Food From Above

”Looking up, Abraham saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go past your servant” (Genesis 18:2-3).   When I was 17 I learned about...
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Who Feels the Pain? (Parshat VaEra)

Commentary on Parshat Vaera (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) Who deserves human rights? Even the Torah has its blind spots. The Torah portion VaEra describes an escalating cycle. As YHWH predicts, Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh and he refuses to free the Israelites. A plague strikes, and Pharaoh relents. The plague is removed by divine intervention,...
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T’shuvah, Hope and the Struggle for Justice

It’s hard to hope for peace these days. The ceasefire in Gaza holds but there is no political breakthrough; President Obama has just announced a new and complex military action against a brutal enemy in Iraq and Syria; Ukraine is bleeding, and anti-Semitism in Europe has turned ugly and violent. Here at home, the suburbs...
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Photo of the author, Maetal Gerson

Chukat: Leading and Listening

Facing the climate change disaster means facing one another with respect and sincere empathy. Only then can we manage the amount of work it will take to fix that in which each of us has a stake.
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“Who Tells Your Story?”

Today a fierce battle rages over the telling of American history. Politicians on either side of the political spectrum are fighting to control the historical narrative taught to children in schools. Is the story of America one of heroic struggle and benevolent, exceptional rule? Or is it a story of a colonizing power that exploited, oppressed, and exterminated non-white peoples?
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