Counting More Than Numbers There is something both necessary and unsettling about a census. Most of us understand why governments conduct them. Demographic information helps determine where roads are built, where hospitals are needed, how schools are funded, and how…
Category: Good News
Tazria and Metzora – The Lightness of Grace
Seeing the Whole Person In this week’s Torah portions, Tazria and Metzora, we encounter the person afflicted with tzara’at, a condition that brings not only physical suffering but also deep social isolation. The Torah instructs that the afflicted individual be…
Passover – All Who Are Hungry?
Racial strife is nothing new. We sometimes speak as though our moment is uniquely fractured, as though division and suspicion are inventions of modernity. But the truth is more sobering. From the earliest days of human society, we have struggled…
Tzav and Shabbat HaGadol – An Altar of Peace, a Cup of Salvation, and an Offering of Thanks
As we come to Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Sabbath that ushers us to the threshold of Pesach, we find ourselves in a moment that is both reflective and anticipatory. We look back to redemption even as we prepare to experience…
Korban Copies: Becoming Living Offerings
When I was in college, I had a friend who kept a large collage on the wall of his dorm room. At first glance it looked like a collection of family photographs. The pictures were carefully arranged and gave the…
Yitro – A Perfect Government
With Parashat Yitro we reach one of the decisive turning points in Israel’s formation as a people. The journey from Egypt to Sinai has never been merely about escape from oppression; it has been about the reordering of allegiance. From…
B’shelach – I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
Imagine, just for a moment, if I asked everyone to join hands and we played that old Coca‑Cola jingle from the early 1970s: “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.” It was the perfect fusion of…
Va’eira – Four Stages of Liberation
Listen to an audio version This Shabbat marks three weeks into the New Year in accord with the western secular calendar, the one by which a majority of Jewish people worldwide attempt to conduct their normal life’s business. Many have…
Shemot – Seventy-nine and Holding
I woke up this morning, glanced at the news, and for a brief moment wondered whether the earth had slipped off its axis while I was asleep. Yesterday’s headline in the Courant read, “The World Is on Watch,” and it…
Vayechi – Mercy and Justice: The Incredible Two-Headed Servant
Parashat Vayechi brings us to the close of the book of Genesis and places us squarely at a moment of transition. These are end-of-life words—Jacob blessing his sons, Joseph preparing to die in exile, and in the Haftarah, King David…