It’s January 6th, a new part of our history to commemorate. Sometimes we need to see the darkness before we can come out of it. Darkness is one of the last plagues, and things will get worse before they get better, but the story of liberation is so central to Judaism, it has given strength to so many people to keep going.

This episode is about the state of our hearts and whether we keep them open or closed and how that impacts the world. How much are we thinking about the vaccine as a cure-all for our global problems while neglecting the environmental crisis? And how can we do it differently?

With the darkest days and times upon us, Moses comes along to give us hope, as he has done for previous generations. So many parallels…

Personal debt in the form of credit cards, student debt, medical debt, enslaves Americans in the same way the starving people during the famine in Torah were enslaved by their debt to Pharaoh. This week in Torah, Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers, his family is saved from the famine, but not without a compromise. The starving people go into debt in order to eat, as so many are today. Jubilee? Shmita? A release of debt? Many are calling for it now!

Dreams and the way our lives turn out often diverge, something to the point that we are shocked. Miketz is about waking up, losing innocence, and hopefully learning from our experiences. This is true for us as individuals but also for the world as we wake up from this nightmare of a pandemic.

It was Thanksgiving again, and so different from last year’s middle-of-the-pandemic one. Now it was edge-of-the-pandemic, and reintegrating slowly into life with lessons hopefully learned. I was wondering about the circularity of life, a ring I lost and found, Tamar’s story of prostitution and how women have taken care of themselves and each other for eons because the greater society fails to do so. Listen to learn more!

How do our expectations and perceptions change or impact a situation, whether it’s wedding dress shopping with my daughter or Jacob meeting his brother after so many years? Listen to find out.

Women’s agency over their own bodies, Kyle Rittenhouse, racist attacks and trials, the climate summit. They’re all related. And to this week’s Torah reading…Need I explain?

What do Halloween, Jacob and Esau and the Climate Summit in Glasgow have in common? Listen and you’ll find out!

Our culture makes death more difficult and chaotic than it needs to be, but birth and death are on the same continuum. We also have a strong political influence that pits science against religion and spirituality, creating and adding to the chaos in our government, country and world, making a dangerous debate about climate change, as if it were up for debate. In this week’s parsha, there is bargaining and also faith. Listen as I tell the story of my dying cousin and what it has to do with climate disaster, Sarah and the hope for the world.