Photo of the author, Rabbi Alanna Sklover

Tzav: We Are the Stranger

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.”
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A Mirror For Our Giving

My sister is developmentally disabled. Although she is very high functioning, she still needs a lot of support, including financially. She is able to live independently and, until two years ago, was fully employed. She is approaching 60 and, as she ages, her increasing physical issues affect her functioning. She was laid off from her...
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Rabbi Adir Yolkut

Yitro: The Jewish Case for Protecting Voting Rights in 2024

As inheritors of a multi-vocal Jewish tradition that welcomes dissent and minority opinions, allowing people the chance to freely, legally, and openly participate in the democratic process strikes me as very Jewish. So to look at some of these harsh policies that stifle the voices of the downtrodden contradicts so much of what we hold dear in Judaism.
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Id, Superego, and Israel

Parshat Sh’lach seems, at first glance, to have two totally disconnected halves. Part one is the story of the twelve scouts whom Moses sent to Canaan and their sin that led God to decree 40 years of desert wandering. Part two is a series of laws about sacrifices, tithing, repentance, and wearing tzitzit. But a...
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“Good for the Jews”: Not a Zero-Sum Game

The Israelites’ Egyptian bondage was Joseph’s fault. Ok, I admit, the Egyptians were directly to blame. But Joseph’s economic reforms laid the foundation for the enslavement. Let me explain. After Jacob and his sons relocated to Egypt, the famine worsened. Joseph oversaw the collection of funds from the people of Egypt in return for rations...
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The Fishpond

My in-laws have a koi pond in their backyard. When we visited them over Sukkot, my son Barzilai—a year and three quarters old—fell in love with it. “Peepch!” he said all weekend—wonderingly, demandingly, enthusiastically—as he dragged me to the pond’s edge to peer into it; “Peepch! Mahm! [Fish! Mayim!]” This was not the first time...
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May Your Clothes Never Wear Out

This d’var Torah is sponsored by Bob Rottenberg in honor of his good friend and sofer, Rabbi Kevin Hale of Western Massachusetts, for above-and-beyond work reconstructing his aging tefillin.  It was torture wandering in the desert, those forty years, and the Israelites let everyone know it. Over and over, throughout the books of Exodus and Numbers,...
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