Ikar Los Angeles

This week we find ourselves freed from some of the defeatism and despair that was taking root these last weeks and months. And now, with a bit of renewed hope, we have so much work to do. In the parsha we see a model of a collective that includes everyone and centers marginalized and unexpected groups. This moment demands we show up, no matter what that looks like. Find a way in - this fight will take all of us.  

The sense of defeatism, all too present after the events in this country over the last week, is the most dangerous myth threatening our future right now.  To throw up our hands and surrender to the myth of inevitability is to relinquish the most precious gift given to humanity: our capacity to change the world around us.  We can be scared without being resigned.  We can be exhausted without being fatalistic.  We can be discouraged but nonetheless courageous.  

When we roll open the sacred Torah, what we see is monochrome. Pale parchment, dark ink, black, and white. Which are the only colors the human being can see when we are born. If today's parsha had a color, it would be red. Click here to see the painting Hope, by George Frederick Watts, painted in 1886: https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-frederick-watts/hope-1886

We are living in a world that is broken and painful. It is a moment to turn towards the angels within us and around us in order to find our way through.

Our family is broken. Please, God, help us heal.

Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace.  There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins.  Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants.  Grant us peace.  

A special discussion with author Mickey Bergman about his book, In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad.

A warning, from our dark and pained past: remember, even when confronted by external enemies, it is the extremism in our own Jewish community that poses the most potent threat to our survival. We are at an inflection point: will we again fall prey to the zealots?

Source Sheet https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/568347?lang=bi Full class: https://youtu.be/xCIiAkZDSGQ

A tribute to some of the many moments with this beautiful community that have changed me over the past 16 years.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/566742?lang=bi Watch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/FRhY5TSlsqo

Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/404083?lang=biWatch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/YrP-HnwjiNc

“It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair. Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives, such as job opportunities or barrier-free buildings…”  - Judy Heumann, of blessed memory. 

Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/tQGKQYEjVKA Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/563716?lang=bi

Holiness is recognizing that what looks like the whole story is always, necessarily, only part of the story.  It's the stretch that moves us beyond what we know and what we’ve seen and into what we can imagine and dream.

Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher from 5.2.2024. Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/O-gaUHURJBA Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/562111?lang=bi

With Auschwitz Survivor Ella Mandel and Amit, Zeve, and Oren Zilberstein, Jason Neidleman, and Alexia Gyorody, the second, third, and fourth generation of family members who both survived and perished in the Shoah. As living survivor numbers dwindle, we will explore together how we can understand and hold their experiences in ways that co-create a more just, humane and dignified future for one another and our world. Co-produced by Peanut Productions. Videos by The Righteous Conversations Project: - To Life: The Ella Mandel Story created in collaboration with Sinai Akiba - Dreams of Yisrael: The Story of Yisrael Zilberstein created in collaboration with IKAR Limudim

We must have zero tolerance for violent and racist rhetoric in our Jewish community. We must support the birth of a new mixed multitude: those who reject extremism, who reject the violent, reductive idea that Palestinians and Jews must be eternal enemies. That one’s victory necessitates another’s victimhood, or even worse: elimination. This mixed multitude is made of people who know that we do not undermine our own sorrow or betray our own people when we see one another, those who understand that our fates are all tied up in one another.

The protest movement has unleashed a virulent and dangerous antisemitism that endangers Jews, threatens democracy, and undermines the fight for justice and liberation for Palestinians. We must do better. What we need is a movement fueled by empathy and moral imagination. One that recognizes that both peoples have suffered terribly. That neither is leaving. That a just future is possible for everyone.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/558262?lang=bi