I face a bit of a dilemma this week. Because Sukkot begins on Monday evening, I need to plan to publish this week’s post on Monday morning. I can’t honestly see myself writing it on Sunday, when I will be busy decorating the sukka, so I really need to write the post today (Friday). However, looking back, the last ten days seem like one almost unbroken string: get ready for shul, go to shul, daven in shul, come home from shul, eat, sleep, repeat, Not that I am complaining: I find the liturgy of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur profoundly moving and powerful and the traditional melodies very evocative; in addition, the sense of being unhurried in prayer is one I particularly value.

All of which means that all I could really think of to write about as I walked back and forth to shul repeatedly this week is prayer. I know that I wrote about prayer last week, and so this may seem an unwise choice. Nevertheless, because there were some things I left unsaid last week, and because I have received positive feedback, including from unexpected quarters, I decided to plunge in, and finish what I started last week.

And then we came home from shul last night, switched on our phones, and heard the news of the murderous attack on Heaton Park Shul in Manchester. I knew immediately that I could not ignore this appalling attack; I also realised how it actually led directly from what I was planning to write. So, on a day when my thoughts and prayers are with family and friends in Britain, at this critical time for Anglo-Jewry, let me share my reflections with you.

In discussions about organised religion and formalised prayer, one of the points often raised is the impossibility of a rule-based religion fitting all believers and all situations. How can a set liturgy be relevant every time we follow it? How can a liturgy written, or accrued, or hammered out centuries ago speak to the reality Jews face in 2025? (The same argument is sometimes made about the Torah. However, you don’t have to follow the weekly reading for many years to realise that it is always possible to find something in the rich text that speaks to that week’s headlines, every year anew.)

The liturgy blazed alive for me, and, I suspect, for many others, this Yamim Noraim as we read Avinu Malkeinu. This is a prayer with a very long history. The Talmud records Rabbi Akiva (died 135 CE) reciting two verses each beginning Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, Our King) in a prayer to end a drought (apparently successfully). The prayer book of Amram Gaon (9th century) had 25 verses. Mahzor Vitry (early 12th century) has more than 40 verses and added the explanation that the prayer accumulated additional verses that were added ad hoc on various occasions and thereafter retained. This evolution continued over the centuries, so that each of the traditions of Judaism currently recites its own version of the prayer. Our Polish tradition has 44 verses, each constituting an appeal to our Father, our King.

During the Ten Days of Repentance, in particular, our liturgy constantly defines our relation to God in two contrasting ways. We acknowledge Him as our Father; we allow ourselves to appeal to Him to show fatherly mercy on us, in this role. At the same time, we acknowledge Him as our King, and stress our total dependence on His being gracious to us as His loyal subjects.

The 44 verses of Avinu Malkeinu are wide-ranging, but fall into a small number of clearly-defined categories. There are those that appeal to God, at this period in the year when the fate of all living beings is signed and sealed for the coming year, to look kindly on us and inscribe us for life. Others request that the specific evils, either that others plan to visit on us or that occur naturally, be thwarted. Others appeal to God to show mercy for the sake of holy martyrs, or, if not, then for His own sake.

I want to focus on six verses near the beginning of the prayer.

אָבִֽינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ בַּטֵּל מֵעָלֵֽינוּ כָּל גְּזֵרוֹת קָשׁוֹת
אבינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ בַּטֵּל מַחְשְׁ֒בוֹת שׂוֹנְ֒אֵֽינוּ
אבינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ הָפֵר עֲצַת אוֹיְ֒בֵֽינו
אבינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ כַּלֵּה כָּל צַר וּמַשְׂטִין מֵעָלֵֽינוּ
אבינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ סְתוֹם פִּיּוֹת מַשְׂטִינֵֽנוּ וּמְ֒קַטְרִיגֵֽנוּ
אבינוּ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ כַּלֵּה דֶּֽבֶר וְחֶֽרֶב וְרָעָב וּשְׁ֒בִי וּמַשְׁחִית וְעָוֹן וּשְׁ֒מַד מִבְּ֒נֵי בְרִיתֶֽךָ

Our Father, our King! annul all harsh decrees concerning us.
Our Father, our King! annul the designs of those who hate us.
Our Father, our King! thwart the plans of our enemies.
Our Father, Our King! rid us of every oppressor and adversary.
Our Father, Our King! seal the mouths of our adversaries and accusers.
Our Father, Our King! remove pestilence, sword, famine, captivity, destruction, [the burden of] iniquity and religious persecution from the members of Your covenant.

Reciting this repeatedly over the 25 hours of Yom Kippur, I kept coming back to two observations. First, how can it be that these words were incorporated into our liturgy hundreds of years ago, and yet, if we were looking to add new verses relevant to the state of the Jewish People in Israel and in the diaspora in October 2025, in Tishrei 5786, we would quickly realise that there is no need to? These six verses reflect, with word-perfect relevance, where we find ourselves today.

The second realisation was that, having lived most of my life in what I believed was a different kind of world, I find, over the last two years, that I am in fact living in the same world as the Jews have occupied for millenia. The fifty or so years after the end of the Shoah were, for the Jews of the free world, a golden age, and that golden age is now over. You may also feel that it was never, in fact, more than an age plated in fool’s gold. Suddenly, the horrifying stories of the tortures inflicted on the leading Rabbis in medieval times do not seem like a distant memory; rather, they seem to vividly pre-echo the reality that we seem to have been plunged into on Simchat Torah two years ago.

The news of the attack in Manchester serves only to intensify that feeling. The noises coming out of Britain since yesterday morning intensify it further. You may, like some of the mainstream media, argue that it is premature to assign motive to the attacker, to which I would reply that, if his first name is Jihad, he at least seems clear about his motive.

Keir Starmer has declared to the Anglo-Jewish community that he will do “everything in my power to guarantee you the security you deserve”. This is, of course, the same Keir Starmer who has accepted without question Hamas propaganda lies about ‘starvation’ in Gaza, and has thereby tacitly supported the accusations of genocide against Israel. It is the same Keir Starmer who has threatened to arrest Israel’s prime minister as a war criminal. It is the same Keir Starmer who rewarded the butchers of October 7 by ‘recognising’ the ‘state’ of ‘Palestine’. It is the same Keir Starmer who has failed to ensure the policing of Britain’s streets, and has instead given them over to pro-Hamas demonstrators, allowing them to publicise their equating of Zionism with Judaism and thereby to globalise the intifada, viewing British Jews as complicit in Israel’s ‘war crimes’ and deserving to do for the crime of genocide.

The British Home Secretary has expressed disappointment at the pro-Palestinian marches that took place in Britain on Thursday, despite appeals from the police to cancel them, in order to free up police to increase patrols in Jewish areas. She said that the protestors “could have stepped back and just given a community that has suffered deep loss just a day or two”. She failed to state exactly how long a wait was appropriate before resuming calling for the death of all Jews.

At some point yesterday evening, I realised that, to be honest, today’s reality for the Jews is not in any way comparable to what it has been for the last two millenia. Unlike in 1492, or 1290, or 1938, or 1147, or 1903, or any one of hundreds of other dates, persecuted Jews have a home to go to, in Israel. It is, of course, true that they will not be guaranteed a life of untroubled safety here; nobody needs reminding that Israel is subject to terror attacks. However, from where I’m standing, living in a country where the government, the security forces, the local authorities, are all primarily concerned for my safety makes the Israeli experience, even in 2025, qualitatively different from the British one.

And so, I am left this morning with a question. In the middle of the night last night, a family member posted on their WhatsApp status a single word in white on a black background: Dayenu! Enough! I want to ask them what they mean by that, and I want to ask all my friends and family in England what it will take for them to accept that enough is enough – ‘Dayenu!’ – and that the place for Jews is the Jewish homeland.

The England that I grew up in, that had a national culture and ethos that I was proud to identify with, is, quite simply, no longer. It has been sacrificed on the altar of multi-culturalism, and its democratic values have been undermined by anti-democratic forces that exploit Britain’s democracy in order to impose their alien values. In the subsequent battle for the heart of Britain, either the Caliphate or the extreme right seems certain to triumph. Neither will provide a place for Jews to live a secure and meaningful life.

One last liturgical comment. In the Musaf Amida on Shabbat, we say: ‘May it be Your will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to lead us in joy back to our land, and to plant us within its borders.’

I think there are two massive messages here. The first is that we are not praying to be brought back to Israel. That is going to happen, ultimately, one way or another. What we pray is that we should come back in joy, rather than under duress. This is the choice facing the Anglo-Jewish community (indeed, facing Jewish communities throughout the diaspora) at this precise moment. The second message is the wish that God plant us within the borders of the land. The soil of Eretz Yisrael is the natural soil in which Jews can flourish. It is here, and only here, that we can be truly rooted.

Our gates, and our hearts, are open. May the diaspora join Israel in a resurgence that will populate the under-populated areas of Israel and open up the Negev, revive the economy, strengthen the military, reignite Zionist spirit, and help the country towards a national healing it so desperately needs. Come for your sakes and your children’s sakes, and come for our sakes as well. Now more than ever we need each other home, here.