Resources
Lech Lecha: A Wide Open Tent
If the tent, our home, is truly open on all sides, there is an understanding that each person is continuing onward on a different journey. Our Torah is blessing us to be just as supportive in saying goodbye as we are in saying hello.
VOTING AND DEMOCRACY: One Possible Halakhic Approach
Rabbi David Polsky reflects on what Jewish tradition has to say about voting and democratic practice.
The Torah of Repair and Reconciliation
On its surface, Chayei Sarah is one of the tamer portions in all of the Torah. It is the only parasha in Genesis in which there is a complete absence of conflict and destruction. Yet there is an extremely rich subtext here, one that can be read in relation to the dramatic and disturbing events...
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As Israel Ages, Is It Coming Into Its Own?
In this week’s Torah portion, we read the following words about the first Jew ever to set out for the land we call Israel: “V’Avraham zakein ba bayamim” – “Abraham was old, advanced in years.” Torah scholars point out that the phrase is redundant – if he’s old, we already know he’s advanced in years. ...
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The Dead and the Living in Hebron
For millennia, we Jews have been burying our dead outside the city limits, in caves, in fields and on hillsides. Just recently, for example, I stood with a crowd of people in a field, waiting to bury a friend, cousin, classmate, brother, son. Together we, the living, placed one of our own into the earth....
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