Rabbi Laurie Franklin

Mishpatim: Mishpatim in Montana

Mishpatim teaches that formal justice must be free of influence from bribes or wealth status, and that even the stranger deserves protection. In my home state of Montana, regressive laws recently passed in our 2023 state legislature have revoked rights and freedoms from Montana residents under the guise of “protection” and “freedom of speech."
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Reading the Exodus as a Migration Story

If America is to be the land of the free, a melting pot of diversity and equality, it too must clear the stones from the proverbial roads and build up pathways for immigrants, especially refugees and asylum-seekers.
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What Progressive Jewishness Could Have Been

A D’var Torah for Parshat Mishpatim by Allen Lipson As workers across the country lead backs-to-the-wall organizing drives in the long odds of a COVID economy, Parshat Mishpatim’s labor laws offer a timely opportunity to reclaim the legacy of Rav Avraham Bick’s Mishnas Ha’Poel (The Teaching of the Worker), an all-but-forgotten tale of Jewish class...
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Yom Yerushalayim Obscures The Reality of Modern Jerusalem

A d’var Torah for Yom Yerushalayim by Daniel Seidemann. Jerusalem Day, Yom Yerushalayim, which is this coming Friday, was created by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the Rabbanut, in the wake of the 1967 war, and subsequently enshrined as a national holiday under law. A religious commemoration of the “reunification” of Jerusalem when Hallel is said,...
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Heart of a Stranger: The Jewish Historical Memory of Torture

You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. -Ex. 23:9 You were strangers in the land of Egypt reminds us that we have experienced the great suffering that one in a foreign land feels. By remembering the pain which we...
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He Shall Then Remain (Parshat Mishpatim)

Commentary on Parshat Mishpatim (Exodus 21:1 – 24:18) So, we’re free from bondage! We’ve accepted our lot as God’s chosen people! Now we eagerly move on to… a list of regulations for a hypothetical society we cannot build yet? Why is Parshat Mishpatim here? The essential clue, I think, is in the first topic: rules...
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Time to Move Forward

As much as I love the Passover seder, it’s in the few days immediately afterward that I can more easily imagine the chaos of the Exodus from Egypt. Coming back from being with my family, unpacking and wondering what happened to half the things I brought with me, being unable to find anything in the...
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