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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The Miracle of Translation

To create meaningful and lasting change in our world, we can never dilute the messages we so believe in. Instead, we must work hard to make those messages accessible to people of a variety of social and political backgrounds, relying heavily on our most sacred tactic: the “miracle of translation.”
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A Blessing of Peace for Jerusalem

Everyone in Jerusalem – every Palestinian resident and citizen, every Jew, every activist standing in solidarity across lines of difference...was at one time a child, ready to receive a parent’s tender blessing given in love.
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How Drawing Near Leads to Speaking Out

This drawing-near is ultimately what leads to Joseph’s emotions overwhelming him; breaking from silence into sobbing, he orders the room cleared and then reveals himself to his brothers. Our drawing-near is also what engaged our emotions and drew us from silence into speech.
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Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson

Vayera: War Ethics from Kabbalah

What feels so hard in this moment is that I don’t know what the right course of action is. One of the problems I see in the world’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack is a preponderance of either Chesed or Gevurah thinking.
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My trip to Immokalee

CONGREGATION SHA’AREI KODESH 2nd Day of Passover MARCH 27, 2013 ©  RABBI LOUIS RIESER   Hag kasher v’Sameah. I want to thank Rabbi Baum for this invitation to speak about my experience in Immokalee with T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.  In January I joined 9 other rabbis to learn first-hand about the conditions...
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Mikdash: Sanctuary Quickstart Guide

This two-page guide offers a starting point for how to think about joining the sanctuary movement. The accompanying text study offers some initial Jewish sources on the subject. A longer guide will be available in September 2017.  
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Messianic Vision in a Zealous World

Zeal—In this day many of us are fired up. It is easy to see the injustice. It shouts at us every time we open our Facebook feeds, its red face looks up at us from the newspapers at our feet. We march, we sing, we chant. We scream out in agony demanding change. A while...
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Silence Implicates Us

“The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.” These words were spoken by Rabbi Joachim Prinz, one of two Jews to speak at the March on Washington in 1963 alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Rabbi Prinz knew of which he spoke, having served the Jewish community...
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