Resources
Featured Resources
Naso: Patriarchal Surveillance, Bodily Autonomy, and Longing for “a Regulated World”
This “regulated world” is only idyllic if you are the monitor and punisher of “deviation,” not the monitored and punished. For [the monitored and punished,] the longing instead is for a world that affirms the dignity of all people.
Criticism of Israel and Antisemitism: How to Tell Where One Ends and the Other Begins
In this time of inflamed passions, it’s crucial both to ensure that criticism of Israel does not cross the line into antisemitism, and to protect the free speech of those protesting Israel’s actions.
“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.
Dangerous Idols in Ancient Israel and Contemporary America
We do not celebrate the destruction of other people’s holy sites. Nonetheless, Moses had it right: Establishing a just society, as the Holy One commands, requires rooting out the symbols of evil.
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Trampling over the Torah
We should never assume our success is rubber-stamped or approved forever. Our actions can always be re-evaluated, and based on prophetic precedent, God tends to hold us to a higher standard of behavior than our neighbors, not a lower one.
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Returning from the Narrow Place
In our tradition, from any place on earth, even in a prison cell, there is always the possibility of teshuvah — a return.
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Kernels of Inspiration for the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) 2022
Five chaverim share thoughts on a social-justice-themed sermon they might give in the upcoming High Holiday season. We hope that their insights will move your intellectual gears as you prepare to deliver sacred messages to your community. Each chaver will share a topic, the text they are basing their sermon around, and the takeaway they...
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Turning our Backyards into Sanctuary Cities
...the Torah instructs that in the midst of our holiest cities and amongst people who do the work of God, that precisely there — in that place — are the vulnerable to take refuge.
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What “Women’s Rights” Should Mean
I would like to see us reclaim what women’s rights can mean – and note that our tradition supports our demand to be seen as fully human, however we identify.
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The Power of Bearing Witness
Balaam models being an independent and critical thinker... He refuses to stoke the hot coals of fear that demonize the other.
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Haggadah Supplements
Get one-page source sheets to help stimulate discussion at your seder table, designed to reengage in the work of liberating our world just as the Israelites were liberated from Egypt.
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“And the community was without water….”
Our Torah depicts what can happen to us in a world without water... Moses striking the rock to yield water is a vivid metaphor for the water-related violence that is breaking out all over our world — particularly in the Middle East, as well as in South Asia and Africa.
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Transformation Will Only Come Through Honesty About Our Past
Nowhere do we see God and the people in a real process of engagement with their history and what is broken in their relationship. With so much left unsaid and unresolved, we should not be surprised to see the same issues in their relationship emerging again and again.
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