RJ Blog

by Barbara Lerman-Golomb The year I was applying for college, the essay prompt for the application to the University of Pennsylvania was “No man is an island” by the poet, John Donne. I didn’t end up applying to U of P, mainly because to me, going away to college meant leaving Philadelphia and attending a school in New England. Besides, I prefer free writing and the idea of expounding on a prompt felt too restricting. I hadn’t thought much about that poetic line until Hurricane Sandy hit. Suddenly, I became acutely conscious of the fact that I live on an island. [...]

Few symbols associated with our holiday cycle are as colorful and interesting as the sukkah.  Following the biblical command that we should dwell in this temporary and frail shelter for seven days, many Jews today will not eat under a fixed roof during the entire period of the festival, taking their meals in the sukkah and eating, conversing, singing—truly a moving experience. What is the meaning of this commandment? I offer one insight from a line in the Hashkivenu prayer, contained in each evening service, which reads: “Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha—Spread over us the sukkah of Your peace.”

This Shabbat falls at the beginning of the Labor Day holiday weekend, which traditionally marks the end of summer. Labor Day today often finds us at barbecues or enjoying the beach one last time before fall, but the holiday originally was created to celebrate unions and the role of workers in our society. Jewish tradition strongly supports the right of employees to be treated with dignity by their employers. The Torah teaches us: “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer…You must pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it;” (Deuteronomy 24:14-15).

It’s not too late to plan a Jubilee Shabbat event in your synagogue, community, or even for your home and family. This year’s Jubilee Shabbat weekend is taking place May 18-19, and it is co-sponsored by the Religious Action Center, American Jewish World Service, Tikkun, the Shalom Center and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America (RHR-NA). The weekend is just one opportunity to set aside time to pray, reflect, study, and act around issues of global inequality and poverty. Each week we set aside time to rest during Shabbat. But the Jubilee, which represents the seventh Sabbath cycle, reminds us to [...]

Just before the High Holy Days, Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs asked me to join a group of Jewish and congressional leaders in a project called the Food Stamp Challenge. I was somewhat aware of the Food Stamp Challenge because, among others, Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs our Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) in Washington, had participated last year and he had written about it. A number of members of the RAC staff took the challenge this year as well. But being aware and actually participating were two different things!By accepting his invitation, [...]

by Molly BenoitAlso posted on Ten Minutes of Torah As a young girl, I vividly remember decorating the Sukkah with my religious school class. We made “fruit” from colored construction paper and glued together crepe paper ribbon chains to hang from the ceiling.  Out in the chilly fall air under the sky peeking through the ceiling made of branches, we ate apple slices and sang songs with the Rabbi. As I grew out of religious school and went to college where decorating the Sukkah was a less whimsical event, the youthful memories faded.  This year however, as a new Religious [...]

by Rabbi Warren Stone I was invited to Rome by the U.S. Embassy and the Vatican’s  Pontifical Gregorian University for a major one-day conference on October 12, entitled:  “Building Bridges of Hope: Success Stories and Strategies for Interfaith Action.”  The program’s vision was to include the Abrahamic faith traditions on three global issues panels, each of which included a Christian, Jewish and Muslim leader. The issues were: (1) Equitable and Ethical Development, (2) Caring for the Environment and (3) Preventing Conflict. Atttending the conference were worldwide ambassadors to the Vatican, Vatican Bishops and officials, seminary students from Gregorian and the [...]

by JanetheWriter Photo by Naomi Abelson Several years ago, I helped chaperone a quartet of high school students from my home congregation to Washington, DC to attend a L’taken social justice seminar sponsored by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Although waaaay beyond high school myself, I learned a lot in those three and a half days in our nation’s capital. The lesson that has stayed with me the longest, though, is this one: When standing on a river bank, if children begin to float by in the rapids, it is, of course, our duty to pluck them from the raging [...]

by Rabbi Geoffrey HunttingTemple Sinai, Sarasota, Fl. In the first chapters of Sefer Shemot, Moses has his first encounter with God. “I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes I am mindful of their sufferings…” And yet, it has been many years that the outcry from the Israelites could be heard, and we might ask why it took God so long. It is suggested in some of the sources that Egypt was herself given a chance to respond to the slaves’ plight. With Joseph as a role [...]

by Sophie Vener 2009-2010 NFTY Social Action Vice President I arrived in Jerusalem on Monday, August 31st, to begin my year on Shnat Netzer, the World Union for Progressive Judaism‘s gap year program in Israel. We spent the first week in the Beit Shmuel youth hostel for orientation, learning rules and regulations as well as getting acclimated to our new home in Jerusalem. Included in the week of orientation was participating in the Israel Religious Action Center‘s program Keren B’Kavod, the progressive movement’s response to poverty in Israel. One of the ways that Keren B’Kavod addresses poverty is through holiday [...]