We know the heart of the stranger and we cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of these people, or allow statistics to blur them and their lives into a faceless “issue.”
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...
Commentary on Parshat Masei (Numbers 33:1 – 36:13) When I take my dog to the dog park, he loves to run from picnic table to picnic table and dive underneath them, seeking shade and safety. The picnic tables are a safe zone, a refuge, a sanctuary. Between 1980 and 1991, nearly one million Central Americans fled...
See. Re’eh. Much of Sefer Devarim instructs us to listen—Shma. Listening is one important way that people understand and empathize with the stories of others. When we hear or read these from afar, we feel great empathy and outrage. But in our portion, the mitzvot we are called to fulfill require that we see life’s...
Mimi Micner is currently a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. Before attending Hebrew College, she was the Senior New England Campus Organizer with J Street U, where she organized college students for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before working at J Street U, Mimi was a union organizer with...
Rabbi Mira Rivera is Associate Rabbi and Director of Pastoral Care at Romemu in New York City. She serves as a rabbi and mentor at Ammud: the Jews of Color Torah Academy and actively supports LUNAR: the Asian-Jewish Film Project. She has co-chaired the rabbinical council of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and continues...
Rabbi Jill Jacobs: "Too often, we have given Netanyahu and other right wing politicians standing ovations in our own communities, even as they incite violence against their own citizens, woo Kahanists into the Knesset, and implement de facto annexation of the West Bank."