Panu-darekh! Harimu mikh’shol miderekh ami! Make clear the way! Remove the stumbling blocks from the path of my people! This is how Isaiah begins today’s Haftarah portion. Throughout these Days of Awe, our Rabbi has been bold enough to make our path for the year 5787 perfectly clear: We are building a new form of…

Shana Tova. In August last year, as part of my role at Rabbis for Ceasefire, I was invited to a summit of anti and non Zionist Jewish organizers from across the world with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, to meet with Palestinian organizers in the West Bank. During the summit, I had the privilege of…

The Binding of Isaac is one of the most challenging stories in the entire Torah. The opening lines read, “God tested Abraham… ‘Please take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go away to the land of Moriah and bring him up there for a burnt offering on one of the mountains.’”…

Rosh Hashanah marks the New Year and represents new beginnings. Really, there have been many new beginnings in Jewish history, particularly in the last two or three centuries. The rise of Chasidism in the 18th century, the Reform movement beginning in the 19th century, Zionism in the late 19th century, and Reconstructionism in the mid-20th…

OSEH SHALOM – In every synagogue on earth, Jews are praying for peace. But what is the peace they are envisioning with a big Israeli flag in their synagogues? Before 1948, it was considered idolatrous to have any nation’s flag near the bima. Peace does not come through militarization, domination, ethnic cleansing, and suppression of…