On the Verge of Deportation: African Asylum Seekers in Jerusalem
**For rabbinical, cantorial and Jewish education students spending their year in Israel** Join the Truah Year-in-Israel Program for our evening tiyyul “On the Verge of Deportation: African Asylum Seekers in Jerusalem” taking place on Monday, February 26, 2018. On January 1st, the Israeli government announced plans to deport tens of thousands of African asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan...
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On That Day
“Our God and God of our ancestors: in Your glory, rule over the entire universe; in Your splendor, be exalted over all the earth; in the majestic beauty of Your overwhelming presence, appear to all the inhabitants of Your world. Then, all that You have made will recognize You as their maker, all that You...
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This Torah Has No Room For Hatred
Like all congregational rabbis, I frequently give eulogies for the deceased, and walk with their families to bury them. Jewish tradition prioritizes remembering the dead. It is a mitzvah gedolah—a great mitzvah—to give a eulogy that breaks the hearts of the listeners and highlights the praiseworthy deeds deceased, while simply forgetting his or her failings....
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Dangerous Idols in Ancient Israel and Contemporary America
We do not celebrate the destruction of other people’s holy sites. Nonetheless, Moses had it right: Establishing a just society, as the Holy One commands, requires rooting out the symbols of evil.
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Creating Sacred Communities for the Whole of Israel
As the world has moved on, and as precautions have dropped, high-risk disabled folks are increasingly feeling an existential isolation, not just a physical one.
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Ki Tetze: We Cannot Look Away
You may be familiar with the notion about the wounded healer, popularized by the author Henri Nouwen in his book by that name. He asserts: “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed...
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Tazria: Fear of Impurity
The words we speak may soothe our spiritual and emotional wounds when spoken in kindness, but speech has the potential to “sicken” us, as individuals and as a society when spoken in malice.
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The Paradigm of a Perfect World
For Parshat Chukat, Rabbi Jill Hausman writes about selfishness.
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Silence Implicates Us
“The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.” These words were spoken by Rabbi Joachim Prinz, one of two Jews to speak at the March on Washington in 1963 alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Rabbi Prinz knew of which he spoke, having served the Jewish community...
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