<![CDATA[Kadima Reconstructionist Community - Blog]]>Fri, 15 May 2026 18:58:00 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Mobilizing Us All to Defend & Contain the Sacred]]>Fri, 15 May 2026 18:56:59 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/mobilizing-us-all-to-defend-contain-the-sacredParashat Bamidbar begins in a surprising place. Not with prophecy or dramatic action, but with logistics: a census, a map of the Israelite’s camp, an accounting of their responsibilities. It can be read almost bureaucratically.

But perhaps this is exactly the Torah’s wisdom.

The Israelites begin this parasha only one year out from Egypt – twelve-and-a-half months, to the day. They are still carrying trauma, uncertainty, and conflict. They have experienced revelation, but they have not yet lived out these newly revealed ways together as a people. And so before they can journey forward – still in the wilderness of Sinai – the Torah pauses to ask a fundamental question: how do we build a community capable of carrying something sacred together?

The Italian medieval commentator Sforno, commenting on the opening verse of the census – “Take a census of the whole Israelite community” (Num 1:2) – explains that God counts the people not for military power alone (yes, creating a defensive force was one purpose), but also because each person possesses unique importance and dignity. The counting itself becomes an act of care and recognition.

And alongside the census comes the careful arrangement of the camp. Every tribe has a place. Every family has responsibilities. The Levites each carry different parts of the Mishkan. The holy task is too large and too fragile for any one person to hold alone.

There is a powerful midrash in Bamidbar Rabbah that asks why Torah was given in the wilderness. It answers: because the wilderness is hefker — ownerless and open to all. Torah cannot belong to only one class of people, one ideology, or one type of Jew. It emerges precisely in a place of vulnerability and openness. It is no one’s and therefore could be everyone’s and anyone’s.

Maybe that is the challenge and invitation of Bamidbar for communities in the midst of uncertain seasons. We may wish for clarity, certainty, or quick repair. But Bamidbar suggests that moving forward together begins more simply, more slowly, and less linearly: by recognizing that every person matters, by re-learning how to orient ourselves around shared sacred purpose, and by moving at the speed of trust, persistent to relationship and holiness.

Our time and attention to each one of us is itself how we make this journey possible.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
Today is Nakba Day. It is the 78th annual commemoration on the Gregorian calendar of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land and ancestral homes. The Nakba is ongoing. This is a day and weekend in particular to center Palestinian voices and learn the histories of displacement and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. And, here is a relevant and powerful interview from today's Democracy Now of two prominent Jewish Israeli thinkers – a non-Zionist genocide scholar and an antizionist journalist – discussing when and how Israel and Zionism went wrong. And here is a confessional – viddui – for Jews grappling with this ongoing catastrophe.
]]><![CDATA[What does a Yid have to do to get mentioned on Can*ry Mission?]]>Fri, 08 May 2026 17:33:17 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/what-does-a-yid-have-to-do-to-get-mentioned-on-canry-missionA dear one at Kadima was begrudging the fact that they can be found on that website—but at least, they said, they used a decent picture. Perhaps, if you’ve been public in your opposition to the Israeli government or military policy, you can relate (and hopefully they used a good picture!). It had been a while since I checked whether I had appeared there, so I opened an incognito tab and searched my name.

Nothing.

What does an anti-occupation, ceasefire-calling rabbi have to do to get noticed?

All kidding aside, before I closed the tab—quickly, before my computer caught something worse than a virus—I saw a few of the graphics and headlines demonizing “Mamdani and the DSA.” And I found myself thinking not just about who gets named, but how.

Who is made hyper-visible?
Who is rendered invisible?
And who gets to tell the story?

I looked down at my “New York Jews for Zohran” t-shirt and thought about this week’s parasha. In Parashat Behar, Rashi comments on the verse, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine” with a simple comment: “Do not begrudge this, for it is G-d’s [not yours].” Don’t resist policy that might interrupt ownership, redistribute wealth, and lift up the worker and the holiness of the land. Because it is not ours. We do not own it. 

And if the land is not ours, then the food is not really ours either.

And that raises uncomfortable questions:
When I eat, whose labor am I consuming?
Whose hands planted, harvested, transported, stocked?
Whose names do I know—and whose stories remain invisible?

Our food system depends on a kind of invisibility. The people most essential to what sustains us are often the least protected, least paid, least seen. The Torah’s economic vision pushes directly against that.

In Bava Metzia 83a, Rabba bar bar Chanan confiscates his workers’ cloaks after they break his barrels. When he asks Rav if this is the law, Rav tells him not only to return the cloaks, but to still pay their wages—“so that you may walk in the way of the good.” The law is not just about what you can take. It’s about the dignity you uphold.

Behar imagines a society where land resets, where debts are released, where access is restored. And Bechukotai warns us what happens when we ignore that vision—not as punishment from above, but as a kind of moral ecology. When we build systems on extraction and indifference, the land itself becomes unstable, society fractures, and scarcity follows.

If we won’t pursue justice for its own sake, the Torah says, then at least recognize this: our lives depend on it.

So the question isn’t just how to get noticed. It’s how to notice.

To notice the sources of our food.
To notice the people behind it.
To notice where our systems obscure dignity—and where we might begin to restore it.

This shabbat, may we learn to see what sustains us—not as ours alone, but as something held together by many hands. And may that seeing move us, slowly but surely, toward a world of greater care, equity, and shared abundance.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[Possibility & Action this May Day and Lag Ba’Omer]]>Fri, 01 May 2026 18:36:17 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/possibility-action-this-may-day-and-lag-baomerFor many, this has been a period of mourning. Whether you mourn collectively with the Jewish people acknowledging the first 33 days of the Omer—the season between Passover and Shavuot—or whether this has been, for you, a season marked by personal or communal grief, or by the ongoing suffering brought about by supremacy, violence, and militarism.

Those first 33 days of the Omer come to their culmination this coming week on Lag Ba’Omer—literally, the 33rd day of the Omer. It is, according to tradition, the day on which the plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students came to an end. The Talmud tells us that this plague afflicted them because they did not show one another respect.

I don’t subscribe to theologies that blame victims for their suffering. But I do think the tradition is pointing us toward something essential: that the fabric of community is fragile, and that even those who share purpose, language, and learning can fail one another in ways that are devastating.

And then, almost jarringly, comes Lag Ba’Omer—a break in the mourning. A day of bonfires, of gathering, of joy and release.

This year, it arrives just after May Day, a day that calls us to a different kind of awareness: to the dignity of labor, to solidarity, to the ways we are bound up in one another’s lives not just spiritually, but materially. May Day insists that respect is not only a matter of interpersonal kindness, but of how we build a society—whose labor is honored, whose bodies are protected, whose lives are made livable.

And in Parashat Emor, we are given a calendar. A listing of sacred times, including the Omer itself—a command to count days, to mark time, to move deliberately from liberation toward revelation. But Emor is not only about marking time; it is also about sanctifying life in its rhythms—about who is included, who is excluded, and what it takes to create a community that can hold holiness.

Taken together, these threads ask something of us. If the students of Rabbi Akiva failed in their responsibility to one another, then the counting of the Omer becomes not just a measure of time, but a practice of repair. Each day a chance to rebuild respect—not as an abstract value, but as something enacted in how we speak, how we listen, how we share power, how we stand with and for one another.

Lag Ba’Omer reminds us that the plague can stop. May Day reminds us that it won’t stop on its own.

The work of getting there—that is ours.

Happy May Day and Shabbat Shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[A Springtime Yom Kippur Reminder]]>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:55:47 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/a-springtime-yom-kippur-reminderWhile teshuvah – repair – is indeed an everyday practice in Jewish tradition, one could argue it gets the most attention during the Days of Awe culminating with Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. Every year we Jews spend the cusp of summer and fall taking stock of our shortcomings, our alignment with our values, our relationships with self, other, and the sacred. And on Yom Kippur morning, we read from the book of Leviticus – the chapters included in this week’s double portion of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim.

So as it turns out, each year just after Passover, just after the halfway point of the year, we reread those same verses, reminding us of the importance of atonement and repair.

Acharei Mot deals with the aftermath of the death of two of Aaron’s sons who in a parasha a few weeks prior were incinerated after offering a “strange fire.” This apparent transgression is reparable, and G-d instructs Aaron how to achieve it, both for him and his household and for all the Israelites. After the instructions are laid out, it is said explicitly that this shall happen every year on Yom Kippur (the 10th day of Tishrei) as a way to atone for the transgressions of the entire community.

The spring has fully taken hold, the flowers are in full bloom, and the rainy days are a little warmer and less frequent (though what a dry winter it was this year!). As we come to what our school days have conditioned us to feel is “the end of the year” in one sense, let us take stock in this season as well, with this reminder of Yom Kippur in the Torah reading cycle. Let us use this time to continue and further fuel the repair work we are doing here at Kadima.

Every year this pairing of parashiyot is striking to me. In Leviticus 16 which outlines the ancient Yom Kippur ritual, the High Priest acts on behalf of all the Israelites. And in Leviticus 19, the hierarchy is broken down as the instructions are no longer for just the High Priest, but for the entire community of B’nei Yisrael – there is an egalitarianness to the holiness we can attain.

As we take stock in this season of resonance with Yom Kippur, let us not rely only on those in particular positions to do the repair work this community still needs. Let us instead take it upon ourselves. Each and every one of us has a role to play. Indeed, let us lean in perhaps not to the Leviticus 16 approach that “someone else will do it for us” but the “its upon each of us” approach of Leviticus 19. For it is in these days that we count up toward Shavuot on which we will read from Exodus 19 where it reminds us: we are “a nation of priests” not a nation to priests. Let us be full of leadership and accountability in every corner in everything we do. As Hillel said: if not now, when?

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[We Have Just Two Questions for You!]]>Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:01:42 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/we-have-just-two-questions-for-youDearest Kadimaniks:
A sustainable and equitable dues structure will require an accurate picture of our community’s financial resources. We need your help!

The Finance and Membership Engagement Task Forces have developed a short anonymous financial survey. One survey per member household will arrive soon via email.

Please keep an eye out for our LimeSurvey email and take a few minutes to respond when it arrives in your inbox.
The Kadima Member Engagement Task Force is starting up!

Kadima's new Member Engagement Task Force is doing outreach to members, so be on the lookout for a text, email, or call from fellow members to check-in and see if you're interested in connecting about things going on at Kadima.

It's going to take time to contact all members, so please email Leah at Leah.knopf@gmail.com if you want to schedule a call with a task force member sooner or if you want to help make some calls to your neighbors!
In case you missed it: Read the notes and Q&A document from the March 8 financial transparency meeting.

Want to be a leader? The board is looking for additional members, including people with nonprofit, management and fundraising experience. If you are at all interested, fill out the interest form.

Sincerely,
Kadima Board and Task Forces
]]><![CDATA[Strange Fire & The Journey Ahead]]>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 18:42:11 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/strange-fire-the-journey-aheadWith Passover behind us, we find ourselves in the wilderness—the season in which we count from liberation to revelation, from Pesach to Shavuot. We count up, not down.

Counting up suggests something different than a countdown. It reflects anticipation without certainty, a way of marking time when the end is not fully known. And yet—spoiler alert—we do know where we’re going. Shavuot will arrive, right on schedule.

So why do we count up, and not down?

Perhaps because, spiritually, we are not quite there yet. If Passover carries us from the first stirrings of liberation to the splitting of the sea, then this moment is something else entirely: wandering. We are free—but unsure. Unrooted. Asking, What now?

This week’s Torah portion meets us in that vulnerability. The Mishkan has been completed. The priests have been ordained. Everything is ready. And then, at the very first moment of sacred service, two of Aaron’s sons step forward and go off script. They offer what the Torah calls esh zarah—“strange fire”—and the result is immediate and devastating.

It’s a difficult story. But it is also a story about beginnings.

What happens when we try something for the first time? When we step into a new identity—as free people, as people trying to live differently than before? Passover invites us to break patterns, to leave behind our narrow places. But leaving is only the beginning. The real challenge is what comes next.

And in that space, the path is not always clear. There may be instructions—but they don’t always feel sufficient for the moment we’re in.

Nadav and Avihu’s “strange fire” can be read as a warning about the risks of acting without guidance. But it may also reflect something else: the impulse to bring something new, something unscripted, into sacred life. The desire to respond to freedom with creativity, not just compliance.

So as we take our first steps in this post-Passover season, perhaps the call is to hold both truths at once: to be thoughtful, but not frozen; reflective, but still moving; careful, but not afraid to be changed.

Because if we emerge from Passover unchanged, then what was our liberation for?

The work of the Omer is not just to mark time, but to notice transformation. To let freedom permeate our choices, our habits, our relationships. To become, day by day, people who live differently than we did before.

We count up because we are still becoming.

And now, the work begins.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[Our Tables are Holy]]>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:51:50 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/our-tables-are-holyIn the second parasha of the Book of Leviticus, Tzav, there is emphasis in the opening lines about the altar in the mishkan/tabernacle/tent of meeting/sanctuary where a perpetual fire is to be fueled and always burning. There is even a particular place on the altar where the burning of offerings is to take place.

While sacrifices, especially those of animals, may not feel particularly resonant for the modern Jew reading Leviticus, the rabbis have described how these practices have evolved in Jewish spiritual technology. After the destruction of the Temple, sacrifice was replaced by prayer as a means of connection with the sacred. The altar was replaced by the bima – the place from which the community prayer leader leads their prayer.

But prayer is not the only parallel to sacrifice. Indeed mindful eating and the connection between one another at the dining table is also spoken of in Jewish tradition as a technological evolution from this altar. This is one reason for the tradition of putting a little salt on one’s challah before eating it on shabbat – the table is the altar and the food is the offering.

If indeed our dining table is the altar on which we make offerings toward closeness and connection, then Leviticus reminds us the importance of mindful eating and of meals that inspire connection. One may question why Passover comes every year as we are in the midst of reading from Leviticus when we might assume it would be better to be in the midst of reading early in Exodus – which contains the story of Passover itself. Perhaps we can understand from this that while retelling the Passover story is a key element of our seders, the point may in fact be about who we share our table with, what we eat and how, and whether the experiences we create indeed inspire deeper connection and closeness with one another and the divine.

As Seder is so suddenly soon, take a moment for intentionality about with whom, where, and with what food you might spend a moment of Passover. It may indeed be a sacred offering.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[Blessing Fruit Trees this Nisan]]>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:51:57 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/blessing-fruit-trees-this-nisanLet us bless the Source of our Lives, Spirit of the Cosmos, whose world lacks nothing and who made wondrous creatures and beautiful trees for human beings to enjoy.

This Talmudic blessing of blossoming fruit trees in Nisan – Birkat Ha'Ilanot – is a special blessing for us to recite now that the fruit trees are in bloom and Nisan has begun (chodesh tov!). What does this blessing come to teach us?

First, we are invited to try on the perspective that this world lacks nothing. That creation is abundant. That everything we need is already here. It might bring to mind, then, the ways we humans need to distribute creation to ensure that everyone’s experience is that of not lacking. As the Blessing for Peace in Kadima’s siddur states: “We cannot merely hope to end starvation. We already have the resources with which to feed the entire world, if we would only use them wisely.”

Second, trees are good (the Hebrew is literally “tov” to describe them in the blessing). They are worth our time and attention. They are to marvel at. The blessing's existence at all tells us that this should be noted at least annually and that while we savor the New Year of the Trees in mid-winter, their splendor happens in the spring.

And third, humans are to derive pleasure, enjoyment, and benefit from them. Not in “The Giving Tree” sort of way, but in a sacred way of mutuality and holiness, as any recitation of blessing invites us into. The invitation here is to be reminded and uphold the sacred relationship between humans and fruit trees.

This Nisan, as you go on your way, may the blossoming trees revitalize our hope in the resilience of nature and remind us that we too have this resilience in us, individually and collectively. And as we begin the Book of Leviticus, let us feel called to our relationship with the natural world, our responsibility of mutual relationship with it, and renew in its majesty.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
]]><![CDATA[(Re)Communitizing After Rupture]]>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:51:37 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/recommunitizing-after-ruptureThe week of parashat Vayak’hel began with Kadima’s Community Meeting during which much was shared, answered for, and proposed. It was a communal act of recommunitization after rupture, and so so many responded with generosity, curiosity, and persistence. And this season in the Torah reading is brimming with a reflection of such action with the Israelites working to build sanctuary for the divine presence in their midst.

The very name of this week’s parasha implies the act of recommunitization. Vayak’hel literally means “and he [Moses] communitied.” This verb form of the Hebrew word for community kehillah (also kahal) is the act Moses needed to do to help transition the Israelites from the rupture of the Golden Calf to the communal project of building the mishkan – the structure for the divine presence to dwell among the people.

That we read these parashiyot back to back is of significance and of perhaps great resonance in this time for Kadima and for any community or group seeking to find community again after faltering. In fact one of Judaism’s most powerful gifts to the world, in my rabbinic opinion, is our focus on and structures for repair and restitution.

And Moses does not do this work behind the scenes. He does so by addressing the entire “witness” of the Israelites – kol eidat b’nai yisrael – everyone together. No one was left out of this attempt at bringing the people back toward one another – making them whole again. And Kadima’s meeting this past Sunday was similarly open to all in our community, recorded, and being shared out.

As we continue the work of return to one another, may the torah readings and more offer resilience and comfort, instruction and resolve. And may the generosity, skill, and beauty that went into creating the mishkan be a model for how we can show up in this season as well, as it says “and the efforts had been more than enough for all the tasks to be done.” May it be so.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

PS – join us on site or on zoom for a Shabbat Morning Service where we will read from the parasha and bless a new Kadima baby and an upcoming Kadima wedding! Details on our online calendar.

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Responding to the Synagogue Attack in Michigan​
The attack on a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan reminds us at Kadima of countless attacks on sanctuaries and places of worship around the globe. From Christchurch to Hebron, from Pittsburgh to Poway, from Charleston to Birmingham, and so so many more. And the targeting of Jews in particular is misinformed, wrong, and dangerous – especially now when heightened confusion and disinformation run deep about who to blame for war with Iran and for genocide in Gaza. Let us all hold out, as Kadima has for generations, that Judaism ≠ Zionism, Jewish ≠ Zionist, Temple Israel ≠ State of Israel. That no people are a monolith, that attacking people for their identity is a desecration, that violence cannot end violence, that places of worship are sanctuaries, that no group is to be blamed for the actions of one, that children are not to be targeted, that we can hold and love and support one another across manufactured divides. That our sadness and our anger is righteous, and that our love and compassion can be overpowering. May there be clarity in our resolve, peace and healing for those targeted and their families, and, in the words of the prophet Amos: may restoration roll down like waters, and justice like a mighty stream.]]><![CDATA[Don't Have a Cow]]>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 19:34:32 GMThttps://www.kadima.org/blog/dont-have-a-cowThis week's Torah portion relays the story of the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf. One might ask: what were they thinking?! And yet, one maybe can also relate to the Israelites who felt anxious, worried, and scared in the uncertainty they were surrounded by. Moses had just successfully led them out of the Narrow Place, away from enslavement, but he sure had been up on that mountain top for a long time and they were in the middle of the wilderness!

Being anxious in times of uncertainty is certainly an understandable human reaction. And at times, perhaps for some of us like events of this month, the anxiety and fear can lead to rash decision making and doing things against our values and community standards.

This parasha, Ki Tisa, while showing us the gravest collective sin in our canon, also shows us how to recover, how to make teshuvah. Core liturgy from the High Holidays comes directly after the episode of the Golden Calf, reminding G-d of G-d's own compassion and mercy.

L'havdil – while these two scenarios are not at all the same – as we seek recovery from a community rupture, may we also know that repair is possible, that showing up with compassion and mercy are the attributes our tradition asks us to keep primary, and that taking the actions to restore what has been lost is possible. Perhaps this is the point Bart Simpson has been making all these years with his astute pun of “don't have a cow.” Perhaps. After all, we are on the heels of Purim.

Shabbat shalom,
R’ David

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Important Community Meeting Update
Sunday, March 8th | 2-4pm | Cherry Street Village & Zoom

Join us this Sunday for a community meeting to learn more about our finances, new volunteer task forces, and more.

Sunday’s Community Meeting is going hybrid! We now have an in-person option to gather at Cherry Street Village in Seattle’s Central District. Please arrive at 1:45pm if you are attending onsite so we can begin promptly at 2pm and wrap up at 4pm as planned. For those attending on Zoom, here is the link you’ll need to join. 

Onsite accessibility info: All onsite attendees are required to mask with a KN95 or better; please stay home if sick. CSV is a historic landmark in the process of restoration, and has a history of mold that has not yet been completely eradicated; those with sensitivities may wish to attend virtually or upgrade their PPE. Please aim to be fragrance-free. CSV is an ADA accessible venue with all-gender bathrooms. Speakers onsite will use microphones for easier audibility.
We look forward to being in constructive community dialogue with you this Sunday!
Click here to learn more & to save the event to your calendar.
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