Both Muslims and Jews will be observing Yom Kippur and Ashura on the evening of September 29, 2017– repenting, fasting, praying and doing thoughtful acts of charity through good deeds. A timely alignment that has the power to transform the challenging and strong emotions many are experiencing due to current events.
So many of the words of our high holidays machzor describe our God as melech, king, judging us from on high. For many of us,
Disregard for the non-observant is the opposite of the kind of solidarity we need now. Casting them into the wilderness, now populated by tiki-torch wielding ethnonationalist thugs, is not helping. It is, in the most basic formulation, bad for the Jews.
It was the end of the summer of 2014, and the Gaza war continued with horrific casualties. I stood in the hallway, just steps away from my old high school locker, folding and unfolding my staff orientation schedule. Smoothing it out, I stared down at the words “3pm-3:45pm: Israel This Summer.”
This political moment requires acting in solidarity — having other people’s backs and enabling people to have ours. As Jews, we need practice in both.
Here are two beautiful, justice-oriented pieces about the Shofar and the Unetaneh Tokef prayer.
As our society does teshuva for white supremacy, let us dismantle the idols of oppression to pave the way for a more just and honest present and future.
(The below is a slight adaptation of my sermon for Yom Kippur morning; it argues that concerns of economic and social inequality are perhaps more
This year, we fight Nazis. We do it because it is a moral imperative, and we do it for survival. We fight because we are Jews. #JewsFightNazis.
Let us use this high holiday Teshuva period to do the important work of dismantling racism in our hearts and in our society