Don’t Be the Terumah 

Feb 21, 2025 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Mishpatim

Last week JTS, The Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue Youth, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Camp Ramah, the Jewish Youth Climate Movement Powered by Adamah, and Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, DC, launched Ruchot, the first ever advocacy and lobbying training for Conservative Movement teens. We gathered as an erev rav (mixed multitude) of 36 teens from 11 states (and one Canadian), 7 rabbinical students, 6 rabbis, three youth director staff, and an Israeli shaliah.  

On the Perils of Pregnancy: A Letter to Rivkah

Nov 29, 2024 By Rabbi Annie Lewis | Commentary | Toledot

Before you bravely took leave of your family, they blessed you that through your line would come thousands upon thousands of descendants. When you struggled to conceive, Yitzhak pleaded with God for you to bear children.

The Torah records how the boys thrashed about in your womb. וַיִּתְרֹצְצוּ הַבָּנִים בְּקִרְבָּהּ. You cried out, אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי, “If this is how it is, why do I exist?” (Gen. 25:22).

“Ger Vetoshav”: A Lesson on Vulnerabilities and Humility

Nov 22, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Abraham rose, as he had to, from his wailing, because there was a necessary and sacred task to perform. And at that moment of needing to bury his dead, an enormity confronted him. Here’s how Abraham put it: “ger vetoshav anokhi”—I am merely a stranger (ger), come to be an alien resident (toshav) here. I have no place; I have no accumulated rights and privileges.

Lessons from Kohelet: If There Is Nothing New Under the Sun, How Do We Solve Our Gigantic Contemporary Problems?

Oct 16, 2024 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Sukkot

Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is read during Sukkot, and at this moment I’m finding it to be precisely the wisdom I need. When I feel worried about the many crises we face, the idea that there is nothing new under the sun can be comforting. To me it means we have what we need to address the problem. We need to have humility and consider the tools God has given us and those humans have developed over time. Our main task is to find the right formula. Though breakthrough discoveries and new inventions exist, often what we seek is the right old tool in the proper configuration. It is a question of titration.  

A World in Crisis Needs a Yosef

Dec 15, 2023 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Miketz

Our society today faces crises of overwhelming proportions on many fronts—some observers have called our situation one of polycrisis, to emphasize how crises interact and amplify each other. Climate change is breathing down our necks, wars proliferate, and pandemics threaten our health, all while governments struggle to react sufficiently. Many who enjoy relative peace and affluence suffer from a sense of helplessness and foreboding. We need a Yosef.

Why We Gather

Sep 29, 2023 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Sukkot

This past motzei Shabbat marked 38 weeks since the demonstrations in Israel against the judicial overhaul began. Once again my social media accounts lit up with photos of the streets of Tel Aviv engulfed in crowds, powerful images of democracy in action. I find the sight of so many people gathering to be awe-inspiring and uplifting, and in a ceremony associated with the holiday of Sukkot, I have found some clues as to why witnessing and joining such gatherings can be so moving.

After Dobbs: Jewish Advocacy for Abortion Rights

Sep 11, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

The Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics The U.S. Supreme Court overturned 50 years of constitutional protection for abortion in June 2022. Since the landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, many states have banned or severely limited abortion access, leading the Jewish community to become increasingly involved in advocacy efforts […]

Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Aug 25, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

In 1861, as a great conflagration spread across our nation, the Bostonian abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Samuel Joseph May published a slender tract entitled The Fugitive Slave Act and Its Victims, an impassioned polemic against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This federal law, born of the Missouri Compromise of the same year, required all federal, state, and local authorities, including those in free states, to return fugitive slaves to their masters, while also criminalizing any attempt to aid and abet a slave seeking to escape bondage. May, a Unitarian pastor, thought it fitting—and rightly so—to grace the tract’s title page with the King James translation of Deuteronomy 23:16–17, which I cite here using the JPS translation: “You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place that he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.”