The Logo of the Jewish People

All of Jewish theology can be summed up in this week’s sedra, Beha’alotecha. After many weeks of reading about the events at Mt. Sinai, the cloud of God’s glory lifts from the Tabernacle as a signal for the desert journey to resume (Numbers 10:11). That cloud is the key. We first encountered it as the...
read more

Inspiration in Immokalee

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers this past February, with a delegation of rabbis organized by Rabbis for Human Rights. Since Dorshei Tzedek became involved with CIW’s Fair Food Campaign two years ago, I’ve learned that this farmworker organization has had remarkable success in getting...
read more

Atem Nitzavim: Standing Together Against Hunger

Imagine the scene. Groups of men, from tribal leaders to woodchoppers and water-drawers, standing in the same place. Elders interspersed with officials and women with babies on their hips. Children running in and out, weaving between the people, even the stranger within the camp, all gathered together on this day. Atem Nitzavim. You stand this...
read more

Starting Again, and Again

Once again, all over again, we are beginning at the beginning of the Torah this week. Bereshit bara Elokim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz, “In the beginning G-d created heaven and earth”, at least according to one translation. Haven’t we done this already? Do we really have to go back and consider the beginning again, and...
read more

Yovel Text Study: Make the Year Holy

In The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously frames Jewish perceptions of holiness as holiness in time rather than in space: “The quality of holiness is not in the grain of matter.  It is a preciousness bestowed upon things by an act of consecration and persisting in relation to God.”  He describes Shabbat as a...
read more

The Fast of Inevitability

“This isn’t a marathon we’re in. It’s a sprint.” I was privileged to hear Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum say these words to a small group of rabbis last week, and it chilled my blood. It was the exact opposite of what I have been hearing from activists since November 9th, that we need to prepare and...
read more

Good Tents Help You Really See

Commentary on Parshat Balak For the past 10 years, I’ve been leading my synagogue’s children’s school team, yearly, in a 5k walk that likely none of you have ever heard of. The Save Our Homes Walk Somerville is indeed a very small local effort. Its purpose is to raise cash for keeping people on the verge of...
read more

Jewish Health Care

The old joke is told about a proud Jewish parent flying to Washington to attend their child’s inauguration as the first Jewish president of the United States. They strike up a conversation with the stranger sitting next to them on the airplane, who asks why they’re flying to D.C. “Well, my daughter Julie is a...
read more

The Land of Strangers

The midrash teaches that the first human/adam was created with soil from the ground / afar min ha’adamah from every direction, meaning from every place, so that no matter where the first human’s progeny wandered, they would still be at home. Wherever a person dies and is buried, their bodies will not be strangers to the soil,...
read more

A Yovel for the Poor People’s Campaign (Parshat Behar/Bechukotai)

Commentary on Parshat Behar/Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:1 – 27:34) One week from today, Monday May 14, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will launch across this country. As I prepare for this momentous event, I’m struck by the alignment of Torah and sacred season. This Shabbat when we read of the yovel...
read more

Sign up for updates and action alerts

CLOSE
CLOSE