Ikar Los Angeles

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A conversation with Standing Together, a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice.

In a landscape of utter devastation, the spiritual work of choosing hope in the heartache.  

When God threatens to wipe out the Israelites, Moses recognizes, in the subtleties of language, that history is on the verge of dangerously repeating.  Moses must become a new kind of leader, one who does everything in his power to save the people from God’s wrath.  Only then can healing begin. 

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We must reject the way of eternal war. The hostages must be returned to their loved ones. Humanitarian aid must reach the people of Gaza immediately. Israeli and Palestinian leadership must commit to a long term negotiated peace. There is another way, and saying so is not betrayal… it is love.   Parashat Tetzaveh 5784

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My reflections on a week spent at the U.S./Mexico border, witnessing up close the horrors that are happening every single day. We continue to make it nearly impossible for people seeking asylum to safely enter this country and with the numbers of displaced people around the world growing quickly, we need better solutions. The Torah's images of the keruvim (cherubs) offer us two versions - what will we choose?

If law is the ground upon which we stand, story must be the water that softens the soil.  When law leaves story behind, it runs the risk of disregarding the human beings it's meant to protect.  In the last year and a half, since Roe V. Wade was overturned, far too many women and people who need abortion access have been dangerously denied care. It’s time to tell their stories and protect the right to reproductive freedom. 

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It is precisely when the public square is consumed with fantasies of binary outcomes and our hearts are full of anguish that we honor those Israelis and Palestinians who are working in partnership to imagine a just and peaceful future. Rabbi Brous joins May Pundak and Dr. Rula Hardal, the Israeli and Palestinian co directors of A Land for All, to discuss their shared vision.  Learn more about the vision, the work and the promise of ALFA here. 

What happens when one memory is replaced by another, when a moment of discernment is replaced by an act of force? The people are free, but Moses is caught between past and future, and the consequences are tragic.

Lunch and Learn with author, Adam Mansbach who joins us to discuss their book The Golem of Brooklyn with Hillel Tigay. Due to technical difficulties, the beginning of this program was not recorded.

We must speak of the darkness that lives in some of our bodies and spirits, a darkness that sometimes manifests as depression, despair, and suicidal ideation, a darkness that may feel inescapable. I offer these words with great love and tenderness toward those who are holding fresh or age-old wounds of worry and grief. Today we’ll meet in the darkness.

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