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

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