This is a short Passover reading that expresses appreciation for people of backgrounds and identities other than Judaism. It would work well in a community seder, as well as home seders.
When Rabbi Maurice Harris set out to write a book about Moses, he never could have imagined where that work would lead.
Now, more than a decade later, Harris is heavily featured in the new Netflix docudrama, Testament: The Story of Moses. The show, which dropped on March 27, is among the streaming platform’s first forays into religion programing. The three-part hybrid-documentary series explores Moses’ story from Jewish, Christian and Muslim perspectives. It intersperses dramatic scenes with actors and interviews with scholars, academics and theologians.
In March 2023, 200 people — including Jews of Color and Jews identifying as White — sang, prayed & learned together at key civil rights sites in the South.
Washing our hands is an ancient Jewish practice, going back to the days of the Temple, when the priests purified themselves before performing rituals. Today, we are also called to wash and purify our hands before we perform rituals such as the ones during the Passover seder. During the seder, traditionally, we wash our hands three times: No matter how many times we wash your hands during the seder, this kavannah will bring important intention to our ritual washings.
How did we get here? Our nation is so divided, and a majority appears to have chosen the politics of grievance and of anger, anchored in “othering” millions – including many of us, and many of our neighbors. A tremendous number of Americans fear the loss of our democratic norms; the abrogation of our own rights as well as the rights of others; a rejection of our determination to dismantle systemic racism and to combat antisemitism; and an abandonment of rational, fact-based decision-making, let alone basic civility. We are anxious about the fates of people and nations around the world.
In our third session with author Abigail Pogrebin, we talked about taking an “Elijah moment” at our Passover celebrations: enacting change in the world in an effective and fulfilling way.
The Reconstructionist Network
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
