“Vayeira” Coming Out

By Rabbi Kuhn

Last Sunday, Cantor Frankel and I were honored to co-officiate at the wedding of our dear friends Michael Carr and Henry Seigel. Now, I have been to a lot of weddings in my day, but I’ve gotta tell you, this one was off the charts in terms of being exciting, thrilling, emotional and special.

This was the first same-gender wedding Cantor Frankel and I have done since Pennsylvania made it “LEGAL.” Rabbi Freedman officiated at Rich & Rick’s wedding Saturday night and Rabbi Maderer officiated at Steve Mirman and Kenneth Galipeau’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, so we are trying to make up for lost time!

Standing under the chuppah with Michael & Henry was an experience that I will never forget. This was not like the usual couple we marry. Henry & Michael have been together 32 years! They have been living in a monogamous, committed, loving relationship for 32 years! So, why would they feel that they needed to sign a marriage license and have a Jewish ceremony anyway? What possible difference would that little piece of paper make?

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Rabbi Kuhn’s Kol Nidre Sermon 5776: “The Hope”

Recently, I found a letter that had been written by Emily’s great grandfather to his grandchild, my wife’s mother.  It had been written from Philadelphia in 1922 and told of his family who had lived all together and happy in Odessa for many generations.  In 1900, in the face of pogroms and persecution of the Jews, the family was broken apart and made to move from their home.  Several of the family members emigrated to Palestine and her great-grandfather and the rest of the family came to Philadelphia.  His letter gave me a great deal of insight into the complexities of decision making which have been involved in Jewish immigration patterns down through the ages.

What causes a person to move away from a place where his or her family has lived for generations?  Whatever the reason, whether oppression or a decision to try to improve their lives in some way, the common thread that runs throughout all of our peoples’ wanderings is HOPE.  Hope for a better life, hope for the freedom to live in a land where we could be proud to be Jewish, hope to raise our children as Jews.

Abraham was the role model of Jewish immigration.  Our Torah tells of his feeling the call from God to “Lech l’cha,”  “Go forth from your native land, from your birthplace, from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” [Gen. 12:1]

And so Judaism was born, as Abraham and Sarah moved from their home in Mesopotamia to the land that would become Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, to dedicate his life to the one God.  And ever since that moment, Judaism has been inextricably tied to the land of Israel.Continue reading

Rabbi Kuhn’s “Crowdsourced” Sermon (7/4/14)

“Have you ever felt that food is sacred? How does food connect you to others? To your family? To Judaism?”

At sunrise on Wednesday mornings in the summer, farmer Phil Stober and his crew pick fresh vegetables and fruit at their farm, Barefoot Organics near Lebanon, PA. and deliver it to Rodeph Shalom every Wednesday afternoon, as part of our Community Supported Agriculture. On Wednesday evenings, RS congregants come in to cook fresh meals, prepared with the produce just-picked that morning and then deliver them (we call them “Mitzvah Meals”) to other RS congregants who are ill, or homebound, or who have recently lost a loved one.

Last Wednesday evening, as I stood in the RS kitchen and watched our team of chefs preparing Mitzvah Meals I was overcome by the feeling that what I was witnessing was the very essence of Judaism.

Can food be sacred? What is the connection between food and Judaism? These are the questions we posed to our congregation this week in our first ever “Crowdsourcing” sermon, where we asked the members of our RS family to offer your thoughts on a different question each week – as our Summer Sermon Series. (As a way to tap into the collective wisdom of our congregation)

This week, we received a lot of very thoughtful responses. Quite a few of the comments focused on the Mitzvah meals, as this has helped provide deeper meaning to the connection between food and Judaism.

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