Photo of the author, Rabbi Sarah Weissman

Ki Tetze: Safety and Dignity for All Workers

The Torah teaches us that we have a special duty, not only to avoid exploiting, but to actively care for the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities. As we celebrate Labor Day, let us do all we can to ensure that every person [especially immigrant workers] can live and work in safety and dignity.

Responsibility, Guilt, Teshuva

Sources and guiding questions to help inspire and support Jewich clergy as they bring the ethical teachings of our tradition to their communities this High Holiday season.

Changing the Conversation: A Resource for Israel and Palestine Education

Want to read this resource as a pdf? Download here. What is this resource? In this moment of heartbreak, overwhelm, and moral reckoning, many of us are searching for ways to have authentic conversations about the realities on the ground in Israel and Palestine. So many in our communities are yearning to connect with people...

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Rabbi Claudia Kreiman

Waiting On Our First Fruits

by Rabbi Claudia Kreiman
The work of pursuing justice, healing this world, feels at moments like a desert without a clear destination. The journey is hard and long, but when in the desert, when in the midst of suffering, when in despair, we are commanded not to lose hope.
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Rabbi Henry Zoob quote

Going Beyond Rectifying Poverty

by Rabbi Henry A. Zoob
These passages (from this week's parshah) go beyond the basic responsibility of physically helping the poor; they challenge us to take into account their dignity and personhood.
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Michael Zoosman quote

Abolition, Abolition Shall You Pursue!

by Cantor Michael Zoosman
...justice comes in many forms. It is not, as many mistakenly think, mostly punishment and consequences.
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Dangerous Idols in Ancient Israel and Contemporary America

by Rabbi Barry H. Block
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

by Cantor David A. Lipp
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

by Rabbi Steven Jacobs
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

by Rabbi Mona Alfi, Rabbi James M. Bennett, Rabbi Barry Block, Rabbi Lauren Henderson, Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg
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

by Rabbi David Eber
...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

by Rabbi Simone Schicker
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

by Rabbi John A. Linder
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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