A D’var Torah for Purim by Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael As a Queer and Trans Jew, Purim has long held a special place in my heart as a holiday that envisions a world in which oppression can be turned upside down, in which coming out can be liberatory and world-changing, and miracles come to life through...
The horror stories we’re hearing about Uyghur people taken in the night, being separated from their families, having their heads shaved, put on trains, interned, forced into slave labor, and systematically murdered are all too familiar to the Jewish community.
Everyone in Jerusalem – every Palestinian resident and citizen, every Jew, every activist standing in solidarity across lines of difference...was at one time a child, ready to receive a parent’s tender blessing given in love.
Today a fierce battle rages over the telling of American history. Politicians on either side of the political spectrum are fighting to control the historical narrative taught to children in schools. Is the story of America one of heroic struggle and benevolent, exceptional rule? Or is it a story of a colonizing power that exploited, oppressed, and exterminated non-white peoples?
We were told earlier in the Torah to love our neighbor and even the stranger as ourselves. But these commandments are included and yet reframed in our mitzvah, "V’Ahavta et Adonai," love everything/everyone. Signaling, perhaps, that we are also to understand love differently, that we are ready to learn a higher level of embodying love.
The illusion of security, the illusion of living in a world not deeply steeped in racism, and the comfort of staying committed to our illusions ultimately cuts us off from the fullest joy of life radically open and in relation to that which is.
Strategically, we stand a better chance of finding our way if we do not dismiss (other's) capacity for moral reasoning. We stand a better chance of moving their hearts if we assume they have one.
While we are deeply connected to the land of Israel, with spiritual roots that seek to implant themselves in its rich soil, connection is not predetermination.
What we build on top of the land, as a civilization with our own agency, matters just as much. Whom we build it with matters.
I am puzzled by the ways in which a country that readily replaces phones and computers as soon as we experience even the slightest decrease in performance can insist that our inherited system for organizing our economy and government works just fine.