An additional comment on the sexual abuse scandals in the news: This is a reason that I'm skeptical about the idea of replacing the criminal system with something like Restorative Justice. Here's the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, advocating for a Restorative Justice approach: usccb.org/issues-and-act…

If you attribute the abusiveness of Catholic priests to celibacy, you’re effectively saying that you expect Catholic women to protect children by absorbing sexual violence from men. Please don’t do that. Because you know another thing that the Catholic Church knows about and has chosen to enable? Violent fathers and violent husbands. The problem isn’t celibacy, it’s patriarchy. And that’s not a uniquely Catholic problem.

An Elul challenge for Jewish women: Treat Jewish feminism as part of your teshuva. Think about the role that antisemitism and misogyny play in your life, how both might be barriers to being who you want to be in the world, and what you might be able to do about it. Jewish women are taught to hate ourselves in all kinds of ways blatant and subtle. (If I had a dollar for every time I've been told that Israel is just like Nazi Germany or that women's ordination destroyed American Judaism, I'd have a lot less student debt.)

Deuteronomy starts "These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.". That means it's time for a thread about Moses' words and voice from a disability perspective. When Moses was first appointed by God at the burning bush, he was reluctant, and expressed several objections, most of which boiled down to: "I am not someone who others will listen to." At the end of the encounter, Moses makes this very explicit:

Hello #FaithfullyLGBT. It’s #PrideMonth and bigots are out in droves throwing Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 at us.

That means it’s time for a thread about why they’re wrong, and how to read Leviticus from a place of love. First of all, the Old Testament God is not the problem. God has never hated us.

I normally never bring up Israel when people talk about antisemitism in other countries, but I’m going to make an exception and talk about what it’s like to be a Jewish woman who wears a yarmulke in public. Specifically: I am a rabbi. I wear a yarmulke almost everywhere I go. This attracts both antisemitic and misogynistic harassment.

Thank you for this question, @SheerHubris. I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I'm responding in a thread.

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First of all: I'm not talking about that kind of educational program — I'm all for Jews teaching Christians about Judaism, and I'm all for Jews and Christians learning from one another in general. I think that's really important.

Two things are true:
1) Feminism has not always been as intersectional as it should be. (As is the case for *every* movement).
2) Feminism is *always* smeared as an affectation of privileged women, regardless of who the feminists involved are or what they are actually ,doing. 'Not as intersectional as it should be' is a major understatement. As a disabled Jewish woman, I was alienated from feminism for many years because of harmful failures to address critical intersectional issues.

Another thread about Jewish terminology and possible points of miscommunication: In Jewish English, 'shalom' is not a particularly special word. It means hello/goodbye/peace in Modern Hebrew.

#RoshHashanah isn't about forgiveness. It's about standing in judgement before God and facing up to what we've done. To the extent that forgiveness is possible, it comes on Yom Kippur.