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John Rayner certainly believed that delivering regularly a carefully prepared sermon was an integral and important component of the rabbi's role. The evidence is in his more than 1,000 sermon texts that serve as an important historical source for Liberal Judaism in the U.K. Rayner helped future scholars by preparing a detailed listing of all his sermons, from 21 June 1953 ('Ordination') to number 1,137, on 5 October 2003 (Kol Nidre: 'The People's Self-Righteousness'), including topical indices at the end. After describing more fully this unique resource, I will focus on some of his topical sermons, especially those not published in A Jewish Understanding of the World. These include thoughtful and courageous analyses of moral issues raised by the British role in the 1956 Suez campaign, near the beginning of his career, and in the Falklands War of spring 1982, and many powerful sermons on Israel in times of crisis. The texts reveal a Jewish leader with prophetic courage - though expressed always with love for the Jewish tradition, the Jewish people and the universalist dimension of Jewish values - combined with profound knowledge and penetrating intellect, expressed with clarity and directness that speaks both to the mind and to the heart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rabbi Hugo Gryn was both the leading rabbinic figure of British Reform Judaism for several decades and one of the best-known and highly admired rabbis in British society. The sermons he delivered regularly throughout the entire period of his leadership as Rabbi of the West London Synagogue show that preaching was a significant component of his rabbinic role. Most of the extant texts of Gryn's sermons are not fully written, but rather detailed outlines on cards. They suggest a communication that reached its final formulation only as the preacher faced his listeners, depending on the delivery for much of its power. Almost all are rooted in the weekly Torah reading, exploring a biblical passage in its own context before applying it to an issue of contemporary significance. Many draw not only from his wide reading but also from his own personal experience, as Holocaust survivor, young rabbi in India, community leader deeply involved in interfaith dialogue. The present article uses the extant texts to recapture something of the impact of the sermons, and concludes with one fully written text given at a public tribute to the memory of Gryn's teacher, Rabbi Leo Baeck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis I would submit to you this morning may be somewhat surprising: it is that the task of the rabbinic programme at Leo Baeck College is impossible. We have a five-year programme of study. What do we want to accomplish with our students by the end of this period? What kind of training do we believe that our rabbis will require for meeting the needs of the progressive Jewish community, and the general Jewish community in the next generation? What follows is an outline of what I believe is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the eighteenth century, occasions related to war became a significant new venue for Jewish preaching. The declaration of war or its conclusion, a government‐proclaimed Day of National Fasting and Prayer or of Thanksgiving, a major victory or defeat of the nation’s armed forces – all generated sermons by Jewish preachers, who not infrequently publicized what they said beyond the synagogue walls. These sermons reflect the patriotic identification of Jews with the nation where they resided, the desire to demonstrate this loyalty to the larger society, the homiletical application of classical texts and historical precedents to new situations, the challenge presented by war to assumptions about human progress, the theological conundrum of enemy nations praying for victory to the same God, the poignant agony of Jews fighting against other Jews. This article reviews Jewish sermons delivered by British preachers mobilizing the rhetorical resources of Jewish and general literatures to express absolute identification with the Crown, the Government and the Empire, as well as sermons that express deep discouragement about the devastating cost of war in material, cultural, psychological and religious terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]