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In the struggle for human rights, it is hard not to feel like a tiny grasshopper scratching at the massive walls of injustice we face all around us. There are so many people who are suffering, so many systems that are deeply broken; there is so much work to do. In parshat Shlach Lecha, God...

About three years ago, I was called by the Head Chaplain of the Butner Federal Correction Institution located forty-five minutes north of my home in Raleigh, NC. This is the same penitentiary where (in)famous prisoners like Jonathan Pollard and Bernard Madoff currently reside. The chaplain’s message came with a southern drawl: “Rabbi, we have a...

CONGREGATION SHA’AREI KODESH 2nd Day of Passover MARCH 27, 2013 ©  RABBI LOUIS RIESER   Hag kasher v’Sameah. I want to thank Rabbi Baum for this invitation to speak about my experience in Immokalee with T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.  In January I joined 9 other rabbis to learn first-hand about the conditions...

The image of God—tzelem Elohim—is often front and center in animating Jewish human rights work. The recent release of the movie Exodus: Gods and Kings (which, admittedly, I have not seen) gave me pause to contemplate the tzelem’s counterpart—the voice of God. Director Ridley Scott is taking some flak for casting 11-year-old Isaac Andrews as...

When we tell others the stories of our lives, we often find ourselves spicing up the narrative a bit as we tell and retell the story. It’s only human to exaggerate a bit, especially if our audiences don’t seem to be giving the stories the attention we feel that they deserve. Our additions add an...

Parshat Nitzavim, the first of this week’s double parshah, speaks powerfully to our fundamental human need for connection to each other and to Gd — and therefore to the isolation that is an anathema to it. The covenant of Torah that began with the distant and dramatic display of Gd’s power at Mount Sinai is...

In Parshat Vayera, we are reminded of the crucial role water plays in the life of all human communities. In Genesis 21, we read about the banishment of Hagar and Yishmael from their home, and how God revealed a well of water in Hagar’s moment of despair. Immediately following this, the Torah describes a negotiation...

For millennia, we Jews have been burying our dead outside the city limits, in caves, in fields and on hillsides. Just recently, for example, I stood with a crowd of people in a field, waiting to bury a friend, cousin, classmate, brother, son. Together we, the living, placed one of our own into the earth....

Ribbono Shel Olam, Master of the Universe — Shekhinah, Whose wings shelter creation — Once our people wandered the desert sands. Now we merely vacation in rootlessness While our Bedouin neighbors perch Without permission, their goats forbidden to graze. Time after time the bulldozers tear down homes And playgrounds, uprooting spindly olive trees To make...

Y’tziyat Mitzraim, the Exodus from Egypt, stands as one of the defining stories of the Jewish people. It defines our identity, provides a moral mission and stands as the paradigm for the ultimate redemption. Scripture reminds us no less than thirty-two times of our status as slaves and strangers in Egypt. We know the affliction...