Resources

Pekudei: Culpability on the Southern Border
I went to Juárez seeking a window into what is happening along our southern border, but I left staring at a mirror of culpability and responsibility.
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Tetzaveh: Meet the Darkness with a Persistent Light
We need each other’s lights. A friend, colleague, or ally — perhaps even those we consider adversaries — have the sacred potential to ignite in us the lamp of tamid consciousness and the willingness to widen our circles and give ourselves to the tasks of care, compassion, advocacy, and love.
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Shoftim: “Thus Blood of the Innocent Will not be Shed” The Necessity of Sanctuary
A self-proclaimed “melting pot,” a country that declared its independence by asserting that all men are created equal, should continue to be a sanctuary and refuge.
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Shavuot 2023: A Sampling of (M)oral Torah
These 7 divrei Torah, one for each of the 7 weeks of the Omer that lead up to Shavuot, span the breadth of the entire Torah, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, and come from 7 exceptional T'ruah rabbis who lend their voices to the call for a more just and moral world.
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The Other Side of the River, the Other Side of the Sea
T'ruah's haggadah helps transform the seder into a conversation about immigration, racism, workers' rights, and forced labor.
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Reading the Exodus as a Migration Story
If America is to be the land of the free, a melting pot of diversity and equality, it too must clear the stones from the proverbial roads and build up pathways for immigrants, especially refugees and asylum-seekers.
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Closing the Doors of Our Ark to Immigrants
I can imagine a situation where Noah’s gut instinct was to just follow God, but I cannot fathom how he just sat there as the rain started to fall and didn’t do anything to try to save anyone.
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When the Entire Community Is Guilty
...as we learn from Leviticus, for communal sin there can be expiation. The process begins not with bringing a bull to the sanctuary, but with a commitment to learn history, and a commitment to ensure that history is learned by others.
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A Pandemic of Polarization
Strategically, we stand a better chance of finding our way if we do not dismiss (other's) capacity for moral reasoning. We stand a better chance of moving their hearts if we assume they have one.
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Our Wealth is Not Our Own: What Is Jewish Power For?
...the Torah teaches us that the particular and the universal are inextricably intertwined. Just as we need partners in the fight against antisemitism, we must use our power to become partners to others in the fights for social, racial, and economic justice. As the Talmud says, even a poor person who is sustained from tzedakah must also perform tzedakah (Gittin 7b). When we feel the fragility of our power, when we feel we need help, even then – precisely then – we must share what we have with others.
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