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Communal Tragedy

Memorial wall with photos and plaques honoring Yitzhak Rabin at Tel Aviv assassination site.

As individuals, we all know pain and loss. It is the rare person who escapes sorrow. But when one of us hurts, others are there to offer comfort. Communal tragedy is different. When something bad happens to us as a community—whether that is a school, a town, a people, or a country—we struggle to figure out how to tend to our own wounds while taking care of each other. Drawing on compassion, empathy, justice, and love, we can bring out the best in each other, and perhaps, find a theology of hope in the midst of despair.

Latest Rituals

a family heirloom photo
“We are with each other. We are not alone. / We will do what we have always done.”
An Israeli flag over Jerusalem
“I am left with only my own thinking heart / in this nightmare humanity has dreamt / for itself.”
dark clouds hover over the hills
“Seeking an impossible calm, we bed / down our gardens for the winter, / wishing we too could sleep soundly.”
the sun shines through the sky on an autumn path
This powerful poem was written during the Yom Kippur war in 1973.
Clouds above the city of Jerusalem
“When I raise my voice in anger, help me see the Divine Spark in my opponent.”
sunlight shining on an open field
“Today, I call for hope. / Tomorrow, I call for peace. / Forever, I call for justice”
Two men hugging
The poet frames the loss of life in Israel and in Gaze with this powerful liturgy
man bringing flowers to grave in cemetery
“May there be space for history and context, may there be space for mistakes and faith, may there be space for hope…”
two people sit before a sunrise

The Reconstructionist Network

Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement

Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis

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Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives

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The Reconstructionist Network