Opening the Door at Passover

At the first Passover, we marked our doorposts with the blood of a sacrificial lamb to protect us from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:23). Although that was a one-time ritual, doors continue to be a central symbol of the holiday. It is a symbol that seems more relevant than ever in an age when nativism...
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When the Entire Community Is Guilty

...as we learn from Leviticus, for communal sin there can be expiation. The process begins not with bringing a bull to the sanctuary, but with a commitment to learn history, and a commitment to ensure that history is learned by others.
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Fear

In December I sat with M., a thirty-four year old man who is seeking asylum. Over the course of 3 ½ hours, M. told me what he had endured for many years in his country that propelled him to leave his home and his country to embark on a harrowing journey in search of asylum....
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Food From Above

”Looking up, Abraham saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go past your servant” (Genesis 18:2-3).   When I was 17 I learned about...
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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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Emerging from the Darkness into the Light

A D’var Torah by Rabbi Nancy Wiener for Parshat Bo The rabbis teach that, at the dawning of a new day, we must wait to begin our morning prayers until we can recognize another’s face in the distance. In this inaugural week, we can now see faces that reflect our nation’s diversity in the House...
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