Private Prisons, God’s People

A number of years ago my husband’s nephew suggested that we invest some funds with him in high-risk high-yield bonds. We did. After earning a good return, I asked my husband what his nephew had done with our money. He answered that his nephew, among other ventures, had invested in for-profit prisons. I was horrified....
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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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To Transform Our Economic System, We Need to Challenge Inheritance

Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, the daughters of Zelophehad, recognize and name another crisis, which is that the inheritance laws are set so that families with only daughters are unable to inherit land and instead their families lose their access to land. The five women respond powerfully to the crisis of their father’s death, and a structural shortcoming, with an eye towards intergenerational shifts rather than short-term reform.
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Rabbi Karen Bender and HUC student Samantha Thal

Sukkot: Sukkot and the Human Right of Dwelling Safely

Perhaps Sukkot is the festival of understanding our journey, for journeys have no concrete and steel foundations, only earth and sandy feet. And the yearning that should come out of this collective memory must be a passionate commitment to end homelessness everywhere, physical, spiritual, or national.
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Photo of the author, Rabbi Alanna Sklover

Tzav: We Are the Stranger

We know the heart of the stranger and we cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of these people, or allow statistics to blur them and their lives into a faceless “issue.”
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Yitro the Activist

In the grand scheme of things, Yitro is actually a pretty minor biblical character. His name is only mentioned 12 times in the entirety of the Torah. Yet for someone as minor as he is, he’s got quite the midrashic backstory. The midrash (Devarim Rabbah 1:5, Kohelet Rabbah 3:11, and elsewhere) states that Yitro sampled all of the...
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Who Feels the Pain? (Parshat VaEra)

Commentary on Parshat Vaera (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) Who deserves human rights? Even the Torah has its blind spots. The Torah portion VaEra describes an escalating cycle. As YHWH predicts, Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh and he refuses to free the Israelites. A plague strikes, and Pharaoh relents. The plague is removed by divine intervention,...
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Isaac, Ishmael, Hebron, and Us (Parshat Chayei Sarah)

Commentary on Parshat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1 – 25:18) וַיִּקְבְּר֨וּ אֹת֜וֹ יִצְחָ֤ק וְיִשְׁמָעֵאל֙ בָּנָ֔יו אֶל־מְעָרַ֖ת הַמַּכְפֵּלָ֑ה… And they buried him [Abraham], Isaac and Ishmael his sons, in the Cave of Machpelah … (Genesis 25:9) Isaac and Ishmael only appear together in one line of the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, when they meet in Hebron to...
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