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Counting everyone, including the stranger, for the 2020 Census
A d’var Torah for Parshat Naso. “The Eternal one spoke to Moses: Take a census.” This week’s Torah portion, Naso, focuses on one of the multiple censuses that was carried out, the census of the Levites in the desert. This year in the U.S. is our year to carry out the census — to be...
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Report from El Paso, November 2019
A firsthand account from Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T'ruah Executive Director, of the joint T'ruah-HIAS border delegation, November 2019.
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Opening the Door at Passover
At the first Passover, we marked our doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb to protect us from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:23). Although that was a one-time ritual, doors continue to be a central symbol of the holiday. It is a symbol that seems more relevant than ever in an age when nativism...
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![Photo of the author, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg](https://truah.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Rabbi-Danya-Ruttenberg-Portrait-Sizer.jpg)
Kedoshim: Love Thy Neighbor, Not Thy Empire
How we love our neighbor is by fighting for a society in which we would be glad to live no matter how little privilege we had.
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Peering Outside the Camp
“Joseph’s master had him put in prison…but even while he was there in prison, God was with Joseph.” -Genesis 39:20-21 Bulletproof glass separates me and my congregant. David [not his real name] and I sit opposite one another, in identical, soundproof, cinder-block visiting cubicles at a prison an hour’s drive from my home. He’s wearing...
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Paying Priests, Paying Parents
This past weekend, many of us celebrated Father’s Day to honor the important work our dads do. A month ago, we did the same thing to honor our mothers: BBQs and brunches, phone calls and cards in the mail, “Number 1 Mom” mugs and “World’s Best Dad” baseball caps. As a congregational rabbi, I spend...
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Every Person Counts? (Parshat Bamidbar)
Commentary on Parshat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) Our Torah portion opens with the taking of another census of B’nai Yisrael – the Children of Israel – this time “listed by their clans, ages 20 years and up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms…” (Num. 1:2) This is census number three since the...
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Each Person, A Letter of Torah
Rabbi Kimberly Herzog Cohen writes on Bamidbar and making every person count.
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