April 29, 2022 — What ideas are Jewish communities exploring to reach unengaged and under-engaged populations in new ways and spaces? What conversations are taking place about how to fund such ideas? How can communities gain the confidence to try, and possibly fail, in order to implement the next idea? These questions will be front-and-center during the closing program of “Rooted and Relevant: Reconstructing Judaism in 2018,” the Reconstructionist movement’s first convention in nearly a decade.

September 22, 2022 — Rabbi Toba Spitzer grapples wtih the traditional notion of Jewish chosenness, arguing that our Torah is integral to the maintenance and perfection of this world—even as we acknowledge that other people’s teachings, other people’s truths, are also a path to redemption. It matters that  Judaism survives—not just for our own sake, but because it’s good for the world, and because we have unique work to do.

February 9, 2023 — When the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College changed our admissions policy to allow for the possibility that Jews partnered with non-Jews could become rabbis, we did so out of the understanding that in the 21st-century Jewish behavior and commitments--religious, cultural, secular--are more important than Jewish status. We acted to meet Jews in the realities of their complex lives—to engage with them, to raise up leaders from among them, and together to build the Jewish future. We have been inspired and moved by the powerful and passionate students who have enrolled at RRC since this policy change, some because of their non-Jewish partners and more in support of this principle.

April 10, 2024 — #post_excerpt

August 31, 2022 — Rabbi Alan LaPayover (RRC ‘02), recorded the prayers of the Reconstructionist liturgy for the High Holiday services. The sound files are available for listening and download from links on this page.

January 25, 2023 — This letter, along with the growing number of statements of protest from many quarters of the Jewish community, is a clarion call. These statements communicate that this government and what it espouses are not normal and should not be normalized. They seize the opportunity to reassert the kind of Zionism championed by Justice Louis Brandeis, who equated Zionism with American democracy, and who believed in a Zionism dedicated to giving social justice and democratic values expanded expression.

March 21, 2022 — Recipes for Passover haroset from several cultural traditions

March 21, 2022 — The phrase “Next year in Jerusalem” occurs at the end of every Passover seder. This piece suggests ways to use that phrase as an entry point to a deep educational experience. 

March 21, 2022 — A resource for exploring values and commitments around Israel, seen through the lens of the phrase “Next year in Jerusalem” at the close of the Passover seder