Spirituality & Faith / 31 Jul 2020

White Pastors Are Not Doing Enough To Address Systemic Racism

We need white pastors to join in the fight against systemic racism.

Compassion and Empathy, Grief & Coping, Historic Profiles / 30 Jul 2020

A Doubly Sad Day…

Today is a doubly sad day.  Today I mourn as a Jew, and today, I mourn as an American. Today is Tisha b’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, a day that marks the destruction of both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.  Today is the day on which the Jewish people recall thousands of years of hurt and harm, homelessness and harshness, sometimes of unimaginable measure. Tisha b’Av marks the moments when we have failed to believe — in ourselves and/or in God — when we have turned against one another, instead of toward one another.  Today marks the day when we recall all those times when Jews have been murdered simply because they were Jews. Today marks those moments when death won out over life. Today is also the day that Representative John Lewis, of blessed memory, takes the final steps of his journey on this earth. And in the words of the Book of Lamentations, we say, “How the heroes have fallen.” But even in the midst of such sorrow, we can choose life, help one another to choose life, and dare to believe that the dream of the world imagined by long-prophets like Isaiah and modern heroes like John Lewis, is within our grasp. That such a world is, as Theodore Herzl teaches, is no fairytale, if we truly will it. We honor this doubly sad day by fully honoring our pains — both ancient and contemporary — without being defined fully by them.  We honor this day by lifting up the wisdom of our heroes and our teachers and asking God and one another to help us live into that wisdom, and living up to it. Rep. Lewis asked that his last essay be published in the New York Times on…

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Inspiring People / 27 Jul 2020

What Teenagers Can Learn From Malala During The Pandemic

Malala’s heroism is a lesson in perspective for the young people of today.

Inspiring People / 22 Jul 2020

Honoring Representative John Lewis

John Robert Lewis was born in the city of Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940, to sharecroppers Willie Mae Carter and Eddie Lewis. John was the third of ten children his parents had together. He attended segregated schools and was told by his parents not to challenge the unfairness of the Jim Crow Laws in the South. Lewis did the complete opposite of what his parents told him and became an American Civil Rights leader and politician, most famously known for becoming the chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As a teenager growing up in Alabama, he was highly influenced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Lewis chose to study religion and philosophy at Fisk University and American Baptist Theological Institute, earning his B.A. in 1967. While he attended college, he joined the nonviolent protest and participated in the sit-ins at lunch counters and many other segregated public spaces. In 1961, Lewis joined the Freedom Rides that confronted segregation of Southern interstate bus terminals.  John and many other Freedom Riders were often repeatedly beaten and arrested because of this experience. In 1963, Lewis became chairman of SNCC and became one of the “Big Six” leaders of the Civil Rights Movement amongst Martin Luther King Jr., A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer, Whitney Young, and Roy Wilkins. Lewis also helped organize the March on Washington. He was the youngest speaker at the event, at the age of 23 years old, and though he had to edit his speech to please some of the organizers, he still conveyed an impressive speech declaring, “We all recognize the fact that if any radical social, political and economic changes are to take place in our society, the people, the masses, must bring them about.” In 1966, Lewis left the Student Nonviolent…

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Building New Identities / 21 Jul 2020

Finding Our Higher Purpose During The Pandemic

The quiet of the pandemic gives some of us the opportunity to contemplate our life purpose.