Resources

'On Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur, it is sealed: How many will die and how many will be born? Who will live and who will die?' This is one of the most beloved and troubling of Rosh Hashanah prayers. But such is the power of great poetry.

By listening to human narrative, and even re-visiting what’s challenging, chesed recognizes k’vod habriot in each soul and makes an opening for teshuvah.

In a d’var Torah for Parshat Bo, Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari suggests teshuvah may provide a framework for thinking about reparations.

According to the Jewish tradition, the period of repentance continues after Yom Kippur until the end of Sukkot. These days may continue to be an opportunity for reflection, but these final days of the holidays are days of celebration. Though none of us know what our fates hold for us, we act as if the...

When does Jacob do teshuvah for swindling his brother Esau out of birthright and paternal blessing? Reading over the brothers’ reconciliation in Parshat Vayishlach, I am struck by all that is missing. How can the brothers truly reconnect if past hurts are left buried? As Esau approaches, Jacob’s actions show concern but not contrition. He...

This divine capacity for imagination allows us to see beyond ourselves… understanding the grandeur of Hashem's world. To focus only on our own pain and suffering or to refuse to imagine the other worlds that are possible… misses the basic nature that Hashem made us to possess.

Akiva had to do the terrifying work of giving up the narrative … that we are always just, and we are always right, for a newer, truer one: We are sometimes unjust, and we are sometimes wrong.

As a Correctional Chaplain, I work with kindred spirits, among staff and Inmates, who are striving to live meaningful lives, confronting negativity within and without, and transforming themselves and their society.

The Chanukah lights are intended for people on the “outside” — those on the margins. The internal practice of Chanukah is to turn outward and examine how we help illuminate God’s holiness for people on the outside of our society.

While we don’t make the same mistakes each year, the mistakes we make come from similar places. Repentance is a way of approaching the struggles at the core of our being, rather than just feeling guilt for discrete acts of harm.