People are seeing me differently today, I thought. In that moment, I saw myself differently. People are seeing me as vulnerable. I saw how vulnerable I was. I realized that by putting on a kippah that morning, I had taken my life in my hands. The events of the past week testify that this viscera-twisting fact is now part of life in Trump’s America — as has been true for Jews of numberless epochs. Read more
In his September 27 testimony, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said, "going to church on Sundays was like brushing my teeth, automatic," and was angry anyone would remark that church was not on his summer 1982 calendar. Brushing one’s teeth is a cosmetic thing; it deals only with the most superficial of stains. A religious experience, to truly move a person and be the foundation of an ethical and moral personality, needs to force you to grapple with the difficulty of becoming a better human, with the entirety of the self. Read more
Jalal al-Din Rumi taught, “Ritual prayer can be different in every religion, but belief never changes” (Fihi Ma Fihi). As a Reform Rabbi who has been studying Islam for almost sixty years, I think it is vitally important for our generation to understand how much Islam and Judaism have in common. In North America and the U.K., Jews and Muslims are the two religious groups that most noticeably practice fasting. The rules about fasting are very similar in both Jewish... Read more
Here is a fable for discussion at the (Seder) dinner table for all those Christians, Jews and Muslims who want to use the exodus from oppression in Egypt as an encouragement to all who value freedom and justice to do more than just stand and wat Read more
Every Passover, Jews recite the ten plagues that led to the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. This year, however, it is not enough to dot our plates with the ten symbolic drops of wine and move on. In the most Jewish of traditions, we must wrestle modern-day meaning from our ritual. This year, as we witness the daily barrage of alarming afflictions across our landscape, why don’t we challenge our Seder guests to draw present-day parallels to... Read more
There is another group of Jews mentioned in the Book of Esther that most seem to have forgotten: "So the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who joined them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed” (Esther 9:27). Who are these people described as “all who joined them”? Read more
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