D'var Torah: Tools for Understanding the Impact of a Sermon (Company Overview‪)‬

ABSTRACT A good sermon can sometimes have a substantial positive impact on people. To account for the rhetorical power of a sermon, this study examines one sermon in Jewish tradition drawing on tools of ethnography, rhetorical analysis, and the history of Jewish sermons. In particular, both context of situation as discussed by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and rhetorical situation as discussed by the rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer play central roles in the construction and delivery of this effective but somewhat controversial sermon. To frame the discussion, Dell Hymes' SPEAKING acronym provides an effective set of ethnographic rubrics for analysis, including understanding of setting, participants, goals, norms, genre, and other features. By examining one rabbi's High Holiday sermon as an example of the use of these analytical tools, this paper explores the complex rhetorical and linguistic situation of a Jewish sermon, a d'var torah, to explain how this particular sermon and others like it provoke both positive and negative responses.