Good Morning.
The Government recently published its draft Bill to ban abusive conversion practices that aim to change someone sexual orientation or trans gender identity. Parliament will debate the detail, as it should. Laws matter. They define the standards by which we choose to live together and, at their best, they protect those who have too often been left vulnerable.
Just a few days later, I found myself walking through central London at Pride as one of the Co-Leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism. It was the first time our new Movement had marched together, and the first visible Jewish presence in the parade since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
The new law and Pride belong together. One asks what a society will protect, the other asks what kind of society we hope to become.
After the parade, someone sent me a message. They wrote that, growing up as a gay Jew, they could never have imagined their rabbis marching at Pride. They said seeing rabbis there would make it easier for people to believe they don’t have to choose between their faith and who they are.
I’ve carried those words with me all week.
As a student at rabbinic college, I had the privilege of being taught by Rabbi Lionel Blue, whose warm, wise voice became so familiar to generations of Radio 4 listeners through Thought for the Day. He was the first openly gay British rabbi. Long before inclusion became part of our public vocabulary, Lionel simply lived his life with humour, honesty and deep faith. In doing so, he quietly expanded people’s imagination of who could speak with religious authority.
Perhaps that is how change really happens.
Laws matter because they protect people from harm. They draw a line around what a society will no longer tolerate. But communities have a different responsibility.
The law tells us what is unacceptable.
Communities show us what is possible.
The Torah repeatedly tells us to “walk” in God’s ways. Faith is not simply about believing the right things. It is about choosing where we stand and alongside whom we walk.
That may be why Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, after marching for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, that he felt as though he was “praying with my feet.”
Sometimes our feet say something our words cannot.
Perhaps somewhere on the streets of London last Saturday, someone looked up and saw something they had never imagined before: rabbis walking at Pride, openly and joyfully.
If so, then perhaps they also caught a glimpse of something else.
That while the law can protect us from harm, a community, at its best, can help us imagine a future in which we truly belong.
USA