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

Coloring in Creation

In the spring of my senior year of high school, after the stress of college applications and acceptance were over, my best friend and I both had the overwhelming urge to…color.

We went to the drugstore and bought a brand-new 64 pack of Crayola crayons and a couple of those super-sized coloring books, the ones that are as big as our entire upper bodies. Mine had Sesame Street characters. We took them back to my house, sat on the floor stretched over the pages, and colored.

We wanted at that moment in our lives, I believe, to break free from the pressure to produce a product and instead to enjoy the process of taking a black and white outline, choosing only a place to start and a color to start with, and watching the picture emerge.

Continue reading

The Liberation of False Memory: Cantor Frankel’s Yizkor Sermon 5774

Remember. It’s one of our first Jewish lessons. It’s in the Ten Commandments, it’s in the poem L’cha Dodi with which we greet Shabbat each week, and it’s repeated throughout the liturgy of these High Holy Days. In our worship on Rosh HaShanah, the sound of the shofar awakens us specifically to remember our covenant with God. We return now to memory in our Yizkor service which allows us to honor those whom we have lost, to remember them.

But what if memories hold us hostage? What if our memories are the stumbling blocks that obstruct our future? As the Israeli novelist Amos Oz wrote, “Apart from the obligation to remember, is there also a right to forget?” (The Slopes of Lebanon)

Continue reading

Sukkot: The Illusion of Shelter

Why do we build a shelter that provides no shelter at all?

Growing up in suburban NJ, my home was not in a high-crime area.  Yet, always, we locked the doors and we turned on the security alarm.  We even had a big dog bowl on the front porch, to convince all external threats into thinking we had a guard dog (we didn’t even have a goldfish).  And I don’t think our family’s efforts for  protection were unusual.  But friends of ours who lived not far away took a different approach.  they left their doors unlocked every time they left their house.  Simply because that is how they wanted to live their lives.Continue reading

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

Entry Denied

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

We’re All In This Thing Together (Rabbi Freedman’s Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon)

In an episode of the TV sitcom “Friends,” entitled “The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS,” two characters, Phoebe and Joey, engage in a contest based on the theories of philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Is there such a thing as a truly unselfish act, they wonder, one in which someone benefits while the person performing the act receives nothing in return?  Joey believes not; Phoebe sets out to prove him wrong.  After several failed attempts, Phoebe lets a bee sting her “so it can look cool in front of its bee friends.”  Surely, she believes, this is a selfless act; Phoebe allowed herself to be hurt so that the bee could benefit.  Nope, Joey points out; the bee likely died soon after losing its stinger in Phoebe’s arm.

Continue reading

September 11, Honoring the Memory

   Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.Continue reading

Awake My Soul–All of Elul has been directed to this moment

This whole summer, each Shabbat, we have been talking about Judaism’s relevance. Judaism is all around us. We can become attuned to it, and we can learn Jewishly from the stories in the news, the conversations we have with our loved ones and co-workers, the experiences we encounter in our everyday lives.

Never am I more attuned to the Judaism around me than when I’m listening to music. In my mind, during this month of Elul leading up to the High Holy Days, I have been hearing again and again a certain musical refrain.

Awake My Soul

Continue reading

Elul Reflections: What Do I Want?

Our lives are full of “should”s. I should go to the grocery store. I should make that appointment I’ve been avoiding. I should ignore the beautiful weather outside and finish my work to meet this deadline. What if we were to consider this coming year full of “want”s? I want to make time for myself. I want to see my extended family more. I want to see that new movie. May this month of Elul be the empowerment, the emboldening, of “want” over “should.”

L’shanah tovah– Your RS Clergy

Parapets, Public Welfare and Philadelphia Public Schools

It was a beautiful summer day; I was about 6 years old and playing with my little brother in a second floor room of our suburban Boston house.  We were horsing around near the windows when I distinctly remember my mom yelling to my brother, “Nate, don’t lean on the screen…”  Well, as you might have guessed, the screen was not very sturdy and without warning my brother plummeted out the second story window.  Thank God, there was a fichus tree directly beneath the window that broke his fall and he bounced up laughing and smiling as if to suggest, “Can I do that again?”

Continue reading