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Photo of the author, Rabbi Elyse Wechterman

Pekudei: Learning From, Not Erasing, Our Broken Tablets

The administration is tearing apart the historical narrative of the United States, denying the verifiable truth that more people have been left out of the American dream than included in it, that brutality had a role in building this country, and that we have inherited both the gloriousness of the nation’s founding ideas and the shame of our failure to live up to them.

“Project Esther”: Exploiting Jewish Fear to Advance Dangerous Policy

Created in collaboration with The Nexus Project. Learn what Project Esther is, why it’s dangerous, how it’s showing up in policy right now, and what Jewish leaders can do about it. Plus: Texts related to the biblical Esther to explore with your communities and inspire your resistance. The perfect tool for pre-Purim text study or learning throughout the month of Adar.

A person wearing a kippah that says end the war.

A Prayer for Gaza and to Preserve Our Humanity

By Rabbis Felicia Sol and Roly Matalon of B’nai Jeshurun in New York City.

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Photo of the author, Rabbi Michael Bernstein

Vayakhel: Rejecting Idolatry to Find Our Faces

by Rabbi Michael Bernstein
Repair takes intention and responsibility, while destruction requires nothing but the will to destroy and the means to do it.
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Headshot of the author, Rabbi Amy Josefa Ariel

Vayakhel: Every Letter, Every One

by Rabbi Amy Josefa Ariel
Commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, we understand that if we fail to see a member of our community, it is because we are not looking for them with enough love.
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Elevating Our Hearts and Spirits Towards Justice

by Rabbi Jonathan Biatch
The Mishkan was not just a compound our ancestors built; it is a state of mind that we can inhabit.
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Building Mishkans Together

by Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Our movements for justice rely on the ecology of different people and different groups bringing the contributions that make our hearts sing.
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Building a Temple of Democracy Together

by Amelia Wolf
"If we want our vaunted “Temple of Democracy” to contain actual holiness, it means we all must be able to build it up." A d'var Torah for Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei by Amelia Wolf.
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And they Assembled

by Rabbi Tamara Cohen
A prayer for Shabbat Vayakhel-Pekudei 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Restoring the Dignity of Refugees Should Be Part of Living in a Democracy

by Sabrina Lustgarten
Sabrina Lustgarten, Country Director for HIAS in Ecuador, writes that Parshat Vayakhel emphasizes "the importance of harmonizing wills to achieve a common good."
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Love as Resistance (Parshat Vayakhel)

by Rabbi Adam Greenwald
Commentary on Parshat Vayakhel (Exodus 35:1 – 38:20) “He made the washbasin of copper and its stand of copper, from the mirrors of the women.” (Exodus 38:8) Parshat Vayakhel describes the mishkan, the portable desert sanctuary, as filled with beautiful items created from donated materials. Near its entrance stood a copper washbasin, a public fountain...
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Education: The Building Blocks of Justice and Understanding

by Rabbi Jason Levine
“In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if [they are] denied the opportunity of an education,” U.S Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren declared in the famed case of Board v. Board of Education, almost 64 years ago. Decades later, in 2009, Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan...
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Encompassing the Truth in Four Directions

by Rabbi Brandon Bernstein
In college, I used to tutor inner city middle school students through an organization called Making Waves. Once during a staff training, I was placed in a group with two Latinx tutors and two black tutors; the other group consisted of five white tutors. When my group playfully accused the supervisors of dividing us up...
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