Spirituality & Faith / 07 Aug 2020

How I Found Meaning In A Very Different Tisha B’Av This Year

While the holiday was different this year, the spirit of resilience continues.

Inspiring People / 04 Aug 2020

The Unconscionable Abandonment Of Israel’s Druze

The Druze are fiercely loyal to Israel. It’s time for Israel to treat them with the same respect.

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.