Articles

"Would that all God's people were prophets!" When Joshua asks Moses to restrain Eldad and Medad, two Israelites who received the divine spirit without authorization, Moses refuses to be jealous and wishes instead that everyone could prophesy. The prophets stood at the meeting of the sacred and the just, and prophecy did not end with the Biblical canon. Maimonides shows that it is a spiritual practice, one that rests on hearts immersed in joy and remains open to all. The call of this moment is to emulate Eldad and Medad, to embody love and immerse ourselves in practice, so that each of us can channel the prophetic voice our times so urgently need.

Jacob’s story shows that deception ends only when he allows himself to feel the full weight of pachad, the fear that brings truth into view. This week's Torah portion calls us to adopt that same moral discipline in a time when misinformation and state violence rely on our willingness to look away.

Sarah Hurwitz’s remarks at the Jewish Federations’ General Assembly frame antisemitism as an exceptional, ever-present hatred and describe criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza as a misunderstanding born of Holocaust education, which obscures the real violence Palestinians are facing. The Torah story of Jacob and Esau, and its various interpretations, show how rabbinic and Zionist interpretations turned Esau into the archetypal non-Jew, seeing their conflict as a pre-figuration of hatred of Jews as an unchangeable law that binds the Jewish nation together. Returning to the plain meaning of the story allows for a reinvestigation of the themes to move us beyond this misformulation of antisemitism.

This essay argues that American Jews face a defining choice between a Judaism bound to nationalism and one rooted in ethical universalism and democratic freedom. Reclaiming Judaism’s tradition of debate and conscience, it calls for building diverse, democratic Jewish futures grounded in human dignity and collective liberation.

Qian Julie Wang reflects on how both American culture and American Judaism often define identity through victimhood, turning suffering into a kind of currency that fuels competition and vengeance rather than justice or healing. Drawing on the Binding of Isaac, she contrasts readings of Isaac as helpless victim or empowered adult to show that we can choose to live from agency instead of powerlessness. In this season of teshuvah, she calls us to reclaim power and privilege not as tainted words but as sacred responsibilities, reminding us that each of us is both David and Goliath, oppressed and oppressor. Our task is to embrace the perspective that empowers us to care for one another and to build a world where suffering is not the measure of worth.