Resources

T'ruah's haggadah helps transform the seder into a conversation about immigration, racism, workers' rights, and forced labor.

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.

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. 

...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.

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. 

...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.

A D’var Torah for Parshat Miketz by Rabbi Ruven Barkan This summer, as we lived through the social upheaval fueled by COVID-19 and sparked by police brutality, I began to recognize more clearly the passive yet growing isolation and alienation between Jewish and African-American communities. (Recognizing, of course, that these are not mutually exclusive categories...

Two decades later, it is easier to see how we were tempted by the idols of that time, but it is still hard to recognize the idols of today. We remember the sheer panic of 19 years ago, and how we longed for someone — anyone — to make us feel safe again. Those who told us that we need only sacrifice a bit of our liberty for safety often gave us neither. Looking back, we remember just how hollow those promises were.

As COVID-19 spread, and people everywhere were forced into their homes, T’ruah organized weekly online virtual actions, gathering our community together to learn, engage in ritual, and push our representatives to hear the “call of justice” that the Torah demands we amplify.   July 2020 7/28 Call of Justice: Take action for Essential Workers 7/21...

In this d'var Torah for Behar-Bechukotai, Rabbi Sally Priesand draws connections between the Liberty Bell and other symbols and ensuring liberty in civic life.