Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein

VaEra: It’s Our Time to be the Protagonists of History

by Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein
In this moment, we do not know how things will turn out, in Israel or the U.S. But if Torah and history have anything to teach us, it is that whatever happens is not inevitable, and the catalyst will not be something we could have predicted in advance. This moment, like all moments, is full of possibility. It will be those with proactive vision who will move history, just as it always has been.
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Reckoning with Climate Change in Egypt and Today

by Rabbi Frederick Reeves
We have enough warning signs, enough extreme climate names. Let us not be Pharaohs on the way to deaths in every household.
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Taking Time to Catch Our Breath

by Rabbi Jessica Fisher
When God revealed to Moses that God is prepared to fulfill God’s covenant with our ancestors, God said, “I have now heard the moaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians have enslaved.” (Exodus 6:5) God could hear the Israelites even when they could not breathe.
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A Message That Will Be Heard

by Rabbi Dr. Oren Z. Steinitz
A D’var Torah for Parshat VaEra by Rabbi Dr. Oren Z. Steinitz “Just as it is a mitzvah for a person to deliver a message that will be heard, so is it a mitzvah for a person not to deliver a message that will not be heard.” (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot, 65b). This statement, attributed to...
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Freedom Means Thinking for Oneself, Too

by Leon Botstein
In this week’s d’var torah on Parshat VaEra, Bard College President Leon Botstein asks just what kind of freedom Moses was demanding.
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Who Feels the Pain? (Parshat VaEra)

by Rabbi Adam Chalom
Commentary on Parshat Vaera (Exodus 6:2 – 9:35) Who deserves human rights? Even the Torah has its blind spots. The Torah portion VaEra describes an escalating cycle. As YHWH predicts, Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh and he refuses to free the Israelites. A plague strikes, and Pharaoh relents. The plague is removed by divine intervention,...
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The Mournfulness of Her Song: Hearing the Cries of the Enslaved

by Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein
On my recent visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, I was moved to tears by one of the readings displayed in the darkened memorial room to those who were transported to America on slave ships from Africa. I learned that the chained slaves would sing songs of...
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How Patience Destroys the Hope of Redemption

by Rabbi Marjorie Berman
My step-daughter has a very distinctive sense of style, part Goth, part Emo, part anime, part steam-punk, part Asian, part her. She is also very petite, and finds it hard to find the clothes that she likes in her size. We recently realized that we can often find things that fit her if we order...
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Hope and a Listening Ear

by Rabbi Yair Robinson
I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. (Exodus 6:5) It seems these days I have an endless array of guest speakers in my congregation: about the Syrian refugee crisis, about the death penalty, about homelessness, about the violence fraying...
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Crying Out Loud

by Rabbi Marc Philippe
A year ago exactly, we were preparing for our Human Trafficking Awareness Shabbat. The theme resonated so much–as it still does today–with the biblical narrative: Jewish bondage in Egypt. We never expected that a real life sex trafficking case would happen practically on our doorstep. It happened two blocks south of our synagogue, in the...
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