When someone like Kenneth Smith is praying even as he is lying on a bed of death, how can we pass by once we are made aware, awakened to God's presence there?
***As of October 7, our in-person Israel programs are on hold. Rabbinical and cantorial students in Israel can check back here for updates.*** About the Year-in-Israel Program The T’ruah Year-in-Israel Program offers rabbinical and cantorial students spending the academic year in Israel the opportunity to develop their moral voice on human rights issues in Israel...
[Unders stress,] we are often functioning far from our cores, where we can access our unique strengths and talents, offer our best selves, and hear – and perhaps even seek – other voices.
This is the work before us this Pesach. We must abandon our worship of the false idol of correctness. We have to start with what we know. We know that all people need peace to survive. We know the liberation of Israelis is bound up with the liberation of Palestinians and vice versa. We know being traumatized is not a way to live. We also know that clinging to the crumbs of winning an argument only takes us further away from peace.
Community knowledge is the strongest tool we have, and we must learn how to both respect and harness it. When we seek to make change in the world, we must ask ourselves: Who might know what needs to happen even better than I do?
A truly free people accepts its covenants without coercion. As we work for a better world, one of true dignity and equality for all, it’s important to remember that.
The path of peace is not an easy one; it cuts through the binary of right or wrong, victim or oppressor, hero or villain, us or them. The path of peace does not choose favorites, does not leverage one over another, does not create hierarchies. The path of peace has no sides.
We are returning from the mountain to the plains; from our highest ideals to the practicalities of daily living; from the most fundamental expression of holiness to where we are now.