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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

“I want to be carried into a deep, deep salty sea of sound, rhythm, in tune with oceanic harmonies…”
a collage of multicultual faces
“Peace for my Muslim cousins / Is peace for my Jewish siblings…”
the desert in Israel
A new Shabbat practice created to share light with all of whom are suffering unjustly.
two shabbat candles are lit as someone's hands wave in the light of Shabbat
“Prayer, the sacred blessing where all our limbs can be rewoven / returning us into our whole…”
a person in silhoutte against the sunset
“There is a time to make war, / there is a time to make peace. / In each soul both sing.” Listen to the tune hardest to hear.
a peace sign painted on a stone
This powerful new song calls for the release of the hostages.
the desert in Israel
“It’s exhausting. / Like, literally, exhausting, / being a Gen-Z Jew these days…”
a screen showing various social media icons
May the bright weekly Shabbos lights, / dispel darkness of the Jewish global crisis…”
Shabbat candles and challah

The Reconstructionist Network

Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement

Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis

Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues

Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives

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The Reconstructionist Network