The parashah begins with an account of the sacrificial system and alerts the reader to a striking idea:
“אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ — the fire on the altar should always be burning; it must never be extinguished.”
The Rebbe Nachman of Breslov understands this as more than just a practical instruction. It is a metaphor for the Jewish soul’s resilience and passion for life—a fire that cannot and will not be put out. It represents a deep longing, and an unrelenting drive within the soul to keep going, despite the adversaries and challenges in its path.
The Torah this week focuses on that positive flame—an everlasting light that strives constantly, a beacon in dark places.
But this week, other flames have captured our thoughts, our minds, and our lives.
Elsewhere in the Torah, fire appears very differently—not as something sacred and sustaining, but as something destructive. When a fire spreads and causes damage, the person who lit it bears responsibility. Fire can build—but it can also destroy.
And in the early hours of Monday morning, the arson attack on the Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green shook us to the core.
I know many of us have been experiencing intense feelings in response to these recent—and increasingly alarming—acts of hatred, antisemitism, and violence. I want to take a few moments to reflect, together, on what we experienced this week, and on our reactions.
Firstly, there is deep sadness and shock—that people living near us would wish us harm, and act in violent and terrorising ways. This is a painful reality. Many of us are feeling it deeply, and we are still coming to terms with what it means to live with this resurgence of antisemitism so close to home.
Secondly, alongside that sadness, there is also a sense—difficult as it is to admit—that it is not entirely surprising.
For years, the community has been grappling with where the lines are drawn—between freedom of speech and extremist rhetoric, between legitimate protest and language that intimidates and incites. That is part of the problem- a normalisation of extremism and hate speech which shifted overnight.
After October 2023, I remember many conversations with college heads, vice-chancellors, and senior university officials in Oxford. In those conversations, I warned about the spread of extremist discourse and the distress it causes. We tried to explain what certain words mean to Jewish people.
We told them what “intifada” means—not as a slogan, but as lived experience.
And I shared what it meant to me personally.
- About my friend Marla, who was blown up in a university café.
- About Devora Gila, a pregnant woman waiting for a bus, stabbed in the stomach.
- About standing in Jerusalem and feeling the ground shake as the number 18 bus exploded.
Those sounds, those sights—they do not disappear.
So when Jewish people hear calls for “intifada” here in the UK, we understand very clearly what is being invoked. This is not a catch phrase to the Taylor Swift song “shake it off.” It carries with it something far more nefarious, far more violent, and deeply personal.
Being within the university system in Oxford which was a microcosm of society, Tracey and I could also see how these ideas spread. External groups would introduce slogans and narratives, which were then adopted by student societies, and quickly became part of mainstream student political discourse. The speed of that dissemination is striking—and deeply concerning.
And that brings me to another reaction many of us are feeling: anger, frustration, and a sense of dissatisfaction—with the government, with the police, with institutions act in time.
Too often, responsibility falls into jurisdictional gaps. Universities say it is a police matter. The police say it is a legislative issue. And governments struggle to define and legislate around extremist language.
The result is that the debate goes round in circles—trying to balance the civil liberty offreedom of speech, open dialogue, hate speech, extremism, and incitement to violence.
And while those debates remain unresolved:
- the discourse spreads,
- the extremism grows,
- the distrust of the “other” deepens,
- and we, the Jewish community, become one of the recipients of that rising hatred.
That is what makes this week’s arson attack even more painful—the sense that perhaps such things are not inevitable. That maybe, just maybe could have been prevented.
Of course, the “what ifs” of life are unknowable. We cannot live in that space for long. Instead, I try to focus on what is known—and on what we can control.
And that brings me back to the אש תמיד—the fire that must never go out. This is what I am taking home from the Parsha today and every day. Let us not loiter in the place of anger and frustration but let us rise higher in doing something positive.
Because the אש תמיד fire is not rooted in anger or frustration. It is rooted in positivity, direction, and resilience.
Our response to arson, to hatred, to the ugliness we have seen, must also include a spiritual response:
- to keep living,
- to keep growing,
- to keep doing more Jewishly.
To continue our path of observance, identity, and community with strength and confidence.
At our induction, Tracey spoke about two different narratives:
- “We will dance again,” and
- “We never actually stopped dancing.”
Those words feel just as true now as they did then.
Our task is not to cower or to hide, but to stand proud in who we are, and in what we stand for. To keep that inner fire burning—not just as survival, but as a statement of who we are.
That is our אש תמיד.