Crowd Sourcing Sermon for August 21

“On the Jewish High Holy Days, should we be praying mostly for the Jewish people, or for all humankind?”
One of the innovations of the Reform Movement’s new High Holy Day Prayerbook is in the “Kaddish” and in the prayer “Oseh Shalom,” we pray for peace “on us and on all Israel” (al kol Israel), but we add “on all who dwell on earth” (al kol yoshvei teivel).  [Mishkan HaNefefesh, p. 70 and p. 90].

 

Crowd Sourcing Sermon for August 14

“How can we use the month of Elul to prepare to turn the wrongs we have done into merits?”

[From Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur service, new Reform High Holy Day prayer book, page 85]:
“The Talmud teaches: ‘Great is repentance, for it transforms one’s deliberate sins into merit’ (Talmud, Yoma 86b).  In general, we think of repentance as a way of achieving expiation for the wrongs we have done.  But the Talmud’s teaching points us in a new and surprising direction…The focus is not on changing the past, but in defining a new direction for the future.  For repentance, after all, is ultimately about changing ourselves and evolving morally.”

Crowd Sourcing Topic for Sermon on August 7

Torah reading: Deut 10:12-14

What does the Pope’s encyclical mean for the Jewish community?

 

Text :

The morning wind forever blows,

the poem of creation is uninterrupted;

but few are the ears

that hear it.

by Henry David Thoreau, in Mishkan Hanefesh Rosh Hashanah prayerbook, p. 145

What responsibility do we share?

What I love about our crowd-sourced sermons is that it doesn’t matter what I wanted to write about or say in relation to the text I presented, what interested you about this week’s question is now what I have to write about.

This situation actually sums up pretty well a certain tension in our High Holy Day liturgy; in our new machzor (our High Holy Day prayerbook) Mishkan HaNefesh; and in the process of repentance that we undertake during the Holy Days. Who, what, is primary? Is it the individual, me, writing this sermon with things I want to say, or is it the community, and the individual thoughts and experiences that can turn the discussion in ways an individual may not have intended?

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Crowd Sourced Sermon Topic for July 31st

“Better a piece of dry bread and tranquility with it, than a house full of feasting with strife.” (Proverbs 17:1)

“If your wife is short, bend over to hear her whisper.” (Talmud, Bava M’tzia 59a)

– Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur, pg. 402-403

These texts speak about the Jewish concept of shalom bayit – peace in the home.  What does the term shalom bayit mean to you? How do you create a peaceful home?

Crowd Sourcing Sermon Topic for July 24

“Why do we confess to wrongs we have not personally committed? The 16th-century mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria teaches that the people of Israel may be likened to a body of which every Jew is a living part. The vitality of the whole depends upon the health of every organ and limb. That is how deeply we are connected to one another. Therefore, each individual sin inflicts damage on the whole organism, and all of us share responsibility for healing the body of Israel.”

From Mishkan Hanefesh, page 83 of the Yom Kippur volume

What Do You Think: Our new High Holy Day machzor challenges us to consider the same prayers as speaking to both the individual and the community. How does the High Holy Day liturgy speak to you and your individual experience, and how does it speak to you as a member of the Jewish community?

Crowd Sourcing Sermon for July 19

“I want to make a confession, to give an accounting to myself, and to God.  In other words, to measure my life and actions against the lofty ideals I’ve set for myself.  To compare that which should have been with that which was… ” – Hana Senesh (1921-1944), diary entry of October 11, 1940

Discussion Question:
How do we measure success?  Do we compare ourselves to others to often in our overly competitive society?  Is there a time in your life when you felt that you didn’t measure up to others expectation or your own?  Tell us about a time in your life when you were proud of an accomplishment.

Crowd Sourcing Sermon Topic for July 10

From what person or event in Jewish history or in Jewish text tradition do you draw inspiration?

From the new Yom Kippur Prayerbook (p 198)

In the depths of the night, by the edge of the river, Jacob was left alone.
In heartfelt longing, in the temple of God, Channah uttered her prayer alone.
In the barren wilderness, in doubt and despair, Elijah found God alone.
On the holiest day, in the Holy of Holies, the High Priest entered alone.
We are bound to one another in myriad ways, but each soul needs time to itself.
In solitude we meet the solitary One; silence makes space for the still small voice.
For the Psalmist says: “Deep calls unto deep.” For the depths of our soul, we seek what is most profound.
Adonai, s’fatai tiftach, ufi yagid t’hilatecha.  Adonai, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.

Crowd Sourcing Sermon for Friday, July 3

Freedom: Breaking the Bonds:

In honor of the 4th of July, we celebrate the birth of our nation when we broke the bonds of tyranny and dedicated ourselves to freedom.
During the High Holy Days we ask, “What bonds do you hope to break in your life today?”
We will discuss the prayer below from our New High Holy day prayer.

Please share your thoughts.

To Break the Bonds of anger,
To be generous of heart;
To break the bonds of shame,
To live with self-respect;

To break the bonds of envy,
To serve one another in joy;
To break the bonds of boredom,
To be attentive to all God’s gifts;

To break the bonds of fear,
To live with courage and strength;
To untie the knots of betrayal;
To love with fullness of being.

To break the bonds of loneliness,
To receive a hand of hope;
To break the bonds of self-centeredness,
To extend a hand of help;

Released from the darkness,
Our people found their freedom at the sea;
And we pray for liberation
At the dawning of this year.