New on Alma: "Synagogue in Where I Learned to be Human"

The following piece was published in Alma on October 31, 2018: 

"I do not think about synagogue often. My partner and I belong to one, but rarely go. Progressive millennials like us are generally moving away from, not toward, organized religion - I believe some studies demonstrate that, although I need only to look at most 30-year-old Jews I know to see it. 

But I am an avid reader of my rabbi's weekly Shabbat e-mail, which is how I found out last Friday afternoon that the weekly Torah portion was Vayera, the same one I read for my bat mitzvah 16 years ago. 

In Vayera, Abraham bargains relentlessly with God to save 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, my rabbi wrote, spoke truth to power when it was unjust, challenging God to see the good in people. 

It was eerie, to say the least, when within 24 hours of reading about this Torah portion, a white nationalist slaughtered 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh..."

Keep reading here.