Character Virtues in Everyday Life: Mussar Scholar Alan Morinis Speaks Wed., Oct 22 at 7:00 pm at RS

Periodic Table Character

Our actions become our habits; our habits become our character; our character becomes our soul.  Check out this short film The Science of Character to ignite your own process of character development.  To begin to understand what Judaism teaches us about how to treat ourselves and others, and how to elevate our characters–our souls– in the process, (as discussed in my Yom Kippur morning sermon) join us when Mussar scholar Alan Morinis speaks Wed., Oct. 22 at 7:00 pm at RS.  All are welcome.  Thank you to the Dr. Bernard and Rose Susan Hirschhorn Behrend Fund for sponsoring!

Periodic Table of Character Strengths from Tiffany Shlain’s film The Science of Character and letitripple.org

To Just Sit: A Spiritual Mindfulness Message on Yom Kippur Afternoon

Were you able to find a seat ok?  You may have noticed that when you enter this early part of the Yom Kippur afternoon service, it’s easy to find a place to sit!  Nestled between the crowds of Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur morning, and the crowds that will soon arrive for Yizkor and Neilah, this afternoon service tends to be our quieter moment of the day.  And yet, here you are.  Perhaps you are drawn here because your family has always made Yom Kippur a full-day experience.  Perhaps you need a place to wait out the fast.  Perhaps you are avoiding slicing tomatoes back at your house, where your family is preparing to host a break-fast. And perhaps you are here, to soak up every last potential opportunity, for introspection on Yom Kippur.

I’d like to consider with you, the role of introspection, in these hours of Yom Kippur, and beyond.  What does it mean, to sit in reflection?  Continue reading

Choosing Our Character: A Yom Kippur Message

Delivered Yom Kippur morning by Rabbi Jill Maderer

A woman sits at an airport gate, reading her book and eating a bag of cookies… begins Valerie Cox in her poem, “The Cookie Thief.”  The woman at the airport realizes the man next to her– a stranger– is sticking his hand into her bag and eating her cookies!  How dare he do such a thing?  Her row is called, she boards the airplane, settles into her seat and reaches into her handbag for her book.  And there it is.  Instead of the book, she pulls out her unopened bag of cookies.  The bag at the gate belonged to the man.  He had quietly let her stick her hand into his cookies.  She was the cookie thief!

What was this man’s disposition, that he simply allowed a stranger to share his snack?  And what was this woman’s attitude, that she assumed the worst in someone else?  How much does a response to a small everyday, situation say about who we are?  Jewish tradition teaches that both the large life turning-points and those daily small moments reveal our character, or spiritually we might say, our soul.Continue reading

Letting Go This Elul

Re-eh: see, the opening word of this week’s Torah portion.  See, I set before you blessing and curse.  Look hard. Sometimes it’s hard to see what is blessing and what is curse.  What is right and what’s not right.  Or what’s no longer right.

Now on the cusp of Elul, the Hebrew month that begins Wednesday and prepares us for the teshuvah–repentance– of the High Holy Day season, we look hard so that we can tell the difference between the blessing and the curse, the good and the bad.  We look hard at our choices, our priorities, our relationship with God, our relationships with other people.  We examine the conflicts in our lives and devote ourselves to improvement, change, growth.

For this week’s summer crowdsourcing sermon, your clergy posed the question: “Have you ever carried around a grudge or a feeling that did not allow you to move forward completely?  Have you ever let go of such a feeling?”Continue reading

Opening to Risk and Praying for Israel: Crowdsourcing Sermon from last Shabbat

“You shall love the Eternal your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. Set these words upon your heart.”

Why?  Why does it say to set these words of love and of Torah, upon your heart? Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz teaches: we place the words of Torah upon our hearts so that they can lay there, wait there, for the day our heart breaks.  And when it does break, those words of love sitting on our heart will fall right into the crack.  That’s when we will really know Torah.

With fear comes distancing, the building of walls, the closing of hearts.  But with openness—sometimes even just a crack, exposing our heart—comes the trust and faith that can allow for risk-taking.Continue reading

Crowd Sourcing Sermons

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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

When Are We Afraid of the Wrong Thing?

Essex_Sinking (2)Compelled by stories of catastrophe, novelist Karen Thomson Walker, recently (TED Talk) offered an interpretation of the story of the Whaleship Essex.  In 1820, 3000 miles off the coast of Chile in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, 20 American sailors watched their ship flood with sea water.  They had been struck by a sperm whale.  As the ship began to sink, the men huddled together in 3 small whaleboats, stocked only with rudimentary navigation equipment and limited supplies of food and water.  These were the men of the Whaleship Essex, whose story would later inspire parts of Moby Dick.Continue reading

Counting the Omer: I stand with Ruth

On this final day of the Omer as we enter Shavuot and read the Book of Ruth, we reflect upon her immigration into the land and people of Israel, the loving-kindness with which Naomi welcomes Ruth and the loving-kindness which Ruth embraces Naomi.  In is blog post “We Stand with the Ruth of Today,” Rabbi Richard Levy challenges us to embrace the immigrant and undocumented among us today, with the loving-kindness of Ruth and Naomi.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Elohenu Melech ha-olam asher kidishanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu al s’firat ha’omer. Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the universe, who makes us holy with sacred actions and enjoins us to count the omer.

Hayom tishah v’arba-im yom, shehem shivah shavuot la-omer.

Today is 49 days which is 7 weeks of the Omer.

Counting the Omer: To Go Up the Mountain and Really Be There

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY%3Fenablejsapi%3D1%26wmode%3Dtransparent%26rel%3D0%26showinfo%3D0

This Tuesday evening-Wednesday, June 3-4, the counting of the Omer concludes and Shavuot arrives with our Shavuot Night of Study (7pm).  For all of you who have been counting the Omer with us, or tuning in for some of the experience, this is a wonderful time to reflect.  What has it meant to turn back to the liberation story of Pesach, to look forward to the revelation story of Shavuot, and to consider on each day, the present moment where you stand?

Judaism offers a great many opportunities to pay attention to the present moment.  Some would say that such taking notice is the primary purpose for Jewish ritual.  Ritual stops us in our tracks, helps us to notice the bread we are about to eat, the Sabbath about to arrive, the Ten Commandments we are about to embrace.  Without ritual we are at risk of inhaling bread, moving into Friday evening, returning from work on June 3, without noticing.

As we celebrate the revelation at Mt. Sinai, consider Exodus 24:12: “Moses went up the mountain and he was there.”  A Hasidic teacher notices: “This seems redundant: if Moses went up to the mountain, of course he would be there.  However, this is proof that a person can exert tremendous effort to reach the top of a mountain, yet without being there.  He may be standing on the mountain, but his head may be elsewhere.  The main thing is not the ascent but being there, and only there, and not to be below at the same time.”Continue reading