Keep the Fire Burning

Rabbi Lea Mühlstein explores the significance of Shabbat HaGadol, the day before Pesach, in the face of uncertainty and tragedy. She draws on Parashat Tzav to discuss the importance of maintaining hope and living fully, even when the world seems broken. The sermon emphasizes the need to build a vibrant, joyful Judaism that matters to young people.

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What is Kolot: Voices from The Ark Synagogue?

Welcome to Kolot, the podcast of The Ark Synagogue, a bold, experiential and caring Progressive Jewish community in Northwood, London.

Through sermons, reflections and conversations from across our community, Kolot explores Jewish life, learning and values in the world we live in today. Rooted in tradition and open to new perspectives, these episodes bring together voices that inspire thought, connection and belonging.

Whether you are Jewish, exploring Judaism, or simply looking for meaningful reflection, you are warmly welcome.

To learn more about The Ark Synagogue, visit arksynagogue.org.

This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol. The Shabbat that precedes Pesach and traditionally seen as the Shabbat of promise, of redemption, of the possibility that the world can be different.

And yet we come here today carrying so much. On Thursday, we buried a 19-year-old from our community. And we are still holding that loss. And alongside that grief, this week has reminded us again of the vulnerability of Jewish life: an antisemitic arson attack in London, our twin communities—in Israel, in Ukraine—living under the constant threat of rockets and drones.

The words we received from Lviv after this week’s terrible drone attacks echo in the heart: “There are no ‘safe places,’ so to speak… It is pure barbarism.” And perhaps most haunting in Sashele’s description of what the community faces, not only the destruction, but the memory of what once was: music in the courtyard, klezmer melodies rising where now there is fear.

This is the world we are living in. And so, we stand here with a question that is as old as our people and as urgent as this very moment: how do we live in a world like this?

Parashat Tzav speaks about the olah, the offering that burns continually upon the altar. As we read this morning from the Torah: Esh tamid tukad al hamizbeach, lo tichbeh, a perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar; it must not go out.

The Torah insists on something that feels almost unreasonable: keep the fire burning. Even when it would be easier to let it go out. Even when the world gives you every reason to despair.

This week has reminded us how fragile life is, how little control we truly have over how much time we are given. And that truth can lead us in two very different directions. It can lead us to fear, or it can lead us to urgency: to a deeper, fiercer commitment to living.

In a Yom Kippur sermon I gave a number of years ago, I reflected on what it means to be part of the Jewish people:

“To be a Jew is to be part of a community of destiny… a community in which we share our happiness and it becomes greater; our troubles, and they become smaller.”

This week, we have lived that truth. We have shown up for one another—quietly, gently, faithfully. And that is not a small thing. That is what it means to be a community.

John Rayner taught that the Jewish people exists not for itself alone, but as “an instrument… for the creation of a better world for all humanity.” Which means that even in moments like this—especially in moments like this—our task does not end. We do not withdraw. We do not give up on the world. We lean in. We build. We hope.

And that, perhaps, is the deeper meaning of Shabbat HaGadol. Let us look beyond a focus on the laws of Pesach and the do’s and don’t’s of Chametz as it the traditional task of the preacher for this Shabbat. On the eve of leaving Egypt, redemption had not yet arrived. The world was still uncertain, still dangerous. And yet the Israelites were asked to prepare for freedom—to imagine it, to believe in it, to take steps towards it even before it was visible.

So, what does it mean for us, here, now? It means this: we do not know how much time we have. So, we must live fully. We must love fully. We must not postpone joy. We must not postpone connection. We must not postpone becoming who we are called to be.

It also means we must dream big, hope big even when it feels impossible, especially when it feels impossible. Because hope is not naïve. Hope is an act of courage.

And perhaps most importantly, we must continue to build a Judaism that is alive, joyful, courageous. A Judaism that our young people want to belong to, not only in moments of grief, but in moments of joy. A Judaism that shows them that their lives matter, that their presence matters, that their future matters.

The fire on the altar must not go out—not because life is easy, but because it is not. So this Shabbat HaGadol, standing on the edge of redemption in a world that is still so broken, we say: we will live, we will hope, we will build, we will dream, and we will keep the fire burning.

We do not know how much time we are given. But we know this: each life carries a name, a story, a light. As the Israeli poet Zelda writes:

לְכָל אִישׁ יֵשׁ שֵׁם “Each of us has a name given by God and given by our parents…”.

And our task, while we are here, is to make that name a blessing—to live it fully, to fill it with love, to let it shine. And so we keep the fire burning.

Ken yehi ratzon – for such is God’s will.

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