Counting the Omer: Loving the Vulnerable in the Ukraine and Beyond

As we explore hesed in this first week of the Omer, stories of loving-kindness can inspire our own.  For 100 years, the JDC has extended loving-kindness across the globe, in its relief work for the most vulnerable.  On behalf of the Jewish community, they serve people of all backgrounds, bringing aid and building bridges.  An archive of images of their work includes this photograph, depicting the JDC-financed the 1929 “Drop of Milk” initiative which provided milk for infants in need in the Ukraine.  And relief efforts in the Ukraine continue to our day.  Dov Ben-Shimon from the JDC will speak on “Hunger and Thirst in the Jewish World: Poverty, Food Insecurity and the Search for Community” at RS Wednesday, April 30, 7:00 pm to paint a picture of the important work they are doing today.

What can you do to extend hesed to the most vulnerable in our society?Continue reading

Have You Had a “Good” Year?: End of the Year Giving

As the-end-of-the-year solicitations flood the inbox, this season offers an opportunity for us to consider the Jewish values behind the righteous giving–the tzedakah–we choose to do.

A Yiddush story:  A wealthy Jewish citizen named Reb Yitzchak is preparing his daughter’s wedding.  Reflecting the ethos of the shtetl, all the poorest members of the community, including those who beg for tzedakah in the marketplace, are to be honored guests at the celebration.

However, this time the poor are tired of being taken for granted.  This group of shnorrers (not a nice word—story’s word, not mine) will not be paid off by one hot meal and lip service about how beloved they are.  These men and women take a stand—by going on strike!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

“A Place at The Table” Film Screening and Jewish Values about Hunger

A Place at the Table Poster.jpegUnderstand how we are “One Nation, Underfed,” at our Sun, Nov. 3, 10am screening of the Jeff Bridges narrated film about hunger in America, A Place at the Table, followed by a discussion led by The Food Trust executive director, Yael Lehman.  A part of our What is Your Food Worth partnership with Temple University’s Feinstein Center.

When I was in college, I was introduced for the first time to the extended Jewish Grace After Meals blessing recited by traditional Jews.  I thought the Birkat Hamazon version Reform Jews recited was long, but this traditional text at least quadrupled the blessing I had heard in my youth.

As I listened, I noticed that some people at the Brandeis Shabbat dinner, omitted a verse.  Instead of reciting the words, they just hummed the tune when it was time to say the line that reads: “I have not seen a righteous person forsaken, or children begging for bread.” Continue reading

A Single Carrot and a Jewish Food Movement

Fish marketExplore “A New Judaism from the Tabletop: Food and the Transformation of American Jewish Life” in our conversation with Professor Lila Berman at RS on Wed., Oct. 16, 7:00 pm, in a keynote sponsored by the Dr. Bernard & Rose Susan Hirschhorn Behrend Fund, and whet your appetite with these reflections…

Last Wednesday evening I walked down to the RS kitchen to pick up my CSA vegetables, and and to say hello to this week’s team of Caring Community congregants mitzvah-cooking for other congregants who are returning from the hospital.  There, we also had some congregants cracking garlic.  Lots and lots of garlic.  It looked like 50 peeled cloves in the pile!  Our CSA farmer, Phil, had asked RS to peel cloves so that each could be planted as a bulb and grow garlic for the next season.  So even on North Broad Street, Farmer Phil had found a way for us to connect to our food source and in a way, to farm!  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

What is Your Food Worth?: Sukkot Reflection

Domestic goatExplore how we set intentions for Jewish food choices in our kick-off to our What is Your Food Worth initiative and first Sunday Seminar of the year.  Our discussion with Nati Passow, director of the Jewish Farm School, and Rabbi Eli Freedman is tomorrow, September 22nd 10:15-11:15am.  Whet your appetite with Nati’s thought provoking blog post.  This opportunity is a part of our What is Your Food Worth partnership with the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University.

We Were Strangers, Too: Immigration Reform Advocacy

Join the Jewish community’s effort to welcome the stranger as a citizen, and advocate for comprehensive, fair immigration reform for 11 million undocumented immigrants today (info in my Yom Kippur afternoon sermon). Please add your family’s immigration story in the comments of this blog article to create a beautiful collection that demonstrates that we are a nation of immigrants.

For a direct connection to your representative, go to Take Action.  At the bottom, enter your zip and add the link to this blog post to the form letter to share with your representative our collection of family immigration stories, found in the post comments.

We Were Strangers, Too: Yom Kippur Sermon on Immigration Reform

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A few years ago, while celebrating Shabbat with our preschool students, I was teaching the Jewish value of welcoming the stranger.  Thinking that I was encouraging the young children to be kind to a new student, I asked them, what do you think the Torah tells us to do when we meet a stranger? …  “Don’t talk to them!”  “Find a grown-up you know!” “Don’t take candy!”

The children had been well-prepared for stranger-danger, as four-year olds should be.  The students’ response, appropriate for young children, highlights a heightened sense of caution present for adults as well.  Natural fear of that which is strange to us has a tendency to become so magnified that we are at risk of losing sight of our values.Continue reading