Right now, we are in a time in the Jewish calendar, called Bein Hametzarim, “between the narrow straits.”… This period asks us to attend to the ways we feel ourselves in exile, disconnected from the Divine Presence, the web of life. It is an invitation to journey through a dark night of the soul…our own lived reality of abandonment, brokenness and alienation – so that we can see how far we are from where we want to be, in order to do teshuva, and eventually return to what matters most to us.
Read MoreAs a new generation rises, and demands justice, its declaration “Black Lives Matter” demands our policies and institutions root out racial injustice in order to authentically uphold the value of human life. This week’s Torah portion gives us a three step model for how to respond to this historical moment: when our God is confronted with injustice, The Holy One responds: the daughters of Tzelofechad speak rightly! It’s time for things to change!
Read MoreKorach is not like Eldad and Medad; he is a demagogue, he tries to get power by dividing the community, defining himself only by what he is against; by contrast, Eldad and Medad, give voice to what they stand for. These uncertain days invite us to turn away from demagogues, and find the prophets in our midst: people who are a voice not just for themselves but for the oppressed in their midst…
Read MoreThis week, Torah instructs us to hold a commemoration, each year, of our people’s liberation, called Pesach. It is to take place bein ha’arbayim: at twilight. Why? To recall the uncertainty and chaos before we were free, that only afterwards marked the tipping point in getting free, and an inspiration for future liberation movements of other oppressed peoples. That night, Moses instructed our people to be ready. After so many attempts to get free, no one thought this night would be different than any other night. Even so, we prepared ourselves at twilight: in that space between day and night, between freedom and captivity, between what was and what could be.
Read Moreon Shavuot, we are invited to peel away all these layers of ordinary perception — our sense of space, and time, life and death that separate us from each other and from generations that came before and will come after us to remember the most fundamental ways we are still connected.
Read MoreThese days, many of us are doing nothing – not to rest, but because we are trying to survive a pandemic. Many of you have told me how hard it is to do nothing right now: the feelings of pain, loneliness, boredom, frustration and helplessness. Your anger and grief about all you can’t do – attend birthdays or funerals, hug your families and friends; your deep desire to be, to do something. Alongside these feelings of loss, we experience another loss: When we aren’t doing anything, we sometimes come to believe we have lost our value, perhaps even our connection with that thing that is greater than us, which some of us call “God.”
Read MoreWith k’doshim t’hiu -- the words that start our parasha – God reminds us: You used to find me in the Temple. We mourn its devastating loss to this day. Yet, we also celebrate the ways we’ve found to stay in touch: prayer, and good deeds. And now we grieve the tragic, though temporary, loss of in-person gatherings. Still, in the midst of our grief, we take some comfort in the ways we have been able for now, to make phones and computers into sacred gathering places.
Read MoreAaron’s response shows, even though Jewish tradition is full of words, there are times, like the times we are in now, when no words are adequate, when silence is exactly the right response. Loving silence doesn’t try to give reasons, or fix, or do -- it just is there, with you.
Read MoreHow are we to treat people with little power, people far away from their own families and communities? This is the Torah’s response (Exodus 22:2):
You shall not wrong the ger, nor shall you oppress him; for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.
The Torah repeats this 36 times: lo tonu — “Do not oppress the stranger.” Remember you are a nation of immigrants, recall your answers who fled ancient Egypt, Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany. Don’t build walls that cut you off from those memories. Rather, let these memories expand your hearts across the borders that threaten to cut you off from your past. Let’s welcome those now seeking asylum from violence and uncertainty, who yearn to link their future to ours.
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