April 15, 2022
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This year, the Passover journey from Egypt and slavery to freedom and human dignity feels particularly poignant. The Hebrew word for Egypt, mitzrayim, also connotes “the narrow place,” a place of constriction. These past two years of Pandemic, along with all that has unfolded at the same time, have challenged each of us differently, but […]
Continue readingFebruary 4, 2022
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Amnesty International recently published a report entitled Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity. Several rabbinic organizations have issued critical responses to this report, including The Rabbinical Assembly, representing Conservative/Masorti rabbis, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and the Orthodox Union. On Monday, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association with Reconstructing Judaism added meaningfully to the range […]
Continue readingJanuary 16, 2022
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לְ֭מַעַן אַחַ֣י וְרֵעָ֑י אֲדַבְּרָה־נָּ֖א שָׁל֣וֹם בָּֽךְ׃ For the sake of my friends and companions, I pray that peace be yours. (Psalm 122) From the events of this past Shabbat, once again we feel shaken and saddened. Such anger and violence toward humanity, to our fellow Jews, bring us all closer into a circle of shared life. […]
Continue readingDecember 2, 2021
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On the third day of Hanukkah, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This is one of the most consequential lawsuits in decades concerning reproductive freedom, and the first case that the Supreme Court has taken in which a state is directly calling upon the Court to overturn the […]
Continue readingNovember 12, 2021
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The release of a 37-page report this week that detailed a number of acts of gender, LGBTQ, and racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and bullying from a number of professors and leaders at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion hit home for some of the nearly dozen Twin Cities clergy and educators that are graduates of […]
Continue readingSeptember 13, 2021
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Kol haolam kulo gesher tzar meod. V’haikar lo lifached klal. The whole world is a very narrow bridge. The main thing is not to fear. Sung in summer camp or at youth group retreats, these words of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav are well known. But let me point out something not so obvious. The lyrics […]
Continue readingAugust 26, 2021
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A new word has entered our popular lexicon courtesy of the Olympics and Simon Biles: a twistee. A twistee occurs when a gymnast experiences a lack of alignment between their body and their mind in executing a gymnastic routine. Biles experienced this in the preliminary warm-ups of the team gymnastics competition in the Tokyo games. […]
Continue readingJune 30, 2021
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We are thrilled to announce that starting July 1, 2021, Rabbi Debra Rappaport, Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm, and Rabbi Lynn Liberman will become co-chairs of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association. We are grateful for Rabbi Rappaport’s terrific service as vice-chair, with the plan to step into this role. Rabbi David Thomas will assume the newly created position […]
Continue readingJune 29, 2021
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How can I curse what God has blessed? That is what Balaam, the go to prophet-for-hire in the 13th century BCE says to the King of Moab. We read these words in Parshat Balak in chapter 22 of Numbers (verse 18): “Bilaam replied to Balak’s officials, ‘Were Balak to give me his house full of […]
Continue readingJune 15, 2021
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JFS Community Chaplain Rabbi Lynn Liberman, BCC, and para-chaplain and cantor Deb Winston will offer a series of three videos to celebrate Shabbat this summer.
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