Vayikra: Mincha and Roses

To stand for human dignity means not only insisting on the right to basic survival needs, but the right to live fully — to experience joy, pleasure, love, friendship, beauty.
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Holy Disruption

You could imagine the look on people’s faces when a group of rabbis, donned in kippot and talitot, walked into their Publix Supermarket in Florida this past December. On a delegation to support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in their fight for dignity and human rights for Florida tomato farmers, we went to the...
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Power and Transformation

The intersection of Parshat Miketz and Hanukah invites us to reflect on two different ways in which transformational impact can be effected, and the importance of understanding the nuances of each. We see two drastically different models of power and change in these stories.  In Miketz, Joseph—an Israelite foreigner in Egypt who, by happenstance, is granted an...
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The Just Harvest of Summer

The intoxicating smell of ripe fruit is just too enticing. My niece takes a bite from one of the peaches we have been picking from an orchard this morning. As the juice runs down her chin, she gives me a sheepish smile as if asking if it is OK for her to be doing this....
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T’shuvah, Hope and the Struggle for Justice

It’s hard to hope for peace these days. The ceasefire in Gaza holds but there is no political breakthrough; President Obama has just announced a new and complex military action against a brutal enemy in Iraq and Syria; Ukraine is bleeding, and anti-Semitism in Europe has turned ugly and violent. Here at home, the suburbs...
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Fighting Poverty as a Theological Necessity

There shall be no needy among you – since the Lord your God will bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving to you as an inheritance – if only you heed the Lord your God and take care to keep all this mitzvah that I enjoin upon you this day. (Deut....
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Singing at the Sea, Planting on the Mountain

“Shabbat Shirah” is so-named because its reading contains Shirat Ha-Yam, the Song of the Sea. In biblical Hebrew, the word shirah usually denotes a poem rather than music or strophic song in its commonly-known modern Hebrew sense. Many congregations use this opportunity to create special musical programming, taking the latter translation of “Shabbat of Song.”...
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The Daughters Who Roared and Were Heard

If the wood gatherer teaches us about the threat of a raid on the commons, the sisters reinforce the lesson by anticipating a more subtle version of it. Consider what would have happened had the daughters not acted. In short, Zelophehad’s brothers likely would have fought over who should get their brother’s land. At the extreme, if all it takes to inherit land is to be the last brother standing, we face the dire prospect of a fratricidal free-for-all.
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