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Photo of the author, Rabbi Jonah Winer

Acharei Mot – Kedoshim: What Does It Mean to Be Holy? 

Holiness is not about attaining some kind of moral and spiritual perfection, but rather cultivating the ability to see and respond to the opportunities to live up to our highest ideals, to build that quality of readiness to meet each moment as it comes.

Capitol Building at sunset

“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.

Lag BaOmer: From Mourning into Action

Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler on how thinking of Lag BaOmer as the end of shloshim also reminds us that we have to move from grief into action.

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Fighting For Fair Food At the Trader Joe’s Headquarters

by Suzanne Singer
Note from T'ruah: Thanks to the pressure from CIW, T'ruah, and tens of thousands of allies, Trader Joe's joined the Fair Food Program in February, 2012. We include this d'var torah on our website as a reminder of how taking action on a campaign for justice can bring about lasting change.
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Inspiration in Immokalee

by Toba Spitzer
I didn’t know what to expect when I went to visit the Coalition of Immokalee Workers this past February, with a delegation of rabbis organized by Rabbis for Human Rights. Since Dorshei Tzedek became involved with CIW’s Fair Food Campaign two years ago, I’ve learned that this farmworker organization has had remarkable success in getting...
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Slavery, Then and Now

by Gordon Tucker
In this moving sermon, Rabbi Gordon Tucker discusses the problem of modern slavery and describes his experience visiting sites from the African slave trade. SLAVERY THEN AND NOW Rabbi Gordon Tucker   The Torah, in Leviticus 25:55, has God saying “The children of Israel are My servants”, and the rabbinic tradition afterwards added the following...
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Tomato on the Seder Plate

by Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson
This ritual, developed by T’ruah and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, places a tomato on the seder plate in recognition of the farmworker who picked the tomato and their struggles for justice.
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

by Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Dr. Susannah Sirkin, Diane Paulus, Cantor Nancy Abramson, Rabbi Gilah Langner
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the UN on December 10, 1948, is one of the foundational documents of the human rights movement. At T’ruah, we think of it as a modern prophetic text, a vision of the redeemed world where all people’s rights will be protected. Communities who celebrate Human Rights...
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Resources from our allies: Just Vision

An introduction to the work of Just Vision and the film The Wanted 18.
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Misheberach for Hunger Strikers

by Lev Meirowitz Nelson
May the One who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah— Who was with our brother Joseph in the pit and in prison, and with Miriam when she was isolated from the camp for seven days— bless and heal all those who are engaged in hunger strikes against torture and...
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Beyond Guantanamo

by Tom Wilner, Gita Gutierrez
Transcript of presentation by lawyers Tom Wilner and Gita Gutierrez from Rabbis for Human Rights-North America’s 2008 conference. They discuss their work on behalf of detainees currently held in Guantanamo. They offer solutions for how to better bring some of these men to justice, and meditate on the values that inform their work.
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Heart of a Stranger: The Jewish Historical Memory of Torture

by Melissa Weintraub
You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. -Ex. 23:9 You were strangers in the land of Egypt reminds us that we have experienced the great suffering that one in a foreign land feels. By remembering the pain which we...
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But Does Torture Save Lives? The Rodef and the “Ticking Time Bomb”

by Melissa Weintraub
In this 2005 article, Rabbi Melissa Weintraub analyzes and ultimately rejects the defense of torture based on the idea that the use of torture will save lives because it will prevent terror attacks.
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