IKAR Videos
Videos by IKAR. We’re a spiritual community dedicated to reanimating Jewish life through soulful religious practice.
Clip from Hope in Troubling Times panel with Aspen Ideas Festival. Spiritual leaders and lifelong seekers reflect on how to cope and find optimism in dark times. Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, & Executive Director of Aspen Institute Religion & Society Program Simran Jeet Singh in conversation.
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Clip from Hope in Troubling Times panel with Aspen Ideas Festival. Spiritual leaders and lifelong seekers reflect on how to cope and find optimism in dark times. Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, & Executive Director of Aspen Institute Religion & Society Program Simran Jeet Singh in conversation.
Rabbi Sharon Brous joined Fareed Zakaria this morning to discuss how Jews in the US are grappling with their Jewish identity amid the war in Gaza and rising antisemitism.
Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace. There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins. Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants. Grant us peace.
Stretch open our hearts to hold the unbearable anguish and grief that we've witnessed. After the horrific and tragic death of 45 Palestinian civilians in Rafah, whose tent was burned to the ground on Sunday. I'm talking about those who died in the tent fire the very next morning on Monday morning. I'm talking about the added layer of grief and anguish that so many of us experienced when we saw how many among our own homebred extremists in the Jewish community connected the conflagration to the holiday of Lag BaOmer, writing Happy Holidays, and the central bonfire this year is in Rafah. I'm asking us to extend our hearts to the families who still yearn for their loved ones to be returned from captivity. And I am asking us on this Shabbat to stretch open our hearts to hear the voices of the mothers of combat soldiers who just this week wrote the following, I can't believe I'm doing this. I struggle not to cry. I hand him another sandwich that I packed for the journey. I feel like Abraham after God told him he must sacrifice his son, Isaac. I share these words as a mother and member of a movement of parents of Israeli combat soldiers who've been fighting in Gaza for nearly eight months. Our message to our leaders, the decision makers, is simple. Stop. Enough. It is these mothers of combat soldiers who have issued a call now that with no negotiated political solution on the horizon, they can see, and we can too, that we are not coming any closer to freeing the hostages, and more and more soldiers are killed and wounded every day. And although they say it does not make the headlines in Israel, They are also deeply aware of and pained by the reality of how many Palestinian civilians are suffering and Daily dying as well with our hearts stretched wide open I invite us into an urgent prayer for the protection of human life.
“It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair. Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives, such as job opportunities or barrier-free buildings…” - Judy Heumann, of blessed memory.
The tragic mistake of the naval is his belief that the options in front of him are the only options that exist. That all the cards have been played and it's just a matter of picking up the right one…But he's wrong. Watch & listen the full sermon from Rabbi Morris Panitz at the link in bio
I care about our safety. And I care about our soul. We must have zero tolerance for violent and racist rhetoric in our Jewish community. We must support the birth of a new mixed multitude: those who reject extremism, who reject the violent, reductive idea that Palestinians and Jews must be eternal enemies. That one’s victory necessitates another’s victimhood, or even worse: elimination. This mixed multitude is made of people who know that we do not undermine our own sorrow or betray our own people when we see one another, those who understand that our fates are all tied up in one another. Watch the full sermon from Rabbi @sharonbrous at the link in bio. Follow @standing.together.la @standing.together.english
@camanpour speaks to Rabbi @sharonbrous about her visits to the UCLA and Columbia University campuses to witness the pro-Palestinian protests. "The work now is to pull us back from the edge of the abyss and say, listen to the voices that are coming out of Israel and Palestine right now that are calling, not for the annihilation of the other, but that are calling for us to use our moral imagination and our creativity in order to manifest a different kind of fantasy, something that might seem utterly impossible right now, but a fantasy of peace in which somehow our Children's generation is able to grow up without fear and actually see one another."
The free person, awake and humble, can acknowledge the truth that emerges from various even contradictory perspectives. This is not a sign of weakness, but of spiritual liberation. Perhaps that the very essence of freedom is growing in spaciousness. Watch the full sermon at the link in bio
Head to the link in bio to download our Passover supplement for your Haggadah this year. And please consider donating to @newisraelfund to alleviate hunger in Gaza through World Central Kitchen and International Rescue Committee.
@moshekasher came to talk to us last month about his new book Subculture Vulture. Watch the full conversation with @sharonbrous at the linkinbio
Sally Abed joined us recently to discuss the work of @standing.together.english and the need to create a "new political story that creates a new protagonist, a new majority, a new us." Watch the full video, linkinbio