ACRE Blog

Alliance for Continuing Rabbinic Education

Jan 03

2011

The Social Sermon

The Social Sermon is a unique approach using social media to make synagogues, classrooms and other educational settings more participatory and communal.

The approach allows a rabbi, for instance, to compose a weekly sermon by posing ideas from the weekly Torah portion into an online communal conversation and allowing a discussion to unfold on Twitter or Facebook. Come Shabbat, the rabbi's sermon reflects a communal conversation, not just his or her personal reflections.

Darim Online, a Covenant Foundation grantee organization, is spearheading the concept and encouraging educators, rabbis and other communal leaders to adopt it.

To read more about this approach, read the following:

You will note that several ACRE rabbis have commented on this concept. We are interested in reading more comments and also having some rabbis volunteer to experiment with this approach and let us know how it worked.

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written by Lisa Colton, January 03, 2011

Thanks, Steve, for sharing the concept of the Social Sermon with the ACRE community, and providing a link to the article on the Covenant Foundation site. As social media changes not only the tools with which we communicate, but the structure and function of communities and organizations, so too must leaders, teachers, executives and institutions adapt to continue to achieve their goals, and the goals of their constituents. We hope The Social Sermon will be one useful idea for rabbis to experiment with and make their own.

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written by Dr. Maury Hoberman, January 05, 2011

I think the "Social Sermon" has merit. In the area of rabbinic education, post-semicha, this technique can be one of the modalities in a rabbi's armamentarium for engaging his/her congregation in learning. Underlying the effectiveness of using the technology is the question of the need of the rabbi to have exposure as an educator. Layering new technology onto an ineffective teacher adds up to an ineffective teacher with technology. Certainly, there are many new areas that a rabbi can use to engage his or her community, but this does not reduce the need for some background and learning in education.

The use of appropriate technology in the hands of a good teacher will allow the rabbi to reach beyond the walls of the synagogue inspiring and teaching the larger Jewish community.

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