Resources
Featured Resources
Emor: Insiders and Outsiders
The devastating consequences of excluding “the other” reverberate through history and are particularly relevant in our current climate of nativism and xenophobia, where human beings are being exiled for their words, and the very term “inclusion” is being banished.
“May We Create a Nation”: A New Prayer for Our Country
From Rabbi Seth Goldstein: We know that this is a nation founded by massacre, built by slavery, maintained by exclusion, defined by inequality. And we also know that this nation promises equality, exercises resilience, evolves continuously, practices teshuvah.
Lag BaOmer: From Mourning into Action
Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler on how thinking of Lag BaOmer as the end of shloshim also reminds us that we have to move from grief into action.
Devarim: Moses’ Opening Rebuke: Choose Your Leaders Wisely
As we travel into the unknown wilderness of our shared future, may we clearly articulate what we need from our leadership and insist that we be led by wisdom, capable experience, and the commitment to equity for all.
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Devarim: The Rights and Responsibilities of the Diaspora
Israel is too important for us to throw up our hands and turn away, just because it feels like we’re losing. Israel needs us and we need them.
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“Who Tells Your Story?”
Today a fierce battle rages over the telling of American history. Politicians on either side of the political spectrum are fighting to control the historical narrative taught to children in schools. Is the story of America one of heroic struggle and benevolent, exceptional rule? Or is it a story of a colonizing power that exploited, oppressed, and exterminated non-white peoples?
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A Trauma-Informed Reading of Parshat Devarim: Advice to Activists on Building Resiliency
In this week's commentary on Devarim, Rabbi Francine Roston reflects on the need to understand and process trauma before moving forward.
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Hearing and Hearing Out
If you’re like me, the intractable status quo between Israel and the Palestinians is really getting you down. Ever since Yitzhak Rabin’s handshake with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn nearly 24 years ago, my heart has been given over to the Oslo accords. An Israel and a Palestine, existing side by side in...
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The Stranger in our Story
We are creatures of story—it’s how we make sense of ourselves in the world. So it is with purpose that Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the Torah, begins with our shared story. Our individual stories define our individual identities; our group story, delivered here by Moses, defines us as a People. What seems...
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Words and Deeds
Last year at this time, we were hearing the distressing news of the conflict in Gaza. Coinciding with Tisha B’av, which this year occurs in the week to come, Jews everywhere were mourning, and beginning to argue with aching hearts about Israel, and about justice. Parashat Devarim begins with Moses addressing “all Israel.” Rashi suggests...
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Repetition, Compulsion, and Night Vision
Many of us are war-weary and disheartened this week as we open the final book of Torah—Devarim or Deuteronomy. The Rambam called this book Mishneh Torah (repetition of Torah), because so much of it contains Moshe’s retelling of the stories that our ancestors lived out in the 40 years’ walk through the Wilderness. The aged...
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