Getting to Know You

True relationships, born out of love and respect, take time to develop. These relationships require intimacy and occasionally discomfort in order to truly know each other.
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Justice for the Land and Its Inhabitants

Commentary on Parshat Behar (Leviticus 25:1 – 26:2) In Leviticus 25, the Torah famously explains the practice of the sabbatical year (shmitah) and the jubilee year (yovel), in which those who work the land refrain from farming in order to let the land rest. Itā€™s not hard to see a connection between the ancient practice...
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Photo of the author, Rabbi Alicia Harris

Pesach: Cleanse the Spiritual Chametz this Pesach

This is the work before us this Pesach. We must abandon our worship of the false idol of correctness. We have to start with what we know. We know that all people need peace to survive. We know the liberation of Israelis is bound up with the liberation of Palestinians and vice versa. We know being traumatized is not a way to live. We also know that clinging to the crumbs of winning an argument only takes us further away from peace.
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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 fatherā€™s death, and a structural shortcoming, with an eye towards intergenerational shifts rather than short-term reform.
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Cultivating a Culture of Giving

For the sake of the food insecure in these difficult days, and for the future health of our country, I hope that Ki Tavoā€™s powerful linking of sacred space and religiosity to the obligation to give to those in need can be strengthened. As Americans increasingly seek spirituality and community outside of organized religion, community builders, religious and non-religious alike, must work to cultivate cultures of giving.
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Hearing and Hearing Out

If youā€™re like me, the intractable status quo between Israel and the Palestinians is really getting you down. Ever since Yitzhak Rabinā€™s handshake with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn nearly 24 years ago, my heart has been given over to the Oslo accords. An Israel and a Palestine, existing side by side in...
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