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?”

Crowd Sourcing Sermon

August 29 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the August 29 sermon topic: “Have you ever found extraordinary moments in ordinary experiences?  Describe the moment.Have you ever found extraordinary moments in ordinary experiences? Describe the moment.”

Israel: It’s Time for a Conversation

We look forward to a thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation:

Israel: It’s Time for a Conversation

Wed., Aug 27, 7:00 pm, with RS Clergy

As our concern for Israel grows, our hopes for peace are challenged, and our mourning for the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives continues, the RS clergy invites you join a conversation.  We would like to share our perspectives about our commitment to Israel and about the conflict and war, explore ways we can talk to friends and offer thoughts about how to navigate the media.  Most important, we’ll provide time for our congregation to share, ask questions and connect.  We’ll conclude with a prayer for peace.

Suggested background reading and media sources:

Basic background

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Union for Reform Judiasm

Haaretz

Rabbi Daniel Gordis

For Parents

Amos Oz in The New Yorker 

The Jerusalem Post, Live Coverage

Thomas Friedman, New York Times

David Harris, American Jewish Committee

Remembering Lee Stanley

Lee Stanley is remembered for keeping traditions alive at RS. Mike Newall of the Philadelphia Inquirer (August 19, 2014) wrote: “To the members of Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Lee Stanley was a keeper of history – a beloved, rumpled man who wore a straggly beard and oversize suits, and kept at his enthusiastic recall an unmatched knowledge of the congregation’s musical tradition. In his earnest way, fellow congregants say, Stanley could pluck from his mind details most others had long forgotten – or never thought to preserve: the precise date the congregation changed the melody for a particular song or tinkered with the Hebrew phrasing of a prayer.”

Do you have a memory of Lee that you would like to share?

AGING WITH DIGNITY, PURPOSE & MEANING

Shabbat Sermon by Rabbi Kuhn, August 15, 2014

The late, great comedian George Carlin had a great bit about aging. He said when you’re young, you can’t wait to get older. You become 21. But then you turn 30. Sounds like bad milk. He turned, we had to throw him out. You become 21, you turn 30, then you’re pushing 40. Whoa!! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you reach 50, and your dreams are gone. But wait! You make it to 60. You didn’t think you would.

Then you build up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that, it’s a day by day thing. You HIT Wednesday.

You get into your 80’s, and every day is a complete cycle. You HIT lunch; you turn 4:30; you reach bedtime.

And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90’s you start going backwards. I was just 92!

And so it goes. In our society that idolizes youth, it may be difficult to deal with the fact that everyone ages, if you’re lucky that is.

And of course, Judaism has a lot to say about aging with dignity, and finding meaning and purpose in your life as you grow older.

Crowdsourcing Sermons

Crowdsourcing Sermon

August 22 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the August 22 sermon topic: “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?”

Crowdsourcing Sermon

Crowdsourcing August 15 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the August 15 sermon topic: “What are your ideas about aging with dignity? How do you find the true meaning and purpose in life as you grow older?”

Comfort, Oh Comfort My People, Says Your God

We move into Tisha B’Av, our tradition’s day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and for violence Jews have faced since then.  Our hearts are in the East as we stand with Israel ever supporting her right to defend herself, as we mourn for the loss of life among Israelis and Palestinians, and as we seek a path to an enduring and secure peace.  May we heed the words of URJ president Rabbi Rick Jacobs’ in his column in Haaretz: as Hamas wages war on Israel’s very right to exist, we do not answer hatred with hatred. From the words of the Lamentations text we read for Tisha B’Av: Comfort, Oh comfort My people, says God.  You can support our community’s Stop the Sirens campaign here.

Crowdsourcing Sermon

Crowdsourcing August 8 Sermon

For this summer’s sermons, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The clergy will pose a question at the beginning of each week. Your responses to the question will help inform the sermon for that week.

Please respond to the August 1 sermon topic: “Besides your physical house/apartment/condo, where and when do you feel at home?  What is it about these other places/times that elicit feelings of comfort, safety and family?”

Message from Noah Max Igra, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Force

 Many of you may remember that Noah Igra wrote a message for the Rodeph Shalom Bulletin a few months ago, and requested contributions to help his army unit.

As you may know, Noah is the grandson of Bettyruth Walter and Donald J. Goldberg, who were married here at Rodeph Shalom in 1957.  He is the son of Caroline Goldberg Igra, who was a Bat Mitzvah and confirmand here at RS,  and her husband Rami.  Noah was a Bar Mitzvah here at Rodeph Shalom in 2008.

There were kind contributions made in the name of Noah Igra to the IDF, and that money was used towards buying new and wonderful boots for his entire unit of 29 young Israeli men.

Well, you can be quite certain that those same boots are very important to these young soldiers fighting for the survival of Israel right now.

Since he is quite busy at the moment, I am writing this thank you note for him – and his entire unit – to tell you how appreciative these young men were to receive this gift from Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.  We all pray for a rapid cease to this madness in the Middle East, and peace for all.

– Bettyruth Walter