The Daughters Who Roared and Were Heard

If the wood gatherer teaches us about the threat of a raid on the commons, the sisters reinforce the lesson by anticipating a more subtle version of it. Consider what would have happened had the daughters not acted. In short, Zelophehad’s brothers likely would have fought over who should get their brother’s land. At the extreme, if all it takes to inherit land is to be the last brother standing, we face the dire prospect of a fratricidal free-for-all.
read more
Photo of the author, Yael Marans

Naso: The Burdens We Cannot See

For me, acknowledging what I cannot see lies at the heart of community building. It helps me feel connected to the humanity of people in my circles and in the broader world, as ultimately the invisible heaviness of experience is one of the things that I know to be true of being human.
read more

Taking to the Streets: A Checklist for Action

A working document based upon guides from PG Watkins of The BlackOUT Collective and Frontline Election Defenders Tefillat HaDerech (The Travelers’ Prayer): May it be Your will, our God and God of our ancestors, that You lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in...
read more

Seeing the Invisible

With the collective stress of thousands of commuters all trying to get from point A to point B, subway transit in New York can be a little overwhelming. When I’m in the city, I deal with the stress like many fellow riders— I behave as though surrounded by a protective bubble. I notice just enough...
read more

Intimacy With God Requires Human Contact

Parshat Nitzavim, the first of this week’s double parshah, speaks powerfully to our fundamental human need for connection to each other and to Gd — and therefore to the isolation that is an anathema to it. The covenant of Torah that began with the distant and dramatic display of Gd’s power at Mount Sinai is...
read more

How can a grasshopper change the world?

In the struggle for human rights, it is hard not to feel like a tiny grasshopper scratching at the massive walls of injustice we face all around us. There are so many people who are suffering, so many systems that are deeply broken; there is so much work to do. In parshat Shlach Lecha, God...
read more

Sign up for updates and action alerts