Eish Zarah: The Feeling of Being Foreign

I had never been inside Perth Amboy’s quaint, two room art gallery on the outskirts of this heavily Hispanic town in Central New Jersey. What brought me inside at this moment, nearly four years after I moved to Perth Amboy to be the rabbi of Congregation Beth Mordecai, the remaining synagogue in town, was not...
read more

“Good for the Jews”: Not a Zero-Sum Game

The Israelites’ Egyptian bondage was Joseph’s fault. Ok, I admit, the Egyptians were directly to blame. But Joseph’s economic reforms laid the foundation for the enslavement. Let me explain. After Jacob and his sons relocated to Egypt, the famine worsened. Joseph oversaw the collection of funds from the people of Egypt in return for rations...
read more

Of Migrants and Midwives

While we know the names of Shifra and Puah, the Egyptian midwives who disobeyed Pharaoh and saved Jewish baby boys, in Parashat VaYislach we meet an unnamed midwife who is present for the precarious birth of Benjamin. According to Genesis 35:16-19, while our migrant ancestors were on an arduous journey en route from Beth El...
read more

From Moses to Today: Accountability and Transparency in Leadership

Brandon Tate-Brown, a 26 year-old African-American man, was, according to his mother and friends, finally putting his life back together. After spending some time in jail for aggressive behaviors, he was trying to rehabilitate himself—working at a new job and finally moving into an apartment of his own. On December 15, 2014, Brandon Tate-Brown was...
read more

Klinghoffer and Me

Last week, my worlds collided. I once trained as an opera singer, and though I have traded Gluck for gemara, I remain a fervent supporter of the arts. I have a weekly appointment that brings me within a block of the Metropolitan Opera House, at Lincoln Center, and I often stroll through the plaza, admiring...
read more

Hearing the Cry of Oppression

We often read the biblical narrative of slavery as a relic of our past. However, as consumers in a global economy we unwittingly utilize products tainted by slavery every day. In 2011, a group of workers from the New York State Fair appeared at a health clinic near Syracuse, New York with malnutrition. It turned...
read more

PREPARE

This is God’s message for the people before they are to experience the awesome Presence at the mountain: “Lekh el-ha’am v’kidashtam hayom umakhar…” Go to the people and sanctify them.  The exact meaning and practice of this sanctification is not explained.  Some commentators, such as Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, see it as purification and read...
read more

Praying That God Is Not Nauseous

“The land vomits you out?!” one of my congregants in my weekly parshah class exclaimed. We were learning parshat Behar. I was trying to explain the conditions in which we are allowed by God to dwell in the land of Israel. In order to dwell in the land we must act with holiness, following God’s...
read more

Hunger: Edom or Israel?

There were three hundred and sixty five thoroughfares in the great city of Rome, and in each there were three hundred and sixty five palaces; and in each palace, there were three hundred and sixty five stories and each story contained sufficient to provide the whole world with food. (Talmud Bavli Pesachim 118b) With less...
read more

The Sacred Task of Following Instructions

Let’s face it: change is usually slow. Confronting the institutional injustices we see at all levels of government and many parts of corporate America, it’s hard to know which of the two moves slower. As we persist, we need opportunities to renew our hope and inspire others to continue working to bring about desperately needed...
read more

Sign up for updates and action alerts