The new chief rabbi of Britain, Ephraim
Mirvis, will make it a priority to rejuvenate the institution of the
synagogue, he said Sunday.
“Traditionally,
many synagogues have been just houses of communal prayer. Through my
chief rabbinate, we will transform… houses of prayer into powerhouses of
Jewish cultural, social, religious and educational excellence,” he
said. “The key to achieving this will rest with our rabbis.”
Rabbi Mirvis was speaking at his installation
ceremony in central London, which was attended by 1,400 people including
Charles, the Prince of Wales; Opposition leader Ed Miliband; Israeli
ambassador Daniel Taub; and the outgoing chief rabbi, Lord Sacks.
This is the first time Mirvis has set out his
agenda for office in any detail, and his focus on the internal
challenges of the community seemed to mark a departure from the past.
While Lord Sacks, in his own inaugural address exactly 22 years ago to
the day, called for a communal “decade of renewal,” in recent years he
has been strongly identified with outreach to the non-Jewish world.
Mirvis, who is only Britain’s 11th chief rabbi
since 1704, has a successful track record as a community rabbi, and
many hope that he will replicate his local triumphs nationally.
As he
noted in his address, according to the 2011 census, 26 percent of Jews
in the country do not belong to a synagogue.
Amongst those who do, 55% belong to centrist
Orthodox shuls such as those run by the United Synagogue, the
organization Mirvis heads as chief rabbi, but this is down from 66% in
1990.
Born in South Africa in 1956, Mirvis studied
at the Israeli Kerem BeYavne and Har Etzion yeshivahs and was ordained
by Machon Ariel in Jerusalem in 1980.
After a stint as chief rabbi of
Ireland between 1984 and 1992, he headed the prestigious Western Marble
Arch synagogue in central London — a position previously held by Lord
Sacks — and in 1996, joined Finchley United Synagogue (known as
Kinloss), where he was rabbi until earlier this year.
The synagogue, which was floundering on his
arrival, is now considered a flagship community with many young members.
Mirvis put a particular emphasis on education; founding and directing
the popular Kinloss Learning Centre; and supporting the establishment of
a new Jewish primary school, Morasha.
In his inauguration he challenged Anglo-Jewry
to become “a learning community,” vowed to empower his rabbis, and
called on local Jews to show a stronger commitment to caring for the
weak and to engage in Tikkun Olam, or healing the world — a concept more
commonly associated with the non-Orthodox movements.
Together, they will form the three pillars of his chief rabbinate: education, community development, and social responsibility.
Despite the strong emphasis on internal
affairs, Mirvis was not isolationist, expressing concern over the
hostilities in Syria and the “terrible atrocities” taking place and
calling for a “swift end” to the fighting.
He said that “our
responsibilities as Jews do not stop with our own community” and said he
would be “passionately involved” in building on “the strong
relationships we have with other faith communities in this country.”
There was a strong showing of clerics from
other religions at the two-hour ceremony, including the leader of the
Roman Catholic church in Britain; the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent
Nichols; Nigel Stock, Bishop at Lambeth, representing the Archbishop of
Canterbury; and Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a senior member of the Muslim
Council of Britain.
Sacks said that Mirvis was “the right man in the right job at the right time,” and urged him to retain a universal vision.
“I have always believed, and acted on that
belief, that Judaism is not just for Jews but for the world,” he said,
adding that “ours is an age of religious extremism, and religious
extremism is always driven by fear: fear of change, fear of loss, fear
of a world beyond our control. And it is our task as Jews to say: Faith
is not fear. Faith is the antidote to fear… Be a voice, Rabbi Mirvis, of
tolerance, gentleness, and generosity of spirit.”
After blessing Mirvis with an induction
prayer, the two embraced and Lord Sacks escorted him to the chief
rabbi’s seat, which he himself had occupied minutes earlier.
While many in the community expect Lord Sacks
to retain a high national and international profile, continuing to
publish, broadcast, teach and attend the House of Lords, he was blunt
that this was a change of the guard.
Noting that St John’s Wood Synagogue, where
the installation took place, was just a few yards away from Abbey Road —
where The Beatles recorded many of their hits — he said he was going to
paraphrase the words of “one of their best songs, which is one of my
favorites: ‘You say hello, and I say goodbye.’”
God, however, was a little slower to catch up.
Following the ceremony, Sacks’ beloved soccer team Arsenal played
Mirvis’s Tottenham Hotspurs. Despite the fact that Mirvis – who said he
was the first chief rabbi “to enter office in the digital age” – tweeted
his good wishes to his own team, pointedly including @rabbisacks in his
tweet, Spurs lost 1:0.