Ikar Los Angeles

The free person, awake and humble, can acknowledge the truth that emerges from various even contradictory perspectives. This is not a sign of weakness, but of spiritual liberation. Perhaps that the very essence of freedom is growing in spaciousness.

How can we ensure that the Passover Seder is not performative, but transformative? When we open our doors to those who are hungry, something in our hearts opens too. This is how we begin to write a new liberation story. Since October 7, The New Israel Fund has been funding emergency support and resettlement for Israelis forced from their homes, and they have been supporting Israelis and Palestinians working together for a just future. They have now launched a campaign to feed the people of Gaza living at the brink of famine through the World Central Kitchen and The International Rescue Committee. The humanitarian crisis there is a moral catastrophe, and it is a Jewish moral obligation to feed those who are hungry. I hope you’ll join me in support of this campaign.

Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/556558?editor=1

Kabbalat Shabbat dinner discussion with sisters Danielle and Galeet Dardashti from The Nightingale of Iran Podcast

This week we are entering into the new Hebrew month of Nisan. The rabbis debate whether this month or Tishrei (the month with Rosh HaShanah) are the beginning of the year. Some say both. Creation is a process. As we look ahead to the new month we also look back at the last six months - what seeds were planted that we can reap now? What seeds can we plant now to harvest something new in Tishrei? Let's get started.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/554948?editor=1

A Priestly ritual offers a path toward spiritual preparation for Passover

Live, for a day, without all the answers, without all the assumptions about each other that cast a giant shadow over how we relate to one another.  Who knows what kind of humanity might emerge from such a day, from such a world?

The Purim story reminds us that the real danger is when overt meets latent antisemitism. And in a culture steeped in antisemitism, literally no one is safe. The bulwark against authoritarianism is a multiracial, multifaith coalition, and that coalition is broken today, and risks being fractured beyond repair. We must sound the alarm.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/551802?lang=bi

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/550092?editor=1

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/548331?editor=1

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. 

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/546667?editor=1