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Jewish Faith Network
Newsletter
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Thank you for joining us again for the Jewish Faith Network newsletter at the One America Movement. This month, we’re excited to share a range of resources to support you in addressing the spiritual crisis of toxic polarization and fostering unity in your community. Inside, you’ll find sermon hooks connected to this month’s Torah readings, insights from the Talmud to inspire reflection, stories from the field highlighting our ongoing work, and thought-provoking articles from around the internet. We hope these offerings provide both inspiration and practical tools for your work.
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Live it: A reflection from Rabbi Jessie Wainer | | |
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Rabbi Jessie Wainer, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, IL, reflects on the January 6th insurrection, her personal experiences in its aftermath, and the ongoing work to combat toxic polarization within her community.
Click here to read the article.
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Sermon Hooks for Next Month's Torah Readings | |
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Genesis 37:1-8
Genesis 37:1-8 In the beginning of the Joseph story, Jacob fails as a father by favoring one son over the others, and Joseph’s brothers transfer the anger they should feel at their father into a hatred for Joseph, and it leads them into motive misattribution and misperceptions when in verse eight, after hearing of his dream, they ask, “Do you mean to reign over us?” The brothers, in their polarized state, do not try to learn from Joseph wha:21t he intends, and instead assume that they know.
Genesis 37:21
When Reuben hears the plan to kill Joseph, he tries to act as an in-group moderate. His brothers have gone to the extreme by suggesting that they kill Joseph, and Reuben tries to bring them back from the edge. His success was rather limited.
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Genesis 42:6-17
When his brothers come down to Egypt for food, Joseph engages in willful motive misattribution against them. It is possible that he is testing them to see if they have changed their ways in the intervening years since they have seen one another, but as presented, when Joseph accuses them of being spies, he has no data on which to found that accusation.
Genesis 42:18-20
Joseph creates a superordinate identity between the brothers and himself (as grand vizier of Egypt) by appealing to the idea that they can all be honest men. Granted, he is doing this as a way of testing them, which is not the ideal way to engage a superordinate identity, but it has the effect of uniting the brothers in their own mind with the leaders of Egypt in understanding right and wrong when they return for more food.
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Genesis 44:18-34
Judah appeals to Joseph about the fate of Benjamin, acting as an in-group moderate in the superordinate identity as honest men that Joseph established in the last portion. He demonstrates how one can act as an in-group moderate, using a gentle tochecha with Joseph, and ultimately pointing out that what Joseph has proposed while just on the surface is actually unjust.
Judah also demonstrates that he has learned the sacred value of brotherly and filial love as he is willing now to sacrifice himself in order to save Benjamin from imprisonment.
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Genesis 48:17-20
Joseph perceives that his father is violating a group norm when he crosses his hands and puts his right hand on the younger child’s head and tries to correct his father. But Jacob know what he is doing.
Genesis 49:29-33
Jacob demonstrates a sacred value when he instructs his children to bury him in the Cave of Machpelah.
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Sanhedrin 17b (Image credit Sefaria.org) | Sanhedrin 17b provides the requirements for a well-established town, and it does so by listing out the public services that are required, including a court, a charity fund, a synagogue, a bath-house, a public bathroom (oh, the lack of indoor plumbing), a doctor, a bloodletter, a scribe, a kosher butcher, and a school teacher. Rabbi Julie Bressler teaches that these express the achrayut, the responsibility, of leaders to provide for these sacred values in their town. She also points out that many of these requirements help a community maintain relationships across lines of difference. | |
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Rabbi Peter Stein from Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY, shares in his Kol Nidrei sermon a story of speaking across the lines of difference between Jews and Evangelicals and how that helped him prepare for the High Holy Days this year. Click here to read the sermon.
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Articles From the Internet | |
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January 17 (exact time TBD) - a zoom session with Mohammed Darawshe, the Director of Strategy for the Center for Shared Society in Givat Haviva. He will talk about how Jewish-Arab relations in Israel are in crisis and how we should focus on de-escalation instead of confrontation.
May 5-7 - One America Movement Summit in Tulsa, OK
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Rabbi Frederick Reeves is the Director of Jewish Programs at the One America Movement.
Fred served pulpits in Atlanta and Chicago before coming to the One America Movement. He also was the president of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Interfaith Council, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and the Chicago Association of Reform Rabbis. In those roles, he has been active Jewishly and across faith lines working to bring positive change to our society. Fred graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia with a degree in French Literature. He completed a Master’s in Hebrew Letters and received rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Learn More About Our Work | |
The One America Movement's mission is to build a network of people of faith who speak and act against toxic polarization in America in accordance with their faith tradition. | | | | |
