Rabbi Jeremy Kridel

Chayei Sara: Calling Politicians to the City Gate this Election Day

“All politics is local.” That phrase was associated with the late U.S. Congressman and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. This week features an Election Day. With so much of our attention focused on Israel and Gaza, we might be tempted to miss all the local and state elections happening this week. As if...
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Hope and a Listening Ear

I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. (Exodus 6:5) It seems these days I have an endless array of guest speakers in my congregation: about the Syrian refugee crisis, about the death penalty, about homelessness, about the violence fraying...
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From Furious to Curious

I wonder how the story would have unfolded if God had been curious rather than furious, and if when Moses came down from the mountain and witnessed the dancing, he had been able to pause and observe, noticing the feelings arising and waiting to respond until his anger had quieted down. Was it reasonable to expect these newly freed slaves, who were just beginning to experiment with their sense of autonomy, to simply wait patiently for Moses to return? 
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No More Sarahs

Last April, I traveled to Washington D.C. to visit my son at college. Georgetown University is a great place and, by all accounts, safe. We were in the bookstore when, suddenly, the entire student center was on lockdown. A policeman explained that the night before two students had been robbed at gunpoint outside the business...
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Encountering Nature Demands Responsibility (Parshat Yitro)

Commentary for Parshat Yitro (Exodus 18:1 – 20:23 ) and Tu BiShvat “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” — John Muir One of my ideological inspirations, John Muir, was one of the world’s most...
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Taking Time to Catch Our Breath

When God revealed to Moses that God is prepared to fulfill God’s covenant with our ancestors, God said, “I have now heard the moaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians have enslaved.” (Exodus 6:5) God could hear the Israelites even when they could not breathe.
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Lessons for Democracy from the Holocaust

A d’var Torah for Yom HaShoah. In many respects, World War II seemed like a triumph of democracy. When the Allies defeated the Axis powers, the world celebrated that democratic nations had been victorious against fascism. On May 8, 1945, Victory Day, Americans danced in the streets and threw confetti from the rooftops to celebrate...
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Envisioning a Just Society

In parshat Ki Tetze we encounter the case of the ben sorer u’moreh, the wayward and rebellious son. We read in Devarim 21:18-21 that if a child does not obey his mother and father they should bring him out to the gates of the city before a council of elders, publicly declare him a glutton...
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Sent Out of the Camp

This week’s parashah deals with a somewhat puzzling disease, called tzara’at, often translated as “leprosy.” As the Torah describes it, it’s an affliction that could appear on human skin, on clothes, or even infect houses. It’s not clear if the affliction is truly physical, as Leviticus seems to indicate, or if it’s a physical manifestation of...
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