The Symbolism of Planting During a Shmita Year

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.
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The Blessings that Motivate Change

Jacob’s blessing becomes a charge, to his guardian angels and to all of us, that our blessings can motivate us to become agents of change, especially when inequity prohibits others from readily accessing these resources.
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Finding God with Open Hearts

When analysis or argument overrides wonder, do we risk ceding what we’re seeking in the first place? Do we risk hardened hearts like Pharaoh, even if our aim is holy?
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Taking Time to Catch Our Breath

When God revealed to Moses that God is prepared to fulfill God’s covenant with our ancestors, God said, “I have now heard the moaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians have enslaved.” (Exodus 6:5) God could hear the Israelites even when they could not breathe.
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The Wilderness of Homelessness and a Way Forward

I imagine the Israelites showing the same expression of confusion and disbelief as those families who realize that they have just lost their homes and that their lives have just been upended: not knowing to whom to turn and where to go because of a system that is not built to support them. At least in the story of the Exodus, God has other plans.
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“And the community was without water….”

Our Torah depicts what can happen to us in a world without water... Moses striking the rock to yield water is a vivid metaphor for the water-related violence that is breaking out all over our world — particularly in the Middle East, as well as in South Asia and Africa.
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