at the OBE service of dedication“, St Paul’s Cathedral (17 May 2024). ↩︎