Photo of the author, Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm

Matot-Masei: Community Just Might Be the Only Thing That Saves Us

When you understand yourself to be part of a community, you’ll show up, you’ll fight for your neighbor, and you won’t let concerns for your own welfare be at odds with doing so.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Pamela Wax

Pinchas: Kein B’not Zelophehad: Diplomacy Vs. Vigilantism

by Rabbi Pamela Wax
As we deal with a scourge of baseless hatred in our world today, what would it look like to use curiosity as one of the tools in our spiritual toolbox?
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Joshua Jacobs

Balak: Blessing in the End

by Rabbi Joshua Jacobs
Recognizing who we truly are is our best resistance against tyranny. Knowing what lies in front of us, cognitive dissonance-and-all, we proudly wave the flag of Israel in May, the rainbow flag in June, the Stars and Stripes in July, because we recognize the promise of the miraculous ideas these banners represent.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Jenna Shaw

Chukat: Moses, the Rock, and Me

by Rabbi Jenna Shaw
This, to me, is the Torah: It is liberation. It is the release that comes from being seen, truly seen, in our whole, struggling, imperfect selves.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Jacob Chatinover

Korach: The Entire People is Holy

by Rabbi Jacob Chatinover
The entire people is holy, each of them. God is with their pain and their needs. As narrow as our focus can be when we are in acute moments of pain, in struggling with what to say and when to say it as a leader, I see that there are times to push, times to be silent, and times to support.
more
Photo of the author, Hazzan Abbe Lyons

Sh’lach-Lecha: Encountering the Other, Encountering

by Hazzan Abbe Lyons
Even if you are feeling a lack of empathy for an “other,” God does not make that distinction. God wants to be in relationship with both of you. May this profound teaching inspire us to resist the dehumanization of any group of human beings.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Debra Kolodny

Beha’alotecha: Lighting a fire in Us to Rise Up

by Rabbi Debra Kolodny
What if the Torah is saying that if ever there was a time for us to act like members of a nation of priests, that moment is NOW?!
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan

Emor:  Insiders and Outsiders

by Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan
The devastating consequences of excluding “the other” reverberate through history and are particularly relevant in our current climate of nativism and xenophobia, where human beings are being exiled for their words, and the very term “inclusion” is being banished.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Jonah Winer

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

by Rabbi Jonah Winer
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.
more
Photo of the author, Rabbi Amelia Wolf

Yom HaAtzma’ut: What Is Freedom For?

by Rabbi Amelia Wolf
Freedom is never an end, nor is independence, nor is sovereignty. They are modes of existing in this world that allow us the ability to choose how we act. Are we free of Pharaoh only to set up new Pharaohs of our own? Have we achieved independence and sovereignty only to deny it to others? Have we been released from Egypt to serve ourselves?
more

Sign up for updates and action alerts