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Rabbi Elliott Tepperman: Bringing a Community-Organizing Model to the Pulpit

Having spent her career in journalism and Jewish communal service, working for organizations such as Hadassah and HIAS, Roberta Elliott was always deeply engaged with her Jewish identity and the wider world. Before 2006, as she tells it, direct social action hadn’t been a major focus of her life.

Then she joined Bnai Keshet, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Montclair, N.J., and soon all that would change.

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/rabbi-elliott-tepperman-bringing-community-organizing-model-pulpit

Posted on: 2019/04/25 - 2:33pm

Statement on Shooting at Chabad of Poway

Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association send our deepest condolences and wishes of refu’ah shlaymah — full and complete healing — to all who were affected by the shooting at Chabad of Poway, Calif. We are keenly aware that the shooting happened not only on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, and the eighth day of Passover, the Jewish celebration of liberation from oppression, but also on the sixth month anniversary of the terrible shooting in Pittsburgh.

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/statement-shooting-chabad-poway

Posted on: 2019/04/28 - 9:03pm

Turning Memory Into Empathy: The Torah's Ethical Charge

One of the Torah’s central projects is to turn memory into empathy and moral responsibility. Appealing to our experience of defenselessness in Egypt, the Torah seeks to transform us into people who see those who are vulnerable and exposed rather than looking past them.

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/turning-memory-empathy-torahs-ethical-charge

Posted on: 2017/08/16 - 4:05pm

DT Naso Toba Spitzer

(Originally published in Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible)

A number of years ago, Pride Weekend in Boston fell on the Shabbat of Parshat Naso. Preparing my d’var Torah for Shabbat morning services that week, I wondered, what might this portion have to teach about GLBT pride?

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/impurity-blessing

Posted on: 2016/11/17 - 1:34pm

18 Jewish Holidays: A Journey to Unexpected Places

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/abigail-pogrebin-interview

Posted on: 2017/09/12 - 6:11pm

Honest Weights and Measures DT Eron

Once, during the holy season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, paused in his devotions and looking at his disciples with sad, tear-laden eyes, remarked, “What a funny world it is that we live in these days. There was a time, you know, when Jews would be scrupulously honest in the market place and be the most outrageous liars in the synagogue. These days, however, everything is reversed. The Jews are surprisingly honest in synagogue, but in the streets and market places, I’m ashamed to tell you.”

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/honest-weights-and-measures

Posted on: 2017/08/17 - 1:17pm

Are We There Yet DT Behaalotcha Kligler

שוַיְהִ֤י הָעָם֙ כְּמִתְאֹ֣נְנִ֔ים רַ֖ע בְּאָזְנֵ֣י ה׳

Va’yehi ha’am k’mit’onenim ra b’oznei YHVH.

The people took to complaining bitterly before YHVH (Bamidbar 11:1)

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/are-we-there-yet

Posted on: 2017/06/02 - 9:09am

Sri Lanka Easter Bombing Statement

Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association are shocked by and condemn the terrorist attacks carried out on Easter Sunday at multiple churches and other locations in Sri Lanka. With broken hearts, we stand in solidarity with the Christian communities of Sri Lanka, and with people in grief and shock around the world.

https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/statement-easter-sunday-bombings-sri-lanka

Posted on: 2019/04/23 - 9:49am