Pharaoh and King

Martin Luther King, whose birthday we remember and celebrate this week, confirmed what Pharaoh’s behavior already taught us: God helps each of us become who we are determined to become. Amongst the most obvious differences between the modern giant of social justice and the ancient Egyptian ruler is that MLK had, in his own words,...
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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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Meet our 2024 Gala Honorees

Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award From the arts, to the United Nations, to Human Rights Watch, Marina Kaufman has dedicated her life to human rights for all people. In 1978, she became involved with an organization called the University for Peace in Costa Rica, where she was one of the “producers” of a benefit concert...
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Community of Practice: Israel/Palestine

This Community of Practice is for Chaverim who look to answer the question, “how can I be a clergy member who effectively leads in my Jewish space and in my larger community around issues of Israel and Palestine?”
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Free Speech and The Right to Boycott

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.” -Justice Louis Brandeis T’ruah...
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Parashat Bamidbar: The Imperative to Provide Refuge

My father’s family were refugees from Vienna, who fled just before World War II broke out, but not before my grandfather had been deported to Dachau. He remained incarcerated there from November 13, 1938, until January 19, 1939. He knew he had to leave Austria with his family. But leaving wasn’t easy. First, it meant...
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Ritual and Regulation: A Priestly Corrective to Prophecy

Commentary on Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1 – 20:27) In the Bible, there are two traditions, the prophetic and the priestly, both of which aim at building a good society, but do so taking very different approaches. In the Haftarah read on Yom Kippur the prophet Isaiah famously demands: “Is such the fast I desire, a...
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