Human Rights In Progress (Slowly)
Rabbi J. Fred Schwalb traces the history of women's rights in the Torah and offers a prayer for the continued evolution of our ideas.
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Jewish Texts On Fair Voting And Just Elections
"In the form we know them today, popular elections – where all adult citizens vote for their leaders – are the product of western democracies."
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Mishpatim: Mishpatim in Montana
Mishpatim teaches that formal justice must be free of influence from bribes or wealth status, and that even the stranger deserves protection. In my home state of Montana, regressive laws recently passed in our 2023 state legislature have revoked rights and freedoms from Montana residents under the guise of “protection” and “freedom of speech."
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On Power, Hope, and Change
A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah, 5772 Rabbi Barbara Penzner I’d like to start by talking about the movies. Who here has seen “Moneyball”? Who is planning to see it? Good, that means that you may have some idea about the movie. It’s the story of Billy Beane, general manager of the 2002 Oakland Athletics....
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Ritual and Regulation: A Priestly Corrective to Prophecy
Commentary on Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1 – 20:27) In the Bible, there are two traditions, the prophetic and the priestly, both of which aim at building a good society, but do so taking very different approaches. In the Haftarah read on Yom Kippur the prophet Isaiah famously demands: “Is such the fast I desire, a...
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A letter from T’ruah rabbis in Illinois to the state’s Muslim community
May 2, 2022 To our neighbors and friends, the Muslim community in Illinois, Greetings and Eid Mubarak! Our hearts go out to you, our neighbors and friends, Muslims and Palestinians in the State of Illinois as you watch the images of violence from the heart of Jerusalem. We, rabbis of T’ruah-Illinois decry the recent, repeated...
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All God’s Creatures Great and Small (Parshat Noach)
The dominion over animals given to humans in Genesis 1:27, compared with the rabbis’ notion that humans were created equal to the rest of creation, is an example of God’s and our own ambivalence about being the stewards of every other plant and animal species. Noah’s care of the animals, taken in light of permission to eat them, seems to suggest that he owns them and can do what he wants with them. We, like God and our Sages, seem also to be ambivalent about our role as stewards of the rest of creation.
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Elevating Our Hearts and Spirits Towards Justice
The Mishkan was not just a compound our ancestors built; it is a state of mind that we can inhabit.
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