Resources

Commentary on Parshat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17 – 17:16) As the crowd surged in front of me, I felt completely out of my depth. I had joined with members of my interfaith clergy group at a rally in the aftermath of a mass shooting. We were supposed to open the gathering with a blessing, but none...

Commentary on Parshat Bo (Exodus 10:1 – 13:16) I am usually one to heed a call to mobilize for justice and human rights. I participated in a peace delegation to Israel and Palestine at the beginning of the Second Intifada and was at Standing Rock for the clergy action against the Dakota Pipeline. But lately,...

This text study, intended for the week of the 2019 Women’s March and beyond, invites us to reflect on our national political circumstances, their bearing on human rights, and where we might go from here. It pairs classical Jewish sources with contemporary writings and can also serve as the basis for a d’var Torah. Order...

Commentary on Parshat Shemot (Exodus 1:1 – 6:1) The opening lines of the book of Exodus serve as a bridge between a family history and the birth of a nation. Somehow, in an infinitesimal span, the progeny of one man becomes an entire people: the Israelites. And a very prolific one at that. The new...

Commentary on Parshat Vaera (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) Who deserves human rights? Even the Torah has its blind spots. The Torah portion VaEra describes an escalating cycle. As YHWH predicts, Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh and he refuses to free the Israelites. A plague strikes, and Pharaoh relents. The plague is removed by divine intervention,...

December 10 is International Human Rights Day, marking 70 years since the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, seven months after the creation of the State of Israel and one day after the passage of the UN Convention on Genocide. When T’ruah was founded, back in 2002, Rabbi Gerry...

Commentary on Parshat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28 – 50:26) This past summer, five participants in a Birthright Israel trip (free 10-day Israel tours offered to young adults) left the tour to visit with Palestinians on the West Bank. Their decision to do so came after receiving a map that made no effort to demarcate the Palestinian...

Commentary on Shabbat Chanukah I’ve always had a problem with the familiar Chanukah story, which highlights the Maccabees’ unlikely victory over the Greeks and the kindling of the menorah from one jar of oil that lasted eight nights. “Miraculous war” surely represents a quintessential definition of oxymoron; a jar of oil burning for eight nights...

Commentary on Parshat Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1 – 40:23) In Andrew Lloyd Weber’s telling of the Joseph tale from Genesis, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, one of the biggest laugh lines comes when Joseph, sexually pursued by the wife of his master Potiphar, yells out “I don’t believe in free love!” After this, in both...

Commentary on Parshat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4 – 36:43) Alone. Anxious. Curled in the fetal position, recalling and recoiling from the memories of a similar night years before. Scared of what tomorrow might bring. Sure, this sounds like how many of us spent election night. But it is also how we imagine Jacob’s fitful night before...