Resources

Excerpt from Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life – in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)

Text studies, divrei Torah, placards, and more resources for elections.

"In the form we know them today, popular elections – where all adult citizens vote for their leaders – are the product of western democracies."

A d’var Torah for Simchat Torah. Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow is the Vice President at the Foundation for Jewish Camp. He has a deep love of irreverent, relevant, and revealing Torah and blogs religiously at saidtomyself.com. Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson is Director of Rabbinic Training at T’ruah and the editor of Torah 20/20.   Rabbi...

This work is essential, now more than ever. But this work is also exhausting. Just like the holiday of Sukkot, our world is also one of contradictions. There is good within all the chaos, although right now it might be hard to see.

In this week’s parshah, Moses delivers a speech in the form of a song, marshaling the witnesses of heaven and earth to give ear to his words.

Two decades later, it is easier to see how we were tempted by the idols of that time, but it is still hard to recognize the idols of today. We remember the sheer panic of 19 years ago, and how we longed for someone — anyone — to make us feel safe again. Those who told us that we need only sacrifice a bit of our liberty for safety often gave us neither. Looking back, we remember just how hollow those promises were.

Over this past year, T’ruah has been publishing Torah 20/20, where each week a different author reflects on what the Torah portion teaches us about democracy.

It’s Rosh Hashanah, and those lifeless eyes stare at the collective of mingled families, a lot of kids – I’m among them – who sneak off to play cards.

Loving our neighbors is not merely feeling affection towards them; it is joining them when that which gives them life has collapsed and fallen and striving to raise it, and them, up. When our neighbors are harmed, we hurt too; we are interdependent.