Sermons – Page 4 – Rodeph Shalom

Crowd Sourcing Sermons

Imagine that you are a member of the Rodeph Shalom clergy team, and you could tap into the collective wisdom of our congregation to help you write your sermons this summer.

That is exactly what we are going to do this summer with CROWDSOURCING SUMMER SERMON SERIES.

What is Crowdsourcing? It is the process of obtaining ideas or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially from the online community. (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2014)

What is Crowdsourcing a Sermon? It is an opportunity for us to draw inspiration from your comments and to encourage conversation among our congregants on important Jewish issues. Crowdsourcing sermons will be a way for us to find an opportunity to draw closer as a community. It will be a way for us to fulfill our Vision of creating profound connectionsContinue reading

Counting the Omer: Protecting Each Other

You’ve heard the expression: “Stick your neck out?” What is the metaphor? We compare ourselves to what animal? I always thought it was giraffe. Long neck. I was wrong. To stick your neck out, is to be like a turtle. Why? Sticking your neck out involves risk.

Judaism takes this concept, to stick your neck out, very seriously. Take the Jewish law about gossip, or lashon hara: If one person is gossiping to another, and a 3rd person overhears, the conversation. Of the 3 people, who is most responsible–the gossiper, the listener, or the witness?

The 3rd person. The witness is obligated to intervene. There is no pass, for the passive bystander. Judaism’s focus on the power of the witness, demands we stick our neck out– to take a risk for what we know to be right.

In the past several months, the Whitehouse and college campuses across the nation have brought new attention and resources to this concept of sticking your neck out, in response to the epidemic of sexual violence against women on campus. Bystander Intervention, believed to be the best hope for reducing sexual assault on campus, aims to empower anyone who is witnessing potential trouble. Continue reading

How Do You Recharge?

One of you recently shared with me: “Question: If someone from the 1950’s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them about life today? Answer: I possess a device in my pocket that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to humankind. I use it to look at pictures of cats and to get into arguments with strangers.”

On the Shabbat of March 7 -March 8 was the National Day of Unplugging. Originally conceived by a group of Jewish artists, the day is meant to help us think differently about our re-chargeable devices in order to re-charge ourselves.Continue reading

Doing and Understanding the Meaning of Our Lives

Delivered by Rabbi Bill Kuhn this past Shabbat.

I am glad to see that you’ve all survived the 3^rd great blizzard of 2014. I am sure all of us were faced with challenges of some sort or another, but it is good to gather together here in this sacred and safe place to enjoy the warmth of the spirit of our congregational family.

I have always been amazed by what happens to people when faced with a common threat. During a big snowstorm, people will help each other. You may not even say hello to a neighbor normally, but during a snowstorm, you’re shoveling their walk and checking on them to see if they’re ok. TV stations suspend their regular programming to bring you live coverage of the snowstorm and to report on how people all over the region are faring. They show film of young strapping men getting out of their cars to lend a hand to a total stranger whose car is stuck in a snow bank. A common threat can transform us from competitive, closed uncaring people into kind, compassionate loving mensches.

I believe we feel this same phenomenon when we come here to share Shabbat services every Friday night. We do feel under a common threat. Not from a snowstorm, but from a spiritual storm – a life storm. Continue reading

The Burning Bush: The Fire Within

In his D’var Torah last Shabbat, Rabbi Kuhn challenged us to wrestle with the question: what is my purpose?

At the end of each book of Torah, there is a gap, a space. There is a legend that the white spaces in Torah are known as “white fire,” and the words of Torah are written in “black fire.” There is an extra amount of white fire between each book. So, last week we completed the study of the Book of Genesis, and tonight we begin anew with our study of the Book of Exodus. The extra space between Genesis and Exodus can represent a pause, a time for us to stop and think about our lives, and a chance to change, and to consider the meaning of our lives.Continue reading

Bugs in My Kale: Bringing Intention to Our Food

Thank you to the many members of the community and beyond who have become deeply engaged in the conversation: “What is Your Food Worth,” a partnership with the Feinstein Center at Temple University. Inspired this fall by Rabbi Kuhn’s Rosh Hashanah sermon, Professor Lila Berman’s keynote “A New Judaism from the Tabletop: Food and the Transformation of American Jewish Life,” the Hazon Food Festival hosted at RS, the screening of “A Place at the Table,” study sessions, the What is Your Food Worth blog, and our congregational blog posts, let us discover how now to move from theory to practice.

Related thoughts from a recent D’var Torah… Week after week I bring home my box of CSA vegetables. Continue reading

Bugs in My Kale: Bringing Intention to Our Tabletop

How are we connected to the food we eat? Imagine a movement that links consumption and production, shoppers and workers, in Professor Bryant Simon’s discussion: The Dinner Party, this Sunday 10/13, 10:15am at RS. (A part of the What is Your Food Worth partnership with the Feinstein Center). Below is another reflection on the connection from a D’var Torah last Shabbat:

Week after week I bring home my box of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) vegetables. Recently, I was putting my veggies away in the refrigerator, and planning my strategies for getting my family to eat so many vegetables in just one week. Kale?: kale chips, kale pie, kale soup. Red, green and purple peppers?: the blindfold-guess-the-color-of-the pepper taste test game.

As I was planning, and storing the vegetables in my kitchen, I noticed a lot of bugs crawling on my vegetables. Continue reading

Elul Reflections: The Power of Our Words

Do our words really matter? In his sermon Friday evening, Rabbi Bill Kuhn explored how every time we speak to another, we have the opportunity to heal or to hurt, to lift up or to tear down. When we speak ill of someone, the words spread around like the feathers of a pillow, and we will never be able to take them all back, and to undo the harm that is done from our words.

One in 40 Ashkenazi Jews Carries the BRCA Gene Mutation: Preventative Surgery—Not the Promised Land, but Saving Lives

This fall, RS will partner with the Basser Research Center for BRCA to educate about the gene mutations related to breast, ovarian, and other cancers. Mark your calendar for Sunday, Oct 6, contact me to get involved, comment here or privately to me to share how breast or ovarian cancer has touched you personally, and learn more with the following summary, based on the D’var Torah I delivered this Friday, July 12.

This May, actress Angelina Jolie, made the bold decision to publicly share her courageous, life-saving choice, to have a preventative double mastectomy. Having watched her mother die of cancer at the age of 56, Jolie was counseled to be tested, learned she is a carrier of a BRCA 1 gene mutation, and was told that there was an 87% chance she would develop breast cancer, as well as a 50% chance that she would develop ovarian cancer. Angelina Jolie’s decision was not an easy one.Continue reading

Rabbi Kuhn Kol Nidre Sermon

By Rabbi Bill Kuhn, sermon delivered Kol Nidre evening 2011

A man was walking along, minding his own business, doing his job on a day just like any other ordinary day. When out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fire. He didn’t really think anything of it, as he sees little fires all the time in his line of work. But this fire was different, it would not go out. Eventually he turned and noticed this extraordinary fire, and his life was changed forever. For the longest time, Moses stared at the bush that was burning unconsumed in the desert. And when God saw that he had turned and noticed, God called out to him, “Moses, Moses.” And Moses answered, “Hineini,” “I am here.” [Ex. 3:1-4].