Community – Page 3 – Rodeph Shalom

Our Concealed Shortcomings: On Bias and Race

delivered by Rabbi Jill Maderer, Yom Kippur, Congregation Rodeph Shalom

A story I love, from Rabbi Nachman of Brazslav. A young woman visits her family and shares that she has become a master in the art of menorah making. She asks her parents to invite all of the other artisans in town to come see her masterpiece. So all of the finest crafters come to view the menorah. Later, the daughter asks her parents, “What did they think?” The parents reply, “We’re sorry to say, all of your fellow lamp-makers described a different flaw.” “Yes,” replies the daughter, “but that is the secret! They all say it was flawed, but what nobody realizes is this: Each sees a different part as blemished, but overlooks the mistakes that he himself would make. You see, I made the menorah in this way on purpose — replete with deficiencies — in order to demonstrate that all of us have shortcomings.

Rabbi Nachman’s parable is drawn from the Psalmist, who calls to God: “Alumenu limor panecha” (Ps 90). “You can see our concealed darkness; You can see our concealed shortcomings, in the light of Your face.” God can see our shortcomings.Continue reading

Enfranchising All Voters: This is a Sacred Action

You may have noticed that our country is in a national election season! As a religious not-for-profit institution, we are very cautious to remain distant from endorsing or opposing candidates or parties. Although we are permitted to speak about policies, in a polarizing season such as this, it is difficult to speak about the policy without speaking about the politician.

Still, we cannot and ought not entirely separate our congregational life from the process. So voter registration work is the meaningful way that Rodeph Shalom empowers participation in the peaceful transfer of power we call democracy. Judaism offers profound wisdom on what it means to take on the responsibility of voting and empowering others to vote:

Psalms teaches, “This is the generation and those who seek its welfare.” In the Talmud, the ancient sage Rabbi Judah debates that this means the character of a generation is determined by its leader. Continue reading

Two States for Two Peoples Demands Not BDS, But Empathy

This week, my 10-year old son reflected with me about a wonderful lesson in his class at Berkman Mercaz Limud (our religious school). The 4^th graders learned about the siren that was sounded throughout Israel two weeks ago for Yom HaShaoh—Holocaust Remembrance Day, and just last week for Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. He showed me the video on YouTube, where you can see Israelis driving on the highway, stop their cars, step outside, and stand quietly in memorial honor for the duration of the one-minute siren. What impressed me about the teacher’s lesson was my son’s readiness to discuss deeper concepts. He asked about the roots of hatred and why some groups live together peacefully and others do not.

I responded that the world—all of us—have work to do, and that Jews like every other group, need to be careful to take care of our own people and also to take care of others.

Within public discourse and institutional Jewish life, too often we are asked to choose between the two principles: If you care more about taking care of our own people, here’s the right-leaning organization for you. If you care more about taking care of other groups, here’s the left-leaning organization for you. The polarization may work for some, especially those who hold extreme positions. But I believe most of us want a Jewish community who cares about and advocates, for both the interests of the Jewish people and the interests of other groups. Both, Israelis and Palestinians. Continue reading

“Then They Came for the Jews”

I have been horrified and heartbroken to hear hate speech spoken, and worse, accepted without repercussion, in so many circles of American life. From the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic “scholarship” and responses at my husband’s alma mater, Vassar College, as well as other campuses, to candidates and their followers who scapegoat people of different backgrounds from their own, our society is too slow to see that when someone else’s humanity is sacrificed, so is our own.

Amidst such failures in our world, I am heartened to discover souls who see beyond their own identity, who can lift their eyes to see the humanity in the other. I am grateful to our congregant Susan Friedenberg for introducing me to Holocaust scholar Doug Cervi, who will be our guest this Sunday, May 1, 10:30am, when he facilitates for us a conversation with a Holocaust survivor and that survivor’s liberator.

Remembering Refugees at Passover

This Passover (Passover celebration resources, here), as we celebrate our exodus from Egypt as refugees seeking freedom in a promised land, let’s also think of the refugees today escaping the horrors of war and oppression and seeking freedom in the United States. When you come to RS for services, Berkman Mercaz Limud, or the Passover 2nd Night Seder, please remember to bring donations of household goods (no clothing) to RS bins at the foot of the Klehr Stairway, for refugee families who are being resettled in Philadelphia by HIAS PA (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). Right now there is a particular need for the following items that the U.S. government requires for every immigrant household:

Manual Can Openers

Tea Kettles

Mixing Spoons

Dishwashing Liquid – new and unopened

Sponges

Tall Kitchen Trash Bags – 13 gallon

And a special request for HIAS’s after-school program for refugee children:

Oxford Picture Dictionary English-Farsi. Many of the refugee children in the after school program are children of families from Afghanistan who worked for the US government there. They speak Farsi.

Paperback “I Can Read” books Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. (They are also available at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon.com)

Breaking an Israel Filter Bubble: My Conversation with an Israeli Settler

To what degree do you feel like you live in a bubble of people who are just like you? How often do you encounter people who challenge your assumptions, stretch your understanding?

In his article, “How 26 Tweets Broke My Filter Bubble,” B.J. May writes “I live in a small town in Middle America. My closest coworkers are all men, all heterosexual, all white.

I had never given this filter bubble much thought, really. But as I increased my consumption of Twitter to better keep up on tech topics, I began to feel uneasy. There were clearly lots of diverse voices in the industry. Women talked about the wage gap, about sexism in the workplace. Black developers posted highly upsetting accounts of bias. People all over my industry were sharing stories of injustice and hatred, of unfair treatment and outright abuse.

I struggled to make sense of it all. I didn’t feel like I had experienced or seen any of these terrible things.Continue reading

Passover Resources 2016

Passover is coming! Are you looking for resources? Start to eat down your bread, get your post-it’s ready if you’re preparing a seder, and check these out! A sweet Pesach to all!

A family-oriented Haggadah, “Now We Are Free“.

The Four Questions, chanted by Cantor Frankel.

Social Justice ideas from HIAS PA, and a Haggadah supplement inspired by their immigration work.

Registration for the RS Second Night Seder.

More Haggadah recommendations for different ages, style, and just for study.

Learn here about the holiday of Passover.

Please add comments with your own resources and creative seder ideas!

Resources on Mental Illness and Addiction

Thank you to our RS teen, Ella Komita Moussa, for creating this great resource sheet on mental illness and addiction for our evening with Patrick Kennedy Tues., April 12, 7:00pm!

file:///C:/Users/Jill/Downloads/RS%20Lecture%20(1).pdf

Out from Mental Illness and Addiction Stigma and Into the Sun

Delivered this Shabbat in anticipation of former Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s upcoming talk at RS about mental health/addiction parity and de-stigmatization. At some point during my adolescent years, my father came home with a package and presented it to my sister and me. It was a box of 1000 red pencils, each adorned with the words, “Just say no.” With the image of a skull and crossbones right beside the slogan, on each one. Never known for his subtlety, my father’s loving gift reflected the oversimplified messages he was hearing in the 1980’s, about how to keep your children safe.

By the time my red pencils ran out, scientists, educators, therapists and advocates began to discover more about struggles involving substance abuse and beyond. What does it mean to understand the role of the genetic component to addiction? Co-occurring disorders? Or that the stigma of addiction and of mental illness which can strip away respect, dignity and compassion?

Consider the complexities of genetics, co-occurring disorders and stigma, on top of the challenges of peer pressure and temptations to escape, and the presumably well-meaning Just Say No slogan can become an obstacle. The “just” makes abstinence sound simple. Originally a response to a question a young child asked of Nancy Reagan, Just Say No, makes avoidance sound easy.

If you fail to Just Say No, because perhaps you have a disease that appears to the rest of us as a choice, we blame you you for having a character deficiency. We assume your disorder is a result of your own wrongdoing, you are choosing a harmful path, you aren’t trying hard enough, we don’t want those choices to touch us, so we isolate you. You know we are going to isolate you, so you hide your vulnerabilities and those of your family. Perhaps so much so that you delay getting care. (Assuming you can afford care.) And the cycle of stigma continues.

In a nation where the suicide rate is double the homicide rate, we need to remove obstacles to mental health care. And societal stigma does not bring people to treatment.Continue reading

Hearing Patrick Kennedy April 12: Mental Health, Addiction and Compassion in Our Community

In former congressperson Patrick Kennedy’s Memoir, A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction, he describes a scene that took place just after he revealed his struggles to the New York Times. There he was at a family occasion, surrounded bu relatives who were not happy about his public truth-telling. Yet, there were some exceptions. His cousin, Maria (Shriver) showed compassion to Patrick and said she thought was he was doing was fantastic.

Maria showed support, she chose to bear witness rather than look the other way, and she offered her presence. I have come to believe that this is what the Misheberach, our blessing for healing, is about. More than it is a plea to God for healing power, perhaps the Misheberach is a plea to each other for the healing power we can provide others when we show support, choose to bear witness, and offer presence.