2024 Haggadah Supplement

The supplement includes reflections and conversation starters about the Israel-Hamas war that can be used as additions to the traditional haggadah texts or in place of them.
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“Now We Are Free”: But Who Pays the Price?

A d’var Torah for Chol HaMoed Pesach. “Let My people go,” God famously said to Moses. We usually don’t finish the quote, which ends “…so that they may serve Me.” Freedom, the rabbis say quite plainly, is another kind of servitude. The cheirut, freedom, that the Jews achieved on Passover (z’man cheiruteinu, the time of...
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2024 Gala Honoree Selection Committee

Each year, T’ruah honors a group of extraordinary clergy who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to living and working in accordance with a Torah of justice and human rights. And each year we turn to our supporters to help us find these remarkable leaders by nominating their clergy colleagues and friends. Nominations for our 2024 Rabbinic...
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Slavery, Then and Now

In this moving sermon, Rabbi Gordon Tucker discusses the problem of modern slavery and describes his experience visiting sites from the African slave trade. SLAVERY THEN AND NOW Rabbi Gordon Tucker   The Torah, in Leviticus 25:55, has God saying “The children of Israel are My servants”, and the rabbinic tradition afterwards added the following...
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Ritual and Regulation: A Priestly Corrective to Prophecy

Commentary on Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1 – 20:27) In the Bible, there are two traditions, the prophetic and the priestly, both of which aim at building a good society, but do so taking very different approaches. In the Haftarah read on Yom Kippur the prophet Isaiah famously demands: “Is such the fast I desire, a...
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The Mournfulness of Her Song: Hearing the Cries of the Enslaved

On my recent visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, I was moved to tears by one of the readings displayed in the darkened memorial room to those who were transported to America on slave ships from Africa. I learned that the chained slaves would sing songs of...
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