Social Justice: Leadership and Philosophy

In this moment, when our communities carry fear, grief, and uncertainty, the identity of wrestling feels especially urgent. Wrestling is a powerful metaphor for faith. It means to hold on — even when understanding feels out of reach.

Laban is happy to use Jacob as a worker and use his own children as tools to extract more value from Jacob, all while telling himself a comforting narrative that he is just doing what is right in his country.

Refusing to abandon each other means being willing to push one another and to be pushed. It requires the bravery and softness of revealing our hurt and our anger, and being open to receiving the hurt and anger of others.

The following is the first in T’ruah’s new thought leadership series, “Tekiyah Gedolah.” In a time of mounting authoritarianism in the United States, we must use the wisdom of our tradition to help us think through how to fight for democracy as diaspora Jews. How does our tradition guide us to respond to our present...

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.