The Holiness of Blemishes

Those of us concerned for the basic human rights of the physically and mentally disabled can easily be dismayed by this week’s Torah portion, Emor. For while Leviticus promises universal access to the sacred, this portion seems to restrict direct access to God to an ever- smaller subset of a tiny priestly minority. This portion...
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A Shemoneh-Esreh for Israel

In 2016/5776, T’ruah gathered in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City to celebrate Yom HaAtzma’ut. The core of the service was a series of 19 blessings for the State of Israel, modeled on the weekday Amidah that Jews traditionally recite three times a day. Each blessing was written by a rabbi, cantor, or...
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How to Make Our Racial Equity Commitments Endure

Listening to (the shofar's) blasts, we hold so many good intentions about the year to come... That is why the robust structures for anti-racism work... are so important. They give us a path to walk, a process to follow, and so they seek to avoid backsliding into complacency.
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Rabbi Jill Jacobs headshot

Taking Time: A Resource for Shabbat by Rabbi Jill Jacobs

God, according to the Torah, created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh. This doesn’t mean that the world was perfect at the end of the sixth day of creation. Rather, God models the necessity of taking just one day to experience the world as it is, while acknowledging our own limitations in perfecting it.
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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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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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