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The Social Justice Torah Commentary
Edited by Rabbi Barry H. Block
Foreword by Rabbi Andrea Weiss
Afterword by Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
398 Pages6.00 × 9.00 × 1.20 in
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What does the Torah have to say about social justice? As the contributors to The Social Justice Torah Commentary demonstrate, a great deal. A diverse array of authors delve deeply into each week's parashah, drawing lessons to inspire tikkun olam. Chapters address key contemporary issues such as racism, climate change, mass incarceration, immigration, disability, women's rights, voting rights, and many more. The result is an indispensable resource for weekly Torah study and for anyone committed to repairing the world.
Foreword
Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, PhD
Introduction
Rabbi Barry H. Block
Acknowledgments
Genesis
B’reishit
Separate and Unequal: A Tale of Creation
Rabbi Marla J. Feldman
Noach
Unconscious Racial Bias and the Curse of Japheth
Rabbi A. Brian Stoller
Lech L’cha
Deserving of the Land
Rabbi Jeremy Barras
Vayeira
The Abraham Bind: The Akeidah and Religious Freedom
Rabbi David Segal
Chayei Sarah
Marriage Justice in Our Biblical Stories
Rabbi Naamah Kelman
Tol’dot
Digging Isaac’s Third Well: Water and Systemic Racism
Rabbi David Spinrad
Vayeitzei
Waking Up to Climate Change
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller
Vayishlach
Dismantling the Patriarchy from All Sides
Evan Traylor
Vayeishev
The “Original Sin” of Slavery
Rabbi Esther L. Lederman
Mikeitz
Emerging to Govern: Reentry after Incarceration
Rabbi Reuben Zellman
Vayigash
Joseph’s Journey from Forced Migration to Redemption: A Model for Immigration Justice
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Rabbi Mike Moskowitz
Va-y’chi
Living in the Face of Death
Rabbi Susan Talve
Exodus
Sh’mot
Victims of Injustice: Saying Their Names
Rabbi Mari Chernow
Va-eira
Moses, Internalized Oppression, and Disability
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman
Bo
The Exodus, Freedom, and Welcoming the Stranger
Rabbi Sandra Lawson
B’shalach
Our Obligations to DREAMers and Ourselves
Cantor Seth Warner
Yitro
Systems of Justice: The Model and the Reality
Rabbi Rachel Greengrass
Mishpatim
Stricken from the Text: Sacred Stories of Reproductive Justice
Rabbi Joshua R. S. Fixler and Rabbi Emily Langowitz
T’rumah
The Heart-Incited Offering: Interdependence, Economic Redistribution, and Community Care
Rabbi Mackenzie Zev Reynolds
T’tzaveh
Ending Wrongful Convictions: A Divine Imperative
Kristine Henriksen Garroway, PhD
Ki Tisa
May My Mercy Overcome My Anger: Ending America’s System of Mass Incarceration
Rabbi Deana Sussman Berezin, MAJE
Vayak’heil
Tzedakah: Putting Your Money Where Your Values Are
Rabbi Marina Yergin
P’kudei
Equity in Education: Let Every Student Shine
Rabbi Craig Lewis
Leviticus
Vayikra
Harassment-Free Jewish Spaces: Our Leaders Must Answer to a Higher Standard
Rabbi Mary L. Zamore
Tzav
Sacred Work Requires Sacred Infrastructure: Including People with Disabilities
Rabbi Ruti Regan
Sh’mini
Kashrut and Food Justice
Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz
Tazria
Facing Mortality in Childbirth
Maharat Rori Picker Neiss
M’tzora
The Inequities Revealed by Plagues and Pandemics: Confront the Problems, Don’t Blame the Victims
Rabbi Asher Gottesfeld Knight
Acharei Mot
Mental Illness and Incarceration: Cutting People Off or Bringing Them Home?
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher
K’doshim
What We Leave for the Poor
Rabbi Barry H. Block
Emor
Does the Torah Require Vegetarianism?
Ruhama Weiss, PhD
B’har 189
“The Land Is Mine”
Rabbi Jill Jacobs
B’chukotai
Fatness Is the Blessing, Not the Curse
Rabbi Rachel Grant Meyer
Numbers
B’midbar
Counting Justly: Lifting Up Every Head
Ilana Kaufman
Naso
The Death Penalty: From Jealous Rage to Dubious Deterrence
Rabbi Ronald Stern
B’haalot’cha
Shedding Light on Solidarity: A Candle Loses Nothing by Lighting Another Candle
Imani Romney-Rosa Chapman and Rabbi Ellen Lippmann
Scarcity, Abundance, and the Imagined Past
Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster
Sh’lach L’cha
The Rights and Duties of Citizenship
Rabbi Seth M. Limmer
Korach
Dissent for the Sake of Heaven: American Jews and Israel
Rabbi Ethan Bair
Chukat
A Lesson in Trauma-Informed Care
Rabbi Shoshanah Conover
Balak
Balaam Is Watching: The Jewish Response to Black Lives Matter
Rabbi Ken Chasen
Pinchas
A Covenant of Peace for All Who Enter Jewish Spaces
Chris Harrison
Matot
Human Decency during Warfare
Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl
Mas’ei
The Cities of Refuge and Restorative Justice
Rabbi Denise L. Eger
Deuteronomy
D’varim
Like God Going before the Israelites: Placing Our Bodies between the Vulnerable and Violence
Rabbi Josh Whinston
Va-et’chanan
You Shall Not Murder: Gun Violence Prevention
Rabbi Andrea C. London
Eikev
Atoning for Our Broken Covenants: Righting America’s Racial Wrongs
Rabbi Judith Schindler
R’eih
How Do Our Monuments Help or Hurt Our Memories of the Past?
Rabbi Ariel Naveh
Shof’tim
Lynching: Justice and the Idolatrous Tree
Rabbi Thomas M. Alpert
Ki Teitzei
Reproductive Justice and Levirate Marriage: May I Not Go Out Empty
Rabbi Liz P. G. Hirsch
Ki Tavo
Jewish Supremacy: The Danger of Chosenness
Rabbi Noa Sattath
Nitzavim
Voting Rights: A Constitutional Covenant
Rabbi Erica Seager Asch
Vayeilech
The Courage To Be Different
Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin
Haazinu
One Person, One Vote: A Biblical Precedent
Rabbi Noam Katz
V’zot Hab’rachah
Time to Say Goodbye: Reforming Cash Bail
Rabbi Joshua Stanton
Afterword
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
Glossary
Contributors
Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B'nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. A Houston native and graduate of Amherst College, Rabbi Block was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1991, and he received his DD, honoris causa, in 2016.
A member of the CCAR Board of Trustees, currently serving as vice president of organizational relationships, Block is the editor of The Mussar Torah Commentary (CCAR Press, 2020), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. He also contributed to several earlier CCAR anthologies, including Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments, The Sacred Exchange, The Sacred Encounter, Navigating the Journey, and A Life of Meaning: Embracing Reform Judaism's Sacred Path, and he is a regular contributor to the CCAR Journal. Rabbi Block currently serves as faculty dean at URJ Henry S. Jacobs Camp, similar to a role he previously held for twenty-one years at URJ Greene Family Camp. He is a past board chair of Planned Parenthood of South Texas. He is the proud father of Robert and Daniel.Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, PhD, is the Head of Seminary at Hebrew Union College overseeing the rabbinical and cantorial programs. From 2018- June 2025 she served as Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and Associate Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College. She received a BA in English from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987 and was ordained by Hebrew Union College in New York in 1993. She earned her doctoral degree in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She is the founder of the American Values, Religious Voices campaign, co-editor of American Values, Religious Voices: 100 Days, 100 Letters (University of Cincinnati Press, 2019, with the second volume entitled, American Values, Religious Voices: Letters of Hope from People of Faith, forthcoming in Fall 2022). She was associate editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (CCAR Press, 2008), which won the Jewish Book Council’s 2009 Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award. Her other writings include Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel (Brill, 2006) and articles on metaphor, biblical poetry, and biblical conceptions of God. Her current research focuses on an in-depth study of biblical metaphors for God entitled “God in the Biblical Imagination: The Mechanics and Theology of Metaphor.”
Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position to which he was appointed to in 2011. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader and tireless advocate for social justice. Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner’s work has focused on encouraging Jewish communities to reach across lines of race, class, and faith in campaigns for social justice. In 2006, he founded Just Congregations (now incorporated into the Religious Action Center), which engaged clergy, professional, and volunteer leaders in interfaith efforts in pursuit of social justice. Rabbi Pesner was a primary leader in the successful Massachusetts campaign for health care access that has provided health care coverage to hundreds of thousands and which became a nationwide model for reform. Over the course of his career, he has also led and supported campaigns for racial justice, economic opportunity, immigration reform, LGBTQ equality, human rights, and a variety of other causes. He is dedicated to building bridges to collectively confront anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate and bigotry. His forthcoming book, Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority, published by CCAR Press in 2018. Rabbi Pesner has trained and mentored students on all four campuses of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and gives speeches in interfaith and secular venues all over the world. Rabbi Pesner serves as a board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, JOIN for Justice, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and the New England Center for Children. He is a member of the Leadership Team for the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. He has served as a scholar for the Wexner Foundation, American Jewish World Service, the Nexus USA Summit, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, among others. Ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1997, Rabbi Pesner was a congregational rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston and at Temple Israel in Westport, Conn. A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Bronx High School of Science, Rabbi Pesner is married to Dana S. Gershon, an attorney. They have four daughters: Juliet, Noa, Bobbie, and Cate.Have you been challenged by others telling you the Torah has nothing useful to say about the most serious problems of our time? Tell them to think again and buy them this book. Week after week, our rabbis - the sages of our era - help us understand the links, provide us with Torah visions, teachings, and guidelines for how to respond to today's crises; and remind us of the imperative to put what we learn into concrete efforts for change. What an extraordinary compilation.
- Ruth W. Messinger, Global Ambassador, American Jewish World Service
Pursuing justice but don't know where to start? This commentary offers a guide for how the Torah can be a blueprint for activism and progressive values. I'd like to distribute a copy to every Israeli I know, so that they understand the kind of Judaism we're hoping to see in the Jewish state.
- Anat Hoffman, Executive Director, Israel Religious Action Center
Timely, at times agitational, and always beautifully articulated, The Social Justice Torah Commentary guides us to explore how the values and wisdom of Judaism connect with our shared humanity.
- Yolanda Savage-Narva, Director of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Union for Reform Judaism
Hallelujah! With profound insight and invigorating courage, this volume shines the light of Torah on the urgent issues of our time. Here we have many of the most admired and trusted rabbinic voices of our generation grounding today's essential redemption work in the eternal wisdom of our tradition. I need this book and you do too.
- Rabbi Rachel Timoner, Senior Rabbi, Congregation Beth Elohim
Dozens of leading rabbis highlight the Torah's answers to today's pressing social justice issues. ... Collectively, this volume is a well-researched, welcome addition to Torah commentaries. Scholars will find detailed, sophisticated analyses, and general readers, assisted by the book's approachable writing style and helpful glossary, will find pragmatic ways to pursue social justice action in their own lives. ... it has the potential to be a volume that both rabbis and laity will turn to for decades to come. An authoritative Jewish commentary on contemporary issues.
- Kirkus Reviews
Bronze medal: Independent Publisher Book Awards (Religion category)
FINALIST: Next Generation Indie Book Awards (Social Justice category)
Video: CCAR Press Speaker Series
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