Breaking False Dichotomies

"Birah Doleket"
Breaking False Dichotomies, Daily Life, Hold Dualities Together, Inspiring Story, Longform, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized, Weekly Parsha, Wisdom Warehouse |
November 11, 2022

“Birah Doleket”

Monday night, I saw Ani DiFranco in concert. For those of you who don’t have lyrics from “If He Tries Anything” as your yearbook quote, she’s a folk rock singer-songwriter whose powerful lyrics about feminism, abortion rights, and fighting oppression have buoyed many Gen X and elder Millennial feminists. She was like a beloved older cousin who taught me that being fierce, feminist, and angry were a-okay – and, in fact, that anger was an appropriate response to the world around me. The last time I saw her live was in 2004......

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Rabbi Julia Appel
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Don't Try To Be the Hero of Your Story 
Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Mundane Into Sacred, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
March 10, 2022

Don’t Try To Be the Hero of Your Story 

With two elementary-school-aged kids, we hear a fair amount of sibling fighting, with only some of it unprovoked. When one of them is getting a little too wild, and, say, someone’s limbs smack into someone else’s body, their first reaction is to say, “I didn’t mean to do it!” And while my wife and I do draw a distinction between purposeful versus accidental actions, we try to focus more on the consequences and how to make it right afterward. That’s what’s so striking about this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra. It outlines the......

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Geoff Mitelman
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When Faith Preempts Facts
Another Way Of Looking At Things, Breaking False Dichotomies, Compassion and Empathy, Longform, Soul Writings, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized |
January 14, 2022

When Faith Preempts Facts

Our Torah is filled with stories of remarkable courage, leaps of faith, and ventures into the unknown. From Abraham leaving his homeland at God’s behest to his near-sacrifice of his son, we learn from our very first patriarch the ways that faith – often of the “blind” variety – is central to our collective story. But for all the dramatic leaps taken by our ancestors in scripture, one of them stands out among the rest. One of them, in fact, that isn’t even explicitly mentioned in Torah! After a treacherous race out......

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Rabbi Elan Babchuck
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Bully Pulpits and Pulpit Bullies
Breaking False Dichotomies, Bring The Sacred Down To Earth, Compassion and Empathy, Hold Dualities Together, Longform, Longform, News & Politics, Spirituality & Faith, Uncategorized |
July 15, 2021

Bully Pulpits and Pulpit Bullies

When President Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “Bully Pulpit,” the term “bully” meant “outstanding” or “optimal,” not a pulpit from which one could use their office to bully their audience. New data from Pew Research indicates that a rather high percentage of American Christian religious leaders could take a lesson from the former president when it comes to how they use their own pulpits when addressing political issues. Pastors Often Discussed Election, Pandemic and Racism in Fall of 2020 The polling results, based on the content of sermons offered from the pulpits......

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Brad Hirschfield
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