The cost of excluding people is an impoverishment of our world and our character. Rabbi Edyth Mencher takes a look at what holds us back from engaging wholeheartedly with people we think of as “other.”

Rabbi Mencher serves as URJ Faculty for Sacred Caring Community and Coordinator of the URJ-Ruderman Family Foundation Initiative for Inclusion of People with Disabilities and is an adjunct faculty member of Hebrew Union College-JIR’s Interfaith Doctor of Ministry Program in Pastoral Counseling. She serves on the Steering Committee of the Mental Health and Faith Community Partnership, created to foster dialogue between psychiatrists and faith leaders. She is the co-author of Resilience of the Soul: Developing Emotional and Spiritual Resilience in Adolescents and Their Families. Ordained by HUC-JIR in 1999, Rabbi Mencher is also a graduate of the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and of Hunter College School of Social Work