Stop Torture Now: A Complete Rabbinic Sourcebook

This is T’ruah’s primary resource booklet on government-sponsored torture, originally published in 2005. It includes the shorter versions of Rabbi Melissa Weintraub’s articles on torture and Jewish law, insertions for High Holidays services, materials for study and discussion, and the original public letter to the Bush Administration, signed by over 800 rabbis and cantors. The full-length versions...
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Peering Outside the Camp

“Joseph’s master had him put in prison…but even while he was there in prison, God was with Joseph.” -Genesis 39:20-21 Bulletproof glass separates me and my congregant. David [not his real name] and I sit opposite one another, in identical, soundproof, cinder-block visiting cubicles at a prison an hour’s drive from my home. He’s wearing...
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Paying Priests, Paying Parents

This past weekend, many of us celebrated Father’s Day to honor the important work our dads do. A month ago, we did the same thing to honor our mothers: BBQs and brunches, phone calls and cards in the mail, “Number 1 Mom” mugs and “World’s Best Dad” baseball caps. As a congregational rabbi, I spend...
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Every Person Counts? (Parshat Bamidbar)

Commentary on Parshat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) Our Torah portion opens with the taking of another census of B’nai Yisrael – the Children of Israel – this time “listed by their clans, ages 20 years and up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms…” (Num. 1:2) This is census number three since the...
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Building Structures to House All Images of God

It is incumbent upon us to create spaces for God to come into the world. I would add, if we are not doing everything we can to create structures to house all holy human beings, then we are not doing our part in imitating godliness. 
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You Can’t Leave Anyone Behind

I love Israel. But I could never live in a place called “the Jewish homeland” when progressive Jews are treated as second-class citizens. In Israel, the Orthodox establishment controls matters of personal status – primarily conversions and marriages. Jews who wish to be married, religiously, by a Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Reform rabbi generally leave the...
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A Prayer for Ferguson

Help us to lie down, Dear Lord our God, in peace, and let us rise again, to life… This summer, I heard that a young black man had been killed by a police officer. The sad thing is that I tuned the story out. I was too caught up in whatever I was doing to...
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“Mishpat Echad”

At the end of parashat Emor, our rabbis focus on a single phrase, “You shall have one justice for the stranger and the citizen alike, I am the Eternal.” (Leviticus 24: 22) We have to ask ourselves: how are we doing upholding the principle of equal justice? Let us begin with the great scholar who...
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