A Time for Realism, or a Time for Imagination?

For many of us, we anticipate that this week will be full of so much change and upheaval, fear and anger, anxiety and sadness, and hopefully also motivation and drive to act. So how do we respond in the face of great challenge? Our Israelite ancestors certainly faced some pretty trying circumstances, so what can...
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Parashat Mishpatim: Laws of Compassion

This summer in Israel/Palestine, I visited several Bedouin communities. At Al Araqib I marched with the women and girls of the village—which the IDF has leveled more than 100 times in the last six years—from one of its hastily re-erected gathering spaces, across the desert hills, under the hot summer sun, to a building in...
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Yovel Text Study: 50 Years

We don’t know exactly when the Yovel year begins. It’s the culmination of seven cycles of seven years, each culminating in a sh’mitah—sabbatical—year. The only way to arrive at Yovel is to count seven years, then seven again and again until forty-nine years have gone by. Similarly, the Torah never tells us precisely when to...
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Fat Torah: Emerging Together from the Shadow of Fear

I loved the cover of my first album. It was all swirls of red and blue painted by my friend Eileen. The year was 1996, and I was proudly selling my CDs (and cassette tapes!) after finishing a performance. One woman bought a CD, took one look at it, shook her head, and said, “Your...
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When a Leader SIns

This Torah portion begins the book’s extensive treatment of the sacrificial system that was practiced in Israel for more than 1000 years. And it is now some 2000 years since we stopped offering sacrifices. In the interim we have developed a sense of distance from that ancient cultic practice. Nevertheless, it may still be possible...
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What is THAT doing on my seder plate??

This year, I’ve found myself obsessing over the Passover Seder plate. I don’t usually do that, I promise! I like it, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t dwell on it all that much. But this year, I have been reading a fair amount of sources on new symbols that can be added to (or...
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Praying That God Is Not Nauseous

“The land vomits you out?!” one of my congregants in my weekly parshah class exclaimed. We were learning parshat Behar. I was trying to explain the conditions in which we are allowed by God to dwell in the land of Israel. In order to dwell in the land we must act with holiness, following God’s...
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Not By Might: My Israel/Palestine

I am starting to write this from a cramped seat on an El Al flight to join the Center for Jewish NonViolence action from May 14-23 in the West Bank. I’ve been asked to drash Beha’alotecha in light of this trip, but, full disclosure, I have to write now because there won’t be enough time after...
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Messianic Vision in a Zealous World

Zeal—In this day many of us are fired up. It is easy to see the injustice. It shouts at us every time we open our Facebook feeds, its red face looks up at us from the newspapers at our feet. We march, we sing, we chant. We scream out in agony demanding change. A while...
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Al Chet Sh’chatanu

I felt rage and disappointment in their choices and positions. Being a rabbi in Texas meant I was constantly trying to connect our moral traditions to political action, while simultaneously removing any hint of partisanship from the conversation. For a long time, I walked the delicate balance, recognizing that while our values relate to our...
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