Naso

For me, acknowledging what I cannot see lies at the heart of community building. It helps me feel connected to the humanity of people in my circles and in the broader world, as ultimately the invisible heaviness of experience is one of the things that I know to be true of being human.

...being in Israel over the last several months has shown me almost daily how easy it is to defile something that’s important to us because of zealotry and jealousy. 

I wonder if there might not be some wisdom in “let’s not talk about it”; if the covering might, sometimes, be part of the carrying. 

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.

A d’var Torah for Parshat Naso. “The Eternal one spoke to Moses: Take a census.” This week’s Torah portion, Naso, focuses on one of the multiple censuses that was carried out, the census of the Levites in the desert. This year in the U.S. is our year to carry out the census — to be...

Rabbi Dr. Jenny Solomon discusses the importance of blessing with love.

Commentary on Parshat Naso (Numbers 4:21 – 7:89) Here in DC, the last couple of months have been pretty rough. In March, DC City Council member Trayon White claimed that the Rothschilds control the weather and the government, and then ducked out early from a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that had been...

Think of all the reasons you can get kicked out of Disneyland: if you are caught cutting in line; if you take video on roller coasters; if you smoke in undesignated areas; if you (an adult) dress up as a Disney character. (I love this last one!) I know that for some people, Disneyland/World are...

“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...