Delphine Horvilleur, rabbi: 'After October 7, it took me time to speak about the suffering of innocent Palestinians'

YANN LEGENDRE Looking in the rearview mirror. That was the exercise Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur set herself for her latest book, Sermons sous les décombres ("Sermons Among the Ruins"). The book brings together the speeches she delivered at her synagogue, from the eve of the October 7, 2023 massacres in Israel to the liberation, in October 2025, of the last Israeli hostages held in Gaza. This critical rereading of her own texts led her to question the "collapse of words" and its harmful consequences in our societies.

Why did you choose to call the speeches you gave at the Beaugrenelle synagogue in Paris "sermons," a term that refers to the Christian tradition? Who do you want to sermonize? Choosing the title for this book was a real dilemma. At first, I wanted to call it "Angle mort" ("Blind Spot"), because I intended to explore my own blind spots and those of the world around us. The term "sermon" does not exist in the Jewish tradition: When a rabbi addresses their community, they give what is called "words of Torah" ( dvar Torah ).

Looking for the closest equivalent, I used the word "sermon" for lack of a better option. In reality, a rabbi is never supposed to lecture their congregation; their role is to offer a journey through the text, encouraging a dialogue between the text and the times we are living through. You have 92.7% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.