We’re here for you

March 20, 2020 We’re about to enter Shabbat on what, for many of us, was our first full week staying at home, as we collectively try to slow the pace of this terrifying pandemic. I’m thinking of those of you who are coping with your own illnesses or those of family and friends. And, of...
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Manager of Rabbinic Education

T’ruah is seeking a full-time Manager of Rabbinic Education to enhance the skills and knowledge of the 2,300 rabbis and cantors in our network so that they can have a bigger impact on their communities’ ability to address pressing human rights issues. The ideal candidate is a skilled Jewish educator with an organizer’s mindset and...
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CIW’s “Time’s Up Wendy’s” March

#TomatoRabbis and members of the New York Jewish community will be marching in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, as they call on Wendy’s to end the five-year stand-off and join the Fair Food Program. This is the culminating event of a five-day fast that CIW members and select #TomatoRabbis are undertaking. Join us...
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Photo of the author, Maetal Gerson

Chukat: Leading and Listening

Facing the climate change disaster means facing one another with respect and sincere empathy. Only then can we manage the amount of work it will take to fix that in which each of us has a stake.
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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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Listening for God

Only Moses, suggests the Ma’or VaShemesh, can imagine a world beyond that which he has experienced. To truly hear God, accordingly, is to recognize that the world as we know it is contingent: it does not have to be as it is.
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Purell, Red Heifers, and Why Not Being Racist Isn’t Enough

And at some point, I looked down at my hands and my children’s hands, spotless from washing, no dirt under our nails, and I thought about the historical chain of racist violence and state-sanctioned brutality that our hands grasped. Our social system makes certainty of our cleanliness an impossibility. Quite the opposite: we are all unclean, no matter how much we may have washed.
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2013 Rabbinic Letter on Bedouin Rights

In 2013, nearly 800 rabbis, cantors, and rabbinical and cantorial students signed this letter, which was delivered to the Israeli government. As spiritual and Jewish community leaders who care deeply about the State of Israel, we write to you in solidarity with concerned Jewish and Arab Israelis to urge you to withdraw the Bill on...
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