Social Justice: Leadership and Philosophy

What does it mean to be righteous or blameless? In a time of rampant corruption and injustice, surely [obeying God] was not enough. Surely, the times called for more than being a good person and quietly following God’s ways.

No creation is possible without first stepping back and creating room for the infinite breadth of everything it could be.

While we don’t make the same mistakes each year, the mistakes we make come from similar places. Repentance is a way of approaching the struggles at the core of our being, rather than just feeling guilt for discrete acts of harm.

God hears the cries and responds to the tears of Jews and non-Jews alike. God even responds to the tears of characters elsewhere disparaged as evil.

We are strangers to others, and others are strangers to us.

Use your bodies — your arms, hands, legs, feet, voices, hearts — to act on your burning desire for justice.

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.

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?

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.

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.