Headshot of Rabbi Andrea Goldstein

Ki Tisa: Democracies and Holiness Require Open Space

Only from an open and spacious heart can I experience a connection to what is holy. When I am focused on what I want and need, or when I am filled up with my own sense of righteousness, then what I have created within is actually a Golden Calf instead of my own small sanctuary.
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Babel and Bathrooms

Over the summer, we at Temple Micah joined the national conversation about bathrooms, who they are for, and how we talk about them. Our gender neutral bathroom taskforce had its first meeting, a conversation largely centering on labels and language. We all agree that a synagogue should feel safe and welcoming for everyone, and that...
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Your Joy Is Your Sorrow Unmasked

A week ago Sunday, marked by the new moon of the Jewish month of Adar, I spent the day at the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia, bearing witness to the desecration of 539 gravestones. Joining with Muslim, Quaker and Christian neighbors, people of faith and conscience, our hands in the earth restoring headstones, as...
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Shemini: Strange Pitfalls and Big-Picture Solutions

Those of us of a certain age remember the heady days of the 1960s, when we hoped to create a new world of peace and love. Fast forward half a century to the last election. How did the love generation devolve into today’s isolation, rage, and powerlessness? What went wrong? This week’s parashah, with its...
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Birth, Visibility, and Justice

Ishah ki tazria. Parshat Tazria opens with laws related to a woman giving birth. The Torah’s terse account of birth screams out for interpretation, for filling in the space between these black letters with the many, and varied, experiences of birth. These stories are so necessary because people are often blind to experiences of birth,...
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In Time of Upheaval: Wonder & Awe OR Wealth & Wall?

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught that there are two ways of being in the world: “the way of expediency” and “the way of wonder.” In the former, we seek to take what we can from the world and others; in the latter, our focus is on how we can serve. When we are driven by...
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Jacob and Laban: How Not To Do Healthcare

A few months ago I received a letter from my health insurance company telling me that they were cancelling my insurance plan, and that as of December 31 I would have to find new coverage. I was not alone in this scenario, as this particular company cancelled plans in several counties in my state. The reason, as...
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Yom Yerushalayim Obscures The Reality of Modern Jerusalem

A d’var Torah for Yom Yerushalayim by Daniel Seidemann. Jerusalem Day, Yom Yerushalayim, which is this coming Friday, was created by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the Rabbanut, in the wake of the 1967 war, and subsequently enshrined as a national holiday under law. A religious commemoration of the “reunification” of Jerusalem when Hallel is said,...
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A Message That Will Be Heard

A D’var Torah for Parshat VaEra by Rabbi Dr. Oren Z. Steinitz “Just as it is a mitzvah for a person to deliver a message that will be heard, so is it a mitzvah for a person not to deliver a message that will not be heard.” (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot, 65b). This statement, attributed to...
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