Vayigash

What I think is needed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories today is the will to break the chain of the blame-game. We need a new generation of dreamers — those who can imagine a future of peace and prosperity for both Palestinians and Israelis together.

I have just returned from the borderlands, where the conjoined cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez meet.

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.

Let’s review how Joseph exercises power once he achieves it in Egypt. He takes revenge on the brothers who sold him into slavery, by calling them spies and holding Shimon in prison. Then, after reconciling with them, he uses his position to enrich his family, giving them the fertile land of Goshen to settle in....

Abby Leibman analyzes our attitudes towards hunger in this d'var torah on parshat Vayigash.

My sister is developmentally disabled. Although she is very high functioning, she still needs a lot of support, including financially. She is able to live independently and, until two years ago, was fully employed. She is approaching 60 and, as she ages, her increasing physical issues affect her functioning. She was laid off from her...

As a concerned young adult living in Bangkok, I tried to make sense of the brokenness around me by doing volunteer work with like-minded meditation practitioners. Following the social action trail, we found ourselves in one of the many refugee villages along the Laotian/Thai border that continued to exist in the decade after the fall...

Rabbi Michael Adam Latz's response to Pastor Martin Niemoller (z"l)'s "First they came" poem: "First they came for the African Americans and I spoke up— Because I am my sisters’ and my brothers’ keeper..."

The Israelites’ Egyptian bondage was Joseph’s fault. Ok, I admit, the Egyptians were directly to blame. But Joseph’s economic reforms laid the foundation for the enslavement. Let me explain. After Jacob and his sons relocated to Egypt, the famine worsened. Joseph oversaw the collection of funds from the people of Egypt in return for rations...

These are the words Joseph spoke to his brothers; words of identification, love and reconciliation. In four Hebrew words (Gen. 45:12), Joseph has bridged an insuperable chasm between his brothers and himself. And in speaking as he did, he closed a chapter about lives marked by separation. There are chasms that mark our lives, keeping...