When emotions run high, it’s hard to find the right words. I’ve received hundreds of emails and seen countless social media posts trying to describe the horror show at the Capitol yesterday. People are outdoing themselves in expressing outrage. I’ve been especially interested in how people describe the actual event.

Is there a difference between a “mob,” a “riot” or an “insurrection”? Is “protest” too mild? Is “coup” too strong?

If you take a look at the structures that form in the Universe, many of the things we see on large scales appears at smaller scales, too. The dark matter halos that form around the largest bound structures we know of appear identical to the ones that form around Milky Way-sized galaxies, as well as the tiny substructure clumps that exist both around smaller galaxies and in intergalactic space itself… The idea that, if you zoom in far enough, you’ll eventually encounter a structure that repeats the initial pattern you saw on larger scales, is mathematically realized in the concept of a fractal.

That humans and dogs age on vastly different timescales is a fact that most dog owners understand all too well. This unfortunate reality ripples throughout the Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s documentary In Dog Years. A spiritual sequel to her film Norman, Norman, in which she finds herself half-contemplating cloning her beloved, ageing Shih Tzu, Romvari keeps the camera at dog-level in this short as she captures 10 sunsetting stories of human-canine companionship.

Each year (save this year because of COVID), the students of Temple Akiba travel to Washington D.C. to lobby before our elected officials on behalf of Reform Judaism. With such pride, we pose in front of the Capitol building to have our photo taken. This majestic image is so starkly different from the grim travesty that occurred at the Capitol on January 6.

I really believe that. Words do matter. Not how many. Not how loud. They matter because of the intent of those who intone them and they matter because of the ears of those who hear them. They matter because of the actions that follow them. Words have the power to incite or to inspire. They have the power to tear down or to restore.

At my dissertation defense, a Princeton professor asked me: “Why did you choose to write about the Psalms?” I responded: “Because I dislike the book, don’t understand it, and am confused by its popularity.” My answer, as revealed by the troubled look on the professor’s face, lacked the correct sense of academic or religious piety. Several years later, and still writing about the Psalms, I stand by my remark. Actually, with a pandemic seeding global chaos and more people turning to the Psalter to find hope and comfort, I am going to double down.

“Sadly we know that a new sovereign in a country elected from the same pool of people can be an entirely different type of person. There is a new Pharaoh and he has a new agenda.”

Then [Moses’] sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?” – Ex. 2:7

Judy Gruen: Miriam, the child prophetess, is keeping watch for the next dramatic stage in the miraculous life of her baby brother, Moshe. According to the Talmud, Miriam prophesied that her mother, Yocheved, would give birth to the redeemer of the Jewish people.

There are dangers inherent in rhetorical skill. A leader with outstanding speaking skills can persuade the masses to follow him even if the content of his words is not necessarily true. Moses, as leader of the nation, carried no external glamour so that when the Torah would be given by him later on, it would not be accepted by the nation because they were carried away by momentary enthusiasm.

“Bialik said that Jewish history would reach some sort of normality when we have a Jewish prostitute, a Jewish criminal, and a Jewish thief. In this respect, he was saying that previous Jewish existence had been chaste and law-abiding, which of course is a projection of his thoughts onto the past. The actual past, of course, is way more complex and more intriguing.”

“With most stories, there is no absolute beginning or end. Life’s narratives aren’t typically quite as tidy as that. But our story today is different: It takes place in a very specific time and place, and lasts exactly 36 hours. Over the past 18 months, senior producer Yochai Maital has spoken to dozens of soldiers, all of them survivors of a single battle of the Yom Kippur War. For many of the young men—now in their 60s and 70s—who participated in it, the battle’s impact was so profound that they refer to it as their second birth place.”

Amy Schilit Benarroch, co-founder of Righteous Crowd, a micro-giving platform that engages the Jewish community in support of small non-profit organizations, joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about how financial giving can be a collective process, along with how it can be a weekly (not just yearly!) spiritual practice.