Encountering Nature Demands Responsibility (Parshat Yitro)

by Rabbi James Bennett
Commentary for Parshat Yitro (Exodus 18:1 – 20:23 ) and Tu BiShvat “Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” — John Muir One of my ideological inspirations, John Muir, was one of the world’s most...
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Yitro the Activist

by Rabbi Michael Langer
In the grand scheme of things, Yitro is actually a pretty minor biblical character. His name is only mentioned 12 times in the entirety of the Torah. Yet for someone as minor as he is, he’s got quite the midrashic backstory. The midrash (Devarim Rabbah 1:5, Kohelet Rabbah 3:11, and elsewhere) states that Yitro sampled all of the...
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Planting Two Trees: A Tale from the Field

by Nathan Roller
Nathan Roller, a T’ruah Israel Fellow and student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, shares his experience planting two trees–one in the West Bank and one in Israel–as part of the T’ruah Year-in-Israel Program. Donate $36 or more to support this important tree-planting project in 2019.
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Human Rights and Climate Change

by Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson
Climate change is making climate disasters, such as floods and droughts, more frequent and intense, land and water more scarce and difficult to access, and increases in agricultural productivity even harder to achieve. How can we respond? A text study on Joseph, Ruth, midrash, and prayer.
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Rosh Pinna: Keystone of Justice

by Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
I am standing by a pristine mountain stream at 10,000 ft. in the Wind River Range in Wyoming and sobbing. My hiking partner Ed, whose family has been here for hundreds of years, has just said to me that the land belongs to me as much as it does to him. That was nearly 40...
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