IKAR Podcasts

We are all struggling in this moment of deep darkness - either riding the constant emotional rollercoaster or already feeling numb. The thing is that both of these will destroy us. Instead, we need to stay connected to our humanity and each other to get us through. That is the only way we will find ourselves back in the light. 

How do American Jews navigate complex conversations about Israel and Palestine across generations? And what does it take to truly listen to each other? Rabbi Sharon Brous sits down with IKAR’s CEO Melissa Balaban and her daughter Emma Wergeles to reflect on their recent trip to Israel and the West Bank with Encounter. From different generational perspectives, they share what challenged them, what moved them, and why direct engagement with both Palestinian and Israeli perspectives is essential for for any hope of a lasting and just peace.

This is the moment to remember who we are, to ground ourselves in the story that stands in determined opposition to the story of tyranny. To tell of a God who cares about the vulnerable. To become again a people whose faith compels us to protect the frightened. 

After 15 months of catastrophic loss, unspeakable heartache, and the utter undoing of not one but two peoples—in body and spirit, we stand—at this moment—at an inflection point. May this be the beginning of the end of the suffering. May it be the beginning of the path toward a just peace.

Read the sermon here.

Even as the fires burn, let us hold on another, give voice to what we have lost, and turn toward what remains.

How did Joseph, a man hardened by one life experience after the next, soften his heart to forgive his brothers? A remarkable midrash imagines a conversation between Joseph and Benjamin that changes everything. Ten names and all the worlds of meaning, of missing, of memory they contain.

What is Joseph's legacy? And what can we learn from the character with the most costume changes in all of the Torah?

Jacob tried to flee from his estranged brother. Did he fear more the battle, or the potential reconciliation? What happens when victimhood is built into our self-definition? What do we lose when we stay at the table, and what might we gain?

What will it take for us to understand that there is no future until we see one another?

Vayishlah 5785

There is a teaching in Pirkei Avot that says that the mouth of the well was made during the first Shabbat of creation. We have long accepted it to be Miriam's well, but what if it's the well from this week's parsha - the one Jacob encounters after his dream, and where he meets Rachel for the first time? If it's that well, then maybe we, like Jacob, have to find the well, roll off the stone, and discover what exists underneath. 

Who is Isaac? The man perpetually trapped by his father’s story, still bound to the altar, forever defined by the core trauma of his life. What will it take to break free? For the once bound to become unbound?

Source sheet: https://ikar.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Isaac_-Bound-and-Unbound-1.pdf

After a life of heartache, two estranged brothers affirmed each other’s humanity,

and rediscovered their own. We, too, can make that choice. Let us push back on the encroaching darkness as a force for good—a light force—that counters the cruelty, racism, and violence poisoning our culture with compassion, tender presence, and forgiveness. This is what solidarity looks like.

Loving your neighbor, who is like you, whose identity you share, is not enough. You must stretch the boundaries of love to wrap into its embrace the stranger, the people in our society who are furthest away from power. To counter the frenzy of rhetoric and the aspirations of policy that demonize these human beings, we need to love them fiercely. We need to love them fully. 

Now we must learn the lesson our ancestor Avram learned:

one day our dreams will be realized. Just not today. And not tomorrow.

And maybe not for many years. But just as hope doesn’t die, dreams don’t die.

The dream we share for America didn’t die because our dream—

the dream of a just and merciful multiracial democracy in which all people live in dignity—

that dream is the right dream. It is the only future…

it’s just now clear that it will take much longer to achieve than any of us had hoped.

There’s an eerie resonance between the Noah narrative and this week. What does Noah's Flood teach us about navigating chaos and coming once more to land?

After the death of a beloved child in our community to suicide, we reaffirm our commitment to combatting shame with tenderhearted love, to meeting one another in the dark, to never giving up on each other. May Benjamin Ellis’s memory be a blessing.

Sermon from Shemini atzeret

Sukkot reflects our people's ancient narrative, balancing the transience of a wandering nation and the fragility of life with our yearning for home and the Eternal Divine. How does our tradition compel us to relate to those who yearn for home, but who are left to wander?

There is a dominant story in America today—a story of isolation, alienation, and narrow-minded extremism, fueled by a deeply unsettling convergence of right- and left-wing antisemitism.

This story—propagated by a would-be authoritarian—plays on our worst instincts: the smallness, the fear, the ever-present sense of scarcity. And it threatens to do untold damage.

We must write something new.

The only way forward is one broken heart next to another, crying together, awakening to the reality that grief is our common bond.

Text study and conversation between Alex Edelman and Rabbi Sharon Brous on the Torah of Joy, and the Power, Promise, and Necessity of Laughter in Dark Times.

Hope doesn’t die, and despair is a privilege we cannot afford.

We think of t'shuvah as a process that begins quietly, internally. We take stock and then we act. But what if we need an external catalyst first? What if we need to return to a physical place in order to encounter ourselves again - a different version of ourselves, different pieces. What can returning to a place surface for us? And what does our tradition show us can come from that journey?

One year after her sister's death, Michal rethinks the Talmudic story of "the oven of achnei" and Moses's final speech to the people to reflect upon the importance of small and private acts.

Vivian Silver (founder of Women Wage Peace, lifelong Israeli-Canadian

peace activist and beloved friend to many in our community), was

murdered by Hamas on October 7th. Since then, her son, Yonatan Zeigen,

has dedicated his life to realizing her vision of peace.

Arab Aramin is a Palestinian peace activist whose sister was killed by

an Israeli soldier in 2007.

The two are members of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, a grassroots

organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost

immediate family members in the conflict, and who believe that only

together can they achieve a sustained peace.

As we prepare for the High Holy Days, what difficult things do you need to say to God?  Covenantal relationship must be able to hold it all. The anger and the disappointment, the heartbreak and the rebuke.

We say Psalm 27 100 times in the High Holy day season. Why?

Six beloved hostages were executed in a tunnel beneath Rafah, leaving behind broken-hearted loved ones and a shattered nation. We must be clear about who is responsible.

At this time of year in our Jewish calendar, we

are in a season of second chances. We are reading Moshe's retelling of the

people's journey through the desert in Deuteronomy, and we are about to enter

into the month of Elul, the month of spiritual preparation for the High Holy

Days. It is also the moment when Moshe went back up the mountain to get the

second set of tablets - the ultimate story of second chances. We are about to

start our own month of reflection and repair - let's see what we can do.

Water is not only a building block of life, but also of

culture. How we receive water shapes our consciousness and has the potential to

remind us of the ultimate truth of our existence: we are always, and

inevitably, dependent.

Source Sheet: https://ikar.app.box.com/s/rtmn38bq994apeql50rea60v1irkvvsg

An extraordinary rabbinic story re-imagines the final

conversation between Moses and God, exploring core questions foundational to

the human experience.  What happens in the moment of death?  And,

what peace can be found when learning to let go?

Some years, the mourning and reflection of Tisha b’Av can feel performative. This year, it will be deeply personal. Even as we approach the abyss, we must remember the redemptive vision planted deep within our souls.

Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Hazon -- 5784

Sermon from 8.3.2024 / Matot-Masei 5784

This week we find ourselves freed from some of the defeatism and despair that was taking root these last weeks and months. And now, with a bit of renewed hope, we have so much work to do. In the parsha we see a model of a collective that includes everyone and centers marginalized and unexpected groups. This moment demands we show up, no matter what that looks like. Find a way in - this fight will take all of us.

The sense of defeatism, all too present after the events in this

country over the last week, is the most dangerous myth threatening our future

right now.  To throw up our hands and surrender to the myth of

inevitability is to relinquish the most precious gift given to humanity: our

capacity to change the world around us.  We can be scared without being

resigned.  We can be exhausted without being fatalistic.  We can be

discouraged but nonetheless courageous.  

When we roll open the sacred Torah, what we see is monochrome. Pale

parchment, dark ink, black, and white. Which are the only colors the

human being can see when we are born. If today's parsha had a color, it

would be red.

Click here to see the painting Hope, by George Frederick Watts, painted

in 1886: https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-frederick-watts/hope-1886

We are living in a world that is broken and painful. It is a moment to turn towards the angels within us and around us in order to find our way through.

Our family is broken. Please, God, help us heal.

Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace.  There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins.  Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants.  Grant us peace.

A special discussion with author Mickey Bergman about his book, In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad.

A warning, from our dark and pained past: remember, even when confronted by external enemies, it is the extremism in our own Jewish community that poses the most potent threat to our survival. We are at an inflection point: will we again fall prey to the zealots?

Source Sheet https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/568347?lang=bi

Full class: https://youtu.be/xCIiAkZDSGQ

A tribute to some of the many moments with this beautiful community that have changed me over the past 16 years.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/566742?lang=bi

Watch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/FRhY5TSlsqo

Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/404083?lang=biWatch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/YrP-HnwjiNc

“It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair. Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives, such as job opportunities or barrier-free buildings…”  - Judy Heumann, of blessed memory. 

Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher

Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/tQGKQYEjVKA

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/563716?lang=bi

Holiness is recognizing that what looks like the whole story is always, necessarily, only part of the story.  It's the stretch that moves us beyond what we know and what we’ve seen and into what we can imagine and dream.

Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher from 5.2.2024.

Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/O-gaUHURJBA

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/562111?lang=bi

With Auschwitz Survivor Ella Mandel and Amit, Zeve, and Oren

Zilberstein, Jason Neidleman, and Alexia Gyorody, the second, third, and

fourth generation of family members who both survived and perished in

the Shoah. As living survivor numbers dwindle, we will explore together

how we can understand and hold their experiences in ways that co-create a

more just, humane and dignified future for one another and our world.

Co-produced by Peanut Productions.

Videos by The Righteous Conversations Project:

- To Life: The Ella Mandel Story created in collaboration with Sinai

Akiba

- Dreams of Yisrael: The Story of Yisrael Zilberstein created in

collaboration with IKAR Limudim

We must have zero tolerance for violent and racist rhetoric in our Jewish community. We must support the birth of a new mixed multitude: those who reject extremism, who reject the violent, reductive idea that Palestinians and Jews must be eternal enemies. That one’s victory necessitates another’s victimhood, or even worse: elimination. This mixed multitude is made of people who know that we do not undermine our own sorrow or betray our own people when we see one another, those who understand that our fates are all tied up in one another.

The protest movement has unleashed a virulent and dangerous antisemitism that endangers Jews, threatens democracy, and undermines the fight for justice and liberation for Palestinians. We must do better. What we need is a movement fueled by empathy and moral imagination. One that recognizes that both peoples have suffered terribly. That neither is leaving. That a just future is possible for everyone.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/558262?lang=bi

The free person, awake and humble, can acknowledge the

truth that emerges from various even contradictory perspectives. This is not a

sign of weakness, but of spiritual liberation. Perhaps that the very essence of

freedom is growing in spaciousness.

How can we ensure that the Passover Seder is not performative, but

transformative? When we open our doors to those who are hungry,

something in our hearts opens too. This is how we begin to write a new

liberation story.

Since October 7, The New Israel Fund has been funding emergency support

and resettlement for Israelis forced from their homes, and they have

been supporting Israelis and Palestinians working together for a just

future. They have now launched a campaign to feed the people of Gaza

living at the brink of famine through the World Central Kitchen and The

International Rescue Committee. The humanitarian crisis there is a moral

catastrophe, and it is a Jewish moral obligation to feed those who are

hungry. I hope you’ll join me in support of this campaign.

Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/556558?editor=1

Kabbalat Shabbat dinner discussion with sisters Danielle and Galeet Dardashti from The Nightingale of Iran Podcast

This week we are entering into the new Hebrew month of Nisan. The rabbis debate whether this month or Tishrei (the month with Rosh HaShanah) are the beginning of the year. Some say both. Creation is a process. As we look ahead to the new month we also look back at the last six months - what seeds were planted that we can reap now? What seeds can we plant now to harvest something new in Tishrei? Let's get started.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/554948?editor=1

A Priestly ritual offers a path toward spiritual preparation for Passover

Live, for a day, without all the answers, without all the

assumptions about each other that cast a giant shadow over how we relate to one

another.  Who knows what kind of humanity might emerge from such a

day, from such a world?

The Purim story reminds us that the real danger is when overt meets

latent antisemitism. And in a culture steeped in antisemitism, literally no one is safe. The bulwark against authoritarianism is a multiracial, multifaith coalition,

and that coalition is broken today, and risks being fractured beyond

repair. We must sound the alarm.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/551802?lang=bi

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/550092?editor=1

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/548331?editor=1

A conversation with Standing Together, a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice.

In a landscape of utter devastation, the spiritual work of choosing hope in the heartache.

When God threatens to wipe out the Israelites, Moses

recognizes, in the subtleties of language, that history is on the verge of

dangerously repeating.  Moses must become a new kind of leader, one who

does everything in his power to save the people from God’s wrath.  Only

then can healing begin. 

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/546667?editor=1

We must reject the way of eternal war. The hostages must be returned to their loved ones. Humanitarian aid must reach the people of Gaza immediately. Israeli and Palestinian leadership must commit to a long term negotiated peace. There is another way, and saying so is not betrayal… it is love.

Parashat Tetzaveh 5784

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/545191?editor=1

My reflections on a week spent at the U.S./Mexico border, witnessing up close the horrors that are happening every single day. We continue to make

it nearly impossible for people seeking asylum to safely enter this country and

with the numbers of displaced people around the world growing quickly, we need

better solutions. The Torah's images of the keruvim (cherubs) offer us two versions

- what will we choose?

If law is the ground upon which we stand, story must be the water

that softens the soil.  When law leaves story behind, it runs the risk of

disregarding the human beings it's meant to protect.  In the last year and

a half, since Roe V. Wade was overturned, far too many women and people who

need abortion access have been dangerously denied care. It’s time to tell their

stories and protect the right to reproductive freedom. 

Source sheet

It is precisely when the public square is consumed with fantasies of binary outcomes and our hearts are full of anguish that we honor those Israelis and Palestinians who are working in partnership to imagine a just and peaceful future. Rabbi Brous joins May Pundak and Dr. Rula Hardal, the Israeli and Palestinian co directors of A Land for All, to discuss their shared vision.

 Learn more about the vision, the work and the promise of ALFA here. 

What happens when one memory is replaced by another, when a moment of discernment is replaced by an act of force?

The people are free, but Moses is caught between past and future, and the consequences are tragic.

Lunch and Learn with author, Adam Mansbach who joins us to discuss their book The Golem of Brooklyn with Hillel Tigay.

Due to technical difficulties, the beginning of this program was not recorded.

We must speak of the darkness that lives in some of our bodies and spirits,

a darkness that sometimes manifests as depression, despair, and suicidal ideation,

a darkness that may feel inescapable. I offer these words with great love and tenderness toward those who are holding fresh or age-old wounds of worry and grief.

Today we’ll meet in the darkness.

Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/538397?lang=bi

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/536848?lang=bi

Join Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation with Rep. Katie Porter, who represents the 47th Congressional District in Orange County, California

There’s so much keeping us up at night. This war is breaking us. But even in the darkness, we can choose to embrace life. Joy. Love. And hope for a better future. What gets you up in the morning?

A medieval text cries out to us from the depths of Jacob’s anguished heart to our own: beware lest we see a whole world full of bloodthirsty predators. Adding grief to grief will never heal the broken heart. We don’t all need to love each other. But we absolutely must understand one another.

A seemingly unnecessary detail in the text hints at a multigenerational reminder: the generational transmission of hope is the most audacious and profound expression of spiritual resistance in a cruel and broken world. So lift your gaze to a future beyond the devastation of today. Imagine a different end to the story.

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/531708?lang=bi

A little jar with a remarkable journey tells a story desperately needed in this time of war. Perpetual violence is not inevitable. Never abandon the conviction that peace is our ultimate hope, and it can be found.

Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/528461?lang=bi

In the wake of the devastating attacks on southern Israel on October 7th, which resulted in so many taken hostage, murdered, and even more displaced, our hearts go out to all those affected. Kibbutz Kfar Azza, among the hardest hit, saw its members' lives entirely shattered.

To honor the victims and support the survivors in their efforts to rebuild, we invite you to join a community memorial and fundraiser in a Zoom webinar with survivors from Kibbutz Kfar Azza in a conversation moderated by Rabbi Sharon Brous.

From Rabbi Panitz's class on 11.21.2023

When women’s voices are ignored, diminished and marginalized, everyone loses.

Jacob loved Rachel, but he failed to take seriously her anguished voice.

Thousands of years later, Israeli spotters—women in intelligence—were ignored…

at the peril of the nation. Why we must center women’s voices in the quest for peace,

and in the work for a better, safer world.

Rabbi David Kasher's Weekly Parsha Study. Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/525551?lang=bi

Trauma awakens our ancestor Yitzhak to the possibility of a third way.

Third way people fight to see humanity, even when our own humanity has been denied,

and insist on complexity in a world of simplistic certainties, and fluidity in a time of binaries.

Perhaps we, too, can find one another in that spacious place, the place where hope is born.

In this moment it is so easy to be fully consumed by the constant news updates and horrors and the fear and uncertainty. And as we continue to try to show up and manage the raging world out there, we must also take of ourselves. We need each other for this long road ahead - what do we have to offer?

A recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly virtual parsha study class from 10.26.2023. Sign up for the class here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A...

We are descendants of Abraham, Ivrim – Hebrews.

Rooted in our identity is an ancient call to meet our family in sorrow,

to act in solidarity, and even from the depths of our pain,

to never, ever forget the humanity of the other.

A recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly virtual parsha study class from 10.26.2023. Sign up for the class here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A...

A recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly virtual parsha study class from 10.19.2023. Sign up for the class here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fikar-la.zoom.us%2Fmeeting%2Fregister%2FtJwrfuytrz4jGtMKB6cYx0bcGz7JmFw5rgUd&sa=D&ust=1697577720000000&usg=AOvVaw1yOKzqinM2sivSvIl6GPS9

After the atrocities in Israel on Simhat Torah, among the worst in Jewish history, we must remember the healing power of community,

and the importance of compassion, solidarity and showing up.

A recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly virtual parsha study class from 10.12.2023. Sign up for the class here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fikar-la.zoom.us%2Fmeeting%2Fregister%2FtJwrfuytrz4jGtMKB6cYx0bcGz7JmFw5rgUd&sa=D&ust=1697577720000000&usg=AOvVaw1yOKzqinM2sivSvIl6GPS9

The book of B'midbar is a book full of conflict. And so that was the book that Ezra Furman suggested we talk about. It's appropriate - she's a punk musician and B'midbar is kind of the punk book of the Torah.

I think you'll find it interesting to hear a a side of Ezra that you won't always see on stage, a soft, reflective side. She will scream at you from the stage, but one on one, when she's working through ideas, she's very quiet and deliberate. You can tell that she believes everything she says and and believes that how you say it and when you say it are extremely important, too.

Buy Rabbi David Kasher's book, ParshaNut.

Best Book Ever is a co-presentation of IKAR and the Hadar Institute. Find us on socials @WeAreIKAR and @HadarInstitute. You can follow my Facebook page at Rabbi David Kasher or find me on instagram @DavidKasher to keep up with the show and everything else we’re getting up to.

How must we respond to the danger posed by Israel’s extreme, ultranationalist government?

Walking away is not a moral choice.

Instead, we must summon courage, imagination and moral clarity.

Engaging fully in the introspection of this High Holiday season can land us deep in shame and unable to move. But there is another way: be honest about our shortcomings, witness them and embrace them, and then transform them into something else entirely.

Some reflections on ending well, and what we pray will never end, offered on my father’s shloshim—the end of the most intense period of mourning. Read the full transcript: https://ikar.box.com/s/pk0nat9jcb3k3pk4uzken4ujdcrum1hb

Pastor Eddie Anderson, Reverend Zachary Hoover, and Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation to discuss the necessity of reparations for building the beloved community.

This summer, we’ve become a city of picket lines, with more than 100,000 workers out on strike. Though the particulars of each strike might differ, screenwriters, actors, hotel employees, and city staffers are unified in demanding greater respect from their employers and the right to a sustainable livelihood. The Torah is clear that the dangerous gap between the power of the employer and the worker necessitates our solidarity with the worker’s pursuit of dignity. Let’s make our voices heard.   

Our Torah teaches clearly that during war you cannot cut down enemy trees. How does that impact our understanding of the fires ravaging Maui? The horrible toll of colonization and climate change is all around us, what are we called to do?

Within the story of a technical, 2nd century, out-of-the-box legal maneuver is a much greater lesson about the dangers of a fracturing social reality. It’s a cautionary tale about what’s at stake when a society is perilously far from its foundational ideals. A tale, sadly, as modern as it is ancient.   

What if what changes us are not in the earthquake, the wind, the fire, but the tiny, almost indiscernible moments in-between? Heading into the holiest time of year, amidst so many rapturous challenges, let’s see what we can learn when we pay attention to the small stories.

When we say 'Hear O, Israel,' are we really listening?

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets protesting a proposed judicial overhaul that will dangerously reduce the power of the Supreme Court.

Isaiah’s message today, on Shabbat Hazon, a Shabbat of vision, challenges to the people to take action and choose a path toward hope, not disaster.

The underexplored Jewish number of 42 traces our journey from slavery to freedom and deepens our relationship with God. What can we learn from Moshe’s experiences of that number to help inform our own journeys with God, freedom, and legacy?

There is no justice in answering violence with more violence. It’s not only that the death penalty is ridden with racism and gross inequity, and that every execution potentially risks the life of an innocent. It’s that all people—even those capable of great harm—have infinite worth, and we all—even those most set in their ways—possess the capacity for growth and change. None of us has the right to deny that to another.

What can Aaron’s rod teach us about this parashah, her person and our lives?

The sin of the spies sent to assess the Promised Land? These princes couldn't fathom sharing power. That failure of moral imagination cost a whole generation, condemned to wander, landless and vulnerable for four decades before entering the land. Like so many people of privilege after them, the spies preferred that everyone suffer rather than share the abundance equitably and fairly. Let us not make the same miscalculation.

(Trigger Warning: Discussion of teenage suicidal ideation. Save and share this number: 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for when you need it.)

Those feelings of aloneness, or differentness, or social irrelevance are as old as time. In Aaron, something beautiful and eternal was born from the heartache. What about in us? The reminder that together we can beat back the darkness... by honoring the light that dwells within each of us.

So many LGBTQ+ people have been hurt by religious leadership and institutions. We have the power to offer healing.

Led by R' Morris Panitz, Jen Bailey, Alex Couto + Jessica Cabot

The Dynamic Way We Dance Ourselves into Being: Creation Revealed. Revelation Created. Led by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson.

Vera Blossom, Aimee Bender, Ann Bohrer, and Mel Weisberger in conversation, moderated by Lorne Buchman. How do we experience the dynamic of the creative and the revelatory in our work and how do we parse the difference between the two (if at all)? Can the dynamic itself shed light on how we might “prepare for Revelation”?

The mystics believe that every soul corresponds to a letter in the Torah. And, if a letter is missing, erased, or smudged, we can’t continue reading from the scroll until that letter is restored to its vibrancy. Anti-trans bills, including the two signed this past week, represent a conscious and coordinated attempt to erase trans and non-binary people from our communities and collective story. It’s time to move beyond the rhetoric of support and into life-saving action. 

The word for brain isn't even in the Torah. But a lot of what is in the Torah presumes a functioning brain and even asks us to use it in certain specific ways. In particular, the brain is directly implicated by the whole realm that we call belief or faith. Judaism, like many religions, asks us to believe in certain things. Actually, in Judaism case, it doesn't just ask. It commands. We're commanded to believe in God, to believe there is only one God and to believe that that God is the one who delivered us from Egypt and then gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. So how are we supposed to force ourselves to force our brains to believe in that stuff? Or you could ask a different question What is going on in our brains when and if we do believe in that stuff? That's what I wanted to know. Today, Rabbi David Kasher talks to neuroscientist and devout Jew, Mayim Bialik about the science of belief and holding both science and belief at once.

Despite the many challenges the Jewish people face today, many believe that our greatest difficulty is our inability to coexist peacefully among ourselves. In our studies, we will focus on the theme of embattled siblings, which pervades the book of Genesis. We will draw a line from these narratives to the Jewish people today, noting, and suggesting possible responses to, the enduring affliction of fractiousness among “siblings.” 

It’s the presence and prospect of death in our midst that makes life so precious. It’s the awareness that there’s a thin line separating it all that summons us back into life. The lungs that breathe with you, the heart that beats for you, the blood that sustains you defines both the beginning and the end of our stories. They belong to each other- just as death belongs to life and grief belongs to love. 

Reparations Now: A Conversation on the CA Reparations Task Force's Findings and Proposals with Member Dr. Shery Grills, Rabbi Aryeh Cohen and Reverend Eddie Anderson.

For millennia, we’ve tried to understand how Aaron, Moshe’s brother, remained silent, even acquiescent after suffering unimaginable loss. Some say his heart turned to stone—he simply could no longer feel. Prophetic grief, in contrast, is born at the intersection of heartache and fury, and rages against reality. When experienced by not only by individuals but by the collective, bursts of prophetic rage and grief—while imperfect political movements—have the power to overturn world orders. Some reflections on my recent trip to Israel and the meaning and potential of this protest movement.

Three times a year, the Torah instructs, we’re meant to drop everything and set off on a collective journey to a sacred destination. While these pilgrimages have disappeared from our practice, it’s worth wondering why the Torah selects this religious behavior as the primary way to capture and reanimate the core values of these holidays. Pilgrimage, it turns out, is the ideal way to tell the story of Passover. 

In Pirkei Avot, we read that "A free person is

one who studies Torah." How can the study of Torah help us understand

and appreciate what it means to be free?

Rabbi Kasher’s farewell sermon, a pre-Passover reflection on the role of mitzvot in Jewish life. 

Right now we find ourselves approaching Passover where we are reminded of our oppression and slavery in Egypt and our eventual path toward freedom. This year it's coinciding with proposed new national policies to turn away more asylum seekers are our borders. How can we reconcile what is happening now with our own central narrative as a people who left everything to seek freedom? What lessons can we learn about how to use our voices to fight for more justice?

Spring is springing and the month of Nissan is coming! What will your renewal and regeneration look like this year?

How our artists—then and now—transform even the deepest suffering into worlds suffused with beauty. Celebrating Betzalel, Robert Russel, and the artist within us all.

Astrologer Chani Nicholas joins Rabbi Kasher to discuss astrology in the Torah and one of the greatest Jewish thinkers who just happened to be an astrologer himself. They discuss Ibn Ezra, the intersection of Judaism and astrology, the implications astrology has for concepts like fate and freewill, and so much more.

After a week of violence, we must hear the torah of the streets of Tel Aviv. Brief reflections on the heartache and the hope.

Purim summons us to joy, but how do we access that joy when our hearts hurt from the shameful display of excessive violence this past week in Huwara? Our tradition pleads with us to linger in grief before we get to Purim, to mark a solemn day of fasting and course correction. For, the only road to real joy travels first through grief.  

Parashat Terumah 5783

Entering Adar with hearts heavy from hate, our tradition reminds us of the messages embedded from the past, and their subversive claims on our future.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from February 23, 2023

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from February 16, 2023

Throughout the Book of Exodus, one Hebrew word- in its many forms- pops up again and again, pointing to the core message of this master story.  Life can feel unbearably heavy, but you are never alone. With each other’s help, we can transform an overpowering weight into a way forward.

Parashat B'shallah - 02.04.2023

Israel is barreling toward an unrecognizable future. Let us not sleep through the revolution.

Any one of the plagues could have been the one that changed everything. But each time, just as the threat receded, so too did Pharaoh’s will to change. We, too, are addicted to the allure of the status quo. And the shootings and the police killings persist. We must be stubborn in our pursuit of progress. Unyielding. May the memories of those whose lives were taken by violence this week stir us to work toward a more just and loving world. 

Reflections on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In honor of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 50th yahrtzeit, we revisit the central claims of his theology, exploring how wonder and a personal relationship with God can reorient our approach to a meaningful life.  Wonder reminds us that we are recipients of a gift, summoning us to the ultimate question: what are we to do with this gift?

Much of the time it feels like we're on a different path than what we hoped for or asked for or dreamed. What can Joseph and Betzalel teach us about the gifts of two very divergent paths? What do we learn from a path that is both short and long?

The candles in our window don’t just remind us of the miracles our ancestors experienced… they invite the world into our story. See us! we say. See our trial and our triumph, our struggle and our survival. Our story becomes real when it is held with care. And that may be the real gift, one we can give each other every day.

What would happen if we approached life with a posture of fullness rather than one of scarcity?

Rabbi Sharon Brous and Ari Wallach in conversation from 12/3/2022

Even decades after Jacob stole the birthright from his brother, he sees himself, fundamentally, as a liar and a thief. When we don’t believe we can change, we invest in subverting the truth and inverting reality. Our country is in the grips of a multi-generational obfuscation, entrenching in a dangerous lie that we cannot reckon with the past, that healing is not possible from past wrongs. But individuals and nations need not be defined by our moral failings. There is another way.

Source sheet here: https://ikar.box.com/s/t1tfkt5grb10t96zuxakm00j3iq0qnjo

In perhaps the most heartbreaking verse of the Torah, Esav cries out to his father for a blessing just like his younger brother had received. To understand these tears and the tragic arc set into motion by this moment, we turn to a surprising source for insight: The Book of Esther. Uncovering the hidden conversation between these two texts implores us to love expansively and without limits.

There’s nothing brave about regurgitating antisemitic lies. That’s not truth to power, it’s unwitting support of white power. It’s time to deconstruct these narrative fallacies, and tell a new story.

Join us for a conversation between Rabbi Sharon Brous and leaders from Breaking the Silence, an NGO providing discharged Israeli personnel and reservists a means to confidentially recount their experiences in the Occupied Territories. This is a Q&A and discussion that surrounded a screening of Mission Hebron, a short documentary by Rona Segal based on the testimony of Israeli soldiers who served in the West Bank. To see the documentary, visit our YouTube channel here.

How can we understand so called religious people aligning with a regressive politics that relishes stripping rights rather than expanding them, that honors guns over humans, fetuses over hungry children, incarceration over restorative justice, environmental devastation over stewardship? Our core theological commitments must manifest in the reality we seek to build, a society of compassion and wakefulness, love and justice. One that honors the divine image in every person.

Love matters most when our family is in danger. A love that reminds you how far you’ll fallen, a love that helps you walk away from the path of self-destruction. Avram exhibits that kind of love towards his nephew Lot, and we must too towards Israel, as they walk an increasingly dangerous path.

Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard, spiritual leader of Word of Encouragement Community Church, joins Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation on recent racist and anti-Semitic incidents and how true friendship and allyship is the only way to overcome bigotry.

There is a direct line from the 1995 murder of Yitzhak Rabin to the ascendance of right wing, ultranationalist extremists in Israel today. The election this past week has me revisiting a question that has haunted me for more than 25 years: did the assassin murder a man or a movement? 

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from November 3, 2022

Rabbi Kasher shares a surprising teaching from his new book on Torah commentary.

Rather than turn against one another, we must turn toward each another. Rather than assume that your gain is my loss, your representation is my disenfranchisement, your liberation is my oppression… we must recognize that your liberation is essential to my own. We must trust that the only way to build beloved community is together. This is the moral message of the Torah: we are our brothers’ keepers.

A new cycle of reading through the Torah! A new book! And a new season of Best Book Ever!

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from October 20, 2022

These are our stories, stories told by IKAR community members about how it feels to struggle with the high cost of affording a place to live. For some of us, housing instability was caused by the breakup of a relationship we had to leave, for others, because of an illness or disability, and for some, simply because the rents keep going up and pay is not keeping pace. We’re telling these stories because we at IKAR are committed to working together for systemic change in our housing policy. Homes end homelessness, and homes are what we all need to feel a measure of safety and security.  

We hope you’ll feel inspired to share our stories with friends and we hope that you’ll join us in our work for building more homes.

We think of the Bible as a fixed book, but an ancient debate amongst the Rabbis reveal how close Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) came to being left out of the canon. What’s so dangerous about this book of the Bible, and why is crucially important that it found its way in?

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from October 6, 2022

I spent the summer reading banned books. Here’s what I learned: empathy poses the greatest threat to tyranny. Art is the antidote to numbness. And Torah is the most dangerous book of all.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from September 29, 2022 that has been edited for brevity. Watch the full class on IKAR's YouTube channel.

Some lessons we learn just once, but the deeper wisdom we learn over and over and over. This summer was my coping with prostate cancer and surgery. And the old lessons were there to greet me on the other side: the world is prepared for us, it takes (and we are) a village), we are marinating in love.

Culture change always starts with stories.  

 And we aren’t the only living beings with stories to tell. 

The Earth’s chorus of voices demands moral engagement, a new approach to our planet in peril.

Our world is crying out for a subversive sequel, a redemption narrative.

It’s time to write a new and better, more just and more inclusive version of our story.

We must plant seeds for the future now, before it’s too late.

During this time of cheshbon hanefesh or accounting of the soul, are we keeping our corner of the body of the Jewish people healthy with communally, unified practice? I believe, it's time to create a liberally minded halacha (practice of Jewish law) to meet our sensibilities of the day yet remain true to the commandments of our tradition.

Living in exile with God (as if such a thing could be.)

The warnings famously issued in this parashah are not Biblical fantasy—they are living reality. When we allow powerful people to deceive, mock and instrumentalize those most vulnerable, when we cede to a norm of heartlessness, indifference and the perversion of justice, there is no end to the cruelties that will permeate our society. It’s time to wake up—to recognize this moment and movement for exactly what it is.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from September 15, 2022

Where does our national story begin? With a wandering Aramean, according to the story told in this week's parsha. But exactly who that Aramean was is a matter of great debate.

Sifting through a dense catalog of state regulations in search of some inspiration for the High Holy Days - with some help from the Ba'al Shem Tov and Abraham Maslow. 

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from September 8, 2022

Buried in the laws of inheritance is a subtle reference to one of the most tragic stories in the Torah - one that we usually miss.

We live in a vast, complex world. It’s beautiful, but wracked with devastation and suffering. Infinitesimal in the face of it all, one wonders how they could possibly make a difference. The first four words of Parshat Re’eh teach us that each individual’s presence does in fact have an impact on the wider community, and a single action can even tip the whole world toward good. Let’s choose to live like every single one of us matters, like the way we live can bring us closer to a healed, redeemed world.

As we prepare to bring our oldest to college, I feel for Moses, struggling to say goodbye to his own children, poised to enter the Promised Land on a part of the journey they must take without him. Somehow, amidst the confused, rambling contradictions of his farewell speech, Moses helps b’nai Yisrael remember what matters most, and reminds us just what we need to hear as well.

The Torah warns us against someone - maybe even someone very close to us - who might come try to entice us to worship other gods! But when we look a little closer at the commentators, we begin to wonder if the real enticement might be coming from… a higher source.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from August 18, 2022

The legends of the magical Clouds of Glory.

Stories from Rabbi Kasher’s early prayer days. A rabbinic list of ten types of prayer. And a prayer reframe from the Sfas Emes.

How knowing God is a revelation of ourselves.

Tisha b’Av is a day of communal grief-- we fast, lament and hold the memory of the greatest catastrophes the Jewish people have endured. The danger in revisiting the tragedies of generations past is that our rituals foster a distorted self-perception, a feeling of eternal victimization. Instead, we must remember because grief is an expression of love, because there is an urgent moral message in the stories of our suffering that we must hear today, and because we are drawn again and again, through our collective grief, into community.  

Who does Moses remember as his greatest enemies?

If Moses speaks for God and the People of Israel, what happens when he decides to speak for himself? 

What’s the first step of a spiritual journey? According to the Me’or Einyaim (18th century Hasidic Master), it’s not a grand gesture or a dramatic departure. Instead, it’s the recognition that we’re disconnected, spiritually dehydrated and yearning for something more. Once that realization is acknowledged and felt, the journey has already begun. We’ll find the water we need.

Moses has a problem. This is an edited down recording of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha studies class from July 28, 2022.

The last stop in the itinerary of the Israelites' desert journey has a very strange name. And a heartbreaking story.

The Legend of Serah bat Asher. And a commandment we too often overlook.

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha Studies class from July 21, 2022

It's one of the most difficult problems in theology: does God know everything we're going to do, or do we have free will? This week, we consider an answer by Judaism's most deterministic thinker: Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, the Mei HaShiloach, and a response by his most illustrious student.

Recovery and Bilaam’s addictive tendencies.

If Bilaam is really so bad, that brings us back to our original question - what is he doing in the Torah? What are we reading this bizarre story at all???

The Red Heifer. Supposedly the greatest mystery of the Torah. Our Sages have puzzled over it for centuries. But isn’t this just a distraction from the main events of Parshat Hukat: the deaths of Miriam and Aaron!

Every June, we turn our attention and love to the LGBTQ+ community at IKAR. For many years we have taken the opportunity during PRIDE month to stories from LGBTQ+ folks and their family members. We're excited to share a compilation of the past three year's stories.

This week, the Angel of Death showed up twice.

“There were four judges in Sodom, and they were named for their actions: Shakrai, meaning liar, Shakrurai, habitual liar, Zayfai, forger, and Matzlei Dina, perverter of justice” (Babylonian Talmud).  In our grief and rage for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, it is clear that we are living through the return of Sodom. But, Sodom and subsequent corrupt societies were undermined and ultimately destroyed through clarity of conscience and determined action, both of which are urgently needed today.

Ours is a tradition of stories. We see this from the flawed humanity of Adam and Eve through the tangle of relationships in Genesis and the struggle and redemption of Exodus, to the creative rabbinic interpretations of Midrash and Talmud, to the spiritually rooted Chasidic tales. Stories are essential to understanding one another and informing how we make sense of and choose to live in the world.  

Right now, we need to be telling and hearing our abortion stories.  

Forty years in the desert?? Really?!?

The Israelites have begun complaining. They say they miss the meat and melons they had back in Egypt. Really?! After God freed them from slavery and is raining down manna from heaven?! These ungrateful wretches! Disgraceful. But, then again…are really they so different from us?

God gave us the law. Now we're giving it back.

Someone must have slipped something into my drink. I’m reading my Torah late one night and, suddenly, the letters start to run backwards...

Today's episode is a bit later than usual because of Shavuot.

Thoughts on the dangers and the blessings of flag-waving

In such a turbulent time we need to remember what love looks like. The unique mutual devotion of the biblical heroines Naomi and Ruth teaches us that our interpersonal relationships can have transformative and healing power — for us, our descendants, and the human community.

Three striking midrashim help us understand how the Hebrew name for this fourth book of the Torah can help frame our journey through it.

There is a curse upon the land.

After the tragic shooting in Buffalo rooted in White Supremacy and hate, we look to the Omer, a time on the Jewish calendar associated with mourning. The themes of Lag b’Omer offer some guidance on what our society needs.

So this is how it ends?!

Pop Quiz: What Biblical verse is on the Liberty Bell? This is an edited version of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha Study class from 5/19/2022

A whole new spin on Yom Kippur.

A Jewish response to the recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion intending to overturn Roe v. Wade. Find the transcript on our website: https://ikar.org/sermons/im-a-private-person

How did counting the Omer become so much more than numbers?

This is an edited down version of Rabbi David Kasher's weekly Parsha Studies Class from 5/12/2022.

Between Passover and Shavuot, Jews all over the world devote themselves to the study of Ethics (Pirkei Avot). This custom follows the famous rabbinic teaching that before we can receive the Torah, we must learn Derekh Eretz - how to live together in harmony with all human beings. One of the greatest Jewish philosophers, the mighty Maharal of Prague (famous from the legend of The Golem!) called this course of study "The Path of Life."

Right in the middle of the first major list of the Jewish holidays comes a major interruption.

This is the first session from Rabbi David Kasher's five-part series that began on May 2, 2022. As we return to our yearly tradition of studying Pirkei Avot, and learn to walk the Path of Life with the Maharal as our guide.

Between Passover and Shavuot, Jews all over the world devote themselves to the study of Ethics (Pirkei Avot). This custom follows the famous rabbinic teaching that before we can receive the Torah, we must learn Derekh Eretz - how to live together in harmony with all human beings. One of the greatest Jewish philosophers, the mighty Maharal of Prague (famous from the legend of The Golem!) called this course of study "The Path of Life."

Parsha study with Rabbi David Kasher from May 5, 2022

This podcast was produced while standing on our heads. The rest is commentary.

Reflections after a recent trip to Israel.

Uncovering the familial sexual prohibitions of Leviticus.

John Destler was born in Berlin on October 13, 1931. One of his earliest memories is watching from the balcony of his family’s apartment as Hitler and Mussoilini drove by in a motorcade. In the week of Yom HaShoah, we welcome John to our community to talk about his unique experiences, trauma, and challenges. Including a life long battle with addiction that he was able, at the age of 72, to face and heal.

(From Samara Hutman's Intro)

In partnership with Righteous Conversations Project.

Rabbi Kasher checks in from his Seder in Israel

Our Passover story was made possible by a quiet revolutionary spirit manifested through four female archetypes.

What's the connection between gossip and skin disease?

One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that we have all become better readers of Leviticus.

Parsha study with Rabbi David Kasher from March 31, 2022

Can a house get sick? The Torah seems to think so.

Reflections on mourning from Moed Katan and Parshat Shemini. In memory of Steven J. Kasher, Z"L.

You know the cycle. Front page headlines retreat to the back pages and eventually disappear from both the paper and our attention. Even the most horrifying headlines, those emerging from the brutal war in Ukraine, risk being ignored in the frenetic pace of our news cycle. We must not turn away. Even in the absence of a clear political path forward, we need to keep our hearts open to the stories, pleas, and suffering of the Ukrainian people, responding with empathy, advocacy, and resources.

This week, we receive the first major list of kosher laws. But whyare we supposed to keep kosher? There are some classic answers. But Rabbi Kasher's got a theory of his own.

In this drasha we explore how Esther and Moses overcame their resistance to action, when that action involved risk; Serah bat Asher and Ruth's capacities to draw strength and purpose from the past and imagine themselves as agents of a better future; and how all their stories shed light on our lives and world today, particularly in relation to our responsibility for the children in the LA County Foster Care system.

Parsha study with Rabbi David Kasher from March 10, 2022 

The Book of Leviticus spends a lot of time explaining what to do once we have committed sins. But how did we get there in the first place? What drives us to sin? For that, we turn to the great commentary of the Kli Yakar.

To maintain that only certain expressions of humanity are sacred, that some lives are inherently more valuable than others, is fundamentally incompatible with the truths of our tradition and the core principles of a moral society. As we face the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine alongside a growing refugee crisis worldwide, we must heed the call of our tradition to love the stranger, opening our hearts and borders to all those in need of safe refuge. We are all made in the image of God, interconnected and morally accountable to one another.

Parsha study with Rabbi David Kasher from 3/3/2022

As we close out the Book of Exodus, a 13th century Spanish preacher helps us, finally, make sense of all the details.

A sermon on our relationship to technology (in which Rabbi Kasher gets his dates confused and accidentally adds a year to the pandemic!)

We pray for the safety of all the people of Ukraine as they face the terror of war and for the wisdom of our own leaders to guide our country to a response rooted in justice.

Who knows how to take the prophet's heavenly vision and bring it down to the ground? The Shadow knows!

What if the redemption our tradition intended was not that of some cataclysmic historical shift, but was about brief and fleeting moments of goodness and light that shine within the chaos and darkness that invariably surrounds us. Real moments with real meaning, and that neither could nor should last forever.

Moses has just come back down from speaking with God. And he's glowing.

Wandering through the library of Jewish legal texts, the careful observer may take notice of a curious trend. For reasons unclear, many of the classic books of Jewish law take their titles from - of all things - the various pieces of the High Priest's clothing.

Our reluctant protagonist just wants a week off.

We aren’t just shaped by the past.  It isn’t a one-way street, dead ending in the present. Our tradition asks us to continue to be in active relationship with our loved ones even after they die. Caring for the deceased means advancing their core values, their life work, and dreams. And it means upholding our responsibilities, both as individuals and a community, in the moments of most profound loss.

#hevrakadisha #mourningrituals #yahrtzeit #love&loss

Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher from February 3, 2022.

It all started with dolphins. 

On my final shabbat before sabbatical, we explore the connection between na’aseh v’nishmah—doing and discovering—and shmita, a periodic break in the rhythm of doing to digest lessons learned and deepen our roots as we prepare for the next chapter of our flourishing.

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/379209?lang=bi

"This week," says Rabbi Kasher, "we are going to look at an idea that seems so far outside of mainstream Jewish thought that if I came up with it myself, they’d kick me right out of Judaism!"

Jewish vulnerability is rooted in the enduring awareness of those who want to do us harm. And the world is full of goodness. We must learn to hold both.