Crowdsourcing Sermons

Crowdsourcing August 1 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The
clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your
responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the August 1 sermon topic: “When have you experienced a connection to Israel (the land, the people, the state) that surprised you? Describe the moment.”

Standing With Israel

israel stand with

Rodeph Shalom congregants joined pro-Israel supporters Wednesday for an Israel solidarity rally.

The rally was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. There were speeches from Elad Strohmayer, Israel’s deputy consul general to the mid-Atlantic region; state Sen. Anthony Williams; Federation President Sherrie Savett and CEO Naomi Adler; Josh Shapiro, chairman of the Montgomery County Commission; and Risa Vetri Ferman, Montgomery County’s district attorney.

From the Jewish Exponent: “The crowd brought together a diverse group of pro-Israel supporters from across the region, including some non-Jewish advocates. A mix of Orthodox and non-Orthodox, young and old waved Israeli flags and holding signs that said “We Stand With Israel” and “What if rockets targeted your city all year long?” 

Crowd Source Sermon Topic

Crowdsourcing July 25 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The
clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your
responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to July 25 sermon topic: “Technology itself is neither good nor bad, it is how we use it. How has technology helped to connect you to others and/or how has technology separated you from others?”

The Reform Movement Stands With Israel

From Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President URJ

These have been heavy, heady days. With the escalation of violence in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have launched Operation Protective Edge, calling up IDF reservists for active duty and amassing troops along the Gaza border. Israel has already had to deploy the Iron Dome.

A number of our Reform Jewish summer programs are on the ground in Israel, including NFTY-EIE, Kesher Taglit-Birthright, Mitzvah Corps, and congregational trips. We have been in constant contact with group leaders and with participants’ families and will continue to closely monitor the situation. At this time, everyone is safe and – Adonai yishmor tzeitam u’vo’am – may God protect their comings and goings.

As I write to you, Israel prepared for another night of rocket fire from Gaza. Residents of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, Ra’anana, and so many other cities will be keeping close to bomb shelters this Shabbat. Sirens are expected to continue to blast warnings as Hamas continues to launch hundreds of rockets at targets in the Negev and throughout the center of Israel. Daily life in Israel will continue to be uprooted.

This is our time to come together as a community to show our solidarity with the people of Israel and the IDF. In the coming days, we will share with you information about the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism and the Israel Religious Action Center’s joint campaign to end racist rhetoric, as well as efforts to provide humanitarian aid to our congregations in Israel.

But we can help now.

As we did two years ago, the Reform Movement has joined in partnership with the Conservative Movement and Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to raise and distribute funds to provide emergency aid and alleviate the pain and suffering of our Israeli brothers and sisters. We can’t stop the rockets or silence the sirens – but we can try to soften their impact on the lives of the children and families living under their blare. Please visit JewishFederations.org/StoptheSirens to join this community-wide effort.

This Shabbat, as we keep Israel in our hearts and in our minds, let us say together these words: “Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleynu, v’al kol Yisrael v’al kol Yoshvei Teiveil ve’imru amen, may the One who makes peace in the high heaves make peace for us, all Israel, and all who inhabit the earth.” Amen.

At times such as these, we feel especially connected to our people in Israel and worldwide. I hope you will join me in contributing to this critical joint effort.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rick Jacobs Signature
Rabbi Rick Jacobs

Crowdsourcing Shabbat Sermons

Crowdsourcing July 18 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The
clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your
responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the question for Friday July 18: “What song or piece of music (secular or religious) makes you think differently or think deeply?”

Three Kidnapped Israeli Boys Found Dead Outside Hebron

‘A Voice Says: Cry Out! And I Say:
What Shall I Cry?’ (Isaiah 40:6)

With the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped and murdered students, Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach, we are left numb. Grief, anger, sadness, disappointment and hopelessness have all converged in our hearts and souls.

We, their extended family in the House of Israel, mourn their loss.

How filled with anger we are at the realization that these tragic deaths came at the hands of those who would do anything to impede the forces of peace. The murderers’ hands are bloodied, not just with the blood of these innocent young men, but with the shattered hopes of those in Israel and the Palestinian community who wish only for peace to reign throughout the land.

The World Union for Progressive Judaism joins all of Israel and those who seek peace within her borders and with her neighbors, in offering prayers of comfort to the grieving families of Gilad, Naftali and Eyal.

We vow to continue to support the efforts of all those who are working for peace.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that we have been called upon to bring comfort:
נחמו נחמו עמי
“Comfort My people, Comfort them.” (Isaiah 40:1)
And so, we hold the memories of these three young men in our warm embrace, and resolve that we will not allow the terrorists to achieve their goal of destroying the dream that will, speedily and soon, lead to peace in the land.

Rabbi Daniel H Freelander                               Michael Grabiner
President-Elect                                                    Chairman

LANGUAGE ANDCHITECTURE – Our New Inscription

written by Michael Hauptman

Language and Architecture – two of humankind’s most creative expressions – when combined as an inscription on a building, provide a window into the minds and souls of the people who built it more clearly than either can do on its own.  The specific passage, the font selection, the placement of the words on the building and, most importantly, the permanence of those words convey a message over decades — and even centuries — that the architecture by itself cannot fully achieve.

Inscriptions have been carved into buildings for millennia.  The Romans memorialized events and glorified leaders who otherwise may have been forgotten by history despite the endurance of their ruins.  In the modern era, the Beaux Arts architects of the Guilded Age understood how romanticized verbal expression chiseled into their designs could elevate the monumentality of their architecture.  Who isn’t moved by the quote on New York’s imposing post office that raises the ordinary postal worker to the level of national hero? The block-long Corinthian colonnade can’t tell that story by itself.  Art Deco architecture of the Twenties and Thirties incorporated stylized words along with sculpture and painting as design elements evocative of events of their time.  Our own 1928 façade quotes Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples“ an inscription found over the doors of many synagogues. Perhaps it was meant to send a welcoming message that our architecture did not.

Our new addition gives us an opportunity to put on a fresh face.  The design was meant to be more transparent, more vibrant and more part of our community.  The architecture will speak to who were are now as a congregation and how we have evolved over the past 85 years from an insular community to an outward-looking center for Jewish life in Philadelphia.  When a congregant recently suggested that we include an inscription on our new Broad Street façade, the idea was embraced as an opportunity not only to express our ideals beyond what our building says about us, but to engage the congregation in an exercise that teaches us something about Judaism and about ourselves.

Rabbi Maderer led an inclusive process that solicited suggestions from the congregation through articles in the Bulletin and on the RS website. The resulting list was vetted by the other members of the clergy and then was opened to lively discussions in a Torah Study format that encouraged participation by all who wanted to weigh in.  Some of the choices, as one would expect, were controversial, and after much fascinating debate and one round of going back to the drawing board, a favorite emerged which was unanimously approved by the officers.

When our new addition is completed next spring, the few simple words from Pirke Avot will grace the Broad Street façade: Ohev shalom v’rodeph shalom – Love peace and pursue it. 

Not only does it include our name (with a nod to Beth Avahah), but it provides a glimpse into our values as a community.  It will, for as long as our building stands, tell those who pass by what was meaningful to this congregation. And it will allow our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hear the voice of the people who built their synagogue, all the way from the beginning of the 21st century.

What’s A Jewish Comic Strip

Edge City Comics

Terry & Patty LaBan will talk about their comic strip, Edge City, on Sunday, December 15th from 10:15-11:15 AM at Rodeph Shalom
Edge City is a ground-breaking comic strip about a hip, Jewish-American family juggling relationships, careers, and tradition at the fast-pace of modern life. During our Sunday Seminar, Terry and Patty LaBan will talk about their characters, the history of their comic and how they create it. They will emphasize the Jewish content of the strip, their intent behind it, how to present it, and how it fits in the pop culture continuum. Edge City has been running in the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as other papers, for 12 years.